Talk:Ennius

image
The image that's on this page might not belong. It's a detail from Raphael's The Parnassus and was brought in from its use on other Wikipedias. According to Paul F. Watson, "On a Window in Parnassus", Artibus et Historiae 8 (1987) 127–148, at 137 n. 27, a different figure, the young man writing down whatever Homer's singing, is Ennius: "The usual designation nowadays is Ennius: see Dussler, op. cit., p. 74 with further references." I'm not an art historian, but I think the identification should probably be bolstered by a citation. The site from which the image was originally copied even seems to agree with Watson's footnote. The Cardiff Chestnut (talk) 17:16, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm going to remove this now: the image is used as "Ennius" on several Wikipedias, but that isn't suitable justification for using it here. The Cardiff Chestnut (talk) 17:53, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Birthplace
The difficulty of arriving at uniformity in an encyclopaedia is proved by William Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary (1852), which says under ENNIUS that the poet "was born at Rudiae, in Calabria" and also "a Greek by birth". But under the entry on RUDIAE Smith identifies the town as Apulian and "celebrated as the birthplace of Ennius". There has been more recent scholarship since its publication and in conformity with that I have changed the assertion that the poet was an Oscan from Calabria, despite the statements by Classical authors writing two or more centuries later. The present consensus is that his birthplace was not Rutigliano (with which Smith identified Rudiae) but the archaeological site now within the city limits of Lecce. Sweetpool50 (talk) 12:51, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
 * If you have sources, you should amend the text of the article perhaps. Kanjuzi (talk) 16:57, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, already done. Sweetpool50 (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
 * What you have to remember is that the name Calabria in those days referred not to the toe but to the heel of Italy: "Lewis and Short: Calabria", the part from Tarentum to the tip of the heel. So Ennius was in fact born in Calabria (in its original sense), not Apulia. What I meant when I mentioned sources is when you said that the "modern consensus" is that Rudiae is not where Wikipedia says it is but Lecce. Kanjuzi (talk) 05:21, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Smith lists Rudiae under Apulia, which is the reference given. WP is a modern encyclopaedia, not a compendium of ancient geography, so it seems best to give the up to date name of the present province. Since the article is about Ennius anyway, we don't need to go into geographical subtleties best left for discussion (if at all) under the new article on Rudiae. As for 'modern consensus', that phrase is not used in the article. But there is a note on the Renaissance identification of the site under Rudiae. I looked up several sources on that; so far as I remember they're all in Italian and/or Latin. Sweetpool50 (talk) 15:31, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is necessary to entirely exclude "Ancient Calabria" from the article. Any student of the ancient world (and that presumably includes most of the readers of this article) who has consulted an ancient history atlas will be (or ought to be) aware that Calabria was the name of the heel of Italy. To say that Ennius was born in Apulia is like saying that Hannibal was born in Tunisia, or that Julius Caesar conquered France; it's a bit of an anachronism. Lewis and Short say (entry Appulia, though they say the spelling "Apulia" is better) that Apulia is "a province in lower Italy, at the north of Calabria", i.e. it didn't include the heel of Italy.) (The modern region, incidentally, is called Puglia.) For that reason I beg your indulgence if I put Calabria back in. Kanjuzi (talk) 04:12, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

OK, I've linked it to the Etymology section of the WP article, which explains the change. Sweetpool50 (talk) 10:38, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Source issue
The text claims "The partly Hellenised city of Rudiae, his place of birth, was certainly in the area settled by the Messapians. And this, he used to say, according to Aulus Gellius, had endowed him with a triple linguistic and cultural heritage, fancifully described as "three hearts… Greek, Oscan and Latin". However the source cited doesn't support the first part of the sentence. It says: "Quintus Ennius said that he had three hearts, because he was proficient in three tongues, Greek, Oscan, and Latin." and "QUINTUS ENNIUS used to say that he had three hearts, because he knew how to speak Greek, Oscan, and Latin".

The current text seems to imply a connection between Rudiae and Ennius' trilingualism and his place of origin, Rudiae, ("And this, he used to say, according to Aulus Gellius, had endowed him with a triple linguistic and cultural heritage") which isn't supported by the source provided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.6.19.178 (talk) 19:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Since the wording in WP is constantly modified, perhaps a false impression has been created over time. Aulus Gellius simply relates the story of Ennius's trilingualism (in the context of a completely different anecdote about Mithridates), but such was the fame of Ennius, with his birthplace in Rudiae, that most readers of the time probably understood how he came to have that inheritance. A later editor of the text annotates the fact in the first hit I got from Advanced Book Search here. A slight rewording could have sorted that out without all the song and dance. What we don't want from an editor who forgets to sign his name to his remarks is the kind of editorializing that tells us that Mesappus is both "mythical" and a "legendary king". And what kind of sentence is "According to Aulus Gellius, had endowed him with a triple linguistic and cultural heritage"? Sweetpool50 (talk) 21:42, 26 July 2022 (UTC)