Shaping the (Hi)story of Innovation: Livius Andronicus as the First Poet of Latin Literature

Abstract

From our modern perspective, 1 there is little doubt that Roman literature -specifically at its very beginning -greatly imitated Greek models. 2 In his recently published monograph Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature, Denis Feeney even goes so far as to assume the prevalence of a "Roman translation project". 3 The ancient reception of early Roman literature seems to support this view: the first Roman epic, Livius Andronicus's Odusia, was considered to be a mere translation of the Homeric Odyssey; 4 Ennius's statement that he had been inspired by Homer and Sleep 5 was understood as a claim to be a "second Homer" (alter Homerus); 6 and if  1 My thanks to John Hamilton, Bettina Full, the research groups 'Nachleben der Antike' and 'Anchoring Innovation' and the participants of my Research Master Seminar on (Per-)Forming Comedy, Leiden 2015. 2 Cf. e.g. Kramer (1997) 130: "So wie die lateinische Literatur in Nachahmung der griechischen Literatur entstand, so bewegt sich auch die lateinische Literatursprache in einem engen Abhängigkeitsverhältnis von der griechischen Literatursprache." 3 Feeney (2016) ch. 2, 45-64. 4 In his famous passage on imitatio, written at the very end of the first cent. AD, the rhetorician Quintilian -when pleading for a technique of productive and creative imitation -admits that Livius Andronicus had introduced something. However, he disqualifies him from being a good poet, respectively from producing a good imitation (which should include new aspects): "Once again, what would have happened if no one had achieved more than the man he was following? We should have nothing in poetry better than Livius Andronicus" (Quint. Inst. 10.2.7: quid erat futurum si nemo plus effecisset eo quem sequebatur? Nihil in poetis supra Livium Andronicum [...] haberemus). Cf. n. 29. 5 According to Fronto de Eloq. 146 N., Ennius' instructors were Homer and Sleep (magister Enni Homerus et Somnus); according to Cic. Ac. Pr. 2.16.51, Homer the poet appeared at his side, when Ennius dreamed: Cum somniavit [sc. Ennius] narravit visus Homerus adesse poeta (= Enn. Ann. frg. 3 Skutsch). 6 Cf. e.g. Hor. Epist. 2.1.50-51f.: Ennius et sapiens et fortis et alter Homerus / ut critici dicunt ("Ennius, the wise and valiant, the second Homer, as literary scholars say"). Ennius' statement has been read as a claim to be the reincarnation of Homer, see Porphyrio ad loc., Rudd (1989) 83 (comm. ad Hor. Epist. 2.1.51-52), andSuerbaum (2012) 188. However, this seems to be a rather late construction. The fragments themselves give a quite different impression: "[W]hatever we might be missing in terms of lost narrative parallels with Homer in the Annales, Ennius does not come close to this [sc. Virgil's engagement with Homeric epic]. In Bloom's terms, there is no great agon." (Goldsmith 2013, 14).