Introduction: History and Poetry in Ennius’Annals

Abstract

Studies of Ennius’ Annals have grown frequent in recent years, but they are not so common that a new contribution should require any special apology. At the same time, the range of topics and approaches found in recent studies has become much wider than before, so that a new intervention does perhaps require an explanation of its basic assumptions, methods, perspective, and goals, beyond what might be expected of any work of scholarship. That is particularly true at the present moment. Most scholarship on the Annals prior to  was principally concerned with establishing the text of this highly fragmentary work and, in a more general sense, with understanding its original form. In that year the appearance of Otto Skutsch’s edition, which is concerned with these matters to a very high degree, perhaps unexpectedly made possible a change of direction. It took some time for the impact of Skutsch’s work to be felt, but the existence of an authoritative text equipped with a copious commentary eventually proved useful to scholars interested in literary, historical, and cultural interpretation. Many of these scholars either endorsed the assumptions on which Skutsch’s edition is based or simply took them for granted, and a few have taken them even further. In short, however widely or explicitly shared the basic assumptions of Skutsch’s work may be, the work itself has to be seen as the one indispensable prerequisite for the boom in Ennian studies that has occurred in these last few decades. Now the situation has changed again. Just a few years ago the assumptions on which Skutsch’s edition and its main predecessors are based were fundamentally questioned by Jackie Elliott, one of the contributors to this volume. It is not yet entirely clear what this will mean over the long run.