Book 18
5
A NUMBER of us young men, friends of his, were at Puteoli with the rhetorician Antonius Julianus, a fine man in truth and of distinguished eloquence, and we were spending the summer holidays in amusement and gaiety, amid literary diversions and seemly and improving pleasures. And while we were there, word was brought to Julianus that a certain reader, a man not without learning, was reciting the Annals of Ennius to the people in the theatre in a very refined and musical voice. Let us go, said he, to hear this ' Ennianist.' whoever he may be; for that was the name by which the man wished to be called.
5
When at last we had found him reading amid loud applause—and he was reading the seventh book of the Annals of Ennius—we first heard him wrongly recite the following lines: vv. 232 ff. Vahlen2. Then with great force on rush the four-footed horse (equus) And elephants, and without adding many more verses, he departed amid the praises and applause of the whole company.
