Note 1518 — PERSIUS.

Cor Ennii. "Cor" is frequently used for sense. It is here a periphrasis for "Ennius in his senses." Quintus Ennius was born B.C. 239, at Rudiæ, now Rugge, in Calabria, near Brundusium, and was brought to Rome from Sardinia by Cato when quæstor there B.C. 204. He lived in a very humble way on Mount Aventine, and died B.C. 169, of gout (morbus articularis), and was buried in Scipio's tomb on the Via Appia. He held the Pythagorean doctrine of Metempsychosis, and says himself, in the beginning of his Annals, that Homer appeared to him in a dream, and told him that he had once been a peacock, and that his soul was transferred to him. The fragment describing this is extant. "Transnavit cita per teneras Caliginis auras (anima Homeri) visus Homerus adesse poeta. Tum memini fieri me pavum." [Cf. Hor., ii., Ep. i., 50. "Ennius et sapiens et fortis et alter Homerus, Ut critici dicunt, leviter curare videtur Quo promissa cadant et somnia Pythagorea." Tertull., de An., 24, "Pavum se meminit Homerus, Ennio Somniante."] The interpretation in the text seems the most reasonable. Others take quintus as a numeral adjective, and explain the meaning to be, that the soul of a peacock transmigrated first into Euphorbus, then into Homer, then into Pythagoras, and then into Ennius, who was consequently fifth from the peacock.