The Tragedies of Ennius

The Tragedies of Ennius were theatrical adaptations of Attic originals. None has survived; but fragments of twenty-two of them can be found in the work of other writers. Dr Jocelyn prints all the identifiable fragments, substantial extracts from the works which quote them and, where necessary, a critical apparatus. The long introduction discusses the early history of Roman public spectacles; the physical conditions of the theatre in the third and second centuries; the effect these had on the poets who had to adapt the scripts of Attic tragedies; the general character of the Latin plays thus produced; and the fate of these scripts (particularly those of Ennius) in later antiquity. The commentary is both detailed and discursive. Besides glossing and interpreting in the usual way, it considers the problems of restoring individual fragments and of using these fragments to reconstruct both the plays from which they came and the Attic originals. It also elucidates the methods used by Ennius to reproduce the effects of language and style of the classical Athenian dramatists.