frontations between the East and the West, culminating, as it began, in Greek vic-
tory.^34 Such historiographical constructions reflect and enhance Alexander’s own
cultivation of the resonances between his actions and those of his mythical fore-
bears, from his sacrifices at the site of Troy to his fighting the initial battle of the
Granicus in the same month as that of the fall of Troy.^35
The most impressive Roman example of this millenarian use of the Trojan
anniversary is not an absolutely certain one, although it is very tantalizing. The
possibility was detected by Gratwick, who made an inspired suggestion about the
frame of the first fifteen books of Ennius’s Annales.^36 Ennius’s initial plan was to go
from the fall of Troy, in “1184/3 b.c.e.,” the canonical date by his time, established
by Eratosthenes, all the way down to his own time. When exactly in his own time
did he stop? Gratwick suggests the year 184 b.c.e., the 1,000th anniversary of the
fall of Troy. This year was important in various ways, bringing together crucial
preoccupations of the poem as a whole.
First of all, the year was important to Ennius himself, since it was the year he
became a Roman citizen, on the grounds of being enrolled as a member of a colony
established in Pisaurum by Q. Fulvius Nobilior, the son of his patron at the time,
M. Fulvius.^37 It is very attractive to think of the autobiographically inclined epic
poet mentioning this fact in the culminating portion of the poem: the poet who has
been celebrating the deeds of the populus Romanusactually becomes a member of
the populus Romanushimself. He certainly mentioned this crucial event in his life
at some point in the epic: nos sumus Romani qui fuimus ante Rudini(“I am now a
Roman who was before a Rudian,” fr. 525). The final book of the original fifteen-
book edition is one of the most plausible locations for this proud assertion. The
theme of the expansion and evolution of the Roman citizenship, marking the key
turning points of Roman expansion, was clearly an important one for the poem as
a whole. We have a mention of the granting of the civitas sine suffragioto the
Campanians: ciues Romani tunc facti sunt Campani(“The Campanians were then
made Roman citizens,” fr. 157). Cornell compellingly suggests that this key mo-
ment marked the climax of the first pentad, with the end of the Latin War of 340 –
338 b.c.e.^38
If the year 184 was important to Ennius, it was also important to Ennius’s first
patron, Cato, since it was the year that Cato was censor.^39 The year was likewise
important to Ennius’s current patron, M. Fulvius Nobilior, since, on Gratwick’s
hypothesis, this was the year that Fulvius dedicated, ex manubiisfrom his triumph
over Aetolia in 187, the temple of Hercules Musarum, “Hercules of the Muses.”^40
We return in the next chapter to the temporal power of this temple, which was a
Anniversaries of Years. 143