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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The contents of the sixth book of Ennius' Annals have recently become a matter of dispute. Ever since Columna's edition (1585) it had been assumed that the book was entirely given over to the story of the war against king Pyrrhus (followed perhaps by mention of some events of the next few years; so my commentary, Oxford, 1985, p. 329). That view was based on the anecdote told by Quintilian 6.3.6, that Cicero, asked to say something de Sexto Annali, a witness in a law case, replied: ‘Quis potis ingentis oras euoluere belli’. It seems as good as certain that this was the first line of Book VI, and belli was taken by all as referring to the Pyrrhus war. According to Dr T. Cornell, however, ‘unrolling the mighty scroll of war’ means that the poet is now going to describe warfare on the grand scale, thus setting the sequence of the third Samnite War, the Pyrrhus War, and (the first and) the second Punic War against the minor wars described in the first five books. I doubt if Ennius would have felt that the early Latin war with the story of Lake Regillus, the capture of Veii, the Allia, the fall of Rome to the Gauls, and the second Samnite war (the Caudine forks!) were minor wars; but I am certain that bellum in the singular, except in contrast to the notion of pax, cannot refer to war in a general sense, covering a plurality of wars.
1 It is not the first line in Virgil′s imitation, Aen. 9.528, but is adapted in the beginning of Lucretius′ Book V, and Cicero is most likely to have quoted a line which, as the first of Book VI, would most easily come to him and be recognized by his audience.
2 JRS 76(1986), 248ff.Google Scholar
3 It is true that in 7.29.1 Livy writes: maiora iam nine bella (note the plural!)...dicentur. namque eo anno (343 B.C.) contra Samnites... mota arma; Samnitium bellum ancipiti Marte gestum Pyrrhus hostis, Pyrrhum Poeni secuti. This, however, refers to the first Samnite war, and Dr Cornell is not inclined to include that war in Book VI, which would mean that even the Latin war, with the execution of the younger Manlius (340 B.C.; my V i), would have to be accommodated there.
4 He compares the Aeneid, which, apart from the obvious division into the Odyssean half, I–VI, and the Iliadic half, VII–XII, can be considered as consisting of three parts, the tragedy of Dido, the Roman centre, and the tragedy of Turnus. But that is a totally different matter, and it certainly has not influenced the number of quotations drawn from the different books.
5 Mommsen, RG i.355 n. {Hist, of Rome i.759ff. n.
6 So R. Martina, Quad, dell′ 1st. difil. class. dell′Univ. di Trieste, II (Rome, 1979), 61ff., 72f.; but see ray commentary, p. 354 n. 7.
