Striving against oblivion : Tombs and cemeteries in the mid-Republic
Writing as dusk fell on the mid-Republic, Ennius (238–169 BCE) purportedly remarked, ‘Kings throughout their kingship are in quest of statues and sepulchres; they build up a name and strain with all their might and main’. A poet whose verse mediated between the Greek and Roman worlds, he knew the weight of his words, and they usefully highlight the political presence of a tomb. Not that this is un