ABSTRACT
Magnus Felix Ennodius was born around 474 ce to a prominent consular family with roots in Gaul. Ennodius was a toddler when history arrived at that paramount year of 476 ce, when Romulus Augustulus, the “last Emperor of the West,” was trundled off to a monastery and the mighty Roman Empire was no more. The socio-political backdrop for Ennodius’ life emerges in drips and drabs from the archive of his writings—indeed they are a major source for our understanding of this era. Ennodius’ poetry deserves a verse translation, the only mode that can capture some qualities of a style that contains nice touches—and occasionally strains language to the breaking point. Ennodius’ diverse collection of poetry sports a matching range of meters. Elegiac couplets are, by a considerable margin, the most common Ennodian meter, appearing in the majority of poems and just more than half of his total lines.
