ABSTRACT
Thanks to two quotations in the first book of the Tusculan Disputations (1. 34 and 1. 117) Ennius’s most personal epigram can be restored: Nemo me lacrimis decoret nec funera fletu faxit. Cur? Volito vivos per ora virum. The alliterations are a distinctive feature of the distich, as I have emphasized typographically earlier. Every reader of Ennius’s fragments has come across memorable examples: I mention here only some lines with three or more alliterative letters: Excita cum tremulis a nus a ttulit a rtubus lumen (34 Sk.); nec sese dedit in c onspectum c orde c upitus (47 Sk.); Accipe daque fidem foedusque feri bene firmum (32 Sk.); O Tite, tute, Tati, tibi tanta, tyranne, tulisti (ta 2x, ti 4x, te 2x, tu 2x, ty 1x) (104 Sk.); O r ato r sine pace r edit r egique r efert r em (202 Sk.); Africa t erribili t remit horrida t erra t umultu (309 Sk.); as for the tragedies: Menelaus me obiurgat; id meis r ebus r egimen r estitat (203 Joc.); quam tibi ex orationem duriter dictis dedit (258 Joc.); saeviter suspicionem ferre falsam futtilum est (262 Joc.); per ego deum s ublimas s ubices/ u midas unde oritur imber s onit u s aevo et s pirit u (3 f. Joc.).
