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Chapter 13 - Ille Ego

Ennian First Persons in Epic and Beyond

from Part III - Personal Ennius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2025

Jesse Hill
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
C. W. Marshall
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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Summary

If we go by editions of the Annales, Ennius included a series of striking self-references in his epic. These lines’ nature, number (or rate of survival), and their proximity to self-referential comments made by prose historians make them extraordinary in the context of epic. Thus, they shape our sense of the ambitions the Annales housed and the sorts of generic experimentation its author was prepared to engage in. Ennius’ reference to his advanced age, unparalleled in the epic tradition as we know it, is securely attested for one of the later books of the epic. But often, Ennian self-referential lines are not attributed to a specific work by their sources. Like other lines now conventionally assigned to the Annales, these lines could plausibly have originated in a different Ennian work. In particular, the Saturae present themselves as the most likely candidate. This chapter explores the range of possibilities allowable for Ennian self-references beyond the Annales and sketches the difference that reading this subset of lines in non-epic Ennian contexts would make.

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  • Ille Ego
  • Edited by Jesse Hill, University of Edinburgh, C. W. Marshall, University of British Columbia
  • Book: Ennius Beyond Epic
  • Online publication: 10 December 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009586153.014
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  • Ille Ego
  • Edited by Jesse Hill, University of Edinburgh, C. W. Marshall, University of British Columbia
  • Book: Ennius Beyond Epic
  • Online publication: 10 December 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009586153.014
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Ille Ego
  • Edited by Jesse Hill, University of Edinburgh, C. W. Marshall, University of British Columbia
  • Book: Ennius Beyond Epic
  • Online publication: 10 December 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009586153.014
Available formats
×