The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic Tradition by Jay Fisher (review)

Reviewed by: The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic Tradition by Jay Fisher Benjamin W. Fortson IV Jay Fisher. The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic Tradition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Pp. x, 206. $69.95. ISBN 978–1-4212–1129–3. This, a reworking of the author’s 2006 Princeton University dissertation, is a stimulating and original addition to Ennian studies and Latin historical formulaics. In clear and engaging prose, Fisher leads the reader on a hunt to uncover examples in the Annals of “traditional collocations” (essentially, formulaic phrases; 3ff.) primarily from the language of ritual. He avers that the Annals, rather than representing a “rupture” with the traditional Latin past, was a deliberate “hybrid” of a “multicultural” sort in its combination of Greek poetic structures and vocabulary with “native” or “traditional” Latin and/or Italic formulaic phraseology. Sometimes this “native” material is itself Greek in origin, but has been refashioned and/or reinterpreted so as to be indistinguishable from primeval inheritance. Some of the collocations are attributed not to Latin alone, but to the pan-Italic ritual koine (4). Fisher deserves much praise for the wealth of proposals within the book’s modest confines. Naturally, some are more convincing than others. At times, the [End Page 434] label “traditional collocation” elevates what is simply the standard Latin way of expressing a certain concept that happens to occur in ritual contexts (e.g., manus tendere, 141ff.). Some claims are far-fetched (e.g., that the pronoun sam at Ann. 212 may have recalled the Greek letter-name san, 38), and there is a tendency to construct chains of speculative word- and formula-associations, and from them multi-layered literary and narratological analyses, that become too weighty for the fragments to bear comfortably (much of chapter 5 felt this way to me). But the ideas never lose the reader’s interest, and often Fisher’s case seems strong. Quite compelling and thought-provoking are, inter alia, the connection of Iuppiter hac stat . . . euortit at Ann. 232–233 with Jupiter Stator and further with Oscan Diouwei Wersouei, 5–8; the discussion in chapter 4 of Pyrrhus’ misguided use of Roman ritual language in book 6; the comparison of Greek vs. Latin with the language of gods vs. the language of men (38, a topic to be profitably mined further); the analysis of the phonetic play and ring composition of the long Augurium Romuli fragment (62ff.); and the possible subversive layers of meaning in the cederunt de caelo passage (76). There are some quirks. Fisher makes a point passim of saying that a given collocation would have been recognized by Ennius’ audience as “native” or “traditional.” Although the import of this is not fully clear, he seems to regard this imagined audience response as a litmus test for a collocation’s traditionality. I do not think it wise to insist on this, and the issues it raises are ultimately a distraction. Apart from the tricky business of defining “native” and “traditional,” it begs numerous questions, in particular whether any audience actually responds to literature in this way—by mentally ticking the proper box (Native or Nonnative) next to each word or phrase they hear or read. Elsewhere, though, Fisher seems to view questions of origin as irrelevant to an audience’s response; for example, “The audience of the Annals interpreted the ritual language in terms of its own horizons of expectation, not in terms of origins. . . . If avem servare had ritual connotations for the audience of the Annals, it is not important how the phrase became traditional, only that it was” (82). But something need not be traditional to have “ritual connotations,” as illustrated by Fisher himself (19) with the example of Horace’s Carmen Saeculare, which got taken up in short order for use in actual rites. A few further details. (48): I am unsure whether I follow Fisher’s avowedly “radical” proposal that the language of curses underlies the tongue imagery at Ann. 469, but if such is to be found in this passage, revinctum in the next line is a potentially more direct allusion. (65 et alibi, cf. 4): Methodological questions are raised by wishing

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