Nennius

“ The more I look into Nennius the difficulties encrease: for he has been so mangled by ignorant or unskilful readers and transcribers, and by Gale the editor, that, without a body had a sight of all the manuscript copies of it in the public libraries, or elsewhere, there is no attempting to interpret it. Mr. R. Vaughan’s MS. at Hengwrt would be a vast help; but I see no likelihood to come at a sight of that. Any ancient copy of it on vellum, which has not been dabbled with, or compared with the Cambridge, the Oxford MSS. &c. ”

“ Nennius, therefore, gives us an earlier form of the myth than Geoffrey. I think, too, that the essential distinctions of the two accounts render it clear that the ancient authorities of Nennius and Geoffrey are not identical, from which we may infer that the original tradition is of far older date than either of these early recorders.
But we may go still further. Whether the legend of Brutus is still extant in an Armoric form, I am not aware, but it appears in Welsh MSS. of an early date; the “Brut Tysilio” and the “Brut Gr. ab Arthur” being important. ”

“ Shem extended his borders into Asia, Ham into Africa, and Japheth in Europe.
* This proves the tradition of Brutus to be older than Geoffrey or Tyssilio, unless these notices of Brutus have been interpolated in the original work of Nennius.
The first man that dwelt in Europe was Alanus, with his three sons, Hisicion, Armenon, and Neugio. Hisicion had four sons, Francus, Romanus, Alamanus, and Brutus. Armenon had five sons, Gothus, Valagothus, Cibidus, Burgundus, and Longobardus. Neugio had three sons, Vandalus, Saxo, and Boganus. ”

“ It is by no means improbable that the idle historical legends related by Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth, respecting the arrival [5] of Brutus and his Trojan followers in Britain, after the destruction of Priam's imperial city by the allied Greeks, may have just so much foundation in fact as might be furnished by a time-honoured tradition respecting the eastern home from which our remote ancestors originally migrated. ”

“ Zimmer is accordingly prepared to accept the work, with the exception of the undoubtedly spurious ‘Prologus Major,’ as substantially the compilation of Nennius. The ‘Historia Britonum,’ as completed by Nennius in 796, did not, however, include the whole of §§ 3–76 as they now stand. Sections 16 and 18 are interpolations of later date; neither is found in the Irish version, and the former is in part and the latter is entirely wanting in some Latin manuscripts (ib. pp. 163–5; Stevenson, pp. 14 n. 14, 16 n. 9) ”

“ NENNIUS (fl. 796) , a Welsh writer to whom we owe the Historia Britonum, lived and wrote in Brecknock or Radnor. His work is known to us through thirty manuscripts; but the earliest of these cannot be dated much earlier than the year 1000; and all are defaced by interpolations which give to the work so confused a character that critics were long disposed to treat it as an unskilful forgery. ”

“ Mr Skene thinks that the work of Nennius was originally written in Welsh in the north and was afterwards translated into Latin. To this nucleus was added the genealogies of the Saxon kings down to 738. Afterwards some person, called Marc in the Vatican manuscript, appended probably about 823 the life of St Germanus and the legends of St Patrick, which were subsequently incorporated with the history. ”

“ In Nennius' Historia Brittonum we find him brought as a child before old king Vortigern in the neighbourhood of Snowdon, where he was trying to build a great fortress for himself and his household. Emrys then gave his name as Ambrosius, and, though a mere child, he confounded Vortigern's magicians and frightened the old king to leave him the fortress, together with all the western portion of the island. ”

“ The adoption by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in the twelfth century, of Brutus the Trojan as father of the British race, as Nennius had done two centuries earlier, did much for the spreading of this belief; the popularity and authority of Geoffrey's fabulous history was so great that for several centuries the gravest English historians accepted his statements concerning Brutus without hesitation. ”

“ A parallel case is Geoffrey’s account of Brutus and the descent of the Britons from the Trojans. The tradition is found in Nennius, and perhaps dates from the classical revival at the court of Charlemagne. It is clearly not a popular tradition, but an artificial tradition of the learned; but whilst Geoffrey did not invent the legend, he invented all the details—letters and speeches, and hairbreadth escapes and tales of love and war. ”

“ Nennius, in the 8th century, says Guorthigern handed to Hengist and Horsa the island, “which in their language is called Tenet, but in British speech Ruoihm,” or Ru-oichim. In a charter of 679 it appears as Tenid. ”

“ But truth of story, which I glanced at, girl,
Is like a word that comes from olden days,
And passes thro' the peoples: every tongue
Alters it passing, till it spells and speaks
Quite other than at first.
Nennius speaks of a tenth battle fought and won by Arthur on the banks of the river Trat Treuroit, or Ribroit. This has been identified by commentators as the Brue, in Somersetshire, and the Ribble, in Lancashire; but the evidence advanced is not very conclusive in favour of either locality. Mr. Haigh prefers Trefdraeth, in the island of Anglesea, as the place indicated. ”

“ Our mediæval ancestors, with very few isolated exceptions, innocently accepted Geoffrey's wild assertions as sober historical facts, not [Pg 7] withstanding the gross ignorance and falsehood patent in many passages, and the childish superstition and credulity which characterise others. Indeed, only about a century ago, the Rev. Jno. Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, placed so much faith in the statements of Nennius and Geoffrey, that he regarded their Arthur as a really historical personage, and he fixed the sites of several of his presumed exploits in the county of Lancaster. ”

“ Another version describes him as enclosed in a rocky grave, whence perhaps the phrase of a Welsh poem—"the man who speaks from the grave"—and in yet another tradition he retires from the world in an Esplumeor, which he made himself.51
How much of all this is pure romance, how much is genuine Brythonic myth, is uncertain; and Merlin may be an old god degraded to a mere magician. Nennius and Geoffrey in their narratives suggest the well-known "Expulsion and Return" formula—the boy without a father, taunted when playing at ball, comes into favour because he shows why a castle cannot be built. ”

“ As I am a stranger to the Welsh bards, Myrdhin, Llomarch, and Taliessin, my faith in the existence and exploits of Arthur principally rests on the simple and circumstantial testimony of Nennius. (Hist. Brit. c. 62, 63, p. 114.) Mr. Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 31-71) had framed an interesting, and even probable, narrative of the wars of Arthur: though it is impossible to allow the reality of the round table. * Note: I presume that Gibbon means Llywarch Hen, or the Aged.—The Elegies of this Welsh prince and bard have been published by Mr. Owen ”

“ Dardanus was the father of Troius, who was the father of Priam and Anchises; Anchises was the father of Aeneas, who was the father of Ascanius and Silvius; and this Silvius was the son of Aeneas and Lavinia, the daughter of the king of Italy. From the sons of Aeneas and Lavinia descended Romulus and Remus, who were the sons of the holy queen Rhea, and the founders of Rome. Brutus was consul when he conquered Spain, and reduced that country to a Roman province he afterwards subdued the island of Britain, whose inhabitants were the descendants of the Romans, from Silvius Posthumus. ”

“ But Ascanius [7] married a wife, who conceived and became pregnant. And Aeneas, having been informed that his daughter-in-law was pregnant, ordered his son to send his magician to examine his wife, whether the child conceived were male or female. The magician came and examined the wife and pronounced it to be a son, who should become the most valiant among the Italians, and the most beloved of all men. [8] In consequence of this prediction, the magician was put to death by Ascanius; but it happened that the mother of the child dying at its birth, he was named Brutus ”

“ To which the man having replied, "I do believe," he baptized, and kissed him, saying, "Go in peace; within this hour thou shalt die: the angels of God are waiting for thee in the air; with them thou shalt ascent to that God in whom thou has believed." He, overjoyed, entered the city, and being met by the prefect, was seized, bound, and conducted before the tyrant, who having passed sentence upon him, he was immediately put to death; for it was a law of this wicked king, that whoever was not at his labour before sun-rising should be beheaded in the citadel. ”

“ Thus the maid was delivered up to the king, who slept with her, and loved her exceedingly.
38Hengist, after this, said to Vortigern, "I will be to you both a father and an adviser; despise not my counsels, and you shall have no reason to fear being conquered by any man or any nation whatever; for the people of my country are strong, warlike, and robust: if you approve, I will send for my son and his brother, both valiant men who at my invitation will fight against the Scots, and you can give them the countries in the north, near the wall called "Gual". ”

“ He heard voices before. "Help! help!" he cried, "Help, ere Honoria die!" With the last effort of existence, he rushed forward, tore open the curtain before him, reeled forward to the throne on which Attila held his midnight council--stretched forth his arms--but power--voice--sense--being--passed away, and Menenius fell dead at the monarch's feet.
"Who has done this?" exclaimed the king, in a voice of thunder. "Who has done this? By the god of battles, if it be my own children, they shall die! Is this the fate of Menenius? Is this the death that the hero of Azimantium should have known? No! ”

“ Among the poets of the Republic, whose works have reached us only in fragments, Lucilius is only second in importance to Ennius. Roman Satire owes as much in form, substance, and spirit to him as the Roman epic does to the older poet. While Ennius represents the [223] highest mood of Rome, and first gave expression to that imperial idea which ultimately realised itself in history, Lucilius is the exponent of her ordinary moods, manifested in the streets and the forum, and of those internal dissensions and destructive forces by which her political life was agitated and ultimately overthrown. ”

“ The rudeness of his manner was gone; and though he spoke with the dignity of one whose nation was rich in conquests, there was no longer in his language the assumption of haughty superiority which he had at first displayed.
"And thou," said Menenius, at last--"Who am I to fancy thee?"
"I am Onegesius, the servant of Attila the King," replied the Hun; "and mark me, chieftain of a brave people. Hold but little communion with the slaves of Theodosius as they pass through the dominions of the Huns. The lion may be stung by the viper, if he lie down where he is coiled. ”

“ He has been exposed to more serious detraction in modern times, as the corrupter of the pure stream of early Roman poetry. It is alleged against him by Niebuhr, that through jealousy he suppressed the ballad and epic poetry of the early bards. The answer to this charge has already been given. There is no evidence to prove that any such poems were in existence in the time of Ennius. By other modern scholars he is disadvantageously compared with Naevius, who is held up to admiration as the last of the genuine Roman minstrels. ”

“ This literary successor was the poet Quintus Ennius, who may almost be said to have met Nævius at the gates of Rome, since he arrived at Rome at about the time when Nævius went into banishment. Ennius was not a Roman citizen at this time, having been born and reared down in the extreme heel of Italy, at Rudiæ in Calabria, a section which had for many generations been under Greek influence. ”

“ The father of Menenius, too, stood beside him, and marked the reviving glow in his son's cheek with joy, although there was a deep and thoughtful shadow on his brow, which brightened into something of triumph and of hope, as his eye ran over the bold and swelling muscles of his frame, and thought that but a few days more would restore that frame to all its pristine vigour. The triumph and the hope were those of a true son of ancient Greece, for they were kindled and inspired by the proud thought that the energetic strength of mind and body which were no longer united in himself ”

“ Quem nemo ferro potuit superare nec auro. His epic was an exposition of the text he himself devised so effectively:
Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque: And it was Ennius who more than any one else kept Roman society upon that foundation.
We happen to be able to test his influence by what he did with the portrait of Pyrrhus. Only a generation before Ennius was born this picturesque enemy of Rome had had a friendly alliance with the Messapian tribe to which Ennius himself belonged. The poet, therefore, had heard much about the king. ”

“ Volcatius Sedigitus, an early critic, who wrote a work De Poetis, and who has already been referred to as assigning the third rank in the list of comic poets to Naevius, mentions Ennius as tenth and last, solely 'antiquitatis causa.' Any inference that might be drawn from the character exhibited in the other fragments of Ennius, would accord both with the negative and positive evidence of antiquity, as to his deficiency in comic power. He has nothing in common with that versatile and dramatic genius, in which occasionally the highest imagination has been united with the most abundant humour. ”