R RHEA SILVIA'S DREAM AISING her trembling body, the crone with a light had approached her: This is the tale she affrighted relates, when roused from her slumber:- "Daughter of Eurydicè, by our father dearly beloved, Force and life are wholly from out my body departed! Ay, for it seemed that a goodly man amid beautiful willows Slowly I sought thee, with wistful heart, but could not descry thee, We cannot doubt, however, that the poem reached its highest level in describing the life struggle of Rome against Pyrrhus, and later against Hannibal. The former commander impressed even his Italian foemen as a gallant and chivalric figure. One fine speech of his yet remains, and Ennius must have had much of that "stern joy that warriors feel" when he laid such noble words upon the lips of the Epirote king. To be sure, their final victory made it easier for the Romans, or for their annalist, to be generous. G PYRRHUS'S SPEECH OLD for myself I crave not; ye need not proffer a ransom. Not as hucksters might, let us wage our war, but as soldiers: Whether your rule or mine be Fortune's pleasure, - our mistress,- From that more prolonged dubious and mortifying struggle with the greatest of Carthaginians, wherein Ennius himself had played a manful part, no such effective passage is quotable. There are however three lines only in praise of the great Fabius, which we might be glad to apply to our own Washington or Lincoln: CHARACTER OF FABIUS SIMPLY by biding his time, one man has rescued a nation. Not for the praises of men did he care, but alone for our safety. The Greek element in this monument of Roman patriotism was evidently large. Numerous passages yet remain which can be profitably compared with their Hellenic originals. Indeed, upon his formal side Ennius may have been as far from independence as Virgil himself. Like most Roman poets, he is interesting less as a creative or imaginative artist than as a vigorous patriotic man, endowed with robust good sense and familiar with good literary models. His own character is at least as attractive as his work. For these reasons we may regret somewhat less the loss of his tragedies, which were no doubt based almost wholly upon Greek originals. Mere translations they were not, as the rather copious fragments of his 'Medea' suffice to show when set beside Euripides's play. In any case, it would be unfair to hold him responsible for sentiments uttered by his dramatic characters; e. g., "I have said, and still will say, a race of Heavenly gods exists: If they cared, the good were happy, bad men wretched. 'Tis not so!» Of course, whoever said this may have had as prompt cause for remorse as Sophocles's Jocasta. There was however in Rome — more perhaps than in Athens-a prevailing conviction that the dramatic stage should offer us only manly and elevating types of character. For instance, excessive lamentation over physical or psychical woes was sternly condemned, and perhaps largely eliminated from the Latin versions of Attic dramas. Even a single play of the best Roman period, like Ennius's 'Medea,' would give us fuller knowledge on all such questions; but we can hardly hope that any have been preserved, even in Egyptian papyrus rolls. In many other interesting ways Ennius took a leading part in enabling "vanquished Greece to conquer her victors." In the list of comic poets, indeed (quoted by Gellius, xv. 24), Ennius has but the tenth and last place, even this being granted him merely "causa antiquitatis." In truth, humor was probably the one gift of the gods almost wholly denied to Ennius, as to another sturdy patriot-poet, John Milton. He translated a Greek work on Gastronomy, a subject with which he may have been only too familiar. In his 'Epicharmus' the old Sicilian poet appeared to him, like Homer, in a dream: "For it seemed to me that I was lying dead upon my couch. Some are truthful visions, yet it need not be that all are so. 'Tis the soul perceives and hearkens: all things else are deaf and blind." The purport of the vision was a material explanation of the universe, based upon the four elements of Empedocles. Ennius hit upon a recondite truth, in attempting to explain away the very gods of the Roman Pantheon: "That I mean as Jupiter which among Greeks is known as air.» Modern philology verifies this almost literally. These may well have seemed bold words to publish in Rome, though the refined circle about the Scipios had doubtless as little belief in the popular mythology as the men of the world- and of letters - who met two centuries later around Mæcenas's board. Ennius even translated Euhemerus, who has given his name to the theory that makes the divine legends mere distorted reminiscences of real men and women, living many generations earlier. The Transmigration doctrine is hardly consistent with these atheistic tendencies, and the whole tale of the identity between Homer's and Ennius's soul may be based merely on some bold assertion of Ennius's own supremacy in Latin letters. Few Roman poets have any false (or real) modesty on this question. This brings us to the last form of Ennius's poetic activity which we can mention; viz., epitaphs. On Africanus he wrote an elegiac couplet, expressing the favorite eulogy of the ancients upon a successful soldierly life. Xenophon, for instance, records a prayer of the younger Cyrus to quite the same effect. EPITAPH ON SCIPIO HERE is he laid unto whom no man, whether foeman or comrade, In the companion inscription intended for himself, Ennius brings two familiar thoughts into rather striking association. Tennyson's 'Crossing the Bar' has lifted the first to a far nobler level. EPITAPH ON ENNIUS NO ONE may honor my funeral rites with tears or lamenting. An iambic couplet, quoted from "Ennius, in the third book of his Satires," may be echoed thus: HAIL, Ennius the poet, who for mortal men Thy flaming verses pourest from thy marrow forth! Perhaps in these same 'Satires' (Miscellanies?) occurred another eulogistic couplet upon his illustrious friend :— EPITAPH ON SCIPIO HOW GREAT a statue shall the folk of Rome to thee upraise, This friendship of Ennius with the elder Africanus was quite famous. The young bearer of the name, Emilianus, showed similar appreciation of the noble Greek exile Polybius. We know just enough of these Scipios and their age to realize that in our enforced ignorance we miss the noblest spirits, doubtless also the happiest days, of republican Rome. It was the general belief of later antiquity, that a bust of Ennius had an honored place in the tomb of the great Scipio family. This does not appear to have been verified, however, when the crypt was discovered in modern times. We have already indicated that Ennius's work, so far as we can judge it, by no means justified his claim to Homeric rank, in any sense. . Perhaps he never held a place at all among the great masters of creative imagination. But at least, by his vigorous manly character, his wide studies, his good taste, and his lifelong industry, he does claims a position as an apostle of culture and the founder of literature, perhaps fairly comparable to that of Lessing. We cannot-for the best of reasons - follow the present study with adequate citations, as is the rule in this work. It is not even possible to point out for the English student any translation of the scanty fragments which survive. For a fuller selection from them, however, and also for a more copious discussion of Ennius's character, we are glad to refer to one of the best sections in a most excellent book: Chapter iv. of The Roman Poets of the Republic,' by the late William Y. Sellar. Classical specialists will find Lucian Müller's study of Ennius the most exhaustive. The fragments of the 'Annals' are also given in Bährens's 'Poetæ Latini Minores,' Vol. vi. William Cranston Lawton. JOSEF EÖTVÖS (1813-1871) HE life of Baron Josef Eötvös falls within the most critical period of Hungarian history. He was born in Buda-Pesth on September 23d, 1813, at a time when the Hungarians were already in open revolt against the Hapsburg rule. His father, who had accepted great favors from the government and was consequently considered hostile to the cause of the people, had married a JOSEF EÖTVÖS German woman, Baroness von Lilien. Her nobility of character and true culture had a great influence on her son in his early childhood; and added to this was the equally important influence of his tutor Pruzsinsky, a man who had taken an active part in Hungarian politics, and was thoroughly imbued with the French liberal ideas of 1789. When the young Baron Eötvös was sent to a public school, his schoolmates treated him so coldly that he demanded an explanation. He was told that his father had embraced the cause of the government and was a traitor, and that most likely he would be a traitor himself. He had a boy's ignorance of politics, but went home determined to understand the situation; and the result was his first political speech,- from the teacher's desk in the school-room,- in which before his assembled enthusiastic schoolmates he swore fidelity to Hungary and the cause of Hungarian liberty, an oath of which his entire life was the fulfillment. When Eötvös had finished his law studies he accepted a position in the government offices; but to a man of his wide interests the dry official life could not be satisfying, and in 1830 he made his literary début with a translation of Goethe's 'Götz von Berlichingen.' In 1833 followed an original comedy, The Suitors'; in '34 a tragedy, 'Revenge'; and in '35 a translation of Victor Hugo's 'Angelo.' His æsthetic introductions to his translations attracted the attention of the Hungarian Academy, and caused his election as corresponding member at the early age of twenty-two. The literary publications of the following years contained several lyric poems from his pen. In 1836 Eötvös went abroad and spent a year traveling in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, France, and England. Upon his return |