Nnij Quintus (Quintus Ennius)

(239-169 BC)
About life Ennia little is known. He was born in Rudiyah (Calabria) at the junction of three cultures - Roman, Greek and Osxian, and probably comes from a tribe Messapii (may have been to the same half-Greek) and got a Greek education (located near the Greek city of Tarentum). In 204 BC. Ennia, centurion of the Roman Army (on how he done to them, we do not know), Cato brought to Rome from Sardinia. Here nnij taught Greek and Latin language, dabbled in poetry. There is a message that he took care of Scipio Africanus the Elder, who gathered around him a circle of writers and philosophers. In 189 BC. Mark Fulvio Nobilior, going to war in Greece, included in his entourage Ennia. In 184 BC. with the help of his son Fulvia nnij became a Roman citizen.
Nnij was a very prolific writer. The most superficial genre, in which he worked, was Satur, ie. 'mixture' of different themes and sizes. Much more important place in his work held numerous tragedies, composed largely modeled on the Greek, especially evripidovskih, although at least one tragedy Ennia, Sabinyanki quite original. From tragedies Ennia reached us only 20 titles and approximately. 400 lines.

Masterpiece Ennia - his Annals, an epic 18 songs, which provide a history of Rome from the arrival of Aeneas in Italy to contemporary events. Originally Italic saturnian verse, used by the Roman poets, nnij preferred Homeric hexameter, adapting it to the peculiarities of the Latin language. Latin hexameter picked up and developed Lucretius and Virgil, but most of the credit belongs here yet Enniyu, which can be called a spiritual predecessor Virgil. From the Annals survived ok. 600 lines, they are often quoted by Cicero.