The title of Jason Nethercut's erudite and engaging monograph could not be more apt. Both are about several fascinating subjects. One is Lucretius’ use, conceptually and stylistically, of Ennius’ Latin epic poem as a literary model for his own De rerum natura. Lucretius’ reading of Ennius’ Annales is another. A third is Lucretius’ efforts to (re)shape the readers’ perception of Rome's first national epic — clearing the field not only for himself but also in the process for Rome's national epic par excellence, Vergil's Aeneid. With a commendably clear, light and accessible touch, N.'s monograph offers a thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis of these important and challenging subjects; yet perhaps the greatest achievement of this volume is the relationship it compellingly shows between them. Coming away from Ennius noster, one will take very seriously the book's central thesis, neatly encapsulated by the wordplay of that title and quotation (DRN 1.117). Lucretius’ programmatic account of Ennius’ dream — receiving his poetic mantle from Homer, indeed being Homer reincarnate (DRN 1.112–26) — perhaps even all of DRN, is at once about Lucretius’ Ennius and our Ennius, we Romans, Lucretius’ readers. How deep does this go? And how does Lucretius navigate and close that implicit gap to further his own Epicurean aims?
As N. would have it, Lucretius goes much further and deeper than has hitherto been recognised. His book traces a programme of Lucretian engagement with Ennius’ Annales in both form and content. This is bolstered by five learned Appendices covering the full philological evidence for the book's core arguments. Those arguments stem in various ways from the analysis of what it deems particularly Ennian archaisms (7). These Ennianisms, it contends, feature throughout DRN in ways that are significant by virtue of their presence (individually or in combination), frequency and even at times absence. Taken together, Lucretius’ use of such effects constitutes a coherent and deliberate strategy spanning the whole of DRN, across which they occur with an overall frequency of 0.26 times per line (9). This is not just a matter of unprecedented stylistic appropriation. It is a means of interpreting acknowledged places of special engagement with the Annales, and of revealing new ones. To this proleptic end, the chapters build. Ch. 1 challenges the traditional view of Ennius’ influence on Republican epic, suggesting Lucretius himself is responsible for our misconception of its pervasiveness. Ch. 2 contends that Lucretius views epic as inherently philosophical. The Roman conceit of imperium sine fine with itself as the centre and head celebrated by the Annales therefore represented a philosophical position fundamentally at odds with many of his core Epicurean beliefs — thus meriting thorough-going refutation. Building on this, ch. 3 argues that Lucretius targets particular historical episodes in the Annales crucial to that narrative of Roman greatness, stripping them of their significance and glory. Lucretius similarly undermines the value Ennius, or at least his construct of Ennius, placed on history more generally — at best a Pyrrhic victory. Through a process, then, of what N. terms ‘provisional argumentation’ and course correction over the course of DRN, Lucretius gradually demythologises the Annales and all it stands for and symbolises, both generally and specifically; thus the fourth and final chapter.
Sure to stimulate lively discussion are the arguments that Lucretius views both Homer and Ennius as philosophers writing de rerum natura, that Lucretius’ representation of Ennius’ Annales is a calculated distortion and, effectively, straw man (rather than, e.g. a reflection of what Lucretius understood to be his audience's view), that Lucretius is a presentist who believes in neither the value nor the existence of the past and, by extension, that for all his use of intertextual echoes and other forms of allusion, Lucretius is not aiming to create a literary genealogy which he might simultaneously both inherit and surpass. In this, among other things, Ennius noster recommends itself also by the groundwork it lays for future research. The relationship between Lucretius’ Ennius and Lucretius’ Empedocles and, likewise, between Lucretius’ Ennius and Lucretius’ Hesiod are areas that would seem particularly fruitful. Ennius noster offers a few tantalising glimpses of what such avenues of investigation might open up, and N. himself has been exploring them at greater length elsewhere. Another opportunity to which this book points is the extension of its litmus test. For instance, does Lucretius use Ennianisms when closely following other sources (not least Epicurean ones)? If so, to what end? Using the conventions of poetry to elucidate a philosophical point? Effecting a syncretism of sorts? If not, why? As a point of comparison, as N. rightly observes, one of the least stylistically Ennian sections of DRN is Lucretius’ account of Thucydides’ plague of Athens.
This book is aimed in the first instance at specialist readers interested in Lucretius on the one hand and Ennius on the other. It will also be of great interest to scholars working on the Greco-Roman epic tradition, the boundaries and complementarities between epic and didactic poetry, the interaction between form and content in Latin poetry, the dynamics of authorial intent and reader response, and the theory and praxis of transmission, reception and appropriation more generally. The Appendices are a veritable treasure trove that will further many such ends. Well edited and attractively presented — this valuable contribution to scholarship will, in every sense, be a welcome and worthwhile addition to the shelves of any library and scholar.
