This paper outlines some of the historiographical tools and perspectives the Annals may have received from Livius Andronicus’ Odyssey and Naevius’ Punic War. The topics of allegory and authority structure the discussion. Section 1 explores the Annals’ construction of the past in relation to that of its Latin epic predecessors, particularly their use of allegory in the representation of history. Section 2 argues that Ennius’ unique blend of auctoritas is an expansion of Naevius’ simultaneous evocation of Hellenic historiographical authority of first-hand experience (theōria, empeiria, autoptēs) and divine inspiration from the Muses. The analysis here brings Cato’s Origins into dialogue with the authorizing techniques that are central to the historiographical personae of Rome’s first epicists. I conclude by suggesting that the genealogies outlined in Sections 1 and 2 explain the generic hybridity of Ennius’ res atque poemata.

This paper investigates the largely inaccessible ancient audiences of early Roman epic and historiography, using points of intersection in our evidence for Ennius’ Annals and Cato’s Origins to consider each work’s audience in relation to the other’s. My means of approach are two. First, I explore differences in how Cicero responds to each of those works, with glances across to his surviving responses to Fabius Pictor’s history of Rome, finding that Cicero frequently cites the Annals to illustrate the forging and articulation of Roman ethical identity at exemplary moments in the past, but neither he nor any other source cites Cato or Fabius for any such purpose. Second, I consider the distribution of collectives across the surviving fragments of both works. Terms for the Roman collective are relatively abundant in Ennius’ Annals, and that collective is featured in heroic action, but in the Origins the Roman collective is much less obtrusive than might have been expected in a work notorious for suppressing the names of more recent historical leaders. The two findings suggest that it was the Annals that had the broader appeal, the readier ability to speak to and for Romans across the board.