In these lines there is considerable elegance and pathos; and the contest which immediately succeeds between Romulus and Remus for the sovereignty of Rome, is as remarkable for dignity and animation:
“Curanteis magnâ cum curâ, concupienteis Regnei, dant operam simul auspicio, augurioque: Hinc Remus auspicio se devovet, atque secundam Solus avem servat: at Romolus polcer in alto Quærit Aventino, servans genus altivolantum. Omnis cura vireis, uter esset Endoperator. Exspectant, veluti consol, quom mittere signum Volt, omneis avidei spectant ad carceris oras, Qua mox emittat picteis ex faucibus currus. Sic exspectabat populus, atque ore timebat Rebus, utrei magnei victoria sit data regnei. Interea Sol albus recessit in infera noctis: Exin Candida se radiis dedit icta foras lux: Et simol ex alto longe polcerrima præpes Læva volavit avis: simol aureus exoritur sol. Cedunt ter quatuor de cælo corpora sancta Avium, præpetibus sese, polcreisque loceis dant. Conspicit inde sibei data Romolus esse priora, Auspicio regni stabilita scamna, solumque(188).”
The reigns of the kings, and the contests of the republic with the neighbouring states previous to the Punic war, occupy the metrical annals to the end of the sixth book(189), which concludes with the following noble answer of Pyrrhus to the Roman ambassadors, who came to ransom the prisoners taken from them by that prince in battle:—
“Nec mî aurum posco, nec mî pretium dederitis; Nec cauponantes bellum, sed belligerantes; Ferro, non auro, vitam cernamus utrique, Vosne velit, an me regnare Hera; quidve ferat sors Virtute experiamur; et hoc simol accipe dictum: Quorum virtutei belli fortuna pepercit, Horumdem me libertatei parcere certum est: Dono ducite, doque volentibus cum magneis Dîs(190).”
Cicero, in his _Brutus_, says, that Ennius did not treat of the first Punic war, as Nævius had previously written on that subject(191); to which prior work Ennius thus alludes:—
“Scripsere alii rem, Versibus, quos olim Faunei, vatesque canebant.”
P. Merula, however, who edited the fragments of Ennius, is of opinion, that this passage of Cicero can only mean that he had not entered into much detail of its events, as he finds several lines in the seventh book, which, he thinks, evidently apply to the first Carthaginian war, particularly the description of naval preparations, and the building of the first fleet with which the Carthaginians were attacked by the Romans. In some of the editions of Ennius, the character of the friend and military adviser of Servilius, generally supposed to be intended as a portrait of the poet himself(192), is ranged under the seventh book:—