Interest in social memory has focused new attention on early Latin literature, which is increasingly appreciated for both the boldness of its aesthetic experiments and its power to shape Roman collective identity. The present study, derived from a dissertation supervised by G. Rosati at the University of Udine, is explicitly contextual, working from the premise that the Roman past as portrayed in Ennius' Annales was shaped by a particular vision of the Roman present. Full understanding of the poem therefore requires attention to its social function and impact on its audience no less than to its content. Given the poet's well attested, if highly problematic, associations with the senatorial class of second-century Rome, this is a reasonable working hypothesis, and F. explores its ramifications with energy and skill, uniting literary and cultural approaches to the Annales that have to this point remained largely discrete. She teases out the contemporary implications of five storylines in the poem: the Trojan origins of Rome (Chapter 1), Romulus as Roman hero (Chapter 2), the war with Pyrrhus (Chapter 3), the wars against Hannibal and Philip (Chapter 4) and the conquest of Ambracia (Chapter 5). What emerges is a portrait of Ennius more richly nuanced than the traditional image of a client-poet in service to one or another political faction and a poetic analysis more historically informed than most contemporary literary criticism.

In another sense, however, F.'s study is deeply traditional, as firmly rooted in the old ways of Vahlen, Norden and Skutsch as the new ones of Flaig, Gildenhard and Rüpke. Its argument works from three implicit methodological assumptions: that the Aeneid is so deeply responsive to the Roman vision of the Annales that Ennius' intention can be deduced from Virgil's intention, that Ennius in fact had a single, consistent intention developed across the original fifteen books of his poem, and that its content – on which all judgements of function and impact ultimately depend – can when required be deduced from its structure. So, for example, F. (pp. 172–7), following Skutsch following Walbank, reads Ennius' description of the Cyclops (319–20 Sk.) as a portrait of Philip V, thus echoing both Homer (Od. 9.296–8) and a taunt by Alcaeus of Messene (Anth. Pal. 9.519). This appropriation of Homeric language to develop a Roman theme continues by other means Flamininus' philhellenic policy, implicitly supporting the claim that Rome was no barbarian interloper but a legitimate heir to Greek hegemony. Given so appealing a claim, we may forget (nor does F. remind us) that no direct evidence links Ennius' Cyclops to Philip. The source (Priscian on the perfect of -geo verbs) simply attributes these lines to Annales 9, a book that might have mentioned the Macedonian king. Does that foundation bear the weight of F.'s argument? Only time will tell. Significant challenges to such confident reconstructions are beginning to appear, and until they are either beaten back or a new consensus emerges, F.'s claims must remain provisional. She has, however, unquestionably performed a valuable service by putting them forward.