Chapter 12

Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Martius; iii., the last three kings; iv.-v., the republic down to the war with Pyrrhus; vi., the war with Pyrrhus; vii., First Punic War, etc.; viii.-ix., Second Punic War; x.-xii., Second Macedonian War, Cato's consulship; xiii.-xv., War with Antiochus, subjugation of the Aetolians; xvi.-xviii., from Istrian War to beginning of Third Macedonian War.

_Ennius' services_ to Latin literature lay partly in introducing the use of the hexameter and other metres from Greek in place of the old Saturnian metre. His versification is, of course, rough in comparison with that of later writers, the principal points being

(1) Harsh elisions. _Ann._ l. 199,

'Hos et ego in pugna vici victusque sum ab isdem.'

(2) Quadrisyllable endings; l. 23,

'Est locus Hesperiam quam mortales perhibebant.'

(3) Absence of caesura, or abrupt break, l. 188,

'Bellipotentes sunt magis quam sapientipotentes';