Abstract

The notorious line, ‘O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta, turanne, tulisti,’ is assigned to Ennius by Priscian, Isidore, and the Explanator in Donatum, as well as by Pompeius in his second quotation of it. In the first, however , he, like Auctor ad Herennium, Charisius, Donatus, Martianus Capella, and Plotius Sacerdos, gives no author's name. There is thus some reasonable doubt whether the attribution is correct; and this doubt is greatly increased by the remarks of our earliest authority, the Auctor ad Herennium : ‘Vitabimus eiusdem litterae nimiam adsiduitatem, cui uitio uersus hic erit exemplo, nam hic nihil prohibet in uitiis alienis exemplis uti O Tite e.q.s.; et hic eiusdem poetae Quicquam quisquam e.q.s.’ This clearly indicates: 1. That it was unusual for this author to borrow his illustrative examples