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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The notorious line, ‘O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta, turanne, tulisti,’ is assigned to Ennius by Priscian, Isidore, and the Explanator in Donatum, as well as by Pompeius in his second quotation of it. In the first, however (287 K), he, like Auctor ad Herennium, Charisius, Donatus, Martianus Capella, and Plotius Sacerdos, gives no author's name. There is thus some reasonable doubt whether the attribution is correct; and this doubt is greatly increased by the remarks of our earliest authority, the Auctor ad Herennium (IV. 12. 18): ‘Vitabimus eiusdem litterae nimiam adsiduitatem, cui uitio uersus hic erit exemplo, nam hic nihil prohibet in uitiis alienis exemplis uti O Tite e.q.s.; et hic eiusdem poetae Quicquam quisquam e.q.s.’ This clearly indicates:
1. That it was unusual for this author to borrow his illustrative examples (cf. IV. 2. 4 sqq., where he states that he prefers to make up his own examples instead of quoting from the best prose authors and poets as most rhetoricians do).
page 25 note 1 The suggestion of Vahlen (Enn. Poes. Rel. II., p. xxxix) that Nonius is in the almost invariable habit of quoting whole lines of Ennius, whether they make complete sense or not, seems to go beyond the facts. There are actually a number of cases where portions of lines are quoted by him from the Annales, both with and without other complete lines. Especially interesting for our present purpose are 197 M. 10, Saturno Quem Caelus genuit, and 66 M. 22, Rastros† dentefabres† capsit causa poliendi Agri, in both of which a single word from an incomplete line is preserved. There seems, therefore, little difficulty in the arrangement Aegro Corde pater e.q.s. suggested above.
page 25 note2 If the conclusions of Cichorius (Römische Studien I.) that Livius was not the author of the hymn of 207 are accepted, the suggestions of personal interest made above will, of course, be invalidated. But even so, the general reference will remain the same, and the fragment can be understood of the special religious and literary event of that year.