The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic Tradition

Quintus Ennius, often considered the father of Roman poetry, is best remembered for his epic poem, the Annals, a history of Rome from Aeneas until his own lifetime. Ennius represents an important bridge between Homers works in Greek and Virgils Aeneid. Jay Fisher argues that Ennius does not simply translate Homeric models into Latin, but blends Greek poetic models with Italic diction to produce a poetic hybrid. Fisher's investigation uncovers a poem that blends foreign and familiar culturalelements in order to generate layers of meaning for his Roman audience.Fisher combines modern linguistic methodologies with traditional philology in order to uncover the influence of the language of Roman ritual, kinship, and generalship on the Annals. Moreover, because these cultural practices are themselves hybrids of earlier Roman, Etruscan, and Greek culturalpractices, not to mentionthe cultures of speakers of lesser-known languages such as Oscan and Umbrian, these echoes of cultural interactions also generated layers of meaning for Ennius, his ancient audience, and the modern readers of the fragments of the Annals.