The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic Tradition

219 Pages·2014·1.91 MB·English

by  Fisher

The Annals of Quintus Ennius
and the Italic Tradition
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The Annals of Quintus Ennius and
the Italic Tradition
JAY FISHER
Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2014 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2014
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
Johns Hopkins University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Fisher, Jay, 1969–
The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic tradition / Jay Fisher.
pages. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN- 13: 978- 1- 4214- 1129- 3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 1- 4214- 1130- 9 (electronic)
ISBN- 10: 1- 4214- 1129- 6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN- 10: 1- 4214- 1130- X (electronic)
1. Ennius, Quintus. Annales. 2. Latin poetry — History and criticism. I. Title.
PA6382.F57 2014
873′.01—dc23 2013010980
A cata log record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials,
including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post- consumer
waste, whenever possible.
To Robin McCombe Fisher
uxori carissimae
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Contents
Ac know ledg ments ix
1 Ennius and the Italic Tradition 1
2 The Annals and the Greek Tradition 27
3 Ritual and Myth in the Augurium Romuli (Annals 72– 91) 57
4 Ritual, Militia, and History in Book 6 of the Annals 87
5 Ritual, Kinship, and Myth in Book 1 of the Annals 127
Conclusion. The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Modern Tradition 163
Abbreviations 167
Notes 169
Bibliography 191
Index 201
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Ac know ledg ments
The idea for this book (and many other books, I imagine) fi rst came to me while
I was writing a paper for a graduate seminar taught by Joshua Katz, who also
supervised the dissertation that further developed my ideas about Ennius and
the Italic tradition. Before that paper became a dissertation, Corey Brennan
supervised a master’s thesis on the same topic at Bryn Mawr College. There
could have been no better committee for my dissertation at Princet on than
Joshua Katz, Denis Feeney, and Andrew Ford. I also off er my heartfelt thanks
to all of my teachers at Richard Stockton College, Bryn Mawr College, and
Princet on University, as well as to those who directly guided me from that sem-
inar paper to my dissertation.
The Department of Classics at Yale, my current place of employment, put me
in a position to refi ne a collection of diff erent impressions into a coherent argu-
ment about Ennius and the Italic tradition. I could not have asked for better,
smarter, and more helpful students on the graduate and undergraduate level than
I have at Yale. I owe a special debt to Christopher Simon, Sean Northrup, Tom
Biggs, Josh Fincher, Tom Beasley, Matt Newman, and Caroline Mann for reading
diff erent versions of diff erent chapters. I have had some very stimulating conver-
sations with my colleagues at Yale, and Kirk Freudenburg in part icu l ar read sev-
eral draft s of my introduction. I am also grateful to Yale University for a Morse
jun ior faculty fellowship in the academic year 2009–1 0. During my time at Yale I
was very fortunate that Lowell Edmunds agreed to help me cast my ideas into
something resembling readable prose. I hope that I have at least sometimes been
able to present my ideas in an engaging way, as he kept telling me to do.
I am in the debt of Matt McAdam at the Johns Hopkins University Press for
his encouragement and for shepherding this book through the various steps
of publication. I am even more in the debt of the anonymous reader who made
not only helpful global comments about my manuscript but also concrete