The present work is designed mainly for Students at our Universities and Public Schools, and for such as are preparing for the Indian Civil Service or other advanced Examinations. The author hopes, however, that it may also be acceptable to some of those who, without being professed scholars, are yet interested in the grand literature of Rome, or who wish to refresh their memory on a subject that perhaps engrossed their early attention, but which the many calls of advancing life have made it difficult to pursue.
All who intend to undertake a thorough study of the subject will turn to Teuffel's admirable History, without which many chapters in the present work could not have attained completeness; but the rigid severity of that exhaustive treatise makes it fitter for a book of reference for scholars than for general reading even among students. The author, therefore, trusts he may be pardoned for approaching the History of Roman Literature from a more purely literary point of view, though at the same time without sacrificing those minute and accurate details without which criticism loses half its value. The continual references to Teuffel's work, excellently translated by Dr. W. Wagner, will bear sufficient testimony to the estimation in which the author holds it, and the obligations which he here desires to acknowledge.
He also begs to express his thanks to Mr. John Wordsworth, of B. N. C., Oxford, for many kind suggestions, as well as for courteous permission to make use of his Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin; to Mr. H. A. Redpath, of Queen's College, Oxford, for much valuable assistance in correction of the proofs, preparation of the index, and collation of references, and to his brother, Mr. W. H. G. Cruttwell, for verifying citations from the post-Augustan poets.
To enumerate all the sources to which the present Manual is indebted would occupy too much space here, but a few of the more important may be mentioned. Among German writers, Bernhardy and Ritter—among French, Boissier, Champagny, Diderot, and Nisard—have been chiefly used. Among English scholars, the works of Dunlop, Conington, Ellis, and Munro, have been consulted, and also the History of Roman Literature, reprinted from the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, a work to which frequent reference is made, and which, in fact, suggested the preparation of the present volume.
It is hoped that the Chronological Tables, as well as the list of Editions recommended for use, and the Series of Test Questions appended, will materially assist the Student.
OXFORD, November, 1877.
Roman and Greek Literature have their periods of study—Influence of each
—Exactness of Latin language—Greek origin of Latin literature—Its three
great periods: (1) The Ante-Classical Period; (2) The Golden Age; (3) The
Decline.
On the Earliest Remains of the Latin Language.
Early inhabitants of Italy—Italic dialects—Latin—Latin alphabet—Later innovations—Pronunciation—Spelling—Early Monuments—Song of Fratres Arvales—Salian Hymn—Law of Romulus—Laws of Twelve Tables—Treaty between Rome and Carthage—Columna Rastrata—Epitaphs of the Scipios— Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus—Break-up of the language.
APPENDIX.—Examples of late corrupted dialects
On the Beginnings of Roman Literature.
The Latin character—Romans a practical people—Their religion unromantic —Primitive culture of Latium—Germs of drama and epos—No early historians—Early speeches—Ballad literature—No early Roman epos—Poets despised—Fescenninae—Saturae—Mime or Planipes—Atellanae- Saturnian metre—Early interest in politics and law as giving the germs of oratory and jurisprudence.
The Introduction of Greek Literature—Livius and Naevius (240-204 B.C.).
Introduction of Greek literature to Rome—Its first translators—Livius
Andronicus—His translation of the Odyssey, Tragedies, &c.—Cn.
Naevius—Inventor of Praetextae—Style—A politician—Writer of the
first national epic poem—His exile and death—Cicero's opinion of him—
His epitaph.
Roman Comedy—Plautus to Turpilius (254-103 B.C.).
The Roman theatre—Plan of construction—Comedy—Related to Athenian Middle and New Comedy—Plautus—His plays—Their plots and style— Palliatae and Togatae—His metres—Caecilius—Admires Terence— Terence—His intimate friends—His style—Use of contamination—Lesser comedians.
Roman Tragedy: Ennius—Accius (233-94 B.C.).
Contrast between Greek and Roman tragedy—Oratorical form of Latin tragedy—Ennius—The father of Roman poetry—His humamitas—Relations with Scipio—A follower of Pythagoras—His tragedies—Pacuvius—Painter and tragedian—Cicero's criticism of his Niptra—His epitaph—L. Accius —The last tragic writer—A reformer of spelling.
APPENDIX.—On some fragments of Sueius or Suevius.
Epic Poetry: Ennius—Furius (200-100 B.C.).
Naevius and Ennius—Olympic deities and heroes of Roman story—Hexameter of Ennius—Its treatment—Matius—Hostius—Furius.
The Early History of Satire: Ennius to Lucilius (200-103 B.C.).
Roman satire a native growth—Origin of word "Saturae"—It is didactic—Not necessarily poetical in form—Ennius—Pacuvius—Lucilius— The objects of his attack—His popularity—His humility—His style and language.
The Minor Departments of Poetry—The Atellanae (Pomponius and Novius, circ. 90 B.C.) and the Epigram (Ennius—Callus, 100 B. C.).
Atellanae—Oscan in origin—Novius—Pomponius—Mummius—Epigrammatists— Catulus—Porcius Licinius—Pompilius—Valerius Aedituus.
Prose Literature—History. Fabius Pictor—Macer (210-80 B.C.).
Early records—Annales, Libri Lintei, Commentarii, &c.—Narrow view of history—Fabius—Cincius Alimentus—Cato—Creator of Latin prose—His orations—His Origines—His treatise on agriculture—His miscellaneous writings—Catonis dicta—Calpurnius Piso—Sempronius Asellio—Claudius Quadrigarius Valerius Antias—Licinius Macer.
APPENDIX.—On the Annales Pontificum.
The History of Oratory before Cicero.
Comparison of English, Greek, and Roman oratory—AppiusCornelius Cethegus—Cato—Laelius—The younger Scipio—Galba—Carbo—The Gracchi— Self-praise of ancient orators—Aemilius Scaurus—Rutilius—Catulus—A violent death often the fate of a Roman orator—M. Antonius—Crassus—The Roman law-courts—Bribery and corruption prevalent in them—Feelings and prejudices appealed to—Cotta and Sulpicius—Carbo the younger— Hortensius—His friendship for Cicero—Asiatic and Attic styles.
Other kinds of Prose Literature: Grammar, Rhetoric, and Philosophy (147-63 B.C.).
Legal writers—P. Mucius Scaevola—Q. Mucius Scaevola—Rhetoric—
Plotius Gallus—Cornificius—Grammatical science—Aelius Stilo—
Philosophy—Amafinius—Rabirius—Relation of philosophy to
religion.
THE GOLDEN AGE.
FROM THE CONSULSHIP OF CICERO TO THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS (63 B.C.-l4 A.D.).
Varro.
The two Divisions of this culminating period—Classical authors—Varro
—His life, his character, his encyclopaedic mind—His Menippean
Satires—Logistorici-Antiquities Divine and Human—Imagines—De
Lingua Latina—De Re Rustica.
APPENDIX.—Note I. The Menippean Satires of Varro,
" II. The Logistorici,
" III. Fragments of Atacinus,
" IV. The Jurists, Critics, and Grammarians of less note.
Oratory and Philosophy—Cicero (106-43 B.C.).
Cicero—His life—Pro Roscio—In Verrem—Pro Cluentio—Pro lege Manilia—Pro Rabirio—Cicero and Clodius—His exile—Pro Milone—His Philippics—Criticism of his oratory—Analysis of Pro Milone—His Philosophy, moral and political—On the existence of God and the human soul—List of his philosophical works—His rhetorical works—His letters— His contemporaries and successors.
APPENDIX.—Poetry of M. and Q. Cicero.
Historical and Biographical Composition—Caesar—Nepos—Sallust.
Roman view of history—Caesar's Commentaries—Trustworthiness of his statements—His style—A. Hirtius—Other writers of commentaries—Caesar's oratorical and scientific position—Cornelius Nepos—C. Sallustius Crispus—Tubero.
APPENDIX.—On the Acta Diurna and Acta Senatus.
The History of Poetry to the Close of the Republic—Rise of Alexandrinism—Lucretius—-Catullus.
The Drama—J. Caesar Strabo—The Mimae—D. Laberius—Publilius
Syrus—Matius—Pantomimi—Actors—The poetry of Cicero and Caesar—
Alexandria and its writers—Aratus—Callimachus—Apollonius Rhodius—
Euphorion—Lucretius—His philosophical opinions and style—Bibaculus—
Varro Atacinus—Calvus—Catullus—Lesbia.
APPENDIX.—Note I. On the Use of Alliteration in Latin Poetry,
" II. Some additional details on the History of the Mimus,
" III. Fragments of Valerius Soranus.
THE AUGUSTAN EPOCH (42 B.C.-l4 A.D.).
General Characteristics.
Common features of the Augustan authors—Augustus's relation to them
—Maecenas—The Apotheosis of the emperor—Rhetoricians not orators—
Historians—Jurists—Poets—Messala—Varius—Anser—Macer.
Virgil (70-19 B.C.)
Virgil—His earliest verses—His life and character—The minor poems
—The Eclogues—The Georgics—Virgil's love of Nature—His aptitude
for epic poetry—The scope of the Aeneid—The Aeneid a religious poem
—Its relation to preceding poetry.
APPENDIX.—Note I. Imitations of Virgil in Propertius, Ovid, and
Manilius,
" II. On the shortening of final o in Latin poetry,
" III. On parallelism in Virgil's poetry,
" IV. On the Legends connected with Virgil.
Horace (65-8 B.C.).
Horace—His life—The dates of his works—Two aspects: a lyric poet and a man of the world—His Odes and Epodes—His patriotic odes—Excellences of the odes—The Satires and Epistles—Horace as a moralist—The Ars Poetica—Horace's literary criticism—Lesser poets.
The Elegiac Poets—Gratius—Manilius.
Roman elegy—Cornelius Callus—Domitius Marsus—Tibullus—Propertius—
Ovid—His life—The Art of Love—His exile—Doubtful and spurious poems
—Lesser erotic and epic poets—Gratius—Manilius.
Prose Writers of the Augustan Age.
Oratory Neglected—Declamation takes its place—Porcius Latro—Annaeus
Seneca—History—Livy—Opportune appearance of his work—Criticism of his
method—Pompeius Trogus—Vitruvius—Grammarians—Fenestella—Verrius
Flaccus—Hyginus—Law and philosophy.
APPENDIX.—Note I. A Suasoria translated from Seneca,
" II. Some Observations on the Theory of Rhetoric, from
Quintilian, Book III.
The Age of Tiberius (14-37 A.D.).
Sudden collapse of letters—Cause of this—Tiberius—Changed position of literature—Vellius Paterculus—Valerius Maximus—Celsus—Remmius Palaemon—Germanicus—Phaedrus—Pomponius Secundus the tragedian.
The Reigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero (37-68 A.D.).
1. Poets.
The Neronian period an epoch—Peculiar characteristics of its writers
—Literary pretensions of Caligula—of Claudius—of Nero—Poem on
Calpurnius Piso—Relation of philosophy to life—Cornutus—Persius—Lucan
—Criticism of the Pharsalia—Eclogues of Calpurnius—The poem on Etna—
Tragedies of Seneca—The apokolokuntosis.
The Reigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.
2. Prose Writers—Seneca.
His importance—Life and writings—Influence of his exile—Relations with Nero—His death—Is he a Stoic?—Gradual convergence of the different schools of thought—Seneca a teacher more than anything else—His conception of philosophy—Supposed connection with Christianity—Estimate of his character and style.
The Reigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.
3. Other Prose Writers.
Domitius Corbulo—Quintus Curtius—Columella—Pomponius Mela—
Valerius Protius—Petronius Arbiter—Account of his extant fragments.
APPENDIX.—Note I. The Testamentum Porcelli,
" II. On the MS. of Petronius.
The Reigns of the Flavian Emperors (69-96 A.D.).
1. Prose Writers.
A new literary epoch—Marked by common characteristics—Decay of national genius—Pliny the elder—Account of his death translated from the younger Pliny—His studious habits—The Natural History—Its character and value—Quintilian—Account of his book de Institutione Oratoria— Frontinus—A valuable and accurate writer—Grammatical studies.
APPENDIX.—Quintilian's Criticism on the Roman Authors.
The Reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian (69-96 A.D.).
2. Poets.
Reduced scope of poetry—Poetry the most dependent on external conditions of any form of written literature—Valerius Flaccus—Silius—His death as described by Pliny—His poem—The elder Statius—Statius—An extempore poet—His public recitations—The Silvae—The Thebaid and Achilleid —His similes—Arruntius Stella—Martial—His death as recounted by Pliny —The epigram—Other poets.
APPENDIX.—On the Similes of Virgil, Lucan, and Statius.
The Reigns of Nerva and Trajan (96-117 A.D.).
Pliny the younger—His oratory—His correspondence—Letter to Trajan —Velius Longus—Hyginus—Balbus—Flaccus—Juvenal—His life—A finished declaimer—His character—His political views—Style—Tacitus—Dialogue on eloquence—Agricola—Germania—Histories—Annals_ —Intended work on Augustus's reign—Style.
The Reigns of Hadrian and the Antonines (117-180 A.D.).
Era of African Latinity—Differs from the Silver Age—Hadrian's poetry —Suetonius—His life—List of writings—Lives of the Caesars—His account of Nero's death—Florus—Salvius Julianus and Sextus Pomponius—Fronto— His relations with Aurelius—List of his works—Gellius—Gaius—Poems of the period—Pervigilium Veneris—Apuleius—De Magia—Metamorphoses or Golden Ass—Cupid and Psyche—His philosophical works.
State of Philosophical and Religious Thought during the Period of the Antonines—Conclusion.
Greek eloquence revives in the Sophists—Itinerant rhetors—Cynic preachers of virtue—The better class of popular philosophers—Dio Chrysostom—Union of philosophy and rhetoric—Greek now the language of general literature—Reconciliation of philosophy with religion—The Platonist school—Apuleius—Doctrine of daemons—Decline of thought— General review of the main features of Roman literatureConclusion.
QUESTIONS OR SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS, &c.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century, and during nearly the whole of the eighteenth, the literature of Rome exercised an imperial sway over European taste. Pope thought fit to assume an apologetic tone when he clothed Homer in an English dress, and reminded the world that, as compared with Virgil, the Greek poet had at least the merit of coming first. His own mind was of an emphatically Latin order. The great poets of his day mostly based their art on the canons recognised by Horace. And when poetry was thus affected, it was natural that philosophy, history, and criticism should yield to the same influence. A rhetorical form, a satirical spirit, and an appeal to common sense as supreme judge, stamp most of the writers of western Europe as so far pupils of Horace, Cicero, and Tacitus. At present the tide has turned. We are living in a period of strong reaction. The nineteenth century not only differs from the eighteenth, but in all fundamental questions is opposed to it. Its products have been strikingly original. In art, poetry, science, the spread of culture, and the investigation of the basis of truth, it yields to no other epoch of equal length in the history of modern times. If we go to either of the nations of antiquity to seek for an animating impulse, it will not be Rome but Greece that will immediately suggest itself to us. Greek ideas of aesthetic beauty, and Greek freedom of abstract thought, are being disseminated in the world with unexampled rapidity. Rome, and her soberer, less original, and less stimulating literature, find no place for influence. The readiness with which the leading nations drink from the well of Greek genius points to a special adaptation between the two. Epochs of upheaval, when thought is rife, progress rapid, and tradition, political or religious, boldly examined, turn, as if by necessity, to ancient Greece for inspiration. The Church of the second and third centuries, when Christian thought claimed and won its place among the intellectual revolutions of the world, did not disdain the analogies of Greek philosophy. The Renaissance owed its rise, and the Reformation much of its fertility, to the study of Greek. And the sea of intellectual activity which now surges round us moves ceaselessly about questions which society has not asked itself since Greece started them more than twenty centuries age. On the other hand, periods of order, when government is strong and progress restrained, recognise their prototypes in the civilisation of Rome, and their exponents in her literature. Such was the time of the Church's greatest power: such was also that of the fully developed monarchy in France, and of aristocratic ascendancy in England. Thus the two literatures wield alternate influence; the one on the side of liberty, the other on the side of government; the one as urging restless movement towards the ideal, the other as counselling steady acceptance of the real.
From a more restricted point of view, the utility of Latin literature may be sought in the practical standard of its thought, and in the almost faultless correctness of its composition. On the former there is no need to enlarge, for it has always been amply recognised. The latter excellence fits it above all for an educational use. There is probably no language which in this respect comes near to it. The Romans have been called with justice a nation of grammarians. The greatest commanders and statesmen did not disdain to analyse the syntax and fix the spelling of their language. From the outset of Roman literature a knowledge of scientific grammar prevailed. Hence the act of composition and the knowledge of its theory went hand in hand. The result is that among Roman classical authors scarce a sentence can be detected which offends against logical accuracy, or defies critical analysis. In this Latin stands alone. The powerful intellect of an Aeschylus or Thucydides did not prevent them from transgressing laws which in their day were undiscovered, and which their own writing helped to form. Nor in modern times could we find a single language in which the idioms of the best writers could be reduced to conformity with strict rule. French, which at first sight appears to offer such an instance, is seen on a closer view to be fuller of illogical idioms than any other language; its symmetrical exactness arises from clear combination and restriction of single forms to a single use. English, at least in its older form, abounds in special idioms, and German is still less likely to be adduced. As long, therefore, as a penetrating insight into syntactical structure is considered desirable, so long will Latin offer the best field for obtaining it. In gaining accuracy, however, classical Latin suffered a grievous loss. It became a cultivated as distinct from a natural language. It was at first separated from the dialect of the people, and afterwards carefully preserved from all contamination by it. Only a restricted number of words were admitted into its select vocabulary. We learn from Servius that Virgil was censured for admitting avunculus into epic verse; and Quintilian says that the prestige of ancient use alone permits the appearance in literature of words like balare, hinnire, and all imitative sounds. [1] Spontaneity, therefore, became impossible, and soon invention also ceased; and the imperial writers limit their choice to such words as had the authority of classical usage. In a certain sense, therefore, Latin was studied as a dead language, while it was still a living one. Classical composition, even in the time of Juvenal, must have been a labour analogous to, though, of course, much less than, that of the Italian scholars of the sixteenth century. It was inevitable that when the repositaries of the literary idiom were dispersed, it should at once fall into irrecoverable disuse; and though never properly a dead language, should have remained as it began, an artificially cultivated one. [2] An important claim on our attention put forward by Roman literature is founded upon its actual historical position. Imitative it certainly is. [3] But it is not the only one that is imitative. All modern literature is so too, in so far as it makes a conscious effort after an external standard. Rome may seem to be more of a copyist than any of her successors; but then they have among other models Rome herself to follow. The way in which Roman taste, thought, and expression have found their way into the modern world, makes them peculiarly worthy of study; and the deliberate method of undertaking literary composition practised by the great writers and clearly traceable in their productions, affords the best possible study of the laws and conditions under which literary excellence is attainable. Rules for composition would be hard to draw from Greek examples, and would need a Greek critic to formulate them. But the conscious workmanship of the Romans shows us technical method as separable from the complex aesthetic result, and therefore is an excellent guide in the art.
The traditional account of the origin of literature at Rome, accepted by the Romans themselves, is that it was entirely due to contact with Greece. Many scholars, however, have advanced the opinion that, at an earlier epoch, Etruria exercised an important influence, and that much of that artistic, philosophical, and literary impulse, which we commonly ascribe to Greece, was in its elements, at least, really due to her. Mommsen's researches have re-established on a firmer basis the superior claims of Greece. He shows that Etruscan civilisation was itself modelled in its best features on the Hellenic, that it was essentially weak and unprogressive and, except in religion (where it held great sway) and in the sphere of public amusements, unable permanently to impress itself upon Rome. [4] Thus the literary epoch dates from the conquest of Magna Graecia. After the fall of Tarentum the Romans were suddenly familiarised with the chief products of the Hellenic mind; and the first Punic war which followed, unlike all previous wars, was favourable to the effects of this introduction. For it was waged far from Roman soil, and so relieved the people from those daily alarms which are fatal to the calm demanded by study. Moreover it opened Sicily to their arms, where, more than in any part of Europe except Greece itself, the treasures of Greek genius were enshrined. A systematic treatment of Latin literature cannot therefore begin before Livius Andronicus. The preceding ages, barren as they were of literary effort, afford little to notice except the progress of the language. To this subject a short essay has been devoted, as well as to the elements of literary development which existed in Rome before the regular literature. There are many signs in tradition and early history of relations between Greece and Rome; as the decemviral legislation, the various consultations of the Delphic Oracle, the legends of Pythagoras and Numa, of Lake Regillus, and, indeed, the whole story of the Tarquins; the importation of a Greek alphabet, and of several names familiar to Greek legend—Ulysses, Poenus, Catamitus, &c.—all antecedent to the Pyrrhic war. But these are neither numerous enough nor certain enough to afford a sound basis for generalisation. They have therefore been merely touched on in the introductory essays, which simply aim at a compendious registration of the main points; all fuller information belonging rather to the antiquarian department of history and to philology than to a sketch of the written literature. The divisions of the subject will be those naturally suggested by the history of the language, and recently adopted by Teuffel, i.e.—
1. The sixth and seventh centuries of the city (240-80 B.C.), from Livius to Sulla.
2. The Golden Age, from Cicero to Ovid (80 B.C.-A.D. 14).
3. The period of the Decline, from the accession of Tiberius to the death of Marcus Aurelius (14-180 A.D.).
These Periods are distinguished by certain strongly marked characteristics. The First, which comprises the history of the legitimate drama, of the early epos and satire, and the beginning of prose composition, is marked by immaturity of art and language, by a vigorous but ill-disciplined imitation of Greek poetical models, and in prose by a dry sententiousness of style, gradually giving way to a clear and fluent strength, which was characteristic of the speeches of Gracchus and Antonius. This was the epoch when literature was popular; or at least more nearly so than at any subsequent period. It saw the rise and fall of dramatic art: in other respects it merely introduced the forms which were carried to perfection in the Ciceronian and Augustan ages. The language did not greatly improve in smoothness, or adaptation to express finished thought. The ancients, indeed, saw a difference between Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, but it may be questioned whether the advance would be perceptible by us. Still the labor limae unsparingly employed by Terence, the rules of good writing laid down by Lucilius, and the labours of the great grammarians and orators at the close of the period, prepared the language for that rapid development which it at once assumed in the masterly hands of Cicero.
The Second Period represents the highest excellence in prose and poetry. The prose era came first, and is signalised by the names of Cicero, Sallust, and Caesar. The celebrated writers were now mostly men of action and high position in the state. The principles of the language had become fixed; its grammatical construction was thoroughly understood, and its peculiar genius wisely adapted to those forms of composition in which it was naturally capable of excelling. The perfection of poetry was not attained until the time of Augustus. Two poets of the highest renown had indeed flourished in the republican period; but though endowed with lofty genius they are greatly inferior to their successors in sustained art, e.g. the constructions of prose still dominate unduly in the domain of verse, and the intricacies of rhythm are not fully mastered. On the other hand, prose has, in the Augustan age, lost somewhat of its breadth and vigour. Even the beautiful style of Livy shows traces of that intrusion of the poetic element which made such destructive inroads into the manner of the later prose writers. In this period the writers as a rule are not public men, but belong to what we should call the literary class. They wrote not for the public but for the select circle of educated men whose ranks were gradually narrowing their limits to the great injury of literature. If we ask which of the two sections of this period marks the most strictly national development, the answer must be—the Ciceronian; for while the advancement of any literature is more accurately tested by its prose writers than by its poets, this is specially the case with the Romans, whose genius was essentially prosaic. Attention now began to be bestowed on physical science, and the applied sciences also received systematic treatment. The rhetorical element, which had hitherto been overpowered by the oratorical, comes prominently forward; but it does not as yet predominate to a prejudicial extent.
The Third Period, though of long duration, has its chief characteristics clearly defined from the beginning. The foremost of these is unreality, arising from the extinction of freedom and consequent loss of interest in public life. At the same time, the Romans, being made for political activity, did not readily content themselves with the less exciting successes of literary life. The applause of the lecture-room was a poor substitute for the thunders of the assembly. Hence arose a declamatory tone, which strove by frigid and almost hysterical exaggeration to make up for the healthy stimulus afforded by daily contact with affairs. The vein of artificial rhetoric, antithesis, and epigram, which prevails from Lucan to Fronto, owes its origin to this forced contentment with an uncongenial sphere. With the decay of freedom, taste sank, and that so rapidly that Seneca and Lucan transgress nearly as much against its canons as writers two generations later. The flowers which had bloomed so delicately in the wreath of the Augustan poets, short-lived as fragrant, scatter their sweetness no more in the rank weed-grown garden of their successors.
The character of this and of each epoch will be dwelt on more at length as it comes before us for special consideration, as well as the social or religious phenomena which influenced the modes of thought or expression. The great mingling of nationalities in Rome during the Empire necessarily produced a corresponding divergence in style, if not in ideas. Nevertheless, although we can trace the national traits of a Lucan or a Martial underneath their Roman culture, the fusion of separate elements in the vast capital was so complete, or her influence so overpowering, that the general resemblance far outweighs the differences, and it is easy to discern the common features which signalise unmistakeably the writers of the Silver Age.
The question, Who were the earliest inhabitants of Italy? is one that cannot certainly be answered. That some lower race, analogous to those displaced in other parts of Europe [1] by the Celts and Teutons, existed in Italy at a remote period is indeed highly probable; but it has not been clearly demonstrated. At the dawn of the historic period, we find the Messapian and Iapygian races inhabiting the extreme south and south-west of Italy; and assuming, as we must, that their migrations had proceeded by land across the Apennines, we shall draw the inference that they had been gradually pushed by stronger immigrants into the furthest corner of the Peninsula. Thus we conclude with Mommsen that they are to be regarded as the historical aborigines of Italy. They form no part, however, of the Italian race. Weak and easily acted upon, they soon ceased to have any influence on the immigrant tribes, and within a few centuries they had all but disappeared as a separate nation. The Italian races, properly so called, who possessed the country at the time of the origin of Rome, are referable to two main groups, the Latin and the Umbrian. Of these, the Latin was numerically by far the smaller, and was at first confined within a narrow and somewhat isolated range of territory. The Umbrian stock, including the Samnite or Oscan, the Volscian and the Marsian, had a more extended area. At one time it possessed the district afterwards known as Etruria, as well as the Sabellian and Umbrian territories. Of the numerous dialects spoken by this race, two only are in some degree known to us (chiefly from inscriptions) the Umbrian and the Oscan. These show a close affinity with one another, and a decided, though more distant, relationship with the Latin. All three belong to a well-marked division of the Indo-European speech, to which the name of Italic is given. Its nearest congener is the Hellenic, the next most distant being the Celtic. The Hellenic and Italic may thus be called sister languages, the Celtic standing in the position of cousin to both, though, on the whole, more akin to the Italic. [2]
The Etruscan language is still a riddle to philologists, and until it is satisfactorily investigated the ethnological position of the people that spoke it must be a matter of dispute. The few words and forms which have been deciphered lend support to the otherwise more probable theory that they were an Indo-Germanic race only remotely allied to the Italians, in respect of whom they maintained to quite a late period many distinctive traits. [3] But though the Romans were long familiar with the literature and customs of Etruria, and adopted many Etruscan words into their language, neither of these causes influenced the literary development of the Romans in any appreciable degree. Italian philology and ethnology have been much complicated by reference to the Etruscan element. It is best to regard it, like the Iapygian, as altogether outside the pale of genuine Italic ethnography.
The main points of correspondence between the Italic dialects as a whole, by which they are distinguished from the Greek, are as follow:—Firstly, they all retain the spirants S, J (pronounced Y), and V, e.g. sub, vespera, janitrices, beside upo, espera, einateres. Again, the Italian u is nearer the original sound than the Greek. The Greeks sounded u like ii, and expressed the Latin u for the most part by ou. On the other hand the Italians lost the aspirated letters th, ph, ch, which remain in Greek, and frequently omitted the simple aspirate. They lost also the dual both in nouns and verbs, and all but a few fragmentary forms of the middle verb. In inflexion they retain the sign of the ablative (d), and, at least in Latin, the dat. plur. in bus. They express the passive by the letter r, a weakened form of the reflexive, the principle of which is reproduced in more than one of the Romance languages.
On the other hand, Latin differs from the other Italian dialects in numerous points. In pronouns and elsewhere Latin q becomes p in Umbrian and Oscan (pis = quis). Again, Oscan had two vowels more than Latin and was much more conservative of diphthongal sounds; it also used double consonants, which old Latin did not. The Oscan and Umbrian alphabets were taken from the Etruscan, the Latin from the Greek; hence the former lacked O Q X, and used [Symbol] or [Symbol] (san or soft z) for z (zeta = ds). They possessed the spirant F which they expressed by [Symbol] and used the symbol [Symbol] to denote V or W. They preserved the old genitive in as or ar (Lat. ai, ae) and the locative, both which were rarely found in Latin; also the Indo-European future in so (didest, herest) and the infin. in um (e.g. ezum = esse).
The old Latin alphabet was taken from the Dorian alphabet of Cumae, a colony from Chaleis, and consisted of twenty-one letters, A B C D E F Z H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X, to which the original added three more, O or [Symbol] (th), [Symbol] (ph), and [Symbol] (ch). These were retained in Latin as numerals though not as letters, [Symbol] in the form of C=100, [Symbol] or M as 1000, and [Symbol] or L as 50.
Of these letters Z fell out of use at an early period, its power being expressed by S (Saguntum = Zákunthos) or SS (massa = máza). Its rejection was followed by the introduction, of G. Plutarch ascribes this change to Sp. Carvilius about 231 B.C., but it is found on inscriptions nearly fifty years earlier. [4] In many words C was written for G down to a late period, e.g. CN. was the recognised abbreviation for Gnaeus.
In Cicero's time Z was taken into use again as well as the Greek Y, and the Greek combinations TH, PH, CH, chiefly for purposes of transliteration. The Emperor Claudius introduced three fresh symbols, two of which appear more or less frequently on monuments of his time. They are [Symbol] or [Symbol], the inverted digamma, intended to represent the consonantal V: [Symbol], or anti-sigma, to represent the Greek psi, and [Symbol] to represent the Greek upsilon with the sound of the French u or German ü. The second is not found in inscriptions.
Other innovations were the doubling of vowels to denote length, a device employed by the Oscans and introduced at Rome by the poet Accius, though Quintilian [5] implies that it was known before his time, and the doubling of consonants which was adopted from, the Greek by Ennius. In Greek, however, such doubling generally, though not always, has a philological justification. [6]
The pronounciation of Latin has recently been the subject of much discussion. It seems clear that the vowels did not differ greatly, if at all, from the same as pronounced by the modern Italians. The distinction between E and I, however, was less clearly marked, at least in the popular speech. Inscriptions and manuscripts afford abundant instances of their confusion. Menerva leber magester are mentioned by Quintilian, [7] and the employment of ei for the i of the dat. pl. of nouns of the second declension and of nobis vobis, and of e and i indifferently for the acc. pl. of nouns of the third declension, attest the similarity of sound. That the spirant J was in all cases pronounced as Y there is scarcely room for doubt. The pronunciation of V is still undetermined, though there is a great preponderance of evidence in favour of the W sound having been the original one. After the first century A.D. this semi-vowel began to develop into the labiodental consonant v, the intermediate stage being a labial v, such as one may often hear in South Germany at the present day, and which to ordinary ears would seem undistinguishable from w.
There is little to remark about the other letters, except that S, N, and M became very weak when final and were often entirely lost. S was rehabilitated in the literary dialect in the time of Cicero, who speaks of the omission to reckon it as subrusticum; but final M is always elided before a vowel. An illustration of the way in which final M and N were weakened may be found in the nasalised pronunciation of them in modern French (main, faim). The gutturals C and G have by some been supposed to have had from the first a soft sibilant sound before E and I; but from the silence of all the grammarians on the subject, from the transcriptions of C in Greek by kappa, not sigma or tau, and from the inscriptions and MSS. of the best ages not confusing CI with TI, we conclude that at any rate until 200 A.D. C and G were sounded hard before all vowels. The change operated quickly enough afterwards, and to a great extent through the influence of the Umbrian which had used d or ç before E and I for some time.
In spelling much irregularity prevailed, as must always be the case where there is no sound etymological theory on which to base it. In the earliest inscriptions we find many inconsistencies. The case-signs m, d, are sometimes retained, sometimes lost. In the second Scipionic epitaph we have oino (unum) side by side with Luciom. In the Columna Rostrata (260 B.C.) we have c for g, single instead of double consonants, et for it in ornavet, and o for u in terminations, all marks of ancient spelling, contrasted with maximos, maxumos; navebos, navebous; praeda, and other inconsistent or modern forms. Perhaps a later restoration may account for these. In the decree of Aemilius, posedisent and possidere are found. In the Lex Agraria we have pequnia and pecunia, in S. C. de Bacchanalibus, senatuos and nominus (gen. sing.), consoluerunt and cosoleretur, &c., showing that even in legal documents orthography was not fixed. It is the same in the MSS. of ancient authors. The oldest MSS. of Plautus, Lucretius, and Virgil, are consistent in a considerable number of forms with themselves and with each other, but vary in a still larger number. In antiquity, as at present, there was a conflict between sound and etymology. A word was pronounced in one way; science suggested that it ought to be written in another. This accounts for such variations as inperium, imperium; atque, adque; exspecto, expecto; and the like (cases like haud, haut; saxum, saxsum; are different). The best writers could not decide between these conflicting forms. A still greater fluctuation existed in English spelling in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, [8] but it has since been overcome. Great writers sometimes introduced spellings of their own. Caesar wrote Pompeiii (gen. sing.) for Pompeii, after the Oscan manner. He also brought the superlative simus into use. Augustus, following in his steps, paid great attention to orthography. His inscriptions are a valuable source of evidence for ascertaining the correctest spelling of the time. During and after the time of Claudius affected archaisms crept in, and the value both of inscriptions and MSS. is impaired, on the one hand, by the pedantic endeavour to bring spelling into accord with archaic use or etymology, and, on the other, by the increasing frequency of debased and provincial forms, which find place even in authoritative documents. In spite of the obscurity of the subject several principles of orthography have been definitely established, especially with regard to the older Latin, which will guide future editors. And the labours of Ritschl, Corssen, and many others, cannot fail to bring to light the most important laws of variability which have affected the spelling of Latin words, so far as the variation has not depended on mere caprice. [9]
With these preliminary remarks we may turn to the chief monuments of the old language, the difficulties and uncertainties of which have been greatly diminished by recent research. They are partly inscriptions (for the oldest period exclusively so), and partly public documents, preserved in the pages of antiquarians. Much may be learnt from the study of coins, which, though less ancient than some of the written literature, are often more archaic in their forms. The earliest of the existing remains is the song of the Arval Brothers, an old rustic priesthood (qui sacra publica faciunt propterea ut fruges ferant arva), [10] dating from the times of the kings. This fragment was discovered at Rome in 1778, on a tablet containing the acts of the sacred college, and was supposed to be as ancient as Romulus. The priesthood was a highly honourable office, its members were chosen for life, and emperors are mentioned among them. The yearly festival took place in May, when the fruits were ripe, and consisted in a kind of blessing of the first-fruits. The minute and primitive ritual was evidently preserved from very ancient times, and the hymn, though it has suffered in transliteration, is a good specimen of early Roman worship, the rubrical directions to the brethren being inseparably united with the invocation to the Lares and Mars. According to Mommsen's division of the lines, the words are—
ENOS, LASES, IUVATE, (ter)
NEVE LUE RUE, MARMAR, SINS (V. SERS) INCURRERE IN PLEORES. (ter)
SATUR FU, FERE MARS. LIMEN SALI. STA. BERBER. (ter)
SEMUNIS ALTERNEI ADVOCAPIT CONCTOS. (ter)
ENOS, MARMOR, IUVATO. (ter)
TRIUMPE. (Quinquies)
The great difference between this rude dialect and classical Latin is easily seen, and we can well imagine that this and the Salian hymn of Numa were all but unintelligible to those who recited them. [11] The most probable rendering is as follows:—"Help us, O Lares! and thou, Marmar, suffer not plague and ruin to attack our folk. Be satiate, O fierce Mars! Leap over the threshold. Halt! Now beat the ground. Call in alternate strain upon all the heroes. Help us, Marmor. Bound high in solemn measure." Each line was repeated thrice, the last word five times.
As regards the separate words, enos, which should perhaps be written e nos, contains the interjectional e, which elsewhere coalesces with vocatives. [12] Lases is the older form of Lares. Lue rue = luem ruem, the last an old word for ruinam, with the case-ending lost, as frequently, and the copula omitted, as in Patres Conscripti, &c. Marmar, Marmor, or Mamor, is the reduplicated form of Mars, seen in the Sabine Mamers. Sins is for sines, as advocapit for advocabitis. [13] Pleores is an ancient form of plures, answering to the Greek pleionas in form, and to tous pollous, "the mass of the people" in meaning. Fu is a shortened imperative. [14] Berber is for verbere, imper. of the old verbero, is, as triumpe from triumpere = triumphare. Semunes from semo (se-homo "apart from man") an inferior deity, as we see from the Sabine Semo Sancus (= Dius Fidius). Much of this interpretation is conjectural, and other views have been advanced with regard to nearly every word, but the above given is the most probable.
The next fragment is from the Salian hymn, quoted by Varro. [15] It appears to be incomplete. The words are:
"Cozeulodoizeso. Omnia vero adpatula coemisse iamcusianes duo misceruses dun ianusve vet pos melios eum recum…," and a little further on, "divum empta cante, divum deo supplicante."
The most probable transcription is:
"Chorauloedus ero; Omnia vero adpatula concepere Iani curiones. Bonus creator es. Bonus Janus vivit, quo meliorem regum [terra Saturnia vidit nullum]"; and of the second, "Deorum impetu canite, deorum deum suppliciter canite."
Here we observe the ancient letter z standing for s and that for r, also the word cerus masc. of ceres, connected with the root creare. Adpatula seems = clara. Other quotations from the Salian hymns occur in Festus and other late writers, but they are not considerable enough to justify our dwelling upon them. All of them will be found in Wordsworth's Fragments and Specimens of early Latin.
There are several fragments of laws said to belong to the regal period, but they have been so modernised as to be of but slight value for the purpose of philological illustration. One or two primitive forms, however, remain. In a law of Romulus, we read Si nurus … plorassit … sacra divis parendum estod, where the full form of the imperative occurs, the only instance in the whole range of the language. [16] A somewhat similar law, attributed to Numa, contains some interesting forms:
"Si parentem puer verberit asi ole plorasit, puer divis parentum
verberat? ille ploraverit diis
sacer esto."
Much more interesting are the scanty remains of the Laws of the Twelve Tables (451, 450 B.C.). It is true we do not possess the text in its original form. The great destruction of monuments by the Gauls probably extended to these important witnesses of national progress. Livy, indeed, tells us that they were recovered, but it was probably a copy that was found, and not the original brass tables, since we never hear of these latter being subsequently exhibited in the sight of the people. Their style is bold and often obscure, owing to the omission of distinctive pronouns, though doubtless this obscurity would be greatly lessened if we had the entire text. Connecting particles are also frequently omitted, and the interdependence of the moods is less developed than in any extant literary Latin. For instance, the imperative mood is used in all cases, permissive as well as jussive, Si nolet arceram ne sternito, "If he does not choose, he need not procure a covered car." The subjunctive is never used even in conditionals, but only in final clauses. Those which seem to be subjunctives are either present indicatives (e.g. escit, vindicit) or second futures (e.g. faxit, rupsit.). The ablative absolute, so strongly characteristic of classical Latin, is never found, or only in one doubtful instance. The word igitur occurs frequently in the sense of "after that," "in that case," a meaning which it has almost lost in the literary dialect. Some portion of each Table is extant. We subjoin an extract from the first.
"1. Si in ius vocat, ito. Ni it, antestamino: igitur em capito. Si calvitur antestetur postea eum frustratur
pedemve struit, manum endo iacito
iniicito
2. Rem ubi pacunt orato. Ni pacunt, in comitio aut in foro ante
pagunt (cf. pacisci)
meridiem caussam coiciunto. Com peroranto ambo praesentes.
Una
Post meridiem praesenti litem addicito. Si ambo praesentes, Sol occasus
suprema tempestas esto."
The difference between these fragments and the Latin of Plautus is really inconsiderable. But we have the testimony of Polybius [17] with regard to a treaty between Rome and Carthage formed soon after the Regifugium (509 B.C.), and therefore not much anterior to the Decemvirs, that the most learned Romans could scarcely understand it. We should infer from this that the language of the Twelve Tables, from being continually quoted to meet the exigencies of public life, was unconsciously moulded into a form intelligible to educated men; and that this process continued until the time when literary activity commenced. After that it remained untouched; and, in fact, the main portion of the laws as now preserved shows a strong resemblance to the Latin of the age of Livius, who introduced the written literature.
The next specimen will be the Columna Rostrata, or Column of Duillius. The original monument was erected to commemorate his naval victory over the Carthaginians, 260 B.C., but that which at present exists is a restoration of the time of Claudius. It has, however, been somewhat carelessly done, for several modernisms have crept into the language. But these are not sufficient to disprove its claim to be a true restoration of an ancient monument. To consider it a forgery is to disregard entirely the judgment of Quintilian, [18] who takes its genuineness for granted. It is in places imperfect—
"Secestanosque … opsidioned exemet, lecionesque Cartaciniensis omnis
maximosque macistratos luci palam post dies novem castreis exfociunt,
magistratus effugiunt
Macelamque opidom vi puenandod cepet. Enque eodem macistratud bene
rem navebos marid consol primos ceset, copiasque clasesque navales primos
gessit
ornavet paravetque. Cumque eis navebous claseis Poenicas omnis, item
maxumas copias Cartaciniensis, praesented Hanibaled dictatored olorom,
illorum
inaltod marid puenandod vicet. Vique navis cepet cum socieis septeresmom
in alto septiremem
unam, quinqueresmosque triresmosque naveis xxx: merset xiii. Aurom
mersit
captom numci [Symbols] DCC. arcentom captom praeda: numci CCCI[Symbols]
CCCI[Symbols]. Omne captom, aes CCCI[Symbols] (plus vicies semel). Primos
quoque navaled praedad poplom donavet primosque Cartaciniensis incenuos
ingenuos
duxit in triumpod."
We notice here C for G, ET for IT, O for V on the one hand: on the other, praeda where we should expect praida, besides the inconsistencies alluded to on p. 13.
The Mausoleum of the Scipios containing the epitaphs was discovered in 1780. The first of these inscriptions dates from 280 B.C. or twenty years earlier than the Columna Rostrata, and is the earliest original Roman philological antiquity of assignable date which we possess. But the other epitaphs on the Scipios advance to a later period, and it is convenient to arrange them all together. The earliest runs thus:—
"Cornéliús Lucíus, | Scípió Barbátus, Gnaivód patré prognátus | fórtis vír sapiénsque, quoiús formá vírtu | teí parísuma fúit, [19] consól censór aídílis | queí fuít apúd vos, Taurásia Cisaúna | Sámnió cépit subigít omné Loucánam | ópsidésque abdoúcit."
The next, the title of which is painted and the epitaph graven, refers to the son of Barbatus. Like the preceding, it is written in Saturnian verse:
"Honc oíno ploírumé co | séntiónt Romái duonóro óptumó fu | íse viró viróro Lucíom Scípióne. | Fíliós Barbáti consól censór aidílis | híc fuét apúd vos hec cépit Córsica 'Aleri | áque urbé pugnándod, dedét Témpestátebus | aíde méretod vótam."
The more archaic character of this inscription suggests the explanation that the first was originally painted, and not engraven till a later period, when, as in the case of the Columna Rostrata, some of its archaisms (probably the more unintelligible) were suppressed. In ordinary Latin it would be:
"Hunc unum plurimi consentiunt Romani (or Romae) bonorum optimum fuisse virum virorum, Lucium Scipionem. Filius (erat) Barbati, Consul, Censor. Aedilis hic fuit apud vos. Hic cepit Corsicam Aleriamque urbem pugnando; dedit tempestatibus aedem merito votam."
The third epitaph is on P. Corn. Scipio, probably son of the great
Africanus, and adopted father of Scipio Aemilianus:—
"Quei ápice insígne diális | fláminís gesístei mors pérfecít tua ut éssent | ómniá brévia honós famá virtúsque | glória átque ingénium: quibús sei in lónga lícui | sét tíbi útier víta facilé factís superásses | glóriám maiórum. quaré lubéns te in grémiu | Scípió récipit terrá, Publí, prognátum | Públió Cornéli."
The last which will be quoted here is that of L. Corn. Scipio, of uncertain date:
"Magná sapiéntiá mul | tásque vírtútes Aetáte quóm párva | póssidét hoc sáxsum, quoieí vitá defécit | nón honós honóre. Is híc sitús, qui núnquam | víctus ást virtúteí. Annós gnatús vigínti | ís Diteíst mandátus, ne quaíratís honóre | queí minus sít mandátus."
These last two are written in clear, intelligible Latin, the former showing in addition a genuine literary inspiration. Nevertheless, the student will perceive many signs of antiquity in the omission of the case- ending m, in the spellings gesistei, quom ( = cum. prep.) in the old long quantities omnia fama facile and the unique quairatis. There are no less than five other inscriptions in the Mausoleum, one of which concludes with four elegiac lines, but they can hardly be cited with justice among the memorials of the old language.
The Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus, or, as some scholars prefer to call it, Epistola Consulum ad Teuranos (186 B.C.), found at Terra di Teriolo, in Calabria, in 1640, is quite in its original state. It is easily intelligible, and except in orthography, scarcely differs from classical Latin. We subjoin it entire, as it is a very complete and important specimen of the language, and with it we shall close our list:—
"1. Q. Marcius L. f. S(p) Postumius L. f. cos senatum consoluerunt n. Oct-
2. ob. apud aedem | Duelonai. Sc. arf. M. Claudi(us) M. f.
Bellonae Scribendo adfuerunt
L. Valeri(us) P.f.Q. Minuci(us) C. f.—
3. De Bacanalibus quei foideratei | esent ita exdeicendum censuere.
4. Neiquis eorum Bacanal habuise velet. Sei ques | esent quei
vellet Si qui
sibei deicerent necesus ese Bacanal habere, eeis utei
5. ad pr(aetorem) urbanum | Romam venirent deque eeis rebus,
6. ubei eorum verba audita esent, utei senatus | noster decerneret, dum ne
minus Senatorbus C adesent, quom ea
adessent
7. res cosoleretur | Bacas vir nequis adiese velet ceivis Roma-
8. nus neve nominus Latini neve socium | quisquam, nisei
pr(aetorem) urbanum adiesent, isque de senatuos sententiad,
adiissent
9. dum ne | minus Senatoribus C adesent, quom ea res cosoleretur, iousiset.
Censuere. |
10. Sacerdos nequis vir eset. Magister neque vir neque mulier
11. quisquam eset. | Neve pecuniam quisquam eorum comoinem ha-
communem
12. buise velet, neve magistratum | neve pro magistratud, neque
13. virum neque mulierem quiquam fecise velet. | Neve posthac inter sed
coniourase
14. neve comvovise neve conspondise | neve compromesise velet, neve quis-
15. quam fidem inter sed dedise velet | Sacra in oquoltod ne quisquam
occulto
16. fecise velet, neve in poplicod neve in | preivatod neve exstrad urbem
17. sacra quisquam fecise velet,—nisei | pr(aetorem) urbanum adieset isque
18. de senatuos sententiad, dum ne minus | senatoribus C adesent, uom es
res cocoleretur, iousiset. Censuere.
19. Homines plous V oinversei virei atque mulieres sacra ne quisquam |
universi
20. fecise velet, neve inter ibei virei plous duobus mulieribus plous tri-
21. bus | arfuise velent, nisei de pr(aetoris) urbani senatuosque sententiad,
22. utei suprad | scriptam est.
23. Haice utei in coventionid exdeicatis ne minus trinum | noundinum
contione
24. senatuosque sententiam utei scientes esetis—eorum | sententia ita fuit:
25. Sei ques esent, quei arvorsum ead fecisent, quam suprad | scriptum
adversum ea
26. est, eeis rem caputalem faciendam censuere—atque utei | hoce in
27. tabolam abenam inceideretis, ita senatus aiquom censuit; | uteique eam
aequum
28. figier ioubeatis ubei facilumed gnoscier potisit;—atque | utei ea Ba-
29. canalia, sei qua sunt, exstrad quam sei quid ibei sacri est | ita utei
suprad scriptum est, in diebus x. quibus vobis tabelai datai
30. erunt, | faciatis utci dismota sient—in agro Teurano."
Tauriano
We notice that there are in this decree no doubled consonants, no ablatives without the final d (except the two last words, which are probably by a later hand), and few instances of ae or i for the older ai, ei; oi and ou stand as a rule for oe, u; ques, eeis, for qui, ii. On the other hand us has taken the place of os as the termination of Romanus, Postumius, &c., and generally u is put instead of the older o. The peculiarities of Latin syntax are here fully developed, and the language has become what we call classical. At this point literature commences, and a long succession of authors from Plautus onwards carry the history of the language to its completion; but it should be remembered that few of these authors wrote in what was really the speech of the people. In most cases a literature would be the best criterion of a language. In Latin it is otherwise. The popular speech could never have risen to the complexity of the language of Cicero and Sallust. This was an artificial tongue, based indeed on the colloquial idiom, but admitting many elements borrowed from the Greek. If we compare the language and syntax of Plautus, who was a genuine popular writer, with that of Cicero in his more difficult orations, the difference will at once be felt. And after the natural development of classical Latin was arrested (as it already was in the time of Augustus), the interval between the colloquial and literary dialects became more and more wide. The speeches of Cicero could never have been unintelligible even to the lowest section of the city crowd, but in the third and fourth centuries it is doubtful whether the common people understood at all the artificially preserved dialect to which literature still adhered. Unfortunately our materials for tracing the gradual decline of the spoken language are scanty. The researches of Mommsen, Ritschl, and others, have added considerably to their number. And from these we see that the old language of the early inscriptions was subjected to a twofold process of growth. On the one hand, it expanded into the literary dialect under the hands of the Graecising aristocracy; on the other, it ran its course as a popular idiom, little affected by the higher culture for several centuries until, after the decay of classical Latin, it reappears in the fifth century, strikingly reminding us in many points of the earliest infancy of the language. The lingua plebeia, vulgaris, or rustica, corrupted by the Gothic invasions, and by the native languages of the other parts of the empire which it only partially supplanted, became eventually distinguished from the Lingua Latina (which was at length cultivated, even by the learned, only in writing,) by the name of Lingua Romana. It accordingly differed in different countries. The purest specimens of the old Lingua Romana are supposed to exist in the mountains of Sardinia and in the country of the Grisons. In these dialects many of the most ancient formations were preserved, which, repudiated by the classical Latin, have reappeared in the Romance languages, bearing testimony to the inherent vitality of native idiom, even when left to work out its own development unaided by literature.
Examples of the corrupted dialect of the fifth and following centuries. [20]
1. An epitaph of the fifth century.
"Hic requiescit in pace domna
domina
Bonusa quix ann. xxxxxx et Domo
quae vixit Domino
Menna quixitannos … Eabeat anatema a Juda si quis alterum
qui vixit annos Habeat anathema
omine sup. me posuerit. Anatema abeas da trecenti decem et
hominem super habeas de trecentis
octo patriarche qui chanones esposuerunt et da s ca Xpi
patriarchis canones exposuerunt sanctis Christi
quatuor Eugvangelia"
Evangeliis
2. An instrument written in Spain under the government of the Moors in the year 742, a fragment of which is taken from Lanzi. The whole is given by P. Du Mesnil in his work on the doctrine of the Church.
"Non faciant suas missas misi portis cerratis: sin peiter seratis (minus) pendant
decem pesantes argenti. Monasterie quae sunto in eo mando … faciunt nummos Monasteriae faciant
Saracenis bona acolhensa sine vexatione neque forcia: vendant sine
vectigalia? vi
pecho tali pacto quod non vadant tributo foras de nostras terras."
nostris terris
3. The following is the oath of fealty taken by Lewis, King of Germany, in 842 A.D.
"Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poble et nostro comun salvament
Dei amore Christiano populo nostra communi salute
dist di enavant in quant
de isto die in posterum quantum
Dis saver et podirme dunat: si salverat eo cist meon fradre Karlo
Deus scire posse donet: sic (me) servet ei isti meo fratri Carolo
et in adjudha et in cadhuna cosa si cum om per
adjumento qualicunque caussa sic quomodo homo per
dreit son fradra salvar distino: quid il mi altre
rectum (=jure) suo fratri salvare destine: quod ille mihi ex altera (parte)
si fazet; et abludher nul plaid nunquam prendrai, qui
sic faciet; ab Lothario nullum consilium unquam accipiam, quod
meon vol cist meon fradra Karlo in damno sit."
mea voluntate isti meo fratri Carolo damnum
Mommsen has truly remarked that the culminating point of Roman development was the period which had no literature. Had the Roman people continued to move in the same lines as they did before coming in contact with the works of Greek genius, it is possible that they might have long remained without a literature. Or if they had wrought one out for themselves, it would no doubt have been very different from that which has come down to us. As it is, Roman literature forms a feature in human history quite without a parallel. We see a nation rich in patriotic feeling, in heroes legendary and historical, advancing step by step to the fullest solution then known to the world of the great problems of law and government, and finally rising by its virtues to the proud position of mistress of the nations, which yet had never found nor, apparently, even wanted, any intellectual expression of its life and growth, whether in the poet's inspired song or in the sober narrative of the historian.
The cause of this striking deficiency is to be sought in the original characteristics of the Latin race. The Latin character, as distinguished from the Greek, was eminently practical and unimaginative. It was marked by good sense, not by luxuriant fancy: it was "natum rebus agendis." The acute intellect of the Romans, directing itself from the first to questions of war and politics, obtained such a clear and comprehensive grasp of legal and political rights as, united with an unwavering tenacity of purpose, made them able to administer with profound intelligence their vast and heterogeneous empire. But in the meantime reflective thought had received no impulse.
The stern and somewhat narrow training which was the inheritance of the governing class necessarily confined their minds to the hard realities of life. Whatever poetical capacity the Romans may once have had was thus effectually checked. Those aspirations after an ideal beauty which most nations that have become great have embodied in "immortal verse"—if they ever existed in Rome—faded away before her greatness reached its meridian, only to be rekindled into a shadowy and reflected brightness when Rome herself had begun to decay.
There is nothing that so powerfully influences literature as the national religion. Poetry, with which in all ages literature begins, owes its impulse to the creations of the religious imagination. Such at least has been the case with those Aryan races who have been most largely endowed with the poetical gift. The religion of the Roman differed from that of the Greek in having no background of mythological fiction. For him there was no Olympus with its half-human denizens, no nymph-haunted fountain, no deified heroes, no lore of sacred bard to raise his thoughts into the realm of the ideal. His religion was cold and formal. Consisting partly of minute and tedious ceremonies, partly of transparent allegories whereby the abstractions of daily life were clothed with the names of gods, it possessed no power over his inner being. Conceptions such as Sowing (Saturnus), War (Bellona), Boundary (Terminus), Faithfulness (Fides), much as they might influence the moral and social feelings, could not be expanded into material for poetical inventions. And these and similar deities were the objects of his deepest reverence. The few traces that remained of the ancient nature-worship, unrelated to one another, lost their power of producing mythology. The Capitoline Jupiter never stood to the Romans in a true personal relation. Neither Mars nor Hercules (who were genuine Italian gods) was to Rome what Apollo was to Greece. Whatever poetic sentiment was felt centred rather in the city herself than in the deities who guarded her. Rome was the one name that roused enthusiasm; from first to last she was the true Supreme Deity, and her material aggrandisement was the never-exhausted theme of literary, as it had been the consistent goal of practical, effort.
The primitive culture of Latium, in spite of all that has been written about it, is still so little known, that it is hard to say whether there existed elements out of which a native art and literature might have been matured. But it is the opinion of the highest authorities that such elements did exist, though they never bore fruit. The yearly Roman festival with its solemn dance, [1] the masquerades in the popular carnival, [2] and the primitive litanies, afforded a basis for poetical growth almost identical with that which bore such rich fruit in Greece. It has been remarked that dancing formed a more important part of these ceremonies than song. This must originally have been the case in Greece also, as it is still in all primitive stages of culture. But whereas in Greece the artistic cultivation of the body preceded and led up to the higher conceptions of pure art, in Rome the neglect of the former may have had some influence in repressing the existence of the latter.
If the Romans had the germ of dramatic art in their yearly festivals, they had the germ of the epos in their lays upon distinguished warriors. But the heroic ballad never assumed the lofty proportions of its sister in Greece. Given up to women and boys it abdicated its claim to widespread influence, and remained as it had begun, strictly "gentile." The theory that in a complete state place should be found for the thinker and the poet as well as for the warrior and legislator, was unknown to ancient Rome. Her whole development was based on the negation of this theory. It was only when she could no longer enforce her own ideal that she admitted under the strongest protest the dignity of the intellectual calling. This will partly account for her singular indifference to historical study. With many qualifications for founding a great and original historical school, with continuous written records from an early date, with that personal experience of affairs without which the highest form of history cannot be written, the Romans yet allowed the golden opportunity to pass unused, and at last accepted a false conception of history from the contemporary Greeks, which irreparably injured the value of their greatest historical monuments. Had it been customary for the sober-minded men who contributed to make Roman history for more than three centuries, to leave simple commentaries for the instruction of after generations, the result would have been of incalculable value. For that such men were well qualified to give an exact account of facts is beyond doubt. But the exclusive importance attached to active life made them indifferent to such memorials, and they were content with the barren and meagre notices of the pontifical annals and the yearly registers of magistrates in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter.
These chronicles and registers on the one hand, and the hymns, laws, [3] and formulas of various kinds on the other, formed the only written literature existing in the times before the Punic wars. Besides these, there, were a few speeches, such as that of Ap. Claudius Caecus (280 B.C.) against Pyrrhus, published, and it is probable that the funeral orations of the great families were transmitted either orally or in writing from one generation to another, so as to serve both as materials for history and models of style.
Much importance has been assigned by Niebuhr and others to the ballad literature that clustered round the great names of Roman history. It is supposed to have formed a body of national poetry, the complete loss of which is explained by the success of the anti-national school of Ennius which superseded it. The subjects of this poetry were the patriots and heroes of old Rome, and the traditions of the republic and the struggles between the orders were faithfully reflected in it. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome are a brilliant reconstruction of what he conceived to be the spirit of this early literature. It was written, its supporters contend, in the native Saturnian, and, while strongly leavened with Greek ideas, was in no way copied from Greek models. It was not committed to writing, but lived in the memory of the people, and may still be found embedded in the beautiful legends which adorn the earlier books of Livy. Some idea of its scope may be formed from the fragments that remain of Naevius, who was the last of the old bards, and bewailed at his own death the extinction of Roman poetry. Select lays were sung at banquets either by youths of noble blood, or by the family bard; and if we possessed these lays, we should probably find in them a fresher and more genuine inspiration than in all the literature which followed.
This hypothesis of an early Roman epos analogous to the Homeric poems, but preserved in a less coherent shape, has met with a close investigation at the hands of scholars, but is almost universally regarded as "not proven." The scanty and obscure notices of the early poetry by no means warrant our drawing so wide an inference as the Niebuhrian theory demands. [4] All they prove is that the Roman aristocracy, like that of all other warlike peoples, listened to the praises of their class recited by minstrels during their banquets or festive assemblies. But so far from the minstrel being held in honour as in Greece and among the Scandinavian tribes, we are expressly told that he was in bad repute, being regarded as little better than a vagabond. [5] Furthermore, if these lays had possessed any merit, they would hardly have sunk into such complete oblivion among a people so conservative of all that was ancient. In the time of Horace Naevius was as well known as if he had been a modern; if, therefore, he was merely one, though, the most illustrious, of a long series of bards, it is inconceivable that his predecessors should have been absolutely unknown. Cicero, indeed, regrets the loss of these rude lays; but it is in the character of an antiquarian and a patriot that he speaks, and not of an appraiser of literary merit. The really imaginative and poetical halo which invests the early legends of Rome must not be attributed to individual genius, but partly to patriotic impulse working among a people for whom their city and her faithful defenders supplied the one material for thought, and partly, no doubt, though we know not in what degree, to early contact with the legends and culture of Greece. The epitaphs of the first two Scipios are a good criterion of the state of literary acquirement at the time. They are apparently uninfluenced by Greek models, and certainly do not present a high standard either of poetical thought or expression.
The fact, also, that the Romans possessed no native term for a poet is highly significant. Poeta, which we find as early as Naevius, [6] is Greek; and vates, which Zeuss [7] traces to a Celtic root, meant originally "soothsayer," not "poet." [8] Only in the Augustan period does it come into prominence as the nobler term, denoting that inspiration which is the gift of heaven and forms the peculiar privilege of genius. [9] The names current among the ancient Romans, librarius, scriba, were of a far less complimentary nature, and referred merely to the mechanical side of the art. [10] These considerations all tend to the conclusion that the true point from which to date the beginning of Roman literature is that assigned by Horace, [11] viz. the interval between the first and second Punic wars. It was then that the Romans first had leisure to contemplate the marvellous results of Greek culture, revealed to them by the capture of Tarentum (272 B.C.), and still more conspicuously by the annexation of Sicily in the war with Carthage. In Sicily, even more than in Magna Graecia, poetry and the arts had a splendid and enduring life. The long line of philosophers, dramatists, and historians was hardly yet extinct. Theocritus was still teaching his countrymen the new poetry of rustic life, and many of the inhabitants of the conquered provinces came to reside at Rome, and imported their arts and cultivation; and from this period the history of Roman poetry assumes a regular and connected form. [12]
Besides the scanty traces of written memorials, there were various elements in Roman civilisation which received a speedy development in the direction of literature and science as soon as Greek influence was brought to bear on them. These may be divided into three classes, viz. rudimentary dramatic performances, public speaking in the senate and forum, and the study of jurisprudence.
The capacity of the Italian nations for the drama is attested by the fact that three kinds of dramatic composition were cultivated in Rome, and if we add to these the semi-dramatic Fescenninae, we shall complete the list of that department of literature. This very primitive type of song took its rise in Etruria; it derives its name from Fescennium, an Etrurian town, though others connect it with fascinum, as if originally it were an attempt to avert the evil eye. [13] Horace traces the history of this rude banter from its source in the harvest field to its city developments of slander and abuse, [14] which needed the restraint of the law. Livy, in his sketch of the rise of Roman drama, [15] alludes to these verses as altogether unpolished, and for the most part extemporaneous. He agrees with Horace in describing them as taking the form of dialogue (alternis), but his account is meagre in the extreme. In process of time the Fescennines seem to have modified both their form and character. From being in alternate strains, they admitted a treatment as if uttered by a single speaker,—so at least we should infer from Macrobius's notice of the Fescennines sent by Augustus to Pollio, [16] which were either lines of extempore raillery, or short biting epigrams, like that of Catullus on Vatinius, [17] owing their title to the name solely to the pungency of their contents. In a general way they were restricted to weddings, and we have in the first Epithalamium of Catullus, [18] and some poems by Claudian, highly-refined specimens of this class of composition. The Fescennines owed their popularity to the light-hearted temper of the old Italians, and to a readiness at repartee which is still conspicuous at the present day in many parts of Italy.
With more of the dramatic element than the Fescennines, the Saturae appear to have early found a footing in Rome, though their history is difficult to trace. We gather from Livy [19] that they were acted on the stage as early as 359 B.C. Before this the boards had been occupied by Etruscan dancers, and possibly, though not certainly, by improvisers of Fescennine buffooneries; but soon after this date Saturae were performed by one or more actors to the accompaniment of the flute. The actors, it appears, sang as well as gesticulated, until the time of Livius, who set apart a singer for the interludes, while he himself only used his voice in the dialogue. The unrestrained and merry character of the Saturae fitted them for the after-pieces, which broke up the day's proceedings (exodium); but in later times, when tragedies were performed, this position was generally taken by the Atellana or the Mime. The name Satura (or Satira) is from lanx saturu, the medley or hodge-podge, "quae referta variis multisque primitiis in sacro apud priscos diis inferebatur." Mommsen supposes it to have been the "masque of the full men" (saturi), enacted at a popular festival, while others have connected it with the Greek Satyric Drama. In its dramatic form it disappears early from history, and assumes with Ennius a different character, which has clung to it ever since.
Besides these we have to notice the Mime and the Atellanae. The former corresponds roughly with our farce, though the pantomimic element is also present, and in the most recent period gained the ascendancy. Its true Latin name is Planipes (so Juvenal Planipedes audit Fabios [20] in allusion to the actor's entering the stage barefoot, no doubt for the better exhibition of his agility). Mimes must have existed from very remote times in Italy, but they did not come into prominence until the later days of the Republic, when Laberius and Syrus cultivated them with marked success. We therefore defer noticing them until our account of that period.
There still remain the fabulae Atellanae, so called from Atella, an Oscan town of Campania, and often mentioned as Osci Ludi. These were more honourable than the other kinds, inasmuch as they were performed by the young nobles, wearing masks, and giving the reins to their power of improvisation. Teuffel (L. L. § 9) considers the subjects to have been "comic descriptions of life in small towns, in which the chief personages gradually assumed a fixed character." In the period of which we are now treating, i.e. before the time of a written literature, they were exclusively in the hands of free-born citizens, and, to use Livy's expression, were not allowed to be polluted by professional actors. But this hindered their progress, and it was not until several centuries after their introduction, viz., in the time of Sulla, that they received literary treatment. They adopted the dialect of the common people, and were more or less popular in their character. More details will be given when we examine them in their completer form. All such parts of these early scenic entertainments as were not mere conversation or ribaldry, were probably composed in the Saturnian metre.
This ancient rhythm, the only one indigenous to Italy, presents some points worthy of discussion. The original application of the name is not agreed upon. Thompson says, "The term Saturnius seems to have possessed two distinct applications. In both of these, however, it simply meant 'as old as the days of Saturn,' and, like the Greek Ogugios, was a kind of proverbial expression for something antiquated. Hence (1) the rude rhythmical effusions, which contained the early Roman story, might be called Saturnian, not with reference to their metrical law, but to their antiquity; and (2) the term Saturnius was also applied to a definite measure on the principles of Greek prosody, though rudely and loosely moulded—the measure employed by Naevius, which soon became antiquated, when Ennius introduced the hexameter—and which is the metrum Saturnium recognised by the grammarians." [21] Whether this measure was of Italian origin, as Niebuhr and Macaulay think, or was introduced from Greece at an early period, it never attained to anything like Greek strictness of metrical rules. To scan a line of Livius or Naevius, in the strict sense of the word, is by no means an easy task, since there was not the same constancy of usage with regard to quantity as prevailed after Ennius, and the relative prominence of syllables was determined by accent, either natural or metrical. By natural accent is meant the higher or lower pitch of the voice, which rests on a particular syllable of each word e.g. Lúcius; by metrical accent the ictus or beat of the verse, which in the Greek rhythms implies a long quantity, but in the Saturnian measure has nothing to do with quantity. The principle underlying the structure of the measure is as follows. It is a succession of trochaic beats, six in all, preceded by a single syllable, as in the instance quoted by Macaulay:
"The | queén was ín her chámber eáting bréad and hóney,"
So in the Scipionic epitaph,
"Qui | bús si in lónga lícuisét tibi útier víta."
These are, doubtless, the purest form of the measure. In these there is no break, but an even continuous flow of trochaic rhythm. But even in the earliest examples of Saturnians there is a very strong tendency to form a break by making the third trochaic beat close a word, e.g.
"Cor | néliús Lucíus || Scípió Barbátus,"
and this structure prevailed, so that in the fragments of Livius and Naevius by far the greater number exhibit it.
When Greek patterns of versification were introduced, the Saturnian rhythm seems to have received a different explanation. It was considered as a compound of the iambic and trochaic systems. It might be described as an iambic hepthemimer followed by a trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic. The latter portion was preserved with something like regularity, but the former admitted many variations. The best example of this Graecised metre is the celebrated line—
"Dabunt malum Metelli | Naevio poetae."
If, however, we look into the existing fragments of Naevius and Livius, and compare them with the Scipionic epitaphs, we shall find that there is no appreciable difference in the rhythm; that whatever theory grammarians might adopt to explain it, the measure of these poets is the genuine trochaic beat, so natural to a primitive people, [22] and only so far elaborated as to have in most cases a pause after the first half of the line. The idea that the metre had prosodiacal laws, which, nevertheless, its greatest masters habitually violated, [23] is one that would never have been maintained had not the desire to systematise all Latin prosody on a Greek basis prevailed almost universally. The true theory of early Latin scansion is established beyond a doubt by the labours of Ritschl in regard to Plautus. This great scholar shows that, whereas after Ennius classic poetry was based on quantity alone, before him accent had at least as important a place; and, indeed, that in the determination of quantity, the main results in many cases were produced by the influence of accent.
Accent (Gr. prosodia) implied that the pronunciation of the accented syllable was on a higher or lower note than the rest of the word. It was therefore a musical, not a quantitative symbol. The rules for its position are briefly as follows. No words but monosyllables or contracted forms have the accent on the last; dissyllables are therefore always accented on the first, and polysyllables on the first or second, according as the penultimate is short or long, Lúcius, cecídi. At the same time, old Latin was burdened with a vast number of suffixes with a long final vowel. The result of the non-accentuation of the last syllable was a continual tendency to slur over and so shorten these suffixes. And this tendency was carried in later times to such an extent as to make the quantity of all final vowels after a short syllable bearing the accent indifferent. There were therefore two opposing considerations which met the poet in his capacity of versifier. There was the desire to retain the accent of every- day life, and so make his language easy and natural, and the desire to conform to the true quantity, and so make it strictly correct. In the early poets this struggle of opposing principles is clearly seen. Many apparent anomalies in versification are due to the influence of accent over-riding quantity, and many again to the preservation of the original quantity in spite of the accent. Ennius harmonised with great skill the claims of both, doing little more violence to the natural accent in his elaborate system of quantity than was done by the Saturnian and comic poets with their fluctuating usage. [24]
To apply these results to the Saturnian verses extant, let us select a few examples:
"Gnaivód patré prognátus | fórtis vír sapiénsque."
patre or patred retains its length by position, i.e. its metrical accent, against the natural accent pátre. In the case of syllables on which the ictus does not fall the quantity and accent are indifferent. They are always counted as short, two syllables may stand instead of one—
per liquidum máre sudántes | dítem véxárant.
or the unaccented syllable may be altogether omitted, as in the second half of the line—
"dítem véxárant."
In a line of Naevius—
"Runcús atqué Purpúreus | fílií térras."
we have in Purpúreus an instance of accent dominating over quantity. But the first two words, in which the ictus is at variance with both accent and quantity, show the loose character of the metre. An interesting table is given by Corssen proving that the variance between natural and metrical accent is greater in the Saturnian verses than in any others, and in Plautus than in subsequent poets, and in iambics than in trochaics. [25] We should infer from these facts (1) that the trochaic metre was the one most naturally suited to the Latin language; (2) that the progress in uniting quantity and accent, which went on in spite of the great inferiority of the poets, proves that the early poets did not understand the conditions of the problem which they had set before them. To follow out this subject into detail would be out of place here. The main point that concerns our present purpose is, that the great want of skill displayed in the construction of the Saturnian verse [26] shows the Romans to have been mere novices in the art of poetical composition.
The Romans, as a people, possessed a peculiar talent for public speaking. Their active interest in political life, their youthful training and the necessity of managing their own affairs at an age which in most countries would be wholly engrossed with boyish sports, all combined to make readiness of speech an almost universal acquirement. The weighty earnestness (gravitas) peculiar to the national character was nowhere more conspicuously displayed than in the impassioned and yet strictly practical discussions of the senate. Taught as boys to follow at their father's side, whether in the forum, at the law courts, in the senate at a great debate, or at home among his agricultural duties, they gained at an early age an insight into public business and a patient aptitude for work, combined with a power of manly and natural eloquence, which nothing but such daily familiarity could have bestowed. In the earlier centuries of Rome the power of speaking was acquired solely by practice. Eloquence was not reduced to the rules of an art, far less studied through manuals of rhetoric. The celebrated speech of Appius Claudius when, blind, aged, and infirm, he was borne in a litter to the senate-house, and by his burning words shamed the wavering fathers into an attitude worthy of their country, was the greatest memorial of this unstudied native eloquence. When Greek letters were introduced, oratory, like everything else, was profoundly influenced by them; and although it never, during the republican period, lost its national character, yet too much of mere display was undoubtedly mixed up with it, and the severe self-restraint of the native school disappeared, or was caricatured by antiquarian imitators. The great nurse of Roman eloquence was Freedom; when that was lost, eloquence sank, and while that existed, the mere lack of technical dexterity cannot have greatly abated from the real power of the speakers.
The subject which the Romans wrought out for themselves with the least assistance from Greek thought, was Jurisprudence. In this they surpassed not only the Greeks, but all nations ancient and modern. From the early formulae, mostly of a religious character, which existed in the regal period, until the publication of the Decemviral code, conservatism and progress went hand in hand. [27] After that epoch elementary legal knowledge began to be diffused, though the interpretation of the Twelve Tables was exclusively in the hands of the Patricians. But the limitation of the judicial power by the establishment of a fixed code, and the obligation of the magistrate to decide according to the written letter, naturally encouraged a keen study of the sources which in later times expanded into the splendid developments of Roman legal science. The first institution of the table of legis actiones, attributed to Appius Claudius (304 B.C.), must be considered as the commencement of judicial knowledge proper. The responsa prudentium, at the giving of which younger men were present as listeners, must have contributed to form a legal habit of thought among the citizens, and prepared a vast mass of material for the labours of the philosophic jurists of a later age.
But inasmuch as neither speeches nor legal decisions were generally committed to writing, except in the bare form of registers, we do not find that there was any growth of regular prose composition. The rule that prose is posterior to poetry holds good in Rome, in spite of the essentially prosaic character of the people. It has been already said that religious, legal, and other formulae were arranged in rhythmical fashion, so as to be known by the name of carmina. And conformably to this we see that the earliest composers of history, who are in point of time the first prose writers of Rome, did not write in Latin at all, but in Greek. The history of Latin prose begins with Cato. He gave it that peculiar colouring which it never afterwards entirely lost. Having now completed our preliminary remarks, we shall proceed to a more detailed account of the earliest writers whose names or works have come down to us.
It is not easy for us to realise the effect produced on the Romans by their first acquaintance with Greek civilisation. The debt incurred by English theology, philosophy, and music, to Germany, offers but a faint parallel. If we add to this our obligations to Italy for painting and sculpture, to France for mathematical science, popular comedy, and the culture of the salon, to the Jews for finance, and to other nations for those town amusements which we are so slow to invent for ourselves, we shall still not have exhausted or even adequately illustrated the multifarious influences shed on every department of Roman life by the newly transplanted genius of Hellas. It was not that she merely lent an impulse or gave a direction to elements already existing. She did this; but she did far more. She kindled into life by her fruitful contact a literature in prose and verse which flourished for centuries. She completely undermined the general belief in the state religion, substituting for it the fair creations of her finer fancy, or when she did not substitute, blending the two faiths together with sympathetic skill; she entwined herself round the earliest legends of Italy, and so moulded the historical aspirations of Rome that the great patrician came to pride himself on his own ancestral connection with Greece, and the descent of his founder from the race whom Greece had conquered. Her philosophers ruled the speculations, as her artists determined the aesthetics, of all Roman amateurs. Her physicians held for centuries the exclusive practice of scientific medicine; while in music, singing, dancing, to say nothing of the lighter or less reputable arts of ingratiation, her professors had no rivals. The great field of education, after the break up of the ancient system, was mainly in Greek hands; while her literature and language were so familiar to the educated Roman that in his moments of intensest feeling it was generally in some Greek apophthegm that he expressed the passion which moved him. [1]
It would, therefore, be scarcely too much to assert that in every field of thought (except that of law, where Rome remained strictly national) the Roman intellect was entirely under the ascendancy of the Greek. There are, of course, individual exceptions. Men like Cato, Varro, and in a later age perhaps Juvenal, could understand and digest Greek culture without thereby losing their peculiarly Roman ways of thought; but these patriots in literature, while rewarded with the highest praise, did not exert a proportionate influence on the development of the national mind. They remained like comets moving in eccentric orbs outside the regular and observed motion of the celestial system.
The strongly felt desire to know something about Greek literature must have produced within a few years a pioneer bold enough to make the attempt, if the accident of a schoolmaster needing text-books in the vernacular for his scholars had not brought it about. The man who thus first clothed Greek poetry in a Latin dress, and who was always gratefully remembered by the Romans in spite of his sorry performance of the task, was LIVIUS ANDRONICUS (285-204? B.C.), a Greek from Tarentum, brought to Rome 275 B.C., and made the slave probably of M. Livius Salinator. Having received his freedom, he set up a school, and for the benefit of his pupils translated the Odyssey into Saturnian verse. A few fragments of this version survive, but they are of no merit either from a poetical or a scholastic point of view, being at once bald and incorrect. [2] Cicero [3] speaks slightingly of his poems, as also does Horace, [4] from boyish experience of their contents. It is curious that productions so immature should have kept their position as text-books for near two centuries; the fact shows how conservative the Romans were in such matters.
Livius also translated tragedies from the Greek. We have the names of the Achilles, Aegisthus, Ajax, Andromeda, _Danae, Equus Trojanus, Tereus, Hermione. In this sphere also he seems to have written from a commendable motive, to supply the popular want of a legitimate drama. His first play was represented in 240 B.C. He himself followed the custom, universal in the early period, [5] of acting in his own dramas. In them he reproduced some of the simpler Greek metres, especially the trochaic; and Terentianus Maurus [6] gives from the Ino specimens of a curious experiment in metre, viz. the substitution of an iambus for a spondee in the last foot of a hexameter. As memorials of the old language these fragments present some interest; words like perbitere (= perire), anculabant ( =hauriebant), nefrendem (= infantem), dusmus (= dumosus), disappeared long before the classical period.
His plodding industry and laudable aims obtained him the respect of the people. He was not only selected by the Pontifices to write the poem on the victory of Sena (207 B.C.), [7] but was the means of acquiring for the class of poets a recognised position in the body corporate of the state. His name was handed down to later times as the first awakener of literary effort at Rome, but he hardly deserves to be ranked among the body of Roman authors. The impulse which he had communicated rapidly bore fruit. Dramatic literature was proved to be popular, and a poet soon arose who was fully capable of fixing its character in the lines which its after successful cultivation mainly pursued. CN. NAEVIUS, (269?-204 B.C.) a Campanian of Latin extraction and probably not a Roman citizen, had in his early manhood fought in the first Punic war. [8] At its conclusion he came to Rome and applied himself to literary work. He seems to have brought out his first play as early as 235 B.C. His work mainly consisted of translations from the Greek; he essayed both tragedy and comedy, but his genius inclined him to prefer the latter. Many of his comedies have Latin names, Dolus, Figulus, Nautae, &c. These, however, were not togatae but palliatae, [9] treated after the same manner as those of Plautus, with Greek costumes and surroundings. His original contribution to the stage was the Praetexta, or national historical drama, which thenceforth established itself as a legitimate, though rarely practised, branch of dramatic art. We have the names of two Praetextae by him, Clastidium and Romulus or Alimonium Romuli et Remi.
The style of his plays can only be roughly inferred from the few passages which time has spared us. That it was masculine and vigorous is clear; we should expect also to find from the remarks of Horace as well as from his great antiquity, considerable roughness. But on referring to the fragments we do not observe this. On the contrary, the style both in tragedy and comedy is simple, natural, and in good taste. It is certainly less laboured than that of Ennius, and though it lacks the racy flavour of Plautus, shows no inferiority to his in command of the resources of the language. [10] On the whole, we are inclined to justify the people in their admiration for him as a genuine exponent of the strong native humour of his day, which the refined poets of a later age could not appreciate.
Naevius did not only occupy himself with writing plays. He took a keen interest in politics, and brought himself into trouble by the freedom with which he lampooned some of the leading families. The Metelli, especially, were assailed by him, and it was probably through their resentment that he was sent to prison, where he solaced himself by composing two comedies. [11] Plautus, who was more cautious, and is by some thought to have had for Naevius some of the jealousy of a rival craftsman, alludes to this imprisonment [12]:—
"Nam os columnatum poetae esse indaudivi barbaro,
Quoi bini custodes semper totis horis accubant."
The poet, however, did not learn wisdom from experience. He lampooned the great Scipio in some spirited verses still extant, and doubtless made many others feel the shafts of his ridicule. But the censorship of literary opinion was very strict in Rome, and when he again fell under it, he was obliged to leave the city. He is said to have retired to Utica, where he spent the rest of his life and died (circ. 204 B.C.). It was probably there that he wrote the poem which gives him the chief interest for us, and the loss of which by the hand of time is deeply to be regretted. Debarred from the stage, he turned to his own military experience for a subject, and chose the first Punic war. He thus laid the foundation of the class of poetry known as the "National Epic," which received its final development in the hands of Virgil. The poem was written in Saturnian verse, perhaps from a patriotic motive; and was not divided into books until a century after the poet's death, when the grammarian Lampadio arranged it in seven books, assigning two to the mythical relations of Rome and Carthage, and the remainder to the history of the war. The narrative seems to have been vivid, truthful, and free from exaggerations of language. The legendary portion contained the story of Aeneas's visit to Carthage, which Virgil adopted, besides borrowing other single incidents. What fragments remain are not very interesting and do not enable us to pronounce any judgment. But Cicero's epithet "luculente scripsit" [13] is sufficient to show that he highly appreciated the poet's powers; and the popularity which he obtained in his life-time and for centuries after his death, attests his capacity of seizing the national modes of thought. He had a high opinion of himself; he held himself to be the champion of the old Italian school as opposed to the Graecising innovators. His epitaph is very characteristic: [14]
"Mortales immortales si foret fas flere,
Flerent Divae Camenae Naevium poetam.
Itaque postquamst Orcino traditus thesauro
Obliti sunt Romae loquier Latina lingua."
Before entering upon any criticism of the comic authors, it will be well to make a few remarks on the general characteristics of the Roman theatre. Theatrical structures at Rome resembled on the whole those of Greece, from which they were derived at first through the medium of Etruria, [1] but afterwards directly from the great theatres which Magna Graecia possessed in abundance. Unlike the Greek theatres, however, those at Rome were of wood not of stone, and were mere temporary erections, taken down immediately after being used. On scaffoldings of this kind the plays of Plautus and Terence were performed. Even during the last period of the Republic, wooden theatres were set up, sometimes on a scale of profuse expenditure little consistent with their duration. [2] An attempt was made to build a permanent stone theatre, 135 B.C., but it was defeated by the Consul Scipio Nasica. [3]
The credit of building the first such edifice is due to Pompey (55 B.C.), who caused it to have accommodation for 40,000 spectators. Vitruvius in his fifth book explains the ground-plan of such buildings. They were almost always on the same model, differing in material and size. On one occasion two whole theatres of wood, placed back to back, were made to turn on a pivot, and so being united, to form a single amphitheatre. [4] In construction, the Roman theatre differed from the Greek in reserving an arc not exceeding a semicircle for the spectators. The stage itself was large and raised not more than five feet. But the orchestra, instead of containing the chorus, was filled by senators, magistrates, and distinguished guests. [5] This made it easier for the Romans to dispense with a chorus altogether, which we find, as a rule, they did. The rest of the people sat or stood in the great semicircle behind that which formed the orchestra. The order in which they placed themselves was not fixed by law until the later years of the Republic, and again, with additional safeguards, in the reign of Augustus. [6] But it is reasonable to suppose that the rules of precedence were for the most part voluntarily observed.
It would appear that in the earliest theatres there were no tiers of seats (cunei), but merely a semicircle of sloping soil, banked up for the occasion (cavea) on which those who had brought seats sat down, while the rest stood or reclined. The stage itself is called pulpitum or proscaenium, and the decorated background scaena. Women and children were allowed to be present from the earliest period; slaves were not, [7] though it is probable that many came by the permission of their masters. The position of poets and actors was anything but reputable. The manager of the company was generally at best a freedman; and the remuneration given by the Aediles, if the piece was successful, was very small; if it failed, even that was withheld. The behaviour of the audience was certainly none of the best. Accustomed at all times to the enjoyment of the eye rather than the ear, the Romans were always impatient of mere dialogue. Thus Terence tells us that contemporary poets resorted to various devices to produce some novel spectacle, and he feels it necessary to explain why he himself furnishes nothing of the kind. Fair criticism could hardly be expected from so motley an assembly; hence Terence begs the people in each case to listen carefully to his play and then, and not till then, if they disapprove, to hiss it off the stage. [8] In the times of Plautus and Ennius the spectators were probably more discriminating; but the steady depravation of the spectacles furnished for their amusement contributed afterwards to brutalise them with fearful rapidity, until at the close of the Republican period dramatic exhibitions were thought nothing of in comparison with a wild-beast fight or a gladiatorial show.
At first, however, comedy was decidedly a favourite with the people, and for one tragic poet whose name has reached us there are at least five comedians. Of the three kinds of poetry cultivated in this early period, comedy, which, according to Quintilian [9] was the least successful, has been much the most fortunate. For whereas we have to form our opinion of Roman tragedy chiefly from the testimony of ancient authors, we can estimate the value of Roman comedy from the ample remains of its two greatest masters. The plays of Plautus are the most important for this purpose. Independently of their greater talent, they give a truer picture of Roman manners, and reflect more accurately the popular taste and level of culture. It is from them, therefore, that any general remarks on Roman comedy would naturally be illustrated.
Comedy, being based on the fluctuating circumstances of real life, lends itself more easily than tragedy to a change of form. Hence, while tragic art after once passing its prime slowly but steadily declines, comedy seems endued with greater vitality, and when politics and religion are closed to it, readily contents itself with the less ambitious sphere of manners. Thus, at Athens, Menander raised the new comedy to a celebrity little if at all inferior to the old; while the form of art which he created has retained its place in modern literature as perhaps the most enduring which the drama has assumed. In Rome there was far too little liberty of speech for the Aristophanic comedy to be possible. Outspoken attacks in public on the leading statesmen did not accord with the senatorial idea of government. Hence such poets as possessed a comic vein were driven to the only style which could be cultivated with impunity, viz. that of Philemon and Menander. But a difficulty met them at the outset. The broad allusions and rough fun of Aristophanes were much more intelligible to a Roman public than the refined criticism and quiet satire of Menander, even supposing the poet able to reproduce these. The author who aspired to please the public had this problem before him,—while taking the Middle and New Comedy of Athens for his model, to adapt them to the coarser requirements of Roman taste and the national rather than cosmopolitan feeling of a Roman audience, without drawing down the wrath of the government by imprudent political allusions.
It was the success with which Plautus fulfilled these conditions that makes him pre-eminently the comic poet of Rome; and which, though purists affected to depreciate him, [10] excited the admiration of such men as Cicero, [11] Varro, and Sisenna, and secured the uninterrupted representation of his plays until the fourth century of the Empire.
The life of Plautus, which extended from 254 to 184 B.C. presents little of interest. His name used to be written M. ACCIUS, but is now, on the authority of the Ambrosian MS. changed to T. MACCIUS PLAUTUS. He was by birth an Umbrian from Sassina, of free parents, but poor. We are told by Gellius [12] that he made a small fortune by stage decorating, but lost it by rash investment; he was then reduced to labouring for some years in a corn mill, but having employed his spare time in writing, he established a sufficient reputation to be able to devote the rest of his life to the pursuit of his art. He did not, however, form a high conception of his responsibility. The drudgery of manual labour and the hardships under which he had begun his literary career were unfavourable to the finer susceptibilities of an enthusiastic nature. So long as the spectators applauded he was satisfied. He was a prolific writer; 130 plays are attributed to him, but their genuineness was the subject of discussion from a very early period. Varro finally decided in favour of only 21, to which he added 19 more as probably genuine, the rest he pronounced uncertain. We may join him in regarding it as very probable that the plays falsely attributed to Plautus were productions of his own and the next generation, which for business reasons the managers allowed to pass under the title of "Plautine." Or, perhaps, Plautus may have given a few touches and the benefit of his great name to the plays of his less celebrated contemporaries, much as the great Italian painters used the services of their pupils to multiply their own works.
Of the 20 plays that we possess (the entire Varronian list, except the Vidularia, which was lost in the Middle Ages) all have the same general character, with the single exception of the Amphitruo. This is more of a burlesque than a comedy, and is full of humour. It is founded on the well- worn fable of Jupiter and Alcmena, and has been imitated by Molière and Dryden. Its source is uncertain; but it is probably from Archippus, a writer of the old comedy (415 B.C.). Its form suggests rather a development of the Satyric drama.
The remaining plays are based on real life; the real life that is pourtrayed by Menander, and by no means yet established in Rome, though soon to take root there with far more disastrous consequences the life of imbecile fathers made only to be duped, and spendthrift sons; of jealous husbands, and dull wives; of witty, cunning, and wholly unscrupulous slaves; of parasites, lost to all self-respect; of traffickers in vice of both sexes, sometimes cringing, sometimes threatening, but almost always outwitted by a duplicity superior to their own; of members of the demi- monde, whose beauty is only equalled by their shameless venality, though some of them enlist our sympathies by constancy in love, others by unmerited sufferings (which, however, always end happily); and, finally, of an array of cooks, go-betweens, confidantes, and nondescripts, who will do any thing for a dinner—a life, in short, that suggests a gloomy idea of the state into which the once manly and high-minded Athenians had sunk.
It may, however, be questioned whether Plautus did not exceed his models in licentiousness, as he certainly fell below them in elegance. The drama has always been found to exercise a decided influence on public morals; and at Rome, where there was no authoritative teaching on the subject, and no independent investigation of the foundations of moral truth, a series of brilliant plays, in which life was regarded as at best a dull affair, rendered tolerable by coarse pleasures, practical jokes, and gossip, and then only as long as the power of enjoyment lasts, can have had no good effect on the susceptible minds of the audience. The want of respect for age, again, so alien to old Roman feeling, was an element imported from the Greeks, to whom at all times the contemplation of old age presented the gloomiest associations. But it must have struck at the root of all Roman traditions to represent the aged father in any but a venerable light; and inimitable as Plautus is as a humourist, we cannot regard him as one who either elevates his own art, or in any way represents the nobler aspect of the Roman mind.
The conventional refinement with which Menander invested his characters, and which was so happily reproduced by Terence, was not attempted by Plautus. His excellence lies rather in the bold and natural flow of his dialogue, fuller, perhaps, of spicy humour and broad fun than of wit, but of humour and fun so lighthearted and spontaneous that the soberest reader is carried away by it. In the construction of his plots he shows no great originality, though often much ingenuity. Sometimes they are adopted without change, as that of the Trinummus from the Thaesauros of Philemon; sometimes they are patched together [13] from two or more Greek plays, as is probably the case with the Epidicus and Captivi; sometimes they are so slight as to amount to little more than a peg on which to hang the witty speeches of the dialogue, as, for example, those of the Persa and Curculio.
The Menaechmi and Trinummus are the best known of his plays; the former would be hard to parallel for effective humour: the point on which the plot turns, viz. the resemblance between two pairs of brothers, which causes one to be mistaken for the other, and so leads to many ludicrous scenes, is familiar to all readers of Shakespeare from the Comedy of Errors. Of those plays which border on the sentimental the best is the Captivi, which the poet himself recommends to the audience on the score of its good moral lesson, adding with truth—
"Huiusmodi paucas poetae reperiunt comoedias
Ubi boni meliores fiant."
We are told [14] that Plautus took the greatest pleasure in his Pseudolus, which was also the work of his old age. The Epidicus also must have been a favourite with him. There is an allusion to it in the Bacchides, [15] which shows that authors then were as much distressed by the incapacity of the actors as they are now.
"Non herus sed actor mihi cor odio sauciat.
Etiam Epidicum quam ego fabulum aeque ac me ipsum amo
Nullam aeque invitus specto, si agit Pellio."
The prologues prefixed to nearly all the plays are interesting from their fidelity to the Greek custom, whereas those of Terence are more personal, and so resemble the modern prologue. In the former we see the arch insinuating pleasantry of Plautus employed for the purpose of ingratiating himself with the spectators, a result which, we may be sure, he finds little difficulty in achieving. Among the other plays, the Poenulus possesses for the philologist this special attraction, that it contains a Phoenician passage, which, though rather carelessly transliterated, is the longest fragment we possess of that important Semitic language. [16] All the Plautine plays belong to the Palliatae, i.e. those of which the entire surroundings are Greek, the name being taken from the Pallium or Greek cloak worn by the actors. There was, however, in the Italian towns a species of comedy founded on Greek models but national in dress, manners, and tone, known as Comoedia Togata, of which Titinius was the greatest master. The Amphitruo is somewhat difficult to class; if, as has been suggested above, it be assigned to the old comedy, it will be a Palliata. If, as others think, it be rather a specimen of the Hilaro- tragodia [17] or Rhinthonica (so called from Rhinthon of Tarentum), it would form the only existing specimen of another class, called by the Greeks Italikae komodia. Horace speaks of Plautus as a follower of Epicharmus, and his plots were frequently taken from mythological subjects. With regard, however, to the other plays of Plautus, as well as those of Caecilius, Trabea, Licinius Imbrex, Luscius Lavinius, Terence and Turpilius, there is no ground for supposing that they departed from the regular treatment of palliatae. [18]
Plautus is a complete master of the Latin language in its more colloquial forms. Whatever he wishes to say he finds no difficulty in expressing without the least shadow of obscurity. His full, flowing style, his inexhaustible wealth of words, the pliancy which in his skilful hands is given to the comparatively rude instrument with which he works, are remarkable in the highest degree. In the invention of new words, and the fertility of his combinations, [19] he reminds us of Shakespeare, and far exceeds any other Latin author. But perhaps this faculty is not so much absent from subsequent writers as kept in check by them. They felt that Latin gained more by terse arrangement and exact fitness in the choice of existing terms, than by coining new ones after the Greek manner. Plautus represents a tendency, which, after him, steadily declines; Lucretius is more sparing of new compounds than Ennius, Virgil than Lucretius, and after Virgil the age of creating them had ceased.
It must strike every reader of Plautus, as worthy of note, that he assumes a certain knowledge of the Greek tongue on the part of his audience. Not only are many (chiefly commercial) terms directly imported from the Greek, as dica, tarpessita, logi, sycophantia, agoranomus, but a large number of Greek adjectives and adverbs are used, which it is impossible to suppose formed part of the general speech—e.g. thalassicus, euscheme, dulice, dapsilis: Greek puns are introduced, as "opus est Chryso Chrysalo" in the Bacchides; and in the Persa we have the following hybrid title of a supposed Persian grandee, "Vaniloquidorus Virginisvendonides Nugipolyloquides Argentiexterebronides Tedigniloquides Nummorumexpalpouides Quodsemelarripides Nunquamposteareddides!"
Nevertheless, Plautus never uses Greek words in the way so justly condemned by Horace, viz. to avoid the trouble of thinking out the proper Latin equivalent. He is as free from this bad habit as Cato himself: all his Graecisms, when not technical terms, have some humourous point; and, as far as we can judge, the good example set by him was followed by all his successors in the comic drama. Their superiority in this respect may be appreciated by comparing them with the extant fragments of Lucilius.
In his metres he follows the Greek systems, but somewhat loosely. His iambics admit spondees, &c. into all places but the last; but some of his plays show much more care than others: the Persa and Stichus being the least accurate, the Menaechmi peculiarly smooth and harmonious. The Trochaic tetrameter and the Cretic are also favourite rhythms; the former is well suited to the Latin language, its beat being much more easily distinguishable in a rapid dialogue than that of the Iambic. His metre is regulated partly by quantity, partly by accent; but his quantities do not vary as much as has been supposed. The irregularities consist chiefly of neglect of the laws of position, of final long vowels, of inflexional endings, and of double letters, which last, according to some grammarians, were not used until the time of Ennius. His Lyric metres are few, and very imperfectly elaborated. Those which he prefers are the Cretic and Bacchiac, though Dactylic and Choriambic systems are not wholly unknown. His works form a most valuable storehouse of old Latin words, idioms, and inflexions; and now that the most ancient MSS. have been scientifically studied, the true spelling of these forms has been re-established, and throws the greatest light on many important questions of philology. [20]
After Plautus the most distinguished writer of comedy was STATIUS CAECILIUS (219-166? B.C.), a native of Insubria, brought as a prisoner to Rome, and subsequently (we know not exactly when) manumitted. He began writing about 200 B.C., when Plautus was at the height of his fame. He was, doubtless, influenced (as indeed could not but be the case) by the prestige of so great a master; but, as soon as he had formed his own style, he seems to have carried out a treatment of the originals much more nearly resembling that of Terence. For while in Plautus some of the oddest incongruities arise from the continual intrusion of Roman law-terms and other everyday home associations into the Athenian agora or dicasteries, in Terence this effective but very inartistic source of humour is altogether discarded, and the comic result gained solely by the legitimate methods of incident, character, and dialogue. That this stricter practice was inaugurated by Caecilius is probable, both from the praise bestowed on him in spite of his deficiency in purity of Latin style by Cicero, [21] and also from the evident admiration felt for him by Terence. The prologue to the Hecyra proves (what we might have well supposed) that the earlier plays of such a poet had a severe struggle to achieve success. [22] The actor, Ambivius Turpio, a tried servant of the public, maintains that his own perseverance had a great deal to do with the final victory of Caecilius; and he apologises for bringing forward a play which had once been rejected, by his former success in similar circumstances. Horace implies that he maintained during the Augustan age the reputation of a dignified writer. [23] Of the thirty-nine titles of his plays, by far the larger number are Greek, though a few are Latin, or exist in both languages. Those of Plautus and Naevius, it will be observed, are almost entirely Latin. This practice of retaining the Greek title, indicating, as it probably does, a closer adherence to the Greek style, seems afterwards to have become the regular custom. In his later years Caecilius enjoyed great reputation, and seems to have been almost dictator of the Roman stage, if we may judge from the story given by Suetonius in his life of Terence. One evening, he tells us, as Caecilius was at dinner, the young poet called on him, and begged for his opinion on the Andria, which he had just composed. Unknown to fame and meanly dressed, he was bidden to seat himself on a bench and read his work. Scarcely had he read a few verses, when Caecilius, struck by the excellence of the style, invited his visitor to join him at table; and having listened to the rest of the play with admiration, at once pronounced a verdict in his favour. This anecdote, whatever be its pretensions to historical accuracy, represents, at all events, the conception entertained of Caecilius's position and influence as introducer of dramatic poets to the Roman public. The date of his death is uncertain: he seems not to have attained any great age.
The judgment of Caecilius on TERENCE was ratified by the people. When the Andria was first presented at the Megalesian games (166 B.C.) it was evident that a new epoch had arisen in Roman art. The contempt displayed in it for all popular methods of acquiring applause is scarcely less wonderful than the formed style and mature view of life apparent in the poet of twenty-one years.
It was received with favour, and though occasional failures afterwards occurred, chiefly through the jealousy of a rival poet, the dramatic career of Terence may, nevertheless, be pronounced as brilliantly successful as it was shortlived. His fame increased with each succeeding play, till at the time of his early death, he found himself at the head of his profession, and, in spite of petty rivalries, enjoying a reputation almost equal to that of Plautus himself.
The elegance and purity of his diction is the more remarkable as he was a Carthaginian by birth, and therefore spoke an idiom as diverse as can be conceived from the Latin in syntax, arrangement, and expression. He came as a boy to Rome, where he lived as the slave of the senator Terentius Lucanus, by whom he was well educated and soon given his freedom. The best known fact about him is his intimate friendship with Scipio Africanus the younger, Laelius, and Furius, who were reported to have helped him in the composition of his plays. This rumour the poet touches on with great skill, neither admitting nor denying its truth, but handling it in such a way as reflected no discredit on himself and could not fail to be acceptable to the great men who were his patrons. [24] We learn from Suetonius that the belief strengthened with time. To us it appears most improbable that anything important was contributed by these eminent men. They might have given hints, and perhaps suggested occasional expressions, but the temptation to bring their names forward seems sufficiently to account for the lines in question, since the poet gained rather than lost by so doing. It has, however, been supposed that Scipio and his friends, desiring to elevate the popular taste, really employed Terence to effect this for them, their own position as statesmen preventing their coming forward in person as labourers in literature; and it is clear that Terence has a very different object before him from that of Plautus. The latter cares only to please; the former is not satisfied unless he instructs. And he is conscious that this endeavour gains him undeserved obloquy. All his prologues speak of bitter opposition, misrepresentation, and dislike; but he refuses to lower his high conception of his art. The people must hear his plays with attention, throw away their prejudices, and pronounce impartially on his merits. [25] He has such confidence in his own view that he does not doubt of the issue. It is only a question of time, and if his contemporaries refuse to appreciate him, posterity will not fail to do so. This confidence was fully justified. Not only his friends but the public amply recognised his genius; and if men like Cicero, Horace, and Caesar, do not grant him the highest creative power, they at least speak with admiration of his cultivated taste. The criticism of Cicero is as discriminating as it is friendly: [26]
"Tu quoque, qui solus lecto sermone, Terenti,
Conversum espressumque Latina voce Menandrum
In medio populi sedatis vocibus effers;
Quidquid come loquens atque omnia dulcia dicens."
Caesar, in a better known epigram, [27] is somewhat less complimentary, but calls him puri sermonis amator ("a well of English undefiled"). Varro praises his commencement of the Andria above its original in Menander; and if this indicates national partisanship, it is at least a testimony to the poet's posthumous fame.
The modern character of Terence, as contrasted with Plautus, is less apparent in his language than in his sentiments. His Latin is substantially the same as that of Plautus, though he makes immeasurably fewer experiments with language. He never resorts to strange words, uncouth compounds, puns, or Graecisms for producing effect; [28] his diction is smooth and chaste, and even indelicate subjects are alluded to without any violation of the proprieties; indeed it is at first surprising that with so few appeals to the humourous instinct and so little witty dialogue, Terence's comic style should have received from the first such high commendation. The reason is to be found in the circumstances of the time. The higher spirits at Rome were beginning to comprehend the drift of Greek culture, its subtle mastery over the passions, its humanitarian character, its subversive influence. The protest against traditional exclusiveness begun by the great Scipio, and powerfully enforced by Ennius, was continued in a less heroic but not less effective manner by the younger Scipio and his friends Lucilius and Terence. All the plays of Terence are written with a purpose; and the purpose is the same which animated the political leaders of free thought. To base conduct upon reason rather than tradition, and paternal authority upon kindness rather than fear; [29] to give up the vain attempt to coerce youth into the narrow path of age; to grapple with life as a whole by making the best of each difficulty when it arises; to live in comfort by means of mutual concession and not to plague ourselves with unnecessary troubles: such are some of the principles indicated in those plays of Menander which Terence so skilfully adapted, and whose lessons he set before a younger and more vigorous people. The elucidation of these principles in the action of the play, and the corresponding interchange of thought naturally awakened in the dialogue and expressed with studied moderation, [30] form the charm of the Terentian drama. In the bolder elements of dramatic excellence it must be pronounced deficient. There is not Menander's many-sided knowledge of the world, nor the racy drollery of Plautus, nor the rich humour of Molière, nor the sparkling wit of Sheridan,—all is toned down with a severe self-restraint, creditable to the poet's sense of propriety, but injurious to comic effect. His characters also lack variety, though powerfully conceived. They are easily classified; indeed, Terence himself summarises them in his prologue to the Eanuchus, [31] and as a rule is true to the distinctions there laid down. Another defect is the great similarity of names. There is a Chremes in four plays who stands for an old man in three, for a youth in one; while the names Sostrata, Sophrona, Bacchis, Antipho, Hegio, Phaedria, Davus, and Dromo, all occur in more than one piece. Thus we lose that close association of a name with a character, which is a most important aid towards lively and definite recollection. The characters become not so much individuals as impersonations of social or domestic relationships, though drawn, it is true, with a life-like touch. This defect, which is shared to a great extent by Plautus, is doubtless due to the imitative nature of Latin comedy. Menander's characters were analysed and classified by the critics, and the translator felt bound to keep to the main outlines of his model. It is said that Terence was not satisfied with his delineation of Greek life, but that shortly before his death he started on a voyage to Greece, to acquaint himself at first hand with the manners he depicted. [32] This we can well believe, for even among Roman poets Terence is conspicuous for his striking realism. His scenes are fictitious, it is true, and his conversation is classical and refined, but both breathe the very spirit of real life. There is, at least, nothing either ideal or imaginative about them. The remark of Horace [33] that "Pomponius would have to listen to rebukes like those of Demea if his father were living; that if you broke up the elegant rhythmical language you would find only what every angry parent would say under the same circumstances," is perfectly just, and constitutes one of the chief excellences of Terence,—one which has made him, like Horace, a favourite with experienced men of the world.
Terence as a rule does not base his play upon a single Greek original, but levies contributions from two or more, and exercises his talent in harmonising the different elements. This process is known as contamination; a word that first occurs in the prologue to the Andria, and indicates an important and useful principle in imitative dramatic literature. The ground for this innovation is given by W. Wagner as the need felt by a Roman audience for a quick succession of action, and their impatience of those subtle dialogues which the Greeks had so much admired, and which in most Greek plays occupy a somewhat disproportionate length. The dramas in which "contamination" is most successfully used are, the Eunuchus, Andria, and Adelphoe; the last-mentioned being the only instance in which the two models are by different authors, viz. the Adelphoi of Menander and the Synapothnaeskontes of Diphilus. So far as the metre and language went, Terence seems to have followed the Greek much more closely than Plautus, as was to be expected from his smaller inventive power. Quintilian, in commending him, expresses a wish that he had confined himself to the trimeter iambic rhythm. To us this criticism is somewhat obscure. Did the Romans require a more forcible style when the long iambic or the trochaic was employed? or is it the weakness of his metrical treatment that Quintilian complains of? Certainly the trochaics of Terence are less clearly marked in their rhythm than those of Ennius or Plautus.
Terence makes no allusion by name to any of his contemporaries; [34] but a line in the Andria [35] is generally supposed to refer to Caecilius, and to indicate his friendly feeling, somewhat as Virgil indicates his admiration for Ennius in the opening of the third Georgic. [36] And the "vetus poeta," (Luscius Lavinius) or "quidam malevoli," are alluded to in all the prologues as trying to injure his fame. His first play was produced in the year that Caecilius died, 166 B.C.; the Hecyra next year; the Hauton Timorumenos in 163; the Eunuchus and Phormio in 161; the Adelphoe in 160; and in the following year the poet died at the age of twenty-six, while sailing round the coast of Greece. The maturity of mind shown by so young a man is very remarkable. It must be remembered that he belonged to a race whose faculties developed earlier than among the Romans, that he had been a slave, and was therefore familiar with more than one aspect of life, and that he had enjoyed the society of the greatest in Rome, who reflected profoundly on social and political questions. His influence, though imperfectly exercised in his lifetime, increased after his death, not so much through the representation as the reading of his plays. His language became one of the chief standards of classical Latin, and is regarded by Mr. Munro as standing on the very highest level—the same as that of Cicero, Caesar, and Lucretius. His moral character was assailed soon after his death by Porcius Licinius, but probably without good grounds. More might be said against the morality of his plays—the morality of accommodation, as it is called by Mommsen. There is no strong grasp of the moral principle, but decency and propriety should be respected; if an error has been committed, the best way is, if possible, to find out that it was no error after all, or at least to treat it as such. In no point does ancient comedy stand further apart from modern ideas than in its view of married life; the wile is invariably the dull legal partner, love for whom is hardly thought of, while the sentiment of love (if indeed it be worthy of the name) is reserved for the Bacchis and Thais, who, in the most popular plays turn out to be Attic citizens, and so are finally united to the fortunate lover.
But defective and erroneous as these views are, we must not suppose that Terence tries to make vice attractive. On the contrary, he distinctly says that it is useful to know things as they really are for the purpose of learning to choose the good and reject the evil. [37] Moreover, his lover is never a mere profligate, but proves the reality of his affection for the victim of his wrong-doing by his readiness and anxiety in all cases to become her husband.
Terence has suggested many modern subjects. The Eunuchus is reflected in the Bellamira of Sir Charles Sedley and Le Muet of Brueys; the Adelphi in Molière's Ecole des Maris and Baron's L'Ecole des Pères; and the Phormio in Molière's Les Fourberies de Scapin.
We need do no more than just notice the names of LUSCIUS LAVINIUS, [38] the older rival and detractor of Terence; ATILIUS, whose style is characterised by Cicero [39] as extremely harsh; TRABEA, who, like ATILIUS, was a contemporary of Caecilius, and LICINIUS IMBREX, who belonged to the older generation; TURPILIUS, JUVENTIUS, and VALERIUS, [40] who lived to a considerably later period. The former died as late as 103 B.C., having thus quite outlived the productiveness of the legitimate dramatic art. He seems to have been livelier and more popular in his diction than Terence; it is to be regretted that so little of him remains.
The earliest cultivation of the national comedy (togata) [41] seems to date from after the death of Terence. Its first representative is TITINIUS, about whom we know little or nothing, except that he based his plays on the Attic comedy, changing, however, the scene and the costumes. The pieces, according to Mommsen, were laid in Southern Latium, e.g. Setia, Ferentinum, or Velitrae, and delineated with peculiar freshness the life of these busy little towns. The titles of his comedies are—Coccus, Fullones, Hortensius, Quintius, Varus, Gemina, Iurisperita, Prilia, Privigna, Psaltria, Setina, Tibicina, Velitema, Ulubrana. From these we should infer that his peculiar excellence lay in satirizing the weaknesses of the other sex. As we have before implied, this type of comedy originally arose in the country towns and maintained a certain antagonism with the Graecized comedy of Rome. In a few years, however, we find it established in the city, under T. QUINTIUS ATTA and L. AFRANIUS. Of the former little is known; of the latter we know that he was esteemed the chief poet of togatae, and long retained his hold on the public. Quintilian [42] recognises his talent, but condemns the morality of his plays. Horace speaks of him as wearing a gown which would have fitted Menander, but this is popular estimation, not his own judgment. Nevertheless, we may safely assert that the comedies of Afranius and Titinius, though often grossly indecent, had a thoroughly rich vein of native humour, which would have made them very valuable indications of the average popular culture of their day.
As the Italian talent for impromptu buffoonery might perhaps have in time created a genuine native comedy, so the powerful and earnest rhetoric in which the deeper feelings of the Roman always found expression, might have assumed the tragic garb and woven itself into happy and original alliance with the dramatic instinct. But what actually happened was different. Tragedy, as well as comedy, took its subjects from the Greek; but though comedy had the advantage of a far greater popularity, and also of a partially native origin, there is reason to believe that tragedy came the nearer of the two to a really national form of art. In the fullest and noblest sense of the word Rome had indeed no national drama; for a drama, to be truly representative, must be based on the deepest chords of patriotic and even religious feeling. And that golden age of a people's history when Patriotism and Religion are still wedded together, seeming but varying reflections from the mirror of national life, is the most favourable of all to the birth of dramatic art. In Greece this was pre- eminently the case. The spirit of patriotism is ever present—rarely, indeed, suggesting, as in the Persae of Aeschylus, the subject of the play, but always supplying a rich background of common sympathy where poet and people can feel and rejoice together. Still more, if possible, is the religious spirit present, as the animating influence which gives the drama its interest and its vitality. The great moral and spiritual questions which occupy the soul of man, in each play or series of plays, try to work out their own solution by the natural human action of the characters, and by those reflections on the part of the chorus to which the action naturally gives rise. But with the transplanted tragedy of the Romans this could no longer be the case. The religious ideas which spoke straight to the Athenian's heart, spoke only to the acquired learning of the Roman. The idea of man, himself free, struggling with a destiny which he could not comprehend or avert, is foreign to the Roman conception of life. As Schlegel has observed, a truly Roman tragic drama would have found an altogether different basis. The binding force of "Religio," constraining the individual to surrender himself for the good of the Supreme State, and realising itself in acts of patriotic self-devotion; such would have been the shape we should have expected Roman tragedy to take, and if it failed to do this, we should not expect it in other respects to be a great success.
The strong appreciation which, notwithstanding its initial defects, tragedy did meet with and retain for many generations, is a striking testimony to the worth and talent of the men who introduced it. Their position as elevators of the popular taste was not the less real because they themselves were men of provincial birth, and only partially polished minds. Both in the selection of their models and in the freedom of treating them they showed that good sense which was characteristic of the nation. As a rule, instead of trying to familiarise the people with Aeschylus and Sophocles, poets who are essentially Athenian, they generally chose the freethinking and cosmopolitan Euripides, who was easily intelligible, and whose beauties did not seem so entirely to defy imitation. What Euripides was to Greek tragedy Menander was to comedy. Both denationalised their respective fields of poetry; both thereby acquired a vast ascendancy over the Roman mind, ready as it was to be taught, and only awaiting a teacher whose views it could understand. Now although Livius actually introduced, and Naevius continued, the translation of tragedies from the Greek, it was Ennius who first rendered them with a definitely conceived purpose. This purpose was—to raise the aesthetic sense of his countrymen, to set before them examples of heroic virtue, and, above all, to enlighten their minds with what he considered rational views on subjects of morals and and religion; though, after all, the fatal facility with which the sceptical theories of Euripides were disseminated and embraced was hardly atoned for by the gain to culture which undoubtedly resulted from the tragedian's labours. Mommsen says with truth that the stage is in its essence anti-Roman, just as culture itself is anti-Roman; the one because it consumes time and interest on things that interfere with the serious business of life, the other because it creates degrees of intellectual position where the constitution intended that all should be alike. But amid the vast change that came over the Roman habits of thought, which men like Cato saw, resisted, and bewailed, it mattered little whether old traditions were violated. The stage at once became a powerful engine of popular education; and it rested with the poet to decide whether it should elevate or degrade. Political interests, it is true, were carefully guarded. The police system, with which senatorial narrowness environed the stage as it did all corporations or voluntary societies, rigidly repressed and made penal anything like liberty of speech. But it was none the less possible to inculcate the stern Roman virtues beneath the mask of an Ajax or Ulysses; and Sellar has brought out with singular clearness in his work on the poets of the Republic the national features which are stamped on this early tragedy, making it in spite of its imperfections worthy of the great Republic.
The oratorical mould in which all Latin poetry except satire and comedy is to a great extent cast, is visible from the beginning in tragedy. Weighty sentences follow one another until the moral effect is reached, or the description fully turned. The rhythm seems to have been much more often trochaic [1] than iambic, at least than trimeter iambic, for the tetrameter is more frequently employed. This is not to be wondered at, since even in comedy, where such high-flown cadences are out of place, the people liked to hear them, measuring excellence by stateliness of march rather than propriety of diction.
The popular demand for grandiloquence ENNIUS (209-169 B.C.) was well able to satisfy, for he had a decided leaning to it himself, and great skill in attaining it. Moreover he had a vivid power of reproducing the original emotion of another. That reflected fervour which draws passion, not direct from nature, but from nature as mirrored in a great work of art, stamps Ennius as a genuine Roman in talent, while it removes him from the list of creative poets. The chief sphere of his influence was epic poetry, but in tragedy he founded a school which only closed when the drama itself was silenced by the bloody massacres of the civil wars. Born at Rudiae in Calabria, and so half Greek, half Oscan, he served while a young man in Sardinia, where he rose to the rank of centurion, and was soon after brought to Rome by Cato. There is something striking in the stern reactionist thus introducing to Rome the man who was more instrumental than any other in overthrowing his hopes and fixing the new culture beyond possibility of recall. When settled at Rome, Ennius gained a living by teaching Greek, and translating plays for the stage. He also wrote miscellaneous poems, and among them a panegyric on Scipio which brought him into favourable notice. His fame must have been established before B.C. 189, for in that year Fulvius Nobilior took him into Aetolia to celebrate his deeds a proceeding which Cato strongly but ineffectually impugned. In 184 B.C., the Roman citizenship was conferred on him. He alluded to this with pride in his annals—
"Nos sumus Romani qui fuvimus ante Rudini."
During the last twenty years of his life his friendship with Scipio and Fulvius must have ensured him respect and sympathy as well as freedom from distasteful labour. But he was never in affluent circumstances; [2] partly through his own fault, for he was a free liver, as Horace tells us [3]—
"Ennius ipse pater nunquam nisi potus ad arma
Prosiluit dicenda;"
and he himself alludes to his lazy habits, saying that he never wrote poetry unless confined to the house by gout. [4] He died in the seventieth year of his age and was buried in the tomb of the Scipios, where a marble statue of him stood between those of P. and L. Scipio.
Ennius is not merely "the Father of Roman Poetry;" he held also as a man a peculiar and influential position, which we cannot appreciate, without connecting him with his patron and friend, the great Scipio Africanus. Nearly of an age, united by common tastes and a common spiritual enthusiasm, these two distinguished men wrought together for a common object. Their familiarity with Greek culture and knowledge of Greek religious ideas seem to have filled both with a high sense of their position as teachers of their countrymen. Scipio drew around him a circle of aristocratic liberals. Ennius appealed rather to the people at large. The policy of the elder Scipio was continued by his adopted son with far less breadth of view, but with more refined taste, and more concentrated effort. Where Africanus would have sought his inspiration from the poetry, Aemilianus went rather to the philosophy, of Greece; he was altogether of a colder temperament, just as his literary friends Terence and Lucilius were by nature less ardent than Ennius. Between them they laid the foundation of that broader conception of civilisation which is expressed by the significant word humanitas, and which had borne its intellectual fruit when the whole people raised a shout of applause at the line in the Hautontimorumenos—
"Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto."
This conception, trite as it seems to us, was by no means so when it was thus proclaimed: if philosophers had understood it (apas anthropos anthropo oikeion kai philon.—Ar. Eth. N. lib. 9), they had never made it a principle of action; and the teachers who had caused even the uneducated Roman populace to recognise its speculative truth must be allowed to have achieved something great. Some historians of Rome have seen in this attitude a decline from old Roman exclusiveness, almost a treasonable conspiracy against the Roman idea of the State. Hence they have regarded Ennius with something of that disfavour which Cato in his patriotic zeal evinced for him. The justification of the poet's course, if it is to be sustained at all, must be sought in the necessity for an expansion of national views to meet the exigences of an increasing foreign empire. External coercion might for a time suffice to keep divergent nationalities together; but the only durable power would be one founded on sympathy with the subject peoples on the broad ground of a common humanity. And for this the poet and his patron bore witness with a consistent and solemn, though often irreverent, earnestness. Ennius had early in life shown a tendency towards the mystic speculations of Pythagoreanism: traces of it are seen in his assertion that the soul of Homer had migrated into him through a peacock, [5] and that he had three souls because he knew three languages; [6] while the satirical notice of Horace seems to imply that he, like Scipio, regarded himself as specially favoured of heaven—
"Leviter curare videtur
Quo promissa caadant et somnia Pythagorea." [7]
At the same time he studied the Epicurean system, and in particular, the doctrines of Euhemerus, whose work on the origin of the gods he translated. His denial of Divine Providence is well known [8]—
"Ego deum genus esse dixi et dicam semper caelitum:
Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat humanum genus.
Nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis, quod nunc abest."
Of these two inconsistent points of view, the second, as we should expect in a nature so little mystical, finally prevailed, so that Ennius may well be considered the preacher of scepticism or the bold impugner of popular superstition according to the point of view which we assume. In addition to these philosophic aspirations he had a strong desire to reach artistic perfection, and to be the herald of a new literary epoch. Conscious of his success and proud of the power he wielded over the minds of the people, he alludes more than once to his performances in a self-congratulatory strain—
"Enni poeta salve, qui mortalibus
Versus propinas flammeos medullitus."
"Hail! poet Ennius, who pledgest mankind in verses fiery to the heart's core." And with even higher confidence in his epitaph—
"Aspicite, o cives, senis Enni imagini' formam:
Hic vostrum panxit maxima faeta patrum.
Nemo me lacrimis decoret nec funera fletu
Faxit. Cur? volito vivu' per ora virum."
We shall illustrate the above remarks by quoting one or two passages from the fragments of his tragedies, which, it is true, are now easily accessible to the general reader, but nevertheless will not be out of place in a manual like the present, which is intended to lead the student to study historically for himself the progress of the literature. The first is a dialogue between Hecuba and Cassandra, from the Alexander. Cassandra feels the prophetic impulse coming over her, the symptoms of which her mother notices with alarm:
"HEC.
"Sed quid oculis rabere visa es derepente ar dentibus?
Ubi tua illa paulo ante sapiens virginali' modestia?
CAS.
Mater optumarum multo mulier melior mulierum,
Missa sum superstitiosis ariolationibus.
Namque Apollo fatis fandis dementem invitam ciret:
Virgines aequales vereor, patris mei meum factmn pudet,
Optimi viri. Mea mater, tui me miseret, me piget:
Optumam progeniem Priamo peperisti extra me: hoc dolet:
Men obesse, illos prodesse, me obstare, illos obsequi!"
She then sees the vision—
* * * * *
"Adest adest fax obvoluta sanguine atque incendio!
Multos annos latuit: cives ferte opem et restinguite!
Iamque mari magno classis cita
Texitur: exitium examen rapit:
Advenit, et fera velivolantibus
Navibus complebit manus litora."
This is noble poetry. Another passage from the Telamo is as follows:—
"Sed superstitiosi vates impudentesque arioli,
Aut inertes aut insani aut quibus egestas imperat,
Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam,
Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab eis drachumam ipsi petunt.
De his divitiis sibi deducant drachumam, reddant cetera."
Here he shows, like so many of his countrymen, a strong vein of satire. The metre is trochaic, scanned, like these of Plautus and Terence, by accent as much as by quantity, and noticeable for the careless way in which whole syllables are slurred over. In the former fragment the fourth line must be scanned—
___ ___ ____ "Vírgi | nés ae | qúales | vércor | pátris mei | meúm fac | túm pudet."
Horace mentions the ponderous weight of his iambic lines, which were loaded with spondees. The anapaestic measure, of which he was a master, has an impetuous swing that carries the reader away, and, while producing a different effect from its Greek equivalent, in capacity is not much inferior to it. Many of his phrases and metrical terms are imitated in Virgil, though such imitation is much more frequently drawn from his hexameter poems. He wrote one Praetexta and several comedies, but these latter were uncongenial to his temperament, and by no means successful. He had little or no humour. His poetical genius was earnest rather than powerful; probably he had less than either Naevius or Plautus; but his higher cultivation, his serious view of his art, and the consistent pursuit of a well-conceived aim, placed him on a dramatic level nearly as high as Plautus in the opinion of the Ciceronian critics. His literary influence will be more fully discussed under his epic poems.
His sister's son PACUVIUS (220-132 B.C.), next claims our attention. This celebrated tragedian, on whom the complimentary epithet doctus [9] was by general consent bestowed, was brought up at Brundisium, where amid congenial influences he practised with success the art of a painter. At what time he came to Rome is not known, but he gained great renown there by his paintings before attaining the position of chief tragic poet. Pliny tells us of a picture in the Temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium, which was considered as only second to that of Fabius Pictor. With the enthusiasm of the poet he united that genial breadth of temper which among artists seems peculiarly the painter's gift. Happy in his twofold career (for he continued to paint as well as to write), [10] free from jealousy as from want, successful as a poet and as a man, he lived at Rome until his eightieth year, the friend of Laelius and of his younger rival Accius, and retired soon after to his native city where he received the visits of younger writers, and died at the great age of eighty-eight (132 B.C.). His long career was not productive of a large number of works. We know of but twelve tragedies and one praetexta by him. The latter was called Paullus, and had for its hero the conqueror of Perseus, King of Macedonia, but no fragments of it survive. The great authority which the name of Pacuvius possessed was due to the care with which he elaborated his writings. Thirteen plays and a few saturae in a period of at least thirty years [11] seems but a small result; but the admirable way in which he sustained the dramatic situations made every one of them popular with the nation. There were two, however, that stood decidedly above the rest— the Antiopa and the Dulorestes. Of the latter Cicero tells the anecdote that the people rose as one man to applaud the noble passage in which Pylades and Orestes contend for the honour of dying for one another. [12] Of the former he speaks in the highest terms, though it is possible that in his admiration for the severe and truly Roman sentiments it inculcated, he may have been indulgent to its artistic defects. The few lines that have come down to us resemble that ridiculed by Persius [13] for its turgid mannerisms. A good instance of the excellences which a Roman critic looked for in tragedy is afforded by the praise Cicero bestows on the Niptra, a play imitated from Sophocles. The passage is so interesting that it may well be added here. [14] Cicero's words are—
"The wise Greek (Ulysses) when severely wounded does not lament overmuch; he curbs the expression of his pain. 'Forward gently,' he says, 'and with quiet effort, lest by jolting me you increase the pangs of my wound.' Now, in this Pacuvius excels Sophocles, who makes Ulysses give way to cries and tears. And yet those who are carrying him, out of consideration for the majesty of him they bear, do not hesitate to rebuke even this moderate lamentation. 'We see indeed, Ulysses, that you have suffered grievous hurt, but methinks for one who has passed his life in arms, you show too soft a spirit.' The skilful poet knows that habit is a good teacher how to bear pain. And so Ulysses, though in extreme agony, still keeps command over his words. 'Stop! hold, I say! the ulcer has got the better of me. Strip off my clothes. O, woe is me! I am in torture.' Here he begins to give way; but in a moment he stops—'Cover me; depart, now leave me in peace; for by handling me and jolting me you increase the cruel pain.' Do you observe how it is not the cessation of bodily anguish, but the necessity of chastening the expression of it that keeps him silent? And so, at the close of the play, while himself dying, he has so far conquered himself that he can reprove others in words like these,—'It is meet to complain of adverse fortune, but not to bewail it. That is the part of a man; but weeping is granted to the nature of woman.' The softer feelings here obey the other part of the mind, as a dutiful soldier obeys a stern commander."
We can go with Cicero in admiring the manly spirit that breathes through these lines, and feel that the poet was justified in so far leaving the original as without prejudice to the dramatic effect to inculcate a higher moral lesson.
As to the treatment of his models we may say, generally, that Pacuvius used more freedom than Ennius. He was more of an adapter and less of a translator. Nevertheless this dependence on his own resources for description appears to have cramped rather than freed his style. The early Latin writers seem to move more easily when rendering the familiar Greek originals than when essaying to steer their own path. He also committed the mistake of generally imitating Sophocles, the untransplantable child of Athens, instead of Euripides, to whom he could do better justice, as the success of his Euripidean plays prove. [15] His style, though emphatic, was wanting in naturalness. The author of the treatise to Herennius contrasts the sententiae of Ennius with the periodi of Pacuvius; and Lucilius speaks of a word "contorto aliquo ex Pacuviano exordio."
Quintilian [16] notices the inelegance of his compounds, and makes the just remark that the old writers attempted to reproduce Greek analogies without sufficient regard for the capacities of their language; thus while the word kyrtauchaen is elegant and natural, its Latin equivalent incurvicervicus, borders on the ludicrous. [17] Some of his fragments show the same sceptical tendencies that are prominent in Ennius. One of them contains a comprehensive survey of the different philosophic systems, and decides in favour of blind chance (temeritas) as the ruling power, on the ground of sudden changes in fortune like that of Orestes, who in one day was metamorphosed from a king into a beggar. Pacuvius either improved his later style, or else confined its worst points to his tragedies, for nothing can be more classical and elegant than his epitaph, which is couched in diction as refined as that of Terence—
Adulescens, tametsi properas, te hoc saxum vocat
Ut sese aspicias, delude quod scriptumst legas.
Hic sunt poetae Pacuvi Marci sita
Ossa. Hoc volebam nescius ne esses. Vale.
When Pacuvius retired to Brundisium he left a worthy successor in L. ATTIUS or ACCIUS (170-94 B.C.), whom, as before observed, he had assisted with his advice, showing kindly interest as a fellow-workman rather than jealousy as a rival. Accius's parents belonged to the class of libertini; they settled at Pisaurum. The poet began his dramatic career at the age of thirty with the Atreus, and continued to exhibit until his death. He forms the link between the ante-classical and Ciceronian epochs; for Cicero when a boy [18] conversed with him, and retained always a strong admiration for his works. [19] He had a high notion of the dignity of his calling. There is a story told of his refusing to rise to Caesar when he entered the Collegium Poetarum; but if by this Julius be meant, the chronology makes the occurrence impossible. Besides thirty-seven tragedies, he wrote Annales (apparently mythological histories in hexameters, something of the character of Ovid's Fasti), Didascalia, or a history of Greek and Roman poetry, and other kindred works, as well as two Praetextae.
The fragments that have reached us are tolerably numerous, and enable us to select certain prominent characteristics of his style. The loftiness for which he is celebrated seems to be of expression rather than of thought, e.g.
"Quid? quod videbis laetum in Parnasi iugo
Bicipi inter pinos tripudiantem in circulis
Concutere thyrsos ludo, taedis fulgere;"
but sometimes a noble sentiment is simply and emphatically expressed—
"Non genus virum ornat, generi vir fortis loco." [20]
He was a careful chooser of words, e.g.
"Tu pertinaciam esse, Antiloche, hanc praedicas,
Ego pervicaciam aio et ea me uti volo:
Haec fortis sequitur, illam indocti possident….
Nam pervicacem dici me esse et vincere
Perfacile patior, pertinaciam nil moror." [21]
These distinctions, obvious as they are to us, were by no means so to the early Romans. Close resemblance in sound seemed irresistibly to imply some connexion more than that of mere accident; and that turning over the properties of words, which in philosophy as well as poetry seems to us to have something childish in it, had its legitimate place in the development of each language. Accius paints action with vigour. We have the following spirited fragment—
"Constituit, cognovit, sensit, conlocat sese in locum
Celsum: hinc manibus rapere raudus saxeum et grave."
and again—
"Heus vigiles properate, expergite,
Pectora tarda, sopore exsurgite!"
He was conspicuous among tragedians for a power of reasoned eloquence of the forensic type; and delighted in making two rival pleaders state their case, some of his most successful scenes being of this kind. His opinions resembled those of Ennius, but were less irreverent. He acknowledges the interest of the gods in human things—
"Nam non facile sine deum opera humana propria [22] sunt bona,"
and in a fragment of the Brutus he enforces the doctrine that dreams are often heaven-sent warnings, full of meaning to those that will understand them. Nevertheless his contempt for augury was equal to that of his master—
"Nil credo auguribus qui auris verbis divitant
Alienas, suas ut auro locupletent domos."
The often-quoted maxim of the tyrant oderint dum metuant is first found in him. Altogether, he was a powerful writer, with less strength perhaps, but more polish than Ennius; and while manipulating words with greater dexterity, losing but little of that stern grandeur which comes from the plain utterance of conviction. His general characteristics place him altogether within the archaic age. In point of time little anterior to Cicero, in style he is almost a contemporary of Ennius. The very slight increase of linguistic polish during the century and a quarter which comprises the tragic art of Rome, is somewhat remarkable. The old- fashioned ornaments of assonance, alliteration, and plays upon words are as frequent in Accius as in Livius, or rather more so; and the number of archaic forms is scarcely smaller. We see words like noxitudo, honestitudo, sanctescat, topper, domuitio, redhostire, and wonder that they could have only preceded by a few years the Latin of Cicero, and were contemporary with that of Gracchus. Accius, like so many Romans, was a grammarian; he introduced certain changes into the received spelling, e.g. he wrote aa, ee, etc. when the vowel was long, reserving the single a, e, etc. for the short quantity. It was in acknowledgment of the interest taken by him in these studies that Varro dedicated to him one of his many philological treatises. The date of his death is not quite certain; but it may be safely assigned to about 90 B.C. With him died tragic writing at Rome: scarcely a generation after we find tragedy has donned the form of the closet drama, written only for recitation. Cicero and his brother assiduously cultivated this rhetorical art. When writing failed, however, acting rose, and the admirable performances of Aesopus and Roscius did much to keep alive an interest in the old works. Varius and Pollio seem for a moment to have revived the tragic muse under Augustus, but their works had probably nothing in common with this early but interesting drama; and in Imperial times tragedy became more and more confused with rhetoric, until delineation of character ceased to be an object, and declamatory force or fine point was the chief end pursued.
We must now retrace our steps, and consider Ennius in the capacity of epic poet. It was in this light that he acquired his chief contemporary renown, that he accredits himself to posterity in his epitaph, and that he obtained that commanding influence over subsequent poetic literature, which, stereotyped in Virgil, was never afterwards lost. The merit of discerning the most favourable subject for a Roman epic belongs to Naevius; in this department Ennius did but borrow of him; it was in the form in which he cast his poem that his originality was shown. The legendary history of Rome, her supposed connection with the issues of the Trojan war, and her subsequent military achievements in the sphere of history, such was the groundwork both of Naevius's and Ennius's conception. And, however unsuitable such a consecutive narrative might be for a heroic poem, there was something in it that corresponded with the national sentiment, and in a changed form it re-appears in the Aeneid. Naevius had been contented with a single episode in Rome's career of conquest. Ennius, with more ambition but less judgment, aspired to grasp in an epic unity the entire history of the nation; and to achieve this, no better method occurred to him than the time-honoured and prosaic system of annals. The difficulty of recasting these in a poetic mould might well have staggered a more accomplished master of song; but to the enthusiastic and laborious bard the task did not seem too great. He lived to complete his work in accordance with the plan he had proposed, and though, perhaps, the manus ultima may have been wanting, there is nothing to show that he was dissatisfied with his results. We may perhaps smile at the vanity which aspired to the title of Roman Homer, and still more at the partiality which so willingly granted it; nevertheless, with all deductions on the score of rude conception and ruder execution, the fragments that remain incline us to concur with Scaliger in wishing that fate had spared us the whole, and denied us Silius, Statius, Lucan, "et tous ces garçons là." The whole was divided into eighteen books, of which the first contained the introduction, the earliest traditions, the foundation of Rome, and the deification of Romulus; the second and third contained the regal period; the fourth began the history of the Republic and carried it down to the burning of the city by the Gauls; the fifth comprised the Samnite wars; the sixth, that with Pyrrhus; the seventh, the first Punic war; the eighth and ninth, the war with Hannibal; the tenth and eleventh, that with Macedonia; the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth, that with Syria; the fifteenth, the campaign of Fulvius Nobilior in Aetolia, and ended apparently with the death of the great Scipio. The work then received a new preface, and continued the history down to the poet's last years, containing many personal notices, until it was finally brought to a close in 172 B.C. after having occupied its author eighteen years. [1] "The interest of this last book," says Conington, [2] "must have centred, at least to us, in the discourse about himself, in which the old bard seems to have indulged in closing this his greatest poem. Even now we may read with sympathy his boastful allusion to his late enrolment among the citizens of the conquering city; we may be touched by the mention he appears to have made of the year of his age in which he wrote, bordering closely on the appointed term of man's life; and we may applaud as the curtain falls on his grand comparison of himself to a victorious racer laden with Olympian honours, and now at last consigned to repose:—
'Sicut fortis equus, spatio qui saepe supremo
Vicit Olimpia, nunc senio confectus quiescit.'"
He was thus nearly fifty when he began to write, a fact which strikes us as remarkable. We are accustomed to associate the poetic gift with a highly-strung nervous system, and unusual bodily conditions not favourable to long life, as well as with a precocious special development which proclaims unmistakably in the boy the future greatness of the man. None of these conditions seem to have been present in the early Roman school. Livius was a quiet schoolmaster, Naevius a vigorous soldier, Ennius a self-indulgent but hard-working litterateur, Plautus an active man, whose animal spirits not even the flour-mill could quench, Pacuvius a steady but genial student, Accius and Terence finished men of the world; and all, except Terence (and he probably met his early death through an accident), enjoyed the full term of man's existence. Moreover, few of them began life by being poets, and some, as Ennius and Plautus, did not apply themselves to poetry until they had reached mature years. With these facts the character of their genius as a rule agrees. We should not expect in such men the fine inspiration of a Sophocles, a Goethe, or a Shelley, and we do not find it. The poetic frenzy, so magnificently described in the Phaedrus of Plato, which caused the Greeks to regard the poet in his moments of creation as actually possessed by the god, is nowhere manifest among the early Romans; and if it claims to appear in their later literature, we find it after all a spurious substitute, differing widely from the emotion of creative genius. It is not mere accident that Rome is as little productive in the sphere of speculative philosophy as she is in that of the highest poetry, for the two endowments are closely allied. The problem each sets before itself is the same; to arrest and embody in an intelligible shape the idea that shall give light to the dark questionings of the intellect, or the vague yearnings of the heart. To Rome it has not been given to open a new sphere of truth, or to add one more to the mystic voices of passion; her epic mission is the humbler but still not ignoble one of bracing the mind by her masculine good sense, and linking together golden chains of memory by the majestic music of her verse.
There were two important elements introduced into the mechanism of the story by Ennius; the Olympic Pantheon, and the presentation of the Roman worthies as heroes analogous to those of Greece. The latter innovation was only possible within narrow limits, for the idea formed by the Romans even of their greatest heroes, as Romulus, Numa, or Camillus was different in kind from that of the Greek hero-worshipper. Thus we see that Virgil abstains from applying the name to any of his Italian characters, confining it to such as are mentioned in Homer, or are connected with the Homeric legends. Still we find at a later period Julius Caesar publicly professing his descent on both sides from a superhuman ancestor, for such he practically admits Ancus Martius to be. [3] And in the epic of Silius Italicus the Roman generals occupy quite the conventional position of the hero-leader.
The admission of the Olympic deities as a kind of divine machinery for diversifying and explaining the narrative was much more pregnant with consequences. Outwardly, it is simply adopted from Homer, but the spirit which animates it is altogether different. The Greek, in spite of his intellectual scepticism, retained an aesthetic and emotional belief in his national gods, and at any rate it was natural that he should celebrate them in his verse; but the Roman poet claimed to utilize the Greek Pantheon for artistic purposes alone. He professed no belief in the beings he depicted. They were merely an ornamental, supernatural element, either introduced at will, as in Horace, or regulated according to traditional conceptions, as in Ennius and Virgil. Apollo, Minerva, and Bacchus, were probably no more to him than they are to us. They were names, consecrated by genius and convenient for art, under which could be combined the maximum of beautiful associations with the minimum of trouble to the poet. The custom, which perpetuated itself in Latin poetry, revived again with the rise of Italian art; and under a modified form its influence may be seen in the grand conceptions of Milton. The true nature of romantic poetry is, however, alien to any such mechanical employment of the supernatural, and its comparative infrequency in the highest English and German poetry, stamps these as products of the modern spirit. Had the Romans left Olympus to itself, and occupied themselves only with the rhetorical delineation of human action and feeling, they would have chosen a less ambitious but certainly more original path. Lucretius struggles against the prevailing tendency; but so unable were the Romans to invest their finer fancies with any other shape, that even while he is blaming the custom he unawares falls into it.
It was in the metrical treatment that Ennius's greatest achievement lay. For the first time in any consecutive way he introduced the hexameter into Latin poetry. It is true that Plautus had composed his epitaph in that measure, if we may trust Varro's judgment on its genuineness. [4] And the Marcian oracles, though their rhythm has been disputed, were in all probability written in the same. [5] But these last were translations, and were in no sense an epoch in literature. Ennius compelled the intractable forms of Latin speech to accommodate themselves to the dactylic rhythm. Difficulties of two kinds met him, those of accent and those of quantity. The former had been partially surmounted by the comic writers, and it only required a careful extension of their method to render the deviations from the familiar emphasis of daily life harmonious and acceptable. In respect of quantity the problem was more complex. Plautus had disregarded it in numerous instances (e.g. dari), and in others had been content to recognize the natural length or shortness of a vowel (e.g. senex ipse), neglecting the subordinate laws of position, &c. This custom had, as far as we know, guided Ennius himself in his dramatic poems; but for the epos he adopted a different principle. Taking advantage of the tendency to shorten final vowels, he fixed almost every doubtful case as short, e.g. musa, patre, dare, omnibus, amaveris, pater, only leaving the long syllable where the metre required it, as condiderit. By this means he gave a dactylic direction to Latin prosody which it afterwards, though only slightly, extended. At the same time he observed carefully the Greek laws of position and the doubled letters. He admitted hiatus, but not to any great extent, and chiefly in the caesura. The lengthening of a short vowel by the ictus occurs occasionally in his verses, but almost always in words where it was originally by nature long. In such words the lengthening may take place even in the thesis of the foot, as in—
"non enim rumores ponebat ante salutem."
Elision played a prominent part in his system. This was natural, since with all his changes many long or intractable terminations remained, e.g. enim, quidem, omnium, &c. These were generally elided, sometimes shortened as in the line quoted, sometimes lengthened as in the comedians,—
"inimicitiam agitantes."
Very rarely does he improperly shorten a naturally long vowel, e.g. contra (twice); terminations in o he invariably retains, except ego and modo. The final s is generally elided before a consonant when in the thesis of the foot, but often remains in the arsis (e.g. plenu' fidei, Isque dies). The two chief blots on his versification are his barbarous examples of tmesis,—saxo cere comminuit brum: Massili portant invenes ad litora tanas (= cerebrum, Massilitanas), and his quaint apocope, cael, gau, do (caelum, gaudium, domum), probably reflected from the Homeric do, kri, in which Lucilius imitates him, e.g. nol. (for nolueris). The caesura, which forms the chief feature in each verse, was not understood by Ennius. Several of his lines have no caesura at all; and that delicate alternation of its many varieties which charms us in Homer and Virgil, is foreign to the conception, as it would have been unattainable by the efforts, of the rugged epic bard. Nevertheless his labour achieved a great result. He stamped for centuries the character and almost the details of subsequent versification. [6] If we study the effect of his passages, we shall observe far greater power in single lines or sentences than in a continuous description. The solemn grandeur of some of his verses is unsurpassable, and, enshrined in the Aeneid, their dignity seems enhanced by their surroundings. Such are—
"Tuque pater Tiberine tuo cum ilumino sancto."
"Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem."
"Quae neque Dardaniis campis potuere perire
Nec quom capta capi, nec quom combusta cremari,
Augusto augurio postquam incluta condita Roma est."
On the other hand he sometimes falls into pure prose;
"Cives Romani tum facti sunt Campani,"
and the like, are scarcely metre, certainly not poetry. Later epicists in their desire to avoid this fault over elaborate their commonplace passages. Ennius tries, however clumsily, to copy Homer in dismissing them without ornament. The one or two similes that are preserved are among his least happy efforts. [7] Among battle scenes he is more at home, and these he paints with reality and strength. There are three passages of considerable length, which the reader who desires to judge of his narrative power should study. They are the dream of Ilia and the auspices of Romulus in the first book, and the description of the friend of Servilius in the seventh. This last is generally thought to be a picture of the poet himself, and to intimate in the most pleasing language his relations to his great patron. For a singularly appreciative criticism of these fragments the student is referred to Sellar's Poets of the Republic. The massive Roman vigour of treatment which shone forth in the Annals and made them as it were a rock-hewn monument of Rome's glory, secured to Ennius a far greater posthumous renown than that of any of the other early poets. Cicero extols him, and has no words too contemptuous for those who despise him, Lucretius praises him in the well known words—
"Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno
Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,
Per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret." [8]
Virgil, it is true, never mentions him, but he imitates him continually. Ovid, with generous appreciation, allows the greatness of his talent, though he denies him art; [9] and the later imperial writers are even affected in their admiration of him. He continued to be read through the Middle Ages, and was only lost as late as the thirteenth century.
Ennius produced a few scattered imitators, but not until upwards of two generations after his death, if we except the doubtful case of Accius. The first is MATIUS, who translated the Iliad into hexameters. This may be more properly considered as the sequel to Livius, but the few fragments remaining show that his versification was based on that of Ennius. Gellius, with his partiality for all that was archaic, warmly praises this work.
HOSTIUS wrote the Bellum Istricum in three books. This was no doubt a continuation of the great master's Annales. What the war was is not quite certain. Some fix it at 178 B.C.; others as late as 129 B.C. The earlier date is the more probable. We then have to ask when Hostius himself lived. Teuffel inclines to place him before Accius; but most commentators assign him a later date. A few lines are preserved in Macrobius, [10] which seem to point to an early period, e.g.
"non si mihi linguae Centum atque ora sient totidem vocesque liquatae,"
and again,
"Dia Minerva, semol autem tu invictus Apollo
Arquitenens Latonius."
His object in quoting these is to show that they were copied by Virgil. A passage in Propertius has been supposed to refer to him, [11]
"Splendidaque a docto fama refulget avo,"
where he would presumably be the grandfather of that Hostia whom under the name of Cynthia so many of Propertius's poems celebrate. Another poet of whom a few lines are preserved in Gellius and Macrobius is A. FURIUS of Antium, which little town produced more than one well-known writer. His work was entitled Annals. Specimens of his versification are—
"Interea Oceani linquens Aurora cubile."
"Quod genus hoc hominum Saturno sancte create?"
"Pressatur pede pes, mucro mucrone, viro vir." [12]
Satire, as every one knows, is the one branch of literature claimed by the Romans as their own. [1] It is, at any rate, the branch in which their excellence is most characteristically displayed. Nor is the excellence confined to the professed satirists; it was rather inherent in the genius of the nation. All their serious writings tended to assume at times a satirical spirit. Tragedy, so far as we can judge, rose to her clearest tones in branding with contempt the superstitions of the day. The epic verses of Ennius are not without traces of the same power. The prose of Cato abounds with sarcastic reflections, pointedly expressed. The arguments of Cicero's theological and moral treatises are largely sprinkled with satire. The whole poem of Lucretius is deeply imbued with it: few writers of any age have launched more fiery sarcasm upon the fear of death, or the blind passion of love than he has done in his third and fourth books. Even the gentle Virgil breaks forth at times into earnest invective, tipped with the flame of satire: [2] Dido's bitter irony, Turnus' fierce taunts, show that he could wield with stern effect this specially Roman weapon. Lucan and Seneca affect a style which, though grotesque, is meant to be satirical; while at the close of the classical period, Tacitus transforms the calm domain of history into satire, more burning because more suppressed than that of any of his predecessors. [3]
The claim to an independent origin advanced by Quintilian has been more than once disputed. The name Satire has been alleged as indicative of a Greek original (Satyrion). [4] It is true this can no longer be maintained. Still some have thought that the poems of Archilochus or the Silli may have suggested the Roman form of composition. But the former, though full of invective, were iambic or personal, not properly satirical. And the Silli, of which examples are found in Diogenes Laertius and Dio Chrysostom, were rather patched together from the verses of serious writers, forming a kind of Cento like the Carmen Nuptiale of Ausonius, than original productions. The Roman Satire differed from these in being essentially didactic. Besides ridiculing the vices and absurdities of individuals or of society, it had a serious practical purpose, viz. the improvement of public culture or morals. Thus it followed the old Comedy of Athens in its plain speaking, and the method of Archilochus in its bitter hostility to those who provoked attack. But it differed from the former in its non-political bias, as well as its non-dramatic form: and from the latter in its motive, which is not personal enmity, but public spirit. Thus the assertion of Horace, that Lucilius is indebted to the old comedians, [5] must be taken in a general sense only, and not be held to invalidate the generally received opinion that, in its final and perfected form, Satire was a genuine product of Rome.
The metres adopted by Satire was originally indifferent. The Saturae of Ennius were composed in trochaics, hexameters, and iambics; those of Varro (called Menippean, from Menippus of Gadara), mingled together prose and verse. [6] But from Lucilius onwards, Satire, accurately so called, was always treated in hexameter verse. [7]
Nevertheless, Horace is unquestionably right in saying that it had more real affinity for prose than for poetry of any kind—
"Primum ego me illorum, dederim quibus esse poetis,
Excerpam numero: neque enim concludere versum
Dixeris esse satis; neque si quis scribat, uti nos,
Sermoni propiora, pates hunc esse poetam." [8]
The essence of satiric talent is that it should be able to understand the complexities of real life, that it should penetrate beneath the surface to the true motives of action, and if these are bad, should indicate by life- like touches their ridiculous or contemptible nature. There is room here for great variety of treatment and difference of personnel. One may have a broad and masculine grasp of the main outlines of social intercourse; another with subtler analysis may thread his way through the intricacies of dissimulation, and lay bare to the hypocrite secrets which he had concealed even from himself; a third may select certain provinces of conduct or thought, and by a good-humoured but discriminating portraiture, throw them into so new and clear a light, as to enable mankind to look at them, free from the prejudices with which convention so often blinds our view.
The qualifications for excelling in this kind of writing are clearly such as have no special connection with poetry. Had the modern prose essay existed at Rome, it is probable the satirists would have availed themselves of it. From the fragments of Lucilius we should judge that he found the trammels of verse somewhat embarrassing. Practice had indeed enabled him to write with unexampled fluency; [9] but except in this mechanical facility he shows none of the characteristics of a poet. The accumulated experience of modern life has pronounced in favour of abandoning the poetic form, and including Satire in the domain of prose. No doubt many celebrated poets in France and England have cultivated verse satire; but in most cases they have merely imitated, whereas the prose essay is a true formation of modern literary art. Conington, in an interesting article, [10] regards the progressive enlargement of the sphere of prose composition as a test of a nation's intellectual advance. Thus considered, poetry is the imperfect attempt to embody in vivid language ideas which have themselves hardly assumed definite form, and necessarily gives way to prose when clearness of thought and sequence of reasoning have established for themselves a more perfect vehicle. However inadequate such a view may be to explain the full nature of poetry, it is certainly true so far as concerns the case at present before us. The assignment of each special exercise of mind to its proper department of literature is undoubtedly a late growth of human culture, and such nations as have not attained to it, whatever may be the splendour of their literary creations, cannot be said to have reached the full maturity of intellectual development.
The conception of Satire by the ancients is illustrated by a passage in Diomedes: [11] "Satira dicitur carmen apud Romanos nunc quidem maledicum et ad carpenda hominum vitia archaeae comoediae charactere compositum, quale scripserunt Lucilius et Horatius et Persius; at olim carmen quod ex variis poematibus constabat satira cocabatur, quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius." This old-fashioned satura of Ennius may be considered as half-way between the early semi-dramatic farce and the classical Satire. It was a genuine medley, containing all kinds of subjects, often couched in the form of dialogue, but intended for recitation, not for action. The poem on Scipio was classed with it, but what this poem was is not by any means clear; from the fragment that remains, describing a calm after storm in sonorous language, we should gather that Scipio's return voyage from Africa may have formed its theme. [12] Other subjects, included in the Saturae of Ennius, were the Hedyphagetica, a humorous didactic poem on the mysteries of gastronomy, which may have suggested similar effusions by Lucilius and Horace; [13] the Epicharmus and Euhemerus, both in trochaics, the latter a free translation of the iera anagraphae, or explanation of the gods as deified mortals; and the Epigrams, among which two on the great Scipio are still preserved, the first breathing the spirit of the Republic, the second asserting with some arrogance the exploits of the hero, and his claims to a place among the denizens of heaven. [14]
Of the Saturae of Pacuvius nothing is known. C. LUCILIUS (148-103 B.C.), the founder of classical Satire, was born in the Latin town of Suessa Aurunca in Campania. He belonged to an equestrian family, and was in easy circumstances. [15] He is supposed to have fought under Scipio in the Numantine war (133 B.C.) when he was still quite a youth; and it is certain from Horace that he lived on terms of the greatest intimacy, both with him, Laelius, and Albinus. He is said to have possessed the house which had been built at the public expense for the son of King Antiochus, and to have died at Naples, where he was honoured with a public funeral, in the forty-sixth year of his age. His position, at once independent and unambitious (for he could not hold office in Rome), gave him the best possible chance of observing social and political life, and of this chance he made the fullest use. He lived behind the scenes: he saw the corruption prevalent in high circles; he saw also the true greatness of those who, like Scipio, stood aloof from it, and he handed down to imperishable infamy each most signal instance of vice, whether in a statesman, as Lupus, [16] Metellus, or Albucius, or in a private person, as the glutton Gallonius.
It is possible that he now and then misapplied his pen to abuse his own enemies or those of his friends, for we know that the honourable Mucius Scaevola was violently attacked by him; [17] and there is a story that being once lampooned in the theatre in a libellous manner, the poet sued his detractor, but failed in obtaining damages, on the ground that he himself had done the same to others. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt whatever that on the whole he nobly used the power he possessed, that his trenchant pen was mainly enlisted on the side of patriotism, virtue, and enlightenment, and that he lashed without mercy corruption, hypocrisy, and ignorance. The testimony of Horace to his worth, coming from one who himself was not easily deceived, is entitled to the highest consideration; [18] that of Juvenal, though more emphatic, is not more weighty, [19] and the opinion, blamed by Quintilian, [20] that he should be placed above all other poets, shows that his plain language did not hinder the recognition of his moral excellence.
Although a companion of the great, he was strictly popular in his tone. He appealed to the great public, removed on the one hand from accurate learning, on the other from indifference to knowledge. "Nec doctissimis," he says, [21] "Manium Persium haec legere nolo, Junium Congum volo." And in another passage quoted by Cicero, [22] he professes to desire that his readers may be the Tarentines, Consentines, and Sicilians,—those, that is, whose Latin grammar and spelling most needed improvement. But we cannot extend this humility [23] to his more famous political allusions. Those at any rate would be nothing if not known to the parties concerned; neither the poet's genius nor the culprit's guilt could otherwise be brought home to the individual.
In one sense Lucilius might be called a moderniser, for he strove hard to enlarge the people's knowledge and views; but in another and higher sense he was strictly national: luxury, bribery, and sloth, were to him the very poison of all true life, and cut at the root of those virtues by which alone Rome could remain great. This national spirit caused him to be preferred to Horace by conservative minds in the time of Tacitus, but it probably made his critics somewhat over-indulgent. Horace, with all his admiration for him, cannot shut his eyes to his evident faults, [24] the rudeness of his language, the carelessness of his composition, the habit of mixing Greek and Latin words, which his zealous admirers construed into a virtue, and, last but not least, the diffuseness inseparable from a hasty draft which he took no trouble to revise. Still his elegance of language must have been considerable. Pliny speaks of him as the first to establish a severe criticism of style, [25] and the fragments reveal beneath the obscuring garb of his uncouth hexameters, a terse and pure idiom not unlike that of Terence. His faults are numerous, [26] but do not seriously detract from his value. The loss of his works must be considered a serious one. Had they been extant we should have found useful information in his pictures of life and manners in a state of moral transition, amusement in such pieces as his journal of a progress from Rome to Capua, [27] and material for philological knowledge in his careful distinctions of orthography and grammar.
As a favourable specimen of his style, it will be sufficient to quote his definition of virtue:
"Virtus, Albine, est pretium persolvere verum
Quis in versamur, quis vivimus rebus potesse.
Virtus est homini scire id quod quaeque habeat res.
Virtus scire homini rectum, utile, quid sit honestum,
Quae bona, quae mala item, quid inutile, turpe, inhonestum.
Virtus, quaerendae finem rei scire modumque;
Virtus divitiis pretium persolvere posse.
Virtus, id dare quod reipsa debetur honori,
Hostem esse atque inimicum hominum morumque malorum
Contra, defensorem hominum morumque bonorum;
Magnificare hos, his bene velle, his vivere amicum;
Commoda praeterea patriai prima putare,
Deinde parentum, tertia iam postremaque nostra."
We see in these lines a practical and unselfish standard—that of the cultivated but still truly patriotic Roman, admitting the necessity of knowledge in a way his ancestors might have questioned, but keeping steadily to the main points of setting a true price upon all human things, and preferring the good of one's country to personal advantage. This is a morality intelligible to all, and if it falls below the higher enlightenment of modern, knowledge, it at least soars above the average practice. We are informed [28] that Lucilius did not spare his immediate predecessors and contemporaries in literature any more than in politics. He attacked Accius for his unauthorised innovations in spelling, Pacuvius and Ennius for want of a sustained level of dignity. His satire seems to have ranged over the whole field of life, so far as it was known to him; and though his learning was in no department deep, [29] it was sound so far as it went, and was guided by natural good taste. He will always retain an interest for us from the charming picture given by Horace of his daily life; how he kept his books beside him like the best of friends, as indeed they were, and whatever he felt, thought, or saw, intrusted to their faithful keeping, whence it comes that the man's life stands as vividly before one's eyes as if it had been painted on a votive tablet. Then the way in which Laelius and Scipio unbent in his company, mere youth as he was compared to them, gives us a pleasing notion of his social gifts; he who could make the two grave statesmen so far forget their decorum as to romp in the manner Horace describes, must at least have been gifted with contagious light-heartedness. This genial humour Horace tried with success to reproduce, but he is conscious of inferiority to the master. In English literature Dryden is the writer who most recalls him, though rather in his higher than in his more sportive moods.
The last class of dramatic poets whom we shall mention in the first period are the writers of Atellanae. These entertainments originated at the little town of Atella, now St Arpino, between Capua and Naples in the Oscan territory, and were at first composed in the Oscan dialect. Their earliest cultivation at Rome seems to date not long after 360 B.C., in which year the Etruscan histriones were first imported into Rome. The novelty of this amusement attracted the Roman youths, and they began to imitate both the Etruscan dancers and the Oscan performers, who had introduced the Atellane fables into Rome. After the libellous freedom of speech in which they at first indulged had been restrained by law, the Atellanae seem to have established themselves as a privileged form of pleasantry, in which the young nobles could, without incurring the disgrace of removal from their tribe or incapacity for military service, indulge their readiness of speech and impromptu dramatic talent. [1] During rather more than two centuries this custom continued, the performance consisting of detached scenes without any particular connection, but full of jocularity, and employing a fixed set of characters. The language used may have been the Oscan, but, considering the fact that a knowledge of that dialect was not universal at Rome, [2] it was more probably the popular or plebeian Latin interspersed with Oscan elements. No progress towards a literary form is observable until the time of Sulla, but they continued to receive a countenance from the authorities that was not accorded to other forms of the drama. We find, for example, that when theatrical representations were interdicted, an exception was made in their favour. [3] Though coarse and often obscene, they were considered as consistent with gentlemanly behaviour; thus Cicero, in a well-known passage in one of his letters, [4] contrasts them with the Mimes, secundum Oenomaum Accii non, ut olim solebat, Atellanam, sed, ut nunc fit, mimum introduxisti; and Valerius Maximus implies that they did not carry their humour to extravagant lengths, [5] but tempered it with Italian severity. From the few fragments that remain to us we should be inclined to form a different opinion, and to suspect that national partiality in contrasting them with the Graecized form of the Mimi kept itself blind to their more glaring faults. The characters that oftenest reappear in them are Maccus, Bucco, and Pappus; the first of these is prefixed to the special title, e.g. Maccus miles, Maccus virgo. He seems to have been a personage with an immense head, who, corresponding to our clown or harlequin, came in for many hard knocks, but was a general favourite. Pappus took the place of pantaloon, and was the general butt.
NOVIUS (circ. 100 B.C.), whom Macrobius [6] calls probatissimus Atellanarum scriptor, was the first to reduce this species to the rules of art, giving it a plot and a written dialogue. Several fragments remain, but for many centuries they were taken for those of Naevius, whence great confusion ensued. A better known writer is L. POMPONIUS (90 B.C.) of Bononia, who flourished in the time of Sulla, and is said to have persuaded that cultured sensualist to compose Atellanae himself. Upwards of thirty of his plays are cited; [7] but although a good many lines are preserved, no fragments are long enough to give a good notion of his style. The commendations, however, with which Cicero, Seneca, Gellius, and Priscian load him, prove that he was classed with good writers. From the list given below, it will be seen that the subjects were mostly, though not always, from low life; some remind us of the regular comedies, as the Syri and Dotata. The old-fashioned ornaments of puns and alliteration abound in him, as well as extreme coarseness. The fables, which were generally represented after the regular play as an interlude or farce, are mentioned by Juvenal in two of his satires: [8]
"Urbicus exodio risum movet Atellanae Gestibus Autonoes;"
and in his pretty description of a rustic fete—
"Ipsa dierum
Festorum herboso colitur si quando theatro
Maiestas, tandemque redit ad pulpita notum
Exodium, cum personae pallentis hiatum
In gremio matris formidat rusticus infans;
Aequales habitus illic, similemque videbis
Orchestram et populum…."
They endured a while under the empire, when we hear of a composer named MUMMIUS, of some note, but in the general decline they became merged in the pantomime, into which all kinds of dramatic art gradually converged.
If the Atellanae were the most indigenous form of literature in which the young nobles indulged, the different kinds of love-poem were certainly the least in accordance with the Roman traditions of art. Nevertheless, unattainable as was the spontaneous grace of the Greek erotic muse, there were some who aspired to cultivate her.
Few kinds of verse more attracted the Roman amateurs than the Epigram. There was something congenial to the Roman spirit in the pithy distich or tetrastich which formed so considerable an element in the "elegant extracts" of Alexandria. The term epigram has altered its meaning with the lapse of ages. In Greek it signified merely an inscription commemorative of some work of art, person, or event; its virtue was to be short, and to be appropriate. The most perfect writer of epigrams in the Greek sense was Simonides,—nothing can exceed the exquisite simplicity that lends an undying charm to his effusions. The epigrams on Leonides and on Marathon are well known. The metre selected was the elegiac, on account of its natural pause at the close of the second line. The nearest approach to such simple epigrams are the epitaphs of Naevius, Ennius, and especially Pacuvius, already quoted. This natural grace, however, was, even in Greek poetry, superseded by a more artificial style. The sparkling epigram of Plato addressed to a fair boy has been often imitated, and most writers after him are not satisfied without playing on some fine thought, or turning some graceful point; so that the epigram by little and little approached the form which in its purest age the Italian sonnet possessed. In this guise it was cultivated with taste and brilliancy at Alexandria, Callimachus especially being a finished master of it. The first Roman epigrammatists imitate the Alexandrine models, and, making allowance for the uncouth hardness of their rhythm, achieve a fair success. Of the epigrams of Ennius, only the three already quoted remain. [9] Three authors are mentioned by Aulus Gellius [10] as having raised the Latin Epigram to a level with Anacreon in sweetness, point, and neatness. This is certainly far too high praise. Nor, even if it were so, can we forget that the poems he quotes (presumably the best he could find) are obvious imitations, if not translations, from the Greek. The first is by Q. LUTATIUS CATULUS, and dates about 100 B.C. It is entitled Ad Theotimum:
"Aufugit mi animus; credo, ut solet, ad Theotimum
Devenit: sic est: perfugium illud habet.
Quid si non interdixem ne illuc fugitivum
Mitteret ad se intro, sed magis eiiceret?
Ibimus quaesitum: verum ne ipsi teneamur
Formido: quid ago? Da, Venus, consilium."
A more pleasing example of his style, and this time perhaps original, is given by Cicero. [11] It is on the actor Roscius, who, when a boy, was renowned for his beauty, and is favourably compared with the rising orb of day:
"Constiteram exorientem Auroram forte salutans,
Cum subito e laeva Roscius exoritur.
Pace mihi liceat, caelestes, dicere vestra:
Mortalis visust pulcrior esse deo."
This piece, as may be supposed, has met with imitators both in French and Italian literature. A very similar jeu d'esprit of PORCIUS LICINUS is quoted:
"Custodes ovium, teneraeque propaginis agnûm,
Quaeritis ignem? ite huc: Quaeritis? ignis homo est.
Si digito attigero, incendam silvam simul omnem,
Omne pecus: flamma est omnia quae video."
This Porcius wrote also on the history of literature. Some rather ill- natured lines on Terence are preserved in Suetonius. [12] He there implies that the young poet, with all his talent, could not keep out of poverty, a taunt which we have good reason for disbelieving as well as disapproving. Two lines on the rise of poetry at Rome deserve quotation—
"Poenico bello secundo Musa pinnato gradu
Intulit se bellicosam Romuli in gentem feram."
A certain POMPILIUS is mentioned by Varro as having epigrammatic tastes; one distich that is preserved gives us no high notion of his powers—
"Pacvi [13] discipulus dicor: porro is fuit Enni:
Ennius Musarum: Pompilius clueor."
Lastly, VALERIUS AEDITUUS, who is only known by the short notices in Varro and Gellius, wrote similar short pieces, two of which are preserved.
"Dicere cum conor curam tibi, Pamphila, cordis,
Quid mi abs te quaeram? verba labris abeunt
Per pectus miserum manat subito mihi sudor.
Si tacitus, subidus: duplo ideo pereo."
"Quid faculam praefers, Phileros, qua nil opus nobis?
Ibimus, hoc lucet pectore flamma satis.
Illam non potis est vis saeva exstinguere venti,
Aut imber caelo candidus praecipitans.
At contra, hunc ignem Veneris, si non Venus ipsa,
Nulla est quae possit vis alia opprimare."
We have quoted these pieces, not from their intrinsic merit, for they have little or none, but to show the painful process by which Latin versification was elaborated. All these must be referred to a date at least sixty years after Ennius, and yet the rhythm is scarcely at all improved. The great number of second-rate poets who wrought in the same laboratory did good work, in so far that they made the technical part less wearisome for poets like Lucretius and Catullus. With mechanical dexterity taste also slowly improved by the competing effort of many ordinary minds; but it did not make those giant strides which nothing but genius can achieve. The later developments of the Epigram will be considered in a subsequent book.
There are nations among whom the imagination is so predominant that they seem incapable of regarding things as they are. The literature of such nations will always be cast in a poetical mould, even when it takes the outward form of prose. Of this class India is a conspicuous example. In the opposite category stand those nations which, lacking imaginative power, supply its place by the rich colouring of rhetoric, but whose poetry, judged by the highest standard, does not rise above the sphere of prose. Modern France is perhaps the best example of this. The same is so far true of ancient Rome that she was unquestionably more productive of great prose writers than of poets. Her utilitarian and matter-of-fact genius inclined her to approach the problems of thought and life from a prosaic point of view. Her perceptions of beauty were defective; her sense of sympathy between man and nature (the deepest root of poetry) slumbered until roused by a voice from without to momentary life. The aspirations and destiny of the individual soul which had kindled the brightest light of Greek song, were in Rome replaced by the sovereign claims of the State. The visible City, throned on Seven Hills, the source and emblem of imperial power, and that not ideal but actual, was a theme fitted to inspire the patriot orator or historian, but not to create the finer susceptibilities of the poet. We find in accordance with this fact, that Prose Literature was approached, not by strangers or freedmen, but by members of the noblest houses in Rome. The subjects were given by the features of national life. The wars that had gained dominion abroad, the eloquence that had secured power at home, the laws that had knit society together and made the people great; these were the elements on which Prose Literature was based. Its developments, though influenced by Greece, are truly national, and on them the Roman character is indelibly impressed. The first to establish itself was history. The struggles of the first Punic war had been chronicled in the rude verse of Naevius; those of the second produced the annals of Fabius and Cincius Alimentus.
From the earliest period the Romans had a clear sense of the value of contemporary records. The Annales Maximi or Commentarii Pontificum contained the names of magistrates for each year, and a daily record [1] of all memorable events from the regal times until the Pontificate of P. Mucius Scaevola (133 B.C.). The occurrences noted were, however, mostly of a trivial character, as Cato tells us in a fragment of his Origines, and as we can gather from the extracts found in Livy. The Libri Lintei, mentioned several times by Livy, [2] were written on rolls of linen cloth, and, besides lists of magistrates, contained many national monuments, such as the treaty between Rome and Carthage, and the truce made with Ardea and Gabii. Similar notes were kept by the civil magistrates (Commentarii Consulares, Libri Praetorum, Tabulae Censoriae) and stored up in the various temples. The greater number of these records perished in the capture of Rome by the Gauls, and when Livy speaks of them as existing later, he refers not to the originals, but to copies made after that event. Such yearly registers were continued to a late period. One of the most important was discovered in the sixteenth century, embracing a list of the great magistracies from 509 B.C. till the death of Augustus, and executed in the reign of Tiberius. Another source of history was the family register kept by each of the great houses, and treasured with peculiar care. It was probably more than a mere catalogue of actions performed or honours gained, since many of the more distinguished families preserved their records as witnesses of glories that in reality had never existed, but were the invention of flattering chroniclers or clients.
The radical defect in the Roman conception of history was its narrowness. The idea of preserving and handing down truth for its own sake was foreign to them. The very accuracy of their early registers was based on no such high principle as this. It arose simply from a sense of the continuity of the Roman commonwealth, from national pride, and from considerations of utility. The catalogue of prodigies, pestilences, divine visitations, expiations and successful propitiatory ceremonies, of which it was chiefly made up, was intended to show the value of the state religion, and to secure the administration of it in patrician hands. It was indeed praiseworthy that considerations so patriotic should at that rude period have so firmly rooted themselves in the mind of the governing class; but that their object was rather to consolidate their own power and advance that of the city than to instruct mankind, is clear from the totally untrustworthy character of the special gentile records; and when history began to be cultivated in a literary way, we do not observe any higher motive at work. Fabius and Cincius wrote in Greek, partly, no doubt, because in the unformed state of their own language it was easier to do so; but that this was not in itself a sufficient reason is shown by the enthusiasm with which not only their contemporary Ennius, but their predecessors Livius and Naevius, studied and developed the Latin tongue. Livius and Ennius worked at Latin in order to construct a literary dialect that should also be the speech of the people. Fabius and Cincius, we cannot help suspecting, wrote in Greek, because that was a language which the people did not understand.
Belonging to an ancient house whose traditions were exclusive and aristocratic, FABIUS (210 B.C.) addressed himself to the limited circle of readers who were conversant with the Greek tongue; to the people at large he was at no pains to be intelligible, and he probably was as indifferent to their literary, as his ancestors had been to their political, claims or advantages. The branch to which he belonged derived its distinguishing name from Fabius Pictor the grandfather of the historian, who, in 312 B.C. painted the temple of Salus, which was the oldest known specimen of Roman art, and existed, applauded by the criticism of posterity, until the era of Claudius. This single incident proves that in a period when Roman feeling as a rule recoiled from practising the arts of peace, members of this intellectual gens were already proficients in one of the proscribed Greek accomplishments, and taken into connection with the polished cultivation of the Claudii, and perhaps of other gentes, shows that in their private life the aristocratic party were not so bigoted as for political purposes they chose to represent themselves. [3] As to the value of Fabius's work we have no good means of forming an opinion. Livy invariably speaks of him with respect, as scriptorum longe antiquissimus; and there can be little doubt that he had access to the best existing authorities on his subject. Besides the public chronicles and the archives of his own house, he is said to have drawn on Greek sources. Niebuhr, also, takes a high view of his merits; and the unpretending form in which he clothed his work, merely a bare statement of events without any attempt at literary decoration, inclines us to believe that so far as national prejudices allowed, he endeavoured to represent faithfully the facts of history.
Of L. CINCIUS ALIMENTUS (flor. 209 B.C.) we should he inclined to form a somewhat higher estimate, from the fact that, when taken prisoner by Hannibal, he received greater consideration from him than almost any other Roman captive. He conversed freely with him, and informed him of the route by which he had crossed the Alps, and of the exact number of his invading force. Cincius was praetor in Sicily 209 B.C. He thus had good opportunities for learning the main events of the campaign. Niebuhr [4] says of him, "He was a critical investigator of antiquity, who threw light on the history of his country by researches among its ancient monuments. He proceeded in this work with no less honesty than diligence; [5] for it is only in his fragments that we find a distinct statement of the early relations between Rome and Latium, which in all the Annals were misrepresented from national pride. That Cincius wrote a book on the old Roman calendar, we are told by Macrobius; [6] that he examined into ancient Etruscan and Roman chronology, is clear from Livy." [7] The point in which he differed from the other authorities most strikingly is the date he assigns for the origin of the city; but Niebuhr thinks that his method of ascertaining it shows independent investigation. [8] Cincius, like Fabius, began his work by a rapid summary of the early history of Rome, and detailed at full length only those events which had happened during his own experience.
A third writer who flourished about the same time was C. ACILIUS (circ. 184 B.C.), who, like the others, began with the foundation of the city, and apparently carried his work down to the war with Antiochus. He, too, wrote in Greek, [9] and was afterwards translated into Latin by Claudius Quadrigarius, [10] in which form he was employed by Livy. Aulus Postumius Albinus, a younger contemporary of Cato, is also mentioned as the author of a Greek history. It is very possible that the selection of the Greek language by all these writers was partly due to their desire to prove to the Greeks that Roman history was worth studying; for the Latin language was at this time confined to the peninsula, and was certainly not studied by learned Greeks, except such as were compelled to acquire it by relations with their Roman conquerors. Besides these authors, we learn from Polybius that the great Scipio furnished contributions to history: among other writings, a long Greek letter to king Philip is mentioned which contained a succinct account of his Spanish and African campaigns. His son, and also Scipio Nasica, appear to have followed his example in writing Greek memoirs.
The creator of Latin prose writing was CATO (234-149 B.C.). In almost every department he set the example, and his works, voluminous and varied, retained their reputation until the close of the classical period. He was the first thoroughly national author.
The character of the rigid censor is generally associated in our minds with the contempt of letters. In his stern but narrow patriotism, he looked with jealous eyes on all that might turn the citizens from a single-minded devotion to the State. Culture was connected in his mind with Greece, and her deleterious influence. The embassy of Diogenes, Critolaus, and Carneades, 155 B.C. had shown him to what uses culture might be turned. The eloquent harangue pronounced in favour of justice, and the equally eloquent harangue pronounced next day against it by the same speaker without a blush of shame, had set Cato's face like a flint in opposition to Greek learning. "I will tell you about those Greeks," he wrote in his old age to his son Marcus, "what I discovered by careful observation at Athens, and how far I deem it good to skim through their writings, for in no case should they be deeply studied. I will prove to you that they are one and all, a worthless and intractable set. Mark my words, for they are those of a prophet: whenever that nation shall give us its literature, it will corrupt everything." [11]
With this settled conviction, thus emphatically expressed at a time when experience had shown the realization of his fears to be inevitable, and when he himself had so far bent as to study the literature he despised, the long and active public life of Cato is in complete harmony. He is the perfect type of an old Roman. Hard, shrewd, niggardly, and narrow-minded, he was honest to the core, unsparing of himself as of others, scorning every kind of luxury, and of inflexible moral rectitude. He had no respect for birth, rank, fortune, or talent; his praise was bestowed solely on personal merit. He himself belonged to an ancient and honourable house, [12] and from it he inherited those harsh virtues which, while they enforced the reverence, put him in conflict with the spirit, of the age. No man could have set before himself a more uphill task than that which Cato struggled all his life vainly to achieve. To reconstruct the past is but one step more impossible than to stem the tide of the present. If Cato failed, a greater than Cato would not have succeeded. Influences were at work in Rome which individual genius was powerless to resist. The ascendancy of reason over force, though it were the noblest form that force has ever assumed, was step by step establishing itself; and no stronger proof of its victory could be found than that Cato, despite of himself, in his old age studied Greek. We may smile at the deep-rooted prejudice which confounded the pure glories of the old Greek intellect with the degraded puerilities of its unworthy heirs; but though Cato could not fathom the mind of Greece, he thoroughly understood the mind of Rome, and unavailing as his efforts were, they were based on an unerring comprehension of the true issues at stake. He saw that Greece was unmaking Rome; but he did not see that mankind required that Rome should be unmade. It is the glory of men like Scipio and Ennius, that their large- heartedness opened their eyes, and carried their vision beyond the horizon of the Roman world into that dimly-seen but ever expanding country in which all men are brethren. But if from the loftiest point of view their wide humanity obtains the palm, no less does Cato's pure patriotism shed undying radiance over his rugged form, throwing into relief its massive grandeur, and ennobling rather than hiding its deformities.
We have said that Cato's name is associated with the contempt of letters. This is no doubt the fact. Nevertheless, Cato was by far the most original writer that Rome ever produced. He is the one man on whose vigorous mind no outside influence had ever told. Brought up at his father's farm at Tusculum, he spent his boyhood amid the labours of the plough. Hard work and scant fare toughened his sinews, and service under Fabius in the Hannibalic war knit his frame into that iron strength of endurance, which, until his death, never betrayed one sign of weakness or fatigue. A saying of his is preserved [13]—"Man's life is like iron; if you use it, it wears away, if not, the rust eats it. So, too, men are worn away by hard work; but if they do no work, rest and sloth do more injury than exercise." On this maxim his own life was formed. In the intervals of warfare, he did not relax himself in the pleasures of the city, but went home to his plough, and improved his small estate. Being soon well known for his shrewd wit and ready speech, he rose into eminence at the bar; and in due time obtained all the offices of state. In every position he made many enemies, but most notably in his capacity of censor. No man was oftener brought to trial. Forty-four times he spoke in his own defence, and every time he was acquitted. [14] As Livy says, he wore his enemies out, partly by accusing them, but still more by the pertinacity with which he defended himself. [15] Besides private causes, he spoke in many important public trials and on many great questions of state: Cicero [16] had seen or heard of 150 orations by him; in one passage he implies that he had delivered as many as Lysias, i.e. 230. [17] Even now we have traces, certainly of 80, and perhaps of 13 more. [18] His military life, which had been a series of successes, was brought to a close 190 B.C., and from this time until his death, he appears as an able civil administrator, and a vehement opponent of lax manners. In the year of his censorship (184 B.C.) Plautus died. The tremendous vigour with which he wielded the powers of this post stirred up a swarm of enemies. His tongue became more bitter than ever. Plutarch gives his portrait in an epigram.
Pyrron, pandaketaen, glaukommaton, oude thanonta Porkion eis aidaen Persephonae dechetai.
Here, at 85 years of age, [19] the man stands before us. We see the crisp, erect figure, bristling with aggressive vigour, the coarse, red hair, the keen, grey eyes, piercingly fixed on his opponent's face, and reading at a glance the knavery he sought to hide; we hear the rasping voice, launching its dry, cutting sarcasms one after another, each pointed with its sting of truth; and we can well believe that the dislike was intense, which could make an enemy provoke the terrible armoury of the old censor's eloquence.
As has been said, he so far relaxed the severity of his principles as to learn the Greek language and study the great writers. Nor could he help feeling attracted to minds like those of Thucydides and Demosthenes, in sagacity and earnestness so congenial to his own. Nevertheless, his originality is in nothing more conspicuously shown than in his method of treating history. He struck a line of inquiry in which he found no successor. The Origines, if it had remained, would undoubtedly have been a priceless storehouse of facts about the antiquities of Italy. Cato had an enlarged view of history. It was not his object to magnify Rome at the expense of the other Italian nationalities, but rather to show how she had become their greatest, because their truest, representative. The divisions of the work itself will show the importance he attached to an investigation of their early annals. We learn from Nepos that the first book comprised the regal period; the second and third were devoted to the origin and primitive history of each Italian state; [20] the fourth and fifth embraced the Punic wars; the last two carried the history as far as the Praetorship of Servius Galba, Cato's bold accusation of whom he inserted in the body of the work. Nepos, echoing the superficial canons of his age, characterises the whole as showing industry and diligence, but no learning whatever. The early myths were somewhat indistinctly treated. [21] His account of the Trojan immigration seems to have been the basis of that of Virgil, though the latter refashioned it in several points. [22] His computation of dates, though apparently exact, betrays a mind indifferent to the importance of chronology. The fragments of the next two books are more copious. He tells us that Gaul, then as now, pursued with the greatest zeal military glory and eloquence in debate. [23] His notice of the Ligurians is far from complimentary. "They are all deceitful, having lost every record of their real origin, and being illiterate, they invent false stories and have no recollection of the truth." [24] He hazards a few etymologies, which, as usual among Roman writers, are quite unscientific. Graviscae is so called from its unhealthy climate (gravis aer), Praeneste from its conspicuous position on the mountains (quia montibus praestet). A few scattered remarks on the food in use among different tribes are all that remain of an interesting department which might have thrown much light on ethnological questions. In the fourth book, Cato expresses his disinclination to repeat the trivial details of the Pontifical tables, the fluctuations of the market, the eclipses of the sun and moon, &c. [25] He narrates with enthusiasm the self-devotion of the tribune Caedicius, who in the first Punic war offered his life with that of 400 soldiers to engage the enemy's attention while the general was executing a necessary manoeuvre. [26] "The Laconian Leonides, who did the same thing at Thermopylae, has been rewarded by all Greece for his virtue and patriotism with all the emblems of the highest possible distinction— monuments, statues, epigrams, histories; his deed met with their warmest gratitude. But little praise has been given to our tribune in comparison with his merits, though he acted just as the Spartan did, and saved the fortunes of the State." As to the title Origines, it is possible, as Nepos suggests, that it arose from the first three books having been published separately. It certainly is not applicable to the entire treatise, which was a genuine history on the same scale as that of Thucydides, and no mere piece of antiquarian research. He adhered to truth in so far as he did not insert fictitious speeches; he conformed to Greek taste so far as to insert his own. One striking feature in the later hooks was his omission of names. No Roman worthy is named in them. The reason of this it is impossible to discover. Fear of giving offence would be the last motive to weigh with him. Dislike of the great aristocratic houses into whose hands the supreme power was steadily being concentrated, is a more probable cause; but it is hardly sufficient of itself. Perhaps the omission was a mere whim of the historian. Though this work obtained great and deserved renown, yet, like its author, it was praised rather than imitated. Livy scarcely ever uses it; and it is likely that, before the end of the first century A.D. the speeches were published separately, and were the only part at all generally read. Pliny, Gellius, and Servius, are the authors who seem most to have studied it; of these Pliny was most influenced by it. The Natural History, especially in its general discussions, strongly reminds us of Cato.
Of the talents of Cato as an orator something will be said in the next section. His miscellaneous writings, though none of them are historical, may be noticed here. Quintilian [27] attests the many-sidedness of his genius: "M. Cato was at once a first-rate general, a philosopher, an orator, the founder of history, the most thorough master of law and agriculture." The work on agriculture we have the good fortune to possess; or rather a redaction of it, slightly modernized and incomplete, but nevertheless containing a large amount of really genuine matter. Nothing can be more characteristic than the opening sentences. We give a translation, following as closely as possible the form of the original: "It is at times worth while to gain wealth by commerce, were it not so perilous; or by usury, were it equally honourable. Our ancestors, however, held, and fixed by law, that a thief should be condemned to restore double, a usurer quadruple. We thus see how much worse they thought it for a citizen to be a money-lender than a thief. Again, when they praised a good man, they praised him as a good farmer, or a good husbandman. Men so praised were held to have received the highest praise. For myself, I think well of a merchant as a man of energy and studious of gain; but it is a career, as I have said, that leads to danger and ruin. But farming makes the bravest men, and the sturdiest soldiers, and of all sources of gain is the surest, the most natural, and the least invidious, and those who are busy with it have the fewest bad thoughts." The sententious and dogmatic style of this preamble cannot fail to strike the reader; but it is surpassed by many of the precepts which follow. Some of these contain pithy maxims of shrewd sense, e.g. "Patrem familias vendacem non emacem esse oportet." "Ita aedifices ne villa fundum quaerat, neve fundus villam." The Virgilian prescription, "Laudato ingentia rura: exiguam colito," is said to be drawn from Cato, though it does not exist in our copies. The treatment throughout is methodical. If left by the author in its present form it represents the daily jotting down of thoughts on the subject as they occurred to him.
In two points the writer appears in an unfavourable light—in his love of gain, and in his brutal treatment of his slaves. With him farming is no mere amusement, nor again is it mere labour. It is primarily and throughout a means of making money, and indeed the only strictly honourable one. However, Cato so far relaxed the strictness of this theory that he became "an ardent speculator in slaves, buildings, artificial lakes, and pleasure-grounds, the mercantile spirit being too strong within him to rest satisfied with the modest returns of his estate." As regarded slaves, the law considered them as chattels, and he followed the law to the letter. If a slave grew old or sick he was to be sold. If the weather hindered work he was to take his sleep then, and work double time afterwards. "In order to prevent combinations among his slaves, their master assiduously sowed enmities and jealousies between them. He bought young slaves in their name, whom they were forced to train and sell for his benefit. When supping with his guests, if any dish was carelessly dressed, he rose from table, and with a leathern thong administered the requisite number of lashes with his own hand." So pitilessly severe was he, that a slave who had concluded a purchase without his leave, hung himself to avoid his master's wrath. These incidents, some told by Plutarch, others by Cato himself, show the inhuman side of Roman life, and make it less hard to understand their treatment of vanquished kings and generals. For the other sex Cato had little respect. Women, he says, should be kept at home, and no Chaldaean or soothsayer be allowed to see them. Women are always running after superstition. His directions about the steward's wife are as follows. They are addressed to the steward:— "Let her fear you. Take care that she is not luxurious. Let her see as little as possible of her neighbours or any other female friends; let her never invite them to your house; let her never go out to supper, nor be fond of taking walks. Let her never offer sacrifice; let her know that the master sacrifices for the whole family; let her he neat herself, and keep the country-house neat." Several sacrificial details are given in the treatise. We observe that they are all of the rustic order; the master alone is to attend the city ceremonial. Among the different industries recommended, we are struck by the absence of wheat cultivation. The vineyard and the pasture chiefly engage attention, though herbs and green produce are carefully treated. The reason is to be sought in the special nature of the treatise. It is not a general survey of agriculture, but merely a handbook of cultivation for a particular farm, that of Manlius or Mallius, and so probably unfit for wheat crops. Other subjects, as medicine, are touched on. But his prescriptions are confined to the rudest simples, to wholesome and restorative diet, and to incantations. These last have equal value assigned them with rational remedies. Whether Cato trusted them may well be doubted. He probably gave in such cases the popular charm-cure, simply from not having a better method of his own to propose.
Another series of treatises were those addressed to his son, in one of which, that on medicine, he charitably accuses the Greeks of an attempt to kill all barbarians by their treatment, and specially the Romans, whom they stigmatise by the insulting name of Opici. [28] "I forbid you, once for all, to have any dealings with physicians." Owing to their temperate and active life, the Romans had for more than five hundred years existed without a physician within their walls. Cato's hostility to the profession, therefore, if not justifiable, was at least natural. He subjoins a list of simples by which he kept himself and his wife alive and in health to a green old age. [29] And observing that there are countless signs of death, and none of health, he gives the chief marks by which a man apparently in health may be noted as unsound. In another treatise, on farming, also dedicated to his son, for whom he entertained a warm affection, and over whose education he sedulously watched, he says,—"Buy not what you want, but what you must have; what you don't want is dear at a farthing, and what you lack borrow from yourself." Such is the homely wisdom which gained for Cato the proud title of Sapiens, by which, says Cicero, [30] he was familiarly known. Other original works, the product of his vast experience, were the treatise on eloquence, of which the pith is the following: "Rem tene: verba sequentur;" "Take care of the sense: the sounds will take care of themselves." We can well believe that this excellent maxim ruled his own conduct. The art of war formed the subject of another volume; in this, too, he had abundant and faithful experience. An attempt to investigate the principles of jurisprudence, which was carried out more fully by his son, [31] and a short carmen de moribus or essay on conduct, completed the list of his paternal instructions. Why this was styled carmen is not known. Some think it was written in Saturnian verse, others that its concise and oracular formulas suggested the name, since carmen in old Latin is by no means confined to verse. It is from this that the account of the low estimation of poets in the early Republic is taken. Besides these regular treatises we hear of letters, [32] and apophthegmata, or pithy sayings, put together like those of Bacon from divers sources. In after times Cato's own apophthegms were collected for publication, and under the name of Catonis dicta, were much admired in the Middle Ages. We see that Cato's literary labours were encyclopaedic. In this wide and ambitious sphere he was followed by Varro, and still later by Celsus. Literary effort was now becoming general. FULVIUS NOBILIOR, the patron of Ennius and adversary of Cato, published annals after the old plan of a calendar of years. CASSIUS HEMINA and Calpurnius Piso, who were younger contemporaries, continued in the same track, and we hear of other minor historians. Cassius is mentioned more than once as "antiquissimus auctor," a term of compliment as well as chronological reference. [33] Of him Niebuhr says: "He wrote about Alba according to its ancient local chronology, and synchronised the earlier periods of Rome with the history of Greece. He treated of the age before the foundation of Rome, whence we have many statements of his about Siculian towns in Latium. The archaeology of the towns seems to have been his principal object. The fourth book of his work bore the title of Punicum bellum posterius, from which we infer that the last war with Carthage had not as yet broken out."
About this epoch flourished Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS SERVILIANUS, who is known to have written histories. He is supposed to be miscalled by Cicero, [34] Fabius Pictor, for Cicero mentions a work in Latin by the latter author, whereas it is certain that the old Fabius wrote only in Greek. The best authorities now assume that Fabius Maximus, as a clansman and admirer of Pictor, translated his book into Latin to make it more widely known. The new work would thus be indifferently quoted as Fabius Pictor or Fabius Maximus.
L. CALPURNIUS PISO FRUGI CENSORIUS (Cons. 133), well known as the adversary of the Gracchi, an eloquent and active man, and staunch adherent of the high aristocratic party, was also an able writer of history. That his conception of historical writing did not surpass that of his predecessors the annalists, is probable from the title of his work; [35] that he brought to bear on it a very different spirit seems certain from the quotations in Livy and Dionysius. One of the select few, in breadth of views as in position, he espoused the rationalistic opinions advocated by the Scipionic circle, and applied them with more warmth than judgment to the ancient legends. Grote, Niebuhr, and others, have shown how unsatisfactory this treatment is; illusion is lost without truth being found; nevertheless, the man who first honestly applies this method, though he may have ill success, makes an epoch in historical research. Cicero gives him no credit for style; his annals (he says) are written in a barren way. [36] The reader who wishes to read Niebuhr's interesting judgment on his work and influence is referred to the Introductory Lectures on Roman History. In estimating the very different opinions on the ancient authors given in the classic times, we should have regard to the divers standards from time to time set up. Cicero, for instance, has a great fondness for the early poets, but no great love for the prose writers, except the orators, nearly all of whom he loads with praise. Still, making allowance for this slight mental bias, his criticisms are of the utmost possible value. In the Augustan and early imperial times, antiquity was treated with much less reverence. Style was everything, and its deficiency could not be excused. And lastly, under the Antonines (and earlier [37]), disgust at the false taste of the day produced an irrational reaction in favour of the archaic modes of thought and expression, so that Gellius, for instance, extols the simplicity, sweetness, or noble vigour of writings in which we, like Cicero, should see only jejune and rugged immaturity. [38] Pliny speaks of Piso as a weighty author (gravis auctor), and Pliny's penetration was not easily warped by style or want of style. We may conclude, on the whole, that Piso, though often misled by his want of imagination, and occasionally by inaccuracy in regard to figures, [39] brought into Roman history a rational method, not by any means so original or excellent as that of Cato, but more on a level with the capacities of his countrymen, and infinitely more productive of imitation.
The study of Greek rhetoric had by this time been cultivated at Rome, and the difficulty of composition being materially lightened [40] as well as its results made more pleasing, we are not surprised to find a number of authors of a somewhat more pretentious type. VENNONIUS, CLODIUS LICINUS, C. FANNIUS, and GELLIUS are little more than names; all that is known of them will be found in Teuffel's repertory. They seem to have clung to the title of annalist though they had outgrown the character. There are, however, two names that cannot be quite passed over, those of SEMPRONIUS ASELLIO and CAELIUS ANTIPATER. The former was military tribune at Numantia (133 B.C.), and treated of that campaign at length, in his work. He was killed in 99 B.C. [41] but no event later than the death of Gracchus (121 B.C.) is recorded as from him. He had great contempt for the old annalists, and held their work to be a mere diary so far as form went; he professed to trace the motives and effects of actions, rather, however, with the object of stimulating public spirit than satisfying a legitimate thirst for knowledge. He had also some idea of the value of constitutional history, which may be due to the influence of Polybius, whose trained intelligence and philosophic grasp of events must have produced a great impression among those who knew or read him.
We have now mentioned three historians, each of whom brought his original contribution to the task of narrating events. Cato rose to the idea of Rome as the centre of an Italian State; he held any account of her institutions to be imperfect which did not also trace from their origin those of the kindred nations; Piso conceived the plan of reducing the myths to historical probability, and Asellio that of tracing the moral causes that underlay outward movements. Thus we see a great advance in theory since the time, just a century earlier, when Fabius wrote his annals. We now meet with a new element, that of rhetorical arrangement. No one man is answerable for introducing this. It was in the air of Rome during the seventh century, and few were unaffected by it. Antipater is the first to whom rhetorical ornament is attributed by Cicero, though his attainments were of a humble kind. [42] He was conspicuous for word painting. Scipio's voyage to Africa was treated by him in an imaginative theatrical fashion, noticed with disapproval by Livy. [43] In other respects he seems to have been trustworthy and to have merited the honour he obtained of being abridged by J. Brutus.
In the time of Sulla we hear of several historians who obtained celebrity. The first is CLAUDIUS QUADRIGARIUS (fl. 100 B.C.). He differs from all his predecessors by selecting as his starting-point the taking of Rome by the Gauls. His reason for so doing does him credit, viz. that there existed no documents for the earlier period. [44] He hurried over the first three centuries, and as was usual among Roman writers, gave a minute account of his own times, inserting documents and speeches. So archaic was his style that his fragments might belong to the age of Cato. For this reason, among others, Gellius [45] (in whom they are found) greatly admires him. Though he outlived Sulla, and therefore chronologically might be considered as belonging to the Ciceronian period, yet the lack of finish in his own and his contemporaries' style, makes this the proper place to mention them. The period, [46] as distinct from the mere stringing together of clauses, was not understood even in oratory until Gracchus, and in history it was to appear still later. Cicero never mentions Claudius, nor VALERIUS ANTIAS (91 B.C.), who is often associated with him. This writer, who has gained through Livy's page the unenviable notoriety of being the most lying of all annalists, nevertheless obtained much celebrity. The chief cause of his deceptiveness was the fabrication of circumstantial narrative, and the invention of exact numerical accounts. His work extended from the first mythical stories to his own day, and reached to at least seventy-five books. In his first decade Livy would seem to have followed him implicitly. Then turning in his later books to better authorities, such as Polybius, and perceiving the immense discrepancies, he realised how he had been led astray, and in revenge attacked Antias throughout the rest of his work. Still the fact that he is quoted by Livy oftener than any other writer, shows that he was too well-known to be neglected, and perhaps Livy has exaggerated his defects.
L. CORNELIUS SISENNA, (119-67 B.C.), better known as a statesman and grammarian, treated history with success. His daily converse with political life, and his thoughtful and studious habits, combined to qualify him for this department. He was a conscientious man, and tells how he pursued his work continuously, lest if he wrote by starts and snatches, he might pervert the reader's mind. His style, however, suffered by this, he became prolix; this apparently is what Fronto means when he says "scripsit longinque." To later writers he was interesting from his fondness for archaisms. Even in the senate he could not drop this affected habit. Alone of all the fathers he said adsentio for adsentior, and such phrases as "vellicatim aut sultuatim scribendo" show an absurd straining after quaintness.
C. LICINIUS MACER (died 73 B.C.) the father of the poet Calvus, was the latest annalist of Rome. Cicero, who was his enemy, and his judge in the trial which cost him his life, criticises his defects both as orator and historian, with severity. Livy, too, implies that he was not always trustworthy ("Quaesita ea propriae familiae laus leviorem auctorem facit," [47]) when the fame of his gens was in question, but on many points he quotes him with approval, and shows that he sought for the best materials, e.g. he drew from the lintei libri, [48] the books of the magistrates, [49] the treaty with Ardea, [50] and where he differed from the general view, he gave his reasons for it.
The extent of his researches is not known, but it seems likely that, alone of Roman historians, he did not touch on the events of his day, the latest speech to which reference is made being the year 196 B.C. As he was an orator, and by no means a great one, being stigmatised as "loquacious" by Cicero, it is probable that his history suffered from a rhetorical colouring.
In reviewing the list of historians of the ante-classical period, we cannot form any high opinion of their merits. Fabius, Cincius, and Cato, who are the first, are also the greatest. The others seem to have gone aside to follow out their own special views, without possessing either accuracy of knowledge or grasp of mind sufficient to unite them with a general comprehensive treatment. The simultaneous appearance of so many writers of moderate ability and not widely divergent views, is a witness to the literary activity of the age, but does not say much for the force of its intellectual creations.
NOTE.—The fragments of the historians have been carefully collected and edited with explanations and lists of authorities by Peter. (Veterum Historicorum Romanorum Relliquiae. Lipsiae, 1870.)
On the Annales Pontificum. (Chiefly from Les Annales des Pontifes, Le Clerc.)
The Annales, though not literature in the proper sense, were so important, as forming materials for it, that it may be well to give a short account of them. They were called Pontificum, Maximi, and sometimes Publici, to distinguish them from the Annales of other towns, of families, or of historical writers. The term Annales, we may note en passant, was ordinarily applied to a narrative of facts preceding one's own time, Historiae being reserved for a contemporary account (Gell. v. 8). But this of course was after its first sense was lost. In the oldest times, the Pontifices, as they were the lawyers, were in like manner the historians of Rome (Cic. de Or. ii. 12). Cicero and Varro repeatedly consulted their records, which Cicero dates from the origin of the city, but Livy only from Aneus Martius (i. 32). Servius, apparently confounding them with the Fasti, declares that they put down the events of every day (ad Ac. i. 373); and that they were divided into eighty books. Sempronius Asellio (Gell. v. 18) says they mention bellum quo initum consule, et quo modo confectum, et quis triumphans introierit, and Cato ridicules the meagreness of their information. Nevertheless it was considered authentic. Cicero found the eclipse of the year 350 duly registered; Virgil and Ovid drew much of their archaeological lore (annalibus eruta priscis, Ov. Fast i. 7.) and Livy his lists of prodigies from them. Besides these marvellous facts, others were doubtless noticed, as new laws, dedication of temples or monuments, establishment of colonies, deaths of great men, erection of statues, &c.; but all with the utmost brevity. Unam dicendi laudem putant esse brevitatem (De Or. ii. 12). Sentences occur in Livy which seem excerpts from them, e.g. (ii. 1).—His consulibus Fidenae obssesae, Crustumina capta, Praeneste ab Latinis ad Romanos descivit. Varro, in enumerating the gods whose altars were consecrated by Tatius, says (L. L. v. 101), ut Annales veteres nostri dicunt, and then names them. Pliny also quotes them expressly, but the word vetustissimi though they make it probable that the Pontifical Annals are meant, do not establish it beyond dispute (Plin. xxxiii. 6, xxxiv. 11).
It is probable, as has been said in this work, that the Annales Pontificum were to a great extent, though not altogether, destroyed in the Gallic invasion. But Rome was not the only city that had Annales. Probably all the chief towns of the Oscan, Sabine, and Umbrian territory had them. Cato speaks of Antemna as older than Rome, no doubt from its records. Varro drew from the archives of Tusculum (L. L. vi. 16), Praeneste had its Pontifical Annals (Cic de Div. ii. 41), and Anagnia its libri lintei (Fronto, Ep. ad Ant. iv. 4). Etruria beyond question possessed an extensive religious literature, with which much history must have been mingled. And it is reasonable to suppose, as Livy implies, that the educated Romans were familiar with it. From this many valuable facts would be preserved. When the Romans captured a city, they brought over its gods with them, and it is possible, its sacred records also, since their respect for what was religious or ancient, was not limited to their own nationality, but extended to most of those peoples with whom they were brought in contact. From all these considerations it is probable that a considerable portion of historic record was preserved after the burning of the city, whether from the Annals themselves, or from portions of them inscribed on bronze erstone, or from those of other states, which was accessible to, and used by Cato, Polybius, Varro, Cicero, and Verrius Flaccus. It is also probable that these records were collected into a work, and that this work, while modernized by its frequent revisions, nevertheless preserved a great deal of original and genuine annalistic chronicle.
The Annales must be distinguished from the Libri Pontificum, which seem to have been a manual of the Jus Pontificale. Cicero places them between the Jus Civile and the Twelve Tables (De Or. i. 43.) The Libri Pontificii may have been the same, but probably the term, when correctly used, meant the ceremonial ritual for the Sacerdotes, flamines, &c. This general term included the more special ones of Libri sacrorum, sacerdotum, haruspicini, &c. Some have confounded with the Annales a different sort of record altogether, the Indigitamenta, or ancient formulae of prayer or incantation, and the Axamenta, to which class the song of the Arval Brothers is referred.
As to the amount of historical matter contained in the Annals, it is impossible to pronounce with confidence. Their falsification through family and patrician pride is well known. But the earliest historians must have possessed sufficient insight to distinguish the obviously fabulous. We cannot suspect Cato of placing implicit faith in mythical accounts. He was no friend to the aristocratic families or their records, and took care to check them by the rival records of other Italian tribes. Sempronius Asellio, in a passage already alluded to (ap. Gell. v. 18), distinguishes the annalistic style as puerile (fabulas pueris narrare); the historian, he insists, should go beneath the surface, and understand what he relates. On comparing the early chronicles of Rome with those of St Bertin and St Denys of France, there appears no advantage in a historical point of view to be claimed by the latter; both contain many real events, though both seek to glorify the origin of the nation and its rulers by constant instances of divine or saintly intervention.
As the spiritual life of a people is reflected in their poetry, so their living voice is heard in their oratory. Oratory is the child of freedom. Under the despotisms of the East it could have no existence; under every despotism it withers. The more truly free a nation is, the greater will its oratory be. In no country was there a grander field for the growth of oratorical genius than in Rome. The two countries that approach nearest to it in this respect are beyond doubt Athens and England. In both eloquence has attained its loftiest height, in the one of popular, in the other of patrician excellence. The eloquence of Demosthenes is popular in the noblest sense. It is addressed to a sovereign people who knew that they were sovereign. Neither to deliberative nor to executive did they for a moment delegate that supreme power which it delighted them to exercise. He that had a measure or a bill to propose had only to persuade them that it was good, and the measure passed, the bill became law. But the audience he addressed, though a popular, was by no means an ordinary one. It was fickle and capricious to a degree exceeding that of all other popular assemblies; it was critical, exacting, intellectual, in a still higher degree. No audience has been more swayed by passion; none has been less swayed by the pretence of it. Always accessible to flattery, Athens counts as her two greatest orators the two men who never stooped to flatter her. The regal tones of Pericles, the prophetic earnestness of Demosthenes, in the response which each met, bear witness to the greatness of those who heard them. Even Cleon owed his greatest triumphs to the plainness with which he inveighed against the people's faults. Intolerant of inelegance and bombast, the Athenians required not only graceful speech, but speech to the point. Hence Demosthenes is of all ancient orators the most business-like. Of all ancient orators, it has been truly said he would have met with the best hearing from the House of Commons. Nevertheless there is a great difference between Athenian and English eloquence. The former was exclusively popular; the latter, in the strictest sense, is hardly popular at all. The dignified representatives of our lower house need no such appeals to popular passion as the Athenian assembly required; only on questions of patriotism or principle would they be tolerated. Still less does emotion govern the sedate and masculine eloquence of our upper house, or the strict and closely-reasoned pleadings of our courts of law. Its proper field is in the addresses of a popular member to one of the great city constituencies. The best speeches addressed to hereditary legislators or to elected representatives necessarily involve different features from those which characterised orations addressed directly to the entire nation assembled in one place. If oratory has lost in fire, it has gained in argument. In its political sphere, it shows a clearer grasp of the public interest, a more tenacious restriction to practical issues; in its judicial sphere, a more complete abandonment of prejudice and passion, and a subordination, immeasurably greater than at Athens, to the authority of written law.
Let us now compare the general features of Greek and English eloquence with those of Rome. Roman eloquence had this in common with Greek, that it was genuinely popular. In their comitia the people were supreme. The orator who addressed them must be one who by passion could enkindle passion, and guide for his own ends the impulses of a vast multitude. But how different was the multitude! Fickle, impressionable, vain; patriotic too in its way, and not without a rough idea of justice. So far like that of Greece; but here the resemblance ends. The mob of Rome, for in the times of real popular eloquence it had come to that, was rude, fierce, bloodthirsty: where Athens called for grace of speech, Rome demanded vehemence; where Athens looked for glory or freedom, Rome looked for increase of dominion, and the wealth of conquered kingdoms for her spoil. That in spite of their fierce and turbulent audience the great Roman orators attained to such impressive grandeur, is a testimony to the greatness of the senatorial system which reared them. In some respects the eloquence of Rome bears greater resemblance to that of England. For several centuries it was chiefly senatorial. The people intrusted their powers to the Senate, satisfied that it acted for the best; and during this period eloquence was matured. That special quality, so well named by the Romans gravitas, which at Athens was never reached, but which has again appeared in England, owed its development to the august discipline of the Senate. Well might Cineas call this body an assembly of kings. Never have patriotism, tradition, order, expediency, been so powerfully represented as there; never have change, passion, or fear had so little place. We can well believe that every effective speech began with the words, so familiar to us, maiores nostri voluerunt, and that it ended as it had begun. The aristocratic stamp necessarily impressed on the debates of such an assembly naturally recalls our own House of Lords. But the freedom of personal invective was far wider than modern courtesy would tolerate. And, moreover, the competency of the Senate to decide questions of peace or war threw into its discussions that strong party spirit which is characteristic of our Lower House. Thus the senatorial oratory of Rome united the characteristics of that of both our chambers. It was at once majestic and vehement, patriotic and personal, proud of traditionary prestige, but animated with the consciousness of real power.
In judicial oratory the Romans, like the Greeks, compare unfavourably with us. With more eloquence they had less justice. Nothing sets antiquity in a less prepossessing light than a study of its criminal trials; nothing seems to have been less attainable in these than an impartial sifting of evidence. The point of law is obscured among overwhelming considerations from outside. If a man is clearly innocent, as in the case of Roscius, the enmity of the great makes it a severe labour to obtain an acquittal; if he is as clearly guilty (as Cluentius would seem to have been), a skilful use of party weapons can prevent a conviction. [1] The judices in the public trials (which must be distinguished from civil causes tried in the praetor's court) were at first taken exclusively from the senators. Gracchus (122 B.C.) transferred this privilege to the Equites; and until the time of Sulla, who once more reinstated the senatorial class (81 B.C.), fierce contests raged between the two orders. Pompey (55 B.C.), following an enactment of Cotta (70 B.C.), threw the office open to the three orders of Senators, Knights, and Tribuni Aerarii, but fixed a high property qualification. Augustus added a fourth decuria from the lower classes, and Caligula a fifth, so that Quintilian could speak of a juryman as ordinarily a man of little intelligence and no legal or general knowledge. [2]
This would be of comparatively small importance if a presiding judge of lofty qualifications guided, as with us, the minds of the jury through the mazes of argument and sophistry, and set the real issue plainly before them. But in Rome no such prerogative rested with the presiding judge, [3] who merely saw that the provisions of the law under which the trial took place were complied with. The judges, or rather jurors, were, in Rome as in Athens, [4] both from their number and their divergent interests, open to influences of prejudice or corruption, only too often unscrupulously employed, from which our system is altogether exempt. In the later republican period it was not, of course, ignorance (the jurors being senators or equites) but bribery or partisanship that disgraced the decisions of the bench. Senator and eques unceasingly accused each other of venality, and each was beyond doubt right in the charge he made. [5] In circumstances like these it is evident that dexterous manipulation or passionate pleading must take the place of legitimate forensic oratory. Magnificent, therefore, as are the efforts of the great speakers in this field, and nobly as they often rise above the corrupt practice of their time, it is impossible to shut our eyes to the iniquities of the procedure, and to help regretting that talent so glorious was so often compelled either to fail or to resort to unworthy methods of success.
At Rome public speaking prevailed from the first. In every department of life it was necessary for a man to express in clear and vigorous language the views he recommended. Not only the senator or magistrate, but the general on the field of battle had to be a speaker. On his return from the campaign eloquence became to him what strategy had been before. It was the great path to civil honours, and success was not to be won without it. There is little doubt that the Romans struck out a vein of strong native eloquence before the introduction of Greek letters. Readiness of speech is innate in the Italians as in the French, and the other qualities of the Romans contributed to enhance this natural gift. Few remains of this native oratory are left, too few to judge by. We must form our opinion upon that of Cicero, who, basing his judgment on its acknowledged political effects, pronounces strongly in its favour. The measures of Brutus, of Valerius Poplicola, and others, testify to their skill in oratory; [6] and the great honour in which the orator was always held, [7] contrasting with the low position accorded to the poet, must have produced its natural result. But though the practice of oratory was cultivated it was not reduced to an art. Technical treatises were the work of Greeks, and Romans under Greek influence. In the early period the "spoken word" was all-important. Even the writing down of speeches after delivery was rarely, if ever, resorted to. The first known instance occurs so late as the war with Pyrrhus, 280 B.C., when the old censor Appius committed his speech to writing, which Cicero says that he had read. The only exception to this rule seems to have been the funeral orations, which may have been written from the first, but were rarely published owing to the youth of those who delivered them. The aspirant to public honours generally began his career by composing such an oration, though in later times a public accusation was a more favourite début. Besides Appius's; speech, we hear of one by FABIUS CUNCTATOR, and of another by Metellus, and we learn from Ennius that in the second Punic war (204 B.C.) M. CORNELIUS CETHEGUS obtained the highest renown for his persuasive eloquence.
"Additur orator Cornelius suaviloquenti
Ore Cethegus … is dictus popularibus olim …
Flos delibatus populi Suadaeque medulla." [8]
The first name on which we can pronounce with confidence is that of Cato. This great man was the first orator as he was the greatest statesman of his time. Cicero [9] praises him as dignified in commendation, pitiless in sarcasm, pointed in phraseology, subtle in argument. Of the 150 speeches extant in Cicero's time there was not one that was not stocked with brilliant and pithy sayings; and though perhaps they read better in the shape of extracts, still all the excellences of oratory were found in them as a whole; and yet no one could be found to study them. Perhaps Cicero's language betrays the warmth of personal admiration, especially as in a later passage of the same dialogue [10] he makes Atticus dissent altogether from his own view. "I highly approve (he says) of the speeches of Cato as compared with those of his own date, for though quite unpolished they imply some original talent … but to speak of him as an orator equal to Lysias would indeed be pardonable irony if we were in jest, but you cannot expect to approve it seriously to me and Brutus." No doubt Atticus's judgment is based on too high a standard, for high finish was impossible in the then state of the language. Still Cato wrote probably in a designedly rude style through his horror of Greek affectation. He is reported to have said in his old age (150 B.C.), "Caussurum illustrium quascunque defendi nunc cum maxime conficio orationes," [11] and these written speeches were no doubt improvements on those actually delivered, especially as Valerius Maximus says of his literary labours, [12] "Cato Graecis literis erudiri concupivit, quam sero inde cognoscimus quod etiam Latinas paene iam senex didicerit." His eloquence extended to every sort; he was a successful patronus in many private trials; he was a noted and most formidable accuser; in public trials we find him continually defending himself, and always with success; as the advocate or opponent of great political measures in the senate or assembly he was at his greatest. Many titles of deliberative speeches remain, e.g. "de rege Attalo et vectigalibus Asiae," "ut plura aera equestria fierent," "aediles plebis sacrosanctos esse," "de dote" (an attack upon the luxury of women), and others. His chief characteristics were condensed force, pregnant brevity, strong common sense, galling asperity. His orations were neglected for near a century, but in the Claudian era began to be studied, and were the subjects of commentary until the time of Servius, who speaks of his periods as ill-balanced and unrhythmical (confragosa). [13] There is a most caustic fragment preserved in Fronto [14] taken from the speech de sumptu suo, recapitulating his benefits to the state, and the ingratitude of those who had profited by them; and another from his speech against Minucius Thermus, who had scourged ten men for some trivial offence [15] which in its sarcasm, its vivid and yet redundant language, recalls the manner of Cicero.
In Cato's time we hear of SER. FULVIUS and L. COTTA, SCIPIO AFRICANUS and SULPICIUS GALLUS, all of whom were good though not first-rate speakers. A little later LAELIUS and the younger SCIPIO (185-129 B.C.), whose speeches were extant in the time of Cicero [16] and their contemporaries, followed Cato's example and wrote down what they had delivered. It is not clear whether their motive was literary or political, but more probably the latter, as party feeling was so high at Rome that a powerful speech might do good work afterwards as a pamphlet. [17] From the passages of Scipio Aemilianus which we possess, we gather that he strove to base his style on Greek models. In one we find an elaborate dilemma, with a taunting question repeated after each deduction; in another we find Greek terms contemptuously introduced much as they are centuries after in Juvenal; in another we have a truly patrician epigram. Being asked his opinion about the death of Gracchus, and replying that the act was a righteous one, the people raised a shout of defiance,—Taceant, inquit, quibus Italia noverca non mater est, quos ego sub corona vendidi—"Be silent, you to whom Italy is a stepdame not a mother, whom I myself have sold at the hammer of the auctioneer."
Laelius, surnamed Sapiens, or the philosopher (cons. 140), is well known to readers of Cicero as the chief speaker in the exquisite dialogue on friendship, and to readers of Horace as the friend of Scipio and Lucilius. [18] Of his relative excellence as an orator, Cicero speaks with caution. [19] He mentions the popular preference for Laelius, but apparently his own judgment inclines the other way. "It is the manner of men to dislike one man excelling in many things. Now, as Africanus has no rival in martial renown, though Laelius gained credit by his conduct of the war with Viriathus, so as regards genius, learning, eloquence, and wisdom, though both are put in the first rank, yet all men are willing to place Laelius above Scipio." It is certain that Laelius's style was much less natural than that of Scipio. He affected an archaic vocabulary and an absence of ornament, which, however, was a habit too congenial at all times to the Roman mind to call down any severe disapproval. What Laelius lacked was force. On one occasion a murder had been committed in the forest of Sila, which the consuls were ordered to investigate. A company of pitch manufacturers were accused, and Laelius undertook their defence. At its conclusion the consuls decided on a second hearing. A few days after Laelius again pleaded, and this time with an elegance and completeness that left nothing to be desired. Still the consuls were dissatisfied. On the accused begging Laelius to make a third speech, he replied: "Out of consideration for you I have done my best. You should now go to Ser. Galba, who can defend you with greater warmth and vehemence than I." Galba, from respect to Laelius, was unwilling to undertake the case; but, having finally agreed, he spent the short time that was left in getting it by heart, retiring into a vaulted chamber with some highly educated slaves, and remaining at work till after the consuls had taken their seat. Being sent for he at last came out, and, as Rutilius the narrator and eye-witness declared, with such a heightened colour and triumph in his eyes that he looked like one who had already won his cause. Laelius himself was present. The advocate spoke with such force and weight that scarcely an argument passed unapplauded. Not only were the accused released, but they met on all hands with sympathy and compassion. Cicero adds that the slaves who had helped in the consultation came out of it covered with bruises, such was the vigour of body as well as mind that a Roman brought to bear on his case, and on the unfortunate instruments of its preparation. [20]
GALBA (180-136 B.C.?) was a man of violence and bad faith, not for a moment to be compared to Laelius. His infamous cruelty to the Lusitanians, one of the darkest acts in all history, has covered his name with an ineffaceable stain. Cato at eighty-five years of age stood forth as his accuser, but owing to his specious art, and to the disgrace of Rome, he was acquitted. [21] Cicero speaks of him as peringeniosus sed non satis doctus, and says that he lacked perseverance to improve his speeches from a literary point of view, being contented with forensic success. Yet he was the first to apply the right sort of treatment to oratorical art; he introduced digressions for ornament, for pathos, for information; but as he never re-wrote his speeches, they remained unfinished, and were soon forgotten—Hanc igitur ob caussum videtur Laelii mens spirare etiam in scriptis, Galbae autem vis occidisse.
Laelius had embodied in his speeches many of the precepts of the Stoic philosophy. He had been a friend of the celebrated Panaetius (186-126 B.C.) of Rhodes, to whose lectures he sent his own son-in-law, and apparently others too. Eloquence now began to borrow philosophic conceptions; it was no longer merely practical, but admitted of illustration from various theoretical sources. It became the ambition of cultivated men to fuse enlightened ideas into the substance of their oratory. Instances of this are found in SP. MUMMIUS, AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, C. FANNIUS, and the Augur MUCIUS SCAEVOLA, and perhaps, though it is difficult to say, in Carbo and the two Gracchi. These are the next names that claim our notice.
CARBO (164-119 B.C.), the supporter first of the Gracchi, and then of their murderers, was a man of the most worthless character, but a bold speaker, and a successful patron. In his time the quaestiones perpetuae [22] were constituted, and thus he had an immense opportunity of enlarging his forensic experience. He gained the reputation of being the first pleader of his day; he was fluent, witty, and forcible, and was noted for the strength and sweetness of his voice. Tacitus also mentions him with respect in his dialogue de Oratoribus. [23]
The two GRACCHI were no less distinguished as orators than as champions of the oppressed. TIBERIUS (169-133 B.C.) served his first campaign with Scipio in Africa, and was present at the fall of Carthage. His personal friendship for the great soldier was cemented by Scipio's union with his only sister. The father of Gracchus was a man of sterling worth and considerable oratorical gifts; his mother's virtue, dignity, and wisdom are proverbial. Her literary accomplishments were extremely great; she educated her sons in her own studies, and watched their progress with more than a preceptor's care. The short and unhappy career of this virtuous but imprudent man is too well known to need allusion here; his eloquence alone will be shortly noticed. It was formed on a careful study of Greek authors. Among his masters was Diophanes of Mitylene, who dwelt at Rome, and paid the penalty of his life for his friendship for his pupil. Tiberius's character was such as to call for the strongest expressions of reverence even from those who disapproved his political conduct. Cicero speaks of him as homo sanctissimus, and Velleius Paterculus says of him, "vita innocentissimus, ingenio florentissimus, proposito sanctissimus, tantis denique ornatus virtutibus, quantas perfecta et natura et industria mortalis conditio recipit." His appearance formed an epoch in eloquence. "The Gracchi employed a far freer and easier mode of speech than any of their predecessors." [24] This may be accounted for partly through the superiority of their inherited talent and subsequent education, but is due far more to the deep conviction which stirred their heart and kindled their tongue. Cato alone presents the spectacle of a man deeply impressed with a political mission and carrying it into the arena of political conflict, but the inspiration of Gracchus was of a far higher order than that of the harsh censor. It was in its origin moral, depending on the eternal principles of right and wrong, not on the accident of any particular state or party in it. Hence the loftiness of his speech, from which sarcasm and even passion were absent. In estimating the almost ideal character of the enthusiasm which fired him we cannot forget that his mother was the daughter of Scipio, of him who believed himself the special favourite of heaven, and the communicator of divinely sent ideas to the world. Unhappily we have no fragments of the orations of Gracchus; the more brilliant fame of his brother has eclipsed his literary renown, but we may judge of their special features by those of their author's character, and be sure that while lacking in genius they were temperate, earnest, pure, and classical. In fact the Gracchi may he called the founders of classical Latin. That subdued power whose subtle influence penetrates the mind and vanquishes the judgment is unknown in literature before them. Whenever it appears it marks the rise of a high art, it answers to the vis temperata which Horace so warmly commends. The younger son of Cornelia, C. GRACCHUS (154-121 B.C.), was of a different temper from his brother. He was less of the moralist, more of the artist. His feeling was more intense but less profound. His brother's loyalty had been to the state alone; his was given partly to the state, partly to the shade of his brother. In nearly every speech, in season and out of season, he denounced his murder. "Pessimi Tiberium meum fratrem, optimum virum, interfecerunt." Such is the burden of his eloquence. If in Tiberius we see the impressive calmness of reasoned conviction, in Caius we see the splendid impetuosity of chivalrous devotion. And yet Caius was, without doubt, the greater statesman of the two. The measures, into which his brother was as it were forced, were by him well understood and deliberately planned. They amounted to nothing less than a subversion of the existing state. The senate destroyed meant Gracchus sovereign. Under the guise of restoring to the people their supreme power, he paved the way for the long succession of tyrants that followed. His policy mingled patriotism and revenge. The corruption and oppression that everywhere marked the oligarchical rule roused his just indignation; the death of his brother, the death he foresaw in store for himself, stirred him into unholy vengeance. Many of his laws were well directed. The liberal attitude he assumed towards the provinces, his strong desire to satisfy the just claims of the Italians to citizenship, his breaking down the exclusive administration of justice, these are monuments of his far-seeing statesmanship. But his vindictive legislation with regard to Popillius Laenas, and to Octavius (from which, however, his mother's counsel finally deterred him), and above all his creation of the curse of Rome, a hungry and brutal proletariate, by largesses of corn, present his character as a public man in darker colours. As Mommsen says, "Right and wrong, fortune and misfortune, were so inextricably blended in him that it may well beseem history in this case to reserve her judgment." [25] The discord of his character is increased by the story that an inward impulse dissuaded him at first from public life, that agreeably to its monitions he served as Quaestor abroad, and pursued for some years a military career; but after a time his brother's spirit haunted him, and urged him to return to Rome and offer his life upon the altar of the great cause. This was the turning-point of his career. He returned suddenly, and from that day became the enemy of the senate, the avenger of his brother, and the champion of the multitude. His oratory is described as vehement beyond example; so carried away did he become, that he found it necessary to have a slave behind him on the rostra, who, by playing a flute, should recall him to moderation. [26] Cicero, who strongly condemned the man, pays the highest tribute to his genius, saying in the Brutus: "Of the loftiest talent, of the most burning enthusiasm, carefully taught from boyhood, he yields to no man in richness and exuberance of diction." To which Brutus assents, adding, "Of all our predecessors he is the only one whose works I read." Cicero replies, "You do right in reading him; Latin literature has lost irreparably by his early death. I know not whether he would not have stood above every other name. His language is noble, his sentiments profound, his whole style grave. His works lack the finishing touch; many are admirably begun, few are thoroughly complete. He of all speakers is the one that should be read by the young, for not only is he fit to sharpen talent, but also to feed and nourish a natural gift." [27]
One of the great peculiarities of ancient eloquence was the frequent opportunity afforded for self-recommendation or self-praise. That good taste or modesty which shrinks from mentioning its own merits was far less cultivated in antiquity than now. Men accepted the principle not only of acting but of speaking for their own advantage. This gave greater zest to a debate on public questions, and certainly sharpened the orator's powers. If a man had benefited the state he was not ashamed to blazon it forth; if another in injuring the state had injured him, he did not altogether sacrifice personal invective to patriotic indignation. [28] The frequency of accusations made this "art of self-defence" a necessity—and there can be no doubt the Roman people listened with admiration to one who was at once bold and skilful enough to sound his own praises well. Cicero's excessive vanity led him to overdo his part, and to nauseate at times even well-disposed hearers. From the fragments of Gracchus' speeches that remain (unhappily very few) we should gather that in asserting himself he was without a rival. The mixture of simplicity and art removes him at once from Cato's bald literalism and Cicero's egotism. It was, however, in impassioned attack that Gracchus rose to his highest tones. The terms Gracchi impetum, [29] tumultuator Gracchus, [30] among the Latin critics, and similar ones from Plutarch and Dio among the Greeks, attest the main character of his eloquence. His very outward form paralleled the restlessness of his soul. He moved up and down, bared his arm, stamped violently, made fierce gestures of defiance, and acted through real emotion as the trained rhetoricians of a later age strove to act by rules of art. His accusation of Piso is said to have contained more maledictions than charges; and we can believe that a temperament so fervid, when once it gave the reins to passion, lost all self-command. It is possible we might think less highly of Gracchus's eloquence than did the ancients, if his speeches remained. Their lack of finish and repose may have been unnoticed by critics who could hurl themselves in thought not merely into the feeling but the very place which he occupied; but to moderns, whose sympathy with a state of things so opposite must needs be imperfect, it is possible that their power might not have compensated for the absence of relief. Important fragments from the speech apud Censores (124 B.C.), from that de legibus a se promulgatis (123 B.C.), and from that de Mithridate (123 B.C.), are given and commented on by Wordsworth.
Among the friends and opponents of the Gracchi were many orators whose names are given by Cicero with the minute care of a sympathising historian; but as few, if any, remains of their speeches exist, it can serve no purpose to recount the list. Three celebrated names may be mentioned as filling up the interval between C. Gracchus and M. Antonius. The first of these is AEMILIUS SCAURUS (163-90? B.C.), the haughty chief of the senate, the unscrupulous leader of the oligarchical party. His oratory is described by Cicero [31] as conspicuous for dignity and a natural but irresistible air of command; so that when he spoke for a defendant, he seemed like one who gave his testimony rather than one who pleaded. This want of flexibility unfitted him for success at the bar; accordingly, we do not find that he was much esteemed as a patron; but for summing up the debates at the Senate, or delivering an opinion on a great public question, none could be more impressive. Speeches of his were extant in Cicero's time; also an autobiography, which, like Caesar's Commentaries, was intended to put his conduct in the most favourable light; these, however, were little read. Scaurus lived to posterity, not in his writings, but in his example of stern constancy to a cause. [32]
A man in many ways resembling him but of purer conduct, was RUTILIUS (158- 78 B.C.), who is said by Cicero to have been a splendid example of many- sided culture. He was a scholar, a philosopher, a jurist of high repute, a historian, and an orator, though the severity of the Stoic sect, to which he adhered, prevented his striving after oratorical excellence. His impeachment for malversation in Asia, and unjust condemnation to banishment, reflect strongly on the formation of the Roman law-courts. His pride, however, was in part the cause of his exile. For had he chosen to employ Antonius or Crassus to defend him, an acquittal would at least have been possible; but conscious of rectitude, he refused any patron, and relied on his own dry and jejune oratory, and such assistance as his young friend Cotta could give. Sulla recalled him from Smyrna, whither he had repaired after his condemnation; but Rutilius refused to return to the city which had unjustly expelled him.
Among the other aristocratic leaders, CATULUS, the "noble colleague" of Marius [33] (cons. 102), must be mentioned. He was not a Stoic, and therefore was free to chose a more ornamental method of speaking than Rutilius. Cicero, with the partiality of a senatorial advocate, gives him very high praise. "He was educated not in the old rough style, but in that of our own day, or something more finished and elegant still. He had a wide acquaintance with literature, the highest courtesy of life and manners as well as of discourse, and a pure stream of genuine Latin eloquence. This is conspicuous in all his works, but most of all, in his autobiography, written to the poet A. Furius, in a style full of soft grace recalling that of Xenophon, but now, unhappily, little, if at all, read. In pleading he was successful but not eminent. When heard alone, he seemed excellent, but when contrasted with a greater rival, his faults at once appeared." His chief virtue seems to have been the purity of his Latin idiom. He neither copied Greek constructions nor affected archaisms, as Rutilius Scaurus, Cotta, and so many others in his own time, and Sallust, Lucretius, and Varro in a later age. [34] The absence of any recognised standard of classical diction made it more difficult than at first appears for an orator to fix on the right medium between affectation and colloquialism.
The era inaugurated by the Gracchi was in the highest degree favourable to eloquence. The disordered state of the Republic, in which party-spirit had banished patriotism and was itself surrendering to armed violence, called for a style of speaking commensurate with the turbulence of public life. Never in the world's history has fierce passion found such exponents in so great a sphere. It is not only the vehemence of their language—that may have been paralleled elsewhere—it is the reality of it that impresses us. The words that denounced an enemy were not idly flung into the forum; they fell among those who had the power and the will to act upon them. He who sent them forth must expect them to ruin either his antagonist or himself. Each man chose his side, with the daggers of the other party before his face. His eloquence, like his sword, was a weapon for life and death. Only in the French Revolution have oratory and assassination thus gone hand in hand. Demosthenes could lash the Athenians into enthusiasm so great that in delight at his eloquence they forgot his advice. "I want you," he said, "not to applaud me, but to march against Philip." [35] There was no danger of the Roman people forgetting action in applause. They rejoiced to hear the orator, but it was that he might impel them to tumultuous activity; he was caterer not for the satisfaction of their ears, but for the employment of their hands. Thus he paid a heavy price for eminence. Few of Rome's greatest orators died in their beds. Carbo put an end to his own life; the two Gracchi, Antonius, Drusus, Cicero himself, perished by the assassin's hand; Crassus was delivered by sudden illness from the same fate. It is not wonderful if with the sword hanging over their heads, Roman orators attain to a vehemence beyond example in other nations. The charm that danger lends to daring is nowhere better shown than in the case of Cicero. Timid by nature, he not only in his speeches hazarded his life, but even when the dagger of Antony was waiting for him, he could not bring himself to flee. With the civil war, however, eloquence was for a time suppressed. Neither argument nor menace could make head against the furious brutality of Marius, or the colder butcheries of Sulla. But the intervening period produced two of the greatest speakers Rome ever saw, both of whom Cicero places at the very summit of their art, between whom he professes himself unable to decide, and about whom he gives the most authentic and copious account. These were the advocates M. ANTONIUS (143-87 B.C.) and M. LICINIUS CRASSUS (140-91 B.C.).
Both of them spoke in the senate and assembly as well as in the courts; and Crassus was perhaps a better political than forensic orator. Nevertheless the criticism of Cicero, from which we gain our chief knowledge, is mainly directed to their forensic qualifications; and it is probable that at the period at which they flourished, the law-courts offered the fullest combination of advantages for bringing out all the merits of a speaker. For the comitia were moved solely by passion or interest; the senate was swayed by party considerations, and was little touched by argument; whereas the courts offered just enough necessity for exact reasoning without at all resisting appeals to popular passion. Of the two kinds of judicia at Rome, the civil cases were little sought after; the public criminal trials being those which the great patroni delighted to undertake. A few words may not be out of place here on the general division of cases, and the jurisdiction of the magistrates, senate, and people, as it is necessary to understand these in order to appreciate the special kind of oratory they developed.
There had been, previously to this period, two praetors in Rome, the Praetor Urbanus, who adjudged cases between citizens in accordance with civil law, and the Praetor Peregrinus, who presided whenever a foreigner or alien was concerned, and judged according to the principles of natural law. Afterwards six praetors were appointed; and in the time of Antonius they judged not only civil but criminal cases, except those concerning the life of a citizen or the welfare of the state, which the people reserved for themselves. It must be remembered that the supreme judicial power was vested in the sovereign people in their comitia; that they delegated it in public matters to the senate, and in general legal cases to the praetor's court, but that in every capital charge a final appeal to them remained. The praetors at an early date handed over their authority to other judges, chosen either from the citizens at large, or from the body of Judices Selecti, who were renewed every year. These subsidiary judges might consist of a single arbiter, of small boards of three, seven, or ten, &c., or of a larger body called the Centum viri, chosen from the thirty- five tribes, who sat all the year, the others being only appointed for the special case. But over their decisions the praetor exercised a superior supervision, and he could annul them on appeal. The authorities on which the praetor based his practice were those of the Twelve Tables and the custom-law; but he had besides this a kind of legislative prerogative of his own. For on coming into office he had to issue an edict, called edictum perpetuum, [36] specifying the principles he intended to guide him in any new cases that might arise. If these were merely a continuation of those of his predecessor, his edict was called tralaticium, or "handed on." But more often they were of an independent character, the result of his knowledge or his prejudices; and too often he departed widely from them in the course of his year of office. It was not until after the time of Crassus and Antonius that a law was passed enforcing consistency in this respect (67 B.C.). Thus it was inevitable that great looseness should prevail in the application of legal principles, from the great variety of supplementary codes (edicta), and the instability of case-law. Moreover, the praetor was seldom a veteran lawyer, but generally a man of moderate experience and ambitious views, who used the praetorship merely as a stepping-stone to the higher offices of state. Hence it was by no means certain that he would be able to appreciate a complicated technical argument, and as a matter of fact the more popular advocates rarely troubled themselves to advance one.
Praetors also generally presided over capital trials, of which the proper jurisdiction lay with the comitia. In Sulla's time their number was increased to ten, and each was chairman of the quaestio which sat on one of the ten chief crimes, extortion, peculation, bribery, treason, coining, forgery, assassination or poisoning, and violence. [37] As assessors he had the quaesitor or chief juror, and a certain number of the Judices Selecti of whom some account has been already given. The prosecutor and defendant had the right of objecting to any member of the list. If more than one accuser offered, it was decided which should act at a preliminary trial called Divinatio. Owing to the desire to win fame by accusations, this occurrence was not unfrequent.
When the day of the trial arrived the prosecutor first spoke, explaining the case and bringing in the evidence. This consisted of the testimony of free citizens voluntarily given; of slaves, wrung from them by torture; and of written documents. The best advocates, as for instance Cicero in his Milo, were not disposed, any more than we should be, to attach much weight to evidence obtained by the rack; but in estimating the other two sources they differed from us. We should give the preference to written documents; the Romans esteemed more highly the declarations of citizens. These offered a grander field for the display of ingenuity and misrepresentation; it is, therefore, in handling these that the celebrated advocates put forth all their skill. The examination of evidence over, the prosecutor put forth his case in a long and elaborate speech; and the accused was then allowed to defend himself. Both were, as a rule, limited in point of time, and sometimes to a period which to us would seem quite inconsistent with justice to the case. Instead of the strict probity and perfect independence which we associate with the highest ministers of the law, the Roman judices were often canvassed, bribed, or intimidated. So flagitious had the practice become, that Cicero mentions a whole bench having been induced by indulgences of the most abominable kind to acquit Clodius, though manifestly guilty. We know also that Pompey and Antony resorted to the practice of packing the forum with hired troops and assassins; and we learn from Cicero that it was the usual plan for provincial governors to extort enough not only to satisfy their own rapacity, but to buy their impunity from the judges. [38]
Under circumstances like these we cannot wonder if strict law was little attended to, and the moral principles that underlay it still less. The chief object was to inflame the prejudices or anger of the jurors; or, still more, to excite their compassion, to serve one's party, or to acquire favour with the leading citizen. For example, it was a rule that men of the same political views should appear on the same side. Cicero and Hortensius, though often opposed, still retained friendly feelings for each other; but when Cicero went over to the senatorial party, the last bar to free intercourse with his rival was removed, since henceforward they were always retained together.
With regard to moving the pity of the judges, many instances of its success are related both in Greece and Rome. The best are those of Galba and Piso, both notorious culprits, but both acquitted; the one for bringing forward his young children, the other for prostrating himself in a shower of rain to kiss the judges' feet and rising up with a countenance bedaubed with mud! Facts like these, and they are innumerable, compel us to believe that the reverence for justice as a sacred thing, so inbred in Christian civilization, was foreign to the people of Rome. It is a gloomy spectacle to see a mighty nation deliberately giving the rein to passion and excitement heedless of the miscarriage of justice. The celebrated law, re-enacted by Gracchus, "That no citizen should be condemned to death without the consent of the people," banished justice from the sphere of reason to that of emotion or caprice. As progress widens emotion necessarily contracts its sphere; the pure light of reason raises her beacon on high. When Antonius, the most successful of advocates, declared that his success was due not to legal knowledge, of which he was destitute, but to his making the judges pleased, first with themselves and then with himself, we may appreciate his honesty; but we gladly acknowledge a state of things as past and gone in which he could wind up an accusation [39] with these words, "If it ever was excusable for the Roman people to give the reins to their just excitement, as without doubt it often has been, there has no case existed in which it was more excusable than now."
Cicero regards the advent of these two men, M. Antonius and Crassus, as analogous to that of Demosthenes and Hyperides at Athens. They first raised Latin eloquence to a height that rivalled that of Greece. But though their merits were so evenly balanced that it was impossible to decide between them, their excellencies were by no means the same. It is evident that Cicero preferred Crassus, for he assigns him the chief place in his dialogue de Oratore, and makes him the vehicle of his own views. Moreover, he was a man of much more varied knowledge than Antonius. An opinion prevailed in Cicero's day that neither of them was familiar with Greek literature. This, however, was a mistake. Both were well read in it. But Antonius desired to be thought ignorant of it; hence he never brought it forward in his speeches. Crassus did not disdain the reputation of a proficient, but he wished to be regarded as despising it. These relics of old Roman narrowness, assumed whether from conviction or, more probably, to please the people, are remarkable at an epoch so comparatively cultured. They show, if proof were wanted, how completely the appearance of Cicero marks a new period in literature, for he is as anxious to popularise his knowledge of Greek letters as his predecessors had been to hide theirs. The advantages of Antony were chiefly native and personal; those of Crassus acquired and artificial. Antony had a ready wit, an impetuous flow of words, not always the best, but good enough for the purpose, a presence of mind and fertility of invention that nothing could quench, a noble person, a wonderful memory, and a sonorous voice the very defects of which he turned to his advantage; he never refused a case; he seized the bearings of each with facility, and espoused it with zeal; he knew from long practice all the arts of persuasion, and was an adept in the use of them; in a word, he was thoroughly and genuinely popular.
Crassus was grave and dignified, excellent in interpretation, definition, and equitable construction, so learned in law as to be called the best lawyer among the orators; [40] and yet with all this grace and erudition, he joined a sparkling humour which was always lively, never commonplace, and whose brilliant sallies no misfortune could check. His first speech was an accusation of the renegade democrat Carbo; his last, which was also his best, was an assertion of the privileges of his order against the over-bearing insolence of the consul Philippus. The consul, stung to fury by the sarcasm of the speaker, bade his lictor seize his pledges as a senator. This insult roused Crassus to a supreme effort. His words are preserved by Cicero [41]—"an tu, quum omnem auctoritatem universi ordinis pro pignore putaris, eamque in conspectu populi Romani concideris, me his existimas pignoribus posse terreri? Non tibi illa sunt caedenda, si Crassum vis coercere; haec tibi est incidenda lingua; qua vel evulsa, spiritu ipso libidinem tuam libertas mea refutabit." This noble retort, spoken amid bodily pain and weakness, brought on a fever which within a week brought him to the grave (91 B.C.), as Cicero says, by no means prematurely, for he was thus preserved from the horrors that followed. Antonius lived for some years longer. It was under the tyrannical rule of Marius and Cinna that he met his end. Having found, through the indiscretion of a slave, that he was in hiding, they sent hired assassins to murder him. The men entered the chamber where the great orator lay, and prepared to do their bloody work, but he addressed them in terms of such pathetic eloquence that they turned back, melted with pity, and declared they could not kill Antonius. Their leader then came in, and, less accessible to emotion than his men, cut off Antonius' head and carried it to Marius. It was nailed to the rostra, "exposed," says Cicero, "to the gaze of those citizens whose interests he had so often defended."
After the death of these two great leaders, there appear two inferior men who faintly reflect their special excellences. These are C. AURELIUS COTTA (consul 75 B.C.) an imitator of Antonius, though without any of his fire, and P. SULPICIUS RUFUS (fl. 121-88 B.C.) a bold and vigorous speaker, who tried, without success, to reproduce the high-bred wit of Crassus. He was, according to Cicero, [42] the most tragic of orators. His personal gifts were remarkable, his presence commanding, his voice rich and varied. His fault was want of application. The ease with which he spoke made him dislike the labour of preparation, and shun altogether that of written composition. Cotta was exactly the opposite of Sulpicius. His weak health, a rare thing among the Romans of his day, compelled him to practise a soft sedate method of speech, persuasive rather than commanding. In this he was excellent, but that his popularity was due chiefly to want of competitors is shown by the suddenness of his eclipse on the first appearance of Hortensius. The gentle courteous character of Cotta is well brought out in Cicero's dialogue on oratory, where his remarks are contrasted with the mature but distinct views of Crassus and Antonius, with the conservative grace of Catulus, and the masculine but less dignified elegance of Caesar.
Another speaker of this epoch is CARRO, son of the Carbo already mentioned, an adherent of the senatorial party, and opponent of the celebrated Livius Drusus. On the death of Drusus he delivered an oration in the assembly, the concluding words of which are preserved by Cicero, as an instance of the effectiveness of the trochaic rhythm. They were received with a storm of applause, as indeed their elevation justly merits. [43] "O Marce Druse, patrem appello; tu dicere solebas sacram esse rempublicam; quicunque eam violavissent, ab omnibus esse ei poenas persolatas. Patris dictum sapiens temeritas filii comprobavit." In this grand sentence sounds the very voice of Rome; the stern patriotism, the reverence for the words of a father, the communion of the living with their dead ancestors. We cannot wonder at the fondness with which Cicero lingers over these ancient orators; while fully acknowledging his own superiority, how he draws out their beauties, each from its crude environment; how he shows them to be deficient indeed in cultivation and learning, but to ring true to the old tradition of the state, and for that very reason to speak with a power, a persuasiveness, and a charm, which all the rules of polished art could never hope to attain.
In the concluding passage of the De Oratore Catulus says he wishes HORTENSIUS (114-50 B.C.) could have taken part in the debate, as he gave promise of excelling in all the qualifications that had been specified. Crassus replies—"He not only gives promise of being, but is already one of the first of orators. I thought so when I heard him defend the cause of the Africans during the year of my consulship, and I thought so still more strongly when, but a short while ago, he spoke on behalf of the king of Bithynia." This is supposed to have been said in 91 B.C., the year of Crassus's death, four years after the first appearance of Hortensius. This brilliant orator, who at the age of nineteen spoke before Crassus and Scaevola and gained their unqualified approval, and who, after the death of Antonius, rose at once into the position of leader of the Roman bar, was as remarkable for his natural as for his acquired endowments. Eight years senior to Cicero, "prince of the courts" [44] when Cicero began public life, for some time his rival and antagonist, but afterwards his illustrious though admittedly inferior coadjutor, and towards the close of both of their lives, his intimate and valued friend; Hortensius is one of the few men in whom success did not banish enjoyment, and displacement by a rival did not turn to bitterness. Without presenting the highest virtue, his career of forty-four years is nevertheless a pleasant and instructive one. It showed consistency, independence, and honour; he never changed sides, he never flattered the great, he never acquired wealth unjustly. In these points he may be contrasted with Cicero. But on the other hand, he was inactive, luxurious, and effeminate; not like Cicero, fighting to the last, but retiring from public life as soon as he saw the domination of Pompey or Caesar to be inevitable; not even in his professional labours showing a strong ambition, but yielding with epicurean indolence the palm of superiority to his young rival; still less in his home life and leisure moments pursuing like Cicero his self-culture to develop his own nature and enrich the minds and literature of his countrymen, but regaling himself at luxurious banquets in sumptuous villas, decked with everything that could delight the eye or charm the fancy; preserving herds of deer, wild swine, game of all sorts for field and feast; stocking vast lakes with rare and delicate fish, to which this brilliant epicure was so attached that on the death of a favourite lamprey he shed tears; buying the costliest of pictures, statues, and embossed works; and furnishing a cellar which yielded to his unworthy heir 10,000 casks of choice Chian wine. When we read the pursuits in which Hortensius spent his time, we cannot wonder that he was soon overshadowed; the stuff of the Roman was lacking in him, and great as were his talents, even they, as Cicero justly remarks, were not calculated to insure a mature or lasting fame. They lay in the lower sphere of genius rather than the higher; in a bright expression, a deportment graceful to such a point that the greatest actors studied from him as he spoke; in a voice clear, mellow, and persuasive; in a memory so prodigious that once after being present at an auction and challenged to repeat the list of sale, he recited the entire catalogue without hesitation, like the sailor the points of his compass, backwards. As a consequence he was never at a loss. Everything suggested itself at the right moment, giving him no anxiety that might spoil the ease of his manner and his matchless confidence; and if to all this we add a copiousness of expression and rich splendour of language exceeding all that had ever been heard in Rome, the encomiums so freely lavished on him by Cicero both in speeches and treatises, hardly seem exaggerated.
There are few things pleasanter in the history of literature than the friendship of these two great men, untinctured, at least on Hortensius's part, by any drop of jealousy; and on Cicero's, though now and then overcast by unworthy suspicions, yet asserted afterwards with a warm generosity and manly confession of his weakness which left nothing to be desired. Though there were but eight years between them, Hortensius must be held to belong to the older period, since Cicero's advent constitutes an era.
The chief events in the life of Hortensius are as follows. He served two campaigns in the Social War (91 B.C.), but soon after gave up military life, and took no part in the civil struggles that followed. His ascendancy in the courts dates from 83 B.C. and continued till 70 B.C. when Cicero dethroned him by the prosecution of Verres. Hortensius was consul the following year, and afterwards we find him appearing as advocate on the senatorial side against the self-styled champions of the people, whose cause at that time Cicero espoused (e.g. in the Gabinian and Manilian laws). When Cicero, after his consulship (63 B.C.), went over to the aristocratic party, he and Hortensius appeared regularly on the same side, Hortensius conceding to him the privilege of speaking last, thus confessing his own inferiority. The party character of great criminal trials has already been alluded to, and is an important element in the consideration of them. A master of eloquence speaking for a senatorial defendant before a jury of equites, might hope, but hardly expect, an acquittal; and a senatorial orator, pleading before jurymen of his own order needed not to exercise the highest art in order to secure a favourable hearing. It has been suggested [45] that his fame is in part due to the circumstance, fortunate for him, that he had to address the courts as reorganised by Sulla. The coalition of Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus (60 B.C.), sometimes called the first Triumvirate, showed plainly that the state was near collapse; and Hortensius, despairing of its restitution, retired from public life, confining himself to the duties of an advocate, and more and more addicting himself to refined pleasures. The only blot on his character is his unscrupulousness in dealing with the judges. Cicero accuses him [46] of bribing them on one occasion, and the fact that he was not contradicted, though his rival was present, makes the accusation more than probable. The fame of Hortensius waned not only through Cicero's superior lustre, but also because of his own lack of sustained effort. The peculiar style of his oratory is from this point of view so ably criticised by Cicero that, having no remains of Hortensius to judge by, we translate some of his remarks. [47]
"If we inquire why Hortensius obtained more celebrity in his youth than in his mature age, we shall find there are two good reasons. First because his style of oratory was the Asiatic, which is more becoming to youth than to age. Of this style there are two divisions; the one sententious and witty, the sentiments neatly turned and graceful rather than grave or sedate: an example of this in history is Timaeus; in oratory during my own boyhood there was Hierocles of Alabanda, and still more his brother Menecles, both whose speeches are, considering their style, worthy of the highest praise. The other division does not aim at a frequent use of pithy sentiment, but at rapidity and rush of expression; this now prevails throughout Asia, and is characterised not only by a stream of eloquence but by a graceful and ornate vocabulary: Aeschylus of Cnidos, and my own contemporary Aeschines the Milesian, are examples of it. They possess a fine flow of speech, but they lack precision and grace of sentiment. Both these classes of oratory suit young men well, but in older persons they show a want of dignity. Hence Hortensius, who excelled in both, obtained as a young man the most tumultuous applause. For he possessed that strong leaning for polished and condensed maxims which Menecles displayed; as with whom, so with Hortensius, some of these maxims were more remarkable for sweetness and grace than for aptness and indispensable use; and so his speech, though highly strung and impassioned without losing finish or smoothness, was nevertheless not approved by the older critics. I have seen Philippus hide a smile, or at other times look angry or annoyed; but the youths were lost in admiration, and the multitude was deeply moved. At that time he was in popular estimation almost perfect, and held the first place without dispute. For though his oratory lacked authority, it was thought suitable to his age; but when his position as a consular and a senator demanded a weightier style, he still adhered to the same; and having given up his former unremitting study and practice, retained only the neat concise sentiments, but lost the rich adornment with which in old times he had been wont to clothe his thoughts."
The Asiatic style to which Cicero here alludes, was affected, as its name implies, by the rhetoricians of Asia Minor, and is generally distinguished from the Attic by its greater profusion of verbal ornament, its more liberal use of tropes, antithesis, figures, &c. and, generally, by its inanity of thought. Rhodes, which had been so well able to appreciate the eloquence of Aeschines and Demosthenes, first opened a crusade against this false taste, and Cicero (who himself studied at Rhodes as well as Athens) brought about a similar return to purer models at Rome. The Asiatic style represents a permanent type of oratorical effort, the desire to use word-painting instead of life-painting, turgidity instead of vigour, allusiveness instead of directness, point instead of wit, frigid inflation instead of real passion. It borrows poetical effects, and heightens the colour without deepening the shade. In Greece Aeschines shows some traces of an Asiatic tendency as contrasted with the soberer self-restraint of Demosthenes. In Rome Hortensius, as contrasted with Cicero, and even Cicero himself, according to some critics, as contrasted with Brutus and Calvus,—though this charge is hardly well-founded,—in France Bossuet, in England Burke, have leaned towards the same fault.
We have now traced the history of Roman Oratory to the time of Cicero, and we have seen that it produces names of real eminence, not merely in the history of Rome, but in that of humanity. The loss to us of the speeches of such orators as Cato, Gracchus, Antonius, and Crassus is incalculable; did we possess them we should be able form a truer estimate of Roman genius than if we possessed the entire works of Ennius, Pacuvius, or Attius. For the great men who wielded this tremendous weapon were all burgesses of Rome, they had all the good and all the bad qualities which that name suggests, many of them in an extraordinary degree. They are all the precursors, models, or rivals of Cicero, the greatest of Roman orators; and in them the true structure of the language as well as the mind of Rome would have been fully, though unconsciously, revealed. If the literature of a country be taken as the expression in the field of thought of the national character as pourtrayed in action, this group of orators would be considered the most genuine representative of Roman literature. The permanent contributions to human thought would indeed have been few: neither in eloquence nor in any other domain did Rome prove herself creative, but in eloquence she at least showed herself beyond expression masculine and vigorous. The supreme interest of her history, the massive characters of the men that wrought it, would here have shown themselves in the working; men whose natures are a riddle to us, would have stood out, judged by their own testimony, clear as statues; and we should not have had so often to pin our faith on the biassed views of party, or the uncritical panegyrics of school-bred professors or courtly rhetoricians. The next period shows us the culmination, the short bloom, and the sudden fall of national eloquence, when with the death of Cicero the "Latin tongue was silent," [48] and as he himself says, clamatores not oratores were left to succeed him.
Great literary activity of all kinds was, after the third Punic war, liable to continual interruption from political struggles or revolutions. But between each two periods of disturbance there was generally an interval in which philosophy, law, and rhetoric were carefully studied. As, however, no work of this period has come down to us except the treatise to Herennius, our notice of it will be proportionately general and brief. We shall touch on the principal studies in order. First in time as in importance comes Law, the earliest great representative of which is P. MUCIUS SCAEVOLA, consul in 133 B.C. but better known as Pontifex Maximus. In this latter office, which he held for several years, Mucius did good service to literature. He united a high technical training with a liberal mind, and superintended the publication of the Annales Pontificum from the earliest period to his own date. This was a great boon to historians. He gave another to jurists. His responsa were celebrated for their insight into the principles of Law, and for the minute knowledge they displayed. He was conscientious enough to study the law of every case before he undertook to plead it, a practice which, however commendable, was rare even with advocates of the highest fame, as, for example, M. Antonius.
The jurisconsult of this period used to offer his services without payment to any who chose to consult him. At first he appeared in the forum, but as his fame and the number of applicants increased, he remained at home and received all day. His replies were always oral, but when written down were considered as authoritative, and often quoted by the orators. In return for this laborious occupation, he expected the support of his clients in his candidature for the offices of state. An anecdote is preserved of C. Figulus, a jurisconsult, who, not having been successful for the consulship, addressed his consultores thus, "You know how to consult me, but not (it seems) how to make me consul." [1] In addition to the parties in a suit, advocates in other causes often came to a great jurisconsult to be coached in the law of their case. For instance, Antonius, who, though a ready speaker, had no knowledge of jurisprudence, often went to Scaevola for this purpose. Moreover there were always one or two regular pupils who accompanied the jurisconsult, attended carefully to his words, and committed them assiduously to memory or writing. Cicero himself did this for the younger Scaevola, and thus laid the foundation of that clear grasp on the civil law which was so great a help to him in his more difficult speeches. It was not necessary that the pupil should himself intend to become a consultus; it was enough that he desired to acquire the knowledge for public purposes, although, of course, it required great interest to procure for a young man so high a privilege. Cicero was introduced to Scaevola by the orator Crassus. The family of the Mucii, as noticed by Cicero, were traditionally distinguished by their legal knowledge, as that of the Appii Claudii were by eloquence. The Augur Q. MUCIUS SCAEVOLA who comes midway between Publius and his son Quintus was somewhat less celebrated than either, but he was nevertheless a man of eminence. He died probably in 87 B.C., and Cicero mentions that it was in consequence of this event that he himself became a pupil of his nephew. [2]
The great importance of Religious Law must not be forgotten in estimating the acquirements of these men. Though to us the Jus Augurale and Jus Pontificium are of small interest compared with the Jus Civile; yet to the Romans of 120 B.C., and especially to an old and strictly aristocratic family, they had all the attraction of exclusiveness and immemorial authority. In all countries religious law exercises at first a sway far in excess of its proper province, and Rome was no exception to the rule. The publication of civil law is an era in civilization. Just as the chancellorship and primacy of England were often in the hands of one person and that an ecclesiastic, so in Rome the pontifices had at first the making of almost all law. What a canonist was to Mediaeval Europe, a pontifex was to senatorial Rome. In the time of which we are now speaking (133-63 B.C.), the secular law had fully asserted its supremacy on its own ground, and it was the dignity and influence, not the power of the post, that made the pontificate so great an object of ambition, and so inaccessible to upstart candidates. Even for Cicero to obtain a seat in the college of augurs was no easy task, although he had already won his way to the consulship and been hailed as the saviour of his country.
The younger Scaevola (Q. MUCIUS SCAEVOLA), who had been his father's pupil, [3] and was the most eloquent of the three, was born about 135 B.C., was consul 95 with Licinius Crassus for his colleague, and afterwards Pontifex Maximus. He was an accomplished Greek scholar, a man of commanding eloquence, deeply versed in the Stoic philosophy, and of the highest nobility of character. As Long well says, "He is one of those illustrious men whose fame is not preserved by his writings, but in the more enduring monument of the memory of all nations to whom the language of Rome is known." His chief work, which was long extant, and is highly praised by Cicero, was a digest of the civil law. Rudorff says of it, [4] "For the first time we meet here with a comprehensive, uniform, and methodical system, in the place of the old interpretation of laws and casuistry, of legal opinions and prejudices." Immediately on its publication it acquired great authority, and was commented upon within a few years of the death of its author. It is quoted in the Digest, and is the earliest work to which reference is there made. [5] He was especially clear in definitions and distinctions, [6] and the grace with which he invested a dry subject made him deservedly popular. Though so profound a lawyer, he was quite free from the offensive stamp of the mere professional man. His urbanity, unstained integrity, and high position, fitted him to exercise a widespread influence. He had among his hearers Cicero, as we have already seen, and among jurists proper, Aquillius Gallus, Balbus Lucilius, and others, who all attained to eminence. His virtue was such that his name became proverbial for probity as for legal eminence. In Horace he is coupled with Gracchus as the ideal of a lawyer, as the other of an orator.
"Gracchus ut hic illi foret, huic ut Mucius ille." [7]
The great oratorical activity of this age produced a corresponding interest in the theory of eloquence. We have seen that many of the orators received lessons from Greek rhetoricians. We have seen also the deep attraction which rhetoric possessed over the Roman mind. It was, so to speak, the form of thought in which their intellectual creations were almost all cast. Such a maxim as that attributed to Scaevola, Fiat iustitia: ruat caelum, is not legal but rhetorical. The plays of Attius owed much of their success to the ability with which statement was pitted against counter-statement, plea against plea. The philosophic works of Cicero are coloured with rhetoric. Cases are advanced, refuted, or summed up, with a view to presentability (veri simile), not abstract truth. The history of Livy, the epic of Virgil, are eminently rhetorical. A Roman when not fighting was pleading. It was, then, important that he should he well grounded in the art. Greek rhetoricians, in spite of Cato's opposition, had been steadily making way, and increasing the number of their pupils; but it was not until about 93 B.C. that PLOTIUS GALLUS taught the principles of Rhetoric in Latin. Quintilian says, [8] "Latinos dicendi praeceptores extremis L. Crassi temporibus coepisse Cicero auctor est: quorum insignis maxime Plotius fuit." He was the first of that long list of writers who expended wit, learning, and industry, in giving precepts of a mechanical character to produce what is unproduceable, namely, a successful style of speaking. Their treatises are interesting, for they show on the one hand the severe technical application which the Romans were always willing to bestow in order to imitate the Greeks; and on the other, the complex demands of Latin rhetoric as contrasted with the simpler and more natural style of modern times.
The most important work on the subject is the treatise dedicated to Herennius (80 B.C.), written probably in the time of Sulla, and for a long time reckoned among Cicero's works. The reason for this confusion is twofold. First, the anonymous character of the work; and, secondly, the frequent imitations of it by Cicero in his De Inventione, an incomplete essay written when he was a young man. Who the author was is not agreed; the balance of probability is in favour of CORNIFICIUS. Kayser [9] points out several coincidences between Cornificius's views, as quoted by Quintilian, and the rhetorical treatise to Herennius. The author, whoever he may be, was an accomplished man, and, while a warm admirer of Greek eloquence, by no means disposed to concede the inferiority of his own countrymen. His criticism upon the inanitas [10] of the Greek manuals is thoroughly just. They were simply guides to an elegant accomplishment, and had no bearing on real life. It was quite different with the Roman manuals. These were intended to fit the reader for forensic contests, and, we cannot doubt, did materially help towards this result. It was only in the imperial epoch that empty ingenuity took the place of activity, and rhetoric sunk to the level of that of Greece. There is nothing calling for special remark in the contents of the book, though all is good. The chief points of interest in this subject will be discussed in a later chapter. The style is pure and copious, the Latin that finished idiom which is the finest vehicle for Roman thought, that spoken by the highest circles at the best period of the language.
The science of Grammar was now exciting much attention. The Stoic writers had formulated its main principles, and had assigned it a place in their system of general philosophy. It remained for the Roman students to apply the Greek treatment to their own language. Apparently, the earliest labours were of a desultory kind. The poet Lucilius treated many points of orthography, pronunciation, and the like; and he criticised inaccuracies of syntax or metre in the poets who had gone before him. A little later we find the same mine further worked. Quintilian observes that grammar began at Rome by the exegesis of classical authors. Octavius Lampadio led the van with a critical commentary on the Punica of Naevius, and Q. Vargunteius soon after performed the same office for the annals of Ennius. The first scientific grammarian, was AELIUS STILO, a Roman knight (144-70 B.C.). His name was L. Aelius Praeconinus; he received the additional cognomen Stilo from the facility with which he used his pen, especially in writing speeches for others to deliver. At the same time he was no orator, and Cicero implies that better men often used his compositions through mere laziness, and allowed them to pass as their own. [11] Cicero mentions in more than one place that he himself had been an admiring pupil of Aelius. And Lucilius addressed some of his satires to him, probably those on grammar,
"Has res ad te scriptas Luci misimus Aeli;"
so that he is a bond of connection between the two epochs. His learning was profound and varied. He dedicated his investigations to Varro, who speaks warmly of him, but mentions that his etymologies are often incorrect. He appears to have bestowed special care on Plautus, in which department he was followed by Varro, some of the results of whose criticism have been already given.
The impulse given by Stilo was rapidly extended. Grammar became a favourite study with the Romans, as indeed it was one for which they were eminently fitted. The perfection to which they carried the analysis of sentences and the practical rules for correct speech as well as the systematization of the accidence, has made their grammars a model for all modern school-works. It is only recently that a deeper scientific knowledge has reorganised the entire treatment, and substituted for superficial analogy the true basis of a common structure, not only between Greek and Latin, but among all the languages of the Indo-European class. Nevertheless, the Roman grammarians deserve great praise for their elaborate results in the sphere of correct writing. No defects of syntax perplex the reader of the classical authors. Imperfect and unpliable the language is, but never inexact. And though the meaning is often hard to settle, this is owing rather to the inadequacy of the material than the carelessness of the writer.
Side by side with rhetoric and grammar, Philosophy made its appearance at Rome. There was no importation from Greece to which a more determined resistance was made from the first by the national party. In the consulship of Strabo and Messala (162 B.C.) a decree was passed banishing philosophers and rhetoricians from Rome. Seven years later took place the embassy of the three leaders of the most celebrated schools of thought, Diogenes the Stoic, Critolaus the Peripatetic, and Carneades the New Academician. The subtilty and eloquence of these disputants rekindled the interest in philosophy which had been smothered, not quenched, by the vigorous measures of the senate. There were two reasons why an interest in these studies was dreaded. First, they tended to spread disbelief in the state religion, by which the ascendency of the oligarchy was in great measure maintained; secondly, they distracted men's minds, and diverted them from that exclusive devotion to public life which the old régime demanded. Nevertheless, some of the greatest nobles ardently espoused the cause of free thought. After the war with Perseus, and the detention of the Achaean hostages in Rome, many learned Greeks well versed in philosophical inquiries were brought into contact with their conquerors in a manner well calculated to promote mutual confidence. The most eminent of these was Polybius, who lived for years on terms of intimacy with Scipio and Laelius, and imparted to them his own wide views and varied knowledge. From them may be dated the real study of Philosophy at Rome. They both attained the highest renown in their lifetime and after their death for their philosophical eminence, [12] but apparently they left no philosophical writings. The spirit, however, in which they approached philosophy is eminently characteristic of their nation, and determined the lines in which philosophic activity afterwards moved.
In no department of thought is the difference between the Greek and Roman mind more clearly seen; in none was the form more completely borrowed, and the spirit more completely missed. The object of Greek philosophy had been the attainment of absolute truth. The long line of thinkers from Thales to Aristotle had approached philosophy in the belief that they could by it be enabled to understand the cause of all that is. This lofty anticipation pervades all their theories, and by its fruitful influence engenders that wondrous grasp and fertility of thought [13] which gives their speculations an undying value. It is true that in the later systems this consciousness is less strongly present. It struggles to maintain itself in stoicism and epicureanism against the rising claims of human happiness to be considered as the goal of philosophy. In the New Academy (which in the third century before Christ was converted to scepticism) and in the sceptical school, we see the first confession of incapacity to discover truth. Instead of certainties they offer probabilities sufficient to guide us through life; the only axiom which they assert as incontrovertible being the fact that we know nothing. Thus instead of proposing as the highest activity of man a life of speculative thought, they came to consider inactivity and impassibility [13] the chief attainable good. Their method of proof was a dialectic which strove to show the inconsistency or uncertainty of their opponent's positions, but which did not and could not arrive at any constructive result. Philosophy (to use an ancient phrase) had fallen from the sphere of knowledge to that of opinion. [15]
Of these opinions there were three which from their definiteness were well calculated to lay hold on the Roman mind. The first was that of the Stoics, that virtue is the only good; the second that of the Epicureans, that pleasure is the end of man; the third that of the Academy, that nothing can be known. [16] These were by no means the only, far less the exclusive characteristics of each school; for in many ways they all strongly resembled each other, particularly stoicism and the New Academy; and in their definition of what should be the practical result of their principles all were substantially agreed. [17]
But what to the Greeks was a speculative principle to be drawn out by argument to its logical conclusions, to the Romans was a practical maxim to be realized in life. The Romans did not understand the love of abstract truth, or the charm of abstract reasoning employed for its own sake without any ulterior end. To profess the doctrines of stoicism, and live a life of self-indulgence, was to be false to one's convictions; to embrace Epicurus's system without making it subservient to enjoyment, was equally foreign to a consistent character. In Athens the daily life of an Epicurean and a Stoic would not present any marked difference; in discussion they would be widely divergent, but the contrast ended there. In Rome, on the contrary, it was the mode of life which made the chief distinction. Men who laboured for the state as jurists or senators, who were grave and studious, generally, if not always, adopted the tenets of Zeno; if they were orators, they naturally turned rather to the Academy, which offered that balancing of opinions so congenial to the tone of mind of an advocate. Among public men of the highest character, very few espoused Epicurus's doctrines.
The mere assertion that pleasure was the summum bonum for man was so repugnant to the old Roman views that it could hardly have been made the basis of a self-sacrificing political activity. Accordingly we find in the period before Cicero only men of the second rank representing epicurean views. AMAFINIUS is stated to have been the first who popularised them. [18] He wrote some years before Cicero, and from his lucid and simple treatment immediately obtained a wide circulation for his books. The multitude (says Cicero), hurried to adopt his precepts, [19] finding them easy to understand, and in harmony with their own inclinations. The second writer of mark seems to have been RABIRIUS. He also wrote on the physical theory of Epicurus in a superficial way. He neither divided his subject methodically, nor attempted exact definitions, and all his arguments were drawn from the world of visible things. In fact, his system seems to have been a crude and ordinary materialism, such as the vulgar are in all ages prone to, and beyond which their minds cannot go. The refined Catulus was also an adherent of epicureanism, though he also attached himself to the Academy. Among Greeks resident at Rome the best known teachers were Phaedrus and Zeno; a book by the former on the gods was largely used by Cicero in the first book of his De Natura Deorum. A little later Philodemus of Gadara, parts of whose writings are still extant, seems to have risen to the first place. In the time of Cicero this system obtained more disciples among the foremost men. Both statesmen and poets cultivated it, and gained it a legitimate place among the genuine philosophical creeds. [20]
Stoicism was far more congenial to the national character, and many great men professed it. Besides Laelius, who was a disciple of Diodes and Panactius, we have the names of Rutilius Rufus, Aelius Stilo, Balbus, and Scaevola. But during the tumultuous activity of these years it was not possible for men to cultivate philosophy with deep appreciation. Political struggles occupied their minds, and it was in their moments of relaxation only that the questions agitated by stoicism would he discussed. We must remember that as yet stoicism was one of several competing systems. Peripateticism and the Academy, as has been said, attracted the more sceptical or argumentative minds, for their dialectics were far superior to those of stoicism; it was in its moral grandeur that stoicism towered not only above these but above all other systems that have been invented, and the time for the full recognition of this moral grandeur had not yet come. At present men were occupied in discussing its logical quibbles and paradoxes, and in balancing its claims to cogency against those of its rivals. It was not until the significance of its central doctrine was tried to the uttermost by the dark tyranny of the Empire, that stoicism stood erect and alone as the sole representative of all that was good and great. Still, the fact that its chief professors were men of weight in the state, lent it a certain authority, and Cicero, among the few definite doctrines that he accepts, numbers that of stoicism that virtue is sufficient for happiness.
We shall close this chapter with one or two remarks on the relation of philosophy to the state religion. It must be observed that the formal and unpliable nature of the Roman cult made it quite unable to meet the requirements of advancing enlightenment. It was a superstition, not a religion; it admitted neither of allegoric interpretation nor of poetical idealisation. Hence there was no alternative but to believe or disbelieve it. There can be no doubt that all educated Romans did the latter. The whole machinery of ritual and ceremonies was used for purely political ends; it was no great step to regard it as having a purely political basis. To men with so slight a hold as this on the popular creed, the religion and philosophy of Greece were suddenly revealed. It was a spiritual no less than an intellectual revolution. Their views on the question of the unseen were profoundly changed. The simple but manly piety of the family religion, the regular ceremonial of the state, were confronted with the splendid hierarchy of the Greek Pantheon and the subtle questionings of Greek intellect. It is no wonder that Roman conviction was, so to speak, taken by storm. The popular faith received a shock from which it never rallied. Augustus and others restored the ancient ritual, but no edict could restore the lost belief. So deep had the poison penetrated that no sound place was left. With superstition they cast off all religion. For poetical or imaginative purposes the Greek deities under their Latin dress might suffice, but for a guide of life they were utterly powerless. The nobler minds therefore naturally turned to philosophy, and here they found, if not certainty, at least a reasonable explanation of the problems they encountered. Is the world governed by law? If so, is that law a moral one? If not, is the ruler chance? What is the origin of the gods? of man? of the soul? Questions like these could neither be resolved by the Roman nor by the Helleno-Roman systems of religion, but they were met and in a way answered by Greek philosophy. Hence it became usual for every thinking Roman to attach himself to the tenets of some sect, which ever best suited his own comprehension or prejudices. But this adhesion did not involve a rigid or exclusive devotion. Many were Eclectics, that is, adopted from various systems such elements as seemed to them most reasonable. For instance, Cicero was a Stoic more than anything else in his ethical theory, a New Academician in his logic, and in other respects a Platonist. But even he varied greatly at different times. There was, however, no combination among professors of the same sect with a view to practical work or dissemination of doctrines. Had such been attempted, it would at once have been put down by the state. But it never was. Philosophical beliefs of whatever kind did not in the least interfere with conformity to the state religion. One Scaevola was Pontifex Maximus, another was Augur; Cicero himself was Augur, so was Caesar. The two things were kept quite distinct. Philosophy did not influence political action in any way. It was simply a refuge for the mind, such as all thinking men must have, and which if not supplied by a true creed, will inevitably be sought in a false or imperfect one. And the noble doctrines professed by the great Greek schools were certainly far more worthy of the adhesion of such men as Scaevola and Laelius, than the worn-out cult which the popular ceremonial embodied.
The period embraced by the present book contains the culmination of all kinds of literature, the drama alone excepted. It falls naturally into two divisions, each marked by special and clearly-defined characteristics. The first begins with the recognition of Cicero as the chief man of letters at Rome, and ends with the battle of Philippi, a year after his death. It extends over a period of two and twenty years (about 63-42 B.C.), though many of Cicero's orations are anterior, and some of Varro's works posterior, to the extreme dates. In this period Latin prose writing attained its perfection. The storms which shook and finally overthrew the Republic turned the attention of all minds to political questions. Oratory and history were the prevailing forms of intellectual activity. It was not until the close of the period that philosophy was treated by Cicero during his compulsory absence from public life; and poetry rose once more into prominence in the works of Lucretius and Catullus. The chief characteristics of the literature of this period are freedom and vigour. In every author the bold spirit of the Republic breathes forth; and in the greatest is happily combined with an extensive and elegant scholarship, equally removed from pedantry and dullness.
The second division (42 B.C.-14 A.D.) begins shortly after the battle of Philippi, with the earliest poems of Varius and Virgil, and closes with the death of Augustus. It is pre-eminently an era of poets, Livy alone being a prose writer of the first rank, and is marked by all the characteristics of an imperial age. The transition from the last poems of Catullus to the first of Virgil is complete. Nevertheless, many republican authors lived on into this period, as Varro, Pollio, and Bibaculus. But their character and genius belong to the Republic, and, with the exception of Pollio, they will be noticed under the republican writers. The entire period represents the full maturity and perfection of the Latin language, and the epithet classical is by many restricted to the authors who wrote in it. It is best, however, not to narrow unnecessarily the sphere of classicality; to exclude Terence on the one hand or Tacitus and Pliny on the other, would savour of artificial restriction rather than that of a natural classification.
The first writer that comes before us is M. TERENTIUS VARRO, 116-28 B.C. He is at once the earliest and the latest of the series. His birth took place ten years before that of Cicero, and his death fifteen years after Cicero's murder, in the third year of the reign of Augustus. His long life was devoted almost entirely to study, and he became known even in his lifetime as the most learned of the Romans. This did not, however, prevent him from offering his services to the state when the state required them. He served more than once under Pompey, acquitting himself with distinction, so that in the civil war the important post of legatus was intrusted to him in company with Petreius and Afranius in Spain. But Varro felt from the first his inability to cope with his adversary. Caesar speaks of him as acting coolly in Pompey's interest until the successes of Afranius at Ilerda roused him to more vigorous measures; but the triumph of the Pompeians was shortlived; and when Caesar convened the delegates at Corduba, Varro found himself shut out from all the fortified towns, and in danger of being deserted by his army. [1] He therefore surrendered at discretion, returned to Italy, and took no more part in public affairs. We hear of him occasionally in Cicero's letters as studying in his country seats at Tusculum, Cumae, or Casinum, indifferent to politics, and preparing those great works of antiquarian research which have immortalised his name. Caesar's victorious return brought him out of his retreat. He was placed over the library which Caesar built for public use, an appointment equally complimentary to Varro and honourable to Caesar. Antony, however, incapable of the generosity of his chief, placed Varro's name on the list of the proscribed, at a time when the old man was over seventy years of age, and had long ceased to have any weight in politics. Nothing more clearly shows the abominable motives that swayed the triumvirs than this attempt to murder an aged and peaceful citizen for the sake of possessing his wealth. For Varro had the good or bad fortune to be extremely rich. His Casine villa, alluded to by Cicero, and partly described by himself, was sumptuously decorated, and his other estates were large and productive. The Casine villa was made the scene of Antony's revelry; he and his fellow-rioters plundered the rooms, emptied the cellar, burned the library, and carried on every kind of debauchery and excess. Few passages in all eloquence are more telling than that in which Cicero with terrible power contrasts the conduct of the two successive occupants. [2] Varro, through the zeal of his friends, managed to escape Antony's fury, and for a time lay concealed in the villa of Galenas, at which Antony was a frequent visitor, little suspecting that his enemy was within his grasp. An edict was soon issued, however, exempting the old man from the effect of the proscription, so that he was enabled to live in peace at Rome until his death. But deprived of his wealth (which Augustus afterwards restored), deprived of his friends, and above all, deprived of his library, he must have felt a deep shadow cast over his declining years. Nevertheless, he remained cheerful, and to all appearance contented, and charmed those who knew him by the vigour of his conversation and his varied antiquarian lore. He is never mentioned by any of the Augustan writers.
Varro belongs to the genuine type of old Roman, improved but not altered by Greek learning, with his heart fixed in the past, deeply conservative of everything national, and even in his style of speech protesting against the innovations of the day. If we reflect that when Varro wrote his treatise on husbandry, Virgil was at work on the Georgics, and then compare the diction of the two, it seems almost incredible that they should have been contemporaries. In all literature there is probably no such instance of rock-like impenetrability to fashion; for him Alexandria might never have existed. He recalls the age of Cato rather than that of Cicero. His versatility was as great as his industry. There was scarcely any department of prose or poetry, provided it was national, in which he did not excel. His early life well fitted him for severe application. Born at Reate, in the Sabine territory, which was the nurse of all manly virtues, [3] Varro, as he himself tells us, had to rough it as a boy; he went barefoot over the mountain side, rode without saddle or bridle, and wore but a single tunic. [4] Bold, frank, and sarcastic, he had all the qualities of the old-fashioned country gentleman. At Rome he became intimate with Aelius Stilo, whose opinion of his pupil is shown by the inscription of his grammatical treatise to him. Stilo's mantle descended on Varro, but with sevenfold virtue. Not only grammar, by which term we must understand philology and etymology as well as syntax, but antiquities secular and religious, and almost all the liberal arts, were passed under review by his encyclopaedic mind.
At the same time lighter themes had strong attraction for him. He possessed in a high degree that racy and caustic wit which was a special Italian product, and had been conspicuous in Cato and Lucilius. But while Cato studied to be oracular, and Lucilius to be critical, Varro seems to have indulged his vein without any special object. Though by no means a born poet, he had the faculty of writing terse and elegant verse when he chose, and in his younger days composed a long list of metrical works. There were among them Pseudotragoediae, which Teuffel thinks were the same as the Hilarotragoediae, or Rhinthonicae, so called from their inventor Rhinthon; though others class them with the Komodotragodiai, of which Plautus's Amphitruo is the best known instance. However this may be, they were mock-heroic compositions in which the subjects consecrated by tragic usage were travestied or burlesqued. It is probable that they were mere literary exercises designed to beguile leisure or to facilitate the labour of composition, like the closet tragedies composed by Cicero and his brother Quintus; and Varro certainly owed none of his fame to them. Other poems of his are referred to by Cicero, and perhaps by Quintilian; [5] but in the absence of definite allusions we can hardly characterize them. There was one class of semi-poetical composition which Varro made peculiarly his own, the Satura Menippea, a medley of prose and verse, treating of all kinds of subjects just as they came to hand in the plebeian style, often with much grossness, but with sparkling point. Of these Saturae he wrote no less than 150 books, of which fragments have been preserved amounting to near 600 lines. Menippus of Gadara, the originator of this style of composition, lived about 280 B.C.; he interspersed jocular and commonplace topics with moral maxims and philosophical doctrines, and may have added contemporary pictures, though this is uncertain.
Varro followed him; we find him in the Academicae Quaestiones of Cicero, [6] saying that he adopted this method in the hope of enticing the unlearned to read something that might profit them. In these saturae topics were handled with the greatest freedom. They were not satires in the modern sense. They are rather to be considered as lineal descendants of the old saturae which existed before any regular literature. They nevertheless embodied with unmistakable clearness Varro's sentiments with regard to the prevailing luxury, and combined his thorough knowledge of all that best befitted a Roman to know with a racy freshness which we miss in his later works. The titles of many are preserved, and give some index to the character of the contents. We have some in Greek, e.g. Marco_polis_ or peri archaes, a sort of Varro's Republic, after the manner of Plato; Hippokyon, Kynoppaetor, and others, satirizing the cynic philosophy. Some both in Greek and Latin, as Columnae Herculis, peri doxaes; est modus matulae, peri methaes; others in Latin only, as Marcipor the slave of Marcus (i.e. Varro himself). Many are in the shape of proverbs, e.g. Longe fugit qui suos fugit, gnothi seauton, nescis quid vesper serus vehat. Only two fragments are of any length; one from the Marcipor, in graceful iambic verse, [7] the other in prose from the nescis quid vesper. [8] It consists of directions for a convivial meeting: "Nam multos convivas esse non convenit, quod turba plerumque est turbulenta; et Romae quidem constat: sed et Athenis; nusquam enim plures cubabant. [9] Ipsum deinde convivium constat ex rebus quatuor, et tum denique omnibus suis numeris absolutum est; si belli homuculi collecti sunt, si lectus locus, si tempus lectum, si apparatus non neglectus. Nec loquaces autem convivas nec mutos legere oportet; quia eloquentia in foro et apud subsellia; silentium vero non in convivio sed in cubiculo esse debet. Quod profecto eveniet, si de id genus rebus ad communem vitae usum pertinentibus confabulemur, de quibus in foro atque in negotiis agendis loqui non est otium. Dominum autem convivii esse oportet non tam tautum quam sine sordibus. Et in convivio legi non omnia debent, sed ea potissimum quae simul sunt biophelae, [10] et delectent potius, ut id quoque videatur non superfuisse. Bellaria ea maxime sunt mellita, quae mellita non sunt, pemmasin entra et pepsei societas infida." In this piece we see the fondness for punning, which even in his eightieth year had not left him. The last pun is not at first obvious; the meaning is that the nicest sweetmeats are those which are not too sweet, for made dishes are hostile to digestion; or, as we may say, paraphrasing his diction, "Delicacies are conducive to delicacy." It was from this satura the celebrated rule was taken that guests should be neither fewer than the graces, nor more than the muses. The whole subject of the Menippean satires is brilliantly treated in Mommsen's History of Rome, and Riese's edition of the satires, to both which, if he desire further information, we refer the reader. [11]
The genius of Varro, however, more and more inclined him to prose. The next series of works that issued from his pen were probably those known as Logistorici (about 56-50 B.C.). The model for these was furnished by Heraclides Ponticus, a friend and pupil of Plato, and after his death, of Aristotle. He was a voluminous and encyclopaedic writer, but too indolent to apply the vigorous method of his master. Hence his works, being discursive and easily understood, were well fitted for the comprehension of the Romans. Varro's histories were short, mostly taken from his own or his friends' experience, and centred round some principle of ethics or economics. Catus de liberis educandis, Marius de Fortuna, &c. are titles which remind us of Cicero's Laelius de Amicitia and Cato Major de Senectute, of which it is extremely probable they were the suggesting causes.
Varro in his saturae is very severe upon philosophers. He had almost as great a contempt for them as his archetype Cato. And yet Varro was deeply read in the philosophy of Greece. He did not yield to Cicero in admiration of her illustrious thinkers. It is probable that with his keen appreciation of the Roman character he saw that it was unfitted for speculative thought; that in most cases its cultivation would only bring forth pedants or hypocrites. When asked by Cicero why he had not written a great philosophical work, he replied that those who had a real interest in the study would go direct to the fountain head, those who had not would be none the better for reading a Latin compendium. Hence he preferred to turn his labours into a more productive channel, and to instruct the people in their own antiquities, which had never been adequately studied, and, now that Stilo was dead, seemed likely to pass into oblivion. [12] His researches occupied three main fields, that of law and religion, that of civil history and biography, and that of philology.
Of these the first was the one for which he was most highly qualified, and in which he gained his highest renown. His crowning work in this department was the Antiquities Divine and Human, in 41 books. [13] This was the greatest monument of Roman learning, the reference book for all subsequent writers. It is quoted continually by Pliny, Gellius, and Priscian; and, what is more interesting to us, by St Augustine in the fifth and seventh books of his Civitas Dei, as the one authoritative work on the subject of the national religion. [14] He thus describes the plan of the work. It consisted of 41 books; 25 of human antiquities, 16 of divine. In the human part, 6 books were given to each of the four divisions; viz. of Agents, of Places, of Times, of Things. [15] To these 24 one prefatory chapter was prefixed of a general character, thus completing the number. In the divine part a similar method was followed. Three books were allotted to each of the five divisions of the subject, viz. the Men who sacrifice, the Places, and Times of worship, [16] the Rites performed, and finally the Divine Beings themselves. To these was prefixed a book treating the subject comprehensively, and of a prefatory nature. The five triads were thus subdivided: the first into a book on Pontifices, one on Augurs, one on Quindecimviri Sacrorum; the second into books on shrines, temples, and sacred spots, respectively; the third into those on festivals and holidays, the games of the circus, and theatrical spectacles; the fourth treats of consecrations, private rites, and public sacrifices, while the fifth has one treatise on gods that certainly exist, one on gods that are doubtful, and one on the chief and select deities.
We have given the particulars of this division to show the almost pedantic love of system that Varro indulged. Nearly all his books were parcelled out on a similar methodical plan. He had no idea of following the natural divisions of a subject, but always imposed on his subject artificial categories drawn from his own prepossessions. [17] The remark has been made that of all Romans Varro was the most unphilosophical. Certainly if a true classification be the basis of a truly scientific treatment, Varro can lay no claim to it. His erudition, though, profound, is cumbrous. He never seems to move easily in it. His illustrations are far-fetched, often inopportune. What, for instance, can be more out of place than to bring to a close a discussion on farming by the sudden announcement of a hideous murder? [18] His style is as uncouth as his arrangement is unnatural. It abounds in constructions which cannot be justified by strict rules of syntax, e.g. "hi qui pueros in ludum mittunt, idem barbatos … non docebimus?" [19] "When we send our children to school to learn to speak correctly, shall we not also correct bearded men, when they make mistakes?" Slipshod constructions like this occur throughout the treatise on the Latin tongue, though, it is true, they are almost entirely absent from that on husbandry, which is a much more finished work. Obscurity in explaining what the author means, or in describing what he has seen, is so frequent an accompaniment of vast erudition that it need excite little surprise. And yet how different it is from the matchless clearness of Cicero or Caesar! In the treatise on husbandry, Varro is at great pains to describe a magnificent aviary in his villa at Casinum, but his auditors must have been clear-headed indeed if they could follow his description. [20] And in the De Lingua Latina, wishing to show how the elephant was called Luca bos from having been first seen in Lucania with the armies of Pyrrhus, and from the ox being the largest quadruped with which the Italians were then acquainted, he gives us the following involved note— In Virgilii commentario erat: Ab Lucanis Lucas; ab eo quod nostri, quom maximam quadrupedem, quam ipsi haberent, vocarent bovem, et in Lucanis Pyrrhi bello primum vidissent apud hostes elephantos, Lucanum bovem quod putabant Lucam bovem appellassent.
In fact Varro was no stylist. He was a master of facts, as Cicero of words. Studiosum rerum, says Augustine, tantum docet, quantum studiosum verborum Cicero delectat. Hence Cicero, with all his proneness to exaggerate the excellences of his friends, never speaks of him as eloquent. He calls him omnium facile acutissimus, et sine ulla dubitatione doctissimus. [21] The qualities that shone out conspicuously in his works were, besides learning, a genial though somewhat caustic humour, and a thorough contempt for effeminacy of all kinds. The fop, the epicure, the warbling poet who gargled his throat before murmuring his recondite ditty, the purist, and above all the mock-philosopher with his nostrum for purifying the world, these are all caricatured by Varro in his pithy, good-humoured way; the spirit of the Menippean satires remained, though the form was changed to one more befitting the grave old teacher of wisdom. The fragments of his works as well as the notices of his friends present him to us the very picture of a healthy-minded and healthy-bodied man.
To return to the consideration of his treatise on Antiquities, from which we have digressed. The great interest of the subject will be our excuse for dwelling longer upon it. There is no Latin book the recovery of which the present century would hail with so much pleasure as this. When antiquarianism is leading to such fruitful results, and the study of ancient religion is so earnestly pursued, the aid of Varro's research would be invaluable. And it is the more disappointing to lose it, since we have reason for believing that it was in existence during the lifetime of Petrarch. He declares that he saw it when a boy, and afterwards, when he knew its value, tried all means, but without success, to obtain it. This story has been doubted, chiefly on the ground that direct quotations from the work are not made after the sixth century. But this by itself is scarcely a sufficient reason, since the Church gathered all the knowledge of it she required from the writings of St Augustine. From him we learn that Varro feared the entire collapse of the old faith; that he attributed its decline in some measure to the outward representations of divine objects; and, observing that Rome had existed 170 years without any image in her temples, instanced Judea to prove "eos qui primi simulacra deorum populis posuerunt, eos civitatibus suis et metum dempsisse, et errorem addidisse." [22] Other fragments of deep interest are preserved by Augustine. One, showing the conception of the state religion as a purely human institution, explains why human antiquities are placed before divine, "Sicut prior est pictor quam tabula picta, prior faber quam aedificium; ita priores sunt civitates, quam ea quae a civitatibus instituta sunt." Another describes the different classes of theology, according to a division first made by the Pontifex Scaevola, [23] as poetical, philosophical, and political, or as mythical, physical, and civil. [24] Against the first of these Varro fulminated forth all the shafts of his satire: In eo multa sunt contra dignitatem et naturam immortalium ficta … quae non modo in hominem, sed etiam quae in contemptissimum hominem cadere possunt. About the second he did not say much, except guardedly to imply that it was not fitted for a popular ceremonial. The third, which it was his strong desire to keep alive, as it was afterwards that of Virgil, seemed to him the chief glory of Rome. He did not scruple to say (and Polybius had said it before him) that the grandeur of the Republic was due to the piety of the Republic. It was reserved for the philosopher of a later age [25] to asperse with bitter ridicule ceremonies to which all before him had conformed while they disbelieved, and had respected while seeing through their object.
Varro dedicated his work to Caesar, who was then Pontifex Maximus, and well able to appreciate the chain of reasoning it contained. The acute mind of Varro had doubtless seen in Caesar a disposition to rehabilitate the fallen ceremonial, and foreseeing his supremacy in the state, had laid before him this great manual for his guidance. Caesar evinced the deepest respect for Varro, and must have carefully studied his views. At least it can be no mere coincidence that Augustus, in carrying out his predecessor's plans for the restoration of public worship, should have followed so closely on the lines which we see from Augustine Varro struck out. To consider Varro's labours as undirected to any practical object would be to misinterpret them altogether. No man was less of the mere savant or the mere littérateur than he.
Besides this larger work Varro seems to have written smaller ones, as introductions or pendants to it. Among these were the Aitia, or rationale of Roman manners and customs, and a work de gente populi Romani, the most noticeable feature of which was its chronological calculation, which fixed the building of Rome to the date now generally received, and called the Varronian Era (753 B.C.). It contained also computations and theories with regard to the early history of many other states with which Rome came in contact, e.g. Athens, Argos, etc., and is referred to more than once by St Augustine. [26] The names of many other treatises on this subject are preserved; and this is not surprising, when we learn that no less than 620 books belonging to 74 different works can be traced to his indefatigable pen, so that, as an ancient critic says, "so much has he written that it seems impossible he could have read anything, so much has he read that it seems incredible he could have written anything."
In the domain of history and biography he was somewhat less active. He wrote, however, memoirs of his campaigns, and a short biography of Pompey. A work of his, first mentioned by Cicero, to which peculiar interest attaches, is the Imagines or Hebdomades, called by Cicero "Peplographia Varronis." [27] It was a series of portraits—700 in all— of Greek and Roman celebrities, [28] with a short biography attached to each, and a metrical epigram as well. This was intended to be, and soon became, a popular work. An abridged edition was issued shortly after the first, 39 B.C. no doubt to meet the increased demand. This work is mentioned by Pliny as embodying a new and most acceptable process, [29] whereby the impressions of the portraits were multiplied, and the reading public could acquaint themselves with the physiognomy and features of great men. [30] What this process was has been the subject of much doubt. Some think it was merely an improved method of miniature drawing, others, dwelling on the general acceptableness of the invention, strongly contend that it was some method of multiplying the portraits like that of copper or wood engraving, and this seems by far the most probable view; but what the method was the notices are much too vague for us to determine.
The next works to be noticed are those on practical science. As far as we can judge he seems to have imitated Cato in bringing out a kind of encyclopaedia, adapted for general readers. Augustine speaks of him as having exhaustively treated the whole circle of the liberal, or as he prefers to call it, the secular arts. [31] Those to which most weight were attached would seem to have been grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, medicine, and geometry. From one or two passages that are preserved, we should be inclined to fancy that Varro attached a superstitious (almost a Pythagorean) importance to numbers. [32] He himself was not an adherent of any system, but as Mommsen quaintly expresses it, he led a blind dance between them all, veering now to one now to another, as he wished to avoid any unpleasant conclusion or to catch at some attractive idea. Not strictly connected with the Encyclopaedia, but going to some extent over the same ground though in a far more thorough and systematic way, was the great treatise De Lingua Latina, in twenty-five books, of which the first four were dedicated to Septimius, the last twenty-one (to the orator's infinite delight) to Cicero. Few things gave Cicero greater pleasure than this testimony of Varro's regard. With his insatiable appetite for praise, he could not but observe with regret that Varro, trusted by Pompey, courted by Caesar, and reverenced by all alike, had never made any confidential advances to him. Probably the deeply-read student and simple-natured man failed to appreciate the more brilliant, if less profound, scholarship of the orator, and the vacillation and complexity of his character. While Cicero loaded him with praises and protestations of friendship, Varro appears to have maintained a somewhat cool or distant attitude. At last, however, this reserve was broken through. In 47 B.C. he seems to have promised Cicero to dedicate a work to him, which by its magnitude and interest required careful labour. In the letter prefixed to the posterior Academica, 45 B.C., Cicero evinces much impatience at having been kept two years waiting for his promised boon, and inscribes his own treatise with Varro's name as a polite reminder which he hopes his friend will not think immodest. In the opening chapters Cicero extols Varro's learning with that warmth of heart and total absence of jealousy which form so pleasing a trait in his character. Their diffuseness amusingly contrasts with Varro's brevity in his dedication. When it appeared, there occurred not a word of compliment, nothing beyond the bare announcement In his ad te scribam. [33] Truly Varro was no "mutual admirationist."
C. O. Müller, who has edited this treatise with great care, is of opinion that it was never completely finished. He argues partly from the words politius a me limantur, put into Varro's mouth by Cicero, partly from the civil troubles and the perils into which Varro's life was placed, partly from the loose unpolished character of the work, that it represents a first draught intended, but not ready for, publication. For example, the same thing is treated more than once; Jubar is twice illustrated by the same quotation, [34] Canis is twice derived from canere; [35] merces is differently explained in two places; [36] Lympha is derived both from lapsus aquae, and from Nympha; [37] valicinari from vesanus and versibus viendis. [38] Again marginal additions or corrections, which have been the means of destroying the syntactical connection, seemed to have been placed in the text by the author. [39] Other insertions of a more important character though they illustrate the point, yet break the thread of thought; and in one book, the seventh, the want of order is so apparent that its finished character could hardly be maintained. These facts lead him to conclude that the book was published without his knowledge, and perhaps against his will, by those who pillaged his library. It is obvious that this is a theory which can neither be proved nor disproved. It is an ingenious excuse for Varro's negligence in not putting his excellent materials together with more care. The plan of the work is as follows:—
Books II.-VII. First Part.—On the imposition of names.
Thus subdivided—
a ii-iv. On etymology. ii. What can be said against it.
iii. What can be said for it.
iv. About its form and character.
b v.-vii. Origin of words. v. Names of places and all that is in them.
vi. Names of time, things that happen in time, &c.
vii. Poetical words.
Books VIII.-XIII. Second Part.—On declension and inflection. Again subdivided— a viii.-x. The general method (disciplina) of declension. viii. Against a universal analogy obtaining. ix. In favour of it. x. On the theory of declension. b xi.-xiii. On the special declensions.
Books XIV.-XXV. Third Part.—On syntax (Quemadmodum verba inter se coniungantur).
Of this elaborate treatise only books V.-X. remain, and those in a mutilated and unsatisfactory condition, so that we are unable to form a clear idea of the value of the whole. Moreover, much of what we have is rendered useless, except for antiquarian purposes, by the extremely crude notions of etymology displayed. Caelum is from cavus, or from chaos; terra from teri, quia teritur; Sol from solus; lepus from levipes, &c. The seventh book must always be a repertory of interesting quotations, many of which are not found elsewhere; and the essay on Analogia in books IX. and X. is well worthy of study, as showing on what sort of premises the ancients formed their grammatical reasonings. The work on grammar was followed or preceded by another on philosophy on a precisely similar plan. This was studied, like so many of his other works, by Tertullian, Jerome, and Augustine. Its store of facts was no doubt remarkable, but as a popular exposition of philosophical ideas, it must have been very inferior to the treatises of Cicero.
The last or nearly the last book he wrote was the treatise on agriculture, De Re Rustica, which has fortunately come down to us entire; and with the kindred works of Cato and Columella, forms one of the most deeply interesting products of the Roman mind. It is in three books: the first dedicated to his wife Fundania, the second to Turanius Niger, the third to Pinnius. Varro was in his 81st year when he drew upon his memory and experience for this congenial work, 36 B.C. The destruction of his library had thrown him on his own resources to a great extent; nevertheless, the amount of book-lore which he displays in this dialogue is enormous. The design is mapped out, as in his other treatises, with stately precision. He meets some friends at the temple of Tellus by appointment with the sacristan, "ab aeditimo, ut dicere didicimus a patribus nostris; ut corrigimur ab recentibus urbanis, ab aedituo." These friends' names, Fundanius, Agrius, and Agrasius, suggest the nature of the conversation, which turns mainly on the purchase and cultivation of land and stock. They are soon joined by Licinius Stolo and Tremellius Scrofa, the last- mentioned being the highest living authority on agricultural matters. The conversation is carried on with zest, and somewhat more naturally than in Cicero's dialogues. A warm eulogy is passed on the soil, climate, and cultivation of Italy, the whole party agreeing that it exceeds in natural blessings all other lands. The first book contains directions for raising crops of all kinds as well as vegetables and flowers, and is brought to an abrupt termination by the arrival of the priest's freedman who narrates the murder of his master. The party promise to attend the funeral, and with the sarcastic reflection de casu humano magis querentes quam admirantes id Romae factum, the book ends. The next treats of stock (de re pecuaria), and one or two new personages are introduced, as Mennas, Murius, and Vaccius (the last, of course, taking on himself to speak of kine), and ends with an account of the dairy and sheep-shearing. The third is devoted to an account of the preserves (de villicis pastionibus) which includes aviaries, whether for pleasure or profit, fish-tanks, deer- forests, rabbit-warrens, and all such luxuries of a country house as are independent of tillage or pasturage—and a most brilliant catalogue it is. As Varro and his friends, most of whom are called by the names of birds (Merula, Pavo, Pica, and Passer), discourse to one another of their various country seats, and as they mention those of other senators, more or less splendid than their own, we recognise the pride and grandeur of those few Roman families who at this time parcelled out between them the riches of the world. Varro, whose life had been peaceful and unambitious, had realized enough to possess three princely villas, in one of which there was a marble aviary, with a duck-pond, bosquet, rosary, and two spacious colonnades attached, in which were kept, solely for the master's pleasure, 3000 of the choicest songsters of the wood. That grosser taste which fattened these beautiful beings for the table or the market was foreign to him; as also was the affectation which had made Hortensius sacrifice his career to the enjoyment of his pets. There is something almost terrible in the thought that the costly luxuries of which these haughty nobles talk with so much urbanity, were wrung from the wretched provincials by every kind of extortion and excess; that bribes of untold value passed from the hands of cringing monarchs into those of violent proconsuls, to minister to the lust and greed, or at best to the wanton luxury, of a small governing class. In Varro's pleasant dialogue we see the bright side of the picture; in the speeches of Cicero the dark side. Doubtless there is a charm about the lofty pride that brooks no superior on earth, and almost without knowing it, treats other nations as mere ministers to its comfort: but the nemesis was close at hand; those who could not stoop to assist as seconds in the work of government must lie as victims beneath the assassin's knife or the heel of the upstart freedman.
The style of this work is much more pleasing than that of the Latin Language. It is brisk and pointed, and shows none of the signs of old age. It abounds with proverbs, [40] patriotic reflections, and ancient lore, [41] but is nevertheless disfigured with occasional faults, especially the uncritical acceptance of marvels, such as the impregnation of mares by the wind [42] ("an incredible thing but nevertheless true"); the production of bees from dead meat (both of which puerilities are repeated unquestioningly by Virgil), the custom of wolves plunging swine into cold water to cool their flesh which is so hot as to be otherwise quite uneatable, and of shrew mice occasionally gnawing a nest for themselves and rearing their young in the hide of a fat sow, &c. [43] He also attempts one or two etymologies; the best is via which he tells us is for veha, and villa for vehula; capra from capere is less plausible. Altogether this must be placed at the head of the Roman treatises on husbandry as being at once the work of a man of practical experience, which Cato was, and Columella was not, and of elegant and varied learning, to which Columella might, but Cato could not, pretend. There is, indeed, rather too great a parade of erudition, so much so as occasionally to encumber the work; but the general effect is very pleasing, and more particularly the third book, which shows us the calm and innocent life of one, who, during the turbulent and bloody climax of political strife, sought in the great recollections of the past a solace for evils which he was powerless to cure, and whose end he could not foresee.
NOTE I.—The Menippean Satires of Varro.
The reader will find all the information on this subject in Riese's edition of the Menippean Satires, Leipsic, 1865. We append a few fragments showing their style, language, and metrical treatment.
(1) From the ammon metreis.
"Quém secúntur eúm rutúndis vélitís levés pármis
Ante sígnaní quadrátis múltisígnibús técti."
We observe here the rare rhythm, analogous to the iambic scazon, of a trochaic tetrameter with a long penultimate syllable.
(2) From the Anthropopolis.
"Non fit thesauris non auro pectu' solutum;
Non demunt animis curas et religiones
Persarum montes, non atria diviti' Crassi."
The style here reminds us strongly of Horace.
(3) From the Bimarcus.
"Túnc repénte caélitum áltum tónitribús templúm tonéscat,
Et patér divón trisú cum fúlmen igni férvido áctum
Mútat in tholúm macelli."
(4) From the Dolium aut Seria, in anapaestics.
"Mundus domus est maxima homulli
Quam quinque altitonae flammigerae
Zonae cingunt per quam limbus
Bis sex signis stellumicantibus
Aptus in obliquo aethere Lunae
Bigas acceptat."
The sentiment reminds us of Plato.
(5) From the Est modus matulae, on wine.
"Vino nihil iucundius quisquam bibit
Hoc aegritudinem ad medendam invenerunt,
Hoc hilaritatis dulce seminarium,
Hoc continet coagulum convivia."
(6) From the Eumenides, in galliambics, from which those of Catullus may be a study.
"Tibi týpana non inánes sonitús Matri' Deúm
Tonimú', canimu' tibí nos tibi núnc semivití;
Teretém cornam volántem iactant tibí Gallí."
(7) From the Marcipor, a fine description.
"Repente noctis circiter meridie
Cum pictus aer fervidis late ignibus
Caeli chorean astricen ostenderet
Nubes aquali frigido velo leves
Caeli cavernas aureas subduxerant
Aquam vomentes inferam mortalibus
Ventique frigido se ab axe eruperant,
Phrenetici septentrionum filii
Secum ferentes regulas ramos syrus.
At nos caduci naufragi ut ciconiae,
Quarum bipinnis fulminis plumas vapor
Percussit, alte maesti in terram cecidimus."
NOTE II.—The Logistorici.
The Logistorici, which, as we have said, were imitated from Heraclides Ponticus, are alluded to under the name Hrakleideion by Cicero. He says (Att. xv. 27, 2), Excudam aliquid Hrakleideion, quod lateat in thesauris tuis (xvi. 2, 5) Hrakleideion, si Brundisium salvi, adoriemur. In xvi. 3, 1, he alludes to the work as his Cato Major de Senectute. Varro had promised him a Hrakleideion. Varro … a quo adhuc Hr. illud non abstuli (xvi. 11, 3). He received it (xvi. 12).
NOTE III.—Some Fragments of Varro Atacinus.
This poet, who is by later writers often confounded with Varro Reatinus, was much more finished in his style, and therefore more read by the Augustan writers. Frequently when they speak of Varro it is to him that they refer. We append some passages from his Chorographia.
"Vidit et aetherio mundum torquerier axe
Et septem aeternis sonitum dare vocibus orbes,
Nitentes aliis alios quae maxima divis
Laetitia est. At tunc longe gratissima Phoebi
Dextera consimiles meditator reddere voces."
"Ergo inter solis stationem ad sidera septem
Exporrecta iacet tellus: huic extima fluctu
Oceani, interior Neptuno cingitur ora."
"At quinque aethertis zonis accingitur orbis
Ac vastant mas hiemes mediamque calores:
Sed terrae extremas inter mediamque coluntur
Quas solis valido numquam vis atterat igne'."
From the Ephemeris, two passages which Virgil has copied.
"Tum liceat pelagi volucres tardaeqne paludis
Cernere inexpleto studio gestire lavandi
Et velut insolitum pennis infundere rorem.
Aut arguta lacus circumvolitavit hirando."
"Et vos suspiciens caelum (mirabile visu)
Naribus aerium patulis decerpsit odorem,
Nec tenuis formica cavis non erebit ova."
An epigram attributed to him, but probably of somewhat later date, is as follows:
"Marmoreo Licinus tumulo iacet, at Cato parvo;
Pompeius nullo. Ciedimus esse deos?"
NOTE IV.—On the Jurists, Critics, and Grammarians of less note.
The study of law had received a great impulse from the labours of Scaevola. But among his successors none can be named beside him, though many attained to a respectable eminence. The business of public life had now become so engrossing that statesmen had no leisure to study law deeply, nor jurists to devote themselves to politics. Hence there was a gradual divergence between the two careers, and universal principles began to make themselves felt in jurisprudence. The chief name of this period is Sulpicius Rufus (born 105 B.C.), who is mentioned with great respect in Cicero's Brutus as a high-minded man and a cultivated student. His contribution lay rather in methodical treatment than in amassing new material. Speeches are also attributed to him (Quint. iv. 2, 106), though sometimes there is an uncertainty whether the older orator is not meant. Letters of his are preserved among those of Cicero, and show the extreme purity of language attained by the highly educated (Ad Fam. iv. 5). Other jurists are P. Orbius, a pupil of Juventius, of whom Cicero thought highly; Ateius, probably the father of that Ateius Capito who obtained great celebrity in the next period, and Pacuvius Labeo, whose fame was also eclipsed by that of his son. Somewhat later we find C. Trebatius, the friend of Cicero and recipient of some of his most interesting letters. He was a brilliant but not profound lawyer, and devoted himself more particularly to the pontifical law. His dexterous conduct through the civil wars enabled him to preserve his influence under the reign of Augustus. Horace professes to ask his advice (Sat. ii. 1, 4):
"Docte Trebati
Quid faciam, praescribe."
Trebatius replies: "Cease to write, or if you cannot do that, celebrate the exploits of Caesar." This courtier-like counsel is characteristic of the man, and helps to explain the high position he was enabled to take under the empire. Two other jurists are worthy of mention, A. Cascellius, a contemporary of Trebatius, and noted for his sarcastic wit; and Q. Aelius Tubero, who wrote also on history and rhetoric, but finally gave himself exclusively to legal studies.
Among grammatical critics, the most important is P. Nigidius Figulus (98-46 B.C.). He was, like Varro, conservative in his views, and is considered by Gellius to come next to him in erudition. They appear to have been generally coupled together by later writers, but probably from the similarity of their studies rather than from any equality of talent. Nigidius was a mystic, and devoted much of his time to Pythagorean speculations, and the celebration of various religious mysteries. His Commentarii treated of grammar, orthography, etymology, &c. In the latter he appears to have copied Varro in deriving all Latin words from native roots. Besides grammar, he wrote on sacrificial rites, on theology (de dis), and natural science. One or two references are made to him in the curious Apology of Apuleius. In the investigation of the supernatural he was followed by Caecina, who wrote on the Etruscan ceremonial, and drew up a theory of portents and prodigies.
The younger generation produced few grammarians of merit. We hear of Ateius Praetextatus, who was equally well known as a rhetorician. He was born at Athens, set free for his attainments, and called himself Philologus (Suet. De Gram. 10). He seems to have had some influence with the young nobles, with whom a teacher of grammar, who was also a fluent and persuasive speaker, was always welcome. Another instance is found in Valerius Cato, who lost his patrimony when quite a youth by the rapacity of Sulla, and was compelled to teach in order to obtain a living. He speedily became popular, and was considered an excellent trainer of poets. He is called—
"Cato Grammaticus, Latina Siren,
Qui solus legit et facit poetas."
Having acquired a moderate fortune and bought a villa at Tusculum, he sank through mismanagement again into poverty, from which he never emerged, but died in a garret, destitute of the necessaries of life. His fate was the subject of several epigrams, of which one by Bibaculus is preserved in Suetonius (De Cr. ii).
The only other name worth notice is that of Santra, who is called by Martial Salebrosus. He seems to have written chiefly on the history of Roman literature, and, in particular, to have commented on the poems of Naevius. Many obscurer writers are mentioned in Suetonius's treatise, to which, with that on rhetoric by the same author, the reader is here referred.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, [1] the greatest name in Roman literature, was born on his father's estate near Arpinum, 3d Jan. 106 B.C. Arpinum had received the citizenship some time before, but his family though old and of equestrian position had never held any office in Rome. Cicero was therefore a novus homo, a parvenu, as we should say, and this made the struggle for honours which occupied the greater part of his career, both unusual and arduous. For this struggle, in which his extraordinary talent seemed to predict success, his father determined to prepare the boy by an education under his own eye in Rome. Marcus lived there for some years with his brother Quintus, studying under the best masters (among whom was the poet Archias), learning the principles of grammar and rhetoric, and storing his mind with the great works of Greek literature. He now made the acquaintance of the three celebrated men to whom he so often refers in his writings, the Augur Mucius Scaevola, and the orators Crassus and Antonius, with whom he often conversed, and asked them such questions as his boyish modesty permitted. At this time too he made his first essays in verse, the poem called Pontius Glaucus, and perhaps the Phaenomena and Prognostics [2] of Aratus. On assuming the manly gown he at once attached himself to Scaevola for the purpose of learning law, attending him not only in his private consultations, but also to the courts when he pleaded, and to the assembly when he harangued the people. His industry was untiring. As he tells us himself, he renounced dissipation, pleasure, exercise, even society; his whole spare time was spent in reading, writing, and declaiming, besides daily attendance at the forum, where he drank in with eager zeal the fervid eloquence of the great speakers. Naturally keen to observe, he quickened his faculties by assiduous attention; not a tone, not a gesture, not a turn of speech ever escaped him; all were noted down in his ready memory to be turned to good account when his own day should come. Meanwhile he prepared himself by deeper studies for rising to oratorical eminence. He attended the subtle lectures of Philo the Academic, and practised the minute dialectic of the Stoics under Diodotus, and tested his command over both philosophy and disputation by declaiming in Greek before the rhetorician Molo.
At the age of twenty-five he thought himself qualified to appear before the world. The speech for Quintius, [3] delivered 81 B.C. is not his first, but it is one of his earliest. In it he appears as the opponent of Hortensius. At this time Sulla was all-powerful at Rome. He had crushed with pitiless ferocity the remnants of the Marian party; he had reinstated the senate in its privileges, abased the tribunate, checked the power of the knights, and still swayed public opinion by a rule of terror. In his twenty-seventh year, Cicero, by defending S. Roscius Amerinus, [4] exposed himself to the dictator's wrath. Roscius, whose accuser was Sulla's powerful freedman Chrysogonus, was, though innocent, in imminent danger of conviction, but Cicero's staunch courage and irresistible eloquence procured his acquittal. The effect of this speech was instantaneous; the young aspirant was at once ranked among the great orators of the day.
In this speech we see Cicero espousing the popular side. The change which afterwards took place in his political conduct may perhaps be explained by his strong hatred on the one hand for personal domination, and by his enthusiasm on the other for the great traditions of the past. Averse by nature to all extremes, and ever disposed towards the weaker cause, he became a vacillating statesman, because his genius was literary not political, and because (being a scrupulously conscientious man, and without the inheritance of a family political creed to guide him) he found it hard to judge on which side right lay. The three crises of his life, his defence of Roscius, his contest with Catiline, and his resistance to Antony, were precisely the three occasions when no such doubts were possible, and on all these the conduct of Cicero, as well as his genius, shines with its brightest lustre. To the speech for Roscius, his first and therefore his boldest effort, he always looked back with justifiable pride, and drew from it perhaps in after life a spur to meet greater dangers, greater because experience enabled him to foresee them. [5]
About this time Cicero's health began to fail from too constant study and over severe exertions in pleading. The tremendous calls on a Roman orator's physique must have prevented any but robust men from attaining eminence. The place where he spoke, girt as it was with the proudest monuments of imperial dominion, the assembled multitudes, the magnitude of the political issues on which in reality nearly every criminal trial turned, all these roused the spirit of the speaker to its utmost tension, and awoke a corresponding vehemence of action and voice.
Cicero therefore retired to Athens, where he spent six months studying philosophy with Antiochus the Academic, and with Zeno and Phaedrus who were both Epicureans. His brother Quintus and his friend Atticus were fellow-students with him. He next travelled in Asia Minor, seeking the help and advice of all the celebrated rhetoricians he met, as Menippus of Stratonice, Dionysius of Magnesia, Aeschylus of Cnidos, Xenocles of Adramyttium. At Rhodes he again placed himself under Molo, whose wise counsel checked the Asiatic exuberance which to his latest years Cicero could never quite discard; and after an absence of over two years he returned home thoroughly restored in health, and steadily determined to win his place as the greatest orator of Rome (76 B.C.). Meanwhile Sulla had died, and Cicero no longer incurred danger by expressing his views. He soon after defended the great comedian Roscius [6] on a charge of fraud in a civil speech still extant, and apparently towards the end of the same year was married to Terentia, a lady of high birth, with whom he lived for upwards of thirty years.
In 75 B.C. Cicero was elected quaestor, and obtained the province of Sicily under the Praetor Sextus Peducaeus. While there he conciliated good will by his integrity and kindness, and on his departure was loaded with honours by the grateful provincials. But he saw the necessity of remaining in Rome for the future, if he wished to become known; consequently he took a house near the forum, and applied himself unremittingly to the calls of his profession. He was now placed on the list of senators, and in the year 70 appeared as a candidate for the aedileship. The only oration we know of during the intervening years is that for Tullius [7] (71 B.C.); but many cases of importance must have been pleaded by him, since in the preliminary speech by which he secured the conduct of the case against Verres, [8] he triumphantly brings himself forward as the only man whose tried capacity and unfailing success makes him a match for Hortensius, who is retained on the other side. This year is memorable for the impeachment of Verres, the only instance almost where Cicero acted as public prosecutor, his kindly nature being apter to defend than to accuse; but on this occasion he burned with righteous indignation, and spared no labour or expense to ransack Sicily for evidence of the infamous praetor's guilt.
Cicero was tied to the Sicilians, whom he called his clients, by acts of mutual kindness, and he now stood forth to avenge them with a good will. The friends of Verres tried to procure a Praevaricatio, or sham accusation, conducted by a friend of the defendant, but Cicero stopped this by his brilliant and withering invective on Caecilius, the unlucky candidate for this dishonourable office. The judges, who were all senators, could not but award the prosecution to Cicero, who, determined to obtain a conviction, conducted it with the utmost despatch. Waiving his right to speak, and bringing on the witnesses contrary to custom at the outset of the trial, he produced evidence so crushing that Verres absconded, and the splendid orations which remain [9] had no occasion to be, and never were, delivered. It was Cicero's justifiable boast that he obtained all the offices of state in the first year in which he could by law hold them. In 69 B.C. he was elected at the head of the poll as Curule Aedile, a post of no special dignity, something between that of a mayor and a commissioner of works, but admitting a liberal expenditure on the public shows, and so useful towards acquiring the popularity necessary for one who aspired to the consulship. To this year are to be referred the extant speeches for Fonteius [10] and Caecina, [11] and perhaps the lost ones for Matridius [12] and Oppius. [13] Cicero contrived without any great expenditure to make his aedileship a success. The people were well disposed to him, and regarded him as their most brilliant representative.
The next year (68 B.C.) is important for the historian as that in which begins Cicero's Correspondence—a mine of information more trustworthy than anything else in the whole range of antiquity, and of exquisite Latinity, and in style unsurpassed and unsurpassable. The wealth that had flowed in from various sources, such as bequests, presents from foreign potentates or grateful clients at home, loans probably from the same source, to which we must add his wife's considerable dowry, he proceeded to expend in erecting a villa at Tusculum. Such villas were the fairest ornaments of Italy, "ocelli Italiae," as Cicero calls them, and their splendour may be inferred from the descriptions of Varro and Pliny. Cicero's, however, though it contained choice works of art and many rare books, could not challenge comparison with those of great nobles such as Catulus, Lucullus, or Crassus, but it was tastefully laid out so as to resemble in miniature the Academy of Athens, where several of his happiest hours had been spent, and to which in thought he often returned. Later in life he purchased other country-seats at Antium, Asturia, Sinuessa, Arpinum, Formiae, Cumae, Puteoli, and Pompeii; but the Tusculan was always his favourite.
In the year 67 Cicero stood for the praetorship, the election to which was twice put off, owing to the disturbances connected with Gabinius' motion for giving the command of the Mediterranean to Pompey, and that of Otho for assigning separate seats in the theatre to the knights. But the third election ratified the results of the two previous ones, and brought in Cicero with a large majority as Praetor Urbanus over the heads of seven, some of them very distinguished, competitors. He entered on his office 66 B.C. and signalised himself by his high conduct as a judge; but this did not, however, prevent him from exercising his profession as an advocate, for in this year he defended Fundanius [14] in a speech now lost, and Cluentius [15] (who was accused of poisoning) in an extremely long and complicated argument, one of the most difficult, but from the light it throws on the depraved morals of the time one of the most important of all his speeches. Another oration belonging to this year, and the first political harangue which Cicero delivered, was that in favour of the Manilian law, [16] which conferred on Pompey the conduct of the war against Mithridates. The bill was highly popular; Caesar openly favoured it, and Cicero had no difficulty in carrying the entire assembly with him. It is a singularly happy effort of his eloquence, and contains a noble panegyric on Pompey, the more admirable because there was no personal motive behind it. At the expiration of his praetorian year he had the option of a province, which was a means of acquiring wealth eagerly coveted by the ambitious; but Cicero felt the necessity of remaining at Rome too strongly to be tempted by such a bribe. "Out of sight, out of mind," was nowhere so true as at Rome. If he remained away a year, who could tell whether his chance for the Consulship might not be irretrievably compromised?
In the following year (65 B.C.) he announced himself as a candidate for this, the great object of his ambition, and received from his brother some most valuable suggestions in the essay or letter known as De Petitione Consulatus. This manual (for so it might be called) of electioneering tactics, gives a curious insight into the customs of the time, and in union with many shrewd and pertinent remarks, contains independent testimony to the evil characters of Antony and Catiline. But Cicero relied more on his eloquence than on the arts of canvassing. It was at this juncture that he defended the ex-tribune Cornelius, [17] who had been accused of maiestas, with such surpassing skill as to draw forth from Quintilian a special tribute of praise. This speech is unfortunately lost. His speech in the white gown, [18] of which a few fragments are preserved by Asconius, was delivered the following year, only a few days before the election, to support the senatorial measure for checking corrupt canvassing. When the comitia were held, Cicero was elected by a unanimous vote, a fact which reflects credit upon those who gave it. For the candidate to whom they did honour had no claims of birth, or wealth, or military glory; he had never flattered them, never bribed them; his sole title to their favour was his splendid genius, his unsullied character, and his defence of their rights whenever right was on their side. The only trial at which Cicero pleaded during this year was that of Q. Gellius, [19] in which he was successful.
The beginning of his consulship (63 B.C.) was signalised by three great oratorical displays, viz. the speeches against the agrarian law of Rullus [20] and the extempore speech delivered on behalf of Roscius Otho. The populace on seeing Otho enter the theatre, rose in a body and greeted him with hisses: a tumult ensued; Cicero was sent for; he summoned the people into an adjoining temple, and rebuked them with such sparkling wit as to restore completely their good humour. It is to this triumph of eloquence that Virgil is thought to refer in the magnificent simile (Aen. i. 148):
"Ac veluti magno in populo cum saepe coorta est
Seditio, saevitque animis ignobile volgus;
Iamque faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat;
Tum pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem
Aspexere silent arrectisque auribus adstant;
Ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet."
The next speech, which still remains to us, is a defence of the senator Rabirius; [21] that on behalf of Calpurnius Piso is lost. [22] But the efforts which make this year forever memorable are the four orations against Catiline. [23] These were almost extemporaneous, and in their trenchant vigour and terrible mastery of invective are unsurpassed except by the second Philippic. In the very heat of the crisis, however, Cicero found time to defend his friend Muraena [2] in a brilliant and jocose speech, which shows the marvellous versatility of the man. That warm Italian nature, open to every gust of feeling, over which impressions came and went like summer clouds, could turn at a moment's notice from the hand-to-hand grapple of a deadly duel to the lightest and most delicate rapier practice of the fencing school.
As soon as Cicero retired from office (62 B.C.) he found enemies ready to accuse him. Metellus the Tribune declared that he had violated the Constitution. Cicero replied to him in a spirited speech, which he alludes to under the name Oratio Metellina, but he felt himself on insecure ground. Catiline was indeed crushed, but the ramifications of the conspiracy extended far and wide. Autronius and Sulla were implicated in it; the former Cicero refused to aid, the latter he defended in a speech which is lost to us. [25] The only other speech of this year is that on behalf of the poet Archias, [26] who had been accused of usurping the rights of a Roman citizen. In the following year (61 B.C.) occurred the scandal about Clodius. This profligate demagogue would have been acquitted on an alibi, had it not been for Cicero's damaging evidence; he nevertheless contrived to procure a final acquittal by the most abominable means, but determined to wreak his vengeance by working Cicero's ruin. To this resolution the personal taunts of the great orator no doubt contributed. We have an account from Cicero's pen of the scenes that took place in the senate during the trial—the invectives poured forth by Clodius and the no less fiery retorts of his opponent. We must not imagine our orator's talent as always finding vent in the lofty strain which we are accustomed to associate with him. On the contrary, his attacks at times were pitched in another key, and he would frequently exchange sarcastic jests in a way that we should regard as incompatible with decency, and almost with self-respect. On one occasion, for instance, he had a skirmish of wit, which was vociferously applauded by an admiring senate: "You have bought a house," says Clodius. (We quote from Forsyth.) "One would think," rejoins Cicero, "that you said I had bought a jury." "They did not believe you on your oath!" exclaims Clodius. "Yes," retorted Cicero, "twenty-five of the jury did believe me, but thirty-one did not believe you, for they took care to get their money beforehand!" These and similar pleasantries, however they may have tickled the ears of the senate, awoke in Clodius an implacable hatred, which could only be satisfied with Cicero's fall; and the better to strike at him he made an attempt (unsuccessful at first, but carried out somewhat later) to be made a plebeian and elected tribune of the people (60 B.C.).
Meanwhile Cicero had returned to his profession, and defended Scipio Nasica; [27] he had also composed a history of his consulship in Greek, on which (to use his own expression) he had emptied all the scent-boxes of Isocrates, and touched it lightly with the brush of Aristotle; moreover, he collected into one volume the speeches he had delivered as consul under the title of Consular Orations. [28] At this time the coalition known as the First Triumvirate was formed, and Cicero, disgusted at its unscrupulous conduct, left Rome for his Tusculan villa, where he meditated writing a work on universal geography. Soon, however, impatient of retirement, he returned to Rome, defended A. Themius [29] twice, and both times successfully, and afterwards, aided by Hortensius (with whose party he had now allied himself), L. Valerius Flaccus (59 B.C.). [30]
But Clodius's vengeance was by this time imminent, and Pompey's assurances did not quiet Cicero's mind. He retired for some months to his Antian villa, and announced his intention of publishing a collection of anecdotes of contemporary statesmen, in the style of Theopompus, which would be, if we possessed it, an extremely valuable work. On his return to Rome (58 B.C.) he found the feeling strongly against him, and a bill of Clodius's was passed, interdicting him from fire and water, confiscating his property, and outlawing his person. The pusillanimity he shows in his exile exceeds even the measure of what we could have believed. It must be remembered that the love of country was a passion with the ancients, to a degree now difficult to realise; and exile from it, even for a time, was felt to be an intolerable evil. But Cicero's exile did not last long; in August of the following year (57 B.C.) he was recalled with no dissentient voice but that of Clodius, and at once hastened to Rome, where he addressed the senate and people in terms of extravagant compliment. These are the line speeches "on his return," [31] in the first of which he thanks the senate, and in the second the people; in the third he addresses the pontiffs, trying to persuade them that he has a right to reclaim the site of his house, [32] in the fourth [33] which was delivered early the next year, he rings the changes on the same subject.
The next year (56 B.C.) is signalised by several important speeches. Whatever we may think of his political conduct during this trying period, his professional activity was most remarkable. He defended L. Bestia [34] (who was accused of electoral corruption when candidate for the praetorship) but unsuccessfully; and also P. Sextius, [35] on a charge of bribery and illegal violence, in which he was supported by Hortensius. Soon after we find him in the country in correspondence with Lucceius, on the subject of the history of his consulship; but he soon returned to Rome and before the year ended delivered his fine speech on the consular provinces, [36] in which he opposed the curtailment of Caesar's command in Gaul; and also that on behalf of Coelius, [37] a lively and elegant oration which has been quoted to prove that Cicero was indifferent to purity of morals, because he palliates as an advocate and a friend the youthful indiscretions of his client.
In 55 B.C. he pleaded the cause of Caninius Gallus, [38] in a successful speech now lost, and attacked the ex-consul Piso [39] (who had long roused his resentment) in terms of the most unmeasured and unworthy invective. Towards the close of the year he completed his great treatise, De Oratore, the most finished and faultless of all his compositions; and so active was his mind at this epoch, that he offered to write a treatise on Britain, if Quintus, who had been there with Caesar, would furnish him with the materials. His own poems, de Consulatu and de Temporibus suis had been completed before this, and, as we learn from the letters, were highly approved by Caesar. Next year (54 B.C.) he defended Plancius [40] and Scaurus, [41] the former of which orations is still extant; and later on, Rabirius Postumus, [42] who was accused, probably with justice, of extortion. This year had witnessed another change in Cicero's policy; he had transferred his allegiance from Pompey to Caesar. In 52 B.C. occurred the celebrated trial of Milo for the murder of Clodius, in which Cicero, who appeared for the defendant, was hampered by the presence of Pompey's armed retainers, and made but a poor speech; the magnificent and exhaustive oratorical display that we possess [43] having been written after Milo's condemnation and sent to him in his exile at Marseilles, where he received it with sarcastic praise. At the close of this year Cicero was appointed to the government of the province of Cilicia, where he conducted himself with an integrity and moderation little known to Roman pro-consuls, and returned in 50 B.C. scarcely richer than he had set out.
During the following years Cicero played a subordinate part. In the great convulsions that were shaking the state men of a different sort were required; men who possessed the first requisite for the statesman, the one thing that Cicero lacked, firmness. Had Cicero been as firm as he was clear-sighted, he might have headed the statesmanship of Rome. But while he saw the drift of affairs he had not courage to act upon his insight; he allowed himself to be made the tool, now of Pompey, now of Caesar, till both were tired of him. "I wish," said Pompey, when Cicero joined him in Epirus, "that Cicero would go over to the other side; perhaps he would then be afraid of us." The only speeches we possess of this period were delivered subsequently to the victorious entry of Caesar, and exhibit a prudent but most unworthy adulation. That for Marcellus [44] (46 B.C.) was uttered in the senate, and from its gross flattery of the dictator was long supposed to be spurious; the others on behalf of Ligarius [45] and King Deiotarus [46] are in a scarcely more elevated strain. Cicero was neither satisfied with himself nor with the world; he remained for the most time in retirement, and devoted his energies to other literary labours. But his absence had proved his value. No sooner is Caesar dead than he appears once more at the head of the state, and surpasses all his former efforts in the final contest waged with the brutal and unscrupulous Antony. On the history of this eventful period we shall not touch, but merely notice the fourteen glorious orations called Philippicae [47] (after those of Demosthenes), with which as by a bright halo he encircled the closing period of his life.
The first was delivered in the senate (2d September, 44 B.C.) and in it Cicero, who had been persuaded by Brutus, most fortunately for his glory, to return to Rome, excuses his long absence from affairs, and complains with great boldness of Antony's threatening attitude. This roused the anger of his opponent, who delivered a fierce invective upon Cicero, to which the latter replied by that tremendous outburst of mingled imprecation, abuse, self-justification, and exalted patriotism, which is known as the Second Philippic. This was not published until Antony had left Rome; but it is composed as if it had been delivered immediately after the speech which provoked it. Never in all the history of eloquence has a traitor been so terribly denounced, an enemy so mercilessly scourged. It has always been considered by critics as Cicero's crowning masterpiece. The other Philippics, some of which were uttered in the senate, while others were extempore harangues before the people, were delivered in quick succession between December 44 B.C. and April 43 B.C. They cost the orator his life. When Antony and Octavius entered Rome together, and each sacrificed his friends to the other's bloodthirsty vengeance, Cicero was surrendered by Octavius to Antony's minions. He was apprised of the danger, and for a while thought of escaping, but nobler thoughts prevailed, and he determined to meet his fate, and seal by death a life devoted to his country. The end is well-known; on the 7th of December he was murdered by Popillius Laenas, a man whom he had often befriended, and his head and hands sent to Antony, who nailed them to the rostra, in mockery of the immortal eloquence of which that spot had so often been the scene, and which was now for ever hushed, leaving to posterity the bitter reflection that Freedom had perished, and with her Eloquence, her legitimate and noblest child.
The works of this many-sided genius may be classed under three chief
divisions, on each of which we shall offer a few critical remarks; his
Orations, his Philosophical and Rhetorical Treatises, and his
Correspondence.
Cicero was above all things an Orator. To be the greatest orator of Rome, the equal of Demosthenes, was his supreme desire, and to it all other studies were made subservient. Poetry, history, law, philosophy, were regarded by him only as so many qualifications without which an orator could not be perfect. He could not conceive a great orator except as a great man, nor a good orator except as a good man. The integrity of his public conduct, the purity of his private life, wonderful if contrasted with the standard of those around him, arose in no small degree from the proud consciousness that he who was at the head of Roman eloquence must lead in all respects a higher life than other men. The cherished theory of Quintilian, that a perfect orator would be the best man that earth could produce, is really but a restatement of Cicero's firm belief. His highest faculties, his entire nature, conspired to develop the powers of eloquence that glowed within him; and though to us his philosophical treatises or his letters may be more refreshing or full of richer interest than his speeches, yet it is by these that his great fame has been mainly acquired, and it is these which beyond comparison best display his genius.
Of the eighty or thereabouts which he is known to have composed, fifty- nine are in whole or in part preserved. They enable us to form a complete estimate of his excellences and defects, for they belong to almost every department of eloquence. Some, as we have seen, are deliberative, others judicial, others descriptive, others personal; and while in the two latter classes his talents are nobly conspicuous, the first is as ill-adapted as the second is pre-eminently suitable to his special gifts. As pleader for an accused person, Cicero cannot, we may say could not, be surpassed. It was this exercise of his talent that gave him the deepest pleasure, and sometimes, as he says with noble pride, seemed to lift him almost above the privileges of humanity; for to help the weak, to save the accused from death, is a work worthy of the gods. In invective, notwithstanding his splendid anger against Catiline, Antony, and Piso, he does not appear at his happiest; and the reason is not far to seek. It has often been laid to his reproach that he corresponded and even held friendly intercourse with men whom he holds up at another time to the execration of mankind. Catiline, Antony, Clodius, not to mention other less notorious criminals, had all had friendly relations with him. And even at the very time of his most indignant speeches, we know from his confidential correspondence that he often meditated advances towards the men concerned, which showed at least an indulgent attitude. The truth is, that his character was all sympathy, he had so many points of contact with every human being, he was so full of human feeling, that he could in a moment put himself into each man's position and draw out whatever plea or excuse his conduct admitted. It was not his nature to feel anger long; it evaporates almost in the speaking; he soon returns to the kind and charitable construction which, except for reasons of argument, he was always the foremost to assume. No man who lived was ever more forgiving. And it is this, and not moral blindness or indifference, which explains the glaring inconsistencies of his relations to others. It will follow from this that he was pre- eminently fitted for the oratory of panegyric. And beyond doubt he has succeeded in this difficult department better than any other orator, ancient or modern. Whether he praises his country, its religion, its laws, its citizens, its senate, or its individual magistrates, he does it with enthusiasm, a splendour, a geniality, and an inconceivable richness of felicitous expression which make us love the man as much as we admire his genius. [48]
And here we do not find that apparent want of conviction that so painfully jars on the impression of reality which is the first testimony to an orator's worth. When he praises, he praises with all his heart. When he raises the strain of moral indignation we can almost always beneath the orator's enthusiasm detect the rhetorician's art. We shall have occasion to notice in a future page the distressing loss of power which at a later period this affectation of moral sentiment involved. In Cicero it does not intrude upon the surface, it is only remotely present in the background, and to the Romans themselves no doubt appeared an excellence rather than a defect. Nevertheless, if we compare Cicero with Demosthenes in this respect, we shall at once acknowledge the decisive superiority of the latter, not only in his never pretending to take a lofty tone when he is simply abusing an enemy, but in his immeasurably deeper earnestness when a question of patriotism or moral right calls out his highest powers. Cicero has always an array of common-places ready for any subject; every case which he argues can be shown to involve such issues as the belief in a divine providence, the loyalty to patriotic tradition, the maintenance of the constitution, or the sanctity of family life; and on these well-worn themes he dilates with a magnificent prodigality of pathetic ornament which, while it lends splendour to his style, contrasts most unfavourably with the curt, business-like, and strictly relevant arguments of Demosthenes.
For deliberative eloquence it has been already said that Cicero was not well fitted, since on great questions of state it is not so much the orator's fire or even his arguments that move as the authority which attaches to his person. And in this lofty source of influence Cicero was deficient. It was not by his fiery invective, or his impressive pictures of the peril of the state, that the senate was persuaded to condemn the Catilinarian conspirators to death without a trial; it was the stern authoritative accents of Cato that settled their wavering resolution. Cicero was always applauded; men like Crassus, Pompey, or Caesar, were followed.
Even in his own special department of judicial eloquence Cicero's mind was not able to cope with the great principles of law. Such fundamental questions as "Whether law may be set aside for the purpose of saving the state?" "How far an illegal action which has had good results is justifiable?" questions which concern the statesman and philosopher as much as the jurist, he meets with a superficial and merely popular treatment. Without any firm basis of opinion, either philosophical like Cato's, personal like Caesar's, or traditional like that of the senate, he was compelled to judge questions by the results which he could foresee at the moment, and by the floating popular standard to which, as an advocate, he had naturally turned.
But while denying to Cicero the highest legal attributes, we must not forget that the jury before whom he pleaded demanded eloquence rather than profound knowledge. The orations to which they were accustomed were laid out according to a fixed rhetorical plan, the plan proposed in the treatise to Herennius and in Cicero's own youthful work, the De Inventione. There is the introduction, containing the preliminary statement of the case, and the ethical proof; the body of the speech, the argument, and the peroration addressing itself to the passions of the judge. No better instance is found of this systematic treatment than the speech for Milo, [49] declared by native critics to be faultless, and of which, for the sake of illustration, we give a succinct analysis. It must be remembered that he has a bad case. He commences with a few introductory remarks intended to recommend himself and conciliate his judges, dilating on the special causes which make his address less confident than usual, and claiming their indulgence for it. He then answers certain a priori objections likely to be offered, as that no homicide deserves to live, which is refuted by the legal permission to kill in self-defence; that Milo's act had already been condemned by the senate, which is refuted by the fact that a majority of senators praised it; that Pompey had decided the question of law, which is refuted by his permitting a trial at all, which he would not have done unless a legal defence could be entertained. The objections answered, and a special compliment having been judiciously paid to the presiding judge, he proceeds to the Expositio, or statement of facts. In this particular case they were by no means advantageous; consequently, Cicero shows his art by cloaking them in an involved narration which, while apparently plausible, is in reality based on a suppression of truth. Having rapidly disposed of these, he proceeds to sketch the line of defence with its several successive arguments. He declares himself about to prove that so far from being the aggressor, Milo did but defend himself against a plot laid by Clodius. As this was quite a new light to the jury, their minds must be prepared for it by persuasive grounds of probability. He first shows that Clodius had strong reasons for wishing to be rid of Milo, Milo on the contrary had still stronger ones for not wishing to be rid of Clodius; he next shows that Clodius's life and character had been such as to make assassination a natural act for him to commit, while Milo on the contrary had always refused to commit violence, though he had many times had the power to do so; next, that time and place and circumstances favoured Clodius, but were altogether against Milo, some plausible objections notwithstanding, which he states with consummate art, and then proceeds to demolish; next, that the indifference of the accused to the crimes laid to his charge is surely incompatible with guilt; and lastly, that even if his innocence could not be proved, as it most certainly can, still he might take credit to himself for having done the state a service by destroying one of its worst enemies. And then, in the peroration that follows, he rouses the passions of the judges by a glowing picture of Clodius's guilt, balanced by an equally glowing one of Milo's virtues; he shows that Providence itself had intervened to bring the sinful career of Clodius to an end, and sanctified Milo by making him its instrument, and he concludes with a brilliant avowal of love and admiration for his client, for whose loss, if he is to be condemned, nothing can ever console him. But the judges will not condemn him; they will follow in the path pointed out by heaven, and restore a faithful citizen to that country which longs for his service.—Had Cicero but had the courage to deliver this speech, there can be scarcely any doubt what the result would have been. Neither senate, nor judges, nor people, ever could resist, or ever tried to resist, the impassioned eloquence of their great orator.
In the above speech the argumentative and ethical portions are highly elaborated, but the descriptive and personal are, comparatively speaking, absent. Yet in nothing is Cicero more conspicuous than in his clear and lifelike descriptions. His portraits are photographic. Whether he describes the money-loving Chaerea with his shaven eye-brows and head reeking with cunning and malice; [50] or the insolent Verres, lolling on a litter with eight bearers, like an Asiatic despot, stretched on a bed of rose-leaves; [51] or Vatinius, darting forward to speak, his eyes starting from his head, his neck swollen, and his muscles rigid; [52] or the Gaulish and Greek witnesses, of whom the former swagger erect across the forum, [53] the latter chatter and gesticulate without ever looking up; [54] we see in each case the master's powerful hand. Other descriptions are longer and more ambitious; the confusion of the Catilinarian conspirators after detection; [55] the character of Catiline; [56] the debauchery of Antony in Varro's villa; [57] the scourging and crucifixion of Gavius; [58] the grim old Censor Appius frowning on Clodia his degenerate descendent; [59] the tissue of monstrous crime which fills page after page of the Cluentius. [60] These are pictures for all time; they combine the poet's eye with the stern spirit of the moralist. His power of description is equalled by the readiness of his wit. Raillery, banter, sarcasm, jest, irony light and grave, the whole artillery of wit, is always at his command; and though to our taste many of his jokes are coarse, others dull, and others unfair or in bad taste, yet the Romans were never tired of extolling them. These are varied with digressions of a graver cast: philosophical sentiments, patriotic allusions, gentle moralisings, and rare gems of ancient legend, succeed each other in the kaleidoscope of his shifting fancy, whose combinations may appear irregular, but are generally bound together by chains of the most delicate art.
His chief faults are exaggeration, vanity, and an inordinate love of words. The former is at once a conscious rhetorical artifice, and an unconscious effect of his vehement and excitable temperament. It probably did not deceive his hearers any more than it deceives us. His vanity is more deplorable; and the only palliation it admits is the fact that it is a defect which rarely goes with a bad heart. Had Cicero been less vain, he might have been more ambitious; as it was, his ridiculous self-conceit injured no one but himself. His wordiness is of all his faults the most seductive and the most conspicuous, and procured for him even in his lifetime the epithet of Asiatic. He himself was sensible that his periods were overloaded. As has been well said, he leaves nothing to the imagination. [61] Later critics strongly censured him, and both Tacitus and Quintilian think it necessary to assert his pre-eminence. His wealth of illustration chokes the idea, as creepers choke the forest tree; both are beautiful and bright with flowers, but both injure what they adorn.
Nevertheless, if we are to judge his oratory by its effect on those for whom it was intended, and to whom it was addressed; as the vehement, gorgeous, impassioned utterance of an Italian speaking to Italians his countrymen, whom he knew, whom he charmed, whom he mastered; we shall not be able to refuse him a place as equal to the greatest of those whose eloquence has swayed the destinies of the world.
We now turn to consider Cicero as a Philosopher, in which character he was allowed to be the greatest teacher that Rome ever had, and has descended through the Middle Ages to our own time with his authority, indeed, shaken, but his popularity scarcely diminished. We must first observe that philosophy formed no part of his inner and real life. It was only when inactivity in public affairs was forced upon him that he devoted himself to its pursuit. During the agitation of the first triumvirate, he composed the De Republica and De Legibus, and during Caesar's dictatorship and the consulship of Antony, he matured the great works of his old age. But the moment he was able to return with honour to his post, he threw aside philosophy, and devoted himself to politics, thus clearly proving that he regarded it as a solace for leisure or a refuge from misfortune, rather than as the serious business of life. The system that would alone be suitable to such a character would be a sober scepticism, for scepticism in thought corresponds exactly to vacillation in conduct. But though his mind inclined to scepticism, he had aspirations far higher than his intellect or his conduct could attain; in his noblest moments he half rises to the grand Stoic ideal of a self-sufficient and all-wise virtue. But he cannot maintain himself at that height, and in general he takes the view of the Academy that all truth is but a question of more or less probability.
To understand the philosophy of Cicero, it is necessary to remember both his own mental training, and the condition of those for whom he wrote. He himself regarded philosophy as food for eloquence, as one of the chief ingredients of a perfect orator. And his own mind, which by nature and practice had been cast in the oratorical mould, naturally leaned to that system which best admitted of presenting truth under the form of two competing rhetorical demonstrations. His readers, too, would be most attracted by this form of truth. He did not write for the original thinkers, the Catos, the Varros, and the Scaevolas; [62] he wrote for the great mass of intelligent men, men of the world, whom he wished to interest in the lofty problems of which philosophy treats. He therefore above all things strove to make philosophy eloquent. He read for this purpose Plato, Aristotle, and almost all the great masters who ruled the schools in his day; but being on a level with his age and not above it, he naturally turned rather to the thinkers nearest his own time, whose clearer treatment also made them most easily understood. These were chiefly Epicureans, Stoics, and Academicians; and from the different placita of these schools he selected such views as harmonised with his own prepossessions, but neither chained himself down to any special doctrine, nor endeavoured to force any doctrine of his own upon others. In some of his more popular works, as those on political science and on moral duties, [63] he does not employ any strictness of method; but in his more systematic treatises he both recognises and strives to attain a regular process of investigation. We see this in the Topica, the De Finibus, and the Tusculanae Disputationes, in all of which he was greatly assisted by the Academic point of view which strove to reconcile philosophy with the dictates of common sense. A purely speculative ideal such as that of Aristotle or Plato had already ceased to be propounded even by the Greek systems; and Roman philosophy carried to a much more thorough development the practical tendency of the later Greek schools. In the Hortensius, a work unfortunately lost, which he intended to be the introduction to his great philosophical course, he removed the current objections to the study, and showed philosophy to be the only comforter in affliction and the true guide of life. The pursuit of virtue, therefore, being the proper end of wisdom, such speculations only should be pursued as are within the sphere of human knowledge. Nevertheless he is inconsistent with his own programme, for he extends his investigations far beyond the limits of ethics into the loftiest problems which can exercise the human mind. Carried away by the enthusiasm which he has caught from the great Greek sages, he asserts in one place [64] that the search for divine truth is preferable even to the duties of practical life; but that is an isolated statement. His strong Roman instinct calls him back to recognise the paramount claims of daily life; and he is nowhere more himself than when he declares that every one would leave philosophy to take care of herself at the first summons of duty. [65] This subordination of the theoretical to the practical led him to confuse in a rhetorical presentation the several parts of philosophy, and it seeks and finds its justification to a great extent in the endless disputes in which in every department of thought the three chief schools were involved. Physics (as the term was understood in his day) seemed to him the most mysterious and doubtful portion of the whole. A knowledge of the body and its properties is difficult enough; how much more unattainable is a knowledge of such entities as the Deity and the soul! Those who pronounce absolutely on points like these involve themselves in the most inextricable contradictions. While they declare as certainties things that obviously differ in the general credence they meet with, they forget that certainty does not admit of degrees, whereas probability does. How much more reasonable therefore to regard such questions as coming within the sphere of the probable, and varying between the highest and the lowest degrees of probability. [66]
In his moral theory Cicero shows greater decision. He is unwavering in his repudiation of the Epicurean view that virtue and pleasure are one, [67] and generally adheres to that of the other schools, who here agree in declaring that virtue consists in following nature. [68] But here occurs the difficulty as to what place is to be assigned to external goods. At one time he inclines to the lofty view of the Stoic that virtue is in itself sufficient for happiness; at another, struck by its inapplicability to practical life, he thinks this less true than the Peripatetic theory, which takes account of external circumstances, and though considering them as inappreciable when weighed in the balance against virtue, nevertheless admits that within certain limits they are necessary to a complete life. Thus it appears that both in physics and morals he doubted the reality of the great abstract conceptions of reason, and came back to the presentations of sense as at all events the most indisputably probable. This would lead us to infer that he rested upon the senses as the ultimate criterion of truth. But if he adopts them as a criterion at all, he does so with great reservations. He allows the senses indeed the power of judging between sweet and bitter, near and distant, and the like, but he never allows them to determine what is good and what is evil. [69] And similarly he allows the intellect the power of judgment on genera and species, but he does not deny that it sometimes spins out problems which it is wholly unable to solve. [70] Since therefore neither the senses nor the intellect are capable of supplying an infallible criterion, we must reject the Stoic doctrine that there are certain sensations so forcible as to produce an irresistible conviction of their truth. For these philosophers ascribe the full possession of this conviction to the sage alone, and he is not, nor can he be, one of the generality of mankind. Hence Cicero, who writes for these, gives his opinion that there are certain sensuous impressions in which from their permanence and force a man may safely trust, though he cannot assert them to be absolutely true. [71] This liberal and popular doctrine he is aware will be undermined by the absolute scepticism of the New Academy; [72] but he is willing to risk this, and to put his view forward as the best possible approximation to truth.
With these ultimate principles Cicero, in his De Natura Deorum, approaches the questions of the existence of God and of the human soul. The bias of his own nobler nature led him to hold fast these two vital truths, but he is fully aware that in attempting to prove them the Stoics have used arguments which are not convincing. In the Tusculan disputations [73] he acknowledges the necessity of assuming one supreme Creator or Ruler of all things, endued with eternal motion in himself; and he connects this view with the affinity which he everywhere assumes to subsist between the human and divine spirit. With regard to the essence of the human soul he has no clear views; but he strenuously asserts its existence and phenomenal manifestation analogous to those of the Deity, and is disposed to ascribe to it immortality also. [74] Free Will he considers to be a truth of peculiar importance, probably from the practical consideration that on it responsibility and, therefore, morality itself ultimately rest.
From this brief abstract it will be seen that Cicero's speculative beliefs were to a great extent determined by his moral convictions, and by his strong persuasion of the dignity of human nature. This leads him to combat with vigour, and satirise with merciless wit, the Epicurean theory of life; and while his strong common sense forbids him to accept the Stoic doctrine in all its defiant harshness, he strengthens the Peripatetic view, to which he on the whole leans, by introducing elements drawn from it. The peculiar combination which he thus strives to form takes its colour from his own character and from the terms of his native language. The Greeks declare that the beautiful (to kalon) is good; Cicero declares that the honourable (honestum) alone is good. Where, therefore, the Greeks had spoken of to kalon, and we should speak of moral good, Cicero speaks of honestum, and founds precisely similar arguments upon it. This conception implies, besides self-regarding rectitude, the praise of others and the rewards of glory, and hence is eminently suited to the public-spirited men for whom he wrote. To it is opposed the base (turpe), that disgraceful evil which all good men would avoid. But as his whole moral theory is built on observation as much as on reading or reflection, he never stretches a rule too tight; he makes allowance for overpowering circumstances, for the temper and bent of the individual. Applicable to all who are engaged in an honourable career with the stimulus of success before them, his ethics were especially suited to the noble families of Rome to whom the approval of their conscience was indeed a necessity of happiness, but the approval of those whom they respected was at least equally so.
The list of his philosophical works is interesting and may well be given here. The Paradoxa (written 46 B.C.), [75] explains certain paradoxes of the Stoics. The Consolatio (45 B.C.) was written soon after the death of his daughter Tullia, whom he tenderly loved. It is lost with the exception of a few fragments. The same fate has befallen the Hortensius, which would have been an extremely interesting treatise. The De finibus bonorum et malorum, in five books, was composed in 45 B.C. In the first part M. Manlius Torquatus expounds the Epicurean views, which Cicero confutes (books i. ii.); in the second, Cato acts as champion of the Stoics, who are shown by Cicero to be by no means so exclusive as they profess (books iii. iv.); in the third and last Piso explains the theories of the Academy and the Lyceum. The Academica is divided into two editions; the first, called Lucullus, is still extant; the second, dedicated to Varro, exists in a considerable portion. The Tusculan Disputations, Timaeus (now lost), and the De Natura Deorum, were all composed in the same year (45 B.C.). The latter is in the form of a dialogue between Velleius the Epicurean, Balbus the Stoic, and Cotta the Academic, which is supposed to have been held in 77 B.C. The following year were produced Laelius or De Amicitia, De Divinatione, an important essay, De Fato, Cato Major or De Senectute, De Gloria (now lost), De Officiis, an excellent moral treatise addressed to his son, and De Virtutibus, which with the Oeconomics and Protagoras (translations from the Greek), and the De Auguriis (51 B.C.?) complete the list of his strictly philosophical works. Political science is treated by him in the De Republica, of which the first two books remain in a tolerably complete state, the other four only in fragments, [76] and in the De Legibus, of which three books only remain. The former was commenced in the year 54 B.C. but not published until two years later, at which time probably the latter treatise was written, but apparently never published. While in these works the form of dialogue is borrowed from the Greek, the argument is strongly coloured by his patriotic sympathies. He proves that the Roman polity, which fuses in a happy combination the three elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, is the best suited for organic development and external dominion; and he treats many constitutional and legal questions with eloquence and insight. Our loss of the complete text of these books is to be deplored rather on account of the interesting information and numerous allusions they contained, than from their value as an exposition of the principles of law or government. The style is highly elaborated, and its even flow is broken by beautiful quotations from the old poets, especially the Annals of Ennius.
The rhetorical works of Cicero are both numerous and important. A practical science, of which the principles were of a nature intelligible to all, and needed only a clear exposition and the authority of personal experience, was, of all literary subjects, the best suited to bring out the rich qualities of Cicero's mind. Accordingly we find that even in his early manhood he attempted to propound a theory of oratory in the unfinished work De Inventione, or Rhetorica, as it is sometimes called. This was compiled partly from the Greek authorities, partly from the treatise Ad Herennium, which we have noticed under the last period. But he himself was quite conscious of its deficiencies, and alludes to it more than once as an unripe and youthful work. The fruits of his mature judgment were preserved in the De Oratore, a dialogue between some of the great orators of former days, in three books, written 55 B.C. The chief speakers are Crassus and Antonius, and we infer from Cicero's identifying himself with the former's views that he regarded him on the whole as the higher orator. The next work in the series is the invaluable Brutus sive de claris Oratoribus, a vast mine of information on the history of the Roman bar, and the progress of oratorical excellence. The scene is laid in the Tusculan villa, where Cicero meets some of his younger friends shortly after the death of Hortensius. In his criticism of orators, past and present, he pays a touching tribute to the character and splendid talents of his late rival and at the same time intimate friend, and laments, what he foresaw too well, the speedy downfall of Roman eloquence. [77] All these works of his later years are tinged with a deep sadness which lends a special charm to their graceful periods; his political despondency drove him to seek solace in literary thought, but he could not so far lose himself even among his beloved worthies of the past as to throw off the cloud of gloom that softened but did not obscure his genius. The Orator ad M. Brutum is intended to give us his ideal of what a perfect orator should be; its treatment is brilliant but imperfect. The Partitiones Oratoriae, or Catechism of the Art of Oratory, in questions and answers, belongs to the educational sphere; and, after the example of Cato's books, is addressed to his son. The Topica, written in 44 B.C., contains an account of the invention of arguments, and belongs partly to logic, partly to rhetoric. The last work of this class is the De Optimo Genere Oratorum, which stands as a preface to the crown speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines, which Cicero had translated. The chief interest consists in the discussion it raises on the comparative merits of the Attic and Asiatic styles.
In all these works there reigns throughout a magnificence of language and a calm grandeur of tone well befitting the literary representative of the "assembly of kings." Nowhere perhaps in all literature can be found compositions in which so many sources of permanent attraction meet; dignity, sweetness, an inexpressible and majestic eloquence, drawing the reader along until he seems lost in a sea of grand language and lofty thoughts, and at the same time a sympathetic human feeling, a genial desire to persuade, a patient perseverance in illustration, an inimitable clearness of expression; admirable qualities, whose rich harmonious combination is perhaps incompatible with the profoundest philosophic wisdom, but which have raised Cicero to take the lead among those great popular teachers who have expressed, and by expressing furthered, the growing enlightenment of mankind.
The letters of Cicero are among the most interesting remains of antiquity. The ancients paid more attention to letter-writing than we do; they thought their friends as worthy as the public of well-weighed expressions and a careful style. But no other writer who has come down to us can be compared with Cicero, for the grace, the naturalness, and the unreserve of his communications. Seneca and Pliny, Walpole and Pope, wrote for the world, not for their correspondents. Among the moderns Mme. de Sévigné approaches most nearly to the excellences of Cicero.
In the days when newspapers were unknown a Roman provincial governor depended for information solely upon private letters. It was of the utmost importance that he should hear from the capital and be able to convey his own messages to it. Yet, unless he was able to maintain couriers of his own, it was almost impossible to send or receive news. In such cases he had to depend on the fidelity of chance messengers, a precarious ground of confidence. We find that all the great nobles retained in their service one or more of these tabellarii. Cicero was often disquieted by the thought that his letters might have miscarried; at times he dared not write at all, so great was the risk of accident or foul play.
Letters were sometimes written on parchment with a reed [78] dipped in ink, [79] but far more frequently on waxen tablets with the stilus. Wax was preferred to other material, as admitting a swifter hand and an easier erasure. When Cicero wrote, his ideas came so fast that his handwriting became illegible. His brother more than once complains of this defect. We hear of his writing three letters to Atticus in one day. Familiar missives like these were penned at any spare moment during the day's business, at the senate during a dull speech, at the forum when witnesses were being examined, at the bath, or oftener still between the courses at dinner. Thrown off in a moment while the impression that dictated them was still fresh, they bear witness to every changing mood, and lay bare the inmost soul of the writer. But, as a rule, few Romans were at the pains to write their letters with their own hand. They delegated this mechanical process to slaves. [80] It seems strange that nothing similar to our running hand should have been invented among them. Perhaps it was owing to the abundance of these humble aids to labour. From the constant use of amanuenses it often resulted that no direct evidence of authorship existed beyond the appended seal. When Antony read before the senate a private letter from Cicero, the orator replied, "What madness it is to bring forward as a witness against me a letter of which I might with perfect impunity deny the genuineness." The seal, stamped with the signet-ring, was of wax, and laid over the fastening of the thread which bound the tablets together. Hence the many ingenious devices for obliterating, softening, or imitating the impression, which are so often alluded to by orators and satirists.
Many of the more important letters, such as Cicero's to Lentulus, that of Quintus to Cicero, &c. were political pamphlets, which, after they had done their work, were often published, and met with a ready sale. It is impossible to ascertain approximately the amount of copying that went on in Rome, but it was probably far less than is generally supposed. There is nothing so cramping to the inventive faculty as the existence of slave labour. How else can we account for the absence of any machinery for multiplying copies of documents, an inconvenience which, in the case of the acta diurna, as well as of important letters, must have been keenly felt? Even shorthand and cipher, though known, were rarely practised. Caesar, [81] however, used them; but in many points he was beyond his age. In America, where labour is refractory, mechanical substitutes for it are daily being invented. A calculating machine, and a writing machine, which not only multiplies but forms the original copy, are inventions so simple as to indicate that it was want of enterprise rather than of ingenuity which, made the Romans content with such an imperfect apparatus.
To write a letter well one must have the desire to please. This Cicero possessed to an almost feminine extent. He thirsted for the approbation of the good, and when he could not get that he put up with the applause of the many. And thus his letters are full of that heartiness and vigour which comes from the determination to do everything he tries to do well. They have besides the most perfect and unmistakable reality. Every foible is confessed; every passing thought, even such as one would rather not confess even to oneself, is revealed and recorded to his friend. It is from these letters to a great extent that Cicero has been so severely judged. He stands, say his critics, self-condemned. This is true; but it is equally true that the ingenuity which pieces together a mosaic out of these scattered fragments of evidence, and labels it the character of Cicero, is altogether misapplied. One man may reveal everything; another may reveal nothing; our opinion in either case must be based on the inferences of common sense and experience of the world, for neither of such persons is a witness to be trusted. Weakness and inconsistency are visible indeed in all Cicero's letters; but who can imagine Caesar or Crassus writing such letters at all? The perfect unreserve which gives them their charm and their value for us is also the highest possible testimony to the uprightness of their author.
The collection comprises a great variety of subjects and a considerable number of correspondents. The most important are those to Atticus, which were already published in the time of Nepos. Other large volumes existed, of which only one, that entitled ad Familiares has come down entire to us. Like the volume to Atticus, it consists of sixteen books, extending from the year after his consulship until that of his death. The collection was made by Tiro, Cicero's freedman, after his death, and was perhaps the earliest of the series. A small collection of letters to his brother (ad Quintum Fratrem), in six books, still remains, and a correspondence between Cicero and Brutus in two books. The former were written between the years 60 and 54 B.C. the latter in the period subsequent to the death of Caesar. The letters to Atticus give us information on all sorts of topics, political, pecuniary, personal, literary. Everything that occupied Cicero's mind is spoken of with freedom, for Atticus, though cold and prudent, had the rare gift of drawing others out. This quality, as well as his prudence, is attested by Cornelius Nepos; and we observe that when he advised Cicero his counsel was almost always wise and right. He sustained him in his adversity, when heart-broken and helpless he contemplated, but lacked courage to commit suicide; and he sympathised with his success, as well as aided him in a more tangible sense with the resources of his vast fortune. Among the many things discussed in the letters we are struck by the total absence of the philosophical and religious questions which in other places he describes as his greatest delight. Religion, as we understand it, had no place in his heart. If we did not possess the letters, if we judged only by his dialogues and his orations, we should have imagined him deeply interested in all that concerned the national faith; but we see that in his genuine moments he never gave it a thought. Politics, letters, art, his own fame, and the success of his party, such are the points on which he loves to dwell. But he is also most communicative on domestic matters, and shows the tenderest family feeling. To his wife, until the unhappy period of his divorce, to his brother, to his unworthy son, but above all to his daughter, his beloved Tulliola, he pours forth, all the warmth of a deep affection; and even his freedman Tiro comes in for a share of kindly banter which shows the friendly footing on which the great man and his dependant stood. Cicero was of all men the most humane. While accepting slavery as an institution of his ancestors, he did all he could to make its burden lighter; he conversed with his slaves, assisted them, mourned their death, and, in a word, treated them as human beings. We learn from the letters that in this matter, and in another of equal importance, the gladiatorial shows, Cicero was far ahead of the feeling of his time. When he listened to his heart, it always led him right. And if it led him above all things to repose complete confidence on his one intimate friend, that only draws us to him the more; he felt like Bacon that a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk is but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
It only remains very shortly to mention his poetry. He himself knew that he had not the poetic afflatus, but his immense facility of style which made it as easy for him to write in verse as in prose, and his desire to rival the Greeks in every department of composition, tempted him to essay his wings in various flights of song. We have mentioned his poem on Marius and those on his consulship and times, which pleased himself best and drew forth from others the greatest ridicule. He wrote also versions from the Iliad, of which he quotes several in various works; heroic poems called Halcyone and Cimon, an elegy called Tamelastis, [82] a Libellus iocularis, about which we have no certain information, and various epigrams to Tiro, Caninius, and others. It will he necessary to refer to some of these works on a future page. We shall therefore pass them by here, and conclude the chapter with a short notice of the principal orators who were younger contemporaries of Cicero.
COELIUS, with whom Cicero was often brought into relations, was a quick, polished, and sometimes lofty speaker; [83] CALIDIUS a delicate and harmonious one. On one occasion when Calidius was accusing a man of conspiring against his life, he pleaded with such smoothness and languor, that Cicero, who was for the defence, at once gained his cause by the argumentum ad hominem. Tu istuc M. Calidi nisi fingeres sic ageres? praesertim cum ista eloquentia alienorum hominum pericula defendere acerrime soleas, tuum negligeres? Ubi dolor? ubi ardor animi, qui etiam ex infantium ingeniis elicere voces et querelas solet? Nulla perturbatio animi, nulla corporis: frons non percussa, non femur; pedis, quod minimum est, nulla supplosio. Itaque tantum abfuit ut imflammares animos nostros, somnum isto loco vix tenebamus. [84] CURIO he describes as bold and flowing; CALVUS from affectation of Attic purity, as cold, cautious, and jejune. His dry, sententious style, to which BRUTUS also inclined, was a reaction from the splendour of Cicero, a splendour which men like these could never hope to reach; and perhaps it was better that they should reject all ornament rather than misapply it. It seems that after Cicero oratory had lost the fountain of its life; he responded so perfectly to the exigencies of the popular taste and the possibilities of the time, that after him no new theory of eloquence could be produced, while to improve upon his practice was evidently hopeless. Thus the reaction that comes after literary perfection conspired with the dawn of freedom to make Cicero the last as well as the greatest of those who deserved the name of orator; and we acknowledge the justice of the poet's epigram, [85] questioned as it was at the time.
Poetry of Cicero.
The poems of Cicero are of considerable importance to the student of Latin versification. His great facility and formal polish made him successful in producing a much more finished and harmonious cadence than had before been attained. Coming between Ennius and Lucretius, and evidently studied by the latter, he is an important link in metrical development. We propose in this note merely to give some examples of his versification that the student may judge for himself, and compare them with those of Lucretius, Catullus, and Virgil. They are quoted from the edition of Orelli (vol. iv. p. 0112 sqq.).
From the Marius (Cic. de Legg. I. i. § 2):
"Hic lovis altisoni subito pinnata satelles
Arboris e trunco serpentis saucia morsu
Subrigit, ipsa feris transfigens unguibus, anguem
Semianimum et varia graviter cervice micantem,
Quem se intorquentem lanians rostroque cruentans,
Iam saltata animos, iam duros ulta dolores,
Abiecit ceflantem et laceratum adfligit in unda,
Seque obitu a solis nitidos convertit ad ortus.
Hanc ubi praepetibus pennis lapsuque vo antem
Conspexit Marius, divini miminis augur,
Faustaque signa suae laudis reditusque notavit,
Partibus intonuit caeli pater ipse sinistris.
Sic aquilae clarum firmavit Iuppiter omen."
Praises of himself, from the poem on his consulship (Div. I. ii. § 17 sqq.):
"Haec tardata diu species multumque morata
Consulet tandem celsa est in sede locata,
Atque una tixi ac signati temporis hora,
Iuppiter excelsa clarabat sceptra columna;
Et clades patriae flamma ferroque parata
Vocibus Allobrogum patribus populoque patebat.
Rite igitur veteres quorum monumenta tenetis,
Qui populos urbisque modo ac virtute regebant,
Ritectiam vestri quorum pietasque fidesque
Praestitit ac longe vicit sapientia cunctos
Praecipue coluere vigenti numine divos.
Haec adeo penitus cura videri sagaci
Otia qui studiis laeti tenuere decoris,
Inque Academia umbrifera nitidoque Lyceo
Fuderunt claras fecundi pectoris artis:
E quibus ereptum primo iam a flore in ventae,
Te patria in media virtuttum mole locavit.
Tu tamen auxiferas curas requiete relaxans
Quod patriae vacat id studiis nobisque dedisti."
We append some verses by Quintus Cicero, who the orator declared would make a better poet than himself. They are on the twelve constellations, a well-worn but apparently attractive subject:
"Flumina verna cient obscuro lumine Pisces,
Curriculumque Aries aequat noctisque dieque,
Cornua quem comunt florum praenuntia Tauri,
Aridaque aestatis Gemini primordia pandunt,
Longaque iam minuit praeclarus lumina Cancer,
Languiticusque Leo proflat ferus ore calores.
Post modicum quatiens Virgo fugat orta vaporem.
Autumnni reserat porfas aequatque diurna
Tempora nocturnis disperse sidere Libra,
Et fetos ramos denudat flamma Nepai.
Pigra sagittipotens iaculatur frigora terris.
Bruma gelu glacians iubare spirat Capricorni:
Quam sequitur nebulas rorans liquor altus Aquari:
Tanta supra circaque vigent ubi flumina. Mundi
At dextra laevaque cict rota fulgida Solis
Mobile curriculum, et Lunae simulacra feruntur.
Squama sub aeterno conspectu torta Draconis
Eminet: hanc inter fulgentem sidera septem
Magna quatit stellans, quam serrans serus in alia
Conditur Oceani ripa cum luce Bootes."
This is poor stuff; two epigrams are more interesting:
"Crede ratem ventis, animum ne crede puellis:
Namque est feminea tutior unda fide."
"Femina nulla bona est, et, si bona contigit ulla,
Nescio quo fato res mala facta bona."
We observe the entire lack of inspiration, combined with considerable smoothness, but both, in a feebler degree, which are characteristic of his brother's poems.
It is well known that Cicero felt strongly tempted to write a history of Rome. Considering the stirring events among which he lived, the grandeur of Rome's past, and the exhaustless literary resources which he himself possessed, we are not surprised either at his conceiving the idea or at his friends encouraging it. Nevertheless it is fortunate for his literary fame that he abandoned the proposal, [1] for he would have failed in history almost more signally than he did in poetry. His mind was not adapted for the kind of research required, nor his judgment for weighing historic evidence. When Lucceius announced his intention of writing a history which should include the Catilinarian conspiracy, Cicero did not scruple to beg him to enlarge a little on the truth. "You must grant something to our friendship; let me pray you to delineate my exploits in a way that shall reflect the greatest possible glory on myself." [2] A lax conception of historical responsibility, which is not peculiar to Cicero. He is but an exaggerated type of his nation in this respect. No Roman author, unless it be Tacitus, has been able fully to grasp the extreme complexity as well as difficulty of the historian's task. Even the sage Quintilian maintains the popular misconception when he says, "History is closely akin to poetry, and is written for purposes of narration not of proof; being composed with the motive of transmitting our fame to posterity, it avoids the dulness of continuous narrative by the use of rarer words and freer periphrases." [3] We may conclude that this criticism is based on a careful study of the greatest recognised models. This false opinion arose no doubt from the narrowness of view which persisted in regarding all kinds of literature as merely exercises in style. For instance accuracy of statements was not regarded as the goal and object of the writer's labours, but rather as a useful means of obtaining clearness of arrangement; abundant information helped towards condensation; original observation towards vivacity; personal experience of the events towards pathos or eloquence.
So unfortunately prevalent was this view that a writer was not called a historian unless he had considerable pretensions to style. Thus, men who could write, and had written, in an informal way, excellent historical accounts, were not studied by their countrymen as historians. Their writings were relegated to the limbo of antiquarian remains. The habit of writing notes of their campaigns, memoranda of their public conduct, copies of their speeches, &c. had for some time been usual among the abler or more ambitious nobles. Often these were kept by them, laid by for future elaboration: oftener still they were published, or sent in the form of letters to the author's friends. The letters of Cicero and his numerous correspondents present such a series of raw material for history; and in reading any of the antiquarian writers of Rome we are struck by the large number of monographs, essays, pamphlets, rough notes, commentaries, and the like, attributed to public men, to which they had access.
It is quite clear that for many years these documents had existed, and equally clear that, unless their author was celebrated or their style elegant, the majority of readers entirely neglected them. Nevertheless they formed a rich material for the diligent and capable historian. In using them, however, we could not expect him to show the same critical acumen, the same impartiality, as a modern writer trained in scientific criticism and the broad culture of international ideas; to expect this would be to expect an impossibility. To look at events from a national instead of a party point of view was hard; to look at them from a human point of view, as Polybius had done, was still harder. Thus we cannot expect from Republican Rome any historical work of the same scope and depth as those of Herodotus and Thucydides; neither the dramatic genius of the one nor the philosophic insight of the other was to be gained there. All we can look for is a clear comprehensive narrative, without flagrant misrepresentation, of some of the leading episodes, and such we fortunately possess in the memoirs of Caesar and the biographical essays of Sallust.
The immediate object of the Commentaries of JULIUS CAESAR (100-44 B.C.), was no doubt to furnish the senate with an authentic military report on the Gallic and Civil Wars. But they had also an ulterior purpose. They aspired to justify their author in the eyes of Rome and of posterity in his attitude of hostility to the constitution.
Pompey was perhaps quite as desirous of supreme power as Caesar, and was equally ready to make all patriotic motives subordinate to self-interest. Nevertheless he gained, by his connexion with the senate, the reputation of defender of the constitution, and thought fit to appropriate the language of patriotism. Caesar, in his Commentaries—which, though both unfinished and, historically speaking, unconnected with one another, reveal the deeper connexion of successive products of the same creative policy—labours throughout to show that he acted in accordance with the forms of the constitution and for the general good of Rome. This he does not as a rule attempt to prove by argument. Occasionally he does so, as when any serious accusation was brought against the legitimacy of his acts; and these are among the most important and interesting chapters in his work. [4] But his habitual method of exculpating himself is by his persuasive moderation of statement, and his masterly collocation of events. In reading the narrative of the Civil War it is hard to resist the conviction that he was unfairly treated. Without any terms of reprobation, with scarcely any harsh language, with merely that wondrous skill in manipulating the series of facts which genius possesses, he has made his readers, even against their prepossession, disapprove of Pompey's attitude and condemn the bitter hostility of the senate. So, too, in the report of the Gallic War, where diplomatic caution was less required, the same apparent candour, the same perfect statement of his case, appears. In every instance of aggressive and ambitious war, there is some equitable proposal refused, some act of injustice not acknowledged, some infringement of the dignity of the Roman people committed, which makes it seem only natural that Caesar should exact reprisals by the sword. On two or three occasions he betrays how little regard he had for good faith when barbarians were in consideration, and how completely absent was that generous clemency in the case of a vanquished foreign prince, which when exercised towards his own countrymen procured him such enviable renown. [5] His treacherous conduct towards the Usipetes and Tenchteri, which he relates with perfect sang froid, [6] is such as to shock us beyond description; his brutal vengeance upon the Atuatici and Veneti, [7] all whose leading men he murdered, and sold the rest, to the number of 53,000, by auction; his cruel detention of the noble Vercingetorix, who, after acting like an honourable foe in the field, voluntarily gave himself up to appease the conqueror's wrath; [8] these are blots in Caesar's scutcheon, which, if they do not place him below the recognised standard of action of the time, prevent him from being placed in any way above it. The theory that good faith is unnecessary with an uncivilised foe, is but the other side of the doctrine that it is merely a thing of expediency in the case of a civilised one. And neither Rome herself, nor many of her greatest generals, can free themselves from the grievous stain of perfidious dealing with those whom they found themselves powerful enough so to treat.
But if we can neither approve the want of principle, nor accept the ex parte statements which are embodied in Caesar's Commentaries, we can admire to the utmost the incredible and almost superhuman activity which, more than any other quality, enabled him to overcome his enemies. This is evidently the means on which he himself most relied. The prominence he has given to it in his writings makes it almost equivalent to a precept. The burden of his achievements is the continual repetition of quam celerrime contendendum ratus,—maximis citissimisque itineribus profectus,—and other phrases describing the rapidity of his movements. By this he so terrified the Pompeians that, hearing he was en route for Rome, they fled in such dismay as not even to take the money they had amassed for the war, but to leave it a prey to Caesar. And by the want of this, as he sarcastically observes, the Pompeians lost their only chance of crushing him, when, driven from Dyrrhachium, with his army seriously crippled and provisions almost exhausted, he must have succumbed to the numerous and well-fed forces opposed to him. [9] He himself would never have committed such a mistake. The after-work of his victories was frequently more decisive than the victories themselves. He always pursued his enemies into their camp, by storming which he not only broke their spirit, but made it difficult for them to retain their unity of action. No man ever knew so well the truth of the adage "nothing succeeds like success;" and his Commentaries from first to last are instinct with a triumphant consciousness of his knowledge and of his having invariably acted upon it.
A feature which strikes every reader of Caesar is the admiration and respect he has for his soldiers. Though unsparing of their lives when occasion demanded, he never speaks of them as "food for powder." Once, when his men clamoured for battle, but he thought he could gain his point without shedding blood, he refused to fight, though the discontent became alarming: "Cur, etiam secundo praelio, aliquas ex suis amitteret? Cur vulnerari pateretur optime meritos de se milites? cur denique fortunam periclitaretur, praesertim cum non minus esset imperatoris consilio superare quam gladio?" This consideration for the lives of his soldiers, when the storm was over, won him gratitude; and it was no single instance. Everywhere they are mentioned with high praise, and no small portion of the victory is ascribed to them. Stories of individual valour are inserted, and several centurions singled out for special commendation. Caesar lingers with delight over the exploits of his tenth legion. Officers and men are all fondly remembered. The heroic conduct of Pulfio and Varenus, who challenge each other to a display of valour, and by each saving the other's life are reconciled to a friendly instead of a hostile rivalry; [10] the intrepidity of the veterans at Lissus, whose self- reliant bravery calls forth one of the finest descriptions in the whole book; [11] and the loyal devotion of all when he announces his critical position, and asks if they will stand by him, [12] are related with glowing pride. Numerous other merely incidental notices, scattered through both works, confirm the pleasing impression that commander and commanded had full confidence in each other; and he relates [13] with pardonable exultation the speaking fact that among all the hardships they endured (hardships so terrible that Pompey, seeing the roots on which they subsisted, declared he had beasts to fight with and not men) not a soldier except Labienus and two Gaulish officers ever deserted his cause, though thousands came over to him from the opposite side. It is the greatest proof of his power over men, and thereby, of his military capacity, that perhaps it is possible to show.
Besides their clear description of military manoeuvres, of engineering, bridge-making, and all kinds of operations, in which they may be compared with the despatches of the great generals of modern times, Caesar's Commentaries contain much useful information regarding the countries he visited. There is a wonderful freshness and versatility about his mind. While primarily considering a country, as he was forced to do, from its strategical features, or its capacity for furnishing contingents or tribute, he was nevertheless keenly alive to all objects of interest, whether in nature or in human customs. The inquiring curiosity with which Lucan upbraids him during his visit to Egypt, if it were not on that occasion assumed, as some think, to hide his real projects, was one of the chief characteristics of his mind. As soon as he thought Gaul was quiet he hurried to Illyria, [14] animated by the desire to see those nations, and to observe their customs for himself. His journey into Britain, though by Suetonius attributed to avarice, which had been kindled by the report of enormous pearls of fine quality to be found on our coasts, is by himself attributed to his desire to see so strange a country, and to be the first to conquer it. [15] His account of our island, though imperfect, is extremely interesting. He mentions many of our products. The existence of lead and iron ore was known to him; he does not allude to tin, but its occurrence can hardly have been unknown to him. He remarks that the beech and pine do not grow in the south of England, which is probably an inaccuracy; [16] and he falls into the mistake of supposing that the north of Scotland enjoys in winter a period of thirty days total darkness. His account of Gaul, and, to a certain extent, of Germany, is more explicit. He gives a fine description of the Druids and their mysterious religion, noticing in particular the firm belief in the immortality of the soul, which begot indifference to death, and was a great incentive to bravery. [17] The effects of this belief are dwelt on by Lucan in one of his most effective passages, [18] which is greatly borrowed from Caesar. Their knowledge of letters, and their jealous restriction of it to themselves and express prohibition of any written literature, he attributes partly to their desire to keep the people ignorant, the common feeling of a powerful priesthood, and partly to a conviction that writing injures the memory, which among men of action should be kept in constant exercise. His acquaintance with German civilization is more superficial, and shows that incapacity for scientific criticism which was common to all antiquity. [19] His testimony to the chastity of the German race, confirmed afterwards by Tacitus, is interesting as showing one of the causes which have contributed to its greatness. He relates, with apparent belief, the existence of several extraordinary quadrupeds in the vast Hercynian forest, such as the unicorn of heraldry, which here first appears; the elk, which has no joints to its legs, and cannot lie down, whose bulk he depreciates as much as he exaggerates that of the urus or wild bull, which he describes as hardly inferior to the elephant in size. To have slain one of these gigantic animals, and carried off its horns as a trophy, was almost as great a glory as the possession of the grizzly bear's claws among the Indians of the Rocky Mountains. Some of his remarks on the temper of the Gauls might be applied almost without change to their modern representatives. The French élan is done ample justice to, as well as the instability and self-esteem of that great people. "Ut ad bella suscipienda Gallorum alacer et promptus est animus, sic mollis ac minime resistens ad calamitates perferendas mens eorum est." [20] And again, "quod sunt in capessendis consiliis mobiles et novis plerumque rebus student." [21] He notices the tall stature of both Gauls and Germans, which was at first the cause of some terror to his soldiers, and some contemptuousness on their part. [22] "Plerisque hominibus Gallis prae magnitudine corporum suorum brevitas nostra contemptui est."
Caesar himself was of commanding presence, great bodily endurance, and heroic personal daring. These were qualities which his enemies knew how to respect. On one occasion, when his legions were blockaded in Germany, he penetrated at night to his camp disguised as a Gaul; and in more than one battle he turned the fortune of the day by his extraordinary personal courage, fighting on foot before his wavering troops, or snatching the standard from the centurion's timid grasp. He took the greatest pains to collect accurate information, and frequently he tells us who his informants were. [23] Where there was no reason for the suppression or misrepresentation of truth, Caesar's statements may be implicitly relied on. No man knew human nature better, or how to decide between conflicting assertions. He rarely indulges in conjecture, but in investigating the motives of his adversaries he is penetrating and unmerciful. At the commencement of the treatise on the civil war he gives his opinion as to the considerations that weighed with Lentulus, Cato, Scipio, and Pompey; and it is characteristic of the man that of all he deals most hardly with Cato, whose pretensions annoyed him, and in whose virtue he did not believe. To the bravest of his Gallic enemies he is not unjust. The Nervii in particular, by their courage and self-devotion, excite his warm admiration, [24] and while he felt it necessary to exterminate them, they seem to have been among the very few that moved his pity.
As to the style of these two great works, no better criticism can be given than that of Cicero in the Brutus; [25] "They are worthy of all praise: they are unadorned, straightforward, and elegant, every ornament being stripped off as it were a garment. While he desired to give others the material out of which to create a history; he may perhaps have done a kindness to conceited writers who wish to trick them out with meretricious graces; [26] but he has deterred all men of sound taste from touching them. For in history a pure and brilliant conciseness of style is the highest attainable beauty." Condensed as they are, and often almost bald, they have that matchless clearness which marks the mind that is master of its entire subject. We have only to compare them with the excellent but immeasurably inferior commentaries of Hirtius to estimate their value in this respect. Precision, arrangement, method, are qualities that never leave them from beginning to end. It is much to be regretted that they are so imperfect and that the text is not in a better state. In the Civil War particularly, gaps frequently occur, and both the beginning and the end are lost. They were written during the campaign, though no doubt cast into their present form in the intervals of winter leisure. Hirtius, who, at Caesar's request, appended an eighth book to the Gallic War, tells us in a letter to Balbus, how rapidly he wrote. "I wish that those who will read my book could know how unwillingly I took it in hand, that I might acquit myself of folly and arrogance in completing what Caesar had begun. For all agree; that the elegance of these commentaries surpasses the most laborious efforts of other writers. They were edited to prevent historians being ignorant of matters of such high importance. But so highly are they approved by the universal verdict that the power of amplifying them has been rather taken away than bestowed by their publication. [27] And yet I have a right to marvel at this even more than others. For while others know how faultlessly they are written, I know with what ease and rapidity he dashed them off. For Caesar, besides the highest conceivable literary gift, possessed the most perfect skill in explaining his designs." This testimony of his most intimate friend is confirmed by a careful perusal of the works, the elaboration of which, though very great, consists, not in the execution of details, but in the carefully meditated design. The Commentaries have always been a favourite book with soldiers as with scholars. Their Latinity is not more pure than their tactics are instructive. Nor are the loftier graces of composition wanting. The speeches of Curio rise into eloquence. [28] Petreius's despair at the impending desertion of his army [29] is powerfully drawn, and the contrast, brief but effective, between the Pompeians' luxury and his own army's want of common necessaries, assumes all the grandeur of a moral warning. [30]
The example of their general and their own devotion induced other distinguished men to complete his work. A. Hirtius (consul 43 B.C.), who served with him in the Gallic and Civil Wars, as we have seen, added at his request an eighth book to the history of the former; and in the judgment of the best critics the Alexandrine War is also by his hand. From these two treatises, which are written in careful imitation of Caesar's manner, we form a high conception of the literary standard among men of education. For Hirtius, though a good soldier and an efficient consul, was a literary man only by accident. It was Caesar who ordered him to write, first a reply to Cicero's panegyric on Cato, and then the Gallic Commentary. Nevertheless, his two books show no inferiority in taste or diction to those of his illustrious chief. They of course lack his genius; but there is the same purity of style, the same perfect moderation of language.
Nothing is more striking than the admirable taste of the highest conversational language at Rome in the seventh century of the Republic. Not only Hirtius, but Matius, Balbus, Sulpicius, Brutus, Cassius and other correspondents of Cicero, write to him in a dialect as pure as his own. It is true they have not his grace, his inimitable freedom and copiousness. Most of them are somewhat laboured, and give us the impression of having acquired with difficulty the control of their inflexible material. But the intimate study of the noble language in which they wrote compels us to admit that it was fully equal to the clear exposition of the severest thought and the most subtle diplomatic reasoning. But its prime was already passing. Even men of the noblest family could not without long discipline attain the lofty standard of the best conversational requirements. Sextus Pompeius is said to have been sermone barbarus. [31] On this Niebuhr well remarks: "It is remarkable to see how at that time men who did not receive a thorough education neglected their mother- tongue, and spoke a corrupt form of it. The urbanitas, or perfection of the language, easily degenerated unless it were kept up by careful study. Cicero [32] speaks of the sermo urbanus in the time of Laelius, and observes that the ladies of that age spoke exquisitely. But in Caesar's time it had begun to decay." Caesar, in one of his writings, tells his reader to shun like a rock every unusual form of speech. [33] And this admirable counsel he has himself generally followed—but few provincialisms or archaisms can be detected in his pages. [34] In respect of style he stands far at the head of all the Latin historians. The authorship of the African War is doubtful; it seems best, with Niebuhr, to assign it to Oppius. The Spanish War is obviously written by a person of a different sort. It may either be, as Niebuhr thinks, the work of a centurion or military tribune in the common rank of life, or, as we incline to think, of a provincial, perhaps a Spaniard, who was well read in the older literature of Rome, but could not seize the complex and delicate idiom of the beau monde of his day. With vulgarisms like bene magni, in opere distenti, [35] and inaccuracies like ad ignoscendum for ad se excusandum, [36] quam opimam for quam optimam, [37] he combines quotations from Ennius, e.g. hic pes pede premitur, armis teruntur arma, [38] and rhetorical constructions, e.g. alteri alteris non solum mortem morti exaggerabant, sed tumulos tumulis exaequabant. [39] He quotes the words of Caesar in a form of which we can hardly believe the dictator to have been guilty: "Caesar gives conditions: he never receives them:" [40] and again, "I am Caesar: I keep my faith." [41] Points like these, to which we may add his fondness for dwelling on horrid details [42] (always omitted by Caesar), and for showy descriptions, as that of the single combat between Turpio and Niger, [43] seem to mark him out as in mind if not in race a Spaniard. These are the very features we find recurring in Lucan and Seneca, which, joined to undoubted talent, brought a most pernicious element into the Latin style.
To us Caesar's literary power is shown in the sphere of history. But to his contemporaries he was even more distinguished in other fields. As an orator he was second, and only second, to Cicero. [44] His vigorous sense, close argument, brilliant wit, and perfect command of language, made him, from his first appearance as accuser of Dolabella at the age of 22, one of the foremost orators of Rome. And he possessed also, though he kept in check, that greatest weapon of eloquence, the power to stir the passions. But with him eloquence was a means, not an end. He spoke to gain his point, not to acquire fame; and thus thought less of enriching than of enforcing his arguments. One ornament of speech, however, he pursued with the greatest zeal, namely, good taste and refinement; [45] and in this, according to Cicero, he stood above all his rivals. Unhappily, not a single speech remains; only a few characteristics fragments, from which we can but feel the more how much we have lost. [46]
Besides speeches, which were part of his public life, he showed a deep interest in science. He wrote a treatise on grammar, de Analogia, for which he found time in the midst of one of his busiest campaigns [47] and dedicated to Cicero, [48] much to the orator's delight. In the dedication occur these generous words, "If many by study and practice have laboured to express their thoughts in noble language, of which art I consider you to be almost the author and originator, it is our duty to regard you as one who has well deserved of the name and dignity of the Roman people." The treatise was intended as an introduction to philosophy and eloquence, and was itself founded on philosophical principles; [49] and beyond doubt it brought to bear on the subject that luminous arrangement which was inseparable from Caesar's mind. Some of his conclusions are curious; he lays down that the genitive of dies is die; [50] the genitive plural of panis, pars; panum, partum; [51] the accusative of turbo, turbonem; [52] the perfect of mordeo and the like, memordi not momordi; [53] the genitive of Pompeius, Pompeiii. [54] The forms maximus, optimus, municipium, [55] &c. which he introduced, seem to have been accepted on his authority, and to have established themselves finally in the language.
As chief pontifex he interested himself with a digest of the Auspices, which he carried as far as sixteen books. [56] The Auguralia, which are mentioned by Priscian, are perhaps a second part of the same treatise. He also wrote an essay on Divination, like that of Cicero. In this he probably disclosed his real opinions, which we know from other sources were those of the extremest scepticism. There seemed no incongruity in a man who disbelieved the popular religion holding the sacred office of pontifex. The persuasion that religion was merely a department of the civil order was considered, even by Cicero, to absolve men from any conscientious allegiance to it. After his elevation to the perpetual dictatorship he turned his mind to astronomy, owing to the necessities of the calendar; and composed, or at least published, several books which were thought by no means unscientific, and are frequently quoted. [57] Of his poems we shall speak in another place. The only remaining works are his two pamphlets against Cato, to which Juvenal refers: [58]
"Maiorem quam sunt duo Caesaris Anticatones."
These were intended as a reply to Cicero's laudatory essay, but though written with the greatest ability, were deeply prejudiced and did not carry the people with them. [59] The witty or proverbial sayings of Caesar were collected either during his life, or after his death, and formed an interesting collection. Some of them attest his pride, as "My word is law;" [60] "I am not king, but Caesar;" [61] others his clemency, as, "Spare the citizens;" [62] others his greatness of soul, as, "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." [63]
Several of his letters are preserved; they are in admirable taste, but do not present any special points for criticism. With Caesar ends the collection of genuine letter-writers, who wrote in conversational style, without reference to publicity. In after times we have indeed numerous so- called letters, but they are no longer the same class of composition as these, nor have any recent letters the vigour, grace, and freedom of those of Cicero and Caesar.
A friend of many great men, and especially of Atticus, CORNELIUS NEPOS (74?-24 B.C.) owes his fame to the kindness of fortune more than to his own achievements. Had we possessed only the account of him given by his friends, we should have bewailed the loss of a learned and eloquent author. [64] Fortunately we have the means of judging of his talent by a short fragment of his work On Illustrious Men, which, though it relegates him to the second rank in intellect, does credit to his character and heart. [65] It consists of the lives of several Greek generals and statesmen, written in a compendious and popular style, adapted especially for school reading, where it has always been in great request. Besides these there are short accounts of Hamilcar and Hannibal, and of the Romans, Cato and Atticus. The last-mentioned biography is an extract from a lost work, De Historicis Latinis, among whom friendship prompts him to class the good-natured and cultivated banker. The series of illustrious men extended over sixteen books, and was divided under the headings of kings, generals, lawyers, orators, poets, historians, philosophers, and grammarians. To each of these two books were devoted, one of Greek, and one of Latin examples. [66] Of those we possess the life of Atticus is the only one of any historical value, the rest being mere superficial compilations, and not always from the best authorities. Besides the older generation, he had friends also among the younger. Catullus, who like him came from Gallia Cisalpina, pays in his first poem the tribute of gratitude, due probably to his timely patronage. The work mentioned there as that on which the fame of Nepos rested was called Chronica. It seems to have been a laborious attempt to form a comparative chronology of Greek and Roman History, and to have contained three books. Subsequently, he preferred biographical studies, in which field, besides his chief work, he edited a series of Exempla, or patterns for imitation, of the character of our modern Self Help, and intended to wean youthful minds from the corrupt fashions of their time. A Life of Cicero would probably be of great use to us, had fortune spared it; for Nepos knew Cicero well, and had access through Atticus to all his correspondence. At Atticus's request he wrote also a biography of Cato at greater length than the short one which we possess. It has been observed by Merivale [67] that the Romans were specially fitted for biographical writing. The rhetorical cast of their minds and the disposition to reverence commanding merit made them admirable panygerists; and few would celebrate where they did not mean to praise. Of his general character as a historian Mr. Oscar Browning in his useful edition says: "He is most untrustworthy. It is often difficult to disentangle the wilful complications of his chronology; and he tries to enhance the value of what he is relating by a foolish exaggeration which is only too transparent to deceive." His style is clear, a merit attributable to the age in which he lived, and, as a rule, elegant, though verging here and there to prettiness. Though of the same age as Caesar he adopts a more modern Latinity. We miss the quarried marble which polish hardens but does not wear away. Nepos's language is a softer substance, and becomes thin beneath the file. He is occasionally inaccurate. In the Phocion [68] we have a sentence incomplete; in the Chabrias [69] we have an accusative (Agesilaum) with nothing to govern it; we have ante se for ante eum, a fault, by the way, into which almost every Latin writer is apt to fall, since the rules on which the true practice is built are among the subtlest in any language. [70] We have poetical constructions, as tollere consilia iniit; popular ones, as infitias it, dum with the perfect tense, and colloquialisms like impraesentiarum; we have Graecizing words like deuteretur, automatias, and curious inflexions such as Thuynis, Coti, Datami, genitives of Thuys, Cotys, [71] and Datames, respectively. We see in Nepos, as in Xenophon, the first signs of a coming change. He forms a link between the exclusively prosaic style of Cicero and Caesar, and prose softened and coloured with poetic beauties, which was brought to such perfection by Livy.
After the life of Hannibal, in the MS., occurred an epigram by the grammarian Aemilius Probus inscribing the work to Theodosius. By this scholars were long misled. It was Lambinus who first proved that the pure Latinity of the lives could not, except by magic, be the product of the Theodosian age; and as ancient testimony amply justified the assignment of the life of Atticus to Nepos, and he was known also to have been the author of just such a book as came out under Probus's name, the great scholar boldly drew the conclusion that the series of biographies we possess were the veritable work of Nepos. For a time controversy raged. A via media was discovered which regarded them as an abridgment in Theodosius's time of the fuller original work. But even this, which was but a concession to prejudice, is now generally abandoned, and few would care to dispute the accuracy of Lambinus's penetrating criticism. [72]
The first artistic historian of Rome is C. SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS (86-34 B.C.). This great writer was born at Amiternum in the year in which Marius died, and, as we know from himself, he came to Rome burning with ambition to ennoble his name, and studied with that purpose the various arts of popularity. He rose steadily through the quaestorship to the tribuneship of the plebs (52 B.C.), and so became a member of the senate. From this position he was degraded (50 B.C.) on the plea of adultery, committed some years before with the wife of Annius Milo, a disgrace he seems to have deeply felt, although it was probably instigated by political and not moral disapprobation. For Sallust was a warm admirer and partisan of Caesar, who in time (47 B.C.) made him praetor, thus restoring his rank; and assigned him (46 B.C.) the province of Numidia, from which he carried an enormous fortune, for the most part, we fear, unrighteously obtained. On his return (45 B.C.), content with his success, he sank into private life; and to the leisure and study of his later years we owe the works that have made him famous. He employed his wealth in ministering to his comfort. His favourite retreats were a villa at Tibur which had once been Caesar's, and a magnificent palace which he built in the suburbs of Rome, surrounded by pleasure-grounds, afterwards well-known as the "Gardens of Sallust," and as the residence of successive emperors. The preacher of ancient virtue was an adept in modern luxury. Augustus chose the historian's dwelling as the scene of his most sumptuous entertainments; Vespasian preferred it to the palace of the Caesars; Nerva and Aurelian, stern as they were, made it their constant abode. [73] And yet Sallust was not a happy man. The inconsistency of conduct and the whirlwind of political passion in which most men then lived seems to have sapped the springs of life and worn out body and mind before their time. Caesar's activity had at his death begun to make him old; [74] Sallust lived only to the age of 52; Lucretius and Catullus were even younger when they died. And the views of life presented in their works are far from hopeful. Sallust, indeed, praises virtue; but it is an ideal of the past, colossal but extinct, on which his gloomy eloquence is exhausted. Among his contemporaries he finds no vestige of ancient goodness; honour has become a traffic, ambition has turned to avarice, and envy has taken the place of public spirit. From this scene of turpitude he selects two men who in diverse ways recall the strong features of antiquity. These are Caesar and Cato; the one the idol of the people, whom with real persuasion they adored as a god; [75] the other the idol of the senate, whom the Pompeian poet exalts even above the gods. [76] The contrast and balancing of the virtues of these two great men is one of the most effective passages in Sallust. [77]
From his position in public life and from his intimacy with Caesar, he had gained excellent opportunities of acquiring correct information. The desire to write history seems to have come on him in later life. Success had no more illusions for him. The bitterness with which he touches on his early misfortunes [78] shows that their memory still rankled within him. And the pains with which he justifies his historical pursuits indicate a stifled anxiety to enter once more the race for honours, which yet experience tells him is but vanity. The profligacy of his youth, grossly overdrawn by malice, [79] was yet no doubt a ground of remorse; and though the severity of his opening chapters is somewhat ostentatious, there is no intrinsic mark of insincerity about them. They are, it is true, quite superfluous. Iugurtha's trickery can be understood without a preliminary discourse on the immortality of the soul; and Catiline's character is not such as to suggest a preface on the dignity of writing history. But with all their inappropriateness, these introductions are valuable specimens of the writer's best thoughts and concentrated vigour of language. In the Catiline, his earliest work, he announces his attention of subjecting certain episodes of Roman history [80] to a thorough treatment, omitting those parts which had been done justice to by former writers. Thus it is improbable that Sallust touched the period of Sulla, [81] both from the high opinion he formed of Sisenna's account, and from the words neque alio loco de Sullae rebus dicturi sumus; [82] nevertheless, some of the events he selected doubtless fell within Sulla's lifetime, and this may have given rise to the opinion that he wrote a history of the dictator. Though Sallust's Historiae are generally described as a consecutive work from the premature movements of Lepidus on Sulla's death [83] (78 B.C.) to the end of the Mithridatic war (63 B.C.); this cannot be proved. It is equally possible that his series of independent historical cameos may have been published together, arranged in chronological order, and under the common title of Historiae. The Iugurtha and Catilina, however, are separate works; they are always quoted as such, and formed a kind of commencement and finish to the intermediate studies.
Of the histories (in five books dedicated to the younger Lucullus), we have but a few fragments, mostly speeches, of which the style seems a little fuller than usual: our judgment of the writer must be based upon the two essays that have reached us entire, that on the war with Iugurtha, and that on the Catilinarian conspiracy. Sallust takes credit to himself, in words that Tacitus has almost adopted, [84] for a strict impartiality. Compared with his predecessors he probably was impartial, and considering the closeness of the events to his own time it is doubtful whether any one could have been more so. For he wisely confined himself to periods neither too remote for the testimony of eye-witnesses, nor too recent for the disentanglement of truth. When Catiline fell (63 B.C.) the historian was twenty-two years old, and this is the latest point to which his studies reach. As a friend of Caesar he was an enemy of Cicero, and two declamations are extant, the productions of the reign of Claudius, [85] in which these two great men vituperate one another. But no vituperation is found in Sallust's works. There is, indeed, a coldness and reserve, a disinclination to praise the conduct and even the oratory of the consul which bespeaks a mind less noble than Cicero's, [86] But facts are not perverted, nor is the odium of an unconstitutional act thrown on Cicero alone, as we know it was thrown by Caesar's more unscrupulous partisans, and connived at by Caesar himself. The veneration of Sallust for his great chief is conspicuous. Caesar is brought into steady prominence; his influence is everywhere implied. But Sallust, however clearly he betrays the ascendancy of Caesar over himself, [87] does not on all points follow his lead. While, with Caesar, he believes fortune, or more properly chance, to rule human affairs, he retains his belief in virtue and immortality, [88] both of which Caesar rejected. He can not only admit, but glorify the virtues of Cato, which Caesar ridiculed and denied. But he is anxious to set the democratic policy in the most favourable light. Hence he depicts Cato rather than Cicero as the senatorial champion, because his impracticable views seemed to justify Caesar's opposition; [89] he throws into fierce relief the vices of Scaurus who was princeps Senatus; [90] and misrepresents the conduct of Turpilius through a desire to screen Marius. [91] As to his authorities, we find that he gave way to the prevailing tendency to manipulate them. The speeches of Caesar and Cato in the senate, which he surely might have transcribed, he prefers to remodel according to his own ideas, eloquently no doubt, but the originals would have been in better place, and entitled him to our gratitude. The same may be said of the speech of Marius. That of Memmius [92] he professes to give intact; but its genuineness is doubtful. The letter of Catiline to Catulus, that of Lentulus and his message to Catiline, may be accepted as original documents. [93] In the sifting of less accessible authorities he is culpably careless. His account of the early history of Africa is almost worthless, though he speaks of having drawn it from the books of King Hiempsal, and taken pains to insert what was generally thought worthy of credit. It is in the delineation of character that Sallust's penetration is unmistakably shown. Besides the instances already given, we may mention the admirable sketch of Sulla, [94] and the no less admirable ones of Catiline [95] and Iugurtha. [96] His power of depicting the terrors of conscience is tremendous. No language can surpass in condensed but lifelike intensity the terms in which he paints the guilty noble carrying remorse on his countenance and driven by inward agony to acts of desperation. [97]
His style is peculiar. He himself evidently imitated, and was thought by Quintilian to rival, Thucydides. [98] But the resemblance is in language only. The deep insight of the Athenian into the connexion of events is far removed from the popular rhetoric in which the Roman deplores the decline of virtue. And the brevity, by which both are characterised, while in the one it is nothing but the incapacity of the hand to keep pace with the rush of thought, in the other forms the artistic result of a careful process of excision and compression. While the one kindles reflection, the other baulks it. Nevertheless the style of Sallust has a special charm and will always find admirers to give it the palm among Latin histories. The archaisms which adorn or deface it, the poetical constructions which tinge its classicality, the rough periods without particles of connexion which impart to it a masculine hardness, are so fused together into a harmonious fabric that after the first reading most students recur to it with genuine pleasure. [99] On the whole it is more modern than that of Nepos, and resembles more than any other that of Tacitus. Its brevity rarely falls into obscurity, though it sometimes borders on affectation. There is an appearance as if he was never satisfied, but always straining after an excellence beyond his powers. It is emphatically a cultured style, and, as such often recalls older authors. Now it is a reminiscence of Homer: aliud clausum in pectore, aliud in lingua promptum habere; [100] now of a Latin tragedian: secundae res sapientium animos fatigant. Much allowance must be made for Sallust's defects, when we remember that no model of historical writing yet existed at Rome. Some of the aphorisms which are scattered in his book are wonderfully condensed, and have passed into proverbs. Concordia parvae res crescunt from the Iugurtha; and idem velle, idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est, from the Catiline, are instances familiar to all. The prose of Sallust differs from that of Cicero in being less rhythmical; the hexametrical ending which the orator rightly rejects, is in him not infrequent. It is probably a concession to Greek habit. [101] Sallust did good service in pointing out what historical writing should be, and his example was of such service to Livy that, had it not been for him, it is possible the great master- history would never have been designed.
It does not appear that this period was fruitful in historians. Tubero (49-47 B.C.) is the only other whose works are mentioned; the convulsions of the state, the short but sullen repose, broken by Caesar's death (44 B.C.), the bloodthirsty sway of the triumvirs, and the contests which ended in the final overthrow at Actium (31 B.C.), were not favourable to historical enterprise. But private notes were carefully kept, and men's memories were strengthened by silence, so that circumstances naturally inculcated waiting in patience until the time for speaking out should have arrived. [102]
On the Acta Diurna and Acta Senatus.
It is well known that there was a sort of journal at Rome analogous, perhaps, to our Gazette, but its nature and origin are somewhat uncertain. Suetonius (Caes. 20) has this account: "Inito honore, primus omnium instituit, ut tam Senatus quam populi diurna acta conficerentur et publicarentur," which seems naturally to imply that the people's acta had been published every day before Caesar's consulship, and that he did the same thing for the acta of the senate. Before investigating these we must distinguish them from certain other acta:—(1) Civilia, containing a register of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces, called apographai by Polybius, and alluded to by Cicero (ad Fam. viii. 7) and others. These were at first intrusted to the care of the censors, afterwards to the praefecti aerarii. (2) Forensia, comprising lists of laws, plebiscites, elections of aediles, tribunes, &c. like the daemosia grammata at Athens, placed among the archives annexed to various temples, especially that of Saturn. (3) Iudiciaria, the legal reports, often called gesta, kept in a special tabularium, under the charge of military men discharged from active service. (4) Militaria, which contained reports of all the men employed in war, their height, age, conduct, accomplishments, &c. These were entrusted to an officer called librarius legionis (Veg. ii. 19), or sometimes tabularius castrensis, but so only in the later Latin. Other less strictly formal documents, as lists of cases, precedents, &c. seem to have been also called acta, but the above are the regular kinds.
The Acta Senatus or deliberations of the senate were not published until Caesar. They were kept jealously secret, as is proved by a quaint story by Cato, quoted in Aulus Gellius (i. 23). At all important deliberations a senator, usually the praetor as being one of the junior members, acted as secretary. In the imperial times this functionary was always a confidant of the emperor. The acta were sometimes inscribed on tabulae publicae (Cic. pro Sull. 14, 15), but only on occasions when it was held expedient to make them known. As a rule the publication of the resolution (Senatus Consultum) was the first intimation the people had of the decisions of their rulers. In the times of the emperors there were also acta of each emperor, apparently the memoranda of state councils held by him, and communicated to the senate for them to act upon. There appears also to have been acta of private families when the estates were large enough to make it worth while to keep them. These are alluded to in Petronius Arbiter (ch. 53). We are now come to the Acta Diurna, Populi, Urbana or Publica, by all which names the same thing is meant. The earliest allusion to them is in a passage of Sempronius Asellio, who distinguishes the annals from the diaria, which the Greeks call ephaemeris (ap. A. Gell. V. 18). When about the year 131 B.C. the Annales were redacted into a complete form, the acta probably begun. When Servius (ad. Aen. i. 373) says that the Annales registered each day all noteworthy events that had occurred, he is apparently confounding them with the acta, which seem to have quietly taken their place. During the time that Cicero was absent in Cilicia (62 B.C.) he received the news of town from his friend. Coelius (Cic. Fam. viii. 1, 8, 12, &c.). These news comprised all the topics which we should find now-a-days in a daily paper. Asconius Pedianus, a commentator on Cicero of the time of Claudius, in his notes on the Milo (p. 47, ed. Orell. 1833), quotes several passages from the acta, on the authority of which he bases some of his arguments. Among them are analyses of forensic orations, political and judicial; and it is therefore probable that these formed a regular portion of the daily journal in the latest age of the Republic. When Antony offered Caesar a crown on the feast of the Lupercalia, Caesar ordered it to be noted in the acta (Dio xliv. 11); Antony, as we know from Cicero, even entered the fact in the Fasti, or religious calendar. Augustus continued the publication of the Acta Populi, under certain limitations, analogous to the control exercised over journalism by the governments of modern Europe; but he interdicted that of the Acta Senatus (Suet. Aug. 36). Later emperors abridged even this liberty. A portico in Rome having been in danger of falling and shored up by a skilful architect, Tiberius forbade the publication of his name (Dio lvii. 21). Nero relaxed the supervision of the press, but it was afterwards re-established. For the genuine fragments of the Acta, see the treatise by Vict. Le Clerc, sur les journaux chez les Romains, from which this notice is taken.
As long as the drama was cultivated poetry had not ceased to be popular in its tone. But we have already mentioned that coincidentally with the rise of Sulla dramatic productiveness ceased. We hear, indeed, that J. CAESAR STRABO (about 90 B.C.) wrote tragedies, but they were probably never performed. Comedy, as hitherto practised, was almost equally mute. The only forms that lingered on were the Atellanae, and those few plebeian types of comedy known as Togata and Tabernaria. But even these had now withered. The present epoch brings before us a fresh type of composition in the Mime, which now first took a literary shape. Mimes had indeed existed in some sort from a very early period, but no art had been applied to their cultivation, and they had held a position much inferior to that of the national farce. But several circumstances now conspired to bring them into greater prominence. First, the great increase of luxury and show, and with it the appetite for the gaudy trappings of the spectacle; secondly, the failure of legitimate drama, and the fact that the Atellanae, with their patrician surroundings, were only half popular; and lastly, the familiarity with the different offshoots of Greek comedy, thrown out in rank profusion at Alexandria, and capable of assimilation with the plastic materials of the Mimus. These worthless products, issued under the names of Rhinthon, Sopater, Sciras, and Timon, were conspicuous for the entire absence of restraint with which they treated serious subjects, as well as for a merry-andrew style of humour easily naturalised, if it were not already present, among the huge concourse of idlers who came to sate their appetite for indecency without altogether sacrificing the pretence of a dramatic spectacle. Two things marked off the Mimus from the Atellana or national farce; the players appeared without masks, [1] and women were allowed to act. This opened the gates to licentiousness. We find from Cicero that Mimae bore a disreputable character, [2] but from their personal charms and accomplishments often became the chosen companions of the profligate nobles of the day. Under the Empire this was still more the case. Kingsley, in his Hypatia, has given a lifelike sketch of one of these elegant but dissolute females. To these seductive innovations the Mime added some conservative features. It absorbed many characteristics of legitimate comedy. The actors were not necessarily planipedes in fact, though they remained so in name; [3] they might wear the soccus [4] and the Greek dress [5] of the higher comedy. The Mimes seem to have formed at this time interludes between the acts of a regular drama. Hence they were at once simple and short, seasoned with as many coarse jests as could be crowded into a limited compass, with plenty of music, dancing, and expressive gesture-language. Their plot was always the same, and never failed to please; it struck the key-note of all decaying societies, the discomfiture of the husband by the wife. [6] Nevertheless, popular as was the Mime, it was, even in Caesar's time, obliged to share the palm of attractiveness with bear-fights, boxing matches, processions of strange beasts, foreign treasures, captives of uncouth aspect, and other curiosities, which passed sometimes for hours across the stage, feeding the gaze of an unlettered crowd, to the utter exclusion of drama and interlude alike. Thirty years later, Horace [7] declares that against such competitors no play could get a silent hearing.
This being the lamentable state of things, we are surprised to find that Mime writing was practised by two men of vigorous talent and philosophic culture, whose fragments, so far from betraying any concession to the prevailing depravity, are above the ordinary tone of ancient comic morality. They are the knight D. LABERIUS (106-43 B.C.) and PUBLILIUS SYRUS (fl. 44 B.C.), an enfranchised Syrian slave. It is probable that Caesar lent his countenance to these writers in the hope of raising their art. His patronage was valuable; but he put a great indignity (45 B.C.) on Laberius. The old man, for he was then sixty years of age, had written Mimes for a generation, but had never acted in them himself. Caesar, whom he may have offended by indiscreet allusions, [8] recommended him to appear in person against his rival Syrus. This recommendation, as he well knew, was equivalent to a command. In the prologue he expresses his sense of the affront with great manliness and force of language. We quote some lines from it, as a specimen of the best plebeian Latin;
"Necessitas, cuius cursus, transversi impetum
Voluerunt multi effugere, pauci potuerunt,
Quo me detrusit paene extremis sensibus?
Quem nulla ambitio, nulla unquam largitio,
Nullus timor, vis nulla, nulla auctoritas
Movere potuit in inventa de statu,
Ecce in senecta ut facile labefecit loco
Viri excellentis mente clemente edita
Summissa placide blandiloquens oratio!
Et enim ipsi di negare cui nil potuerunt,
Hominem me denegare quis posset pati?
Ego bis tricenis actis annis sine nota,
Eques Romanus e lare egressus meo,
Domum revertormimus—ni mirum hoc die
Uno plus vixi mihi quam vivendum fuit.
* * * * *
Porro, Quirites, libertatem perdimus." [9]
In these noble lines we see the native eloquence of a free spirit. But the poet's wrathful muse roused itself in vain. Caesar awarded the prize to Syrus, saying to Laberius in an impromptu verse of polite condescension,
"Favente tibime victus, Laberi, es a Syro." [10]
From this time the old knight surrendered the stage to his younger and more polished rival.
Syrus vas a native of Antioch, and remarkable from his childhood for the beauty of his person and his sparkling wit, to which he owed his freedom. His talent soon raised him to eminence as an improvisatore and dramatic declaimer. He trusted mostly to extempore inspiration when acting his Mimes, but wrote certain episodes where it was necessary to do so. His works abounded with moral apophthegms, tersely expressed. We possess 857 verses, arranged in alphabetical order, ascribed to him, of which perhaps half are genuine. This collection was made early in the Middle Ages, when it was much used for purposes of education. We append a few examples of these sayings: [11]
"Beneficium dando accipit, qui digno dedit."
"Furor fit laesa saepius patientia."
"Comes facundus in via pro vehiculo est."
"Nimium altercando veritas amittitur."
"Iniuriarum remedium est oblivio."
"Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest."
"Nunquam periclum sine periclo vincitar."
Horace mentions Laberius not uncomplimentarily, though he professes no interest in the sort of composition he represented. [12] Perhaps he judged him by his audience. Besides these two men, CN. MATIUS (about 44 B.C.) also wrote Mimiambi about the same date. They are described as Mimicae fabulae, versibus plerunque iambicis conscriptae, [13] and appear to have differed in some way from the actual mimes, probably in not being represented on the stage. They reappear in the time of Pliny, whose friend VERGINIUS ROMANUS (he tells us in one of his letters) [14] wrote Mimiambi tenuiter, argute, venuste, et in hoc genere eloquentissime. This shows that for a long tune a certain refinement and elaboration was compatible with the style of Mime writing. [15]
The Pantomimi have been confused with the Mimi; but they differed in being dancers, not actors; they represent the inevitable development of the mimic art, which, as Ovid says in his Tristia, [16] even in its earlier manifestations, enlisted the eye as much as the ear. In Imperial times they almost engrossed the stage. PYLADES and BATHYLLUS are monuments of a depraved taste, which could raise these men to offices of state, and seek their society with such zeal that the emperors were compelled to issue stringent enactments to forbid it. TIGELLIUS seems to have been the first of these effeminati; he is satirised by Horace, [17] but his influence was inappreciable compared with that of his successors. The pantomimus aspired to render the emotions of terror or love more speakingly by gesture than it was possible to do by speech; and ancient critics, while deploring, seem to have admitted this claim. The moral effect of such exhibitions may be imagined. [18]
It is pleasing to find that in Cicero's time the interpretation of the great dramatists' conceptions exercised the talents of several illustrious actors, the two best-known of whom are AESOPUS, the tragedian (l22-54 B.C.), and ROSCIUS, the comic actor (120-61? B.C.), [19] After the exhaustion of dramatic creativeness a period of splendid representation naturally follows. It was so in Germany and England, it was so at Rome. Of the two men, Roscius was the greater master; he was so perfect in his art that his name became a synonym for excellence in any branch. [20] Neither of them, however, embraced, as Garrick did, both departments of the art; their provinces were and always remained distinct. Both had the privilege of Cicero's friendship; both no doubt lent him the benefit of their professional advice. The interchange of hints between an orator and an actor was not unexampled. When Hortensius spoke, Roscius always attended to study his suggestive gestures, and it is told of Cicero himself that he and Roscius strove which could express the higher emotions more perfectly by his art. Roscius was a native of Solonium, a Latin town, his praenomen was Quintus; Aesopus appears to have been a freedman of the Claudia gens. Of other actors few were well-known enough to merit notice. Some imagine DOSSENNUS, mentioned by Horace, [21] to have been an actor; but he is much more likely to be the Fabius Dossennus quoted as an author of Atellanae by Pliny in his Natural History [22] The freedom with which popular actors were allowed to treat their original is shown by Aesopus on one occasion (62 B.C.?) changing the words Brutus qui patriam stabiliverat to Tullius, a change which, falling in with the people's humour at the moment, was vociferously applauded, and gratified Cicero's vanity not a little. [23] Aesopus died soon after (54 B.C.); Roscius did not live so long. His marvellous beauty when a youth is the subject of a fine epigram by Lutatius Catulus, already referred to. [24] Both amassed large fortunes, and lived in princely style.
While the stage was given up to Mimes, cultured men wrote tragedies for their improvement in command of language. Both Cicero and his brother wrought assiduously at these frigid imitations. Caesar followed in their steps; and no doubt the practice was conducive to copiousness and to an effective simulation of passion. Their appearance as orators before the people must have called out such different mental qualities from their cold and calculating intercourse with one another, that tragedy writing as well as declaiming may have been needful to keep themselves ready for an emergency. Cicero, as is well known, tried hard to gain fame as a poet. The ridicule which all ages have lavished on his unhappy efforts has been a severe punishment for his want of self-knowledge. Still, judging from the verses that remain, we cannot deny him the praise of a correct and elegant versateur. Besides several translations from Homer and Euripides scattered through his works, and a few quotations by hostile critics from his epic attempts, [25] we possess a large part of his translation of Aratus's Phaenomena, written, indeed, in his early days, but a graceful specimen of Latin verse, and, as Munro [26] has shown, carefully studied and often imitated by Lucretius. The most noticeable point of metre is his disregard of the final s, no less than thrice in the first ninety lines, a practice which in later life he stigmatised as subrusticum. In other respects his hexameters are a decided advance on those of Ennius in point of smoothness though not of strength. He still affects Greek caesuras which are not suited to the Latin cadence, [27] and his rhythm generally lacks variety.
Caesar's pen was nearly as prolific. He wrote besides an Oedipus a poem called Laudes Herculis, and a metrical account of a journey into Spain called Iter. [28] Sportive effusions on various plants are attributed to him by Pliny. [29] All these Augustus wisely refused to publish; but there remain two excellent epigrams, one on Terence, already alluded to, which is undoubtedly genuine, [30] the other probably so, though others ascribe it to Germanicus or Domitian. [31] But the rhythm, purity of language, and continuous structure of the couplets seem to point indisputably to an earlier age. It is as follows—
"Thrax puer, astricto glacie dum ludit in Hebro,
Frigore concretas pondere rupit aquas.
Quumque imae partes rapido traherentur ab amne,
Abscidit, heu! tenerum lubrica testa caput.
Orba quod inventum mater dum conderet urna,
'Hoc peperi flammis, cetera,' dixit, 'aquis.'"
This is evidently a study from the Greek, probably from an Alexandrine writer.
We have already had occasion more than once to mention the influence of Alexandria on Roman literature. Since the fall of Carthage Rome had had much intercourse with the capital of the Greek world. Her thought, erudition, and style, had acted strongly upon the rude imitators of Greek refinement. But hitherto the Romans had not been ripe for receiving their influence in full. In Cicero's time, however, and in a great measure owing to his labours, Latin composition of all kinds had advanced so far that writers, and especially poets, began to feel capable of rivalling their Alexandrian models. This type of Hellenism was so eminently suited to Roman comprehension that, once introduced, it could not fail to produce striking results. The results it actually produced were so vast, and in a way so successful, that we must pause a moment to contemplate the rise of the city which was connected with them.
Alexander did not err in selecting the mouth of the Nile for the capital that should perpetuate his name. Its site, its associations, religious, artistic, and scientific, and the tide of commerce that was certain to flow through it, all suggested the coast of Egypt as the fittest point of attraction for the industry of the Eastern world, while the rapid fall of the other kingdoms that rose from the ruins of his Empire contributed to make the new Merchant City the natural inheritor of his great ideas. The Ptolemies well fulfilled the task which Alexander's foresight had set before them. They aspired to make their capital the centre not only of commercial but of intellectual production, and the repository of all that was most venerable in religion, literature, and art. To achieve this end, they acted with the magnificence as well as the unscrupulousness of great monarchs. At their command, a princely city rose from the sandhills and rushes of the Canopic mouth; stately temples uniting Greek proportion with Egyptian grandeur, long quays with sheltered docks, ingenious contrivances for purifying the Nile water and conducting a supply to every considerable house; [32] in short, every product of a luxurious civilisation was found there, except the refreshing shade of green trees, which, beyond a few of the commoner kinds, could not be forced to grow on the shifting sandy soil. The great glory of Alexandria, however, was its public library, Founded by Soter (306-285 B.C.), greatly extended by Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), under whom grammatical studies attained their highest development, enriched by Euergetes (247-212 B.C.) with genuine MSS. of authors fraudulently obtained from their owners to whom he sent back copies made by his own librarians, [33] this collection reached under the last-named sovereign the enormous total of 532,800 volumes, of which the great majority were kept in the museum which formed part of the royal palace, and about 50,000 of the most precious in the temple of Serapis, the patron deity of the city. [34] Connected with the museum were various endowments analogous to our professorships and fellowships of colleges; under the Ptolemies the head librarian, in after times the professor of rhetoric, held the highest post within this ancient university. The librarian was usually chief priest of one of the greatest gods, Isis, Osiris, or Serapis. [35] His appointment was for life, and lay at the disposal of the monarch. Thus the museum was essentially a court institution, and its savants and littérateurs were accomplished courtiers and men of the world. Learning being thus nursed as in a hot-bed, its products were rank, but neither hardy nor natural. They took the form of recondite mythological erudition, grammar and exegesis, and laborious imitation of the ancients. In science only was there a healthy spirit of research. Mathematics were splendidly represented by Euclid and Archimedes, Geography by Eratosthenes, Astronomy by Hipparchus; for these men, though not all residents in Alexandria, all gained their principles and method from study within her walls. To Aristarchus (fl. 180 B.C.) and his contemporaries we owe the final revision of the Greek classic texts; and the service thus done to scholarship and literature was incalculable. But the earlier Alexandrines seem to have been overwhelmed by the vastness of material at their command. Except in pastoral poetry, which in reality was not Alexandrine, [36] there was no creative talent shown for centuries. The true importance of Alexandria in the history of thought dates from Plotinus (about 200 A.D.), who first clearly taught that mystic philosophy which under the name of Neoplatonism, has had so enduring a fascination for the human spirit. It was not, however, for philosophy, science, or theology that the Romans went to Alexandria. It was for literary models which should less hopelessly defy imitation than those of old Greece, and for general views of life which should approve themselves to their growing enlightenment. These they found in the half-Greek, half-cosmopolitan culture which had there taken root and spread widely in the East. Even before Alexander's death there had been signs of the internal break-up of Hellenism, now that it had attained its perfect development. Out of Athens pure Hellenism had at no time been able to express itself successfully in literature. And even in Athens the burden of Atticism, if we may say so, seems to have become too great to bear. We see a desire to emancipate both thought and expression from the exquisite but confining proportions within which they had as yet moved. The student of Euripides observes a struggle, ineffectual it is true, but pregnant with meaning, against all that is most specially recognised as conservative and national. [37] He strives to pour new wine into old bottles; but in this case the bottles are too strong for him to burst. The Atticism which had guided and comprehended, now began to cramp development. To make a world-wide out of a Hellenic form of thought, it is necessary to go outside the charmed soil of Greece. Only on the banks of the Nile will the new culture find a shrine, whose remote and mysterious authority frees it from the spell of Hellenism, now no longer the exponent of the world's thought, while it is near enough to the arena where human progress is fighting its way onward, to inspire and be inspired by the mighty nation that is succeeding Greece as the representative of mankind.
The contribution of Alexandria to human progress consists, then, in its recoil from Greek exclusiveness, in its sifting of what was universal in Greek thought from what was national, and presenting the former in a systematised form for the enlightenment of those who received it. This is its nobler side; the side which men like Ennius and Scipio seized, and welded into a harmonious union with the higher national tradition of Rome, out of which union arose that complex product to which the name humanitas was so happily given. But Alexandrian culture was more than cosmopolitan. It was in a sense anti-national. Egyptian superstition, theurgy, magic, and charlatanism of every sort, tried to amalgamate with the imported Greek culture. In Greece itself they had never done this. The clear light of Greek intellect had no fellowship with the obscure or the mysterious. It drove them into corners and let them mutter in secret. But the moment the lamp of culture was given into other hands, they started up again unabashed and undismayed. The Alexandrine thinkers struggled to make Greek influences supreme, to exclude altogether those of the East; and their efforts were for three centuries successful: neither mysticism nor magic reigned in the museum of the Ptolemies. But this victory was purchased at a severe cost. The enthusiasm of the Alexandrian scholars had made them pedants. They gradually ceased to care for the thought of literature, and busied themselves only with questions of learning and of form. Their multifarious reading made them think that they too had a literary gift. Philetas was not only a profound logician, but he affected to be an amatory poet. [38] Callimachus, the brilliant and courtly librarian of Philadelphus, wrote nearly every kind of poetry that existed. Aratus treated the abstruse investigations of Eudoxus in neat verses that at once became popular. While in the great periods of Greek art each writer had been content to excel in a single branch, it now became the fashion for the same poet to be Epicist, Lyrist, and Elegy-writer at once.
Besides the new treatment of old forms, there were three kinds of poetry, first developed or perfected at Alexandria, which have special interest for us from the great celebrity they gained when imported into Rome. They are the didactic poem, the erotic elegy, and the epigram. The maxim of Callimachus (characteristic as it is of his narrow mind) mega biblion mega kakon, "a great book is a great evil," [39] was the rule on which these poetasters generally acted. The didactic poem is an illegitimate cross between science and poetry. In the creative days of Greece it had no place. Hesiod, Parmenides, and Empedocles were, indeed, cited as examples. But in their days poetry was the only vehicle of literary effort, and he who wished to issue accurate information was driven to embody it in verse. In the time of the Ptolemies things were altogether different. It was consistent neither with the exactness of science nor with the grace of the Muses to treat astronomy or geography as subjects for poetry. Still, the best masters of this style undoubtedly attained great renown, and have found brilliant imitators, not only in Roman, but in modern times.
ARATUS (280 B.C.), known as the model of Cicero's, and in a later age of Domitian's [40] youthful essays in verse, was born at Soli in Cilicia about three hundred years before Christ. He was not a scientific man, [41] but popularised in hexameter verse the astronomical works of Eudoxus, of which he formed two poems, the Phaenomena and the Diosemia, or Prognostics. These were extravagantly praised, and so far took the place of their original that commentaries were written on them by learned men, [42] while the works of Eudoxus were in danger of being forgotten. NICANDER (230 B.C.?), still less ambitious, wrote a poem on remedies for vegetable and mineral poisons (alexipharmaka), and for the bites of beasts (thaeriaka), and another on the habits of birds (ornithogonia). These attracted the imitation of Macer in the Augustan age. But the most celebrated poets were CALLIMACHUS (260 B.C.) and PHILETAS [43] (280 B.C.), who formed the models of Propertius. To them we owe the Erotic Elegy, whether personal or mythological, and all the pedantic ornament of fictitious passion which such writings generally display. More will be said about them when we come to the elegiac poets. Callimachus, however, seems to have carried his art, such as it was, to perfection. He is generally considered the prince of elegists, and his extant fragments show great nicety and finish of expression. The sacrilegious theft of the locks of Berenice's hair from the temple where she had offered them, was a subject too well suited to a courtier's muse to escape treatment. Its celebrity is due to the translation made by Catullus, and the appropriation of the idea by Pope in his Rape of the Lock. The short epigram was also much in vogue at Alexandria, and neat examples abound in the Anthology. But in all these departments the Romans imitated with such zest and vigour that they left their masters far behind. Ovid and Martial are as superior in their way to Philetas and Callimachus as Lucretius and Virgil to Aratus and Apollonius Rhodius. This last-mentioned poet, APOLLONIUS RHODIUS (fl. 240 B.C.), demands a short notice. He was the pupil of Callimachus, and the most genuinely-gifted of all the Alexandrine school; he incurred the envy and afterwards the rancorous hatred of his preceptor, through whose influence he was obliged to leave Alexandria and seek fame at Rhodes. Here he remained all his life and wrote his most celebrated poem, the Epic of the Argonauts, a combination of sentiment, learning, and graceful expression, which is less known than it ought to be. Its chief interest to us is the use made of it by Virgil, who studied it deeply and drew much from it. We observe the passion of love as a new element in heroic poetry, scarcely treated in Greece, but henceforth to become second to none in prominence, and through Dido, to secure a place among the very highest flights of song. [44] Jason and Medea, the hero and heroine, who love one another, create a poetical era. An epicist of even greater popularity was EUPHORION of Chalcis (274-203 B.C.), whose affected prettiness and rounded cadences charmed the ears of the young nobles. He had admirers who knew him by heart, who declaimed him at the baths, [45] and quoted his pathetic passages ad nauseam. He was the inventor of the historical romance in verse, of which Rome was so fruitful. A Lucan, a Silius, owe their inspiration in part to him. Lastly, we may mention that the drama could find no place at Alexandria. Only learned compilations of recondite legend and frigid declamation, almost unintelligible from the rare and obsolete words with which they were crowded, were sent forth under the name of plays. The Cassandra or Alexandra of Lycophron is the only specimen that has come to us. Its thorny difficulties deter the reader, but Fox speaks of it as breathing a rich vein of melancholy. The Thyestes of Varius and the Medea of Ovid were no doubt greatly improved copies of dramas of this sort.
It will be seen from this survey of Alexandrine letters that the better side of their influence was soon exhausted. Any breadth of view they possessed was seized and far exceeded by the nobler minds that imitated it; and all their other qualities were such as to enervate rather than inspire. The masculine rudeness of the old poets now gave way to pretty finish; verbal conceits took the place of condensed thoughts; the rich exuberance of the native style tried to cramp itself into the arid allusiveness which, instead of painting straight from nature, was content to awaken a long line of literary associations. Nevertheless there was much in their manipulation of language from which the Romans could learn a useful lesson. It was impossible for them to catch the original impulse of the divine seer [46]—
autodidaktos d'eimi, theos de moi en phresin oimas pantoias enephysen.
From poverty of genius they were forced to draw less flowing draughts from the Castalian spring. The bards of old Greece were hopelessly above them. The Alexandrines, by not overpowering their efforts, but offering them models which they felt they could not only equal but immeasurably excel, did real service in encouraging and stimulating the Roman muse. Great critics like Niebuhr and, within certain limits, Munro, regret the mingling of the Alexandrine channel with the stream of Latin poetry, but without it we should perhaps not have had Catullus and certainly neither Ovid nor Virgil.
It may easily be supposed that the national party, whether in politics or letters, would set themselves with all their might to oppose the rising current. The great majority surrendered themselves to it with a good will. Among the stern reactionists in prose, we have mentioned Varro; in poetry, by far the greatest name is LUCRETIUS. But little is known of Lucretius's life; even the date of his birth is uncertain. St. Jerome, in the Eusebian chronicle, [47] gives 95 B.C. Others have with more probability assigned an earlier date. It is from Jerome that we learn those facts which have cast a strong interest round the poet, viz. that he was driven mad by a love potion, that he composed in the intervals of insanity his poem, which Cicero afterwards corrected, and that he perished by his own hand in the forty-fourth year of his age. Jerome does not quote any contemporary authority; his statements, coming 500 years after the event, must go for what they are worth, but may perhaps meet with a qualified acceptance. The intense earnestness of the poem indicates a mind that we can well conceive giving way under the overwhelming thought which stirred it; and the example of a philosopher anticipating the stroke of nature is too often repeated in Roman history to make it incredible in this case. Tennyson with a poet's sympathy has surrounded this story with the deepest pathos, and it will probably remain the accepted, if not the established, version of his death.
Though born in a high position, he seems to have stood aloof from society. From first to last his book betrays the close and eager student. He was an intimate friend of the worthless C. Memmius, whom he extols in a manner creditable to his heart but not to his judgment. [48] But he was no flatterer, nor was Memmius a patron. Poet and statesman lived on terms of perfect equality. Of the date of his work we can so far conjecture that it was certainly unfinished at his death (55 B.C.), and from its scope and information must have extended over some years. The allusion [49]—
"Nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo
Possumus aequo animo, nec Memmi clara propago
Talibus in rebus communi desse saluti,"
is considered by Prof. Sellar to point to the praetorship of Memmius (58 B.C.). The work was long thought to have been edited by Cicero after the poet's death; but though he had read the poem, [50] and admitted its talent, he would doubtless have mentioned, at least to Atticus, the fact of the editing, had it occurred. Some critics, arguing from Cicero's silence and known opposition to the Epicurean tenets, have thought that Jerome referred to Q. Cicero the orator's brother, but for this there is no authority. The poem is entitled De Rerum Natura, an equivalent for the Greek peri physeos, the usual title of the pre-Socratic philosophers' works. The form, viz. a poem in heroic hexameters, containing a carefully reasoned exposition, in which regard was had above all to the claims of the subject-matter, was borrowed from the Sicilian thinker Empedocles [51] (460 B.C.). But while Aristotle denies Empedocles the title of poet [52] on account of his scientific subject, no one could think of applying the same criticism to Lucretius A general view of nature, as the Power most near to man, and most capable of deeply moving his heart, a Power whose beauty, variety, and mystery, were the source of his most perplexing struggles as well as of his purest joys; a desire to hold communion with her, and to learn from her lips, opened only to the ear of faith, those secrets which are hid from the vain world; this was the grand thought that stirred the depths of Lucretius's mind, and made him the herald of a new and enduring form of verse. It has been well said that didactic poetry was that in which the Roman was best fitted to succeed. It was in harmony with his utilitarian character. [53] To give a practically useful direction to its labour was almost demanded from the highest poetry. To say nothing of Horace and Lucilius, Virgil's Aeneid, no less than his Georgics, has a practical aim, and to an ardent spirit like Lucretius, poetry would be the natural vehicle for the truths to which he longed to convert mankind.
In the selection of his models, his choice fell upon the older Greek writers, such as Empedocles, Aeschylus, Thucydides, men renowned for deep thought rather than elegant expression; and among the Romans, upon Ennius and Pacuvius, the giants of a ruder past. Among contemporaries, Cicero alone seems to have awakened his admiration. Thus he stands altogether aloof from the fashionable standard of his day, a solitary beacon pointing to landmarks once well known, but now crumbling into decay. [54]
Lucretius is the only Roman in whom the love of speculative truth [55] prevails over every other feeling. In his day philosophy had sunk to an endless series of disputes about words [56] Frivolous quibbles and captious logical proofs, comprised the highest exercises of the speculative faculty. [57] The mind of Lucretius harks back to the glorious period of creative enthusiasm, when Democritus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus, successively believed that they had solved the great questions of being and knowing. Amid the zeal and confidence of that mighty time his soul is at home. To Epicurus as the inventor of the true guide of life he pays a tribute of reverential praise, calling him the pride of Greece, [58] and exalting him to the position of a god. [59] It is clear to one who studies this deeply interesting poet that his mind was in the highest degree reverential. No error could have been more fatal to his enjoyment of that equanimity, whose absence he deplores, than to select a creed, at once so joyless and barren in itself, and so unsuited to his ardent temperament.
When Lucretius wrote, belief in the national religion had among the upper classes become almost extinct. Those who needed conviction as a support for their life had no resource but Greek philosophy. The speculations of Plato, except in his more popular works, were not attractive to the Romans; those of Aristotle, brought to light in Cicero's time by the transference of Apellicon's library to Rome, [60] were a sealed book to the majority, though certain works, probably dialogues after the Platonic manner, gained the admiration of Cicero and Quintilian. The pre-Socratic thinkers, occupied as they were with physical questions which had little interest for Romans, were still less likely to be resorted to. The demand for a supreme moral end made it inevitable that their choice should fall on one of the two schools which offered such an end, those of the Porch and the Garden. Which of the two would a man like Lucretius prefer? The answer is not so obvious as it appears. For Lucretius has in him nothing of the Epicurean in our sense. His austerity is nearer to that of the Stoic. It was the speculative basis underlying the ethical system, and not the ethical system itself, that determined his choice. Epicurus had allied his theory of pleasure [61] with the atomic theory of Democritus. Stoicism had espoused the doctrine of Heraclitus, that fire is the primordial element. Epicurus had denied the indestructibility of the soul and the divine government of the world; his gods were unconnected with mankind, and lived at ease in the vacant spaces between the worlds. Stoicism on the contrary, had incorporated the popular theology, bringing it into conformity with the philosophic doctrine of a single Deity by means of allegorical interpretation. Its views of Divine Providence were reconcilable with, while they elevated, the popular superstition.
Lucretius had a strong hatred for the abuses into which state-craft and luxury had allowed the popular creed to fall; he was also firmly convinced of the sufficiency of Democritus's two postulates (Atoms and the Void) to account for all the phenomena of the universe. Hence he gave his unreserved assent to the Epicurean system, which he expounds, mainly in its physical outlines, in his work; the ethical tenets being interwoven with the bursts of enthusiastic poetry which break, or the countless touches which adorn, the sustained course of his argument.
The defects of the ancient scientific method are not wanting in him. Generalising from a few superficial instances, reasoning a priori, instead of winning his way by observation and comparison up to the Universal truth, fancying that it was possible for a single mind to grasp, and for a system by a few bold hypotheses to explain, the problem of external nature, of the soul, of the existence of the gods: such are the obvious defects which Lucretius shares with his masters, and of which the experience of ages has taught us the danger as well as the charm. But the atomic system has features which render it specially interesting at the present day. Its materialism, its attribution to nature of power sufficient to carry out all her ends, its analysis of matter into ultimate physical individua incognisable by sense, while yet it insists that the senses are the fountains of all knowledge, [62] are points which bring it into correspondence with hypotheses at present predominant. Its theory of the development of society from the lower to the higher without break and without divine intervention, and of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, its denial of design and claim to explain everything by natural law, are also points of resemblance. Finally, the lesson he draws from this comfortless creed, not to sit with folded hands in silent despair, nor to "eat and drink for to-morrow we die," but to labour steadily for our greater good and to cultivate virtue in accordance with reason, equally free from ambition and sloth, is strikingly like the teaching of that scientific school [63] which claims for its system a motive as potent to inspire self-denial as any that a more spiritual philosophy can give.
Lucretius, therefore, gains moral elevation by deserting the conclusion of Epicurus. While he does full justice to the poetical side of pleasure as an end in itself, [64] he never insists on it as a motive to action. Thus he retains the conception as a noble ornament of his verse, but reserves to himself, as every poet must, the liberty to adopt another tone if he feels it higher or more appropriate. Indeed, logical consistency of view would be out of place in a poem; and Lucretius is nowhere a truer poet that when he sins against his own canons. [65] His instinct told him how difficult it was to combine clear reasoning with a poetical garb, especially as the Latin language was not yet broken to the purposes of philosophy. [66] Nevertheless so complete is his mastery of the subject that there is scarcely a difficulty arising from want of clearness of expression from beginning to end of the poem. There are occasional lacunae, and several passages out of place, which were either stop-gaps intended to be replaced by lines more appropriate, or additions made after the first draft of the work, which, had the author lived, would have been wrought into the context. The first three books are quite or nearly quite finished, and from them we can judge his power of presenting an argument.
His chief object he states to be not the discovery, but the exposition of truth, for the purpose of freeing men's minds from religious terrors. This he announces immediately after the invocation to Venus, "Mother of the Aeneadae," with which the poem opens. He then addresses himself to Memmius, whom he intreats not to be deterred from reading him by the reproach of "rationalism." [67] He next states his first principle, which is the denial of creation:
"Nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus unquam,"
and asks, What then is the original substance out of which existing things have arisen? The answer is, "Atoms and the Void, and beside them nothing else:" these two principles are solid, self-existent, indestructible, and invisible. He next investigates and refutes the first principles of other philosophers, notably Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras; and the book ends with a short proof that the atoms are infinite in number and space infinite in extent. The Second Book opens with a digression on the folly of ambition; but, returning to the atoms, treats of the combination which enables them to form and perpetuate the present variety of things. All change is ultimately due to the primordial motion of the atoms. This motion, naturally in a straight line, is occasionally deflected; and this deflection accounts for the many variations from exact law. Moreover, atoms differ in form, some being rough, others smooth, some round, others square, &c. They are combined in infinite ways, which combinations give rise to the so-called secondary properties of matter, colour, heat, smell, &c. Innumerable other worlds besides our own exist; this one will probably soon pass away; atoms and the void alone are eternal. In the Third Book the poet attacks what he considers the stronghold of superstition. The soul, mind, or vital principle is carefully discussed, and declared to be material, being composed, indeed, of the finest atoms, as is shown by its rapid movement, and the fact that it does not add to the weight of the body, but in no wise sui generis, or differing in kind from other matter. It is united with the body as the perfume with the incense, nor can they be severed without destruction to both. They are born together, grow together, and perish together. Death therefore is the end of being, and life beyond the grave is not only impossible but inconceivable. Book IV. treats of the images or idols cast off from the surface of bodies, borne continually through space, and sometimes seen by sleepers in dreams, or by sick people or others in waking visions. They are not illusions of the senses; the illusion arises from the wrong interpretation we put upon them. To these images the passion of love is traced; and with a brilliant satire on the effects of yielding to it the book closes. The Fifth Book examines the origin and formation of the solar system, which it treats not as eternal after the manner of the Stoics, but as having had a definite beginning, and as being destined to a natural and inevitable decay. He applies his principle of "Fortuitous Concurrence" to this part of his subject with signal power, but the faultiness of his method interferes with the effect of his argument. The finest part of the book, and perhaps of the whole poem, is his account of the "origin of species," and the progress of human society. His views read like a hazy forecast of the evolution doctrine. He applies his principle with great strictness; no break occurs; experience alone has been the guide of life. If we ask, however, whether he had any idea of progress as we understand it, we must answer no. He did not believe in the perfectibility of man, or in the ultimate prevalence of virtue in the world. The last Book tries to show the natural origin of the rarer and more gigantic physical phenomena, thunderstorms, volcanoes, earthquakes, pestilence, &c. and terminates with a long description of the plague of Athens, in which we trace many imitations of Thucydides. This book is obviously unfinished; but the aim of the work may be said to be so far complete that nowhere is the central object lost sight of, viz., to expel the belief in divine interventions, and to save mankind from all fear of the supernatural.
The value of the poem to us consists not in its contributions to science but in its intensity of poetic feeling. None but a student will read through the disquisitions on atoms and void. All who love poetry will feel the charm of the digressions and introductions. These, which are sufficiently numerous, are either resting-places in the process of proof, when the writer pauses to reflect, or bursts of eloquent appeal which his earnestness cannot repress. Of the first kind are the account of spring in Book I. and the enumeration of female attractions in Book IV.; of the second, are the sacrifice of Iphigenia, [68] the tribute to Empedocles and Epicurus, [69] the description of himself as a solitary wanderer among trackless haunts of the Muses, [70] the attack on ambition and luxury, [71] the pathetic description of the cow bereft of her calf, [72] the indignant remonstrance with the man who fears to die. [73] In these, as in innumerable single touches, the poet of original genius is revealed. Virgil often works by allusion: Lucretius never does. All his effects are gained by the direct presentation of a distinct image. He has in a high degree the "seeing eye," which needs only a steady hand to body forth its visions. Take the picture of Mars in love, yielding to Venus's prayer for peace. [74] What can be more truly statuesque?
"Belli fera moenera Mavors
Armipotens regit, in gremium qui saepe tuum se
Reiicit aeterno devictus volnere amoris:
Atque ita suspiciens tereti cervice reposta
Pascit amore avidos inhians in te, dea, visus,
Eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore.
Hunc tu diva tuo recubantem corpore sancto
Circumfusa super suavis ex ore loquellas
Funde petens placidam Romanis, incluta, pacem."
Or, again, of nature's freedom:
"Libera continuo dominis privata superbis."
Who can fail in this to catch the tones of the Republic? Again, take his description of the transmission of existence,
"Et quasi cursores vitai; lampada tradunt;"
or of the helplessness of medicine in time of plague,
"Mussabat tacito medicina timore."
These are a few examples of a power present throughout, filling his reasonings with a vivid reality far removed from the conventional rhetoric of most philosopher poets. [75] His language is Thucydidean in its chiselled outline, its quarried strength, its living expressiveness. Nor is his moral earnestness inferior. The end of life is indeed nominally pleasure, [76] "dux vitae dia voluptas;" but really it is a pure heart, "At bene non poterat sine puro pectore vivi." [77] He who first showed the way to this was the true deity. [78] The contemplation of eternal law will produce, not as the strict Epicureans say, indifference, [79] but resignation. [80] This happiness is in our own power, and neither gods nor men can take it away. The ties of family life are depicted with enthusiasm, and though the active duties of a citizen are not recommended, they are certainly not discouraged. But the knowledge of nature alone can satisfy man's spirit, or enable him to lead a life worthy of the immortals, and see with his mind's eye their mansions of eternal rest. [81] Nothing can be further from the light treatment of deep problems current among Epicureans than the solemn earnestness of Lucretius. He cannot leave the world to its vanity and enjoy himself. He seeks to bring men to his views, but at the same time he sees how hopeless is the task. He becomes a pessimist: in Roman language, he despairs of the Republic. He is a lonely spirit, religious even in his anti-religionism, full of reverence, but ignorant what to worship; a splendid poet, feeding his spirit on the husks of mechanical causation.
With regard to his language, there can be but one opinion. It is at times harsh, at times redundant, at times prosaic; but at a time when "Greek, and often debased Greek, had made fatal inroads into the national idiom," his Latin has the purity of that of Cicero or Terence. Like Lucilius, he introduces single Greek words, [82] a practice which Horace wisely rejects, [83] but which is revived in the poetry of the Empire. [84] His poetical ornaments are those of the older writers. Archaism, [85] alliteration, [86] and assonance abound in his pages. These would not have been regarded as defects by critics like Cicero or Varro; they are instances of his determination to give way in nothing to the fashion of the day.
His style [87] is fresh, strong, and impetuous, but frequently and intentionally rugged. Repetitions occasionally wearisome, and prosaic constructions, occur. Poetry is sacrificed to logic in the innumerable particles of transition, [88] and in the painful precision which at times leaves nothing to the imagination of the reader. But his vocabulary is not prosaic; it is poetical to a degree exceeding that of all other Latin writers. It is to be regretted that he did not oftener allow himself to be carried away by the stroke of the thyrsus, which impelled him to strive for the meed of praise. [89]
He is not often mentioned in later literature. Quintilian characterises him as elegant but difficult; [90] Ovid and Statius warmly praise him; [91] Horace alludes to him as his own teacher in philosophy; [92] Virgil, though he never mentions his name, refers to him in a celebrated passage, and shows in all his works traces of a profound study of, and admiration for, his poetry. [93] Ovid draws largely from him in the Metamorphoses, and Manilius had evidently adopted him as a model. The writer of Etna echoes his language and sentiments, and Tacitus, in a later generation, speaks of critics who even preferred him to Virgil. The irreligious tendency of his work seems to have brought his name under a cloud; and those who copied him may have thought it wiser not to acknowledge their debt. The later Empire and the Middle Ages remained indifferent to a poem which sought to disturb belief; it was when the scepticism of the eighteenth century broke forth that Lucretius's power was first fully felt. Since the time of Boyle he has commanded from some minds an almost enthusiastic admiration. His spirit lives in Shelley, though he has not yet found a poet of kindred genius to translate him. But his great name and the force with which he strikes chords to which every soul at times vibrates must, now that he is once known, secure for him a high place among the masters of thoughtful song.
Transpadane Gaul was at this time fertile in poets. Besides two of the first order it produced several of the second rank Among these M. FURIUS BIBACULUS (103-29? B.C.) must be noticed. His exact date is uncertain, but he is known to have lampooned both Julius and Augustus Caesar, [94] and perhaps lived to find himself the sole representative of the earlier race of poets. [95] He is one of the few men of the period who attained to old age. Some have supposed that the line of Horace [96]—
"Turgidus Alpinus jugulat dum Memnona,"
refers to him, the nickname of Alpinus having been given him on account of his ludicrous description of Jove "spitting snow upon the Alps." Others have assigned the eight spurious lines on Lucilius in the tenth satire of Horace to him. Macrobius preserves several verses from his Bellum Gallicum, which Virgil has not disdained to imitate, e.g.
"Interea Oceani linquens Aurora cubile."
"Rumoresque serunt varios et multa requirunt."
"Confimat dictis simul atque exsuscitat acres
Ad bellandum animos reficitque ad praelia mentes." [97]
Many of the critics of this period also wrote poems. Among these was VALERIUS CATO, sometimes called CATO GRAMMATICUS, whose love elegies were known to Ovid. He also amused himself with short mythological pieces, none of which have come down to us. Two short poems called Dirae and Lydia, which used to be printed among Virgil's Catalecta, bear his name, but are now generally regarded as spurious. They contain the bitter complaints of one who was turned out of his estate by an intruding soldier, and his resolution to find solace for all ills in the love of his faithful mistress.
The absorbing interest of the war between Caesar and Pompey compelled all classes to share its troubles; even the poets did not escape. They were now very numerous. Already the vain desire to write had become universal among the jeunesse of the capital. The seductive methods by which Alexandrinism had made it equally easy to enshrine in verse his morning reading or his evening's amour, proved too great an attraction for the young Roman votary of the muses. Rome already teemed with the class so pitilessly satirized by Horace and Juvenal, the
"Saecli incommoda, pessimi poetae."
The first name of any celebrity is that of VARRO ATACINUS, a native of Gallia Narbonensis. He was a varied and prolific writer, who cultivated with some success at least three domains of poetry. In his younger days he wrote satires, but without any aptitude for the work. [98] These he deserted for the epos, in which he gained some credit by his poem on the Sequanian War. This was a national epic after the manner of Ennius, but from the silence of later poets we may conjecture that it did not retain its popularity. At the age of thirty-five he began to study with diligence the Alexandrine models, and gained much credit by his translation of the Argonautica of Apollonius. Ovid often mentions this poem with admiration; he calls Varro the poet of the sail-tossing sea, says no age will be ignorant of his fame, and even thinks the ocean gods may have helped him to compose his song. [99] Quintilian with better judgment [100] notes his deficiency both in originality and copiousness, but allows him the merit of a careful translator. We gather from a passage of Ovid [101] that he wrote love poems, and from other sources that he translated Greek works on topography and meteorology, both strictly copied from the Alexandrines.
Besides Varro, we hear of TICIDAS, of MEMMIUS the friend of Lucretius, of C. HELVIUS CINNA, and C. LICINIUS CALVUS, as writers of erotic poetry. The last two were also eminent in other branches. Cinna (50 B.C.), who is mentioned by Virgil as a poet superior to himself, [102] gained renown by his Smyrna, an epic based on the unnatural love of Myrrha for her father Cinyras, [103] on which revolting subject he bestowed nine years [104] of elaboration, tricking it out with every arid device that pedantry's long list could supply. Its learning, however, prevented it from being neglected. Until the Aeneid appeared, it was considered the fullest repository of choice mythological lore. It was perhaps the nearest approach ever made in Rome to an original Alexandrine poem. Calvus (82-47 B.C.), who is generally coupled with Catullus, was a distinguished orator as well as poet. Cicero pays him the compliment of honourable mention in the Brutus, [105] praising his parts and lamenting his early death. He thinks his success would have been greater had he forgotten himself more. This egotism was probably not wanting to his poetry, but much may be excused him on account of his youth. It is difficult to form an opinion of his style; the epithets, gravis, vehemens, exilis (which apply rather to his oratory than to his poetry), seem contradictory; the last strikes us as the most discriminating. Besides short elegies like those of Catullus, he wrote an epic called Io, as well as lampoons against Pompey and other leading men. We possess none of his fragments.
From Calvus we pass to CATULLUS. This great poet was born at Verona (87 B.C.), and died, according to Jerome, in his thirty-first year; but this is generally held to be an error, and Prof. Ellis fixes his death in 54 B.C. In either case he was a young man when he died, and this is an important consideration in criticising his poems. He came as a youth to Rome, where he mixed freely in the best society, and where he continued to reside, except when his health or fortunes made a change desirable. [106] At such times he resorted either to Sirmio, a picturesque spot on the Lago di Garda, [107] where he had a villa, or else to his Tiburtine estate, which, he tells us, he mortgaged to meet certain pecuniary embarrassments. [108] Among his friends were Nepos, who first acknowledged his genius, [109] to whom the grateful poet dedicated his book; Cicero, whose eloquence he warmly admired; [110] Pollio, Cornificius, Cinna, and Calvus, besides many others less known to fame. Like all warm natures, he was a good hater. Caesar and his friend Mamurra felt his satire; [111] and though he was afterwards reconciled to Caesar, the reconciliation did not go beyond a cold indifference. [112] To Mamurra he was implacably hostile, but satirised him under the fictitious name of Mentula to avoid offending Caesar. His life was that of a thorough man of pleasure, who was also a man of letters. Indifferent to politics, he formed friendships and enmities for personal reasons alone. Two events in his life are important for us, since they affected his genius—his love for Lesbia, and his brother's death. The former was the master-passion of his life. It began in the fresh devotion of a first love; it survived the cruel shocks of infidelity and indifference; and, though no longer as before united with respect, it endured unextinguished to the end, burning with the passion of despair.
Who Lesbia was, has been the subject of much discussion. There can be little doubt that Apuleius's information is correct, and that her real name was Clodia. If so, it is most natural to suppose her the same with that abandoned woman, the sister of P. Clodius Pulcher, whom Cicero brands with infamy in his speech for Caelius. Unwillingness to associate the graceful verse of Catullus with a theme so unworthy has perhaps led the critics to question without reason the identity. But the portrait drawn by the poet when at length his eyes were opened, answers but too truly to that of the orator. Few things in all literature are sadder than the spectacle of this trusting and generous spirit withered by the unkindness, as it had been soiled by the favours, of this evil beauty. [113] The life which began in rapturous devotion ends in hopeless gloom. The poet whose every nerve was strung to the delights of an unselfish though guilty passion, now that the spell is broken, finds life a burden, and confronts with relief the thought of death which, as he anticipated, soon came to end his sorrows.
The affection of Catullus for his only brother, lost to him by an early death, forms the counterpoise to his love for Lesbia. Where this brings remorse, the other brings a soothing melancholy; the memory of this sacred sorrow struggles to cast out the harassing regrets that torment his soul. [114] Nothing can surpass the simple pathos with which he alludes to this event. It is the subject of one short elegy, [115] and enters largely into another. When travelling with the pro-praetor Memmius into Bithynia, he visited his brother's tomb at Rhoeteum in the Troad. It was on his return from this journey, undertaken, but without success, in the hope of bettering his fortune, that he wrote the little poem to Sirmio, [116] which dwells on the associations of home with a sweetness perhaps unequalled in ancient poetry. [117]
In this, and indeed in all his shorter pieces, his character is unmistakably revealed. No writer, ancient or modern, is more frank than he. He neither hides his own faults, nor desires his friends to hide theirs from him; [118] his verses are the honest spontaneous expression of his every-day life. In them we see a youth, ardent, unaffected, impulsive, generous, courteous, and outspoken, but indifferent to the serious interests of life; recklessly self-indulgent, plunging into the grossest sensuality, and that with so little sense of guilt as to appeal to Heaven as witness of the purity of his life: [119] we see a poet, full of delicate fooling and of love for the beautiful, with a strong lyrical impulse fresh as that of Greece, and an appreciation of Greek feeling that makes him revive the very inspiration of Greek genius; [120] with a chaste simplicity of style that faithfully reflects every mood, and with an amount of learning which, if inconsiderable as compared with that of the Augustan poets, much exceeded that of his chief predecessors, and secured for him the honourable epithet of the learned (doctus). [121]
The poems of Catullus fall naturally into three divisions, doubtless made by the poet himself. These are the short lyrical pieces in various metres, containing the best known of those to Lesbia, besides others to his most intimate friends; then come the longer poems, mostly in heroic or elegiac metre, representing the higher flights of his genius; and lastly, the epigrams on divers subjects, all in the elegiac metre, of which both the list and the text are imperfect. In all we meet with the same careless grace and simplicity both of thought and diction, but all do not show the same artistic skill. The judgment that led Catullus to place his lyric poems in the foreground was right. They are the best known, the best finished, and the most popular of all his compositions; the four to Lesbia, the one to Sirmio, and that on Acme and Septimus, are perhaps the most perfect lyrics in the Latin language; and others are scarcely inferior to them in elegance. The hendecasyllabic rhythm, in which the greater part are written, is the one best suited to display the poet's special gifts. Of this metre he is the first and only master. Horace does not employ it; and neither Martial nor Statius avoids monotony in the use of it. The freedom of cadence, the varied caesura, and the licences in the first foot, [122] give the charm of irregular beauty, so sweet in itself and so rare in Latin poetry; and the rhythm lends itself with equal ease to playful humour, fierce satire, and tender affection. Other measures, used with more or less success, are the iambic scazon, [123] the chorianibic, the glyconic, and the sapphic, all probably introduced from the Greek by Catullus. Of these the sapphic is the least perfected. If the eleventh and fifty-first odes be compared with the sapphic odes of Horace, the great metrical superiority of the latter will at once appear. Catullus copies the Greek rhythm in its details without asking whether these are in accordance with the genius of the Latin language. Horace, by adopting stricter rules, produces a much more harmonious effect. The same is true of Catullus's treatment of the elegiac, as compared with that of Propertius or Ovid. The Greek elegiac does not require any stop at the end of the couplet, nor does it affect any special ending; words of seven syllables or less are used by it indifferently. The trisyllabic ending, which is all but unknown to Ovid, occurs continually in Catullus; even the monosyllabic, which is altogether avoided by succeeding poets, occurs once. [124] Another licence, still more alien from Roman usage, is the retention of a short or unelided syllable at the end of the first penthemimer. [125] Catullus's elegiac belongs to the class of half-adapted importations, beautiful in its way, but rather because it recalls the exquisite cadences of the Greek than as being in itself a finished artistic product.
The six long poems are of unequal merit. The modern reader will not find much to interest him in the Coma Berenices, abounding as it does in mythological allusions. [126] The poem to Mallius or Allius, [127] written at Verona, is partly mythological, partly personal, and though somewhat desultory, contains many fine passages. Catullus pleads his want of books as an excuse for a poor poem, implying that a full library was his usual resort for composition. This poem was written shortly after his brother's death, which throws a vein of melancholy into the thought. In it, and still more happily in his two Epithalamia, [128] he paints with deep feeling the joys of wedded love. The former of these, which celebrates the marriage of Manlius Torquatus, is the loveliest product of his genius. It is marred by a few gross allusions, but they are not enough to interfere with its general effect. It rings throughout with joyous exultation, and on the whole is innocent as well as full of warm feeling. It is all movement; the scene opens before us; the marriage god wreathed with flowers and holding the flammeum, or nuptial veil, leads the dance; then the doors open, and amid waving torches the bride, blushing like the purple hyacinth, enters with downcast mien, her friends comforting her; the bridegroom stands by and throws nuts to the assembled guests; light railleries are banded to and fro; meanwhile the bride is lifted over the threshold, and sinks on the nuptial couch, alba parthenice velut, luteumve papaver. The different sketches of Auruneuleia as the loving bride, the chaste matron, and the aged grandame nodding kindly to everybody, please from their unadorned simplicity as well as from their innate beauty.
The second of these Epithalamia is, if not translated, certainly modelled from the Greek, and in its imagery reminds us of Sappho. It is less ardent and more studied than the first, and though its tone is far less elevated, it gains a special charm from its calm, almost statuesque language. [129] The Nuptials of Peleus and Thetis is a miniature epic, [130] such as were often written by the Alexandrian poets. Short as it is, it contains two plots, one within the other. The story of Peleus's marriage is made the occasion for describing the scene embroidered on the coverlet or cushion of the marriage bed. This contains the loves of Theseus and Ariadne, the Minotaur, the Labyrinth, the return of Theseus, his desertion of Ariadne, and her reception into the stars by Iacchus. The poem is unequal in execution; the finest passages are the lament of Ariadne, which Virgil has imitated in that of Dido, and the song of the Fates, which gives the first instances of those refrains taken from the Greek pastoral, which please so much in the Eclogues, and in Tennyson's May Queen. The Atys or Attis stands alone among the poet's works. Its subject is the self-mutilation of a noble youth out of zeal for Cybele's worship, and is probably a study from the Greek, though of what period it would be hard to say. A theme so unnatural would have found little favour with the Attic poets; the subject is more likely to have been approached by the Alexandrian writers, whom Catullus often copies. But these tame and pedantic versifiers could have given no precedent for the wild inspiration of this strange poem, which clothes in the music of finished art bursts of savage emotion. The metre is galliambic, a rhythm proper to the hymns of Cybele, but of which no primitive Greek example remains. The poem cannot be perused with pleasure, but must excite astonishment at the power it displays. The language is tinged with archaisms, especially compounds like hederigera, silvicultrix. In general Catullus writes in the plain unaffected language of daily life. His effects are produced by the freshness rather than the choiceness of his terms, and by his truth to nature and good taste. His construction of sentences, like that of Lucretius, becomes at times prosaic, from the effort to avoid all ambiguity. If the first forty lines of his Epistle to Mallius [131] be studied and compared with any of Ovid's Epistles from Pontus, the great difference in this respect will at once be seen. Later writers leave most of the particles of transition to be supplied by the reader's intelligence: Catullus, like Sophocles, indicates the sequence of thought. Nevertheless poetry lost more than it gained by the want of grammatical connection between successive passages, which, while it adds point, detracts from clearness, and makes the interpretation, for example, of Persius and Juvenal very much less satisfactory than that of Lucretius or Horace.
The genius of Catullus met with early recognition. Cornelius Nepos, in his life of Atticus (ch. xii.), couples him with Lucretius as the first poet of the age (nostra aetas), and his popularity, though obscured during the Augustan period, soon revived, and remained undiminished until the close of Latin literature. During the Middle Ages Catullus was nearly being lost to us; he is preserved in but one manuscript discovered in the fourteenth century. [132]
Catullus is the last of the Republican poets. Separated by but a few years from the Eclogues of Virgil, a totally different spirit pervades the works of the two writers; while Catullus is free, unblushing, and fearless, owing allegiance to no man, Virgil is already guarded, restrained, and diffident of himself, trusting to Pollio or Augustus to perfect his muse, and guide it to its proper sphere. In point of language the two periods show no break: in point of feeling they are altogether different. A few survived from the one into the other, but as a rule they relapsed into silence, or indulged merely in declamation. We feel that Catullus was fortunate in dying before the battle of Aetium; had he lived into the Augustan age, it is difficult to see how he could have found a place there. He is a fitting close to this passionate and stormy period, a youth in whom all its qualities for good and evil have their fullest embodiment.
NOTE I.—On the Use of Alliteration in Latin Poetry.
It is impossible to read the earlier Latin poets, or even Virgil, without seeing that they abound in repetitions of the same letter or sound, either intentionally introduced or unconsciously presenting themselves owing to constant habit. Alliteration and assonance are the natural ornaments of poetry in a rude age. In Anglo-Saxon literature alliteration is one of the chief ways of distinguishing poetry from prose. But when a strict prosody is formed, it is no longer needed. Thus in almost all civilised poetry, it has been discarded, except as an occasional and appropriate ornament for a special purpose. Greek poetry gives few instances. The art of Homer has long passed the stage at which such an aid to effect is sought for. The cadence of the Greek hexameter would be marred by so inartistic a device. The dramatists resort to it now and then, e.g. Oedipus, in his blind rage, thus taunts Tiresias:
tuphlos ta t' ota ton te noun ta t' ommat' ei.
But here the alliteration is as true to nature as it is artistically effective. For it is known that violent emotion irresistibly compels us to heap together similar sounds. Several subtle and probably unconscious instances of it are given by Peile from the Idyllic poets; but as a rule it is true of Greek as it is of English, French, and Italian poetry, that when metre, caesura, or rhyme, hold sway, alliteration plays an altogether subordinate part. It is otherwise in Latin poetry. Here, owing to the fondness for all that is old, alliteration is retained in what is correspondingly a much later period of growth. After Virgil, indeed, it almost disappears, but as used by him it is such an instrument for effect, that perhaps the discontinuance of it was a loss rather than a gain. It is employed in Latin poetry for various purposes. Plautus makes it subservient to comic effect (Capt. 903, quoted by Munro.).
"Quánta pérnis péstis véniet, quánta lábes lárido, Quánta súmini ábsumédo, quánta cállo cálamitas Quánta lániés lássitúdo."
Compare our verse:
"Right round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran."
Ennius and the tragedians make it express the stronger emotions, as violence:
"Priamo vi vitam evitari."
So Virgil, imitating him: fit via vi; Lucr. vivida vis animi pervicit; or again pity, which is expressed by the same letter (pronounced as w), e.g. neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires; viva videns vivo sepeliri viscera, busto, from Virgil and Lucr. respectively. A hard letter expresses difficulty or effort, e.g. manibus magnos divellere montis. So Pope: Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone. Or emphasis, parare non potuit pedibus qui pontum per vada possent, from Lucretius; multaque prae_terea vatum_ prae_di ta_ pri_orum_, from Virgil. Rarely it has no special appropriateness, or is a mere display of ingenuity, as: O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tyranne tulisti (Ennius). Assonance is almost equally common, and is even more strange to our taste. In Greek, Hebrew, and many languages, it occurs in the form of Paronomasia, or play on words; but this presupposes a rapport between the name and what is implied by it. Assonance in Latin poetry has no such relevance. It simply emphasizes or adorns, e.g. Aug_usto_ aug_urio postquam incluta condita Roma est_ (Enn.); pulcram pulcritudinem (Plaut.). It takes divers forms, e.g. the omoioteleuton akin to our rhyme. _Vincla recus_antum _et sera sub nocte rud_entum; _cornua relat_arum _obvertimus antenn_arum._ The beginnings of rhyme are here seen, and perhaps still more in the elegiac, debuerant fusos evoluisse meos; or Sapphic, Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis Arbor aestiva recreatur aura. Other varieties of assonance are the frequent employment of the same preposition in the same part of the foot, e.g. insontem, infando indicio—disjectis disque supatis; the mere repetition of the same word, lacerum crudeliter ora, ora manusque; or of a different inflexion of it, omnis feret omnia tellus, non omnia possumus omnes; most of all, by employing several words of a somewhat similar sound, what is in fact a jingle, e.g. the well-known line, Cedant _arma togae con_cedat lau_rea_ lau_di_; or again, mente _cle_mente edita (Laberius). Instances of this are endless; and in estimating the mechanical structure of Latin poetry, which is the chief side of it, we observe the care with which the greatest artists retain every method of producing effect, even if somewhat old fashioned (see on this subject Munro's Lucr. preface to Notes II. which has often been referred to.)
NOTE II.—Some additional details on the History of the Mimus (from
Woelfflin. Publ. Syri Sententiae, Lips. 1869).
The mime at first differed from other kinds of comedy—(1) in having no proper plot; (2) in not being presented primarily on the stage; (3) in having but one actor. Eudicos imitated the gestures of boxing; Theodorus the creaking of a windlass; Parmeno did the grunting of a pig to perfection. Any one who raised a laugh by such kinds if imitation was properly said mimum agere. Mimes are thus defined by Diomedes (p. 491, 13 k), sermones cuiuslibet et molûs sine reverentia vel factorum et dictorum turpium cum lascivia imitatio. Such mimes as these were often held at banquets for the amusement of great men. Sulla was passionately fond of them. Admitted to the stage, they naturally took the place of interludes or afterpieces. When a man imitated e.g. a muleteer (Petr. Sat. 68), he had his mule with him; or if he imitated a causidicus, or a drunken ruffian (Ath. 14, 621, c.), some other person was by to play the foil to his violence. Thus arose the distinction of parts and dialogue; the chief actor was called Archimimus, and the mime was then developed after the example of the Atellanae. When several actors took part in a piece, each was said mimum agere, though this phrase originally applied only to the single actor.
When the mime first came on the stage, it was acted in front of the curtain (Fest. p. 326, ed. Müll.), afterwards, as its proportions increased, a new kind of curtain called siparium was introduced, so that while the mime was being performed on this new and enlarged proscaenium the regular drama were going on behind the siparium. Pliny (xxxv. 199) calls Syrus mimicae scaenae conditorem; and as he certainly did not build a theatre, it is most probable that Pliny refers to his invention of the siparium. He evidently had a natural genius for this kind of representation, in which Macrobius (ii. 7. 6) and Quintilian allow him the highest place. Laberius appears to have been a more careful writer. Syrus was not a literary man, but an improvisator and moralist. His sententiae were held in great honour in the rhetorical schools in the time of Augustus, and are quoted by the elder Seneca (Contr. 206, 4). The younger Seneca also frequently quotes them in his letters (Ep. 108, 8, &c.), and often imitates their style. There are some interesting lines in Petronius (Satir. 55), which are almost certainly from Syrus. Being little known, they are worth quoting as a popular denunciation of luxury—
"Luxuriae rictu Martis marcent moenia,
Tuo palato clausus pavo pascitur
Plumato amictus aureo Babylonico;
Gallina tibi Numidica, tibi gallus spado:
Ciconia etiam grata peregrina hospita
Pietaticultrix gracilipes crotalistria
Avis, exul hiemis, titulus tepidi temporis
Nequitiae nidum in cacabo fecit modo.
Quo margarita cara tribaca Indica?
An ut matrona ornata phaleris pelagiis
Tollat pedes indomita in strato extraneo?
Zmaragdum ad quam rem viridem, pretiosum vitrum.
Quo Carchedonios optas ignes lnpideos
Nisi ut scintilles? probitas est carbunculus."
There is a rude but unmistakable vigour in these lines which, when compared with the quotation from Laberius given in the text of the work, cause us to think very highly of the mime as patronized by Caesar.
NOTE III.—Fragments of Valerius Soranus.
This writer, who was somewhat earlier than the present epoch, having been a contemporary of Sulla but having outlived him, was noted for his great learning. He is mentioned by Pliny as the first to prefix a table of contents to his book. His native town, Sora, was well known for its activity in liberal studies. He is said by Plutarch to have announced publicly the secret name of Rome or of her tutelary deity, for which the gods punished him by death. St. Augustine (C. D. vii. 9) quotes two interesting hexameters as from him:
"Iupiter omnipotens, rerum rex ipse deusque
Progenitor genetrixque, deum deus, unus et omnes."
Servius (Aen. iv. 638) cites two verses of a similar character, which are most probably from Soranus. Iupiter, addressing the gods, says,
"Caelicolae, mea membra, dei, quos nostra potestas
Officiis, diversa facit."
These fragments show an extraordinary power of condensed expression, as well as a clear grasp on the unity of the Supreme Being, for which reason they are quoted.
The Augustan Age in its strictest sense does not begin until after the battle of Actium, when Augustus, having overthrown his competitor, found himself in undisputed possession of the Roman world (31 B.C.). But as the Eclogues, and many of Horace's poems, were written at an earlier date, and none of these can be ranked with the Republican literature, it is best to assign the commencement of the Augustan period to the year of the battle of Philippi, when the defeat of Brutus and Cassius left the old constitution without a champion and made monarchy in the person either of Antonius or Octavius inevitable. This period of fifty-seven years, extending to the death of Augustus, comprises a long list of splendid writers, inferior to those of the Ciceronian age in vigour and boldness, but superior to all but Cicero himself in finish and artistic skill as well as in breadth of human sympathy and suggestive beauty of expression. It marks the culmination of Latin poetry, as the last epoch marks the perfection of Latin prose. But the bloom which had been so long expanding was short-lived in proportion to its sweetness; and perfect as is the art of Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, within a few years of Horace's death both style and thought had entered on the path of irretrievable decline. The muse of Ovid, captivating and brilliant, has already lost the severe grace that stamps the highest classic verse; and the false tendencies forgiven in him from admiration for his talent, become painfully conspicuous in his younger contemporaries. Livy, too, in the domain of history, shows traces of that poetical colouring which began more and more to encroach on the style of prose; while in the work of Vitruvius, on the one hand and in that of the elder Seneca on the other, we observe two tendencies which helped to accelerate decay; the one towards an entire absence of literary finish, the other towards the substitution of rich decoration for chaste ornament.
There are certain common features shared by the chief Augustan authors which distinguish them from those of the closing Republic. While the latter were men of birth and eminence in the state, the former were mostly Italians or provincials, [1] often of humble origin, neither warriors nor statesmen, but peaceful, quiet natures, devoid of ambition, and desiring only a modest independence and success in prosecuting their art. Horace had indeed fought for Brutus; but he was no soldier, and alludes with humorous irony to his flight from the field of battle. [2] Virgil prays that he may live without glory among the forests and streams he loves. [3] Tibullus [4] and Propertius [5] assert in the strongest terms their incapacity for an active career, praying for nothing more than enjoyment of the pleasures of love and song. Spirits like these would have had no chance of rising to eminence amid the fierce contests of the Republic. Gentle and diffident, they needed a patron to call out their powers or protect their interests; and when, under the sway of Augustus, such a patron was found, the rich harvest of talent that arose showed how much letters had hitherto suffered from the unsettled state of the times. [6] It is true that several writers of the preceding period survived into this. Men like Varro, who kept aloof from the city, nursing in retirement a hopeless loyalty to the past; men like Pollio and Messala, who accepted the monarchy without compromising their principles, and who still appeared in public as orators or jurists; these, together with a few poets of the older school, such as Furius Bibaculus, continued to write during the first few years of the Augustan epoch, but cannot properly be regarded as belonging to it. [7] They pursued their own lines of thought, uninfluenced by the Empire, except in so far as it forced them to select more trivial themes, or to use greater caution in expressing their thoughts. But the great authors who are the true representatives of Augustus's reign, Virgil, Livy, and Horace, were brought into direct contact with the emperor, and much of their inspiration centres round his office and person.
The conqueror of Actium was welcomed by all classes with real or feigned enthusiasm. To the remnant of the republican families, indeed, he was an object partly of flattery, partly of hatred, in no case, probably, of hearty approval or admiration; but by the literary class, as by the great mass of the people, he was hailed as the restorer of peace and good government, of order and religion, the patron of all that was best in literature and art, the adopted son of that great man whose name was already a mighty power, and whose spirit was believed to watch over Rome as one of her presiding deities. It is no wonder if his opening reign stamped literature with new and imposing features, or if literature expressed her sense of his protection by a constant appeal to his name.
Augustus has been the most fortunate of despots, for he has met with nothing but praise. A few harsh spirits, it seems, blamed him in no measured terms; but he repaid them by a wise neglect, at least as long as Maecenas lived, who well knew, from temperament as well as experience, the value of seasonable inactivity. As it is, all the authors that have come to us are panegyrists. None seem to remember his early days; all centre their thoughts on the success of the present and the promise of the future. Yet Augustus himself could not forget those times. As chief of the proscription, as the betrayer of Cicero, as the suspected murderer of the consul Hirtius, as the pitiless destroyer of Cleopatra's children, he must have found it no easy task to act the mild ruler; as a man of profligate conduct he must have found it still less easy to come forward as the champion of decency and morals. He was assisted by the confidence which all, weary of war and bloodshed, were willing to repose in him, even to an unlimited extent. He was assisted also by able administrators, Maecenas in civil, and Agrippa in military affairs. But there were other forces making themselves felt in the great city. One of these was literature, as represented by the literary class, consisting of men to whom letters were a profession not a relaxation, and who now first appear prominently in Rome. Augustus saw the immense advantage of enlisting these on his side. He could pass laws through the senate; he could check vice by punishment; but neither his character nor his history could make him influence the heart of the people. To effect real reforms persuasive voice must be found to preach them. And who so efficacious as the band of cultured poets whom he saw collecting round him? These he deliberately set himself to win; and that he did win then, some to a half-hearted, others to an absolute allegiance, is one of the best testimonies to his enlightened policy. Yet he could hardly have effected his object had it not been for the able co- operation of Maecenas, whose conciliatory manners well fitted him to be the friend of literary men. This astute minister formed a select circle of gifted authors, chiefly poets, whom he endeavoured to animate with the enthusiasm of succouring the state. He is said to have suggested to Augustus the necessity of restoring the decayed grandeur of the national religion. The open disregard of morality and religion evinced by the ambitious party-leaders during the Civil Wars had brought the public worship into contempt and the temples into ruin. Augustus determined that civil order should once more repose upon that reverence for the gods which had made Rome great. [8] Accordingly, he repaired or rebuilt many temples, and both by precept and example strove to restore the traditional respect for divine things. But he must have experienced a grave difficulty in the utter absence of religious conviction which had become general in Rome. The authors of the De Divinatione and the De Rerum Natura could not have written as they did, without influencing many minds. And if men so admirable as Cicero and Lucretius denied, the one the possibility of the science he professed, [9] the other the doctrine of Providence on which all religion rests, it was little likely that ordinary minds should retain much belief in such things. Augustus was relieved from this strait by the appearance of a new literary class in Rome, young authors from the country districts, with simpler views of life and more enthusiasm, of whom some at least might be willing to consecrate their talents to furthering the sacred interests on which social order depends. The author who fully responded to his appeal, and probably exceeded his highest hopes, was Virgil; but Horace, Livy, and Propertius, showed themselves not unwilling to espouse the same cause. Never was power more ably seconded by persuasion; the laws of Augustus and the writings of Virgil, Horace, and Livy, in order to be fully appreciated, must be considered in their connection, political and religious, with each other.
The emperor, his minister, and his advocates, thus working for the same end, beyond doubt produced some effect. The Odes of Horace in the first three books, which are devoted to politics, show an attitude of antagonism and severe expostulation; he boldly rebukes vice, and calls upon the strong hand to punish it:
"Quid tristes querimoniae,
Si non supplicio culpa reciditur?
Quid leges sine moribus
Vanae proficiunt?" [10]
But when, some years later, he wrote the Carmen Saeculare, and the fourth book of the Odes, his voice is raised in a paean of unmixed triumph. "The pure home is polluted by no unchastity; law and morality have destroyed crime; matrons are blessed with children resembling their fathers; already faith and peace, honour and maiden modesty, have returned to us," &c. [11] This can hardly be mere exaggeration, though no doubt the picture is coloured, since the popularity of Ovid's Art of Love, even during Horace's lifetime, is a sufficient proof that profligacy did not lack its votaries.
To the student of human development the most interesting feature in this attempted reform of manners is the universal tendency to connect it with the deification of the emperor. It was in vain that Augustus claimed to return to the old paths; everywhere he met this new apotheosis of himself crowning the restored edifice of belief; so impossible was it for him, as for others, to reconstruct the past. As the guardian of the people's material welfare, he became, despite of himself, the people's chief divinity. From the time that Virgil's gratitude expressed itself in the first Eclogue—
"Namque erit ille mihi semper deus: illius aram
Saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus," [12]
the emperor was marked out for this new form of adulation, and succeeding poets only added to what Virgil had begun. Even in his Epistles, where the conventionalities of mythology are never employed, Horace compares him with the greatest deities, and declares that altars are raised to his name, while all confess him to be the greatest person that has been or will be among mankind. [13] Propertius and Ovid [14] accept this language as proper and natural, and the striking rapidity with which it established itself in universal use is one of the most speaking signs of the growing degeneracy. Augustus himself was not cajoled, Tiberius still less, but Caius and his successors were; even Vespasian, when dying, in jest or earnest used the words "ut puto deus fio." As the satirist says, "Power will believe anything that Flattery suggests." [15]
Side by side with this religious cultus of the emperor was a willingness to surrender all political power into his hands. Little by little he engrossed all the offices of state, and so completely had proscription and indulgence in turn done their work that none were found bold enough to resist these insidious encroachments. [16] The privileges of the senate and the rights of the people were gradually abridged; and that pernicious policy so congenial to a despotism, of satisfying the appetite for food and amusement and so keeping the people quiet, was inaugurated early in his reign, and set moving in the lines which it long afterwards followed. Freedom of debate, which had been universal in the senate, was curtailed by the knowledge that, as often as not, the business was being decided by a secret council held within the palace. Eloquence could not waste itself in abstract discussions; and even if it attempted to speak, the growing servility made it perilous to utter plain truths. Thus the sphere of public speaking was greatly restricted. Those who had poured forth before the assembled people the torrents of their oratory were now by what Tacitus so graphically calls the pacification of eloquence [17] confined to the tamer arena of the civil law courts. All those who felt that without a practical object eloquence cannot exist, had to resign themselves to silence. Others less serious-minded found a sphere for their natural gift of speech in the halls of the rhetoricians. It is pitiable to see men like Pollio content to give up all higher aims, and for want of healthier exercise waste their powers in noisy declamation.
History, if treated with dignity and candour, was almost as dangerous a field as eloquence. Hence we find that few were bold enough to cultivate it. Livy, indeed, succeeded in producing a great masterwork, which, while it did not conceal his Pompeian sympathies, entered so heartily into the emperor's general point of view as to receive high praise at his hands. But Livy was not a politician. Those who had been politicians found it unwise to provoke the jealousy of Augustus by expressing their sentiments. Hence neither Messala nor Pollio continued their works on contemporary history; a deprivation which we cannot but strongly feel, as we have few trustworthy accounts of those, times.
In law Augustus trenched less on the independent thought of the jurists, but at the same time was better able to put forth his prerogative when occasion was really needed. His method of accrediting the Responsa Prudentum, by permitting only those who had his authorisation to exercise that profession, was an able stroke of policy. [18] It gave the profession as it were the safeguard of a diploma, and veiled an act of despotic power under the form of a greater respect for law. The science of jurisprudence was ably represented by various professors, but it became more and more involved and difficult, and frequently draws forth from the satirists abuse of its quibbling intricacies.
Poetry was the form of literature to which most favour was shown, and which flourished more vigorously than any other. The pastoral, and the metrical epistle, were now first introduced. The former was based on the Theocritean idyll, but does not seem to have been well adapted to Roman treatment; the latter was of two kinds; it was either a real communication on some subject of mutual interest, as that of Horace, or else an imaginary expression of feeling put into the mouth of a mythical hero or heroine, of which the most brilliant examples are those of Ovid. Philosophy and science flourished to a considerable extent. The desire to find some compensation for the loss of all outward activity led many to strive after the ideal of conduct presented by stoicism: and nearly all earnest minds were more or less affected by this great system. Livy is reported to have been an eloquent expounder of philosophical doctrines, and most of the poets show a strong leaning to its study. Augustus wrote adhortationes, and beyond doubt his example was often followed. The speculative and therefore inoffensive topics of natural science were neither encouraged nor neglected by Augustus; Vitruvius, the architect, having showed some capacity for engineering, was kindly received by him, but his treatise, admirable as it is, does not seem to have secured him any special favour. It was such writers as he thought might be made instruments of his policy that Augustus set himself specially to encourage by every means in his power. The result of this patronage was an increasing divergence from the popular taste on the part of the poets, who now aspired only to please the great and learned. [19] It is pleasing, however, to observe the entire absence of ill-feeling that reigned in this society of beaux esprits with regard to one another. Each held his own special position, but all were equally welcome at the great man's réunions, equally acceptable to one another; and each criticised the other's works with the freedom of a literary freemasonry. [20] This select cultivation of poetry reacted unfavourably on the thought and imagination, though it greatly elevated the style of those that employed it. The extreme delicacy of the artistic product shows it to have been due to some extent to careful nursing, and its almost immediate collapse confirms this conclusion.
While Augustus, through Maecenas, united men eminent for taste and culture in a literary coterie, Messala, who had never joined the successful side, had a similar but smaller following, among whom was numbered the poet Tibullus. At the tables of these great men met on terms of equal companionship their own friends and the authors whom they favoured or assisted. For though the provincial poet could not, like those of the last age, assume the air of one who owned no superior, but was bound by ties of obligation as well as gratitude to his patron, still the works of Horace and Virgil abundantly prove that servile compliment was neither expected by him nor would have been given by them, as it was too frequently in the later period to the lasting injury of literature as well as of character. The great patrons were themselves men of letters. Augustus was a severe critic of style, and, when he wrote or spoke, did not fall below the high standard he exacted from others. Suetonius and Tacitus bear witness to the clearness and dignity of his public speaking. [21]
MAECENAS, as we shall notice immediately, was, or affected to be, a writer of some pretension; and MESSALA'S eloquence was of so high an order, that had he been allowed the opportunity of freely using it, he would beyond doubt have been numbered among the great orators of Rome.
Such was the state of thought and politics which surrounded and brought out the celebrated writers whom we shall now proceed to criticise, a task the more delightful, as these writers are household words, and their best works familiar from childhood to all who have been educated to love the beautiful in literature.
The excellent literary judgment shown by Augustus contributed to encourage a high standard of taste among the rival authors. How weighty the sovereign's influence was may be gathered from the extravagancies into which the Neronian and Flavian authors fell through anxiety to please monarchs of corrupt taste. The advantages of patronage to literature are immense; but it is indispensable that the patron should himself be great. The people were now so totally without literary culture that a popular poet would necessarily have been a bad poet; careful writers turned from them to the few who could appreciate what was excellent. Yet Maecenas, so judicious as a patron, fell as an author into the very faults he blamed. During the years he held office (30-8 B.C.) he devoted some fragments of his busy days to composing in prose and verse writings which Augustus spoke of as "murobrecheis cincinni," "curled locks reeking with ointment." We hear of a treatise called Prometheus, certain dialogues, among them a Symposium, in which Messala, Virgil, and Horace were introduced; and Horace implies that he had planned a prose history of Augustus's wars. [22] He did not shrink from attempting, and what was worse, publishing, poetry, which bore imprinted on it the characteristics of his effeminate mind. Seneca quotes one passage [23] from which we may form an estimate of his level as a versifier. But, however feeble in execution, he was a skilful adviser of others. The wisdom of his counsels to Augustus is known; those he offered to Virgil were equally sound. It was he who suggested the plan of the Georgics, and the poet acknowledges his debt for a great idea in the words "Nil altum sine te meas inchoat." He was at once cautious and liberal in bestowing his friendship. The length of time that elapsed between his first reception of Horace and his final enrolment of the poet among his intimates, shows that he was not hasty in awarding patronage. And the difficulty which Propertius encountered in gaining a footing among his circle proves that even great talent was not by itself a sufficient claim on his regard. As we shall have occasion to mention him again, we shall pass him over here, and conclude the chapter with a short account of the earliest Augustan poet whose name has come to us, L. VARIUS RUFUS (64 B.C.-9 A.D.), the friend of Virgil, who introduced both him and Horace to Maecenas's notice, and who was for some years accounted the chief epic poet of Rome. [24]
Born in Cisalpine Gaul, Varius was, like all his countrymen, warmly attached to Caesar's cause, and seems to have made his reputation by an epic on Caesar's death. [25] Of this poem we have scattered notices implying that it was held in high esteem, and a fragment is preserved by Macrobius, [26] which it is worth while to quote:
"Ceu canis umbrosam lustrans Gortynia vallem,
Si veteris potuit cervae comprendere lustra,
Saevit in absentem, et circum vestigia lustrans
Aethera per nitidum tenues sectatur odores;
Non amnes illam medii non ardua tentant,
Perdita nec serae meminit decedere nocti."
The rhythm here is midway between Lucretius and Virgil; the inartistic repetition of lustrans together with the use immediately before of the cognate word lustra point to a certain carelessness in composition; the employment of epithets is less delicate than in Horace and Virgil; the last line is familiar from its introduction unaltered, except by an improved punctuation, into the Eclogues. [27] Two fine verses, slightly modified in expression but not in rhythm, have found their way into the Aeneid. [28]
"Vendidit hic Latium populis, agrosque Quiritum
Eripuit: fixit leges pretio atque refixit."
Besides this poem he wrote another on the praises of Augustus, for which
Horace testifies his fitness while excusing himself from approaching the
same subject. [29] From this were taken two lines [30] appropriated by
Horace, and instanced as models of graceful flattery:
"Tene magis salvum populus velit, an populum tu,
Servet in ambiguum qui consulit et tibi et Urbi,
Iupiter."
After the pre-eminence of Virgil began to be recognised, Varius seems to have deserted epic poetry and turned his attention to tragedy, and that with so much success, that his great work, the Thyestes, was that on which his fame with posterity chiefly rested. This drama, considered by Quintilian [31.] equal to any of the Greek masterpieces, was performed at the games after the battle of Actium; but it was probably better adapted for declaiming than acting. Its high reputation makes its loss a serious one—not for its intrinsic value, but for its position in the history of literature as the first of those rhetorical dramas of which we possess examples in those of Seneca, and which, with certain modifications, have been cultivated in our own century with so much spirit by Byron, Shelley, and Swinburne. The main interest which Varius has for us arises from his having, in company with Plotius Tucca, edited the Aeneid after Virgil's death. The intimate friendship that existed between the two poets enabled Varius to give to the world many particulars as to Virgil's character and habits of life; this biographical sketch, which formed probably an introduction to the volume, is referred to by Quintilian [32] and others.
A poet of inferior note, but perhaps handed down to unenviable immortality in the line of Virgil—
"Argutos inter strepere Anser olores," [33]
was ANSER. He was a partisan of Antony, and from this fact, together with the possible allusion in the Eclogues, later grammarians discovered that he was, like Bavius and Maevius, unhappy bards only known from the contemptuous allusions of their betters, [34] an obtrectator Virgilii. As such he of course called down the vials of their wrath. But there is no real evidence for the charge. He seems to have been an unambitious poet, who indulged light and wanton themes. [35] AEMILIUS MACER, of Verona, who died 16 B.C., was certainly a friend of Virgil, and has been supposed to be the Mopsus of the Eclogues. He devoted his very moderate talents to minute and technical didactic poems. The Ornithogonias of Nicander was imitated or translated by him, as well as the Thaeriaka of the same writer. Ovid mentions having been frequently present at the poet's recitations, but as he does not praise them, [36] we may infer that Macer had no great name among his contemporaries, but owed his consideration and perhaps his literary impulse to his friendship for Virgil.
PUBLIUS VIRGILIUS, or more correctly, VERGILIUS [1] MARO, was born in the village or district [2] of Andes, near Mantua, sixteen years after the birth of Catullus, of whom he was a compatriot as well as an admirer. [3] As the citizenship was not conferred on Gallia Transpadana, of which Mantua was a chief town, until 49 B.C., when Virgil was nearly twenty-one years old, he had no claim by birth to the name of Roman. And yet so intense is the patriotism which animates his poems, that no other Roman writer, patrician or plebeian, surpasses or even equals it in depth of feeling. It is one proof out of many how completely the power of Rome satisfied the desire of the Italians for a great common head whom they might reverence as the heaven-appointed representative of their race. And it leads us to reflect on the narrow pride of the great city in not earlier extending her full franchise to all those gallant tribes who fought so well for her, and who at last extorted their demand with grievous loss to themselves as to her, by the harsh argument of the sword. To return to Virgil. We learn nothing from his own works as to his early life and parentage. Our chief authority is Donatus. His father, Maro, was in humble circumstances; according to some he followed the trade of a potter. But as he farmed his own little estate, he must have been far removed from indigence, and we know that he was able to give his illustrious son the best education the time afforded. Trained in the simple virtues of the country, Virgil, like Horace, never lost his admiration for the stern and almost Spartan ideal of life which he had there witnessed, and which the levity of the capital only placed in stronger relief. After attending school for some years at Cremona, he assumed at sixteen the manly gown, on the very day to which tradition assigns the death of the poet Lucretius. Some time later (53 B.C.), we find him at Rome studying rhetoric under Epidius, and soon afterwards philosophy under Siro the Epicurean. The recent publication of Lucretius's poem must have invested Siro's teaching with new attractiveness in the eyes of a young author, conscious of genius, but as yet self-distrustful, and willing to humble his mind before the "temple of speculative truth," The short piece, written at this date, and showing his state of feeling, deserves to be quoted:—
"Ite hinc inanes ite rhetorum ampullae…
Scholasticorum natio madens pingui:…
Tuque o mearum cura, Sexte, curarum
Vale Sabine: iam valete formosi.
Nos ad beatos vela mittimus portus
Magni patentes docta dicta Sironis,
Vitamque ab omni vindicabimus cura.
Ite hinc Camenae…
Dulces Camenae, nam (fatebimur verum)
Dulces fuistis: et tamen meas chartas
Revisitote, sed pudenter et varo."
These few lines are very interesting, first, as enabling us to trace the poetic influence of Catullus, whose style they greatly resemble, though their moral tone is far more serious; secondly, as showing us that Virgil was in aristocratic company, the names mentioned, and the epithet formosi, by which the young nobles designated themselves, after the Greek kaloi, kalokagathoi, indicating as much; and thirdly, as evincing a serious desire to embrace philosophy for his guide in life, after a conflict with himself as to whether he should give up writing poetry, and a final resolution to indulge his natural taste "seldom and without licentiousness." We can hardly err in tracing this awakened earnestness and its direction upon the Epicurean system to his first acquaintance with the poem of Lucretius. The enthusiasm for philosophy expressed in these lines remained with Virgil all his life. Poet as he was, he would at once be drawn to the theory of the universe so eloquently propounded by a brother-poet. And in all his works a deep study of Lucretius is evidenced not only by imitations of his language, but by frequent adoption of his views and a recognition of his position as the loftiest attainable by man. [4] The young Romans at this time took an eager interest in the problems which philosophy presents, and most literary men began their career as disciples of the Lucretian theory. [5] Experience of life, however, generally drew them away from it. Horace professed to have been converted by a thunder-clap in a clear sky; this was no doubt irony, but it is clear that in his epistles he has ceased to be an Epicurean. Virgil, who in the Eclogues and Georgics seems to sigh with regret after the doctrines he fears to accept, comes forward in the Aeneid as the staunch adherent of the national creed, and where he acts the philosopher at all, assumes the garb of a Stoic, not an Epicurean. But he still desired to spend his later days in the pursuit of truth; it seemed as if he accepted almost with resignation the labours of a poet, and looked forward to philosophy as his recompense and the goal of his constant desire. [6] We can thus trace a continuity of interest in the deepest problems, lasting throughout his life, and, by the sacrifice of one side of his affections, tinging his mind with that subtle melancholy so difficult to analyse, but so irresistible in its charm. The craving to rest the mind upon a solid ground of truth, which was kept in abeyance under the Republic by the incessant calls of active life, now asserted itself in all earnest characters, and would not be content without satisfaction. Virgil was cut off before his philosophical development was completed, and therefore it is useless to speculate what views he would have finally espoused. But it is clear that his tone of mind was in reality artistic and not philosophical. Systems of thought could never have had real power over him except in so far as they modified his conceptions of ideal beauty: he possessed neither the grasp nor the boldness requisite for speculative thought; all ideas as they were presented to his mind were unconsciously transfused into materials for effects of art. And the little poem which has led to these remarks seems to enshrine in the outpourings of an early enthusiasm the secret of that divided allegiance between his real and his fancied aptitudes, which impels the poet's spirit, while it hears the discord, to win its way into the inner and more perfect harmony.
After the battle of Philippi (42 B.C.) he appears settled in his native district cultivating pastoral poetry, but threatened with ejection by the agrarian assignations of the Triumvirs. Pollio, who was then Prefect of Gallia Transpadana, interceded with Octavian, and Virgil was allowed to retain his property. But on a second division among the veterans, Varus having now succeeded to Pollio, he was not so fortunate, but with his father was obliged to fly for his life, an event which he has alluded to in the first and ninth Eclogues. The fugitives took refuge in a villa that had belonged to Siro, [7] and from this retreat, by the advice of his friend Cornelius Gallus, he removed to Rome, where, 37 B.C., he published his Eclogues. These at once raised him to eminence as the equal of Varius, though in a different department; but even before their publication he had established himself as an honoured member of Maecenas's circle. [8] The liberality of Augustus and his own thrift enabled him to live in opulence, and leave at his death a very considerable fortune. Among other estates he possessed one in Campania, at or near Naples, which from its healthfulness and beauty continued till his death to be his favourite dwelling-place. It was there that he wrote the Georgics, and there that his bones were laid, and his tomb made the object of affectionate and even religious veneration. He is not known to have undertaken more than one voyage out of Italy; but that contemplated in the third Ode of Horace may have been carried out, as Prof. Sellar suggests, for the sake of informing himself by personal observation about the localities of the Aeneid; for it seems unlikely that the accurate descriptions of Book III. could have been written without some such direct knowledge. The rest of his life presents no event worthy of record. It was given wholly to the cultivation of his art, except in so far as he was taken up with scientific and antiquarian studies, which he felt to be effectual in elevating his thought and deepening his grasp of a great subject. [9] The Georgics were composed at the instance of Maecenas during the seven years 37-30 B.C., and read before Augustus the following year. The Aeneid was written during the remaining years of his life, but was left unfinished, the poet having designed to give three more years to its elaboration. As is well known, it was saved from destruction and given to the world by the emperor's command, contrary to the poet's dying wish and the express injunctions of his will. He died at Brundisium (19 B.C.) at the comparatively early age of 51, of an illness contracted at Megara, and aggravated by a too hurried return. The tour on which he had started was undertaken from a desire to see for himself the coasts of Asia Minor which he had made Aeneas visit. Such was the life and such the premature death of the greatest of Roman bards.
Even those who have judged the poems of Virgil most unfavourably speak of his character in terms of warmest praise. He was gentle, innocent, modest, and of a singular sweetness of disposition, which inspired affection even where it was not returned, and in men who rarely showed it. [10] At the same time he is described as silent and even awkward in society, a trait which Dante may have remembered when himself taunted with the same deficiency. His nature was pre-eminently a religious one. Dissatisfied with his own excellence, filled with a deep sense of the unapproachable ideal, he reverenced the ancient faith and the opinions of those who had expounded it. This habit of mind led him to underrate his own poetical genius and to attach too great weight to the precedents and judgment of others. He seems to have thought no writer so common-place as not to yield some thought that he might make his own; and, like Milton, he loves to pay the tribute of a passing allusion to some brother poet, whose character he valued, or whose talent his ready sympathy understood. In an age when licentious writing, at least in youth, was the rule and required no apology, Virgil's early poems are conspicuous by its almost total absence; while the Georgics and Aeneid maintain a standard of lofty purity to which nothing in Latin, and few works in any literature, approach. His flattery of Augustus has been censured as a fault; but up to a certain point it was probably quite sincere. His early intimacy with Varius, the Caesarian poet, and possibly the general feeling among his fellow provincials, may have attracted him from the first to Caesar's name; his disposition, deeply affected by power or greatness, naturally inclined him to show loyalty to a person; and the spell of success when won on such a scale as that of Augustus doubtless wrought upon his poetical genius. Still, no considerations can make us justify the terms of divine homage which he applies in all his poems, and with every variety of ornament, to the emperor. Indeed, it would be inconceivable, were it not certain, that the truest representative of his generation could, with the approbation of all the world, use language which, but a single generation before, would have called forth nothing but scorn.
Virgil was tall, dark, and interesting-looking, rather than handsome; his health was delicate, and besides a weak digestion, [11] he suffered like other students from headache. His industry must, in spite of this, have been extraordinary; for he shows an intimate acquaintance not only with all that is eminent in Greek and Latin literature, but with many recondite departments of ritual, antiquities, and philosophy, [12] besides being a true interpreter of nature, an excellence that does not come without the habit as well as the love of converse with her. Of his personal feelings we know but little, for he never shows that unreserve which characterises so many of the Roman writers; but he entertained a strong and lasting friendship for Gallus, [13] and the force and truth of his delineations of the passion of love seem to point to personal experience. Like Horace, he never married, and his last days are said to have been clouded with regret for the unfinished condition of his great work.
The early efforts of Virgil were chiefly lyric and elegiac pieces after the manner of Catullus, whom he studied with the greatest care, and two short poems in hexameters, both taken from the Alexandrines, called Culex and Moretum, of which the latter alone is certainly, the formerly possibly, genuine. [14] Among the short pieces called Catalecta we have some of exquisite beauty, as the dedicatory prayer to Venus and the address to Siro's villa; [15] others show a vein of invective which we find it hard to associate with the gentle poet; [16] others, again, are parodies or close imitations of Catullus; [17] while one or two [18] are proved by internal evidence to be by another hand than Virgil's. The Copa, "Mine Hostess," which closes the series, reminds us of Virgil in its expression, rhythm, and purity of style, but is far more lively than anything we possess of his. It is an invitation to a rustic friend to put up his beast and spend the hot hours in a leafy arbour where wine, fruits, and goodly company wait for him. We could wish the first four lines away, and then the poem would be a perfect gem. Its clear joyous ring marks the gay time of youth; its varied music sounds the prelude to the metrical triumphs that were to come, and if it is not Virgil's, we have lost in its author a genre poet of the rarest power.
The Moretum is a pleasing idyll, describing the daily life of the peasant Simplus, translated probably from the Greek of Parthenius. On it Teuffel says, "Suevius had written a Moretum, and it is not improbable that the desire to surpass Suevius influenced Virgil in attempting the same task again." [19] Trifling as this circumstance is, nothing that throws any light on the growth of Virgil's muse can be wanting in interest. Virgil was not one of those who startle the world by their youthful genius. His soul was indeed a poet's from the first, but the rich perfection of his verse was not developed until after years of severe labour, self-correction, and even failure. He began by essaying various styles; he gradually confined himself to one; and in that one he wrought unceasingly, always bringing method to aid talent, until, through various grades of immaturity, he passed to a perfection peculiarly his own, in which thought and expression are fused with such exceeding art as to elude all attempts to disengage them. If we can accept the Culex in its present form as genuine, the development of Virgil's genius is shown to us in a still earlier stage. Whether he wrote it at sixteen or twenty-six (and to us the latter age seems infinitely the more probable), it bears the strongest impress of immaturity. It is true the critics torment us by their doubts. Some insist that it cannot be by Virgil. Their chief arguments are derived from the close resemblances (which they regard as imitations) to many passages in the Aeneid; but of these another, and perhaps a more plausible, explanation may be given. The hardest argument to meet is that drawn from the extraordinary imperfection of the plot, which mars the whole consistency of the poem; [20] but even this is not incompatible with Virgil's authorship. For all ancient testimony agrees in regarding the Culex of Virgil as a poem of little merit. [21] Amid the uncertainty which surrounds the subject, it seems best not to disturb the verdict of antiquity, until better grounds are discovered for assigning our present poem to a later hand. To us the evidence seems to point to the Virgilian authorship. The defect in the plot marks a fault to which Virgil certainly was prone, and which he never quite cast off. [22] The correspondences with the mythology, language, and rhythm of Virgil are just such as might be explained by supposing them to be his first opening conceptions on these points, which assumed afterwards a more developed form. [23] And this is the more probable because Virgil's mind created with labour, and cast and re-cast in the crucible of reflection ideas of which the first expression suggested itself in early life. Thus we find in the Aeneid similes which had occurred in a less finished form in the Georgics; in both Georgics and Aeneid phrases or cadences which seem to brood over and strive to reproduce half-forgotten originals wrought out long before. Nothing is more interesting in tracing Virgil's genius, than to note how each fullest development of his talent subsumes and embraces those that had gone before it; how his mind energises in a continuous mould, and seems to harp with almost jealous constancy on strings it has once touched. The deeper we study him, the more clearly is this feature seen. Unlike other poets who throw off their stanzas and rise as if freed from a load, Virgil seems to carry the accumulated burden of his creations about with him. He imitates himself with the same elaborate assimilation by which he digests and reproduces the thoughts of others.
It is probable that Virgil suppressed all his youthful poetry, and intended the Eclogues to be regarded as the first-fruits of his genius. [24] The pastoral had never yet been cultivated at Rome. Of all the products of later Greece none could vie with it in truth to nature. Its Sicilian origin bespoke a fresh inspiration, for it arose in a land where the muse of Hellas still lingered. Theocritus's vivid delineation of country scenes must have been full of charm to the Romans, and Virgil did well to try to naturalise it. Not even his matchless grace, however, could atone for the want of reality that pervades an imported type of art. Sicilian shepherds, Roman literati, sometimes under a rustic disguise, sometimes in their own person; a landscape drawn, now from the vales round Syracuse, now from the poet's own district round Mantua; playful contests between rural bards interspersed with panegyrics on Julius Caesar and the patrons or benefactors of the poet; a continual mingling of allegory with fiction, of genuine rusticity with assumed courtliness; such are the incongruities which lie on the very surface of the Eclogues. Add to these the continual imitations, sometimes sinning against the rules of scholarship, [25] which make them, with all their beauties, by far the least original of Virgil's works, the artificial character of the whole composition; and the absence of that lofty self-consciousness on the poet's part [26] which lends so much fire to his after works: and it may seem surprising that the Eclogues have been so much admired. But the fact is, their irresistible charm outweighs all the exceptions of criticism. While we read we become like Virgil's own shepherd; we cannot choose but surrender ourselves to the magic influence:
"Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta,
Quale sopor fessis in gramine, quale per herbam
Dulcis aquae saliente sitim restinguere rivo." [27]
This charm is due partly to the skill with which the poet has blended reality with allegory, fancy with feeling, partly to the exquisite language to which their music is attuned. The Latin language had now reached its critical period of growth, its splendid but transitory epoch of ripe perfection. Literature had arrived at that second stage of which Conington speaks, [28] when thought finds language no longer as before intractable and inadequate, but able to keep pace with and even assist her movements. Trains of reflection are easily awakened; a diction matured by reason and experience rivals the flexibility or sustains the weight of consecutive thought. It is now that an author's mind exhibits itself in its most concrete form, and that the power of style is first fully felt. But language still occupies its proper place as a means and not an end; the artist does not pay it homage for its own sake; this is reserved for the next period when the meridian is already past.
It has already been said that the Georgics were undertaken at the request of Maecenas. [29] From more than one passage in the Eclogues we should infer that Virgil was not altogether content with the light themes he was pursuing; that he had before his mind's eye dim visions of a great work which should give full scope to the powers he felt within him. But Virgil was deficient in self-reliance. He might have continued to trifle with bucolic poetry, had not Maecenas enlisted his muse in a practical object worthy of its greatness. This was the endeavour to rekindle the old love of husbandry which had been the nurse of Rome's virtue, and which was gradually dying out. To this object Virgil lent himself with enthusiasm. To feel that his art might be turned to some real good, that it might advance the welfare of the state, this idea acted on him like an inspiration. He was by early training well versed in the details of country life. And he determined that nothing which ardour or study could effect should be wanting to make his knowledge at once thorough and attractive. For seven years he wrought into their present artistic perfection the technical details of husbandry; a labour of love wrought out of study and experience, and directed, as Merivale well says, to the glorification of labour itself as the true end of man.
Virgil's treatment is partially adapted from the Alexandrines; but, as he himself says, his real model is Hesiod. [30] The combination of quaint sententiousness with deep enthusiasm, which he found in the old poet, met his conception of what a practical poem should be. And so, although the desultory maxims of the Works and Days give but a faint image of the comprehensive width and studied discursiveness of the Georgics, yet they present a much more real parallel to it than the learned trifling of Aratus or Nicander. For Virgil, like Lucretius, is no trifler: he uses verse as a serious vehicle for impressing his conviction; he acknowledges, so to say, the responsibility of his calling, [31] and writes in poetry because poetry is the clothing of his mind. Hence the Georgics must be ranked as a link in the chain of serious treatises on agriculture, of which Cato's is the first and Varro's the second, designed to win the nation back to the study and discipline of its youth. And that Columella so understood it is clear both from his defending his opinions by frequent quotation from it as a standard authority, and from his writing one book of his voluminous manual in verses imitated from Virgil. The almost religious fervour with which Virgil threw himself into the task of arresting the decay of Italian life, which is the dominant motive of the Aeneid, is present also in the Georgics. The pithy condensation of useful experience characteristic of Cato,
"Utiliumque sagax rerum et divina futuri
Sortilegis non discrepuit sententia Delphis," [32]
the fond antiquarianism of Varro, "laudator temporis acti," unite, with the newly-kindled hope of future glories to be achieved under Caesar's rule, to make the Georgics the most complete embodiment of Roman industrial views, as the Aeneid is of Roman theology and religion. [33] Virgil aims at combining the stream of poetical talent, which had come mostly from outside, [34] with the succession of prose compositions on practical subjects which had proceeded from the burgesses themselves. Cato and Varro are as continually before his mind as Ennius, Catullus, and Lucretius. A new era had arrived: the systematising of the results of the past he felt was committed to him. Of Virgil's works the Georgics is unquestionably the most artistic. Grasp of the subject, clearness of arrangement, evenness of style, are all at their highest excellence; the incongruities that criticism detects in the Eclogues, and the unrealities that often mar the Aeneid, are almost wholly absent. There is, however, one great artistic blemish, for which the poet's courage, not his taste, is to blame. We have already spoken of his affection for Gallus, celebrated in the most extravagant but yet the most ethereally beautiful of the Eclogues; [35] and this affection, unbroken by the disgrace and exile of its object, had received a yet more splendid tribute in the episode which closed the Georgics. Unhappily, the beauties of this episode, so honourable to the poet's constancy, are to us a theme for conjecture only; the narrow jealousy of Augustus would not suffer any honourable mention of one who had fallen under his displeasure; and, to his lasting disgrace, he ordered Virgil to erase his work. The poet weakly consented, and filled up the gap by the story, beautiful, it is true, but singularly inappropriate, of Aristacus and Orpheus and Eurydice. This epic sketch, Alexandrine in form but abounding in touches of the richest native genius, [36] must have revealed to Rome something of the loftiness of which Virgil's muse was capable. With a felicity and exuberance scarcely inferior to Ovid, it united a power of awakening feeling, a dreamy pathos and a sustained eloquence, which marked its author as the heir of Homer's lyre, "magnae spes altera Romae." [37]
In a work like this it would be obviously out of place to offer any minute criticism either upon the beauties or the difficulties of the Georgics. We shall conclude this short notice with one or two remarks on that love of nature in Latin poetry of which the Georgics are the most renowned example. Dunlop has called Virgil a landscape painter. [38] In so far as this implies a faithful and picturesque delineation of natural scenes, whether of movement or repose, [39] the criticism is a happy one: Virgil lingers over these with more affection than any previous writer. The absence of a strong feeling for the peaceful or the grand in nature has often been remarked as a shortcoming of the Greek mind, and it does not seem to have been innate even in the Italian. Alpine scenery suggested no associations but those of horror and desolation. Even the more attractive beauties of woods, rills, and flowers, were hailed rather as a grateful exchange from the turmoil of the city than from a sense of their intrinsic loveliness; it is the repose, the comfort, ease, in a word the body, not the spirit of nature that the Roman poets celebrate. [40] As a rule their own retirement was not spent amid really rustic scenes. The villas of the great were furnished with every means of making study or contemplation attractive. Rich gardens, cool porticoes, and the shade of planted trees were more to the poet's taste than the rugged stile or the village green. Their aspirations after rural simplicity spring from the weariness of city unrealities rather than from the necessity of being alone with nature. As a fact the poems of Virgil were not composed in a secluded country retreat, but in the splendid and fashionable vicinity of Naples. [41] The Lake of Avernus, the Sibyl's cave, and the other scenes so beautifully painted in the Aeneid are all near the spot. From his luxurious villa the poet could indulge his reverie on the simple rusticity of his ancestors or the landscapes famous in the scenery of Greek song. At such times his mind called up images of Greek legend that blended with his delineations of Italian peasant life: [42]
"O ubi campi
Spercheiosque, et virginibus bacchata Lacaenis
Taygeta; o qui me gelidis in vallibus Haemi
Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!"
The very name Tempe, given so often to shady vales, shows the mingled literary and aesthetic associations that entered into the love of rural ease and quiet. The deeper emotion peculiar to modern times, which struggles to find expression in the verse of Shelley or Wordsworth, in the canvass of Turner, in the life of restless travel, often a riddle so perplexing to those who cannot understand its source; the mysterious questionings which ask of nature not only what she says to us, but what she utters to herself; why it is that if she be our mother, she veils her face from her children, and will not use a language they can understand—
"Cur natum crudelis tu quoque falsis
Ludis imaginibus? Cur dextrae iungere dextram
Non datur, et veras audire et reddere voces?"
feelings like these which—though often but obscurely present, it would indeed be a superficial glance that did not read in much of modern thought, however unsatisfactory, in much of modern art, however imperfect —we can hardly trace, or, if at all, only as lightest ripples on the surface, scarcely ruffling the serene melancholy, deep indeed, but self- contained because unconscious of its depth, in which Virgil's poetry flows.
At what time of his life Virgil turned his thoughts to epic poetry is not known. Probably like most gifted poets he felt from his earliest years the ambition to write a heroic poem. He expresses this feeling in the Eclogues [43] more than once; Pollio's exploits seemed to him worthy of such a celebration. [44] In the Georgics he declares that he will wed Caesar's glories to an epic strain, [45] but though the emperor urged him to undertake the subject, which was besides in strict accordance with epic precedent, his mature judgment led him to reject it. [46] Like Milton, he seems to have revolved for many years the different themes that came to him, and, like him, to have at last chosen one which by mounting back into the distant past enabled him to indulge historical retrospect, and gather into one focus the entire subsequent development. As to his aptitude for epic poetry opinions differ. Niebuhr expresses the view of many great critics when he says, "Virgil is a remarkable instance of a man mistaking his vocation; his real calling was lyric poetry; his small lyric poems show that he would have been a poet like Catullus if he had not been led away by his desire to write a great Graeco-Latin poem." And Mommsen, by speaking of "successes like that of the Aeneid" evidently inclines towards the same view. It must be conceded that Virgil's genius lacked heroic fibre, invention, dramatic power. He had not an idea of "that stern joy that warriors feel," so necessary to one who would raise a martial strain. The passages we remember best are the very ones that are least heroic. The funeral games in honour of Anchises, the forlorn queen, the death of Nisus and Euryalus, owe all their charm to the sacrifice of the heroic to the sentimental. Had Virgil been able to keep rigidly to the lofty purpose with which he entered on his work, we should perhaps have lost the episodes which bring out his purest inspiration. So far as his original endowments went, his mind certainly was not cast in a heroic mould. But the counter-balancing qualifications must not be forgotten. He had an inextinguishable enthusiasm for his art, a heart
"Smit with the love of ancient song,"
a susceptibility to literary excellence never equalled, [47] and a spirit responsive to the faintest echo of the music of the ages. [48] The very faculties that bar his entrance into the circle of creative minds enable him to stand first among those epic poets who own a literary rather than an original inspiration. For in truth epic poetry is a name for two widely different classes of composition. The first comprehends those early legends and ballads which arise in a nation's vigorous youth, and embody the most cherished traditions of its gods and heroes and the long series of their wars and loves. Strictly native in its origin, such poetry is the spontaneous expression of a people's political and religious life. It may exist in scattered fragments bound together only by unity of sentiment and poetic inspiration: or it may be welded into a whole by the genius of some heroic bard. But it can only arise in that early period of a nation's history when political combination is as yet imperfect, and scientific knowledge has not begun to mark off the domain of historic fact from the cloudland of fancy and legend. Of this class are the Homeric poems, the Nibelungen Lied, the Norse ballads, the Edda, the Kalewâla, the legends of Arthur, and the poem of the Cid: all these, whatever their differences, have this in common, that they sprang at a remote period out of the earliest traditions of the several peoples, and neither did nor could have originated in a state of advanced civilization. It is far otherwise with the other sort of epics. These are composed amid the complex influences of a highly developed political life. They are the fruit of conscious thought reflecting on the story before it and seeking to unfold its results according to the systematic rules of art. The stage has been reached which discerns fact from fable; the myths which to an earlier age seemed the highest embodiment of truth, are now mere graceful ornaments, or at most faint images of hidden realities. The state has asserted its dominion over man's activity; science, sacred and profane, has given its stores to enrich his mind; philosophy has led him to meditate on his place in the system of things. To write an enduring epic a poet must not merely recount heroic deeds, but must weave into the recital all the tangled threads which bind together the grave and varied interests of civilized man.
It is the glory of Virgil that alone with Dante and Milton he has achieved this; that he stands forth as the expression of an epoch, of a nation. That obedience to sovereign law, [49] which is the chief burden of the Aeneid, stands out among the diverse elements of Roman life as specially prominent, just as faith in the Church's doctrine is the burden of Mediaevalism as expressed in Dante, and as justification of God's dealings, as given in Scripture, forms the lesson of Paradise Lost, making it the best poetical representative of Protestant thought. None of Virgil's predecessors understood the conditions under which epic greatness was possible. His successors, in spite of his example, understood them still less. It has been said that no events are of themselves unsuited for epic treatment, simply because they are modern or historical. [50] This may be true; and yet, where is the poet that has succeeded in them? The early Roman poets were patriotic men; they chose for subjects the annals of Rome, which they celebrated in noble though unskilled verse. Naevius. Ennius, Accius, Hostius, Bibaculus, and Varius before Virgil, Lucan and Silius after him, treated national subjects, some of great antiquity, some almost contemporaneous. But they failed, as Voltaire failed, because historical events are not by themselves the natural subjects of heroic verse. Tasso chose a theme where history and romance were so blended as to admit of successful epic treatment; but such conditions are rare. Few would hesitate to prefer the histories of Herodotus and Livy to any poetical account whatever of the Persian and Punic wars; and in such preference they would be guided by a true principle, for the domain of history borders on and overlaps, but does not coincide with, that of poetry.
The perception of this truth has led many, epic poets to err in the opposite extreme. They have left the region of truth altogether, and confined themselves to pure fancy or legend. This error is less serious than the first; for not only are legendary subjects well adapted for epic treatment, but they may be made the natural vehicle of deep or noble thought. The Orlando Furioso and the Faery Queen are examples of this. But more often the poet either uses his subject as a means for exhibiting his learning or style, as Statius, Cinna, and the Alexandrines; or loses sight of the deeper meaning altogether, and merely reproduces the beauty of the ancient myths without reference to their ideal truth, as was done by Ovid, and recently by Mr. Morris, with brilliant success, in his Earthly Paradise. This poem, like the Metamorphoses, does not claim to be a national epic, but both, by their vivid realization of a mythology which can never lose its charm, hold a legitimate place among the offshoots of epic song.
Virgil has overcome the difficulties and joined the best results of both these imperfect forms. By adopting the legend of Aeneas, which, since the Punic wars, had established itself as one of the firmest national beliefs, [51] he was enabled without sacrificing reality to employ the resources of Homeric art; by tracing directly to that legend the glorious development of Roman life and Roman dominion, he has become the poet of his nation's history, and through it, of the whole ancient world.
The elements which enter into the plan of the Aeneid are so numerous as to have caused very different conceptions of its scope and meaning. Some have regarded it as the sequel and counterpart of the Iliad, in which Troy triumphs over her ancient foe, and Greece acknowledges the divine Nemesis. That this conception was present to the poet is clear from many passages in which he reminds Greece that she is under Rome's dominion, and contrasts the heroes or achievements of the two nations. [52] But it is by no means sufficient to explain the whole poem, and indeed is in contradiction to its inner spirit. For in the eleventh Aeneid [53] Diomed declares that after Troy was taken he desires to have no more war with the Trojan race; and in harmony with this thought Virgil conceives of the two nations under Rome's supremacy as working together by law, art, and science, to advance the human race. [54] Roman talent has made her own all that Greek genius created, and fate has willed that neither race should be complete without the other. The germs of this fine thought are found in the historian Polybius, who dwelt on the grandeur of such a joint influence, and perhaps through his intercourse with the Scipionic circle, gave the idea currency. It is therefore rather the final reconciliation than the continued antagonism that the Aeneid celebrates, though of course national pride dwells on the striking change of relations that time had brought.
Another view of the Aeneid makes it centre in Augustus. Aeneas then becomes a type of the emperor, whose calm calculating courage was equalled by his piety to the gods, and care for public morals. Turnus represents Antony, whose turbulent vehemence (violentia) [55] mixed with generosity and real valour, makes us lament, while we accept his fate. Dido is the Egyptian queen whose arts fell harmless on Augustus's cold reserve, and whose resolve to die eluded his vigilance. Drances, [56] the brilliant orator whose hand was slow to wield the sword, is a study from Cicero; and so the other less important characters have historical prototypes. But there is even less to be said for this view than for the other. It is altogether too narrow, and cannot be made to correspond with, the facts of history, nor do the characters on a close inspection resemble their supposed originals. [57] Beyond doubt the stirring scenes Virgil had as a young man witnessed, suggested points which he has embodied in the story, but the Greek maxim that "poetry deals with universal truth," [58] must have been rightly understood by him to exclude all such dressing-up of historical facts.
There remains the view to which many critics have lent their support, that the Aeneid celebrates the triumph of law and civilization over the savage instincts of man; and that because Rome had proved the most complete civilizing power, therefore it is to her greatness that everything in the poem conspires. This view has the merit of being in every way worthy of Virgil. No loftier conception could guide his verse through the long labyrinth of legend, history, religious and antiquarian lore, in which for ten years of patient study his muse sought inspiration. Still it seems somewhat too philosophical to have been by itself his animating principle. It is true, patriotism had enlarged its basis; the city of Rome was already the world, [59] and the growth of Rome was the growth of human progress. Hence the muse, while celebrating the imperial state, transcends in thought the limits of space and time, and swells, as it were, the great hymn of humanity. But this represents rather the utmost reach of the poet's flight after he has thrown himself into the empyrean than the original definitely conceived goal on which he fixed his mind. We should supplement this view by another held by Macrobius and many Latin critics, and of which Mr. Nettleship, in a recent admirable pamphlet [60] recognises the justice, viz. that the Aeneid was written with a religious object, and must be regarded mainly as a religious poem. Its burning patriotism glows with a religious light. Its hero is "religious" (pius), not "beautiful" or "brave." [61] At the sacrifice even of poetical effect his religious dependence on the gods is brought into prominence. The action of the whole poem hinges on the Divine will, which, is not as in Homer, a mere counterpart of the human, far less is represented as in conflict with resistless destiny, but, cognizant of fate and in perfect union with it, as overruling all lower impulses, divine or human, towards the realization of the appointed end. This Divine Power is Jupiter, whom in the Aeneid he calls by this name as a concession to conventional beliefs, but in the Georgics prefers to leave nameless, symbolised under the title Father. [62] Jupiter is not the Author, but he is the Interpreter and Champion of Destiny (Fata), which lies buried in the realm of the unknown, except so far as the father of the gods pleases to reveal it. [63] Deities of sufficient power or resource may defer but cannot prevent its accomplishment. Juno is represented doing this—the idea is of course from Homer. But Jupiter does not desire to change destiny, even if he could, though he feels compassion at its decrees (e.g. at the death of Turnus). The power of the Divine fiat to overrule human equity is shown by the death of Turnus who has right, and of Dido who has the lesser wrong, on her side. Thus punishment is severed from desert, and loses its higher meaning; the instinct of justice is lost in the assertion of divine power; and while in details the religion of the Aeneid is often pure and noble, its ultimate conceptions of the relation of the human and divine are certainly no advance on those of Homer. The verdict of one who reads the poem from this point of view will surely be that of Sellar, who denies that it enlightens the human conscience. Every form of the doctrine that might is right, however skilfully veiled, as it is in the Aeneid by a thousand beautiful intermediaries, must be classed among the crude and uncreative theories which mark an only half-reflecting people. But when we pass from the philosophy of religion to the particular manifestation of it as a national worship, we find Virgil at his greatest, and worthy to hold the position he held with later ages as the most authoritative expounder of the Roman ritual and creed. [64] He shared the palm of learning with Varro, and sympathy inclined towards the poet rather than the antiquarian. The Aeneid is literally filled with memorials of the old religion. The glory of Aeneas is to have brought with him the Trojan gods, and through perils of every kind to have guarded his faith in them, and scrupulously preserved their worship. It is not the Trojan race as such that the Romans could look back to with pride as ancestors; they are the bis capti Phryges, who are but heaven-sent instruments for consecrating the Latin race to the mission for which it is prepared. "Occidit" says Juno, "occideritque sinas cum nomine Troja:" [65] and Aeneas states the object of his proposal in these words—
"Sacra deosque dabo; socer arma Latinas habeto." [66]
This then being the lofty origin, the immemorial antiquity of the national faith, the moral is easily drawn, that Rome must never cease to observe it. The rites to import which into the favoured land cost heaven itself so fierce a struggle, which have raised that land to be the head of all the earth, must not be neglected now that their promise has been fulfilled. Each ceremony embodies some glorious reminiscence; each minute technicality enshrines some special national blessing.
Here, as in the Georgics, Cato and Varro live in Virgil, but with far less of narrow literalness, with far more of rich enthusiasm. We can well believe that the Aeneid was a poem after Augustus's heart, that he welcomed with pride as well as gladness the instalments which, before its publication, he was permitted to see, [67] and encouraged by unreserved approbation so thorough an exponent of his cherished views. To him the Aeneid breathed the spirit of the old cult. Its very style, like that of Milton from the Bible, was borrowed in countless instances from the Sacred Manuals. When Aeneas offers to the gods four prime oxen (eximios tauros) the pious Roman recognised the words of the ritual. [68] When the nymph Cymodoce rouses Aeneas to be on his guard against danger with the words "Vigilas ne deum gens? Aenea, vigila!" [69] she recalls the imposing ceremony by which, immediately before a war was begun, the general struck with his lance the sacred shields, calling on the god "Mars, vigila!" These and a thousand other allusions caused many of the later commentators to regard Aeneas as an impersonation of the pontificate. This is an error analogous to, but worse than, that which makes him represent Augustus; he is a poetical creation, imperfect no doubt, but still not to be tied to any single definition.
Passing from the religious to the moral aspect of the Aeneid, we find a gentleness beaming through it, strangely contradicted by some of the bloody episodes, which out of deference to Homeric precedent Virgil interweaves. Such are the human sacrifices, the ferocious taunts at fallen enemies, and other instances of boasting or cruelty which will occur to every reader, greatly marring the artistic as well as the moral effect of the hero. Tame as he generally is, a resigned instrument in the divine hands, there are moments when Aeneas is truly attractive. As Conington says, his kindly interest in the young shown in Book V. is a beautiful trait that is all Virgil's own. His happy interview with Evander, where, throwing off the monarch, he chats like a Roman burgess in his country house; his pity for young Lausus whom he slays, and the mournful tribute of affection he pays to Pallas, are touching scenes, which without presenting Aeneas as a hero (which he never is), harmonise far better with the ideal Virgil meant to leave us. But after all said, that ideal is a poor one for purposes of poetry. Aeneas is uninteresting, and this is the great fault of the poem. Turnus enlists our sympathy far more, he is chivalrous and valiant; the wrong he suffers does not harden him, but he lacks strength of character. The only personage who is "proudly conceived" [70] is Mezentius, the despiser of the gods. The absence of restraint seems to have given the poet a more masculine touch; the address of the old king to his horse, his only friend, is full of pathos. Among female characters Camilla is perhaps original; she is graceful without being pleasing. Amata and Juturna belong to the class virago, a term applied to the latter by Virgil himself. [71] Lavinia is the modest maiden, a sketch, not a portrait. Dido is a character for all time, the chef d'oeuvre of the Aeneid. Among the stately ladies of the imperial house —a Livia, a Scribonia, an Octavia, perhaps a Julia—Virgil must have found the elements which he has fused with such mighty power, [72] the rich beauty, the fierce passion, the fixed resolve. Dido is his greatest effort: and yet she is not an individual living woman like Helen or Ophelia. Like Racine, Virgil has developed passions, not created persons. The divine gift of tender, almost Christian, feeling that is his, cannot see into those depths where the inner personality lies hidden. Among the traditional characters few call for remark. The gods maintain on the whole their Homeric attributes, only hardened by time and by a Roman moulding. Venus is, however, touched with magic skill; it may be questioned whether words ever carried such suggestions of surpassing beauty as those in which, twice in the poem, her mystic form [73] is veiled rather than pourtrayed. The characters of Ulysses and Helen bear the debased, unheroic stamp of the later Greek drama; the last spark of goodness has left them, and even his careful study of Homer, seems to have had no effect in opening the poet's eyes to the gross falsification. Where Virgil did not feel obliged to create, he was to the last degree conventional.
A most interesting feature in the Aeneid—and with it we conclude our sketch—is its incorporation of all that was best in preceding poetry. All Roman poets had imitated, but Virgil carried imitation to an extent hitherto unknown. Not only Greek but Latin writers are laid under contribution in every page. Some idea of his indebtedness to Homer may be formed from Conington's commentary. Sophocles and the other tragedians, Apollonius Rhodius and the Alexandrines are continually imitated, and almost always improved upon. And still more is this the case with his adaptations from Naevius, Ennius, Lucretius, Hostius, Furius, &c. whose works he had thoroughly mastered, and stored in his memory their most striking rhythms or expressions. [74] Massive lines from Ennius, which as a rule he has spared to touch, leaving them in all their rugged grandeur planted in the garden of his verse, to point back like giant trees to the time when that garden was a forest, bear witness at once to his reverence for the old bard and to his own wondrous art. It is not merely for literary effect that the old poets are transferred into his pages. A nobler motive swayed him. The Aeneid was meant to be, above all things, a National Poem, carrying on the lines of thought, the style of speech, which National Progress had chosen; it was not meant to eclipse so much us to do honour to the early literature. Thus those bards who like Naevius and Ennius had done good service to Rome by singing, however rudely, her history, find their Imagines ranged in the gallery of the Aeneid. There they meet with the flamens and pontiffs unknown and unnamed, who drew up the ritual formularies, with the antiquarians and pious scholars who had sought to find a meaning in the immemorial names, [75] whether of places or customs or persons; with the magistrates, moralists, and philosophers, who had striven to ennoble or enlighten Roman virtue; with the Greek singers and sages, for they too had helped to rear the towering fabric of Roman greatness. All these meet together in the Aeneid as if in solemn conclave, to review their joint work, to acknowledge its final completion, and predict its impending fall. This is beyond question the explanation of the wholesale appropriation of others' thought and language, which otherwise would be sheer plagiarism. With that tenacious sense of national continuity which had given the senate a policy for centuries, Virgil regards Roman literature as a gradually expanded whole; coming at the close of its first epoch, he sums up its results and enters into its labours. So far from hesitating whether to imitate, he rather hesitated whom not to include, if only by a single reference, in his mosaic of all that had entered into the history of Rome. His archaism is but another side of the same thing. Whether it takes the form of archaeological discussion, [76] of antiquarian allusion, [77] of a mode of narration which recalls the ancient source, [78] or of obsolete expressions, forms of inflection, or poetical ornament, [79] we feel that it is a sign of the poet's reverence for what was at once national and old. The structure of his verse, while full of music, often reminds us of the earlier writers. It certainly has more affinity with that of Lucretius than with that of Lucan. A learned Roman reading the Aeneid would feel his mind stirred by a thousand patriotic associations. The quaint old laws, the maxims and religious formulae he had learnt in childhood would mingle with the richest poetry of Greece and Rome in a stream flowing evenly, and as it would seem, from a single spring; and he who by his art had effected this wondrous union would seem to him the prophet as well as the poet of the era. That art, in spite of its occasional lapses, for we must not forget the work was unfinished, is the most perfect the world has yet seen. The poet's exquisite sense of beauty, the sonorous language he wielded, the noble rivalry of kindred spirits great enough to stimulate but not to daunt him, and the consciousness of living in a new time big with triumphs, as he fondly hoped, for the useful and the good, all united to make Virgil not only the fairest flower of Roman literature, but as the master of Dante, the beloved of all gentle hearts, and the most widely- read poet of any age, to render him an influential contributor to some of the deepest convictions of the modern world.
Note I.—Imitations of Virgil in Propertius, Ovid, and Manilius.
The prestige of Virgil made him a subject for imitation even during his lifetime. Just as Carlyle, Tennyson, and other vigorous writers soon create a school, so Virgil stamped the poetical dialect for centuries. But he offered two elements for imitation, the declamatory or rhetorical, which is most prominent in his speeches, and in the second and sixth books; and detached passages showing descriptive imagery, touches of pathos, similes, &c. These last might he imitated without at all unduly influencing the individuality of the imitator's style. In this way Ovid is a great imitator of Virgil; so to a less extent are Propertius, Manilius, and Lucan. Statius and Silius base their whole poetical art on him, and therefore particular instances of imitation throw no additional light on their style. We shall here notice a few of the points in which the Augustan poets copied him:—
(1) In Facts.—Beside the great number of early historical points on which he was followed implicitly, we find even his errors imitated, e.g. the confusion which perhaps in Virgil is only apparent between Pharsalia and Philippi, has, as Merivale remarks, been adopted by Propertius (iv. 10,40), Ovid (M. xv, 824), Manilius (i. 906), Lucan (vii. 854), and Juvenal (viii. 242); not so much from ignorance of the locality as out of deference to Virgilian precedent. The lines may be quoted—Virgil (G. i. 489), Ergo inter se paribus concurrere telis Romanas acies iterum videre Philippi; Propertius, Una Philippeo sanguine inusta nota; Ovid, Emathiaque iterum madefient caede Philippi; Manilius, Arma Philippeos implerunt sanguine campos. Vixque etiam sicca miles Romanus arena Ossa virum lacerosque prius superastitit artus; Lucan, Scelerique secundo Praestatis nondum siccos hoc sanguine campos; Juvenal, Thessaliae campis Octavius abstulit … famam…. This is analogous to the way in which the satirists use the names consecrated by Lucilius or Horace as types of a vice, and repeat the same symptoms ad nauseam, e.g. the miser who anoints his body with train oil, who locks up his leavings, who picks up a farthing from the road, &c. The veiled allusion to the poet Anser (Ecl. ix. 36) is perhaps recalled by Prop. iii. 32, 83, sqq. So the portents described by Virgil as following on the death of Caesar are told again by Manilius at the end of Bk. I. and referred to by Lucan (Phars. i.) and Ovid. Again, the confusion between Inarime and ein Arimois, into which Virgil falls, is borrowed by Lucan (Phars. v. 101).
(2) In Metre.—As regards metre, Ovid in the Metamorphoses is nearest to him, but differs in several points, He imitates him—(a) in not admitting words of four or more syllables, except very rarely, at the end of the line; (b) in rhythms like vulnificus sus (viii. 358), and the not unfrequent spondetazontes; (c) in keeping to the two caesuras as finally established by him, and avoiding beginnings like scilicet omnibus | est, &c. In all these points Manilius is a little less strict than Ovid, e.g. (i. 35) et veneranda, (iii. 130) sic breviantur, (ii. 716) altribuuntur. He also follows Virgil in alliteration, which Ovid does not. They differ from Virgil in—(a) a much more sparing employment of elision. The reason of this is that elision marks the period of living growth; as soon as the language had become crystallised, each letter had its fixed force, the caprices of common pronunciation no longer influencing it; and although no correct writer places the unelided m before a vowel, yet the great rarity of elision not only of m but of long and even short vowels (except que) shows that the main object was to avoid it, if possible. The great frequency of elision in Virgil must be regarded as an archaism. (b) In a much lesser variety of rhythm. This is, perhaps, rather an artistic defect, but it is designed. Manilius, however, has verses which Virgil avoids, e.g. Delcetique sacerdotes (i. 47), probably as a reminiscence of Lucretius.
Imitations in language are very frequent. Propertius gives ah pereat! qui (i. 17, 13), from the Copa. Again, Sit licet et saxo patientior illa Sicano (i. 16, 29), from the Cyclopia saxa of Aeneid, i. 201; cum tamen (i. 1, 8) with the indic. as twice in Virgil; Umbria me genuit (i. 23, 9), perhaps from the Mantua me genuit of Virgil's epitaph. These might easily be added to. Ovid in the Metamorphoses has a vast number of imitations of which we select the most striking; Plebs habitat diversa locis (i. 193); Navigat, hic summa, &c. (i. 296); cf. Naviget, haec summa est, in the 4th Aeneid; similisque roganti (iii. 240), amarunt me quoque Nymphae (iii. 454); Arma manusque meae, mea, nate, potentia, dixit (v. 365); Heu quantum haec Niobe Niobe distabat ab illa (vi. 273); leti discrimine parvo (vi. 426); per nostri foedera lecti, perque deos supplex oro superosque neosque, Per si quid merui de te bene (vii. 852); maiorque videri (ix. 269). These striking resemblances, which are selected from hundreds of others, show how carefully he had studied him. Of all other poets I have noticed but two or three imitations in him, e.g. multi illum pueri, multae cupiere puellae (iii. 383), from Catullus; et merito, quid enim…? (ix. 585) from Propertius (i. 17). Manilius also imitates Virgil's language, e.g. acuit mortalia corda (i. 79), Acherunta movere (i. 93), molli cervice reflexus (i. 334), and his sentiments in omnia conando docilis solertia vicit (i. 95), compared with labor omnia vicit improbus: invictamque sub Hectore Troiam (i. 766), with decumum quos distulit Hector in annum of the Aeneid; cf. also iv. 122, and litora litoribus regnis contraria regna (iv. 814); cf. also iv. 28, 37.
NOTE II.—On the shortening of final o in Latin poetry.
The fact that in Latin the accent was generally thrown back caused a strong tendency to shorten long final vowels. The one that resisted this tendency best was o, but this gradually became shortened as poetry advanced, and is one of the very few instances of a departure from the standard of quantity as determined by Ennius. There is one instance even in him: Horrida Romuleum certamina pango duellum. The words ego and modo, which from their frequent use are often shortened in the comedians, are generally long in Ennius; Lucretius uses them as common, but retains homo, which after him does not appear. Catullus has one short o, Virro (89, 1), but this is a proper name. Virgil has sci0 (Aen. iii. 602), but ego, homo, when in the arsis, are always elided, e.g. Pulsus ego? aut; Graius homo, infectos. Spondeo which used to be read (Aen. ix, 294), is now changed to sponde. Pollio is elided by Virgil, shortened by Horace (O. II. i. 14). He also has mentio and dixero in the Satires (I. iv. 93, 104). A line by Maecenas, quoted in Suetonius, has diligo. Ovid has cito, puto (Am. iii. vii. 2), but only in such short words; in nouns, Naso often, origo, virgo, once each. Tibullus and Propertius are stricter in this respect, though Propertius has findo (iii. or iv. 8 or 9, 35); Manilius has leo, Virgo (i. 266), Lucan Virgo (ii. 329), pulmo (iii. 644), and a few others. Gratius first gives the imperative reponito (Cyn. 56); Calpurnius, in the the time of Nero, the false quantities quando ambo, the latter (ix. 17) perhaps in a spurious eclogue; so expecto. In Statius no new licenses appear. Juvenal, however, gives vigilando (iii. 232), an improper quantity repeated by Seneca (Tro. 264) vincendo, Nemesianus (viii. 53) mulcendo, (ix. 80), laudano. Juvenal gives also sumito, octo, ergo. The dat. and abl. sing. are the only terminations that were not affected. We see the gradual deterioration of quantity, and are not surprised that even before the time of Claudian a strict knowledge of it was confined to the most learned poets.
NOTE III.—On parallelism in Virgil's poetry.
There is a very frequent feature in Virgil's poetry which we may compare to the parallelism well known as the chief characteristic of Hebrew verse. In that language the poet takes a thought and either repeats it, or varies it, or explains it, or gives its antithesis in a corresponding clause, as evenly as may be balancing the first. As examples we may take—
(1) A mere iteration:
"Why do the nations so furiously rage together?
And why do the people imagine a vain thing?"
(2) Contrast:
"A wise son maketh a glad father:
But a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother."
This somewhat rude idea of ornament is drawn no doubt from the simplest attempts to speak with passion or emphasis, which naturally turned to iteration or repetition as the obvious means of gaining the effect. Roman poetry, as we have already said, rests upon a primitive and rude basis, the Greek methods of composition being applied to an art arrested before its growth was complete. The fondness for repetition is very prominent. Phrases like somno gravidi vinoque sepulti; indu foro lato, sanctoque senatu, occur commonly in Ennius; and the trick of composition of which they are the simplest instances, is perpetuated throughout Roman poetry. It is in reality rather rhetorical than poetical, and abounds in Cicero. It scarcely occurs in Greek poetry, but is very common in Virgil, e.g. :
"Ambo florentes aetatibus, Arcades ambo,
Et cantare pares, et respondere parati."
Similar to this is the introduction of corresponding clauses by the same initial word, e.g. ille (Ecl. i. 17):
"Namque erit ille mihi semper deus: illius aram
Saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.
Ille meas errare boves…"
Instances of this construction will occur to every reader. Frequently the first half of the hexameter expresses a thought obscurely which is expressed clearly in the latter half, or vice versa, e.g. (G. iv. 103):
"At quum incerta volant, caeloque examina ludunt."
Again (Aen. iv. 368):
"Nam quid dissimulo, aut quae me ad maiora reservo?"
at times this parallelism is very useful as helping us to find out the poet's meaning, e.g. (Aen. ii. 121):
"Cui fata parent, quem poseat Apollo."
Here interpretations vary between fata, n. to parent, and acc. after it. But the parallelism decides at once in favour of the former "for whom the fates are making preparations; whom Apollo demands." To take another instance (Aen. i. 395):
"Nunc terras ordine longo
Aut capere, aut captas, iam despectare videntur."
This passage is explained by its parallelism with another a little further on (v. 400):
"Puppesque tuae plebesque tuorum
Aut portum tenet aut pleno subit ostia velo."
Here the word capere is fixed to mean "settling on the ground" by the words portum tenet. Once more in Aen. xii. 725:
"Quem damnet labor, aut quo vergat pondere letum,"
the difficulty is solved both by the iteration in the line itself, by which damnet labor = vergat letum; and also by its close parallelism with another (v. 717), which is meant to illustrate it:
"Mussantque iuvencae
Quis nemori imperitet quem tota armenta sequantur."
This feature in Virgil's verse, which might be illustrated at far greater length, reappears under another form in the Ovidian elegiac. There the pentameter answers to the second half of Virgil's hexameter verse, and rings the changes on the line that has preceded in a very similar way. A literature which loves the balanced clauses of rhetoric will be sure to have something analogous. Our own heroic couplet is a case in point. So perhaps is the invention of rhyme which tends to confine the thought within the oscillating limits of a refrain, and that of the stanza, which shows the same process in a much higher stage of complexity.
NOTE IV.—On the Legends connected with Virgil.
Side by side with the historical account of this poet is a mythical one which, even within the early post-classical period, began to gain credence. The reasons of it are to be sought not so much in his poetical genius as in the almost ascetic purity of his life, which surrounded him with a halo of mysterious sanctity. Prodigies are said, in the lives that have come down to us, to have happened at his birth; his mother dreamt she gave birth to a laurel-branch, which grew apace until it filled the country. A poplar planted at his birth suddenly grew into a stately tree. The infant never cried, and was noted for the preternatural sweetness of its temper. When at Naples he is said to have studied medicine, and cured Augustus's horses of a severe ailment. Augustus ordered him a daily allowance of bread, which was doubled on a second instance of his chirurgical knowledge, and trebled on his detecting the true ancestry of a rare Spanish hound! Credited with supernatural knowledge, though he never pretended to it, he was consulted privately by Augustus as to his own legitimacy. By the cautious dexterity of his answer, he so pleased the emperor that he at once recommended him to Pollio as a person to be well rewarded. The mixture of fable and history here is easily observed. The custom of making pilgrimages to his tomb, and in the case of Silius Italicus (and doubtless others too), of honouring it with sacrifices, seems to have produced the belief that he was a great magician. Even as early as Hadrian the Sortes Virgilianae were consulted from an idea that there was a sanctity about the pages of his book; and, as is well known, this superstitious custom was continued until comparatively modern times.
Meanwhile plays were represented from his works, and amid the general decay of all clear knowledge a confused idea sprung up that these stories were inspired by supernatural wisdom. The supposed connection of the fourth Eclogue with the Sibylline Books, and through them, with the sacred wisdom of the Hebrews, of course placed Virgil on a different level from other heathens. The old hymn, "Dies irae dies illa Solvet saeclum cum favilla Teste David cum Sibylla," shows that as early as the eighth century the Sibyl was well established as one of the prophetic witnesses; and the poet, from the indulgence of an obscure style, reaped the great reward of being regarded almost as a saint for several centuries of Christendom. Dante calls him Virtu summa, just as ages before Justinian had spoken of Homer as pater omnis virtutis. But before Dante's time the real Virgil had been completely lost in the ideal and mystic poet whose works were regarded as wholly allegorical.
The conception of Virgil as a magician as distinct from an inspired sage is no doubt a popular one independent of literature, and had originally a local origin near Naples where his tomb was. Foreign visitors disseminated the legend, adding striking features, which in time developed almost an entire literature.
In the Otia Imperialia of Gervasius of Tilbury, we see this belief in formation; the main point in that work is that he is the protector of Naples, defending it by various contrivances from war or pestilence. He was familiarly spoken of among the Neapolitans as Parthenias, in allusion to his chastity. It was probably in the thirteenth century that the connection of Virgil with the Sibyl was first systematically taught, and the legends connected with him collected into one focus. They will be found treated fully in Professor Comparetti's work. We append here a very short passage from the Gesta Romanorum (p. 590), showing the necromantic character which surrounded him:—
"Refert Alexander Philosophus de natura rerum, quod Vergilius in civitate Romana nobile construxit palatium, in cuius medio palatii stabat imago, quae Dea Romana vocabatur. Tenebat enim pomum aureum in manu sua. Per circulum palatii erant imagines cuiuslibet regionis, quae subiectae erant Romano imperio, et quaelibet imago campanam ligneam in manu sua habebat. Cum vero aliqua regio nitebatur Romanis insidias aliquas imponere, statim imago eiusdem regionis campanam suam pulsavit, et miles exivit in equo aeneo in summitate predicti palatii, hastam vibravit, et predictam regionem inspexit. Et ab instanti Romani hoc videntes se armaverunt et predictam regionem expugnaverunt.
"Ista civitas est Corpus Humanum: quinque portae sunt quinque Sensus:
Palatium est Anima rationalis, et aureum pomum Similitudo cum Deo. Tria
regna inimica sunt Caro, Mundus, Diabolus, et eius imago Cupiditas,
Voluptas, Superbia."
The above is a good instance both of the supernatural powers attributed to the poet, and the supernatural interpretation put upon his supposed exercise of them. This curious mythology lasted throughout the fourteenth century, was vehemently opposed in the fifteenth by the partisans of enlightened learning, and had not quite died out by the middle of the sixteenth.
If Virgil is the most representative, Horace is the most original poet of Rome. This great and varied genius, whose exquisite taste and deep knowledge of the world have made him the chosen companion of many a great soldier and statesman, suggesting as he does reflections neither too ideal nor too exclusively literary for men of affairs, was born at or near Venusia, on the borders of Lucania and Apulia, December 8, 65 B.C. [1] His father was a freedman of the Horatia gens, [2] but set free before the poet's birth. [3] We infer that he was a tax-gatherer, or perhaps a collector of payments at auctions; for the word coactor, [4] which Horace uses, is of wide application. At any rate his means sufficed to purchase a small farm, where the poet passed his childhood. Horace was able to look back to this time with fond and even proud reminiscences, for he relates how prodigies marked him even in infancy as a special favourite of the gods. [5] At the age of twelve he was brought by his father to Rome and placed under the care of the celebrated Orbilius Pupillus. [6] The poet's filial feeling has left us a beautiful testimony to his father's affectionate interest in his studies. The good man, proud of his son's talent, but fearing the corruptions of the city, accompanied him every day to school, and consigned him in person to his preceptor's charge, [7] a duty usually left to slaves called paedagogi, who appear to have borne no high character for honesty, [8] and at best did nothing to improve those of whom they had the care. From the shrewd counsels of his father, who taught by instances not by maxims, [9] and by his own strict example, Horace imbibed that habit of keen observation and that genial view of life which distinguish him above all other satirists. He also learnt the caution which enabled him to steer his course among rocks and shoals that would have wrecked a novice, and to assert his independence of action with success even against the emperor himself.
The life of Horace is so well known that it is needless to retrace it here. We shall do no more than summarise the few leading events in it, alluding more particularly to those only which affect his literary position. After completing his education so far in the capital, he went for a time, as was customary, to study philosophy at Athens. [10] While he was there the death of Caesar and the events which followed roused the fierce party spirit that had uneasily slumbered. Horace, then twenty-two years of age, was offered a command by Brutus on his way to Macedonia, which he accepted, [11] and apparently must have seen some hard service. [12] He shared the defeat of the Republicans at Philippi, [13] and as the territory of Venusium, like that of Cremona, was selected to be parcelled out among the soldiery, Horace was deprived of his paternal estate, [14] a fact from which we learn incidentally that his father was now dead.
Thrown upon his own resources, he sought and obtained permission to come to Rome, where he obtained some small post as a notary [15] attached to the quaestors. Poverty drove him to verse-making, [16] but of what kind we do not certainly know. Probably epodes and satires were the first fruits of his pen, though some scholars ascribe certain of the Odes (e.g. i. 14) to this period. About this time he made the acquaintance of Virgil, which ripened at least on Horace's part into warm affection. Virgil and Varius introduced him to Maecenas, [17] who received the bashful poet with distant hauteur, and did not again send for him until nine months had elapsed. Slow to make up his mind, but prompt to act when his decision was once taken, Maecenas then called for Horace, and in the poet's words bade him be reckoned among his friends; [18] and very shortly afterwards we find them travelling together to Brundisium on a footing of familiar intimacy (39 B.C.). This circumspection of Maecenas was only natural, for Horace was of a very different stamp from Varius and Virgil, who were warm admirers of Octavius. Horace, though at first a Platonist, [19] then an Epicurean, [20] then an Eclectic, was always somewhat of a "free lance." [21] His mind was of that independent mould which can never be got to accept on anybody's authority the solution of problems which interest it. Even when reason convinced him that imperialism, if not good in itself, was the least of all possible evils, ho did not become a hearty partisan; he maintained from first to last a more or less critical attitude. Thus Maecenas may have heard of his literary promise, of his high character, without much concern. It was the paramount importance of enlisting so able a man on his own side that weighed with the shrewd statesman. For Horace, with the recklessness that poverty inspires, had shown a disposition to attack those in power. It is generally thought that Maecenas himself is ridiculed under the name Malthinus. [22] It is nevertheless clear that when he knew Maecenas he not only formed a high opinion of his character and talent, but felt a deep affection for him, which expresses itself in the generous language of an equal friend, with great respect, indeed, but totally without unworthy complaisance. The minister of monarchy might without inconsistency gain his goodwill; with the monarch it was a different matter. For many years Horace held aloof from Augustus. He made no application to him; he addressed to him no panegyric. Until the year 29, when the Temple of Janus was closed, he showed no approval of his measures. All his laudatory odes were written after that event. He indeed permitted the emperor to make advances to him, to invite him to his table, and maintain a friendly correspondence. But he refused the office of secretary which Augustus pressed upon him. He scrupulously abstained from pressing his claims of intimacy, as the emperor wished him to do; and at last he drew forth from him the remorseful expostulation, "Why is it that you avoid addressing me of all men in your poems? Is it that you are afraid posterity will think the worse of you for having been a friend of mine?" [23]
This appeal elicited from the poet that excellent epistle which traces the history and criticises the merits of Latin poetry. From all this we may be sure that when Augustus's measures are celebrated, as they are in the third book of the Odes and other places, with emphatic commendation, though the language may be that of poetical exaggeration, the sentiment is in the main sincere. It is a greater honour to the prudent ruler to have won the tardy approval of Horace, than to have enlisted from the outset the enthusiastic devotion of Virgil.
We left Horace installed as one of Maecenas's circle. This position naturally gained him many enemies; nor was his character one to conciliate his less fortunate rivals. He was choleric and sensitive, prompt to resent an insult, though quite free from malice or vindictiveness. He had not yet reached that high sense of his position when he could afford to treat the envious crowd with contempt. [24] He records in the satires which he now wrote, painting with inimitable humour each incident that arose, the attempts of the outsiders to obtain from him an introduction to Maecenas, [25] or some of that political information of which he was supposed to be the confidant. [26] At this period of his career he lived a good deal with his patron both in Rome and at his Tiburtine villa. Within a few years, however (probably 31 B.C.), he was put in possession of what he had always desired, [27] a small competence of his own. This was the Sabine estate in the valley of Ustica, not far from Tivoli, given him by Maecenas, the subject of many beautiful allusions, and the cause of his warmest gratitude. [28] Here he resided during some part of each year [29] in the enjoyment of that independence which was to him the greatest good; and during the seven years that followed he wrote, and at their close published, the first three books of the Odes. [30] The death of Virgil, which happened when Horace was forty-six years of age, and soon afterwards that of Tibullus, threw his affections once more upon his early patrons. He now resided more frequently at Rome, and was often to be seen at the palace. How he filled the arduous position of a courtier may be gathered from many, of the Epistles of the first book. The one which introduces Septimus to Tiberius is a masterpiece; [31] and those to Scaeva and Lellius [32] are models of high-bred courtesy. No one ever mingled compliment and advice with such consummate skill. Horace had made his position at court for himself, and though he still loved the country best, [33] he found both interest and profit in his daily intercourse with the great.
In the year 17 B.C. Augustus found an opportunity of testifying his regard for Horace. The secular games, which were celebrated in that year, included the singing of a hymn to Apollo and Diana by a chorus of 27 boys and the same number of girls, selected from the highest families in the state. The composition of this hymn was intrusted to Horace, much to his own legitimate pride, and to our instruction and pleasure, for not only is it a poem of high intrinsic excellence, but it is the only considerable extant specimen of the lyrical part of Roman worship. Some scholars include under it besides the Carmen Saeculare proper, various other odes, some of which unquestionably bear on the same subject, though, there is no direct evidence of their having been sung together. [34] Whether Horace had any Roman models in this style before him is not very clear. We have seen that Livius Andronicus was selected to celebrate the victory of Sena, [35] and there is an ode of Catullus [36] which seems to refer to some similar occasion. Doubtless the main lines in which the composition moved were indicated by custom; but the treatment was left to the individual genius of the poet. In this case we observe the poet's happy choice of a metre. Of all the varied lyric rhythms none, at least to our ears, lends itself so readily to a musical setting as the Sapphic; and the many melodies attached to odes in this metre by the monks of the Middle Ages attest its special adaptability to choir-singing. Augustus was highly pleased with the poet's performance, and two years' afterwards he commanded him to celebrate the victory of his step-sons Drusus and Tiberius over the Rhaeti and Vindelici. [37] This circumstance turned his attention once more to lyric poetry, which for six years he had quite discontinued. [38] It is not conclusively proved that he wrote all the odes which compose the fourth book at this period; two or three bear the impress of an earlier date, and were doubtless improved by re-writing or revision, but the majority were the production of his later years, and present to us the fruits of his matured judgment and taste. They show no diminution of lyric power, but the reverse; nor is there any ode in the first three books which surpasses or even equals the fourth poem in this collection. Horace's attention was, during the last few years of his life, given chiefly to literary subjects; the treatise on poetry and the epistle to Julius Florus were written probably between 14 and 11 B.C. That to Augustus is the last composition that issued from his pen; we may refer it to 10 B.C. two years before his death.
Horace's health had long been the reverse of strong. Whether from early delicacy, or from exposure to hardships in Asia, his constitution was never able to respond to the demands made upon it by the society of the capital. The weariness he expresses was often the result of physical prostration. The sketch he has left of himself [39] suggests a physique neither interesting nor vigorous. He was at 44 short, fat, and good- natured looking (rallied, we learn, by Augustus on his obesity), blear- eyed, somewhat dyspeptic, and prematurely grey; and ten years, we may be sure, had not improved the portrait. In the autumn of 8 B.C. Maecenas, who had long been himself a sufferer, succumbed to the effects of his devoted and arduous service. His last message confided Horace to the Emperor's care: "Horatii flacci ut mei esto memor." But the legacy was not long a burden. The prophetic anticipations of affection that in death the poet would not be parted from his friend [40] were only too faithfully realised. Within a month of Maecenas's death Horace was borne to his rest, and his ashes were laid beside those of his patron on the Esquiline (November 29, 8 B.C.).
As regards the date of publication of his several books, several theories have been propounded, for which the student is referred to the many excellent editions of Horace that discuss the question. We shall content ourselves with assigning those dates which seem to us the most probable. All agree in considering the first book of the Satires to have been his earliest effort. This may have been published in 34 B.C.; and in 29 B.C. the two books of Satires together, and perhaps the Epodes. In 24 B.C. probably appeared the first two books of Odes, which open and close with a dedication to Maecenas, and in 23 B.C. the three books of Odes complete; though some suppose that all appeared at once and for the first time in this later year. In 21 B.C. perhaps, but more probably in 20, the first book of the Epistles was published; in 14 B.C. the fourth book of the Odes, though it is possible that the last ode of that book was written at a later date. The second book of Epistles, in which may have been included the Ars Poetica, could not have appeared before 10 B.C. It is clear that the latter poem is not complete, but whether Horace intended to finish it more thoroughly it is impossible to say.
In approaching the criticism of Horace, the first thing which strikes us is, that in him we see two different poets. There is the lyricist winning renown by the importation of a new kind of Greek song; and there is the observant critic and man of the world, entrusting to the tablets, his faithful companions, his reflections on men and things. The former poet ran his course through the Epodes to the graceful pieces which form the great majority of his odes, and culminated in the loftier vein of lyric inspiration that characterises his political odes. The latter began with a somewhat acrimonious type of satire, which he speedily deserted for a lighter and more genial vein, and finally rested in the sober, practical, and healthy moralist and literary critic of the Epistles. It was in the former aspect that he assumed the title of poet; with characteristic modesty he relinquishes all claim to it with regard to his Epistles and Satires. We shall consider him briefly under these two aspects.
No writer believed so little in the sufficiency of the poetic gift by itself to produce a poet. Had he trusted the maxim Poeta nascitur, non fit, he would never have written his Odes. Looking back at his early attempts at verse we find in them few traces of genuine inspiration. Of the Epodes a large number are positively unpleasing; others interest us from the expression of true feeling; a few only have merits of a high order. The fresh and enthusiastic, though somewhat diffuse, descriptions of country enjoyments in the second and sixteenth Epodes, and the vigorous word-painting in the fifth, bespeak the future master; and the patriotic emotion in the seventh, ninth, and sixteenth, strikes a note that was to thrill with loftier vibrations in the Odes of the third and fourth books. But as a whole the Epodes stand far below his other works. Their bitterness is quite different from the genial irony of the Satires, and, though occasionally the subjects of them merited the severest handling, [41] yet we do not like to see Horace applying the lash. It was not his proper vocation, and he does not do it well. He is never so unlike himself as when he is making a personal attack. Nevertheless to bring himself into notice, it was necessary to do something of the kind. Personal satire is always popular, and Horace had to carve his own way to fame. It is evident that the series of sketches of which Canidia is the heroine, [42] were received with unanimous approval by the beau monde. This wretched woman, singled out as the representative of a class which was gaining daily influence in Rome, [43] he depicts in colours detestable and ignominious, which do credit to his talent but not to his courteous feeling. Horace has no true respect for woman. Nothing in all Latin poetry is so unpleasant as his brutal attacks on those hetaerae (the only ladies of whom he seems to have had any knowledge) whose caprice or neglect had offended him. [44] This is the one point in which he did not improve. In all other respects his constant self-culture opened to him higher and ever widening paths of excellence.
The glimpses of real feeling which the Epodes allow us to gain are as a rule carefully excluded from the Odes. This is at first sight a matter for surprise. Our idea of a lyric poem is that of a warm and passionate outpouring of the heart. Such are those of Burns; such are those of nearly all the writers who have gained the heart of modern times. In the grand style of dithyrambic song, indeed, the bard is rapt into an ideal world, and soars far beyond his subjective emotions or desires; but to this Pindaric inspiration Horace made no pretension. He was content to be an imitator of Alcaeus and Sappho, who had attuned to the lyre their own hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of their own chequered life. But in imitating their form he has altogether changed their spirit. Where they indulged feeling, he has controlled it; what they effect by intensity of colour, he attains by studied propriety of language. He desires not to enlist the world to sympathy with himself, but to put himself in sympathy with the world. Hence the many-sidedness, the culture, the broad human stand-point after which he ceaselessly strives. If depth must be sacrificed to attain this, he is ready to sacrifice it. He finds a field wide enough in the network of aims, interest, and feelings, which give society its hold on us, and us our union with society. And he feels that the writer who shall make his poem speak with a living voice to the largest number of these, will meet with most earnest heed, and be doing best the poet's true work. At the same time we must not forget that Horace's public was not our public. The unwieldy mass of labouring millions, shaken to its depths by questionings of momentous interest, cannot be drawn to listen except by an emotion vast as its own; but the society for whom Horace wrote was homogeneous in tone, limited in number, cultivated in intellect, and deeply absorbed in a race of ambition, some of whose prizes, at least, each might hope to win. He was, has been, and intended himself to be, the poet of men of the world.
Among such men at all times, and to an immeasurably greater extent in antiquity than now, staunch friendship has been considered one of the chief of virtues. Whatever were Horace's relations to the other sex, no man whom he had once called a friend had any cause to complain. Admirable indeed in their frankness, their constancy, their sterling independence, are the friendships it has delighted him to record. From the devoted, almost passionate tribute to Maecenas—
"Ibimus ibimus
Uteunque praecedes supremum
Carpere iter comites parati,"
to the raillery so gracefully flung at an Iccius or Xanthias, for whom yet one discerns the kindest and tenderest feeling, these memorials of Roman intercourse place both giver and receiver in a truly amiable light. We can understand Augustus's regret that he had not been honoured with a regard of which he well knew the value. For the poet was rich who could dispense gifts like these.
Interspersed with the love-odes, addresses to friends and pièces de circonstance, we observe, even in the earlier books, lyrics of a more serious cast. Some are moral and contemplative, as the grand ode to Fortune [45] and that beginning
"Non ebur neque aureum
Mea renidet in domo lacunar." [46]
Others are patriotic or political, as the second, twelfth, and thirty- seventh of Book I. (the last celebrating the downfall of Cleopatra), and the fifteenth of Book II. which bewails the increase of luxury. In these Horace is rising to the truly Roman conception that poetry, like other forces, should be consecrated to the service of the state. And now that he could see the inevitable tendency of things, could gauge the emperor's policy and find it really advantageous, he arose, no longer as a half- unwilling witness, but as a zealous co-operator to second political by moral power. The first six and the twenty-fourth Odes of the third book show us Horace not indeed at his best as a poet, but at his highest as a writer. They exhibit a more sustained manliness of tone than is perhaps to be found in any passages of equal length from any other author. Heathen ethics have no nobler portrait than that of the just man tenacious of his purpose, with which the third ode begins; and Roman patriotism no grander witness than the heart-stirring narrative of Regulus going forth to Carthage to meet his doom. Whether or not the third ode was written to dissuade Augustus from his rumoured project of transferring the seat of empire from Rome to Troy, it expresses most strongly the firm conviction of those best worth consulting, and, if the emperor really was in doubt, must, in conjunction with Virgil's emphatic repetition of the same sentiment, [47] have effectually turned him from his purpose. For these odes carried great authority. In them the poet appears as the authorised voice of the state, dispensing verba et voces [48] "the charm of poesy" to allay the moral pestilence that is devouring the people.
No one can read the odes without being struck with certain features wherein they differ from his other works. One of these is his constant employment of the Olympian mythology. Whatever view we may hold as to their appearance in the Aeneid, there can he no doubt that in the Odes these deities have a purely fictitious character. With the single exception of Jupiter, the eternal Father, without second or equal even among the Olympian choir, [49] whom he is careful not to name, none of his allusions imply, but on the contrary implicitly disown, any belief in their existence. In the satires and epistles he never employs this conventional ornament. The same thing is true of his language to Augustus. Assuming the poet's license, he depicts him as the son of Maia, [50] the scion of kindly deities, [51] and a living denizen of the ethereal mansions. [52] But in the epistles he throws off this adulatory tone, and accosts the Caesar in a way befitting their mutual relations; for in declaring that altars are raised to him and men swear by his name, [53] he is not using flattery, but stating a fact. Another point of difference is his fondness in the Odes for commonplaces, e.g. the degeneracy of the age, [54] the necessity of enjoying the moment, [55] which he enforces with every variety of illustration. Neither of these was the result of genuine conviction. On the former he gives us his real view (a very noble and rational one) in the third Satire of the first book, [56] and in the Ars Poetica, as different as possible from the desponding pessimism of ode and epode. And the Epicurean maxims which in them he offers as the sum of wisdom, are in his Epistles exchanged for their direct opposites: [56]
"Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum,
Sperne voluptates; nocet empta dolore voluptas."
It is clear then that in the Odes, for the most part, he is an artist not a preacher. We must not look to them for his deepest sentiments, but for such, and such only, as admitted an effective lyric treatment.
As regards their form, we observe that they are moulded strictly upon the Greek, some of those on lighter themes being translations or close imitations. But in naturalising the Greek metres, he has accommodated them with the rarest skill to the harmonies of the Latin tongue. The Virgilian movement differs not more from the Homeric, than does the Horatian sapphic or alcaic from the same metres as treated by their Greek inventors. The success of Horace may be judged by comparing his stanzas with the sapphics of Catullus on the one hand, and the alcaics of Statius on the other. The former struggle under the complicated shackles of Greek prosody; the latter move on the stilts of school-boy imitation. In language he is singularly choice without being a purist; agreeably to their naturalised character he has interspersed the odes with Greek constructions, some highly elegant, others a little forced and bordering upon experiments on language. [57] The poetry of his language consists not so much in its being imaginative, as in its employing the fittest words in the fittest places. Its general level is that of the best epistolary or oratorical compositions, according to the elevation of the subject. He loves not to soar into the empyrean, but often checks Pegasus by a strong curb, or by a touch of irony or an incongruous allusion prevents himself or his reader being carried away. [58] This mingling of irony and earnest is thoroughly characteristic of his genius. To men of realistic minds it forms one of the greatest of its charms.
Among the varied excellences of these gems of poetry, we shall select three, as those after which Horace most evidently sought. They are brevity, ease, life. In the first he is perhaps unequalled. It is not only that what he says is terse; in what he omits we recognise the master hand. He knows precisely what to dwell on, what to hint at, what to pass by. He is on the best understanding with his reader. He knows the reader is a busy man, and he says—"Read me! and, however you may judge my work, you shall at least not be bored." We recollect no instance in which Horace is prolix; none in which he can be called obscure; though there are many passages that require weighing, and many abrupt transitions that somewhat task thought. In condensed simplicity he is the first of Latin poets. Who that has once heard can forget such phrases as Nil desperandum, splendide mendax, non omnis moriar, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, and a hundred others? His brevity is equalled by his ease. By this must not be understood either spontaneity of invention or rapidity of execution. We know that he was a slow, nay, a laborious workman.[59] But he has the ars celare artem. What can be more natural than the transition from the praises of young Nero to Hannibal's fine lament? [60] from those of Augustus to the speech of Juno? [61] Yet these are effected with the most subtle skill. And even when the digression appears more forced, as in the well-known instances of Europa [62] and the Danaides, [63] the incongruity is at once removed by supposing that the legend in each case forms the main subject of the poem, and that the occasional introductions are a characteristic form of preamble, perhaps reflected from Pindar. And once more as to his liveliness. This is the highest excellence of the Odes. It never flags. If the poet does not rise to an exalted inspiration, he at least never sinks into heaviness, never loses life. To cite but one ode, in an artistic point of view, perhaps, the jewel of the whole collection— the dialogue between the poet and Lydia; [64] here is an entire comedy played in twenty-four lines, in which the dialogue never becomes insipid, the action never flags. Like all his love odes it is barren of deep feeling, for which reason, perhaps, they have been compared to scentless flowers. But the comparison is most unjust. Aroma, bouquet: this is precisely what they do not lack. Some other metaphor must be sought to embody the deficiency. At the same time the want is a real one; and exquisite as are the Odes, no one knew better than their author himself that they have no power to pierce the heart, or to waken those troubled musings which in their blending of pain and pleasure elevate into something that it was not before, the whole being of him that reads them.
The Satires and Epistles differ somewhat in form, in elaboration, and in metrical treatment, but on the whole they have sufficient resemblance to be considered together. The Horatian satire is sui generis. In the familiar modern sense it is not satire at all. The censorious spirit that finds nothing to praise, everything to ridicule, is quite alien to Horace. Neither Persius nor Juvenal, Boileau nor Pope, bears any real resemblance to him. The two former were satirists in the modern sense; the two latter have caught what we may call the town side of Horace, but they are accomplished epigrammatists and rhetoricians, which he is not, and they entirely lack his strong love for the simple and the rural. Horace is decidedly the least rhetorical of all Roman poets. His taste is as free from the contamination of the basilica [65] as it is from that of Alexandrinism. As in lyric poetry he went straight to the fountain-head, seeking models among the bards of old Greece, so in his prose-poetry, as he calls the Satires, [66] he draws from the well of real experience, departing from it neither to the right hand nor to the left. This is what gives his works their lasting value. They are all gold; in other words, they have been dug for. Refined gold all certainly are not, many of them are strikingly the reverse; for all sorts of subjects are treated by them, bad as well as good. The poet professes to have no settled plan, but to wander from subject to subject, as the humour or the train of thought leads him; as Plato says—
opae an o logos agoi, tautae iteon.
Without the slightest pretence of authority or the right to dictate, he contrives to supply us with an infinite number of sound and healthy moral lessons, to reason with us so genially and with so frank an admission of his own equal frailty, that it is impossible to be angry with him, impossible not to love the gentle instructor. He has been accused of tolerance towards vice. That is, we think, a great error. Horace knew men too well to be severe; his is no trumpet-call, but a still small voice, which pleads but does not accuse. He was no doubt in his youth a lax liver; [67] he had adopted the Epicurean creed and the loose conduct that follows it. But he was struggling towards a purer ideal. Even in the Satires he is only half an Epicurean; in the Epistles he is not one at all: and in proportion as he has outlived the hot blood of youth, his voice becomes clearer and his faith in virtue stronger. The Epistles are to a great extent reflective; he has examined his own heart, and depicts his musings for our benefit. Many of them are moral essays filled with precepts of wisdom, the more precious as having been genuinely thought out by the writer for himself. Less dramatic, less vigorous, perhaps, than the Satires, they embody in choicest language the maturest results of his reflection. Their poetical merits are higher, their diction more chaste, their metre more melodious. With the Georgics they are ranked as the most perfect examples of the modulation of hexameter verse. Their movement is rippling rather than flowing, and satisfies the mind rather than the ear, but it is a delicious movement, full of suggestive grace. The diction, though classical, admits occasional colloquialisms. [68]
Several of the Satires, [69] and the three Epistles which form the second book, are devoted to literary criticism, and these have always been regarded as among the most interesting of Horace's compositions. His opinions on previous and contemporary poetry are given with emphasis, and as a rule ran counter to the opinion of his day. The technical dexterity in versification which had resulted from the feverish activity of the last forty years, had produced a disastrous consequence. All the world was seized with the mania for writing poetry:
"Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim."
The young Pisos were among the number. To them the poet gave this friendly counsel, to lock up their creations for nine years, and then publish, or as we may shrewdly suspect he meant—destroy them. Poetry is the one thing that, if it is to be done at all, must be done well:
"Mediocribus esse poetis
Non di, non homines, non concessere columnae."
In Horace's opinion none of the old poetry came up to this standard. When he quotes two lines of Ennius [70] as defying all efforts to make prose of them, we cannot help fancying he is indulging his ironical vein. He never speaks seriously of Ennius. In fact he thoroughly disliked the array of "old masters" that were at once confronted with him whenever he expressed a predilection. It was not only the populace who yawned over Accius's tragedies, or the critics who lauded the style of the Salian hymn, that moved his resentment. These he could afford to despise. It was rather the antiquarian prepossessions of such men as Virgil, Maecenas, and Augustus, that caused him so earnestly to combat the love of all that was old. In his zeal there is no doubt he has outrun justice. He had no sympathy for the untamed vigour of those rough but spirited writers; his fastidious taste could make no allowance for the circumstances against which they had to contend. To reply that the excessive admiration lavished by the multitude demanded an equally sweeping condemnation, is not to excuse Horace. One who wrote so cautiously would never have used exaggeration to enforce his words. The disparaging remarks must be regarded as expressing his real opinion, and we are not concerned to defend it.
His attitude towards the age immediately preceding his own is even less worthy of him. He never mentions Lucretius, though one or two allusions [71] show that he knew and was indebted to his writings; he refers to Catullus only once, and then in evident depreciation, [72] mentioning him and Calvus as the sole literature of a second-rate singer, whom he calls the ape of Hermogenes Tigellius. Moreover his boast that he was the first to introduce the Archilochian iambic [73] and the lyric metres, [74] though perhaps justifiable; is the reverse of generous, seeing that Catullus had treated before him three at least of the metres to which he alludes. Mr. Munro's assertion as to there being indications that the school of Lucretius and Catullus would have necessarily come into collision with that of the Augustan poets, had the former survived to their time, is supported by Horace's attitude. Virgil and Tibullus would have found many points of union, so probably would Gallus; but Horace, Propertius, and Ovid, would certainly have been antagonistic. It is unfortunate that the canons laid down by Horace found no followers. While Virgil had his imitators from the first, and Tibullus and Propertius served as models to young aspirants, Horace, strangely enough, found no disciples. Persius in a later age studied him with care, and tried to reproduce his style, but with such a signal want of success that in every passage where he imitates, he caricatures his master. He has, however, left us an appreciative and beautiful criticism on the Horatian method. [75]
It has often been supposed that the Ars Poetica was writen in the hope of regenerating the drama. This theory is based partly on the length at which dramatic subjects are treated, partly on the high pre-eminence which the critic assigns to that class of poetry. But he can hardly have so far deceived himself as to believe that any efforts of his could restore the popular interest in the legitimate drama which had now sunk to the lowest ebb. It should rather be considered as a deliberate expression of his views upon many important subjects connected with literary studies, written primarily for the young Pisos, but meant for the world at large, and not intended for an exhortation (adhortatio) so much as a treatise. Its admirable precepts have been approved by every age: and there is probably no composition in the world to which so few exceptions have been taken.
Here we leave Horace, and conclude the chapter with a very short account of some of his friends who devoted themselves to poetry. The first is C. VALGIUS RUFUS, who was consul in the year 12 B.C. and to whom the ninth Ode of the second book is addressed. Whether from his high position or from his genuine poetical promise, we find great expectations held regarding him. Tibullus (or rather, the author of the poem ascribed to him) [76] says that no other poet came nearer to Homer's genius, and Horace by asking him to celebrate the new trophies of Augustus implies that he cultivated an epic strain. [77] Besides loftier themes he treated erotic subjects in elegiac verse, translated the rhetoric of Apollodorus, [78] and wrote letters on grammar, probably in the form afterwards adopted by Seneca's moral epistles. ARISTIUS FUSCUS to whom the twenty-second Ode of the first book and the tenth Epistle are addressed, was a writer of some pretensions. It is not certain what line he followed, but in all probability the drama. He was an intimate acquaintance of Horace, and, it will be remembered, delivered him from the intrusive acquaintance on the Via Sacra. [79] FUNDANIUS, who is twice mentioned by Horace, and once in very complimentary terms as the best comic poet of the day, [80] has not been fortunate enough to find any biographer. TITUS, one of the younger men to whom so many of the epistles are addressed, was a very ambitious poet. He attempted Pindaric flights from which the genius of Horace shrank, and apparently he cultivated tragedy, but in a pompous and ranting manner. [81] ICCIUS, who is referred to in the ninth Ode of Book I., and in the twelfth Epistle, as a philosopher, may have written poems. JULIUS FLORUS, to whom two beautiful epistles (I. iii. II. ii.) are addressed, is rallied by Horace on his tendency to write love-poems, but apparently his efforts came to nothing. CELSUS ALBINOVANUS was, like Florus, a friend of Tiberius, to whom he acted as private secretary for some time; [82] he was given to pilfering ideas and Horace deals him a salutary caution:—
"Monitus multumque monendus
Privatas ut quaerat opes, et tangere vitet
Scripta Palatinus quaecunque recepit Apollo." [83]
The last of these friends we shall notice is JULUS ANTONIUS [84] a son of the triumvir, who, according to Acron, [85] wrote twelve excellent books in epic metre on the legends of Diomed, a work obviously modelled on those of Euphorion, whose fourteen books of Heracleia were extremely popular; in a later age Statius attempted a similar task in essaying the history of Achilles. The ode addressed to him by Horace seems to hint at a foolish ambition to imitate Pindar. Besides these lesser known authors Horace knew, though he does not mention, the poets Ovid and Domitius Marsus; probably also Propertius. With Tibullus he was long on terms of friendship, and one epistle and one ode [86] are addressed to him. His gentle nature endeared him to Horace, as his graceful poetry drew forth his commendation.
The short artificial elegy of Callimachus and Philetas had, as we have seen, found an imitator in Catullus. But that poet, when he addressed to Lesbia the language of true passion, wrote for the most part in lyric verse. The Augustan age furnishes a series of brilliant poets who united the artificial elegiac with the expression of real feeling; and one of them, Ovid, has by his exquisite formal polish raised the Latin elegiac couplet to a popularity unparalleled in imitative literature. The metre had at first been adapted to short epigrams modelled on the Greek, e.g., triumphal inscriptions, epitaphs, jeux d'esprit, &c., several examples of which have been quoted in these pages. Catullus and his contemporaries first treated it at greater length, and paved the way for the highly specialised form in which it appears in Tibullus, the earliest Augustan author that has come down to us.
There are indications that Roman elegy, like heroic verse, had two separate tendencies. There was the comparatively simple continuous treatment of the metre seen in Catullus and Virgil, who are content to follow the Greek rhythm, and there was the more rhetorical and pointed style first beginning to appear in Tibullus, carried a step further in Propertius, and culminating in the epigrammatic couplet of Ovid. This last is a peculiarly Latin development, unsuited to the Greek, and too elaborately artificial to be the vehicle for the highest poetry, but, when treated by one who is master of his method, admitting of a facility, fluency, and incomparable elegance, which perhaps no other rhythm combines in an equal degree. In almost all its features it may be illustrated by the heroic couplet of Pope. The elegiac line is in the strictest sense a pendant to the hexameter; only rarely does it introduce a new element of thought, and perhaps never a new commencement in narration. It is for the most part an iteration, variation, enlargement, condensation or antithesis of the idea embodied in its predecessor. In the most highly finished of Ovid's compositions this structure is carried to such a point that the syntax is rarely altogether continuous throughout the couplet; there is generally a break either natural or rhetorical at the conclusion of the hexameter or within the first few syllables of the pentameter. [1] The rhetorical as distinct from the natural period, which appears, though veiled with great skill, in the Virgilian hexameter, is in Ovid's verse made the key to the whole rhythmical structure, and by its restriction within the minimum space of two lines offers a tempting field to the various tricks of composition, the turn, the point, the climax, &c. in all of which Ovid, as the typical elegist, luxuriates, though he applies such elegant manipulation as rarely to over-stimulate and scarcely ever to offend the reader's attention. The criticism that such a system cannot fail to awaken is that of want of variety; and in spite of the diverse modes of producing effect which these accomplished writers, and above all Ovid, well knew how to use, one cannot read them long without a sense of monotony, which never attends on the far less ambitious elegies of Catullus, and probably would have been equally absent from those of CORNELIUS GALLUS.
This ill-starred poet, whose life is the subject of Bekker's admirable sketch, was born at Forum Julii (Fréjus) 69 B.C., and is celebrated as the friend of Virgil's youth. Full of ambition and endowed with talent to command or conciliate, he speedily rose in Augustus's service, and was the first to introduce Virgil to his notice. For a time all prospered; he was appointed the first prefect of Egypt, then recently annexed as a province, but his haughtiness and success had made him many enemies; he was accused of treasonable conversation, and interdicted the palace of the emperor. To avoid further disgrace he committed suicide, in the 43d year of his age (27 B.C.). His poetry was entirely taken from Alexandria; he translated Euphorion and wrote four books of love-elegies to Cytheris. Whether she is the same as the Lycoris mentioned by Virgil, [2] whose faithlessness he bewails, we cannot tell. No fragments of his remain, [3] but the passionate nature of the man, and the epithet durior applied to his verse by Quintilian, makes it probable that he followed the older and more vigorous style of elegiac writing. [4]
Somewhat junior to him was DOMITIUS MARSUS who followed in the same track. He was a member of the circle of Maecenas, though, strangely enough, never mentioned by Horace, and exercised his varied talents in epic poetry, in which he met with no great success, for Martial says [5]—
"Saepius in libro memoratur Persius uno
Quam levis in toto Marsus Amazonide."
From this we gather that Amazonis was the name of his poem. In erotic poetry he held a high place, though not of the first rank. His Fabellae and treatise on Urbanitas, both probably poetical productions, are referred to by Quintilian, and Martial mentions him as his own precursor in treating the short epigram. From another passage of Martial,
"Et Maecenati Maro cum cantaret Alexin
Nota tamen Marsi fusca Melaenis erat," [6]
we infer that he began his career early; for he was certainly younger than Horace, though probably only by a few years, as he also received instruction from Orbilius. There is a fine epigram by Marsus lamenting the death of his two brother-poets and friends:
"Te quoque Virgilio comitem non aequa, Tibulle,
Mors invenem campos misit ad Elysios.
Ne foret aut molles elegis qui fleret amores,
Aut caneret forti regia bella pede."
ALBIUS TIBULLUS, to whom Quintilian adjudges the palm of Latin elegy, was born probably about the same time as Horace (65 B.C.), though others place the date of his birth as late as that of Messala (59 B.C.). In the fifth Elegy of the third book [7] occur the words—
"Natalem nostri primum videre parentes
Cum cecidit fato consul uterque pari."
As these words nearly reappear in Ovid, fixing the date of his own birth, [8] some critics have supposed them to be spurious here. But there is no occasion for this. The elegy in which they occur is certainly not by Tibullus, and may well be the work of some contemporary of Ovid. They point to the battle of Mutina, 43 B.C., in which Hirtius and Pansa lost their lives. The poet's death is fixed to 19 B.C. by the epigram of Domitius just quoted.
Tibullus was a Roman knight, and inherited a large fortune. This, however, he lost by the triumviral proscriptions, [9] excepting a poor remnant of his estate near Pedum which, small as it was, seems to have sufficed for his moderate wants. At a later period Horace, writing to him in retirement, speaks as though he were possessed of considerable wealth [10]—
"Di tibi divitias dederunt artemque fruendi."
It is possible that Augustus, at the intercession of Messala, restored the poet's patrimony. It was as much the fashion among the Augustan writers to affect a humble but contented poverty, as it had been among the libertines of the Caesarean age to pretend to sanctity of life—another form of that unreality which, after all, is ineradicable from Latin poetry. Ovid is far more unaffected. He asserts plainly that the pleasures and refinements of his time were altogether to his taste, and that no other age would have suited him half so well. [11] Tibullus is a melancholy effeminate spirit. Horace exactly hits him when he bids him "chant no more woeful elegies," [12] because a young and perjured rival has been preferred to him. He seems to have had no ambition and no energy, but his position obliged him to see some military service, and we find that he went on no less than three expeditions with his patron. This patron, or rather friend, for he was above needing a patron, was the great Messala, whom the poet loved with a warmth and constancy testified by some beautiful elegies, the finest perhaps being those where the general's victories are celebrated. [13] But the chief theme of his verse is the love, ill-requited it would seem, which he lavished first on Delia and afterwards on Nemesis. Each mistress gives the subject to a book. Delia's real name as we learn from Apuleius was Plania, [14] and we gather from more than one notice in the poems that she was married [15] when Tibullus paid his addresses to her. If the form of these poems is borrowed from Alexandria, the gentle pathos and gushing feeling redeem them from all taint of artificiality. In no poet, not even in Burns, is simple, natural emotion more naturally expressed. If we cannot praise the character of the man, we must admire the graceful poet. Nothing can give a truer picture of affection than the following tender and exquisitely musical lines:
"Non ego laudari curo: mea Delia, tecum
Dummodo sim quaeso segnis inersque vocer.
Te spectem suprema mihi cum venerit hora:
Te teneam moriens deficiente manu." [16]
Here is the same "linked sweetness long drawn out" which gives such a charm to Gray's elegy. In other elegies, particularly those which take the form of idylls, giving images of rural peace and plenty, [17] we see the quiet retiring nature that will not be drawn into the glare of Rome. Tibullus is described as of great personal beauty, and of a candid [18] and affectionate disposition. Notwithstanding his devotion Delia was faithless, and the poet sought distraction in surrendering to the charms of another mistress. Horace speaks of a lady named Glycera in this connection; it is probable that she is the same as Nemesis; [19] the custom of erotic poetry being to substitute a Greek name of similar scansion for the original Latin one; if the original name were Greek the change was still made, hence Glycera might well stand for Nemesis. The third book was first seen by Niebuhr to be from another and much inferior poet. It is devoted to the praises of Neaera, and imitates the manner of Tibullus with not a little of his sweetness but with much less power. Who the author was it is impossible to say, but though he had little genius he was a man of feeling and taste, and the six elegies are a pleasing relic of this active and yet melancholy time. The fourth book begins with a short epic on Messala, the work of a poetaster, extending over 200 lines. It is followed by thirteen most graceful elegidia ascribed to the lovers Cerinthus and Sulpicia of which one only is by Cerinthus. It is not certain whether this ascription is genuine, or whether, as the ancient life of Tibullus in the Parisian codex asserts, the poems were written by him under the title of Epistolae amatoriae. Their finished elegance and purity of diction are easily reconcilable with the view that they are the work of Tibullus. They abound in allusions to Virgil's poetry. [20] At the same time the description of Sulpicia as a poetess [21] seems to point to her as authoress of the pieces that bear her name, and from one or two allusions we gather that Messala was paying her attentions that were distasteful but hard to refuse. [22] The materials for coming to a decision are so scanty, that it seems best to leave the authorship an open question.
The rhythm of Tibullus is smooth, easy, and graceful, but tame. He generally concludes his period at the end of the couplet, and closes the couplet with a dissyllable; but he does not like Ovid make it an invariable rule. The diction is severely classical, free from Greek constructions and antiquated harshness. In elision he stands midway between Catullus and Ovid, inclining, however, more nearly to the latter.
SEX. AURELIUS PROPERTIUS, an Umbrian, from Mevania, Ameria, Assisi, or Hispellum, it is not certain which, was born 58 B.C. or according to others 49 B.C., and lost his father and his estate in the same year (41 B.C.) under Octavius's second assignation of land to the soldiers. He seems to have begun life at the bar, which he soon deserted to play the cavalier to Hostia (whom he celebrates under the name Cynthia), a lady endowed with learning and wit as well as beauty, to whom our poet remained constant for five years. The chronology of his love-quarrels and reconciliations has been the subject of warm disputes between Nobbe, Jacob, and Lachmann; but even if it were of any importance, it is impossible to ascertain it with certainty.
He unquestionably belonged to Maecenas's following, but was not admitted into the inner circle of his intimates. Some have thought that the troublesome acquaintance who besought Horace to introduce him was no other than Propertius. The man, it will be remembered, expresses himself willing to take a humble place: [23]
"Haberes
Magnum adiutorem posset qui ferre secundas
Hunc hominem velles si tradere. Dispeream ni
Submosses omnes."
And as Propertius speaks of himself as living on the Esquiliae, [24] some have, in conformity with this view, imagined him to have held some domestic post under Maecenas's roof. A careful reader can detect in Propertius a far less well-bred tone than is apparent in Tibullus or Horace. He has the air of a parvenu, [25] parading his intellectual wares, and lacking the courteous self-restraint which dignifies their style. But he is a genuine poet, and a generous, warm-hearted man, and in our opinion by far the greatest master of the pentameter that Rome ever produced. Its rhythm in his hands rises at times almost into grandeur. There are passages in the elegy on Cornelia (which concludes the series) whose noble naturalness and stirring emphasis bespeak a great and patriotic inspiration; and no small part of this effect is due to his vigorous handling of a somewhat feeble metre. [26] Mechanically speaking, he is a disciple in the same school as Ovid, but his success in the Ovidian distich is insignificant; for he has nothing of the epigrammatist in him, and his finest lines all seem to have come by accident, or at any rate without effort. [27] His excessive reverence for the Alexandrines Callimachus and Philetas, has cramped his muse. With infinitely more poetic fervour than either, he has made them his only models, and to attain their reputation is the summit of his ambition. It is from respect to their practice that he has loaded his poems with pedantic erudition; in the very midst of passionate pleading he will turn abruptly into the mazes of some obscure myth, often unintelligible [28] to the modern reader, whose patience he sorely tries. There is no good poet so difficult to read through; his faults are not such as "plead sweetly for pardon;" they are obtrusive and repelling, and have been more in the way of his fame than those of any extant writer of equal genius. He was a devoted admirer of Virgil, whose poems he sketches in the following graceful lines: [29]—
"Actia Virgilio custodit (deus) litora Phoebi,
Caesaris et fortes dicere posse rates:
Qui nunc Aeneae Troianaque suscitat arma,
Iactaque Lavinis moenia litoribus.
Cedite Romani seriptores, cedite Graii,
Nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade!
Tu canis umbrosi subter pineta Galesi
Thyrsin et attritis Daphnin arundinibus,
Utque decera possint corrumpere mala puellas,
Missus et impressis haedus ab uberibus.
Felix qui viles pomis mercaris amores!
Huic licet ingratae Tityrus ipse canat.
Felix intactum Corydon qui tentat Alexin
Agricolae domini carpere delicias.
Quamvis ille sua lassus requiescat avena,
Laudatur faciles inter Hamadryadas.
Tu canis Ascraei veteris praecepta poetae,
Quo seges in campo, quo viret uva iugo.
Tale facis carmen, docta testudine quale
Cynthius impositis temperat articulis."
The elegies that show his characteristics best are the second of the first book, where he prays his lady to dress modestly; the seventeenth, where he rebukes himself for having left her side; the twentieth, where he tells the legend of Hylas with great pictorial power and with the finest triumphs of rhythm; the beautiful lament for the death of Paetus; [30] the dream in which Cynthia's shade comes to give him warning; [31] and the patriotic elegy which begins the last book. Maecenas, [32] it appears, had tried to persuade him to attempt heroic poetry, from which uncongenial task he excuses himself, much as Horace had done.
In reading these poets we are greatly struck by the free and easy way in which they borrow thoughts from one another. A good idea was considered common property, and a happy phrase might be adopted without theft. Virgil now and then appropriates a word from Horace, Horace somewhat oftener one from Virgil, Tibullus from both. Propertius, who is less original, has many direct imitations, and Ovid makes free with some of Virgil and Tibullus's finest lines. This custom was not thought to detract from the writer's independence, inasmuch as each had his own domain, and borrowed only where he would be equally ready to give. It was otherwise with those thriftless bards so roughly dealt with by Horace in his nineteenth Epistle—
"O imitatores, servum pecus! ut mihi saepe
Bilem, saepe iocum movistis."
the Baviad and Maeviad of the Roman poet-world. These lay outside the charmed sphere, and the hands they laid on the works of those who wrought within it were sacrilegious. In the next age we shall see how imitation of these great masters had become a regular department of composition, so that Quintilian gives elaborate rules for making a proper use of it. At this time originality consisted in introducing some new form of Greek song. Virgil made Theocritus and Hesiod speak in Latin. Horace had brought over the old Aeolian bards; Propertius, too, must make his boast of having enticed Callimachus to the Tiber's banks—
"Primus ego ingredior puro de fonte sacerdos
Itala per Graios orgia ferre chores." [33]
In the Middle Ages he was almost lost; a single copy, defaced with mould
and almost illegible, was found in a wine cellar in Italy, 1451 A.D.
Quintilian tells us there were some in his day who preferred him to
Tibullus.
The same critic's remark on the brilliant poet who now comes before us, P. OVIDIUS NASO, is as follows: "Ovidius utroque lascivior" and he could not have given a terser or more comprehensive criticism. Of all Latin poets, not excepting even Plautus, Ovid possesses in the highest degree the gift of facility. His words probably express the literal truth, when he says—
"Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos,
Et quod tentabam scribere versus erat."
This incorrigibly immoral but inexpressibly graceful poet was born at Sulmo in the Pelignian territory 43 B.C. of wealthy parents, whose want of liberality during his youthful career he deplores, but by which he profited after their death. Of equestrian rank, with good introductions and brilliant talents, he was expected to devote himself to the duties of public life. At first he studied for the bar; but so slight was his ambition and so unfitted was his genius for even the moderate degree of severe reasoning required by his profession, that he soon abandoned it in disgust, and turned to the study of rhetoric. For some time he declaimed under the first masters, Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro, [34] and acquired a power of brilliant improvisation that caused him to be often quoted in the schools, and is evidenced by many reminiscences in the writings of the elder Seneca. [35] A short time was spent by him, according to custom, at Athens, [36] and while in Greece he took the opportunity of visiting the renowned cities of Asia Minor. He also spent some time in Sicily, and returned to Rome probably at the age of 23 or 24, where he allowed himself to be nominated triumvir capitalis, decemvir litibus iudicandis, and centumvir, in quick succession. But in spite of the remonstrances of his friends he finally gave up all active work, and began that series of love-poems which was at once the cause of his popularity and of his fall, His first mistress was a lady whom he calls Corinna, but whose real name is not known. That she was a member of the demi-monde is probable from this fact; as also from the poet's strong assertion that he had never been guilty of an intrigue with a married woman. The class to which she belonged were mostly Greeks or Easterns, beautiful and accomplished, often poetesses, and mingling with these seductive qualities the fickleness and greed natural to their position, of which Ovid somewhat unreasonably complains. To her are dedicated the great majority of the Amores, his earliest extant work. These elegant but lascivious poems, some of which perhaps were the same which he recited to large audiences as early as his twenty-second year, were published 13 B.C., and consisted at first of five books, which he afterwards reduced to three. [37] No sooner were they before the public than they became universally popular, combining as they do the personal experiences already made familiar to Roman audiences through Tibullus and Propertius, with a levity, a dash, a gaiety, and a brilliant polish, far surpassing anything that his more serious predecessors had attained. During their composition he was smitten with the desire (perhaps owing to his Asiatic tour) to write an epic poem on the wars of the gods and giants, but Corinna, determined to keep his muse for herself, would not allow him to gratify it. [38]
The Heroides or love-letters from mythological heroines to their (mostly) faithless spouses, are declared by Ovid to be an original importation from Greece. [39.] They are erotic suasoriae, based on the declamations of the schools, and are perhaps the best appreciated of all his compositions. They present the Greek mythology under an entirely new phase of treatment. Virgil had complained [40] that its resources were used up, and in Propertius we already see that allusive way of dealing with it which savours of a general satiety. But in Ovid's hands the old myths became young again, indeed, younger than ever; and people wonder they could ever have lost their interest. His method is the reverse of Virgil's or Livy's. [41] They take pains to make themselves ancient; he, with wanton effrontery, makes the myths modern. Jupiter, Juno, the whole circle of Olympus, are transformed into the hommes et femmes galantes of Augustus's court, and their history into a chronique scandaleuse. The immoral incidents, round which a veil of poetic sanctity had been cast by the great consecrator time, are here displayed in all their mundane pruriency. In the Metamorphoses Jupiter is introduced as smitten with the love of a nymph, Dictynna; some compunctions of conscience seize him, and the image of Juno's wrath daunts him, but he finally overcomes his fear with these words—
"Hoc furtum certe coniux mea nesciet (inquit);
Aut si rescierit, sunt O sunt iurgia tanti?"
So, in the Heroides, the idea of the desolate and love-lorn Ariadne writing a letter from the barren isle of Naxos is in itself ridiculous, nor can all the pathos of her grief redeem the irony. Helen wishes she had had more practice in correspondence, so that she might perhaps touch her lover's chilly heart. Ovid using the language of mythology, reminds us of those heroes of Dickens who preface their communications by a wink of intelligence.
His next venture was of a more compromising character. Intoxicated with popularity, he devoted three long poems to a systematic treatment of the Art of Love, on which he lavished all the graces of his wayward talent, and a combination of mythological, literary, and social allusion, that seemed to mark him out for better things. He is careful to remark at the outset that this poem is not intended for the virtuous. The frivolous gallants, whose sole end in life is dissipation, with the objects of their licentious passion, are the readers for whom he caters. But he had overshot his mark; The Amores had been tolerated, for they had followed precedent. But even they had raised him enemies. The _Art of Love _produced a storm of indignation, and without doubt laid the foundations of that severe displeasure on the part of Augustus, which found vent ten years later in a terrible punishment. For Ovid was doing his best to render the emperor's reforms a dead letter. It was difficult enough to get the laws enforced, even with the powerful sanction of a public opinion guided by writers like Horace and Virgil. But here was a brilliant poet setting his face right against the emperor's will. The necessity of marriage had been preached with enthusiasm by two unmarried poets; a law to the same effect had been passed by two unmarried consuls; [42] a moral régime had been inaugurated by a prince whose own morals were or had been more than dubious. All this was difficult; but it had been done. And now the insidious attractions of vice were flaunted in the most glowing colours in the face of day. The young of both sexes yielded to the charm. And what was worse, the emperor's own daughter, whom he had forced to stay at home carding wool, to wear only such garments as were spun in the palace, to affect an almost prudish delicacy, the proud and lovely Julia, had been detected in such profligacy as poured bitter satire on the old monarch's moral discipline, and bore speaking witness to the power of an inherited tendency to vice. The emperor's awful severity bespoke not merely the aggrieved father but the disappointed statesman. Julia had disgraced his home and ruined his policy, and the fierce resentment which rankled in his heart only waited its time to burst forth upon the man who had laboured to make impurity attractive. [43] Meanwhile Ovid attempted, two years later, a sort of recantation in the Remedia Amoris, the frivolity of which, however, renders it as immoral as its predecessor though less gross; and he finished his treatment of the subject with the Medicamina Faciei, a sparkling and caustic quasi-didactic treatise, of which only a fragment survives. [44] During this period (we know not exactly when) was composed the tragedy of Medea, which ancient critics seem to have considered his greatest work. [45] Alone of his writings it showed his genius in restraint, and though we should probably form a lower estimate of its excellence, we may regret that time has not spared it. Among other works written at this time was an elegy on the death of Messala (3. A.D.), as we learn from the letters from Pontus. [46] Soon after he seems, like Prince Henry, to have determined to turn over a new leaf and abandon his old acquaintances. Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, were dead; there was no poet of eminence to assist the emperor by his pen. Ovid was beyond doubt the best qualified by his talent, but Augustus had not noticed him. He turned to patriotic themes in order to attract favourable notice, and began his great work on the national calendar. Partly after the example of Propertius, partly by his own predilection, he kept to the elegiac metre, though he is conscious of its betraying him into occasional frivolous or amatory passages where he ought to be grave. [47] "Who would have thought (he says) that from a poet of love I should have become a patriotic bard?" [48] While writing the Fasti he seems to have worked also at the Metamorphoses, a heroic poem in fifteen books, entirely devoted to mythological stories, mostly of transformations caused by the love or jealousy of divine wooers, or the vengeance of their aggrieved spouses. There are passages in this long work of exceeding beauty, and a prodigal wealth of poetical ornament, which has made it a mine for modern poets. Tasso, Ariosto, Guarini, Spenser, Milton, have all drunk deep of this rich fountain. [49] The skill with which the different legends are woven into the fabric of the composition is as marvellous as the frivolous dilettantism which could treat a long heroic poem in such a way. The Metamorphoses were finished before 7 A.D.; the Fasti were only advanced to the end of the sixth book, when all further prosecution of them was stopped by the terrible news, which struck the poet like a thunderbolt, that he was ordered to leave Rome forever. The cause of his exile has been much debated. The ostensible ground was the immorality of his writings, and especially of the Art of Love, but it has generally been taken for granted that a deeper and more personal reason lay behind. Ovid's own hints imply that his eyes had been witness to something that they should not, which he calls a crimen (i.e. a crime against the emperor). [50] The most probable theory is that Augustus took advantage of Ovid's complicity in the younger Julia's misconduct to wreak the full measure of his long-standing indignation against the poet, whose evil counsels had helped to lead astray not only her but his daughter also. He banished him to Tomi, an inhospitable spot not far from the mouth of the Danube, and remained deaf to all the piteous protestations and abject flatteries which for ten years the miserable poet poured forth.
This punishment broke Ovid's spirit. He had been the spoilt child of society, and he had no heart for any life but that of Rome. He pined away amid the hideous solitudes and the barbarous companionship of Goths and Sarmatians. His very genius was wrecked. Not a single poem of merit to be compared with those of former times now proceeded from his pen. Nevertheless he continued to write as fluently as before. Now that he was absent from his wife—for he had been thrice married—this very undomestic poet discovered that he had a deep affection for her. He wrote her endearing letters, and reminded her of their happy hours. As she was a lady of high position and a friend of the Empress Livia, he no doubt hoped for her good offices. But her prudence surpassed her conjugal devotion. Neither she, nor the noble and influential friends [51] whom he implored in piteous accents to intercede for him, ever ventured to approach the emperor on a subject on which he was known to be inexorable. And when Augustus died and Tiberius succeeded, the vain hopes that had hitherto buoyed up Ovid seem to have quite faded away. From such a man it was idle to expect mercy. So, for two or three years the wretched poet lingered on, still solacing himself with verse, and with the kindness of the natives, who sought by every means to do him honour and soothe his misfortune, and then, in the sixtieth year of his age, 17 A.D., he died, and was buried in the place of his dreary exile.
Much as we may blame him, the severity of his punishment seems far too great for his offence, since Ovid is but the child of his age. In praising him, society praised itself; as he says with natural pride, "The fame that others gain after death, I have known in my lifetime." He was of a thoroughly happy, thoughtless, genial temper; before his reverse he does not seem to have known a care. His profligacy cost him no repentance; he could not see that he had done wrong; indeed, according to the lax notions of the time, his conduct had been above rather than below the general standard of dissipated men. The palliations he alleges in the second book of the Tristia, which is the best authority for his life, are in point of fact, unanswerable. To regard his age as wicked or degenerate never entered into his head. He delighted in it as the most refined that the world had ever known; "It is," he says jokingly, "the true Golden Age, for every pleasure that exists may be got for gold." So wedded was he to literary composition that he learnt the Sarmatian language and wrote poems in it in honour of Augustus, the loss of which, from a philological point of view, is greatly to be regretted. His muse must be considered as at home in the salons find fashionable coteries of the great. Though his style is so facile, it is by no means simple. On the contrary, it is one of the most artificial ever created, and could never have bea attained at all but by a natural aptitude, backed by hard study, amid highly-polished surroundings from childhood. These Ovid had, and he wielded his brilliant instrument to perfection. What euphuism was to the Elizabethan courtiers, what the langue galante was to the court of Louis XIV., the mythological dialect was to the gay circles of aristocratic Rome. [5]
It was select, polished, and spiced with a flavour of profanity. Hence, Ovid could never be a popular poet, for a poet to be really popular must be either serious or genuinely humorous; whereas Ovid is neither. His irony, exquisitely ludicrous to those who can appreciate it, falls flat upon less cultivated minds, and the lack of strength that lies beneath his smooth exterior [53] would unfit him, even if his immorality did not stand in the way, for satisfying or even pleasing the mass of mankind.
The Ibis and Halieuticon were composed during his exile; the former is a satiric attack upon a person now unknown, the latter a prosaic account of the fish found in the neighbourhood of Tomi.
Appended to Ovid's works are several graceful poems which have put forward a claim to be his workmanship. His great popularity among the schools of the rhetoricians both in Rome and the provinces, caused many imitations to be circulated under his name. The most ancient of these is the Nux elegia, which, if not Ovid's, must be very shortly posterior to him; it is the complaint of a walnut tree on the harsh treatment it has to suffer, sometimes in very difficult verse, [54] but not inelegant. Some of the Priapeia are also attributed to him, perhaps with reason; the Consolatio ad Liviam, on the death of Drusus, is a clever production of the Renaissance period, full of reminiscences of Ovid's verse, much as the Ciris is filled with reminiscences of Virgil. [55]
Ovid was the most brilliant figure in a gay circle of erotic and epic poets, many of whom he has handed down in his Epistles, others have transmitted a few fragments by which we can estimate their power. The eldest was PONTICUS, who is also mentioned by Propertius as an epic writer of some pretensions. Another was MACER, whose ambition led him to group together the epic legends antecedent and subsequent to those narrated in the Iliad and Odyssey. There was a Pompeius Macer, an excellent man, who with his son committed suicide under Tiberius, [56] his daughter having been accused of high treason, and unable to clear herself. The son is probably identical with this friend of Ovid's. SABINUS, another of his intimates, who wrote answers to the Heroides, was equally conspicuous in heroic poetry. The title of his poem is not known. Some think it was Troezen; [57] but the text is corrupt. Ovid implies [58] that his rescripts to the Heroides were complete; it is a misfortune that we have lost them. The three poems that bear the title of A. Sabini Epistolae, and are often bound with Ovid's works, are the production of an Italian scholar of the fifteenth century. TUTICANUS, who was born in the same year with Ovid, and may perhaps have been the author of Tibullus's third book, is included in the last epistle from Pontus [59] among epic bards. CORNELIUS SEVERUS, a better versifier than poet, [60] wrote a Sicilian War, [61] of which the first book was extremely good. In it occurred the verses on the death of Cicero, quoted by the elder Seneca [62] with approbation:
Oraque magnanimum spirantia paene virorum
In rostris iacuere suis: sed enim abstulit omnis,
Tanquam sola foret, rapti Ciceronis imago.
Tunc redeunt animis ingentia consulis acta
Iurataeque manus deprensaque foedera noxae
Patriciumque nefas extinctum: poena Cethegi
Deiectusque redit votis Catilina nefandis.
Quid favor aut coetus, pleni quid honoribus anni
Profuerant? sacris exculta quid artibus aetas?
Abstulit una dies aevi decus, ictaque luctu
Conticuit Latiae tristis facundia linguae.
Unica sollicitis quondam tutela salusque,
Egregium semper patriae caput, ille senatus
Vindex, ille fori, legum ritusque togaeque,
Publica vox saevis aeternum obmutuit armis.
Informes voltus sparsamque cruore nefando
Canitiem sacrasque manus operumque ministras
Tantorum pedibus civis proiecta superbis
Proculcavit ovans nec lubrica fata deosque
Respexit. Nullo luet hoc Antonius aevo.
Hoc nec in Emathio mitis victoria Perse,
Nec te, dire Syphax, non fecerat hoste Philippo;
Inque triumphato ludibria cuncta Iugurtha
Afuerant, nostraeque cadens ferus Hannibal irae
Membra tamen Stygias tulit inviolata sub umbras.
From these it will be seen that he was a poet of considerable power. Another epicist of some celebrity, whom Quintilian thought worth reading, was PEDO ALBINOVANUS; he was also an epigrammatist, and in conversation remarkable for his brilliant wit. There is an Albinus mentioned by Priscian who is perhaps intended for him. Other poets referred to in the long list which closes the letters from Pontus are RUFUS, LARGUS, probably the perfidious friend of Gallus so mercilessly sketched by Bekker, CAMERINUS, LUPUS, and MONTANUS. All these are little more than names for us. The references to them in succeeding writers will be found in Teuffel. RABIRIUS is worth remarking for the extraordinary impression he made on his contemporaries. Ovid speaks of him as Magni Rabirius oris, [63] a high compliment; and Velleius Paterculus goes so far as to couple him with Virgil as the best representative of Augustan poetry! His Alexandrian War was perhaps drawn from his own experience, though, if so, he must have been a very young man at the time.
From an allusion in Ovid [64] we gather that GRATIUS [65] was a poet of the later Augustan age. His work on the chase (Cynegetica) has come down to us imperfect. It contains little to interest, notwithstanding the attractiveness of its subject: but in truth all didactic poets after Virgil are without freshness, and seem depressed rather than inspired by his success. After alluding to man's early attempts to subdue wild beasts, first by bodily strength, then by rude weapons, he shows the gradual dominion of reason in this as in other human actions. Diana is also made responsible for the huntsman's craft, and a short mythological digression follows. Then comes a description of the chase itself, and the implements and weapons used in it. The list of trees fitted for spearshafts (128- 149), one of the best passages, will show his debt to the Georgics—more than half the lines show traces of imitation. Next we have the different breeds of dogs, their training, their diseases, and general supervision discussed, and after a digression or two—the best being a catalogue of the evils of luxury—the poem (as we possess it) ends with an account of the horses best fitted for hunting. The technical details are carefully given, and would probably have had some value; but there is scarcely a trace of poetic enthusiasm, and only a moderate elevation of style.
The last Augustan poet we shall notice is M. MANILIUS, whose dry subject has caused him to meet with very general neglect. His date was considered doubtful, but Jacob has shown that he began to write towards the close of Augustus's reign. The first book refers to the defeat of Varus [66] (7 A.D.), to which, therefore, it must be subsequent, and the fourth book contemplates Augustus as still alive, [67] though Tiberius had already been named as his successor. [68] The fifth book must have appeared after the interval of Augustus's death; and from one passage which seems to allude to the destruction of Pompey's theatre, [69] Jacob argues that it was written as late as 22 A.D. The danger of treating a subject on which the emperor had his own very decided views [70] may have deterred Manilius from completing his work. Literature of all kinds was silent under the tyrant's gloomy frown, and the weak style of this last book seems to reflect the depressed mind of its author.
The birth and parentage of Manilius are not known. That he was a foreigner is probable, both from the uncouthness of his style at the outset, and from the decided improvement in it that can be traced through succeeding books. Bentley thought him an Asiatic; if so, however, his lack of florid ornament would be strange. It is more likely that he was an African. But the question is complicated by the corrupt state of his text, by the obscurity of his subject, and by the very incomplete knowledge of it displayed by the author. It was not considered necessary to have mastered a subject to treat of it in didactic verse. Cicero expressly instances Aratus [71] as a man who, with scarce any knowledge of astronomy, exercised a legitimate poetical ingenuity by versifying such knowledge as he had. These various causes make Manilius one of the most difficult of authors. Few can wade through the mingled solecisms in language and mistakes in science, the empty verbiage that dilates on a platitude in one place, and the jejune abstract that hurries over a knotty argument in another, without regretting that so unreadable a poet should have been preserved. [72]
And yet his book is not altogether without interest. The subject is called Astronomy, but should rather be called Astrology, for more than half the space is taken up with these baseless theories of sidereal influence which belong to the imaginary side of the science. But in the exordia and perorations to the several books, as well as in sundry digressions, may be found matter of greater value, embodying the poet's views on the great questions of philosophy. [73] On the whole he must be reckoned as a Stoic, though not a strictly dogmatic one. He begins by giving the different views as to the origin of the world, and lays it down that on these points truth cannot be attained. The universe, he goes on to say, rests on no material basis, much less need we suppose the earth to need one. Sun, moon, and stars, whirl about without any support; earth therefore may well be supposed to do the same. The earth is the centre of the universe, whose motions are circular and imitate those of the gods. [74] The universe is not finite as some Stoics assert, for its roundness (which is proved by Chrysippus) implies infinity. Lucretius is wrong in denying antipodes; they follow naturally from the globular shape, from which also we may naturally infer that seas bind together, as well as separate, nations. [75] All this system is held together by a spiritual force, which he calls God, governing according to the law of reason. [76] He next describes the Zodiac and enumerates the chief stars with their influences. Following the teaching of Hegesianax, [77] he declares that those which bear human names are superior to those named after beasts or inanimate things. The study of the stars was a gift direct from heaven. Kings first, and after them priests, were guided to search for wisdom, and now Augustus, who is both supreme ruler and supreme pontiff, follows his divine father in cultivating this great science. Mentioning some of the legends which recount the transformations of mortals into stars, he asserts that they must not be understood in too gross a sense. [78] Nothing is more wonderful than the orderly movement of the heavenly bodies. He who has contemplated this eternal order cannot believe the Epicurean doctrine. Human generations pass away, but the earth and the stars abide for ever. Surely the universe is divine. Passing on to the milky way, he gives two fanciful theories of its origin, one that it is the rent burnt by Phaethon through the firmament, the other that it is milk from the breast of Juno. As to its consistency, he wavers between the view that it is a closely packed company of stars, and the more poetical one that it is formed by the white-robed souls of the just. This last theory leads him to recount in a dull catalogue the well-worn list of Greek and Roman heroes. Comets are mysterious bodies, whose origin is unknown. The universe is full of fiery particles ever tending towards conglomeration, and perhaps their impact forms comets. Whether natural or supernatural, one thing is certain—they are never without effect on mankind.
In the second book he begins by a complaint that the list of attractive subjects is exhausted. This incites him to essay an untried path, from which he hopes to reap no stolen laurels [79] as the bard of the universe! [80] He next expounds the doctrine of an ever-present spirit moving the mass of matter, in language reflected from the sixth Aeneid. Men must not seek for mathematical demonstration. Considerations of analogy are enough to awaken conviction. The fact that, e.g., shell-fish are affected by the moon, and that all land creatures depend on solar influence, should forbid us to dissociate earth from heaven, or man's activity from the providence of the gods. How could man have any knowledge of deity unless he partook of its nature? The rest of the book gives a catalogue of the different kinds of stars, their several attributes, and their astrological classification, ending with the Dodecatemorion and Oclotopos.
The third book, after a short and offensively allusive description of the labours of preceding poets, sketches the twelve athla or accidents of human life, to each of which is assigned its special guardian influence. It then passes to the horoscope, which it treats at length, giving minute and various directions how to draw it. The extreme importance attached to this process by Tiberius, and the growing frequency with which, on every occasion, Chaldeans and Astrologers were now consulted, made the poet specially careful to treat this subject with clearness and precision. It is accordingly the most readable of all the purely technical parts of the work. The account of the tropics, with which the book closes, is singularly inaccurate, but contains some rather elegant descriptions: [81] at the tropic of Cancer summer always reigns, at Capricorn there is perpetual winter. The book here breaks off quite abruptly; apparently he intended to compose the epilogue at some future time, but had no opportunity of doing it.
The exordium to the fourth book, which sometimes rises into eloquence, glorifies fate as the ultimate divine power, but denies it either will or personality. He fortifies his argument, according to his wont, by a historical catalogue, which exemplifies the harshness that, except in philosophical digressions, rarely leaves his style. Then follow the horoscopic properties of the Zodiacal constellations, the various reasons for desiring to be born under one star rather than another, a sort of horoscopico-zodiacal account of the world, its physical geography, and the properties of the zones. These give occasion for some graphic touches of history and legend; the diction of this book is far superior to that of the preceding three, but the wisdom is questionable which reserves the "good wine" until so late. Passing on to the ecliptic, he drags in the legends of Deucalion, Phaethon, and others, which he treats in a rhetorical way, and concludes the book with an appeal to man's reason, and to the necessity of allowing the mental eye free vision. Somewhat inconsistently with the half-religious attitude of the first and second books, he here preaches once more the doctrine of irresistible fate, which to most of the Roman poets occupies the place of God. The poem practically ends here. He himself implies at the opening of Book V., that most poets would not have pursued the theme further; apparently he is led on by his interest in the subject, or by the barrenness of his invention which could suggest no other. The book, which is unfinished, contains a description of various stars, with legends interspersed in which a more ambitious style appears, and a taste which, though rhetorical and pedantic, is more chastened than in the earlier books.
It will be seen from the above résumé that the poem discusses several questions of great interest. Rising above the technicalities of the science, Manilius tries to preach a theory of the universe which shall displace that given by Lucretius. He is a Stoic combating an Epicurean. A close study of Lucretius is evidenced by numerous passages, [82] and the earnestness of his moral conclusions imitates, though it does not approach in impressiveness, that of the great Epicurean. Occasionally he imitates Horace, [83] much more often Virgil, and, in the legends, Ovid. [84] His technical manipulation of the hexameter is good, though tinged with monotony. Occasionally he indulges in licenses which mark a deficient ear [85] or an imperfect comprehension of the theory of quantity. [86] He has few archaisms, [87] few Greek words, considering the exigencies of his subject, and his vocabulary is greatly superior to his syntax; the rhetorical colouring which pervades the work shows that he was educated in the later taste of the schools, and neither could understand nor desired to reproduce the simplicity of Lucretius or Virgil. [88]
Public oratory, which had held the first rank among studies under the Republic, was now, as we have said, almost extinct. In the earlier part of Augustus's reign, Pollio and Messala for a time preserved some of the traditions of freedom, but both found it impossible to maintain their position. Messala retired into dignified seclusion; Pollio devoted himself to other kinds of composition. Somewhat later we find MESSALINUS, the son of Messala, noted for his eloquent pleading; but as he inherited none of the moral qualities which had made his father dangerous, Augustus permitted him to exercise his talent. He was an intimate friend of Ovid, from whom we learn details of his life; but he frittered away his powers on trifling jests [1] and extempore versifying. The only other name worthy of mention is Q. HATERIUS, who from an orator became a noted declaimer. The testimonies to his excellence vary; Seneca, who had often heard him, speaks of the wonderful volubility, more Greek than Roman, which in him amounted to a fault. Tacitus gives him higher praise, but admits that his writings do not answer to his living fame, a persuasive manner and sonorous voice having been indispensible ingredients in his oratory. [2] The activity before given to the state was now transferred to the basilica. But as the full sway of rhetoric was not established until quite the close of Augustus's reign, we shall reserve our account of it for the next book, merely noticing the chief rhetoricians who flourished at this time. The most eminent were PORCIUS LATRO, FUSCUS ARELLIUS, and ALBUCIUS SILUS, who are frequently quoted by Seneca; RUTILIUS LUPUS, [3] who was somewhat younger; and SENECA, the father of the celebrated philosopher. [4] Fuscus was an Asiatic, and seems to have been one of the first who declaimed in Latin. Foreign professors had previously exercised their own and their pupils' ingenuity in Greek; Cicero had almost invariably declaimed in that language, and there can be no doubt that this was a much less harmful practice; but now the bombast and glitter of the Asiatic style flaunted itself in the Latin tongue, and found in the increasing number of provincials from Gaul and Spain a body of admirers who cultivated it with enthusiasm. CESTIUS PIUS, a native of Smyrna, espoused the same florid style, and was even preferred by his audience to such men as Pollio and Messala. To us the extracts from these authors, preserved in Seneca, present the most wearisome monotony, but contemporary criticism found in them many grades of excellence. The most celebrated of all was Porcius Latro, who, like Seneca himself, came from Spain. There is a special character about the Spanish literary genius which will be more prominent in the next generation. At present it had not sufficiently amalgamated with the old Latin culture to shine in the higher branches. But in the rhetorical schools it gradually leavened taste by its attractive qualities, and men like Latro must be regarded as wielding immense influence on Roman style, though somewhat in the background, much as Antipho influenced the oratory of Athens.
Annaeus Seneca of Corduba (Cordova), [5] the father of Novatus, Seneca, and Mela the father of Lucan, belonged to the equestrian order, was born probably about 54 B.C. and lived on until after the death of Tiberius. [6] The greater part of this long life, longer even than Varro's, was spent in the profession of eloquence, for which in youth he prepared himself by studying the manner of the most renowned masters. Cicero alone he was not fortunate enough to hear, the civil wars having necessitated his withdrawal to Spain. [7] He does not appear to have visited Rome more than twice, but he shows a thorough knowledge of the rhetoricians of the capital, whence we conclude that his residence extended over some time. [8] The stern discipline of Caesar's wars had taught the Spaniards something of Roman severity, and Seneca seems to have adopted with a good will the maxims of Roman life. [9] He possessed that élan with which young races often carry all before them when, they give the fresh vigour of their understanding to master an existing system; his memory, as he himself tells us, was so prodigious that he could recite 2000 names correctly after once hearing them; [10] and, with the taste for showy ornament which his race has always evinced, he must have launched himself without misgiving into the competition of the schools. Nevertheless, in his old age, when he came to look back on his life, he felt half ashamed of its results. His sons had asked him to write a critical account of the greatest rhetoricians he had known; he gladly acceded to their wish, and has embodied in his work vast numbers of extracts, drawn either from memory or rough notes, specifying the manner in which each professor treated his theme; he then adds his own judgment on their merits, often interspersing the more tedious discussions with bon-mots or literary anecdotes. The most readable portions are the prefaces, where he writes in his own person in the unaffected epistolary style. We learn from them many particulars about the lives of the great rhetores and the state of taste and literary education. But in the preface to the tenth book (the last of the series) he expresses an utter weariness of a subject which not even the reminiscences of happier days could invest with serious interest. There are no indications that Seneca rose to the first eminence. His extraordinary memory, diligence, and virtuous habits gained him respect from his pupils and the intimacy of the great. But there is nothing in his writings to show a man of more than average capacity, who, having been thrown all his life in an artificial and narrowing profession, has lost the power of taking a vigorous interest in things, and acquired the habit of looking at questions from what we might call the examiner's point of view. We have remains of two sets of compositions by him; Controversiae, or legal questions discussed by way of practice for actual cases, divided into ten books, of which about half are preserved; and Suasoriae, or imaginary themes, such as those ridiculed by Juvenal:
"Consilium dedimus Sullae, privatus ut altum
Dormiret."
These last are printed first in our editions, because, being abstract in character and not calling for any special knowledge, they were better suited for beginners. The style of the book varies. In the prefaces it is not inelegant, and shows few traces of the decline, but in the excerpts from Latro and Fuscus, (which are perhaps nearly in their own words) we observe the silver Latinity already predominant. Much is written in a very compressed manner, reading like notes of a lecture or a table of contents. There is, however, a geniality about the old man which renders him, even when uninteresting, not altogether unpleasing.
We pass from rhetoric to history, and here we meet with one of the great names of Roman letters, the most eloquent of all historians, TITUS LIVIUS PATAVINUS. The exact date of his birth is disputed, but may be referred to 59 or 57 B.C. at Pataviam (Padua), a populous and important town, no less renowned for its strict morals than for its opulence. [11] Little is known of his life, but he seems to have been of noble birth; his relative, C. Cornelius, took the auspices at Pharsalia, and the aristocratic tinge which pervades his work would lead to the same inference. Padua was a bustling place, where public-speaking was rife, and aptitude for affairs common; thus Livy was nursed in eloquence and in scenes of human activity. Nothing tended to turn his mind to the contemplation of nature—at least we see no signs of it in his work,—his conceptions of national development were uncomplicated by reference to the share that physical conditions have in moulding it; man alone, and man as in all respects self-determining, has interest for him. His gifts are pre-eminently those of an orator; the talent for developing an idea, for explaining events as an orderly sequence, for establishing conclusions, for moving the feelings, for throwing himself into a cause, for clothing his arguments in noble language, shine conspicuous in his work, while he has the good faith, sincerity, and patriotism which mark off the orator from the mere advocate. For some years he remained at Padua studying philosophy [12] and practising as a teacher of rhetoric, declaiming after the manner of Seneca and his contemporaries. Reference is made to these declamations by Seneca and Quintilian, and no doubt they were worth preserving as a grade in his intellectual progress and as having helped to produce the artistic elaborateness of his speeches. In 31 B.C. or thereabouts, he came to Rome, where he speedily rose into favour. But though a courtier, he was no flatterer. He praised Brutus and Cassius, [13] he debated whether Caesar was useful to the state, [14] his whole history is a praise of the old Republic, his preface states that Rome can neither bear her evils, nor the remedy that has been applied to them (by which it is probable he means the Empire), and we know that Augustus called him a Pompeian, though, at the same time, he cannot have been an imprudent one, otherwise he could hardly have retained the emperor's friendship. As regards the date of his work, Professor Seeley decides that the first decade was written between 27 and 20 B.C., the very time during which the Aeneid was in process of composition. The later decades were thrown off from time to time until his death at Patavium in 17 A.D. Indications exist to show that they were not revised by him after publication, e.g., the errors into which he had been led by trusting to Valerius Antias were not erased; but he was careful not to rely on his authority afterwards. That he enjoyed a high reputation is clear from the fact recorded by Pliny the younger, that a man journeyed to Rome from Cadiz for the express purpose of seeing him, and, having succeeded, returned at once. [15] The elder Pliny [16] draws a picture of him at an advanced age studying with undiminished zeal at his great work. The "old man eloquent" used to say that he had written enough for glory, and had now earned rest; but his restless mind fed on labour and would not lie idle. When completed, his book at once became the authoritative history of Rome, after which nothing was left but to abridge or comment upon it.
The state of letters at Rome, while unfavourable to strictly political history, was ripe for the production of a work like Livy's. Augustus, Agrippa, and Pollio, had founded public libraries in which the older works were accessible. The emperor took a keen interest in all studies; he encouraged not merely poets but philologians and scientific writers, and he was not indisposed to protect historical study, if only it were treated in the way he approved. Rabirius, Pedo Albinovanus, and Cornelius Severus had written poems on the late wars, Ovid and Propertius on the legends embodied in the calendar; the rival jurists Labeo and Capito had wrought the Juris Responsa into a body of legal doctrine; Strabo was giving the world the result of his travels in a universal geography; Pompeius Trogus, Labienus, Pollio, and the Greeks Dionysius, Dion, and Timagenes, had all treated Roman history; Augustus had published a volume of his own Gesta; all things seem to demand a comprehensive dramatic account of the growth of the Roman state, which should trace the process by which the world became Roman, and Rome became united in the hands of Caesar.
Hitherto Roman history had been imperfectly treated. It is unfortunate that such crude conceptions of its nature prevailed. Even Cicero says, opus hoc unum maxime oratorium. [17] It had been either a register of events kept by aristocratic pontiffs from pride of race, or a series of pictures for the display of eloquence. Neither the flexible imagination, nor the patient sagacity, nor the disinterested view of life necessary for a great historian, was to be found among the Romans. There was no true criticism. For instance, while Juvenal depicts the first inhabitants of the city, according to tradition, as rude marauders, [18] Cicero commends their virtues and extols the wisdom of the early kings as the Athenian orators do that of Solon; and in his Cato Maior makes of the harsh censor a refined country gentleman and a student of Plato! Varro had amassed a vast collection of facts, a formidable array of authorities; Dionysius had spent twenty years in studying the monuments of Rome, and yet had so little intelligence of her past that he made Romulus a philosopher of the Sophistic type! Caesar and Sallust gave true narratives of that which they had themselves known, but they did little more. No ancient writer, unless perhaps Thucydides, has grasped the truth that history is an indivisible whole, and that humanity marches according to fixed law towards a determinate end. The world is in their eyes a stage on which is played for ever the same drama of life and death, whose fate moves in a circle bounded by the catastrophes of cities mortal as their inhabitants, without man's becoming by progress of time either better or more powerful. In estimating, then, the value of Livy's work, we must ask, How far did he possess the qualifications necessary for success? We turn to his preface and find there the moralist, the patriot, and the stylist; and we infer that his fullest idea of history is of a book in which he who runs can read the lesson of virtue; and, if he be a lawgiver, can model his legislation upon its high precedents, and, if he be a citizen, can follow its salutary precepts of conduct. An idea, which, however noble, is certainly not exhaustive. It may entitle its possessor to be called a lofty writer, but not a great historian. This is his radical defect. He treats history too little as a record, too little as a science, too much as a series of texts for edification.
How far is he faithful to his authorities? In truth, he never deserts them, never (or almost never) advances an assertion without them. [19] His fidelity may be inferred from the fact that when he follows Polybius alone, he adds absolutely nothing, he merely throws life into his predecessor's dead periods. Moreover, he writes, after the method of the old annalists, of events year by year; he rarely conjectures their causes or traces their connexion, he is willing to efface himself in the capacity of exponent of what is handed down. Whole passages we cannot doubt, especially in the early books, are inserted from Fabius and the other ancients, only just enough changed to make them polished instead of rude; and it is astonishing how slight the changes need be when the hand that makes them is a skilful one. So far as we can judge he never alters the testimony of a witness, or colours it by interested presentation. His chief authorities for the early history are Licinius Macer, Claudius Quadrigarius, Gn. Gellius, [20] Sempronius Tuditanus, Aelius Tubero, Cassius Hemina, Calpurnius Piso, Valerius Antias, Acilius Glabrio, [21] Porcius Cato, Cincius, and Pictor. [22] These writers, or at least the most ancient of them, Cato and Pictor, founded their investigations on such, records as treaties, public documents—e.g. the annals, censors' and pontiffs' commentaries, augural books, books relating to civil procedure kept by the pontiffs, &c.; [23] laws, lists of magistrates, [24] Libri Lintei kept in the temple of Juno Moneta; all under the reservation noticed before, that the majority perished in the Gallic conflagration. [25] These Professor Seeley classes as pure sources. The rest, which he calls corrupt, are the funeral orations, inscriptions in private houses placed under the Imagines, [26] poems of various kinds, both gentile and popular, in all of which, there was more or less of intentional misrepresentation. For the history after the first decade new authorities appear. The chief are Polybius, Silenus the Sicilian a friend of Hannibal, Caelius Antipater, Sisenna, Caecilius, Rutilius, and the Fasti, which are now almost or quite continuous; and still further on he followed Posidonius, and perhaps for the Civil Wars Asinius Pollio, Theophanes, and others. There is evidence that these were carefully digested, but by instalments. For instance, he did not read Polybius until he came to write the Punic wars. Hence he missed several antiquarian notices (e.g. the treaty with Carthage) which would have helped him in the first decade. Still he uses the authors he quotes with moderation and fidelity. When the Fasti omit or confuse the names of the consuls, he tells us so; [27] when authorities differ as to whether the victory lay with the Romans or Samnites, [28] he notes the fact. In the early history he is reticent, where Dionysius is minute; he is content with the broad legendary outline, where Dionysius constructs a whole edifice of probable but utterly uncertified particulars. In the important task of sifting authorities Livy follows the plan of selecting the most ancient, and those who from their position had best access to facts. In complicated cases of divergence he trusts the majority, [29] the earliest, [30] or the most accredited, [31] particularly Fabius and Piso. [32] He does not analyse for us his method of arriving at a conclusion. "Erudition is for him a mine from which the historian should draw forth the pure gold, leaving the mud where he found it." Many of his conclusions are reached by a sort of instinct, which by practice divines truth, or rather verisimilitude, which is but too often its only available substitute.
So far as enthusiasm serves (and without it criticism, though it may succeed in destroying, is helpless to construct), Livy penetrates to the spirit of ancient times. He says himself, in a very celebrated passage where he bewails the prevailing scepticism, [33] "Non sum nescius ab eadem neglegentia qua nihil portendere deos volgo nunc credunt neque nuntiari admodum ulla prodigia in publicum neque in annales referri. Ceterum et mihi vetustas res scribenti nescio quo pacto antiquus fit animus et quaedam religio tenet, quae illi prudentissimi viri publice suscipienda curarint, ea pro indignis habere quae in meos annales referam." This "antiquity of soul" is not criticism, but it is an important factor in it. In the history of the kings he is a poet. If we read the majestic sentence in which the end of Romulus is described, [34] we must admit that if the event is told at all this is the way in which it should be told. We meet, however, here and there, with genuine insertions from antiquity which spoil the beauty of the picture. Take, e.g., the law of treason, [35] terrible in its stern accents, "Duumviri perduellionem iudicent: si a duumviris provocarit, provocatione certato: si vincent, caput obnubito: infelici arbori reste suspendito: verberato vel intra pomoerium vel extra pomoerium," where, as the historian remarks, the law scarcely hints at the possibility of an acquittal. In the struggles of the young Republic one traces the risings of political passion, not of individuals as yet, but of parties in the state. After the Punic wars have begun individual features predominate, and what has been a rich canvass becomes a speaking portrait. Constitutional questions, in which Livy is singularly ill informed, are hinted at, [36] but generally in so cursory and unintelligent a way, that it needs a Niebuhr to elicit their meaning. And Livy is throughout led into fallacious views by his confusion of the mob (faex Romuli, as Cicero calls it) which represented the sovereign people in his day, with the sturdy and virtuous plebs, whose obstinate insistance on their right forms the leading thread of Roman constitutional development. Conformably with his promise at the outset he traces with much more effect the gradually increasing moral decadence. It is when Rome comes into contact with Asia that her virtue, already tried, collapses almost without a struggle. The army, once so steady in its discipline, riots in revelry, and marches against Antiochus with as much recklessness as if it were going to butcher a flock of sheep. [37] The soldiers even disobey orders in pillaging Phocaea; they become cowards, e.g., the Illyrian garrison surrenders to Perseus; and before long the abominable and detested oriental orgies gain a permanent footing in Rome. Meanwhile, the senate falls from its old standard, it ceases to keep faith, its generals boast of perfidy, [38] and the corrupted fathers have not the face to check them. [39] The epic of decadence proceeds to its dénouement, and if we possessed the lost books the decline would be much more evident. It must be admitted that in this department of his subject Livy paints with a master's hand. But nothing can atone for his signal deficiency in antiquarian and constitutional knowledge. He had (it has been said) a taste for truth, but not a passion for it. Had he gone into the Aedes Nympharum, he might have read on brass the so-called royal and tribunician laws; he might have read the treaties with the Sabines, with Gabii and Carthage; the Senatus Consulta and the Plebi Scita. Augustus found in the ruined temple of Jupiter Fucinus [40] the spolia opima of Cossus, who was there declared to have been consul when he won them. All the authorities represented him as military tribune. Livy, it seems, never took the trouble to examine it. When he professes to cite an ancient document, it is not the document itself he cites but its copy in Fabius. He seems to think the style of history too ornate to admit such rugged interpositions, [41] and when he inserts them he offers a half apology for his boldness. This dilettante way of regarding his sources deserves all the censure Niebuhr has cast on it. If it were not for the fidelity with which he has incorporated without altering his better-informed predecessors, the investigations of Niebuhr and his successors would have been hopelessly unverifiable. The student who wishes to learn the value of Livy for the history of the constitution should read the celebrated Lectures (VII. and VIII.) of Niebuhr's history. Their publication dethroned him, nor has he yet been reinstated. But it must be remembered that this censure does not attach to him in other aspects, for instance as a chronicler of Rome's wars, or a biographer of her worthies. As a geographer, however, he is untrustworthy; his description of Hannibal's march is obscure, and many battles are extremely involved. It is evident he was a clear thinker only on certain points; his preface, e.g., is intricate both in matter and manner.
It remains to consider him shortly as a philosophic and as an artistic historian. On these points some excellent remarks are made by M. Taine. [42] When we read or write a history of Rome we ask, Why was it that Rome conquered the Samnites, the Carthaginians, the Etruscans? How was it that the plebeians gained equal rights with the patricians? The answer to such questions satisfies the intelligent man of the world who desires only a clear and consistent view. But philosophy asks a yet further why? Why was Rome a conquering state? why these never-ceasing wars? why was her cult of abstract deities a worship of the letter which never rose to a spiritual idea? In the resolution of problems like these lies the true delight of science; the former is but information; this is knowledge. Has Livy this knowledge? It does not follow that the philosophic historian should deduce with mathematical precision; he merely narrates the events in their proper order, or chooses from the events those that are representative; he groups facts under their special laws, and these again under universal laws, by a skilful arrangement or selection, or else by flashes of imaginative insight. Livy is no more a philosopher than a critic; he discovers laws, as he verifies facts, imperfectly. The treatment of history known to the ancients did not admit of separate discussions summing up the results of previous narrative; for philosophic views we are as a rule driven to consult the inserted speeches. Livy's speeches often reveal considerable insight; Manlius's account of the Gauls in Asia, [43] and Camillus's sarcastic description of their behaviour round Rome, [44] go to the root of their national character and lay bare its weakness. The Samnites are criticised by Decius in terms which show that Livy had analysed the causes of their fall before Rome. [45] Hannibal arraigns the narrow policy of his country as his true vanquisher. These and the like are as effectual means of inculcating a general truth as a set discussion. To these numerous and perhaps more striking passages bearing on the internal history might be added. [46] But a historian should have his whole subject under command. It is not enough to illuminate it by flashes. The speeches, besides being in the highest degree unnatural and unhistoric, are far too eloquent, moving the feelings instead of the judgment. [47] "For an annalist," to quote Niebuhr, "a clear survey is not necessary; but in a work like Livy's, it is of the highest importance, and no great author has this deficiency to such an extent as he. He neither knew what he had written nor what he was going to write, but wrote at hap-hazard." To put all facts on an equal footing is to be like a child threading beads. To know how to select representative facts, to arrange according to representative principles is an indispensable requisite, as its absence is an irremediable defect in a writer who aspires to instruct the world.
To turn to his artistic side. In this he has been allowed to stand on the highest pinnacle of excellence. Whether he paints the character of a nation or an individual; whether he paints it by pausing to reflect on its elements, as in the beautiful studies of Cato and Cicero, [48] or by describing it in action, which is the poetical and dramatic mode, or by making it express itself in speech, which is the method the orator favours most, he is always great. He was a Venetian, and Niebuhr finds in him the rich colouring of the Venetian school; he has also the darker shadow which that colouring necessitates, and the bold delineation of form which renders it not meretricious but noble. When he makes the old senators speak, we recognise men with the souls of kings. Manlius regards the claim of the Latins for equal rights as an outrage and a sacrilege against Capitoline Jupiter, with a truly Roman arrogance which would be grotesque were it not so grand. [49] The familiar conception we form in childhood of the great Roman worthies, where it does not come from Plutarch, is generally drawn from Livy.
The power of his style is seen sometimes in stately movement, sometimes in lightning-like flashes. When Hannibal at the foot of the Alps sees his men dispirited, he cries out, "You are scaling the walls of Rome!" When the patricians shrink in fear from the dreaded tribunate, the consuls declare that their emblems of office are a funeral pageant. [50] All readers will remember pithy sentences like these: "Hannibal has grown old in Campania;" [51] "The issue of war will show who is in the right." [52]
His rhetorical training discovers itself in the elaborate exactness with which he disposes of all the points in a speech. The most artificial of all, perhaps, and yet at the same time the most effective, is the pleading of old Horatius for his son. [53] It might have come from the hands of Porcius Latro, or Arellius Fuscus. The orator treats truth as a means; the historian should treat it as an end. Livy wishes us not so much to know as to admire his heroes.
His language was censured by Pollio as exhibiting a Patavinitas, but what this was we know not. To us he appears as by far the purest writer subsequent to Cicero. Of the great orator he was a warm admirer. He imitated his style, and bade his son-in-law read only Cicero and Demosthenes, or other writers in proportion as they approached these two. He models his rhythm on the Ciceronian period so far as their different objects permit. But poetical phrases have crept in, [54] marring its even fabric; and other indications of too rich a colouring betray the near advent of the Silver Age.
As the book progresses the style becomes more fixed, until in the third decade it has reached its highest point; in the later books, as we know from testimony as well as the few specimens that are extant, it had become garrulous, like that of an old man. His work was to have consisted of fifteen decades, but as we have no epitome beyond Book CXLII., it was probably never finished. Perhaps the loss of the last part is not so serious as it seems. We have thirty books complete and the greater part of five others; but no more, except a fragment of the ninety-first book, has been discovered for several centuries, and in all probability the remainder is for ever lost. Livy was so much abridged and epitomized that during the Middle Ages he was scarcely read in any other form. Compilers like Florus, Orosius, Eutropius, &c. entirely supplied his place.
A word should perhaps be said about POMPEIUS TROGUS, who about Livy's time wrote a universal history in forty-four books. It was called Historiae Philippicae, and was apparently arranged according to nations; it began with Ninus, the Nimrod of classical legend, and was brought down to about 9 A.D. We know the work from the epitomes of the books and from Justin's abridgment, which is similar to that of Florus on Livy. Who Justin was, and where he lived, are not clearly ascertained. He is thought to have been a philosopher, but if so, he was anything but a talented one; most scholars place his floruit under the Antonines. He seems to have been a faithful abbreviator, at least as far as this, that he has added nothing of his own. Hence we may form a conception, however imperfect, of the value of Trogus's labours. Trogus was a scientific man, and seems to have desired the fame of a polymath. In natural science he was a good authority, [55] but though his history must have embodied immensely extended researches, it never succeeded in becoming authoritative.
Among the writers on applied science, one of considerable eminence has descended to us, the architect VITRUVIUS POLLIO. He is very rarely mentioned, and has been confounded with Vitruvius Cerdo, a freedman who belongs to a later date, and whose precepts contradict in many particulars those of the first Vitruvius. His birth-place was Formiae; he served in the African War (46 B.C.) under Caesar, so that he was born at least as early as 64 B.C. [56] The date of his work is also uncertain, but it can be approximately fixed, for in it he mentions the emperor's sister as his patroness, and as by her he probably means Octavia, who died 11 B.C., the book must have been written before that year. As, moreover, he speaks of one stone theatre only as existing in Rome, whereas two others were added in 13 B.C., the date is further thrown back to at least 14 B.C. As he expressly tells us it was written in his old age, and he must have been a young man in 46 B.C., when he served his first campaign, the nearer we bring its composition to the latest possible date (i.e. 14) the more correct we shall probably be. He was of good birth and had had a liberal education; but it is clear from the style of his work that he had either forgotten how to write elegantly, or had advanced his literary studies only so far as was necessary for a professional man. [57] His language is certainly far from good.
He began life as a military engineer, but soon found that his personal defects prevented him from succeeding in his career. [58] He therefore seems to have solaced himself by setting forward in a systematic form the principles of his art, and by finding fault with the great body of his professional brethren. [59] The dedication to Augustus implies that he had a practical object, viz. to furnish him with sound rules to be applied in building future edifices and, if necessary, for correcting those already built. He is a patient student of Greek authors, and adopts Greek principles unreservedly; in fact his work is little more than a compendium of Greek authorities. [60] His style is affectedly terse, and so much so as to be frequently obscure. The contents of his book are very briefly as follows:—
" II. On the proper materials to be used in building, preceded, like several of Pliny's books, by a quasi-philosophical digression on the origin and early history of man—the progress of art—Vitruvius gives his views on the nature of matter.
" III. IV. On temples—an account of the four orders, Doric, Ionic,
Corinthian, and Composite.
" V. On other public buildings.
" VI. On the arrangement and plan of private houses.
" VII. On the internal decoration of houses.
" VIII. On water supply—the different properties of different waters—the way to find them, test them, and convey them into the city.
" IX. On sun dials and other modes of measuring time.
" X. On machines of all kinds, civil and military.
As will be seen from this analysis, the work is both comprehensive and systematic; it was of great service in the Middle Ages, when it was used in an abridged form (sufficiently ancient, however,) which we still possess.
Antiquarian research was carried on during this period with much zeal. Many illustrious scholars are mentioned, none of whose works have come down to us, except in extremely imperfect abridgments. FENESTELLA (52 B.C.-22 A.D.) wrote on various legal and religious questions, on miscellaneous topics, as literary history, the art of good living, various points in natural history, &c. for which he is quoted as an authority by Pliny. His greatest work seems to have been Annales, which were used by Plutarch. It is probable, however, that in these he showed his special aptitude for archaeological research, and passed over the history in a rapid sketch. Special grammatical studies were carried on by VERRIUS FLACCUS, a freedman, whose great work, De Verborum Significatu, the first Latin lexicon conducted on an extensive scale, we possess in an abridgment by Festus. Its size may be conjectured from the fact that the letter A occupied four books, P five, and so on; and that Festus's abridgment consisted of twenty large volumes. [61] It was a rich storehouse of knowledge, the loss of which is much to be lamented. Another freedman, C. JULIUS HYGINUS (64 B.C.-16 A.D.?), who was also keeper of Augustus's library on the Palatine, manifested an activity scarcely less encyclopaedic than that of Varro. Of his multifarious works we possess two short treatises which pass under his name, the first on mythology, called Fabulae, a series of extracts from his Genealogiae, which we have in an abridgment; the second on astronomy, extending, though this is also in an abridged form, to four books. A few details of his life are given by Suetonius. He was a Spaniard by birth, though some believed him to be an Alexandrian, since Caesar brought him to Rome after the Alexandrine War; he attended at Rome the lectures of the grammarian Cornelius Alexander, surnamed Polyhistor. He was an intimate acquaintance of Ovid, [62] and is said to have died in great poverty. It is doubtful whether the works we possess were written by him in his youth, or are the production of an imperfectly educated abbreviator. Bursian, quoted by Teuffel, [63] thinks it probable that in the second half of the second century of the Christian era, a grammarian made a very brief abridgment of Hyginus's work entitled Genealogiae, and to this added a treatise on the whole mythology so far as it concerned poetical literature, compiled from good sources. This mythology, which retained the name of Hyginus and the title of Genealogiae, came to be generally used in the schools of the grammarians.
The demand for school-books was now rapidly increasing; and as the great classical authors published their works, an abundant supply of material was given to the ingenious and learned. The grammaticae tribus, whom Horace mentions with such disdain, [64] were already asserting their right to dispense literary fame. They were not as yet so compact or popular a body as the rhetoricians, but they had begun to cramp, as the others had begun to corrupt, literature. Dependence on the opinion of a clique is the most hurtful state possible, even though the clique be learned; and Horace showed wisdom as well as spirit in resisting it. The endeavour to please the leading men of the world, which Horace professed to be his object, is far less narrowing; such men, though unable to appraise scientific merit, are the best judges of general literature.
The careful methods of exact inquiry, were, as we have said, directed also to law, in which Labeo remained the highest authority. Capito abated principle in favour of the imperial prerogative. They did not, however, affect philosophy, which retained its original colouring as an ars vivendi. Many of Horace's friends, as we learn from the Odes, gave their minds to speculative inquiry, but, like the poet himself, they seem to have soon deserted it. At least we hear of no original investigations. Neither a metaphysic nor a psychology arose; only a loose rhetorical treatment of physical questions, and a careful collection of ethical maxims for the most part eclectically obtained.
SEXTIUS PYTHAGOREUS—there were two born of this name, father and son— wrote in Greek, reproducing the oracular style of Heraclitus. The gnuomai, which were translated and christianised by Rufinus, were stamped with a strongly theistic character. A few inferior thinkers are mentioned by Quintilian and Seneca, as PAPIRIUS FABIANUS, SERGIUS FLAVIUS, and PLOTIUS CRISPINUS. Of these, Papirius treated some of the classificatory sciences, which now first began to attract interest in Rome. Botany and zoology were the favourites. Mineralogy excited more interest on its commercial side with regard to the value and history of jewels; it was also treated in a mystic or imaginative way.
From this rapid summary it will be seen that real learning still flourished in Rome. Despotism had not crushed intellectual energy, nor enforced silence on all but flatterers. The emperor had nevertheless grown suspicious in his old age, and given indications of that tyranny which was soon to be the rule of government; he had interdicted Timagenes from his palace, banished Ovid, burnt the works of Labienus, exiled Severus, and shown such severity towards Albucius Silo that he anticipated further disgrace by a voluntary death. His reign closed in 14 A.D., and with it ceases for near a century the appearance of the highest genius in Rome.
NOTE I.—A fragment translated from Seneca's Suasoriae, showing the style of expression cultivated in the schools.
The subject (Suas. 2) debated is whether the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, seeing themselves deserted by the army, shall remain or flee. The different rhetors declaim as follows, making Leonidas the speaker:—
Arellius Fuscus.—What! are our picked ranks made up of raw recruits, or spirits likely to be cowed, or hands likely to shrink from the unaccustomed steel, or bodies enfeebled by wounds or decay? How shall I speak of us as the flower of Greece? Shall I bestow that name on Spartans or Eleans? or shall I rehearse the countless battles of our ancestors, the cities they sacked, the nations they spoiled? and do men now dare to boast that our temples need no walls to guard them? Ashamed am I of our conduct ashamed to have entertained even the idea of flight. But then, you say, Xerxes comes with an innumerable host. O Spartans! and Spartans matched against barbarians, have you no reverence for your deeds, your grandsires, your sires, from whose example your souls from infancy gather lofty thoughts? I scorn to offer Spartans such exhortations as these. Look! we are protected by our position. Though he bring with him the whole East, and parade his useless numbers before our craven eyes, this sea which spreads its vast expanse before us is pressed into a narrow compass, is beset by treacherous straits which scarce admit the passage of a single row-boat, and then by their chopping swell make rowing impossible; it is beset by unseen shallows, wedged between deeper bottoms, rough with sharp rocks, and everything that mocks the sailor's prayer. I am ashamed (I repeat it) that Spartans, and Spartans armed, should even stop to ask how it is they are safe. Shall I not carry home the spoil of the Persians? Then at least I will fall naked upon it. They shall know that we have yet three hundred men who thus scorn to flee, who thus mean to fall. Think of this: we can perhaps conquer; with all our effort we cannot be conquered. I do not say you are doomed to death—you to whom I address these words; but if you are, and yet think that death is be feared, you greatly err. To no living thing has nature given unending life; on the day of birth the day of death is fixed. For heaven has wrought us out of a weak material; our bodies yield to the slightest stroke, we are snatched away unwarned by fate. Childhood and youth lie beneath the same inexorable law. Most of us even long for death, so perfect a rest does it offer from the struggle of life. But glory has no limits, and they who fall like us rise nearest to the gods. Even women often choose the path of death which leads to glory. What need to mention Lycurgus, those heroes handed down by history, whom no peril could appal? to awake the spirit of Othryades alone, would be to give example enough, and more than enough, for us three hundred men!
Triarius.—Are not Spartans ashamed to be conquered, not by blows but by rumours? 'Tis a great thing to be born a scion of valour and a Spartan. For certain victory all would wait; for certain death none but Spartans. Sparta is girt with no walls, her walls are where her men are. Better to call back the army than to follow them. What if the Persian bores through mountains, makes the sea invisible? Such proud felicity never yet stood sure; the loftiest exaltation is struck to earth through its forgetfulness of the instability of all things human. You may be sure that power which has given rise to envy has not seen its last phase. It has changed seas, lands, nature itself; let us three hundred die, if only that it may here find something it cannot change. If such madmen's counsel was to be accepted, why did we not flee with the crowd?
Porcius Latro.—This then is what we have waited for, to collect a band of runaways. You flee from a rumour; let us at least know of what sort it is. Our dishonour can hardly be wiped out even by victory; bravely as we may fight, successful as we may be, much of our renown is already lost; for Spartans have debated whether or not to flee. O that we may die! For myself, after this discussion, the only thing I fear is to return home. Old women's tales have shaken the arms out of our hands. Now, now, let us fight, among the thirty thousand our valour might have lain hid. The rest have fled. If you ask my opinion, which I utter for the honour of ourselves and Greece, I say they have not deserted us, they have chosen us as their champions.
Marillus.—This was our reason for remaining, that we might not be hidden among the crowd of fugitives. The army has a good excuse to offer for its conduct: "We knew Thermopylae would be safe since we left Spartans to guard it."
Cestius Pius.—You have shown, Spartans, how base it were to fly by so long remaining still. All have their privilege. The glory of Athens is speech, of Thebes religion, of Sparta arms. 'Tis for this Eurotas flows round our state that its stream may inure our boys to the hardships of future war; 'tis for this we have our peaks of Taygetus inaccessible but to Spartans; 'tis for this we boast of a Hercules who has won heaven by merit; 'tis for this that arms are our only walls. O deep disgrace to our ancestral valour! Spartans are counting their numbers, not their manhood. Let us see how long the list is, that Sparta may have, if not brave soldiers, at least true messengers. Can it be that we are vanquished, not by war, but by reports? that man, i' faith, has a right to despise everything at whose very name Spartans are afraid. If we may not conquer Xerxes, let us at least be allowed to see him; I would know what it is I flee from. As yet I am in no way like an Athenian, either in seeking culture, or in dwelling behind a wall; the last Athenian quality that I shall imitate will be cowardice.
Pompeius Silo.—Xerxes leads many with him, Thermopylae can hold but few. We shall be the most timid of the brave, the slowest of cowards. No matter how great nations the East has poured into our hemisphere, how many peoples Xerxes brings with him; as many as this place will hold, with those is our concern.
Cornelius Hispanus.—We have come for Sparta; let us stay for Greece; let us vanquish the foe as we have already vanquished our friends; let this arrogant barbarian learn that nothing is so difficult as to cut an armed Spartan down. For my part, I am glad the rest have gone; they have left Thermopylae for us; there will now be nothing to mingle or compare itself with our valour; no Spartan will be hidden in the crowd; wherever Xerxes looks he will see none but Spartans.
Blandus.—Shall I remind you of your mother's command—"Either with your shield or on it?" and yet to return without arms is far less base than to flee under arms. Shall I remind you of the words of the captive?—"Kill me, I am no slave!" To such a man to escape would not have been to avoid capture. Describe the Persian terrors! We heard all that when we were first sent out. Let Xerxes see the three hundred, and learn at what rate the war is valued, what number of men the place is calculated to hold. We will not return even as messengers except after the fight is over. Who has fled I know not; these men Sparta has given me for comrades. I am thankful that the host has fled; they had made the pass of Thermopylae too narrow for me to move in.
§ On the other side.
Cornelius Hispanus.—I hold it a great disgrace to our state if Xerxes see no Greeks before he sees the Spartans. We shall not even have a witness of our valour; the enemy's account of us will be believed. You have my counsel, it is the same as that of all Greece. If any one advise differently, he wishes you to be not brave men but ruined men.
Claudius Marcellus.—They will not conquer us; they will overwhelm us. We have been true to our renown, we have waited till the last. Nature herself has yielded before we.
The above Suasoria is by no means one of the most brilliant; on the contrary, it is a decidedly a tame one, but it is a good instance of an ordinary declamation of the better sort, and gives passages from most of the rhetoricians to whom reference is made in the text.
NOTE II.—A few Observations on the Treatment of Rhetorical Questions, taken from the Third Book of Quintilian.
"The division of the departments of rhetoric, or to use a more correct term, the classification of causes, is three-fold: They are either laudatory, deliberative, or judicial. This is a division according to the subject matter, not according to the artistic treatment. Correspondingly, there are three requisites for pleading well, nature, art, and practice; and three objects which the orator must set before him, to teach, to move, and to delight. Every question turns either on things or on words; or as it may be expressed in other language, is either indefinite or definite. The indefinite is in the form of a universal proposition (Oesis) which Cicero calls propositum, others quaestio universalis civilis, others quaestio philosopho conveniens, and Athenaeus pars causae. This again is divided under the heads of knowledge and action respectively; of knowledge, e.g. Is the world ruled by Providence? of action, e.g., Is political activity a duty? The definite question regards things, persons, times, circumstances: it is called upothesis in Greek, causa in Latin. It always depends on an indefinite question, e.g., Ought Cato to marry? depends on the wider one, is marriage desirable? Hence it may be a suasoria. And this is true even of cases in which no person is specially mentioned, e.g., the question, Ought a man to hold office under a tyranny? depends on the wider one, Ought a man to hold office at all? And this question refers of necessity to some special tyrant, though it may not mention him by name. This is the same division as that into general and special questions. Thus every special includes a general. It is true that generals often bear only remotely on practice, and sometimes are altogether neutralised by peculiar circumstances, e.g., the question, Is political activity a duty? becomes inapplicable to a chronic invalid. Still, all are not of this kind, e.g., Is virtue the end of man? is equally applicable to every human being, whatever his capacity. Cicero in his earlier treatises disapproved of these questions being discussed by the orator; he wished to leave them to the philosopher; but as he grew in experience he changed his mind.
"A cause is defined by Valgius, after Apollodorus, as negotium omnibus suis partibus spectans ad quaestionem, or as negotium cuius finis est controversia. The negotium (or business in hand) is thus defined, congregatio personarum locorum temporum causarum modorum casuum factorum instrumentorum sermonum scriptorum et non scriptorum. The cause, therefore, corresponds to the Greek upostasis (subject), the negotium to peristasis (surroundings). These are of course closely connected; and many have defined the cause as though it were identical with its surroundings or conditions.
"In every discussion three things are the objects of inquiry, an sit, Is it so? quid sit, If so, what is it? quale sit, of what kind is it? For first, there must be something, about which the discussion has arisen. Till this is made clear no discussion as to what it is can arise; far less can we determine what its qualities are, until this second point is ascertained. These three objects of inquiry are exhaustive; on them every question, whether definite or indefinite, depends. The accuser will try to establish, first, the occurrence of the act in dispute, then its character; and, lastly, its criminality. The advocate will, if possible, deny the fact; if he cannot do that he will prove that it is not what the accuser states it to be; or, thirdly, he may contend—and this is the most honourable kind of defence—that it was rightly done. As a fourth alternative, he may take exception to the legality of the prosecution. All these, and every other conceivable division of questions, come under the two general heads (status) of rational and legal. The rational is simple enough, depending only on the contemplation of nature; thus it is content with exhibiting conjecture, definition, and quality. The legal is extremely complex, laws being infinite in number and character. Sometimes the letter is to be observed, sometimes the spirit. Sometimes we get at its meaning by comparison, or induction; sometimes its meaning is open to the most contradictory interpretations. Hence there is room for a far greater display of diverse kinds of excellence in the legal than in the rational department. Thus the declamatory exercises called suasoriae, which are confined to rational considerations, are fittest for young students whose reasoning powers are acute, but who have not the knowledge of law necessary for enabling them to treat controversiae which hinge on legal questions. These last are intended as a preparation for the pleading of actual causes in court, and should be regularly practised even by the most accomplished pleader during the spare moments that his profession allows him."
Augustus was not more unlike his gloomy successor than were the writers who flourished under him to those that now come before us. The history of literature presents no stronger contrast than between the rich fertility of the last epoch and the barrenness of the present one. The age of Tiberius forms an interval of silence during which the dead are buried, and the new generation prepares itself to appear. Under Nero it will have started forth in all its panoply of tinsel armour; at present the seeds that will produce it are being sown by the hand of despotism. [1]
The sudden collapse of letters on the death of Augustus is easily accounted for. As long as the chief of the state encouraged them labourers in every field were numerous. When his face was withdrawn the stimulus to effort was removed. Thus, even in Augustus's time, when ill health and disappointment had soured his nature and disposed him to arbitrary actions, literature had felt the change. The exile of Ovid was a blow to the muses. We have seen how it injured his own genius, a decline over which he mourns, knowing the cause but impotent to overcome it. [2] We have seen also how it was followed up by other harsh measures, stifling the free voice of poets and historians. And when we reflect how the despotism was entwining itself round the entire life of the nation, gathering by each new enactment food for future aggression, and only veiled as yet by the mildness or caution of a prince whose one object was to found a dynasty, our surprise is lessened at the spectacle of literature prostrate and dumb, threatened by the hideous form of tyranny now no longer in disguise, offering it with brutal irony the choice between submission, hypocrisy, and death. Tiberius (whose portrait drawn by Tacitus in colours almost too dark for belief, is nevertheless rendered credible by the deathlike silence in which his reign was passed) had in his youth shown both taste and proficiency in liberal studies. He had formed his style on that of Messala, but the gloomy bent of his mind led him to contract and obscure his meaning to such a degree that, unlike most Romans, he spoke better extempore [3] than after preparation. In the art of perplexing by ambiguous phrases, of indicating intentions without committing himself to them, he was without a rival. In point of language he was a purist like Augustus; but unlike him he mingled archaisms with his diction. While at Rhodes he attended the lectures of Theodorus; and the letters or speeches of his referred to by Tacitus indicate a nervous and concentrated style. Poetry was alien from his stern character. Nevertheless, Suetonius tells us he wrote a lyric poem and Greek imitations of Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius; but it was the minute questions of mythology that chiefly attracted him, points of useless erudition like those derided by Juvenal: [4]
"Nutricem Anchisae, nomen patriamque novercae
Anchemoli, dicat quot Acestes vixerit annos,
Quot Siculus Phrygibus vini donaverit urnas."
In maturer life he busied himself with writing memoirs, which formed the chief, almost the only study of Domitian, and of which we may regret that time has deprived us. The portrait of this arch dissembler by his own able hand would be a good set off to the terrible indictment of Tacitus. Besides the above he was the author of funeral speeches, and, according to Suidas, of a work on the art of rhetoric.
With these literary pretensions it is clear that his discouragement of letters as emperor was due to political reasons. He saw in the free expression of thought or fancy a danger to his throne. And as the abominable system of delations made every chance expression penal, and found treason to the present in all praise of the past, the only resource open to men of letters was to suppress every expression of feeling, and, by silent brooding, to keep passion at white heat, so that when it speaks at last it speaks with the concentrated intensity of a Juvenal or a Tacitus.
We might ask how it was that authors did not choose subjects outside the sphere of danger. There were still forms of art and science which had not been worked out. The Natural History of Pliny shows how much remained to be done in fields of great interest. Neither philosophy nor the lighter kinds of poetry could afford matter for provocation. But the answer is easy. The Roman imagination was so narrow, and their constructive talent so restricted, that they felt no desire to travel beyond the regular lines. It seemed as if all had been done that could be done well. History, national and universal, [5] science [6] and philosophy, [7] Greek poetry in all its varied forms, had been brought to perfection by great masters whom it was hopeless to rival. The age of literary production seemed to have been rounded off, and the self-consciousness that could reflect on the new era had not yet had time to arise. Rhetoric, as applied to the expression of political feeling, was the only form which literature cared to take, and that was precisely the form most obnoxious to the government.
Thus it is possible that even had Tiberius been less jealously repressive letters would still have stagnated. The severe strain of the Augustan age brought its inevitable reaction. The simultaneous appearance of so many writers of the first rank rendered necessary an interval during which their works were being digested and their spirit settling down into an integral constituent of the national mind. By the time thought reawakens, Virgil, Horace, and Livy are already household words, and their works the basis of all literary culture.
In reading the lives of the chief post-Augustan writers we are struck by the fact that many, if not most of them, held offices of state. The desire for peaceful retirement, characteristic of the early Augustans, the contentment with lettered leisure that signalises the poetry of the later Augustans, have both given place to a restless excitement, and to a determination to make the most of literature as an aid to a successful career. Hitherto we have observed two distinct classes of writers, and a corresponding double relation of politics and literature. The early poets, and again those of Augustus's era, were not men of affairs, they belonged to the exclusively literary class. The great prose writers on the contrary rose to political eminence by political conduct. Literature was with them a relaxation, and served no purpose of worldly aggrandisement. Now, however, an unhealthy confusion between the two provinces takes place. A man rises to office through his poems or rhetorical essays. The acquirements of a professor become a passport to public life. Seneca and Quintilian are striking and favourable instances of the school door opening into the senate:
"Si fortuna volet fies de rhetore consul." [8]
But nearly all the chief writers carried their declamatory principles into the serious business of life. This double aspect of their career produced two different types of talent, under one or other of which the great imperial writers may be ranged. Excluding men of the second rank, we have on the one side Lucan, Juvenal, and Tacitus, all whose minds have a strong political bias, the bias of old Rome, which makes them the most powerful though the most prejudiced exponents of their times. Of another kind are Persius, Seneca, and Pliny the elder. Their genius is contemplative and philosophical; and though two of them were much mixed in affairs, their spirit is cosmopolitan rather than national, and their wisdom, though drawn from varied sources, cannot be called political. These six are the representative minds of the period on which we are now entering, and between them reflect nearly all the best and worst features of their age. Quintilian, Statius, and Pliny the younger, represent a more restricted development; the first of them is the typical rhetorician, but of the better class; the second is the brilliant improvisatore and ingenious word-painter; the third the cultivated and amiable but vain, common-place, and dwarfed type of genius which under the Empire took the place of the "fine gentlemen" of the free Republic.
Writers of this last stamp cannot be expected to show any independent spirit. They are such as in every age would adopt the prevalent fashion, and theorise within the limits prescribed by respectability. While a bad emperor reigns they flatter him; when a good emperor succeeds they flatter him still more by abusing his predecessor; at the same time they are genial, sober, and sensible, adventuring neither the safety of their necks nor of their intellectual reputation.
Such an author comes before us in M. VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, the court historian of Tiberius. This well-intentioned but loquacious writer gained his loyalty from an experience of eight years' warfare under Tiberius in various parts of Europe, and the flattery of which he is so lavish was probably sincere. His birth may perhaps be referred to 18 B.C., since his first campaign, under M. Vinicius, to whose son he dedicated his work, took place in the year 1 B.C. Tiberius's sterling qualities as a soldier gained him the friendship of many of his legati, and Velleius was fortunate enough to secure that of Tiberius in return. By his influence he rose through the minor offices to the praetorship (14 A.D.), and soon after set himself to repair the deficiencies of a purely military education by systematic study. The fruit of this labour is the Abridgment of Roman History, in two books, a mere rapid survey of the early period, becoming more diffuse as it nears his own time, and treating the life of Tiberius and the events of which he was the centre with considerable fulness. The latter part is preserved entire; of the first book, which closes with the destruction of Carthage, a considerable portion has been lost. As, however, he is not likely to have followed in it any authorities inaccessible to us, the loss is unimportant. For his work generally the authorities he quotes are good—Cato's Origines, the Annales of Hortensius, and probably Atticus's abridgment; Cornelius Nepos, and Trogus for foreign, Livy and Sallust (of whom he was a great admirer) for national, history. As a recipient and expectant of court favour, he naturally echoed the language of the day. Brutus and Cassius are for him parricides; Caesar, the divine founder of an era which culminates in the divine Tiberius. [9] So full was he of his master's praises that he intended to write a separate book on the subject, but was prevented by his untimely death. This took place in 31 A.D., when the discovery of Sejanus's conspiracy caused many suspected to be put to death, and it seems that Velleius was among the number.
His blind partisanship naturally obscures his judgment; but, making allowance for a defect which he does not attempt to conceal, the reader may generally trust him for all matters of fact. His studies were not as a rule deep; but an exception must be made in the case of his account of the Greek colonies in Italy, the dates at which they were founded, and their early relations with Rome. These had never been so clearly treated by any writer, at least among those with whom we are familiar. His mind is not of a high order; he can neither sift evidence nor penetrate to causes; his talents lie in the biographical department, and he has considerable insight into character. His style is not unclassical so far as the vocabulary goes, but the equable moderation of the Golden Age is replaced by exaggeration, and like all who cultivate artificial brilliancy, he cannot maintain his ambitious level of poetical and pretentious ornament. The last year referred to in the book is 30 A.D. The dearth of other material gives him additional value. As a historian he takes a low rank; as an abridger he is better, but best of all as a rhetorical anecdotist and painter of character in action.
A better known writer (especially during the Middle Ages) is VALERIUS MAXIMUS, author of the Facta et Dicta Memorabilia, in nine books, addressed to Tiberius in a dedication of unexampled servility, [10] and compiled from few though good sources. The object of the work is stated in the preface. It was to save labour for those who desired to fortify their minds with examples of excellence, or increase their knowledge of things worth knowing. The methodical arrangement by subjects, e.g., religion, which is divided into religion observed and religion neglected, and instances of both given, first from Roman, then from foreign, history, and so on with all the other subjects, makes Teuffel's suggestion extremely probable, namely, that it was intended for the use of young declaimers, who were thus furnished with instances for all sorts of themes. The constant tendency in the imperial literature to exhaust a subject by a catalogue of every known instance may be traced to these pernicious rhetorical handbooks. If a writer praises temperance, he supplements it by a list of temperate Romans; if he describes a storm, he puts down all he knows about the winds. Uncritical as Valerius is, and void of all thought, he is nevertheless pleasant enough reading for a vacant hour, and if we were not obliged to rate him by a lofty standard, would pass muster very well. But he is no fit company for men of genius; our only wonder is he should have so long survived. His work was a favourite school-book for junior classes, and was epitomised or abridged by Julius Paris in the fourth or fifth century. At the time of this abridgment the so-called tenth book must have been added. Julius Paris's words in his preface to it are, Liber decimus de praenominibus et similibus: but various considerations make it certain that Valerius was not the author. [11] Many interesting details were given in it, taken chiefly from Varro; and it is much to be regretted that the entire treatise is not preserved. Besides Paris one Titius Probus retouched the work in a still later age, and a third abstract by Januarius Nepotianus is mentioned. This last writer cut out all the padding which Valerius had so largely used ("dum se ostentat sententiis, locis iactat, fundit excessibus"), and reduced the work to a bare skeleton of facts.
A much more important writer, one of whose treatises only has reached us, was A. CORNELIUS CELSUS. He stood in the first rank of Roman scientists, was quite encyclopaedic in his learning, and wrote, like Cato, on eloquence, law, farming, medicine, and tactics. There is no doubt that the work on medicine (extending over Books VI.-XIII. of his Encyclopaedia) which we possess, was the best of his writings, but the chapters on agriculture also are highly praised by Columella.
At this time, as Des Etangs remarks, nearly all the knowledge and practice of medicine was in the hands of Greek physicians, and these either freedmen or slaves. Roman practitioners seem to have inspired less confidence even when they were willing to study. Habits of scientific observation are hereditary; and for centuries the Greeks had studied the conditions of health and the theory of disease, as well as practised the empirical side of the art, and most Romans were well content to leave the whole in their hands.
Celsus tried to attract his countrymen to the pursuit of medicine by pointing out its value and dignity. He commences his work with a history of medical science since its first importation into Greece, and devotes the rest of Book I. to a consideration of dietetics and other prophylactics of disease; the second book treats of general pathology, the third and fourth of special illnesses, the fifth gives remedies and prescriptions, the sixth, seventh, and eighth—the most valuable part of the book—apply themselves chiefly to surgical questions. The value of his work consists in the clear, comprehensive grasp of his subject, and the systematic way in which he expounds its principles. The main points of his theory are still valid; very few essentials need to be rejected; it might still be taken as a popular handbook on the subject. He writes for Roman citizens, and is therefore careful to avoid abstruse terms where plain ones will do, and Greek words where Latin are to be had. The style is bare, but pure and classical. An excellent critic says [12]—"Quo saepius eum perlegebam, eo magis me detinuit cum dicendi nitor et brevitas tum perspicacitas iudicii sensusque vorax et ad agendum accommodatus, quibus omnibus genuinam repraesentat nobis civis Romani imaginem." The text as we have it depends on a single MS. and sadly needs a careful revision; it is interpolated with numerous glosses, both Greek and Latin, which a skilful editor would detect and remove. Among the other treatises in his Encyclopaedia, next to that on farming, those on rhetoric and tactics were most popular. The former, however, was superseded by Quintilian, the latter by Vegetius. In philosophy he did not so much criticise other schools as detail his own views with concise eloquence. These views were almost certainly Eclectic, though we know on Quintilian's authority that he followed the two Sextii in many important points. [13]
The other branches of prose composition were almost neglected in this reign. Even rhetoric sank to a low level; the splendid displays of men like Latro, Arellius, and Ovid gave place to the flimsy ostentation of REMMIUS PALAEMON. This dissolute man, who combined the professions of grammarian and rhetorician, possessed an extraordinary aptitude for fluent harangue, but soon confined his attention to grammatical studies, in which he rose to the position of an authority. Suetonius says he was born a slave, and that while conducting his young master to school he learnt something of literature, was liberated, and set up a school in Rome, where he rose to the top of his profession. Although infamous for his abandoned profligacy, and stigmatized by Tiberius and Claudius as utterly unfit to have charge of the young, he managed to secure a very large number of pupils by his persuasive manner, and the excellence of his tutorial method. His memory was prodigious, his eloquence seductive, and a power of extempore versification in the most difficult metres enhanced the charm of his conversation. He is referred to by Pliny, Quintilian, and Juvenal, and for a time superintended the studies of the young satirist Persius.
Oratory, as may easily be supposed, had well nigh ceased. VOTIENUS MONTANUS, MAMERCUS SCAURUS, and P. VITELLIUS, all held high positions in the state. Scaurus, in particular, was also of noble lineage, being the great-grandson of the celebrated chief of the senate. His oratory was almost confined to declamation, but was far above the general level of the time. Careless, and often full of faults, it yet carried his hearers away by its native power and dignity. [14] ASINIUS GALLUS, the son of Pollio, so far followed his father as to take a strong interest in politics, and with filial enthusiasm compared him favourably with Cicero. DOMITIUS AFER also is mentioned by Tacitus as an able but dissolute man, who under a better system might have been a good speaker. A writer of some mark was CREMUTIUS CORDUS, whose eloquent account of the rise of the Empire cost him his life: in direct defiance of the fashionable cant of the day he had called Cassius "the last of the Romans." The higher spirits seemed to take a gloomy pleasure in speaking out before the tyrant, even if it were only with their last breath; more than one striking instance of this is recorded by Tacitus; and though he questions the wisdom of relieving personal indignation by a vain invective, which must bring death and ruin on the speaker and all his family, and in the end only tighten the yoke it tries to shake, yet the intractable pride of these representatives of the old families has something about it to which, human as we are, we cannot refuse our sympathy. The only other prose-writer we need mention is AUFIDIUS BASSUS, who described the Civil Wars and the German expeditions, and is mentioned with great respect by Tacitus.
Poetry is represented by the fifth book of Manilius, by Phaedrus's Fables, and perhaps by the translation of Aratus ascribed to GERMANICUS, the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius. This translation, which is both elegant and faithful, and superior to Cicero's in poetical inspiration, has been claimed, but with less probability, for Domitian, who, as is well known, affected the title of Germanicus. [15] But the consent of the most ancient critics tends to restore Germanicus Drusus as the author, the title genitor applied to Tiberius not being proof positive the other way.
The only writer who mentions PHAEDRUS is Martial, [16] and he only in a single passage. The Aesopian beast-fable was a humble form of art peculiarly suited to a period of political and literary depression. Seneca in his Consolatio ad Polybium implies that that imperial favourite had cultivated it with success. Apparently he did not know of Phaedrus; and this fact agrees with the frequent complaints that Phaedrus makes to the effect that he is not appreciated. Of his life we know only what we can gather from his own book. He was born in Pieria, and became the slave of Augustus, who set him free, and seems to have given him his patronage. The poet was proud of his Greek birth, but was brought to Rome at so early an age as to belong almost equally to both nationalities. His poverty [17] did not secure him from persecution, Sejanus, ever suspicious and watchful, detected the political allusions veiled beneath the disguise of fable, and made the poet feel his auger. The duration of Phaedrus's career is uncertain. The first two books were all that he published in Tiberius's reign; the third, dedicated to Eutychus, and the fourth to Particulo, Claudius's favourite, clearly show that he continued to write over a considerable time. The date of Book V. is not mentioned, but it can hardly be earlier than the close of Claudius's reign. Thus we have a period of nearly thirty years during which these five short books were produced.
Like all who con over their own compositions, Phaedrus had an unreasonably high opinion of their merit. Literary reputation was his chief desire, and he thought himself secure of it. He echoes the boast so many greater men have made before him, that he is the first to import a form of Greek art; but he limits his imitation to the general scope, reserving to himself the right to vary the particular form in each fable as he thinks fit. [18] The careful way in which he defines at what point his obligations to Aesop cease and his own invention begins, shows him to have had something of the trifler and a great deal of the egotist. His love of condensation is natural, for a fabulist should be short, trenchant, and almost proverbial in his style; but Phaedrus carries these to the point of obscurity and enigma. It seems as if at times he did not see his drift himself. To this fault is akin the constant moralising tone which reflects rather than paints, enforces rather than elicits its lesson. He is himself a small sage, and all his animals are small sages too. They have not the life-like reality of those of Aesop; they are mere lay figures. His technical skill is very considerable; the iambic senarius becomes in his hands an extremely pleasing rhythm, though the occurrence of spondees in the second and fourth place savours of archaic usage. His diction is hardly varied enough to admit of clear reference to a standard, but on the whole it may be pronounced nearer to the silver than the golden Latinity, especially in the frequent use of abstract words. His confident predictions of immortality were nearly being falsified by the burning, by certain zealots, of an abbey in France, where alone the MS. existed (1561 A.D.); but Phaedrus, in common with many others, was rescued from the worthy Calvinists, and has since held a quiet corner to himself in the temple of fame.
A poet whose misfortunes were of service to his talent, was POMPONIUS SECUNDUS. His friendship with Aelius Gallus, son to Sejanus, caused him to be imprisoned during several years. While in this condition he devoted himself to literature, and wrote many tragedies which are spoken well of by Quintilian: "Eorum (tragic poets) quos viderim longe princeps Pomponius Secundus." [19] He was an acute rhetorician, and a purist in language. The extant names of his plays are Aeneas, and perhaps Armorum Judicium and Atreus, but these last two are uncertain. Tragedy was much cultivated during the imperial times; for it formed an outlet for feeling not otherwise safe to express, and it admitted all the ornaments of rhetoric. Those who regard the tragedies of Seneca as the work of the father, would refer them to this reign, to the end of which the old man's activity lasted, though his energies were more taken up with watching and guiding the careers of his children than with original composition. When Tiberius died (37 A.D.) literature could hardly have been at a lower ebb; but even then there were young men forming their minds and imbibing new canons of taste, who were destined before long—for almost all wrote early—to redeem the age from the charge of dulness, perhaps at too great a sacrifice.
We have grouped these three emperors under a single heading because the shortness of the reigns of the two former prevented the formation of any special school of literature. It is otherwise with the reign of Nero. To this belongs a constellation of some of the most brilliant authors that Rome ever produced. And they are characterised by some very special traits. Instead of the depression we noticed under Tiberius we now observe a forced vivacity and sprightliness, even in dealing with the most awful or serious subjects, which is unlike anything we have hitherto met with in Roman literature. It is quite different from the natural gaiety of Catullus; equally so from the witty frivolity of Ovid. It is not in the least meant to be frivolous; on the contrary it arises from an overstrained earnestness, and a desire to say everything in the most pointed and emphatic form in which it can be said. To whatever school the writers belong, this characteristic is always present. Persius shows it as much as Seneca; the historians as much as the rhetors. The only one who is not imbued with it is the professed wit Petronius. Probably he had exhausted it in conversation; perhaps he disapproved of it as a corrupt importation of the Senecas.
The emperors themselves were all literati. CALIGULA, it is true, did not publish, but he gave great attention to eloquence, and was even more vigorous as an extempore speaker than as a writer. His mental derangement affected his criticism. He thought at one time of burning all the copies of Homer that could be got at; at another of removing all the statues of Livy and Virgil, the one as unlearned and uncritical, the other as verbose and negligent. One is puzzled to know to which respectively these criticisms refer. We do not venture to assign them, but translate literally from Suetonius. [1]
CLAUDIUS had a brain as sluggish as Caligula's was over-excitable; nevertheless he prosecuted literature with care, and published several works. Among these was a history, beginning with the death of Julius Caesar, in forty-three volumes, [2] an autobiography in eight, [3] "magis inepte quam ineleganter scriptum;" a learned defence of Cicero against Asinius Gallus's invective, besides several Greek writings. His philological studies and the innovations he tried to introduce have been referred to in a former chapter. [4]
NERO, while a young man before his accession, tried his powers in nearly every department of letters. He approached philosophy, but his prudent mother deterred him from a study which might lead him to views "above his station as a prince." He next turned to the old orators, but here his preceptor Seneca intervened, Tacitus insinuates, with the motive of turning him from the best models to an admiration of his own more seductive style. Nero declaimed frequently in public, and his poetical effusions seem to have possessed some real merit. At the first celebration of the festival called Neroniana he was crowned with the wreath of victory. His most celebrated poem, the one that drew down on him the irony of Juvenal, was the Troica, in which perhaps occurred the Troiae Halosis which this madman recited in state over the burning ruins of Rome, and which is parodied with subtle mockery in Petronius. Other poems were of a lighter cast and intended to be sung to the accompaniment of the harp. These were the crowning scandal of his imperial vagaries in the eyes of patriotic Romans. "With our prince a fiddler," cries Juvenal, "what further disgrace remains?" King Lewis of Bavaria and some other great personages of our era would perhaps object to Juvenal's conclusion. With all these accomplishments, however, Nero either could not or would not speak. He had not the vigour of mind necessary for eloquence. Hence he usually employed Seneca to dress up speeches for him, a task which that polite minister was not sorry to undertake.
The earliest poet who comes before us is the unknown author of the panegyric on Calpurnius Piso. It is an elegant piece of versification with no particular merit or demerit. It takes pains to justify Piso for flute- playing in public, and as Nero's example is not alleged, the inference is natural that it was written before his time. There is no independence of style, merely a graceful reflection from that of the Augustan poets.
We must now examine the circumstances which surrounded or produced the splendid literature of Nero's reign. Such persons as from political hostility to the government, or from disgust at the flagitious conduct by which alone success was to be purchased, lived apart in a select circle, stern and defiant, unsullied by the degradation round them, though helpless to influence it for good. They consisted for the most part of virtuous noblemen such as Paetus Thrasea, Barea, Rubellius Plautus, above all, Helvidius Priscus, on whose uncompromising independence Tacitus loves to dwell; and of philosophers, moral teachers and literati, who sought after real excellence, not contemporary applause. The members of this society lived in intimate companionship, and many ladies contributed their share to its culture and virtuous aspirations. Such were Arria, the heroic wife of Paetus, Fannia, the wife of Helvidius, and Fulvia Sisenna, the mother of Persius. These held réunions for literary or philosophical discussions which were no mere conversational displays, but a serious preparation for the terrible issues which at any time they might be called upon to meet. It had long been the custom for wealthy Romans of liberal tastes to maintain a philosopher as part of their establishment. Laelius had shown hospitality both to Panaetius and Polybius; Cicero had offered a home to Diodotus for more than twenty years, and Catulus and Lucullus had both recognised the temporal needs of philosophy. Under the Empire the practice was still continued, and though liable to the abuse of charlatanism or pedantry, was certainly instrumental in familiarising patrician families (and especially their lady members) with the great thoughts and pure morality of the best thinkers of Greece. From scattered notices in Seneca and Quintilian, we should infer that the philosopher was employed as a repository of spiritual confidences—almost a father- confessor—at least as much as an intellectual teacher. When Kanus Julius was condemned to death, his philosopher went with him to the scaffold and uttered consoling words about the destiny of the soul; [5] and Seneca's own correspondence shows that he regarded this relation as the noblest philosophy could hold. Of such moral directors the most influential was ANNAEUS CORNUTUS, both from his varied learning and his consistent rectitude of life. Like all the higher spirits he was a Stoic, but a genial and wise one. He neither affected austerity nor encouraged rash attacks on power. His advice to his noble friends generally inclined towards the side of prudence. Nevertheless he could not so far control his own language as to avoid the jealousy of Nero. [6] He was banished, it is not certain in what year, and apparently ended his days in exile. He left several works, mostly written in Greek; some on philosophy, of which that on the nature of the gods has come down to us in an abridged form, some on rhetoric and grammar; besides these he is said to have composed satires, tragedies, [7] and a commentary on Virgil. But his most important work was his formation of the character of one of the three Roman satirists whose works have come down to us.
Few poets have been so differently treated by different critics as A. PERSIUS FLACCUS, for while some have pronounced him to be an excellent satirist and true poet, others have declared that his fame is solely owing to the trouble he gives us to read him. He was born at Volaterrae, 34 A.D., of noble parentage, brought to Rome as a child, and educated with the greatest care. His first preceptor was the grammarian Virginius Flavus, an eloquent man endued with strength of character, whose earnest moral lectures drew down the displeasure of Caligula. He next seems to have attended a course under Remmius Palaemon; but as soon as he put on the manly gown he attached himself to Cornutus, whose intimate friend he became, and of whose ideas he was the faithful exponent. The love of the pupil for his guide in philosophy is beautiful and touching; the verses in which it is expressed are the best in Persius: [8]
"Secreti loquimur: tibi nunc hortante Camena
Excutienda damus praecordia: quantaque nostrae
Pars tua sit Cornute animae, tibi, dulcis amice,
Ostendisse iuvat … Teneros tu suscipis annos
Socratico Cornute sino. Tune fallere sollers
Apposita intortos extendit regula mores,
Et premitur ratione animus vincique laborat,
Artificemque tuo ducit sub pollice vultum."
Moulded by the counsels of this good "doctor," Persius adopted philosophy with enthusiasm. In an age of licentiousness he preserved a maiden purity. Though possessing in a pre-eminent degree that gift of beauty which Juvenal declares to be fatal to innocence, Persius retained until his death a moral character without a stain. But he had a nobler example even than Cornutus by his side. He was tenderly loved by the great Thrasea, [9] whose righteous life and glorious death form perhaps the richest lesson that the whole imperial history affords. Thrasea was a Cato in justice, but more than a Cato in goodness, inasmuch as his lot was harder, and his spirit gentler and more human. Men like these clenched the theories of philosophy by that rare consistency which puts them into practice; and Persius, with all his literary faults, is the sole instance among Roman writers of a philosopher whose life was in accordance with the doctrines he professed.
Yet on opening his short book of satires, one is strongly tempted to ask, What made the boy write them? He neither knew nor cared to know anything of the world, and, we fear, cannot he credited with a philanthropic desire to reform it. The answer is given partly by himself, that he was full of petulant spleen, [10]—an honest confession,—partly is to be found in the custom then becoming general for those who wished to live well to write essays on serious subjects for private circulation among their friends, pointing out the dangers that lay around, and encouraging them to persevere in the right path. Of this kind are several of Seneca's treatises, and we have notices of many others in the biographers and historians. And though Persius may have intended to publish his book to the world, as is rendered probable by the prologue, this is not absolutely certain. At any rate it did not appear until after his death, when his friend Caesius Bassus [11] undertook to bring it out; so that we may fairly regard it as a collection of youthful reflections as to the advisability of publishing which the poet had not yet made up his mind, and perhaps had he lived would have suppressed.
Crabbed and loaded with obscure allusions as they are to a degree which makes most of them extremely unpleasant reading, they obtained a considerable and immediate reputation. Lucan is reported to have declared that his own works were bagatelles in comparison. [12] Quintilian says that he has gained much true glory in his single book; [13] Martial, that he is oftener quoted than Domitius Marsus in all his long Amazonis. [14] He is affirmed by his biographer to have written seldom and with difficulty. All his earlier attempts were, by the advice of Cornutus, destroyed. They consisted of a Praetexta, named Vescia, of one book of travels, and a few lines to the elder Arria. Among his predecessors his chief admiration was reserved for Horace, whom he imitates with exaggerated fidelity, recalling, but generally distorting, nearly a hundred well-known lines. The six poems we possess are not all, strictly speaking, satires. The first, with the prologue, may be so considered. It is devoted to an attack upon the literary style of the day. Persius sees that the decay of taste is intimately joined with the decay of morals, and the subtle connections he draws between the two constitute the chief merit of the effusion. Like Horace, but with even better reason, he bewails the antiquarian predilections of the majority of readers. Accius and Pacuvius still hold their ground, while Virgil and Horace are considered rough and lacking delicacy! [15] If this last be a true statement, it testifies to the depraved criticism of a luxurious age which alternates between meretricious softness and uncouth disproportion, just as in life the idle and effeminate, who shrink from manly labour, take pleasure in wild adventure and useless fatigue. In this satire, which is the most condensed of all, the literary defects of the author are at their height. His moral taste is not irreproachable; in his desire not to mince matters he offends needlessly against propriety. [16] The picture he draws of the fashionable rhetorician with languishing eyes and throat mellowed by a luscious gargle, warbling his drivelling ditties to an excited audience, is powerful and lifelike. From assemblies like these he did well to keep himself. We can imagine the effect upon their used-up emotions of a fresh and fiery spirit like that of Lucan, whose splendid presence and rich enthusiasm threw to the winds these tricks of the reciter's art.
The second, third, and fourth poems are declamatory exercises on the dogmas of stoicism, interspersed with dramatic scenes. The second has for its subject the proper use of prayer. The majority, says Persius, utter buying petitions (prece emaci), and by no means as a rule innocent ones. Few dare to acknowledge their prayers (aperto vivere voto). After sixty lines of indignant remonstrance, he closes with a noble apostrophe, in which some of the thoughts rise almost to a Christian height—"O souls bent to earth, empty of divine things! What boots it to import these morals of ours into the temples, and to imagine what is good in God's sight from the analogies of this sinful flesh?… Why do we not offer Him something which Messala's blear-eyed progeny with all his wealth cannot offer, a spirit at one with justice and right, holy in its inmost depths, and a heart steeped in nobleness and virtue? Let me but bring these to the altar, and a sacrifice of meal will be accepted!" In the third and fourth Satires he complains of the universal ignorance of our true interests, the ridicule which the world heaps on philosophy, and the hap-hazard way in which men prepare for hazardous duties. The contemptuous disgust of the brawny centurion at the (to him) unmeaning problems which philosophy starts, is vigorously delineated; [17] but some of his tableaux border on the ridiculous from their stilted concision and over-drawn sharpness of outline. The undeniable virtue of the poet irritates as much as it attracts, from its pert precocity and obtrusiveness. What he means for pathos mostly chills instead of warming: "Ut nemo in se curat descendere, nemo!" [18] The poet who penned this line must surely have been tiresome company. Persius is at his best when he forgets for a moment the icy peak to which as a philosopher he has climbed, and suns himself in the valley of natural human affections—a reason why the fifth and sixth Satires, which are more personal than the rest, have always been considered greatly superior to them. The last in particular runs for more than half its length in a smooth and tolerably graceful stream of verse, which shows that Persius had much of the poetic gift, had his warped taste allowed him to give it play.
We conclude with one or two instances of his language to justify our strictures upon it. Horace had used the expression naso suspendis adunco, a legitimate and intelligible metaphor; Persius imitates it, excusso populum suspendere naso, [19] thereby rendering it frigid and weak. Horace had said clament periisse pudorem Cuncti paene patres; [20] Persius caricatures him, exclamet Melicerta perisse Frontem de rebus. [21] Horace had said si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipsi tibi; [22] Persius distorts this into plorabit qui me volet incurvasse querela. [23] Other expressions more remotely modelled on him are iratum Eupoliden praegrandi cum sene palles, [24] and perhaps the very harsh use of the accusative, linguae quantum sitiat canis, [25] "as long a tongue as a thirsty dog hangs out."
Common sense is not to be looked for in the precepts of so immature a mind. Accordingly, we find the foolish maxim that a man not endowed with reason (i.e. stoicism) cannot do anything aright: [26] that every one should live up to his yearly income regardless of the risk arising from a bad season; [27] extravagant paradoxes reminding us of some of the less educated religious sects of the present day; with this difference, that in Rome it was the most educated who indulged in them. A good deal of the obscurity of these Satires was forced upon the poet by the necessity of avoiding everything that could be twisted into treason. We read in Suetonius that Nero is attacked in them; but so well is the battery masked that it is impossible to find it. Some have detected it in the prologue, others in the opening lines of the first Satire, others, relying on a story that Cornutus made him alter the line—
"Auriculas asini Mida rex habet,"
to quis non habet? have supposed that the satire lies there. But satire so veiled is worthless. The poems of Persius are valuable chiefly as showing a good naturel amid corrupt surroundings, and forming a striking comment on the change which had come over Latin letters.
Another Stoic philosopher, probably known to Persius, was C. MUSONIUS RUFUS, like him an Etruscan by birth, and a successful teacher of the young. Like almost all independent thinkers he was exiled, but recalled by Titus in his old age. The influence of such men must have extended far beyond their personal acquaintance; but they kept aloof from the court. This probably explains the conspicuous absence of any allusion to Seneca in Persius's writings. It is probable that his stern friends, Thrasea and Soranus disapproved of a courtier like Seneca professing stoicism, and would show him no countenance. He was not yet great enough to compel their notice, and at this time confined his influence to the circle of Nero, whose tutor he was, and to those young men, doubtless numerous enough, whom his position and seductive eloquence attracted by a double charm. Of these by far the most illustrious was his nephew Lucan.
M. ANNAEUS LUCANUS, the son of Annaeus Mela and Acilia, a Spanish lady of high birth, was born at Corduba, 39 A.D. His grandfather, therefore, was Seneca the elder, whose rhetorical bent he inherited. Legend tells of him, as of Hesiod, that in his infancy a swarm of bees settled upon the cradle in which he lay, giving an omen of his future poetic glory. Brought to Rome, and placed under the greatest masters, he soon surpassed all his young competitors in powers of declamation. He is said, while a boy, to have attracted large audiences, who listened with admiration to the ingenious eloquence that expressed itself with equal ease in Greek or Latin. His uncle soon introduced him to Nero; and he at once recognised in him a congenial spirit. They became friendly rivals. Lucan had the address to conceal his superior talent behind artful flattery, which Nero for a time believed sincere. But men, and especially young men of genius, cannot be always prudent. And if Lucan had not vaunted his success, Rome at least was sure to be less reticent. Nero saw that public opinion preferred the young Spaniard to himself. The mutual ill-feeling that had already long smouldered was kindled into flame by the result of a poetical contest, at which Lucan was declared victorious. [28] Nero, who was present, could not conceal his mortification. He left the hall in a rage, and forbade the poet to recite in public, or even to plead in his profession. Thus debarred from the successes which had so long flattered his self-love, Lucan gave his mind to worthier subjects. He composed, or at least finished, the Pharsalia in the following year (65 B.C.); but with the haste and want of secrecy which characterised him, not only libelled the emperor, but joined the conspiracy against him, of which Piso was the head. This gave Nero the opportunity he desired. In vain the unhappy young man abased himself to humble flattery, to piteous entreaty, even to the incrimination of his own mother, a base proceeding which he hoped might gain him the indulgence of a matricide prince. All was useless. Nero was determined that he should die, and he accordingly had his veins opened, and expired amid applauding friends, while reciting those verses of his epic which described the death of a brave centurion. [29]
The genius and sentiments of Lucan were formed under two different influences. Among the adherents of Caesarism, none were so devoted as those provincials or freedmen who owed to it their wealth and position. Lucan, as Seneca's nephew, naturally attached himself from the first to the court party. He knew of the Republic only as a name, and, like Ovid, had no reason to be dissatisfied with his own time. Fame, wealth, honours, all were open to him. We can imagine the feverish delight with which a youth of three and twenty found himself recognised as prince of Roman poets. But Lucan had a spirit of truthfulness in him that pined after better things. At the lectures of Cornutus, in the company of Persius, he caught a glimpse of this higher life. And so behind the showy splendours of his rhetoric there lurks a sadness which tells of a mind not altogether content, a brooding over man's life and its apparent uselessness, which makes us believe that had he lived till middle life he would have struck a lofty vein of noble and earnest song. At other times, at the banquet or in the courts, he must have met young men who lived in an altogether different world from his, a world not of intoxicating pleasures but of gloomy indignation and sullen regret; to whom the Empire, grounded on usurpation and maintained by injustice, was the quintessence of all that was odious; to whom Nero was an upstart tyrant, and Brutus and Cassius the watchwords of justice and right. Sentiments like these could not but be remembered by one so impressionable. As soon as the sunshine of favour was withdrawn, Lucan's ardent mind turned with enthusiasm towards them. The Pharsalia, and especially the closing books of it, show us Lucan as the poet of liberty, the mourner for the lost Republic. The expression of feeling may be exaggerated, and little consistent with the flattery with which the poem opens; yet even this flattery, when carefully read, seems fuller of satire than of praise: [30]
"Quod si non aliam venturo fata Neroni
Invenere viam, magnoque aeterna parantur
Regna deis, caelumque suo servire Tonanti
Non nisi saevorum potuit post bella Gigantum;
Iam nihil O superi querimur! Scelera ipsa nefasque
Hac mercede placent!"
The Pharsalia, then, is the outcome of a prosperous rhetorical career on the one hand, and of a bitter disappointment which finds its solace in patriotic feeling on the other. It is difficult to see how such a poem could have failed to ruin him, even if he had not been doomed before. The loss of freedom is bewailed in words, which, if declamatory, are fatally courageous, and reflect perilous honour on him that used them: [31]
"Fugiens civile nefas redituraque nunquam
Libertas ultra Tigrim Rhenumque [32] recessit,
Ac toties nobis iugulo quaesita, vagatur,
Germanum Scythicumque bonum, nec respicit ultra
Ausoniam."
It is true that his love for freedom, like that of Virgil, was based on an idea, not a reality. But it none the less required a great soul to utter these stirring sentiments before the very face of Nero, the "vultus instantis tyranni" of which Horace had dreamed.
On the fitness or unfitness of his theme for epic treatment no more need be added here than was said in the chapter on Virgil. It is, however, difficult to see what subject was open to the epicist after Virgil except to narrate the actual account of what Virgil had painted in ideal colours. The calm march of government under divine guidance from Aeneas to Augustus was one side of the picture. The fierce struggles and remorseless ambition of the Civil Wars is the other. Which is the more true? It would be fairer to ask, which is the more poetical? It was Lucan's misfortune that the ideal side was already occupied; he had no power to choose. Few who have read the Pharsalia would wish it unwritten. Some critics have denied that it is poetry at all. [33] Poetry of the first order it certainly is not, but those who will forgive artistic defects for energy of thought and strength of feeling must always retain a strong admiration for its noble imperfections.
We shall offer a few critical remarks on the Pharsalia, referring our readers for an exhaustive catalogue of its defects to M. Nisard's second volume of the Poètes de la Décadence, and confining ourselves principally to such points as he has not dwelt upon. In the first place we observe a most unfortunate attitude towards the greatest problem that can exercise man's mind, his relation to the Superior Power. Lucan has neither the reverence of Virgil, the antagonism of Lucretius, nor the awful doubt of Greek tragedy. His attitude is one of pretentious rebellion and flippant accusation, except when Stoic doctrines raise him for a time above himself. He goes on every occasion quite out of his way to assail the popular ideas of providence. To Lucretius this is a necessity entailed upon him by his subject; to Lucan it is nothing but petulant rhetorical outburst. For instance, he calls Ptolemy Fortunae pudor crimenque deorum; [34] he arraigns the gods as caring more for vengeance than liberty; [35] he calls Septimius a disgrace to the gods, [36] the death of Pompey a tale at which heaven ought to blush; [37] he speaks of the expression on Pompey's venerable face as one of anger against the gods, [38] of the stone that marks his tomb as an indictment against heaven, [39] and hopes that it may soon be considered as false a witness of his death as Crete is to that of Jove; [40] he makes young Pompey, speaking of his father's death, say: "Whatever insult of fate has scattered his limbs to the winds, I forgive the gods that wrong, it is of what they have left that I complain;" [41] saddest of all, he gives us that tremendous epigram: [42]
"Victrix causa deis placuit, sed victa Catoni."
We recognise here a noble but misguided spirit, fretting at the dispensations it cannot approve, because it cannot understand them. Bitterly disgusted at the failure of the Empire to fulfil all its promise, the writers of this period waste their strength in unavailing upbraidings of the gods. There is a retrograde movement of thought since the Augustan age. Virgil and Horace take substantially the same view of the Empire as that which the philosophy of history has taught us is the true one; they call it a necessity, and express that belief by deifying its representative. Contrast the spirit of Horace in the third Ode of the third book:
"Hac arte Pollux hac vagus Hercules
Enisus arces attigit igneas;
Quos inter Augustus recumbens
Purpureo bibit ore nectar,"
with the fierce irony of Lucan: [43]
"Mortalis nulli
Sunt curata deo; cladis tamen huius habemus
Vindictam, quantam terris dare numina fas est.
Bella pares superis faciunt civilia divos;
Fulminibus manes radiisque ornabit et astris,
Inque Deum templis iurabit Roma per umbras."
Here is the satire of Cicero's second Philippic reappearing, but with added bitterness. [44] Being thus without belief in a divine providence, how does Lucan govern the world? By blind fate, or blinder caprice! Fortuna, whom Juvenal ridicules, [45] is the true deity of Lucan. As such she is directly mentioned ninety-one times, besides countless others where her agency is implied. A useful belief for a man like Caesar who fought his way to empire; a most unfortunate conception for an epic poet to build a great poem on.
Lucan's scepticism has this further disadvantage that it precludes him from the use of the supernatural. To introduce the council of Olympus as Virgil does would in him be sheer mockery, and he is far too honest to attempt it. But as no great poet can dispense with some reference to the unseen, Lucan is driven to its lower and less poetic spheres. Ghosts, witches, dreams, visions, and portents, fill with their grisly catalogue a disproportionate space of the poem. The sibyl is introduced as in Virgil, but instead of giving her oracle with solemn dignity, she first refuses to speak at all, then under threats of cruel punishment she submits to the influence of the god, but in the midst of the prophetic impulse, Apollo, for some unexplained reason, compels her to stop short and conceal the gist of her message. [46] Even more unpleasant is the description of Sextus Pompeius's consultation of the witch Erichtho; [47] horror upon horror is piled up until the blood curdles at the sickening details, which even Southey's Thalaba does not approach—and, after all, the feeling produced is not horror but disgust.
It is pleasant to turn from his irreligion to his philosophy. Here he appears as an uncertain but yet ardent disciple of the Porch. His uncertainty is shown by his inability to answer many grave doubts, as: Why is the future revealed by presages? [48] why are the oracles, once so vocal, now silent? [49] his enthusiasm by his portraiture of Cato, who was regarded by the Stoics as coming nearest of all men to their ideal Wise Man. Cato is to him a peg on which to hang the virtues and paradoxes of the school. But none the less is the sketch he gives a truly noble one: [50]
"Hi mores, haec duri immota Catonis
Secta fuit, servare modum finemque tenere,
Naturamque sequi, patriaeque impendere vitam,
Nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo."
Nothing in all Latin poetry reaches a higher pitch of ethical sublimity than Cato's reply to Labienus when entreated to consult the oracle of Jupiter Ammon: [51] "What would you have me ask? whether I ought to die rather than become a slave? whether life begins here or after death? whether evil can hurt the good man? whether it be enough to will what is good? whether virtue is made greater by success? All this I know already, and Hammon's voice will not make it more sure. We all depend on Heaven, and though oracles be silent we cannot act without the will of God. Deity needs no witness: once for all at our birth he has given us all needful knowledge, nor has he chosen barren sands accessible to few, or buried truth in a desert. Where earth, sea, sky, and virtue exist, there is God. Why seek we Heaven outside?" These, and similar other sentiments scattered throughout the poem, redeem it from the charge of wanton disbelief, and show a largeness of soul that only needed experience to make it truly great.
In discussing political and social questions Lucan shows considerable insight. He could not, any more than his contemporaries, understand that the old oligarchy was an anachronism; that the stubborn pride of its votaries needed the sword to break it. But the influence of individual genius is well pourtrayed by him, and he seizes character with a vigorous grasp. As a partisan of the senate, he felt bound to exalt Pompey; but if we judge by his own actions and his own words, not by the encomiums heaped on him by the poet, Lucan's Pompey comes very near the genuine historical man. So the Caesar sketched by Lucan, though meant to be a villain of the blackest dye—if we except some blood-thirsty speeches—stands out as a true giant of energy, neither meaner nor more unscrupulous than the Caesar of history. Domitius, Curio, and Lentulus, are vigorous though somewhat defective portraits. Cornelia is the only female character that calls for notice. She is drawn with breadth and sympathy, and bears all the traits of a great Roman matron. The degradation of the people is a constant theme of lamentation. It is wealth, luxury, and the effeminacy that comes with them that have softened the fibre of Rome, and made her willing to bear a master. This is indeed a common-place of the schools, but it is none the less a gloomy truth, and Lucan would have been no Roman had he omitted to complain of it. Equally characteristic is his contempt for the lower orders [52] and the influx of foreigners, of whom Rome had become the common sink. Juvenal, who evidently studied Lucan, drew from him the picture of the Tiber soiled by Orontes's foul stream, and of the Bithynian, Galatian, and Cappadocian knights. [53]
With regard to the artistic side of the poem the first and most obvious criticism is that it has no hero. But if this be a fault, it is one which it shares with the Divina Commedia and Paradise Lost. As Satan has been called the hero of the latter poem, so Caesar, if not the hero, is the protagonist of the Pharsalia. But Cato, Pompey, and the senate as a body, have all competed for this honour. The fact is this: that while the primitive epic is altogether personal, the poem whose interest is national or human cannot always find a single hero. It is after all a narrow criticism that confines the poet's art within such strict limits. A great poet can hardly avoid changing or at least modifying the existing canons of art, and Lucan should at least be judged with the same liberality as the old annalists who celebrated the wars of the Republic.
In description Lucan is excellent, both in action and still life, but more in brilliancy of detail than in broad effects. His defect lies in the tone of exaggeration which he has acquired in the schools, and thinks it right to employ in order not to fall below his subject. He has a true opinion of the importance of the Civil War, which he judges to be the final crisis of Rome's history, and its issues fraught with superhuman grandeur. The innate materialism of his mind, however, leads him to attach outward magnitude to all that is connected with it. Thus Nero, the offspring of its throes, is entreated by the poet to be careful, when he leaves earth to take his place among the immortals, not to seat himself in a quarter where his weight may disturb the just equilibrium of the globe! [54] And, similarly, all the incidents of the Civil War exceed the parallel incidents of every other war in terror and vastness. Do portents presage a combat? they are such as defy all power to conceive. Pindus mounts upon Olympus, [55] and others of a more ordinary but still amazing character follow. [56] Does a naval conflict take place? the horrors of all the elements combine to make it the most hideous that the mind can imagine. Fire and water vie with each other in devising new modes of death, and where these are inactive, it is only because a land-battle with all its carnage is being enacted on the closely-wedged ships. [57] Has the army to march across a desert? the entire race of venomous serpents conspires to torture and if possible extirpate the host! [58] This is a very inartistic mode of heightening effect, and, indeed, borders closely on that pursued in the modern sensation novel. It is beyond question the worst defect of the Pharsalia, and the extraordinary ingenuity with which it is done only intensifies the misconduct of the poet.
Over and above this habitual exaggeration, Lucan has a decided love for the ghastly and revolting. The instances to which allusion has already been made, viz. the Thessalian sorceress and the dreadful casualties of the sea-fight, show it very strikingly, but the account of the serpents in the Libyan desert, if possible, still more. The episode is of great length, over three hundred lines, and contains much mythological knowledge, as well as an appalling power of description. It begins with a discussion of the question, Why is Africa so full of these plagues? After giving various hypotheses he adopts the one which assigns their origin to Medusa's hairs which fell from Perseus's hand as he sailed through the air. In order not to lure people to certain death by appearing in an inhabited country, he chose the trackless wastes of Africa over which to wing his flight. The mythological disquisition ended, one on natural history follows. The peculiar properties of the venom of each species are minutely catalogued, first in abstract terms, then in the concrete by a description of their effects on some of Cato's soldiers. The first bitten was the standard-bearer Aulus, by a dipsas, which afflicted him with intolerable thirst; next Sabellus by a seps, a minute creature whose bite was followed by an instantaneous corruption of the whole body; [59] then Nasidius by a prester which caused his form to swell to an unrecognisable size, and so on through the list of serpents, each episode closing with a brilliant epigram which clenches the effect. [60] Trivialities like these would spoil the greatest poem ever penned. It need not be said that they spoil the Pharsalia.
Another subject on which Lucan rings the changes is death. The word mors has an unwholesome attraction to his ear. Death is to him the greatest gift of heaven; the only one it cannot take away. It is sad indeed to hear the young poet uttering sentiments like this: [61]
"Scire mori sors prima viris, sed proxima cogi,"
and again [62]—
"Victurosque dei celant, ut vivere durent,
Felix esse mori."
So in cursing Crastinus, Caesar's fierce centurion, he wishes him not to die, but to retain sensibility after death, in other words to be immortal. The sentiment occurs, not once but a hundred times, that of all pleasures death is the greatest. He even plays upon the word, using it in senses which it will hardly bear. Libycae mortes are serpents; Accessit morti Libye, "Libya added to the mortality of the army;" nulla cruentae tantum mortis habet; "no other reptile causes a death so bloody." To one so unhealthily familiar with the idea, the reality, when it came, seems to have brought unusual terrors.
The learning of Lucan has been much extolled, and in some respects not without reason. It is complex, varied, and allusive, but its extreme obscurity makes us suspect even when we cannot prove, inaccuracy. He is proud of his manifold acquirements. Nothing pleases him more than to have an excuse for showing his information on some abstruse subject. The causes of the climate of Africa, the meteorological conditions of Spain, the theory of the globes, the geography of the southern part of our hemisphere, the wonders of Egypt and the views about the source of the Nile, are descanted on with diffuse erudition. But it is evidently impossible that so mere a youth could have had a deep knowledge of so many subjects, especially as his literary productiveness had already been very great. He had written an Iliacon according to Statius, [63] a book of Saturnalia, ten books of Silvae, a Catachthonion, an unfinished tragedy called Medea, fourteen Salticae fabulae (no doubt out of compliment to Nero), a prose essay against Octavius Sagitta, another in favour of him, a poem De Incendio Urbis, in which Nero was satirised, a katakausmos (which is perhaps different from the latter, but may be only the same under another title), a series of letters from Campania, and an address to his wife, Polla Argentaria.
A peculiar, and to us offensive, exhibition of learning consists in those tirades on common-place themes, embodying all the stock current of instances, of which the earliest example is found in the catalogue of the dead in Virgil's Culex. Lucan, as may be supposed, delights in dressing up these well-worn themes, painting them with novel splendour if they are descriptive, thundering in fiery epigrams, if they are moral. Of the former class are two of the most effective scenes in the poem. The first is Caesar's night voyage in a skiff over a stormy sea. The fisherman to whom he applies is unwilling to set sail. The night, he says, shows many threatening signs, and, by way of deterring Caesar, he enumerates the entire list of prognostics to be found in Aratus, Hesiod, and Virgil, with great piquancy of touch, but without the least reference to the propriety of the situation. [64] Nothing can be more amusing, or more out of place, than the old man's sudden erudition. The second is the death of Scaeva, who for a time defended Caesar's camp single-handed. The poet first remarks that valour in a bad cause is a crime, and then depicts that of Scaeva in such colossal proportions as almost pass the limits of burlesque. After describing him as pierced with so many spears that they served him as armour, he adds: [65]
"Nec quicquam nudis vitalibus obstat
Iam, praeter stantes in summis ossibus hastas."
This is grotesque enough; the banquet of birds and beasts who feed on the skin of Pharsalia is even worse. [66] The details are too loathsome to quote. Suffice it to say that the list includes every carrion-feeder among flesh and fowl who assemble in immense flocks:
"Nunquam tanto se vulture caelum Induit, aut plures presserunt aethere pennae."
We have, however, dwelt too long on points like these. We must now notice a few features of his style which mark him as the representative of an epoch. First, his extreme cleverness. In splendid extravagance of expression no Latin author comes near him. The miniature painting of Statius, the point of Martial, are both feeble in comparison; for Lucan's language, though often tasteless, is always strong. Some of his lines embody a condensed trenchant vigour which has made them proverbs. Phrases like Trahimur sub nomine pacis—Momentumque fuit mutatus Curio rerum, recall the pen of Tacitus. Others are finer still Caesar's energy is rivalled by the line—
"Nil actum credens dum quid superesset agendum."
The duty of securing liberty, even at the cost of blood, was never more finely expressed than by the noble words:
"Ignoratque datos ne quisquam serviat enses."
Curio's treachery is pilloried in the epigram,
"Emere omnes, hic vendidit Urbem." [67]
The mingled cowardice and folly of servile obedience is nobly expressed by his reproach to the people:
"Usque adeone times, quem tu facis ipse timendum?" [68]
An author who could write like this had studied rhetoric to some purpose. Unhappily he is oftener diffuse than brief, and sometimes he becomes tedious to the last degree. His poetical art is totally deficient in variety. He knows of but one method of gaining effect, the use of strong language and plenty of it. If Persius was inflated with the vain desire to surpass Horace, Lucan seems to have been equally ambitious of excelling Virgil. He rarely imitates, but he frequently competes with him. Over and over again, he approaches the same or similar subjects. Virgil had described the victory of Hercules over Cacus, Lucan must celebrate his conflict with Antaeus; Virgil had mentioned the portents that followed Caesar's death, Lucan must repeat them with added improbabilities in a fresh context; his sibyl is but a tasteless counterpart of Virgil's; his catalogues of forces have Virgil's constantly in view; his deification of Nero is an exaggeration of that of Augustus, and even the celebrated simile in which Virgil admits his obligations to the Greek stage has its parallel in the Pharsalia. [69]
Nevertheless Lucan is of all Latin poets the most independent in relation to his predecessors. It needs a careful criticism to detect his knowledge and imitation of Virgil. As far as other poets go he might never have read their works. The impetuous course of the Pharsalia is interrupted by no literary reminiscences, no elaborate setting of antique gems. He was a stranger to that fond pleasure with which Virgil entwined his poetry round the spreading branches of the past, and wove himself a wreath out of flowers new and old. This lack of delicate feeling is no less evident in his rhythm. Instead of the inextricable harmonies of Virgil's cadence, we have a succession of rich, forcible, and polished monotonous lines, rushing on without a thought of change until the period closes. In formal skill Lucan was a proficient, but his ear was dull. The same caesuras recur again and again, [70] and the only merit of his rhythm is its undeniable originality. [71] The composition of the Pharsalia must, however, have been extremely hurried, judging both from the fact that three books only were finished the year before the poet's death, and from various indications of haste in the work itself. The tenth book is obviously unfinished, and in style is far more careless than the rest. Lucan's diction is tolerably classical, but he is lax in the employment of certain words, e.g. mors, fatum, pati (in the sense of vivere), and affects forced combinations from the desire to be terse, e.g., degener toga, [72] stimulis negare, [73] nutare regna, "to portend the advent of despotism;" [74] meditari Leucada, "to intend to bring about the catastrophe of Actium," [75] and so on. We observe also several innovations in syntax, especially the freer use of the infinitive (vivere durent) after verbs, or as a substantive, a defect he shares with Persius (scire tuum); and the employment of the future participle to state a possibility or a condition that might have been fulfilled, e.g., unumque caput tam magna iuventus Privatum factura timet velut ensibus ipse Imperet invito moturus milite bellum. [76] A strong depreciation of Lucan's genius has been for some time the rule of criticism. And in an age when little time is allowed for reading any but the best authors, it is perhaps undesirable that he should be rehabilitated. Yet throughout the Middle Ages and during more than one great epoch in French history, he was ranked among the highest epic poets. Even now there are many scholars who greatly admire him. The false metaphor and exaggerated tone may be condoned to a youth of twenty-six; the lofty pride and bold devotion to liberty could not have been acquired by an ignoble spirit. He is of value to science as a moderately accurate historian who supplements Caesar's narrative, and gives a faithful picture of the feeling general among the nobility of his day. He is also a prominent representative of that gifted Spanish family who, in various ways, exercised so immense an influence on subsequent Roman letters. His wife is said to have assisted in the composition of the poem, but in what part of it her talents fitted her to succeed we cannot even conjecture.
To Nero's reign are probably to be referred the seven eclogues of T. CALPURNIUS SICULUS, and the poem on Aetna, long attributed to Virgil. These may bear comparison in respect of their want of originality with the Satires of Persius, though both fall far short of them in talent and interest. The MSS. of Calpurnius contain, besides the seven genuine poems, four others by a later and much inferior writer, probably Nemesianus, the same who wrote a poem on the chase in the reign of Numerian. These are imitated from Calpurnius much as he imitates Virgil, except that the decline in metrical treatment is greater. The first eclogue of Calpurnius is devoted to the praises of a young emperor who is to regenerate the world, and exercise a wisdom, a clemency, and a patronage of the arts long unknown. He is celebrated again in Eclogue IV., the most pretentious of the series, and, in general, critics are agreed that Nero is intended. The second poem is the most successful of all, and a short account of it may be given here. Astacus and Idas, two beauteous youths, enter into a poetical contest at which Thyrsis acts as judge. Faunus, the satyrs, and nymphs, "Sicco Dryades pede Naides udo," are present. The rivers stay their course; the winds are hushed; the oxen forget their pasture; the bee steadies itself on poised wing to listen. An amoebean contest ensues, in which the rivals closely imitate those of Virgil's seventh eclogue, singing against one another in stanzas of four lines. Thyrsis declines to pronounce either conqueror:
"Este pares: et ab hoc concordes vivite: nam vos
Et decor et cantus et amor sociavit et aetas."
The rhythm is pleasing; the style simple and flowing; and if we did not possess the model we might admire the copy. The tone of exaggeration which characterises all the poetry of Nero's time mars the reality of these pastoral scenes. The author professes great reverence for Virgil, but does not despair of being coupled with him (vi. 64):
"Magna petis Corydon, si Tityrus esse laboras."
And he begs his wealthy friend Meliboeus (perhaps Seneca) to introduce his poems to the emperor (Ecl. iv. 157), and so fulfil for him the office that he who led Tityrus to Rome did for the Mantuan bard. If his vanity is somewhat excessive we must allow him the merits of a correct and pretty versifier.
The didactic poem on Aetna is now generally attributed to LUCILIUS JUNIOR, the friend and correspondent of Seneca. Scaliger printed it with Virgil's works, and others have assigned Cornelius Severus as the author, but several considerations tend to fix our choice on Lucilius. First, the poem is beyond doubt much later than the Augustan age; the constant reproduction, often unconscious, of Virgil's form of expression, implies an interval of at least a generation; allusions to Manilius [77] may be detected, and perhaps to Petronius Arbiter, [78] but at the same time it seems to have been written before the great eruption of Vesuvius (69 A.D.), in which Pliny lost his life, since no mention is made of that event. All these conditions are fulfilled by Lucilius. Moreover, he is described by Seneca as a man who by severe and conscientious study had raised his position in life (which is quite what we should imagine from reading the poem), and whose literary attainments were greatly due to Seneca's advice and care. "Assero te mihi: meum opus es," he says in one of his epistles, [79] and in another he asks him for the long promised account of a voyage round Sicily which Lucilius had made. He goes on to say, "I hope you will describe Aetna, the theme of so many poets' song. Ovid was not deterred from attempting it though Virgil had occupied the ground, nor did the success of both of these deter Cornel. Severus. If I know you Aetna excites in you the desire to write; you wish to try some great work which shall equal the fame of your predecessors." [80] As the poem further shows some resemblances to an essay on Aetna, published by Seneca himself, the conclusion is almost irresistible that Lucilius is its author.
Though by no means equal to the reputation it once had, the poem is not without merit. The diction is much less stilted than Seneca's or Persius's; the thoughts mostly correct, though rather tame; and the descriptions accurate even to tediousness. The arrangement of his subject betrays a somewhat weak hand, though in this he is superior to Gratius Faliscus; but he has an earnest desire to make truth known, and a warm interest in his theme. The opening invocation is addressed to Apollo and the Muses, asking their aid along an unwonted road.
He denies that eruptions are the work of gods or Cyclopes, and laments over the errors that the genius of poetry has spread (74-92)—
"Plurima pars scaenae fallacia."
The scenes that poets paint are rarely true, and often very hurtful, but he is moved only with the desire to discover and communicate truth. He then begins to discuss the power of confined air when striving to force a passage, and the porous nature of the interior of the earth; and (after a fine digression on the thirst for knowledge), he examines the properties of fire, and specially its effect on the different minerals composing the soil of Aetna. A disproportionate amount (nearly 150 lines) is given to describing lava, after which his theory is thus concisely summarised—
"Haec operis forma est: sic nobilis uritur Aetna:
Terra foraminibus vires trahit, urget in artum,
Spiritus incendit: vivit per maxima saxa."
The poem concludes with an account of a former eruption, signalised by the miraculous preservation of two pious youths who ventured into the burning shower to carry their parents into a place of safety. The poem is throughout a model of propriety, but deficient in poetic inspiration; the technical parts, elaborate as they are, impress the reader less favourably than the digressions, where subjects of human interest are treated, and the Roman character comes out. Lucilius called himself an Epicurean, and is so far consistent as to condemn the "fallacia vatum" and the superstition that will not recognise the sufficiency of physical causes; but he (v. 537) accepts Heraclitus's doctrine about the universality of fire, and in other places shows Stoic leanings. He imitates Lucretius's transitions, and his appeals to the reader, e.g. 160: Falleris et nondum certo tibi lumine res est, and inserts many archaisms as ulli for ullius, opus governing an accus., cremant for cremantur, auras (gen. sing.) iubar (masc.) aureus. [81] His rhythm resembles Virgil, but even more that of Manilius.
We cannot conclude this chapter without some notice of the tragedies of Seneca. There can be no reasonable doubt that they are the work of the philosopher, nor is the testimony of antiquity really ambiguous on the point. [82] When he wrote them is uncertain; but they bear every mark of being an early exercise of his pen. Perhaps they were begun during his exile in Corsica, when enforced idleness must have tasked the resources of his busy mind, and continued after his return to Rome, when he found that Nero was addicted to the same pursuit. There are eight complete tragedies and one praetexta, the Octavia, which is generally supposed to be by a later hand, as well as considerable fragments from the Thebais and Phoenissae. The subjects are all from the well-worn repository of Greek legend, and are mostly drawn from Euripides. The titles of Medea, Hercules furens, Hippolytus and Troades at once proclaim their origin, but the Hercules Oetaeus, Oedipus Thyestes, and Agamemnon, are probably based on a comparison of the treatment by the several Attic masters. The tragedies of Seneca have as a rule been strongly censured for their rhetorical colouring, their false passion, and their total want of dramatic interest. They are to the Greek plays as gaslight to sunlight. But in estimating their poetic value it is fair to remember that the Roman ideas of art were neither so accurate nor so profound as ours. The deep analysis of Aristotle, which grouped all poets who wrote on a theme under the title rhetorical, and refused to Empedocles the name of poet at all, would not have been appreciated by the Romans. To them the form was what constituted a work poetical, not the creative idea that underlay it. To utilise fictitious situations as a vehicle for individual conviction or lofty declamation on ethical commonplace, was considered quite legitimate even in the Augustan age. And Seneca did but follow the example of Varius and Ovid in the tragedies now before us. It is to the genius of German criticism, so wonderfully similar in many ways to that of Greece, that we owe the re-establishment of the profound ideal canons of art over the artificial technical maxims which from Horace to Voltaire had been accepted in their stead. The present low estimate of Seneca is due to the reaction (a most healthy one it is true) that has replaced the extravagant admiration in which his poems were for more than two centuries held.
The worst technical fault in these tragedies is their violation of the decencies of the stage. Manto, the daughter of Tiresias and a great prophetess, investigates the entrails in public. Medea kills her children coram populo in defiance of Horace's maxim. These are inexcusable blemishes in a composition which is made according to a prescribed recipe. His "tragic mixture," as it may be called, is compounded of equal proportions of description, declamation, and philosophical aphorisms. Thus taken at intervals it formed an excellent tonic to assist towards an oratorical training. It was not an end in itself, but was a means for producing a finished rhetor. This is a degradation of the loftiest kind of poetry known to art, no doubt; but Seneca is not to blame for having begun it. He merely used the material which lay before him; nevertheless, he deserves censure for not having brought into it some of the purer thoughts which philosophy had, or ought to have, taught him. Instead of this, his moral conceptions fall far below those of his models. In the Phaedra of Greek tragedy we have that chastened and pathetic thought, which hangs like a burden on the Greek mind, a thought laden with sadness, but a sadness big with rich fruit of reflection; the thought of guilt unnatural, involuntary, imposed on the sufferer for some inscrutable reason by the mysterious dispensation of heaven. Helen, the queen of ancient song, is the offspring of this thought; Phaedra in another way is its offspring too. But as Virgil had degraded Helen, so Seneca degrades Phaedra. Her love for Hippolytus is the coarse sensual craving of a common-place adulteress. The language in which it is painted, stripped of its ornament, is revolting. As Dido dwells on the broad chest and shoulders of Aeneas, [83] so Phaedra dwells on the healthy glow of Hippolytus's cheek, his massive neck, his sinewy arms. The Roman ladies who bestowed their caresses on gladiators and slaves are here speaking through their courtly mouthpiece. The gross, the animal—it is scarcely even sensuous—predominates all through these tragedies. Truly the Greeks in teaching Rome to desire beauty had little conception of the fierceness of that robust passion for self-indulgence which they had taught to speak the language of aesthetic love!
A feature worth noticing in these dramas is the descriptive power and brilliant philosophy of the choruses. They are quite unconnected with the plot, and generally either celebrate the praises of some god, e.g., Bacchus in the Oedipus, or descant on some moral theme, as the advantage of an obscure lot, in the same play. The éclat of their style, and the pungency of their epigrams is startling. In sentiment and language they are the very counterpart of his other works. The doctrine of fate, preached by Lucan as well as by Seneca in other places, is here inculcated with every variety of point. [84] We quote a few lines from the Oedipus:
Fatis agimur: cedite fatis.
Non sollicitae possunt curae
Mutare rati stamina fusi
Quicquid patimur, mortale genus,
Quicquid facimus venit ex alto;
Servatque suae decreta colus
Lachesis, dura revoluta manu.
Omnia certo tramite vadunt,
Primusque dies dedit extremum.
Non illa deo vertisse licet
Quae nexa suis currunt causis.
It cuique ratus, prece non ulla
Mobilis, ordo.
Here we have in all its naked repulsiveness the Stoic theory of predestination. Prayer is useless; God is unable to influence events; Lachesis the wrinkled beldame, or fate, her blind symbol, has once for all settled the inevitable nexus of cause and effect.
The rhythm of these plays is extremely monotonous. The greater part of each is in the iambic trimeter; the choruses generally in anapaests, of which, however, he does not understand the structure. The synaphea peculiar to this metre is neglected by him, and the rule that each system should close with a paroemiac or dimeter catalectic is constantly violated.
With regard to the Octavia, it has been thought to be a product of some mediaeval imitator; but this is hardly likely. It cannot be Seneca's, since it alludes to the death of Nero. Besides its style is simpler and less bombastic and shows a much tenderer feeling; it is also infinitely less clever. Altogether it seems best to assign it to the conclusion of the first century.
The only other work of Seneca's which shows a poetical form is the Apokolokyntosis or "Pumpkinification" of the emperor Claudius, a bitter satire on the apotheosis of that heavy prince. Seneca had been compelled, much against the grain, to offer him the incense of flattery while he lived. He therefore revenged himself after Claudius's death by this sorry would-be satire. The only thing witty in it is the title; it is a mixture of prose and verse, and possesses just this interest for us, that it is the only example we possess of the Menippean satire, unless we refer the work of Petronius to this head.
Of all the imperial writers except Tacitus, Seneca is beyond comparison the most important. His position, talents, and influence make him a perfect representative of the age in which he lived. His career was long and chequered: his experience brought him into contact with nearly every phase of life. He was born at Cordova 3 A.D. and brought by his indulgent father as a boy to Rome. His early studies were devoted to rhetoric, of which he tells us he was an ardent learner. Every day he was the first at school, and generally the last to leave it. While still a young man he made so brilliant a name at the bar as to awaken Caligula's jealousy. By his father's advice he retired for a time, and, having nothing better to do, spent his days in philosophy. Seneca was one of those ardent natures the virgin soil of whose talent shows a luxurious richness unknown to the harassed brains of an old civilisation. His enthusiasm for philosophy exceeded all bounds. He first became a Stoic. But stoicism was not severe enough for his taste. He therefore turned Pythagorean, and abstained for several years from everything but herbs. His father, an old man of the world, saw that self-denial like this was no less perilous than his former triumphs. "Why do you not, my son," he said, "why do you not live as others live? There is a provocation in success, but there is a worse provocation in ostentatious abstinence. You might be taken for a Jew (he meant a Christian). Do not draw down the wrath of Jove." The young enthusiast was wise enough to take the hint. He at once dressed himself en mode, resumed a moderate diet, only indulging in the luxury of abstinence from wine, perfumes, warm baths, and made dishes! He was now 35 years of age; in due time Caligula died, and he resumed his pleadings at the bar. He was appointed Quaestor by Claudius, and soon opened a school for youths of quality, which was very numerously attended. His social successes were striking, and brought him into trouble. He was suspected of improper intimacy with Julia, the daughter of Germanicus, and in 41 A.D. was exiled to Corsica. This was the second blow to his career. But it was a most fortunate one for his genius. In the lonely solitudes of a barbarous island he meditated deeply over the truth of that philosophy to which his first devotion had been given, and no doubt struck out the germs of that mild and catholic form of it which has made his teaching, with all its imperfections, the purest and noblest of antiquity. While there he wrote many of the treatises that have come down to us, besides others that are lost. The earliest in all probability is the Consolatio ad Marciam, addressed to the daughter of Cremutius Cordus, which seems to have been written even before his exile. Next come two other Consolationes. The first is addressed to Polybius, the powerful freedman of Claudius. It is full of the most abject flattery, uttered in the hope of procuring his recall from banishment. That Seneca did not object to write to order is unhappily manifest from his panegyric on Claudius, delivered by Nero, which was so fulsome that, even while the emperor recited it, those who heard could not control their laughter. The second Consolation is to his mother Helvia, whom he tenderly loved; and this is one of the most pleasing of his works. Already he is beginning to assume the tone of a philosopher. His work De Ira must be referred to the commencement of this period, shortly after Caligula's death. It bears all the marks of inexperience, though its eloquence and brilliancy are remarkable. He enforces the Stoic thesis that anger is not an emotion, just in itself and often righteously indulged, but an evil passion which must be eradicated. This view which, if supported on grounds of mere expediency, has much to recommend it, is here defended on a priori principles without much real reflection, and was quite outgrown by him when taught by the experience of riper years. In the Constantio Sapientis he praises and holds up to imitation the absurd apathy recommended by Stilpo. In the De Animi Tranquillitate, addressed to Annaeus Serenus, the captain of Nero's body- guard, [1] he adopts the same line of thought, but shows signs of limiting its application by the necessities of circumstances. The person to whom this dialogue is addressed, though praised by Seneca, seems to have been but a poor philosopher. In complaisance to the emperor he went so far as to attract to himself the infamy which Nero incurred by his amours with a courtesan named Acte; and his end was that of a glutton rather than a sage. At a large banquet he and many of his guests were poisoned by eating toadstools! [2]
It was Messalina who had procured Seneca's exile. When Agrippina succeeded to her influence he was recalled. This ambitious woman, aware of his talents and pliant disposition, and perhaps, as Dio insinuates, captivated by his engaging person, contrived to get him appointed tutor to her son, the young Nero, now heir-apparent to the throne. This was a post of which he was not slow to appropriate the advantages. He rose to the praetorship (50 A.D.) and soon after to the consulship, and in the short space of four years amassed an enormous fortune. [3] This damaging circumstance gave occasion to his numerous enemies to accuse him before Nero; and though Seneca in his defence [4] attributed all his wealth to the unsought bounty of his prince, yet it is difficult to believe it was honestly come by, especially as he must have been well paid for the numerous violations of his conscience to which out of regard to Nero he submitted. Seneca is a lamentable instance of variance between precept and example. [5] The authentic bust which is preserved of him bears in its harassed expression unmistakable evidence of a mind ill at ease. And those who study his works cannot fail to find many indications of the same thing, though the very energy which results from such unhappiness gives his writings a deeper power.
The works written after his recall show a marked advance in his conceptions of life. He is no longer the abstract dogmatist, but the supple thinker who finds that there is room for the philosopher in the world, at court, even in the inner chamber of the palace. To this period are to be referred his three books De Clementia, which are addressed to Nero, and contain many beautiful and wholesome precepts; his De Vita Beata, addressed to his brother Novatus (the Gallio of the Acts of the Apostles), and perhaps the admirable essay De Beneficiis. This, however, more probably dates a few years later (60-62 A.D.). It is full of digressions and repetitions, a common fault of his style, but contains some very powerful thought. The animus that dictates it is thought by Charpentier to be the desire to release himself from all sense of obligation to Nero. It breathes protest throughout; it proves that a tyrant's benefits are not kindnesses. It gives what we may call a casuistry of gratitude. Other philosophical works now lost are the Exhortationes, the De Officiis, an essay on premature death, one on superstition, in which he derided the popular faith, one on friendship, some books on moral philosophy, on remedies for chance casualties, on poverty and compassion. He wrote also a biography of his father, many political speeches delivered by Nero, a panegyric on Messalina, and a collection of letters to Novatus.
The Stoics affected to despise physical studies, or at any rate to postpone them to morals. Seneca shared this edifying but far from scientific persuasion. But after his final withdrawal from court, as the wonders of nature forced themselves on his notice, he reconsidered his old prejudice, and entered with ardour on the contemplation of physical phenomena. Besides the Naturales Quaestiones, a great part of which still remain, he wrote a treatise De Motu Terrarum, begun in his youth but revised in his old age, and essays on the properties of stones and fishes, besides monographs on India and Egypt, and a short fragment on "the form of the universe." These, however, only occupied a portion of his time, the chief part was given to self-improvement and those beautiful letters to Lucilius which are the most important remains of his works. Since the death of Burrus, who had helped him to influence Nero for good, or at least to mitigate the atrocious tendencies of his disposition, Seneca had known that his position was insecure. A prince who had killed first his cousin and then his mother, would not be likely to spare his preceptor. Seneca determined to forestall the danger. He presented himself at the palace, and entreated Nero to receive back the wealth he had so generously bestowed. Instead of complying, Nero, in a speech full of specious respect, but instinct with latent malignity, refused to accept the proffered gift. The ex-minister knew that his doom was sealed. He at once relinquished all the state in which he had lived, gave no more banquets, held no more levees, but abandoned himself to a voluntary poverty, writing and reading, and practising the asceticism of his school. But this submission did not at all satisfy Nero's vengeance. He made an insidious attempt to poison his old friend. This was revealed to Seneca, who henceforth ate nothing but herbs which he gathered with his own hand, and drank only from a spring that rose in his garden. Soon afterwards occurred the conspiracy of Piso, and this gave his enemies a convenient excuse for accusing him. It is impossible to believe that he was guilty. Nero's thirst for his blood is a sufficient motive for his condemnation. He was bidden to prepare for death, which he accordingly did with alacrity and firmness. In the fifteenth book of the Annals of Tacitus is related with that wondrous power which is peculiar to its author, the dramatic scene which closed the sage's life. The best testimony to his domestic virtue is the deep affection of his young wife Paulina. Refusing all entreaty, she resolutely determined to die with her husband. They opened their veins together; she fainted away, and was removed by her friends and with difficulty restored to life; he, after suffering excruciating agony, which he endured with cheerfulness, discoursing to his friends on the glorious realities to which he was about to pass, was at length suffocated by the vapour of a stove. Thus perished one of the weakest and one of the most amiable of men; one who, had he had the courage to abjure public life, would have been reverenced by posterity in the same degree that his talent has been admired. As it is, he has always found severe judges. Dio Cassius soon after his death wrote a biography, in which all his acts received a malignant interpretation. Quintilian disliked him, and harshly criticised his literary defects. The pedant Fronto did the same. Tacitus, with a larger heart, made allowance for his temptations, and while never glossing over his unworthy actions, has yet shown his love for the man in spite of all by the splendid tribute he pays to the constancy of his death.
The position of Seneca, both as a philosopher and as a man of letters, is extremely important, and claims attentive consideration in both these relations. As a philosopher he is usually called a Stoic. In one sense this appellation is correct. When he places himself under any banner it is always that of Zeno. Nevertheless it would be a great error to regard him as a Stoic in the sense in which Brutus, Cato, and Thrasea, were Stoics. Like all the greatest Roman thinkers he was an Eclectic; he belonged in reality to no school. He was the successor of such men as Scipio, Ennius, and Cicero, far more than of the rigid thinkers of the Porch. He himself says, "Nullius nomen fero." [6] The systematic teachers of the Roman school, as distinct from those who were rather patriots than philosophers, had become more and more liberal in their speculative tenets, more and more at one upon the great questions of practice. Since the time of Cicero philosophic thought had been flowing steadily in one direction. It had learnt the necessity of appealing to men's hearts rather than convincing their intellects. It had become a system of persuasion. Fabianus was the first who clearly proposed to himself, as an end, to gain over the affections or to arouse the conscience. He was succeeded, under Tiberius, by Sotion the Pythagorean and Attalus the Stoic, [7] of both of whom Seneca had been an ardent pupil. Demetrius the Cynic, in a ruder way, had worked for the same object. [8] In this gradual convergence of diverse schools metaphysics were necessarily put aside, and ethics occupied the first and only place. Each school claimed for itself the best men of all schools. "He is a Stoic," [9] says Seneca, "even though he denies it." The great conclusions of abstract thought brought to light in Greece were now to be tested in their application to life. "The remedies of the soul have been discovered long ago; it is for us to learn how to apply them." Such is the grand text on which the system of Seneca is a comment. This system demands, above all things, a knowledge of the human heart. And it is astonishing how penetrating is the knowledge that Seneca displays. His varied experience opened to him many avenues of observation closed to the majority. His very position, as at once a great statesman and a great moralist, naturally attracted men to him. And he used his opportunities with signal adroitness. But his ability was not the only reason of this peculiar insight. Cicero was as able; but Cicero had it not. His thoughts were occupied with other questions, and do not penetrate into the recesses of the soul. The reason is to be found in the circumstances of the time. For a man to succeed in life under a régime of mutual distrust, which he himself bitterly compares to the forced friendship of the gladiatorial school, a deep study of character was indispensable. Wealth could no longer be imported: [10] it could only be redistributed. To gain wealth was to despoil one's neighbour. And the secret of despoiling one's neighbour was to understand his weakness: if possible, to detect his hidden guilt. Not Seneca only but all the great writers of the Empire show a marked familiarity with the pathology of mind.
Seneca tells us that he loves teaching above all things else; that if he loves knowledge it is that he may impart it. [11] For teaching there is one indispensable prerequisite, and two possible domains. The prerequisite is certainty of one's self, the domains are those of popular instruction and of private direction. Seneca tries first of all to ensure his own conviction. "Not only," he says, "do I believe all I say, but I love it." [12] He tries to make his published teachings as real as possible by assuming a conversational tone. [13] They have the piquancy, the discursiveness, the brilliant flavour of the salon. They recall the converse of those gifted men who pass from theme to theme, throwing light on all, but not exhausting any. But Seneca is the last man to assume the sage. Except pedantry, nothing is so alien from him as the assumption of goodness. "When I praise virtue do not suppose I am praising myself, but when I blame vice, then believe that it is myself I blame." [14]
Thus confident but unassuming, he proceeds to the communication of wisdom. And of the two domains, while he acknowledges both to be legitimate, [15] he himself prefers the second. He is no writer for the crowd; his chosen audience is a few selected spirits. To such as these he wished to be director of conscience, guide, and adviser in all matters, bodily as well as spiritual. This was the calling for which, like Fénélon, he felt the keenest desire, the fullest aptitude. We see his power in it when we read his Consolations; we see the intimate sympathy which dives into the heart of his friend. In the letters to Lucilius, and in the Tranquillity of the Soul, this is most conspicuous. Serenus had written complaining of a secret unhappiness or malady, he knew not which, that preyed upon his mind and frame, and would not let him enjoy a moment's peace. Seneca analyses his complaint, and expounds it with a vivid clearness which betrays a first-hand acquaintance with its symptoms. If to that anguish of a spirit that preys on itself could be added the pains of a yearning unknown to antiquity, we might say that Seneca was enlightening or comforting a Werther or a René. [16]
Seneca's object, therefore, was remedial; to discover the malady and apply the restorative. The good teacher is artifex vivendi. [17] He does not state principles, he gives minute precepts for every circumstance of life. Here we see casuistry entering into morals, but it is casuistry of a noble sort. To be effective precepts must be repeated, and with every variety of statement. "To knock once at the door when you come at night is never enough; the blow must be hard, and it must be seconded. [18] Repetition is not a fault, it is a necessity." Here we see the lecturer emphasising by reiteration what he has to say.
And what has he to say? His system taken in its main outlines is rigid enough; the quenching of all emotion, the indifference to all things external, the prosecution of virtue alone, the mortification of the body and its desires, the adoption of voluntary poverty. These are views not only severe in themselves, but views which we are surprised to see a man like Seneca inculcate. The truth is he does not really inculcate them. In theory rigid, his system practises easily. It is more full of concessions than any other system that was ever broached. It is the inevitable result of an ambitious creed that when applied to life it should teem with inconsistencies. Seneca deserves praise for the conspicuous cleverness with which he steers over such dangerous shoals. The rigours of "virtue unencumbered" might be preached to a patrician whose honoured name made obscurity impossible; but as for the freedmen, capitalists, and nouveaux riches [19] of all kinds, who were Seneca's friends, if poverty was necessary for virtue, where would they be? Their greatness was owing solely to their wealth. Thus he wisely offered them a more accommodating doctrine, viz., that riches being indifferent need not be given up, that the good rich man differs from the bad in spirit, not in externals, &c., palliatives with which we are all familiar. To take another instance. The Stoic system forbade all emotion. Yet we find the philosopher weeping for his wife, for his child, for his slave. But he was far too sensible not to recognise the nobleness of such expressions of feeling; so he contents himself with saying "indulgeantur non imperentur." [20]
In reading the letters we are struck by the continual reference to the insecurity of riches, the folly of fearing death, torture, or infamy, and are tempted to regard these as mere commonplaces of the schools. They had, however, a melancholy fitness at the time they were uttered, which we, fortunately, cannot realise. A French gentleman, quoted by Boissier, [21] declared that he found the moral letters tedious until the reign of terror came; that then, being in daily peril of his life, he understood their searching power. At the same time this power is not consistent; the vacillation of the author's mind communicates itself to the person addressed, and the clear grasp of a definite principle which lent such strength to Zeno and the early Stoics is indefinitely diluted in the far more eloquent and persuasive reflections of his Roman representative.
Connected with the name of Seneca is a question of surpassing interest, which it would be unjust to our readers to pass entirely by. We allude to the belief universal in the Church from the time of Jerome until the sixteenth century, and in spite of strong disproof, not yet by any means altogether given up, that Seneca was personally acquainted with St. Paul, [22] and borrowed some of his noblest thoughts from the Apostle's teaching. The first testimony to this belief is given by Jerome, [23] who assigns, as his sole and convincing reason for naming Seneca among the worthies of the Church that his correspondence with Paul was extant. This correspondence, which will be found in Haase's edition of the philosopher, is now admitted on all hands to be a forgery. But we might naturally ask; Does it not point to an actual correspondence which is lost, the traditional remembrance of which gave rise to its later fictitious reproduction? To this the answer must be: Jerome knew of no such early tradition. All he knew was that the letters existed, and on their existence, which he did not critically investigate, he founded his claim to admit Seneca within the Church's pale.
The problem is by no means so simple as it appears. It involves two separate questions: first, a historical one which has only an antiquarian interest, Did the philosopher know the Apostle? secondly, a more important one for the history of religious thought, Do Seneca's writings contain matter which could have come from no source but the teaching of the first Christians.
As regards the first question, the arguments on both sides are as follows:—On the one hand, Gallio, who saw Paul at Corinth, was Seneca's brother, and Burrus, the captain of the praetorian cohort, before whom he was brought at Rome, was Seneca's most intimate friend. What so likely as that these men should have introduced their prisoner to one whose chief object was to find out truth? Again, there is a well authenticated tradition that Acte, once the concubine of Nero, [24] and the only person who was found to bury him, was a convert to the Christian faith; and if converted, who so likely to have been her converter as the great Apostle? Moreover, in the Epistle to the Philippians, St. Paul salutes "them that are of Caesar's household," and it is thought that Seneca may here be specially intended. On the other side it is argued that the phrase, "Caesar's household," can only refer to slaves and freedmen: to apply it to a great magistrate at a time when as yet noblemen had not become body- servants or grooms of the chamber to the monarch, would have been nothing short of an insult; that Seneca, if he had heard of Paul or of Paul's Master, would naturally have mentioned the fact, communicative as he always is; that fear of persecution certainly need not have restrained him, especially since he rather liked shocking people's ideas than otherwise; that everywhere he shows contempt and nothing but contempt for the Jews, among whom as yet the Christians were reckoned; in short, that he appears to know nothing whatever of Christians or their doctrines.
As to this latter point there is room for difference of opinion. It is by no means clear that Christianity was unknown to the court in Nero's reign. We find in Suetonius [25] a notice to the effect that Claudius banished the Jews from Rome for a sedition headed by Chrestus. How Suetonius knew well enough that Christus, not Chrestus, was the name of the Founder of the new religion; it is therefore reasonable to suppose that in this passage he is quoting from a police-magistrate's report dating from the time of Claudius. Again, it is certain that under Nero the Christians were known as an unpopular sect, on whom he might safely wreak his mock vengeance for the burning of the city; and it is equally certain that his abominable cruelty excited a warm sympathy among the people for the persecuted. [26] The Jews were well known; hundreds practised their ceremonies in secret; even as early as Horace [27] we know that Sabbaths were kept, and the Mosaic doctrines taught to noble men and women. The penalties inflicted on these innocent victims must have been at least talked of in Rome, and it is more than probable that Seneca must have been familiar with the name of the despised sect. [28] So far, therefore, we must leave the question open, only stating that while the balance of probability is decidedly against Seneca's having had any personal knowledge of the Apostle, it is in favour of his having at least heard of the religion he represented.
With regard to the second question, whether Seneca's teaching owes anything to Christianity, we must first observe, that philosophy to him was altogether a question of practice. Like all the other thinkers of the time he cared nothing for consistency of opinion, everything for impressiveness of application. He was Stoic, Platonist, Epicurean, as often as it suited him to employ their principles to enforce a moral lesson. Thus in his Naturales Quaestiones, [29] where he has no moral object in view, he speaks of the Deity as Mens Universi, or Natura ipsa, quite in accordance with Stoic pantheism. But in the letters to Lucilius, which are wholly moral, he uses the language of religion: "The great soul is that which yields itself up to God;" [30] "All that pleases Him is good;" [31] "He is a friend never far off;" [32] "He is our Father;" [33] "It is from Him that great and good resolutions come;" [34] "He is worshipped and loved;" [35] "Prayer is a witness to His care for us." [36] There is no doubt in these passages a strong resemblance to the teaching of the New Testament. There are other points of contact hardly less striking. The Stoic doctrine of the soul affirms the cessation of existence after death. So Zeno taught; but Chrysippus allowed the souls of the good an existence until the end of the world, and Cleanthes extended this privilege to all souls alike. Seneca sometimes speaks as a Stoic, [37] and denies immortality: sometimes he admits it as an ennobling belief; [38] sometimes he declares it to be his own conviction, [39] and uses the beautiful expression, so common in Christian literature, that the day of death is the birth-day of eternity. [40] The coincidence, if it is nothing more than a coincidence, is marvellous. But before assuming any closer connection we must take these passages with their respective contexts, and with the principles which, whether consistently maintained or not, undoubtedly underlie his whole teaching. We must remember that if Seneca had known the Gospel, the day he first heard of it must have been an epoch in his life. [41] And yet we meet with no allusion which could be construed into an admission of such a debt. And besides, the expressions in question do not all belong to one period of the philosopher's life; they occur in his earliest as well as in his latest compositions, though doubtless far more frequently in the latter. Hence we may explain them partly by the natural progress in enlightenment and gentleness during the century from Cicero to Seneca, and partly also by the moral development of the philosopher himself. [42] Resemblances of terms, however striking, must not count for more than they are worth. It is more important to ask whether the spirit of Seneca's teaching is at all like that of the Gospel. Are his ideas Christian? We meet with strong recommendations to charity, kindness, benevolence. To a splenetic acquaintance, out of humour with the world, he cries out, ecquando amabis? "When will you learn to love?" [43] But with him charity is not an end; it is but a means to fortify the sage, to render him absolutely self-sufficient. Egoism is at the bottom of this high precept; [44] and this at once removes it from the Christian category. And the same is true of his account of the wise man's relations to God. They are based on pride, not humility; they make him an equal, not a servant, of the Deity: Sapiem cum dis ex pari trivit; [45] and again, Deo socius non supplex. [46] Nothing could be further from the New Testament than this. If therefore Seneca borrowed anything from Christianity, it was the morality, not the doctrines, that he borrowed. But this is no sooner stated than it is seen to be altogether inconceivable. To suppose that he took from it precepts of life and neglected the higher truths it announced, is to regard him as foolish or blind. With his intense yearning to penetrate to the mysteries of our being, it is impossible that the only solution of them offered as certain to the world should have been neglected by him as not worth a thought. [47]
We therefore conclude that Seneca received no assistance from the preachers of the new religion, that his philosophy was the natural development of the thoughts of his predecessors in a mind at once capacious and smitten with the love of virtue. He cannot be regarded as an isolated phenomenon; he was made by the ages, as he in his turn helped to make the ages that followed; and if we possessed the writings of those intermediate thinkers who busily wrought among the citizens of Rome, striving by persuasion, precept, and example, to wean them from their sensuality and violence, we should probably see in Seneca's thoughts a less astounding individuality than we do.
It has often been said that he prepared the way for Christianity. But even this is hard to defend. In his enunciation of the brotherhood of man, [48] of the unholiness of war, [49] of the sanctity of human life, [50] of the rights of slaves, [51] and their claims to our affection, [52] in his reprobation of gladiatorial shows, he holds the place of a moral pioneer, the more honourable, since none of those before him, except Cicero, had had largeness of heart enough to recognise these truths. By his fierce attacks on paganism, [53] for which (not being a born Roman) he has no sympathy and no mercy, he did good service to the pure creed that was to follow. By his contempt of science, [54] in which he asserts we can never be more than children, he paved the way for a recognition of the supremacy of the moral end; but at the same time his own mind is sceptical quite as much as it is religious. He resembles Cicero far more than Virgil. The current after Augustus ran towards belief and even credulity. Seneca arrests rather than forwards it. His philosophy was the proudest that ever boasted of its claims, "Promittit ut parem Deo faciat." [55] His popularity was excessive, especially with the young and wealthy members of the new nobility of freedmen. The old Romans avoided him, and his great successors in philosophy, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, never even mention his name.
As a man of letters Seneca wielded an incalculable influence. What Lucan did for poetry, he did for prose, or rather, he did far more; while Lucan never superseded Virgil as a model except for expression, Seneca not only superseded Cicero, but set the style in which every succeeding author either wrote, tried to write, or tried not to write. To this there is one exception—the younger Pliny. But Florus, Tacitus, Pliny the elder, and Curtius, are deeply imbued with his manner and style. Quintilian, though anxiously eschewing all imitation of him, continually falls into it; there was a charm about those short, incisive sentences which none who had read them could resist; as Tacitus well says, there was in him ingenium amoenum et temporis eius auribus accommodatum. It is in vain that Quintilian goes out of his way to bewail his broken periods, his wasted force, his sweet vices. The words of Seneca are like those described in Ecclesiastes, "they are as goads or as nails driven in." There is no possibility of missing their point, no fear of the attention not being arrested. If he repeats over and over again, that is after all a fault that can be pardoned, especially when each repetition is more brilliant than its predecessor. And considering the end he proposed to himself, viz., to teach those who as yet were "novices in wisdom," we can hardly regard such a mode of procedure as beside the mark. Where it fails is in what touches Seneca himself, not in what touches the reader. It is a style which does injustice to its author's heart. Its glitter strikes us as false because too brilliant to be true; a man in earnest would not stop to trick his thoughts in the finery of rhetoric; here as ever, the showy stands for the bad. We do not intend to defend the character of the man; if style be the true reflex of the soul, as in all great writers without doubt it is, we allow that Seneca's style shows a mind wanting in gravity, that is, in the highest Roman excellence. His is the bright enthusiasm of display, not the steady one of duty; but though it be lower it need not be less real. There are warriors who meet their death with a song and a gay smile; there are others who meet it with stern and sober resolve. But courage calls both her children. Christian Europe has been kinder and juster to Seneca than was pagan Rome. Rome while she copied, abused him. Neither as Spaniard nor as Roman can he claim the name of sage. The higher philosophy is denied to both these nations. But in brilliancy of touch, in delicious abandon of sparkling chat, all the more delightful because it does us good in genial human feeling, none the less warm, because it is masked by quaint apophthegms and startling paradoxes, Seneca stands facile princeps among the writers of the Empire. His works are a mine of quotation, of anecdote, of caustic observations on life. In no other writer shall we see so speaking a picture of the struggle between duty and pleasure, between virtue and ambition; from no other writer shall we gain so clear an insight into the hopes, fears, doubts, and deep, abiding dissatisfaction which preyed upon the better spirits of the age.
We have dwelt fully on Seneca because he is of all the Claudian writers the one best fitted to appear as a type of the time. There were, however, several others of more or less note who deserve a short notice. There is the historian DOMITIUS CORBULO, [1] who wrote under Caligula (39 A.D.) a history of his campaigns in Asia, and to whom Pliny refers as an authority on topographical and ethnographical questions. He was executed by Nero (67 A.D.) and his wealth confiscated to the crown.
Another historian is QUINTUS CURTIUS, whose date has been disputed, some placing him as early as Augustus, in direct contradiction to the evidence of his style, which is moulded on that of Seneca, and of his political ideas, which are those of hereditary monarchy. Others again place him as late as the time of Severus, an opinion to which Niebuhr inclined. But it is more probable that he lived in the time of Claudius and the early years of Nero. [2] His work is entitled Historiae Alexandri Magni, and is drawn from Clitarchus, Timagenes, and Ptolomaeus. It consisted of ten books, of which all but the first two have come down to us. He paid more attention to style than matter, showing neither historical criticism nor original research, but putting down everything that looked well in the relating, even though he himself did not believe it.
Spain was at this time very rich in authors. For more than half a century she gave the Empire most of its greatest names. The entire epoch has been called that of Spanish Latinity. L. JUNIUS MODERATUS COLUMELLA was born at Gades, probably [3] near the beginning of our era. His grandfather was a man of substance in that part of the province, and a most successful farmer; it was from him that he imbibed that love of agricultural pursuits which led him to write his learned and elegant treatise. This treatise, which has come down to us entire, and consists of twelve books, was intended to form part of an exhaustive treatment of the subject of agriculture, including the incidental questions (e.g. those of religion) [4] connected with it. It was expanded and improved from a smaller essay, of which we still possess certain fragments. The work is written in a clear, comprehensive way, drawn not only from the best authorities, but from the author's personal experience. Like a true Roman (it is astonishing how fully these provincials entered into the mind of Rome) he descants on the dignity of the subject, on the lapse from old virtue, on the idleness of men who will not labour on their land and draw forth its riches, and on the necessity of taking up husbandry in a practical business-like way. The tenth book, which treats of gardens, is written in smooth verse, closely imitated from the Georgics. It is in fact intended as a fifth _Georgic. Virgil had said [5] with reference to gardens:
"Verum haec ipse equidem spatiis exclusus iniqnis
Praetereo, atque aliis post me memoranda relinquo."
These words are an oracle to Columella. "I should have written my tenth book in prose," he says, "had not your frequent requests that I would fill up what was wanting to the Georgics got the better of my resolution. Even so, I should not have ventured on poetry if Virgil had not indicated that he wished it to be done. Inspired, therefore, by his divine influence, I have approached my slender theme." The verses are good, though their poetical merit is somewhat on the level of a university prize poem. They conclude thus:
"Hactenus arvorum cultus Silvine docebam
Siderei referens vatis praecepta Maronis."
Among scientific writers we possess a treatise by SCRIBONIUS LARGUS (47 A.D.) on Compositiones Medicae, which is characterised by Teuffel as "not altogether nonsensical, and in tolerable style, although tinged with the general superstition of the period." The critic Q. ASCONIUS PEDIANUS (3-88 A.D.) is more important. He devoted his life to an elaborate exegesis of the great Latin classics, more particularly Cicero. His commentary on the Orations, of which we possess considerable fragments, [6] is written with sound sense, and in a clear pointed style. Some commentaries on the Verrine Speeches which bear his name, are the work of a much later hand, though perhaps drawn in great part from him. Another series of notes, extending to a considerable number of orations, was discovered by Mai, [7] but these also have been retouched by a later hand.
An interesting treatise on primitive geography, manners and customs (Chronographia) which we still possess, was written by POMPONIUS MELA, of Tingentera in Spain. Like Curtius he has obviously imitated Seneca; his account is too concise, but he intended and perhaps carried out elsewhere a fuller treatment of the subject.
The two studies which despotism had done so much to destroy, oratory and jurisprudence, still found a few votaries. The chief field for speaking was the senate, where men like Crispus, Eprius Marcellus, and Suillius the accuser of Seneca, exercised their genius in adroit flattery. Thrasea, Helvidius, and the opposition, were compelled to study repression rather than fulness. As jurists we hear of few eminent names: Proculus and Cassius Longinus are the most prominent.
Grammar was successfully cultivated by VALERIUS PROBUS, who undertook the critical revision of the texts of the Latin classics, much as the Alexandrine grammarians had done for those of Greece. He was originally destined for public life, but through want of success betook himself to study. After his arrival at Rome he gave public lectures on philology, which were numerously attended, and he seems to have retained the affection of all his pupils. His oral notes were afterwards edited in an epistolary form. The work De Notis Antiquis, or at least a portion of it, De Iuris Notis, has come down to us in a slightly abridged form; also a short treatise called Catholica, treating of the noun and verb, though it is uncertain whether this is authentic. [8] Another work on grammar is attributed to him, but as it is evidently at least three centuries later than this date, several critics have supposed it to be by a second Probus, also a grammarian, who lived at that period.
We shall conclude the chapter with a notice of an extraordinary book, the Satires, which pass under the name of PETRONIUS ARBITER. Who he was is not certainly known; but there was a Petronius in the time of Nero, whose death (66 A.D.), is recorded by Tacitus, [9] and who is generally identified with him. This account has often been quoted; nevertheless we may insert it here: "His days were passed in sleep, his nights in business and enjoyment. As others rise to fame by industry, so he by idleness; and he gained the reputation, not like most spendthrifts of a profligate or glutton, but of a cultured epicure. His words and deeds were welcomed as models of graceful simplicity in proportion as they were morally lax and ostentatiously indifferent to appearances. While proconsul, however, in Bithynia he showed himself vigorous and equal to affairs. Then turning to vice, or perhaps simulating it, he became a chosen intimate of Nero, and his prime authority (arbiter) in all matters of taste, so that he thought nothing delicate or charming except what Petronius had approved. This raised the envy of Tigellinus, who regarded him as a rival purveyor of pleasure preferred to himself. Consequently he traded on the cruelty of Nero, a vice to which all others gave place, by accusing Petronius of being a friend to Scaevinus, having bribed a slave to give the information, and removed the means of defence by hurrying almost all Petronius's slaves into prison. Caesar was then in Campania, and Petronius, who had gone to Cumae, was arrested there. He determined not to endure the suspense of hope and fear. But he did not hurry out of life; he opened his veins gently, and binding them up from time to time, chatted with his friends, not on serious topics or such as might procure him the fame of constancy, nor did he listen to any conversation on immortality or the doctrines of philosophers, but only to light verses on easy themes. He pensioned some of his slaves, chastised others. He feasted and lay down to rest, that his compulsory death might seem a natural one. In his will he did not, like most of the condemned, flatter Nero, or Tigellinus, or any of the powerful, but satirized the emperor's vices under the names of effeminate youths and women, giving a description of each new kind of debauchery. These he sealed and sent to Nero." Many have thought that in the Satires we possess the very writing to which Tacitus refers. But to this it is a sufficient answer that they consisted of sixteen books, far too many to have been written in two days. They must have been prepared before, and perhaps the most caustic of them were selected for the emperor's perusal. The fragment that remains is from the fifteenth and sixteenth books, and is a mixture of verse and prose in excellent Latinity, but deplorably and offensively obscene. Nothing can give a meaner idea of the social culture of Rome than this production of one of her most accomplished masters of self-indulgence. As, however, it is important from a literary, and still more from an antiquarian point of view, we add a short analysis of its contents.
The hero is one Encolpius, who begins by bewailing to a rhetor named Agamemnon the decline of native eloquence, which his friend admits, and ascribes to the general laxity of education. While the question is under discussion Encolpius is interrupted and carried off through a variety of adventures, of which suffice it to say that they are best left in obscurity, being neither humorous nor moral. Another day, he is invited to dine with the rich freedman Trimalchio, under whom, doubtless, some court favourite of Nero is shadowed forth. The banquet and conversation are described with great vividness. After some preliminary compliments, the host, eager to display his learning, turns the discourse upon philology; but he is suddenly called away, and topics of more general interest are introduced, the guests giving their opinions on each in a sufficiently interesting way. The remarks of one Ganymedes on the sufferings of the lower classes, the insufficiency of food, and the lack of healthy industries, are pathetic and true. Meanwhile, Trimalchio returns, orders a boar to be killed and cooked, and while this is in preparation entertains his friends with discussions on rhetoric, medicine, history, art, &c. The scene becomes animated as the wine flows; various ludicrous incidents ensue, which are greeted with extemporaneous epigrams in verse, some rather amusing, others flat and diffuse. The conversation thus turns to the subject of poetry. Cicero and Syrus are compared with some ability of illustration. Jests are freely bandied; ghost stories are proposed, and two marvellous fables related, one on the power of owls to predict events, the other on a soldier who was changed into a wolf. The supernatural is then about to be discussed, when a gentleman named Habinnas and his portly wife Scintilla come in. This lady exhibits her jewels with much complacency, and Trimalchio's wife Fortunata, roused to competition, does the same. Trimalchio has now arrived at that stage of the evening's entertainment when mournful views of life begin to present themselves. He calls for the necessary documents, and forthwith proceeds to make his will. His kind provision for his relatives and dependants, combined with his after-dinner pathos, bring out the softer side of the company's feelings; every one weeps, and for a time festivities are suspended. The terrible insecurity of life under Nero is here pointedly hinted at.
The will read, Trimalchio takes a bath, and soon returns in excellent spirits, ready to dine again. At this his good lady takes umbrage, and something very like a quarrel ensues, on which Trimalchio bids the musicians strike up a dead march. The tumult with which this is greeted is too much for many of the guests. Encolpius, the narrator, leaves the room, and the party breaks up.
Encolpius on leaving Trimalchio's meets a poet, Eumolpus, who complains bitterly of poverty and neglect. A debate ensues on the causes of the decline in painting and the arts; it is attributed to the love of money. A picture representing the sack of Troy gives occasion for a mock-tragic poem of some length, doubtless aimed at Nero's effusions. The poet is pelted as a bore, and has to decamp in haste. But he is incorrigible. He returns, and this time brings a still longer and more pretentious poem. Some applaud; others disapprove. Encolpius, seized with a fit of melancholy, thinks of hanging himself, but is persuaded to live by the artless caresses of a fair boy whom he has loved. Several adventures of a similar kind follow, and the book, which towards the end becomes very fragmentary, ends without any regular conclusion. Enough has been given to show its general character. It is something between a Menippean satire and a Milesian fable, such as had been translated from the Greek long before by Sisenna, and were to be so successfully imitated in a later age by Apuleius. The narrative goes on from incident to incident without any particular connexion, and allows all kinds of digressions. Poetical insertions are very frequent, some original, others quoted, many of considerable elegance. From its central and by many degrees most entertaining incident the whole satire has been called The Supper of Trimalchio. We have a few short passages remaining from the lost books, and some allusions in these we possess enable us to reconstruct to some extent their argument. It does not seem to have contained anything specially attractive. If only the book were less offensive, its varied literary scope and polished conversational style would make it truly interesting. As it is, the student of ancient manners finds it a mine of important and out-of-the-way information.
NOTE I.—The Testamentum Porcelli.
Connected with the Milesian fables were the Testamentum Porcelli, short jeux d'esprit, generally in the form of comic anecdotes, as a rule licentious, but sometimes harmless, and intended for children. A specimen of the unobjectionable sort is here given. St Jerome, who quotes it, says (contra Rufinum, i. 17, p. 473) "Quasi non cirratorum turba Milesiarum in scholis figmenta decantet et testamentum suis Bessorum cachinno membra concutiat, atque inter scurrarum epulas nugae istiusmodi frequententur."
"Testamentum Porcelli.
"Incipit testamentum porcelli.
"M. Grunnius Corocotta porcellus testamentum fecit; quoniam manu mea scribere non potui, scribendum dictavi. Magirus cocus dixit 'veni huc, eversor domi, solivertiator, fugitive porcelle, et hodie tibi dirimo vitam.' Corocotta porcellus dixit 'si qua feci, si qua peccavi, si qua vascella pedibus meis confregi, rogo, domine coce, vitam peto, concede roganti.' Magirus cocus dixit 'transi, puer affer mihi de cocina cultrum, ut hunc porcellum faciam cruentum.' Porcellus comprehenditur a famulis, ductas sub die xvi. kal. luceminas, ubi abundant cymae, Clibanato et Piperato consulibus, et ut vidit se moriturum esse, horae spatium petiit et cocum rogavit ut testamentum facere posset, clamavit ad se suos parentes, ut de cibariis suis aliquid dimitteret eis. Quid ait:
"'Patri meo Verrino Lardino do lego dari glandis modios xxx. et matri meae Veturinae Scrofae do lego dari Laeonicae siliginis modios xl. et sorori meae Quirinae, in euius votum interesse non potui, do lego dari hordei modios xxx. et de meis visceribus dabo donabo sutoribus saetas, rixoribus capitinas, surdis auriculas, causidicis et verbosis linguam, bubulariis intestina, isiciariis femora, mulieribus lumbulos, pueris vesicam, puellis caudam, cinaedis musculos, cursoribus et venatoribus talos, latronibus ungulas, et nec nominando coco legato dimitto popiam et pistillum, quae mecum attuleram: de Tebeste usque ad Tergeste liget sibi collo de reste, et volo mihi fieri monumentum aureis litteris scriptum:' M. Grunnius Corocotta porcellus vixit annis DCCCC.XC.VIIII.S. quod si semissem vixisset, mille annos implesset, 'optimi amatores mei vel consules vitae, rogo vos ut cam corpore meo bene faciatis, bene condiatis de bonis condimentis nuclei, piperis et mellis, ut nomen meum in sempiternum nominetur, mei domini vel consobrini mei, qui in medio testamento interfuistis, iubete signari.'
"Lardio signavit, Ofellicus signavit, Cyminatus signavit, Tergillus signavit, Celsinus signavit, Nuptialisus signavit.
"Explicit testamentum porcelli sub die xvi. kal. lucerninas Clibanato et
Piperato consulibus feliciter."
Such ridiculous compositions were extremely popular in court circles during the corrupter periods of the Empire. Suetonius (Tib. 42) tells us that Tiberius gave one Asellius Sabinus £1400 for a dialogue in which the mushroom, the beccaficoe, the oyster, and the thrush advanced their respective claims to be considered the prince of delicacies. To this age also belong the collection of epigrams on Priapus called Priapea, and including many poems attributed to Virgil, Tibullus, and Ovid. They are mostly of an obscene character, but some few, especially those by Tibullus and Catullus which close the series, are simple and pretty. It is almost inconceivable to us how so disgusting a cultus could have been joined with innocence of life; but as Priapus long maintained his place as a rustic deity we must suppose that the hideous literalism of his surroundings must have been got over by ingenious allegorising, or forgotten by rustic veneration.
NOTE 2.—On the MS. of Petronius.
From Thomson's Essay on the Post-Augustan Latin Poets, from the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana (Roman Literature).
Fragments of Petronius had been printed by Bernardinus de Vitalibus at Venice in 1499, and by Jacobus Thanner at Leipsig in 1508; but in the year 1632, Petrus Petitus, or as he styled himself, Marinus Statilius, a literary Dalmatian, discovered at Traw a MS. containing a much more considerable fragment, which was afterwards published at Padua and Amsterdam, and ultimately purchased at Rome for the library of the King of France in the year 1703. The eminent Mr. J. B. Gail, one of the curators of this library, politely allowed M. Guérard, a young gentleman of considerable learning employed in the MS. department, to afford us the following circumstantial information respecting this valuable codex, classed in the library as 7989:—"It is a small folio two fingers thick, written on very substantial paper, and in a very legible hand. The titles are in vermillion; the beginnings of the chapters, &c. are also in vermillion or blue. It contains the poems of Tibullus, Propertius and Catullus, as we have them in the ordinary printed editions; then appears the date of the 20th Nov. 1423. After these comes the letter of Sappho, and then the work of Petronius. The extracts are entitled 'Petronii Arbitri satyri fragmenta et libro quinto decimo et sexto decimo,' and begin thus: 'cum (not 'num,' as in the printed copies) in alio genere furiarum declamatores inquietantur,' &c. After these fragments, which occupy twenty-one pages of the MS. we have a piece without title or mention of its author, which is The Supper of Trimalcio. It begins thus: 'Venerat iam tertius dies,' and ends with the words. 'tam plane quam ex incendio fugimus.' This piece is complete by itself, and does not recur in the other extracts. Then follows the Moretum, attributed to Virgil, and afterwards the Phoenix of Claudian. The latter piece is in the character of the seventeenth century, while the rest of the MS. is in that of the fifteenth." The publication of this fragment excited a great sensation among the learned, to great numbers of whom the original was submitted, and by far the majority of the judges decided in favour of its antiquity. Strong as was this external evidence, the internal is yet more valuable; since it is scarcely possible to conceive a forgery of this length, which would not in some point or other betray itself. The difficulty of forging a work like the Satyricon will better appear, when it is considered that such attempts have been actually made. A Frenchman, named Nodot, pretended that the entire work of Petronius had been found at Belgrade in the siege of that town in 1688. The forged MS. was published; but the contempt it excited was no less universal than the consideration which was shown to the MS. of Statilius. Another Frenchman, Lallemand, printed a pretended fragment, with notes and a translation, in 1800, but no one was deceived by it.
With the extinction of the Claudian dynasty we enter on a new literary epoch. The reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian produced a series of writers who all show the same characteristics, though necessarily modified by the tyranny of Domitian's reign as contrasted with the clemency of those of his two predecessors. Under Vespasian and Titus authors might say what they chose; both these princes disdained to curb freedom of speech or to punish it even when it clamoured for martyrdom. Yet such was the reaction from the excitement of the last epoch, that no writer of genius appeared, and only one of the first eminence in learning. There now comes into Roman literature an unmistakable evidence of reduced talent as well as of decayed taste. Hitherto power at least has not been wanting; but for the future all is on a weaker scale. Only the two great names of Juvenal and Tacitus redeem the ninth century of Rome from total want of creative genius. All other writers move in established grooves, and, as a rule, imitate or feebly rival some of the giants of the past. Learning was still cultivated with assiduity if not with enthusiasm; but the grand hopeful spirit, sure of discovering truth, which animates the erudition of a better age, has now given place to a querulous depreciation even of the labour to which the authors have devoted their lives. This is conspicuous from the first in the otherwise noble pages of the elder PLINY, and is the secret of that want of critical insight which, in a mind so capaciously stored, strikes us at first as inexplicable.
This laborious and interesting writer was born at Como [1] in the year 23 A.D. He came, it is not known exactly when, to Rome and studied under the rhetorical grammarian Apion, whom Tiberius in mockery of his sounding periods had called "the drum" (tympanum). Till his forty-sixth year Pliny's genius remained unknown. An allusion in his work to Lollia Paulina has given rise to the opinion that he was admitted to the court of Caligula, but the grounds for this conclusion are manifestly insufficient. His nephew states that he composed his treatise On Doubtful Words [2] to escape the jealousy of Nero, who suspected him of less unambitious pursuits. But the evidence of the younger Pliny serves better to establish facts than motives; he is always anxious to swell the importance of his friends; and it is far more likely from Pliny's own silence that he remained in comparative obscurity until Nero's death. At the age of twenty-two he served his first campaign in Africa, and soon after in Germany under Lucius Pomponius, who gave him a cavalry troop, and seems to have befriended him in various other ways. His promotion was perhaps due to the treatise On Javelin-throwing [3] which be wrote about this time. He showed his gratitude towards Pomponius at a later date by writing his life.
Pliny had always felt a strong interest in science, and determined as soon as opportunity offered to make its advancement the object of his life. With this end in view he made careful observations of all the countries he visited, and used his military position to secure information that otherwise might have been hard to obtain. He inspected the source of the Danube and travelled among the Chauci on the shores of the German Ocean. He visited the mouths of the Eber and Weser, the North Sea and the Cimbrian Chersonese, and spent some time among the Roman provinces west of the Rhine. While in Germany he had a vision in which he saw or thought he saw the shade of Drusus, which appeared to him by night and bade him tell the history of all the German wars. Accordingly, he collected materials with industry, and worked them up into a large volume, which is now unfortunately lost. At twenty-nine he left the army and returned to Rome, where he studied for the bar. But his talents were not suitable for forensic display, and he found a more lucrative field in teaching grammar and rhetoric. At what time he was sent out as procurator to Spain is uncertain, but when he returned he found Vespasian on the throne. Pliny, who had known him in Germany, and had been on intimate terms with his son Titus, was now received with the greatest favour. Every morning before day-break, when the busy Emperor rose to finish his correspondence before the work of the day began, he called Pliny to his side, and the two friends chatted awhile together in the plain, homely fashion that Vespasian much preferred to the measured style of court etiquette. Nor was his favour confined to familiar intercourse. He made him admiral of the fleet stationed at Misenum and charged with guarding the Mediterranean ports. It was while here that news was brought him of the eruption of Vesuvius. He sailed to Resina determined to investigate the phenomenon, and, as his nephew in a well-known letter tells us, paid the price of his scientific curiosity with his life. The letter is so charming, and affords so good an example of Pliny the younger's style, that we may be excused for inserting: it here. [4]
"He was at Misenum in command of the fleet. On the 24th August (79 A.D.), about 1 P.M., my mother pointed out to him a cloud of unusual size and shape. He had then sunned himself, had his cold bath, tasted some food, and was lying down reading. He at once asked for his shoes, and mounted a height from which the best view might be obtained. The cloud was rising from a mountain afterwards ascertained to have been Vesuvius; its form was more like a pine-tree than anything else. It was raised into the air by what seemed its trunk, and then branched out in different directions; the reason probably was that the blast, at first irresistible, but afterwards losing strength or unable to counteract gravity, spent itself by spreading out on either side. The cloud was either bright, or dark and spotty, according as earth or ashes were thrown up. As a man of science he determined to inspect the phenomenon more closely. He ordered a light vessel to be prepared, and offered to take me with him. I replied that I would rather study; as it happened, he himself had set me something to write. He was just starting, when a letter was brought from Rectina imploring aid for Naseus who was in imminent danger; his villa lay below, and no escape was possible except by sea. He now changed his plan, and what he had begun, from scientific enthusiasm he carried out with self-sacrificing courage. He launched some quadriremes, and embarked with the intention of succouring not only Rectina but others who lived on that populous and picturesque coast. Thus he hurried to the spot from which all others were flying, and steered straight for the danger, so absolutely devoid of fear that he dictated an account with full comments of all the movements and changing shapes of the phenomenon, each as it presented itself. Ashes were now falling on the decks, and became hotter and denser as the vessel approached. Scorched and blackened pumice-stones and bits of rock split by fire were mingled with them. The sea suddenly became shallow, and fragments from the mountain filled the coast seeming to bar all further progress. He hesitated whether to return; but on the master strongly advising it, he cried, 'Fortune favours the brave: make for Pomponianus's house.' This was at Stabiae, and was cut off from the coast near Vesuvius by an inlet, which had been gradually scooped out by encroachments of the sea. The owner was in sight, intending, should the danger (which was visible, but not immediate) approach so near as to be urgent, to escape by ship. For this purpose he had embarked all his effects and was waiting for a change of wind. My uncle, whom the breeze favoured, soon reached him, and, embracing him with much affection, tried to console his fears. To show his own unconcern he caused himself to be carried to a bath; and having washed, sat down to dinner with cheerfulness or (what is equally creditable to him) with the appearance of it. Meanwhile from many parts of the mountain broad flames burst forth; the blaze shone back from the sky, and a dark night enhanced the lurid glare. To soothe his friend's terror he declared that what they saw was only the deserted villages which the inhabitants in their flight had set on fire. Then he retired to rest, and there can be no doubt that he slept, since the sound of his breathing (which a broad chest made deep and resonant), was clearly heard by those watching at the door. Soon the court which led to the chamber was so choked with cinders and stones that longer delay would have made escape impossible. He was aroused from sleep, and went to Pomponianus and the rest who had sat up all night. They debated whether to stay indoors or to wander about in the open. For on the one hand constant shocks of earthquake made the houses rock to and fro, and loosened their foundations; while on the other, the open air was rendered dangerous by the fall of pumice- stones, though these were light and very porous. On the whole they preferred the open air, but what to the rest had been a weighing of fears had to him been a balancing of reasons. They tied cushions over their heads to guard them from the falling stones. Though it was now day elsewhere it was here darker than the darkest night, though the gloom was broken by torches and other lights. They next walked to the sea to try whether it would admit of vessels being launched, but it was still a waste of raging waters. He then spread a linen cloth, and, reclining on it, asked several times for water, which he drank; soon, however, the flames and that sulphurous vapour which preceded them put his companions to flight and compelled him to arise. He rose by the help of two slaves, but immediately fell down dead. His death no doubt arose from suffocation by the dense vapour, as well as from an obstruction of his stomach, apart which had been always weak and liable to inflammation and other discomforts. When daylight returned, i.e. after three days, his body was found entire, just as it was, covered with the clothes in which he had died; his appearance was that of sleep rather than of death."
This interesting letter, which was sent to Tacitus for insertion in his history, gives a fine description of the eruption. Another, still more graphic, is given in a later letter of the same book. [5] A third [6] informs us of the extraordinary studiousness and economy of time practised by the philosopher, which enabled him in a life by no means long to combine a very active business career with an amount of reading and writing only second to that of Varro. Pliny's admiration for his uncle's unwearied diligence makes him delight to dwell on these particulars:
"After the Vulcanalia (the 23d of August) he always began work at dead of night, in winter at 1 A.M., never later than 2 A.M., often at midnight. He was most sparing of sleep; at times it would catch him unawares while studying. After his interview with Vespasian was over, he went to business, then to study for the rest of the day. After a light meal, which like our ancestors he ate by day, he would in summer, if he had any leisure, lie in the sun, while some one read to him and he made notes or extracts. He never read without making extracts; no book, he said, was so bad but that something might be gained from it. After sunning himself he would take a cold bath, then a little food, then a short nap. Then, as if it were a new day, he studied till supper. During this meal a book was read, he all the while making notes. I remember once, when the reader mispronounced a word, that one of our friends compelled him to repeat it. My uncle asked him if he had not understood the word. On his replying, yes, my uncle said sharply, 'Then why did you interrupt him? we have lost more than ten lines;' so frugal was he of his time. He rose from supper before dark in summer, before 7 P.M. in winter; and this habit was law to him. Such was his life in town; but in the country his one and only interruption from study was the bath. I mean the actual bathing; for while he was being rubbed he always either dictated, or listened to reading. On a journey, having nothing else to do, he gave himself wholly to study; at his side was an amanuensis, who in winter wore gloves, that his master's work might not be interrupted by the cold. Even in Rome he always travelled in a sedan. I remember his chiding me for taking a walk, saying, "you might have saved those hours"—for every moment not given to study he thought lost time. By this application he contrived to compose that vast array of volumes which we possess, besides bequeathing to me 160 rolls of selected notes, each roll written on both sides and in the smallest possible hand, which practically doubles their number. To call myself studious with his example before me is absurd; compared with him, I am an idle vagabond."
In the earlier part of this letter, Pliny gives a list of his uncle's works. Besides those mentioned in the text, we find a treatise on eloquence called Studiosus, and a continuation of the history of Aufidius Bassus in thirty books, dedicated to the emperor Titus. The Natural History, in thirty-seven books, is the sole monument of Pliny's industry that has descended to us. The fortunes of this portentous work have greatly varied; while in the Middle Ages it was reverenced as a kind of encyclopaedia of all secular knowledge, in our own day, except to antiquarians, it is an unknown book. Many who know Virgil almost by heart have never read through its tiresome and conceited preface. Yet there is an immensity of interesting matter discussed in the work. Independently of its vast learning, for it contains, according to its author's statement, twenty thousand facts, and excerpts or redactions from two thousand books or treatises, its range of subjects is such as to include something attractive to every taste. Strictly speaking, many topics enter which do not belong to natural history at all, e.g., the account of the use made of natural substances in the applied sciences and the useful or fine arts; but as these are decidedly the best-written parts of the work, and full of chatty, pleasant anecdotes, we should be much worse off if they had been omitted. The confused arrangement also, which mars its utility as a compendium of knowledge, may be due in great measure to the indefinite state of science at the time, to the gaps in its affinities which the discovery of so many new sciences has helped to fill up, and the consequent mingling together of branches which are separate and distinct.
It is questionable whether Pliny ever had any originality. If he had, it was stamped out long before he began his book by the weight of his cumbrous erudition. He cannot compare his materials, nor select them, nor analyse them, nor make them explain themselves by lucid arrangement. Nor has his review of human knowledge taught him the great truth that science is progressive, that each age corrects the errors of the past, and prepares the way for the improvements of the next. Seneca, with all his affected contempt for science, learnt the lesson of it better than Pliny. He has in the first place no fixed canon of truth. One thing does not seem to him more probable than another. A statement has only to come forward under the testimony of a respectable ancient, and it is at once put down as a fact. Here, however, we must make a distinction, for fear of invalidating Pliny's authority beyond what is just. It is only in strictly scientific matters that this credulity and lack of penetration is found. Where he deals with historical, biographical, or agricultural questions, he is a competent, and for the most part trustworthy, compiler. His work is a most valuable storehouse for the antiquarian or historian of ancient literature or art, and generally for the current opinions on nearly every topic. Though genuinely devoted to learning, he has still enough of the "old Adam" of rhetoric about him to complain of the dryness of his material, and its unsuitableness for ornamental treatment; but this cannot surprise us, when we remember that even Tacitus with infinitely less reason bewailed the monotony of the events he had taken upon him to record.
What partly accounts for Pliny's uncritical credulity is the unsatisfactory theory of the universe which he adopts, and with commendable candour sets before us at the outset. [7] He is a materialistic pantheist. The world is for him deity, self-created and eternal, incomprehensible by man, moving ceaselessly without reference to him. So far there is nothing unscientific, except the hypothesis of self- creation; but he goes on to imply that the laws of its action, being incomprehensible, need not be regular, at any rate, as we consider regularity. The things which militate against our experience may be the result of other laws, or of chance contingencies of which no account can be given. Hence he never rejects a fact on the ground of its being marvellous. The most ludicrous and inconceivable monstrosities find an easy place in his system. He does not attach any superstitious meaning to them; on the contrary, he ridicules the idea that omens or portents are sent by the gods, but he has no touchstone by which to test the rare but possible results of real experience as distinguished from the figments of the imagination or ordinary travellers' stories. In the zoological part he gives the reins to his love of the marvellous; all kinds of absurdities are narrated with the utmost gravity; and his accounts descended through the mediaeval period as the accredited authority on the subject. In the literature of Prester John will be seen many a reflection from the writings of Pliny; in the fables of the Arabian Nights many more, with characteristic additions equally creditable to human weakness or ingenuity. It is truly lamentable to reflect that while the rational and on the whole truthful descriptions of Aristotle and Theophrastus were extant and accessible, Pliny's nonsense should in preference have gained the ear of mankind.
As a stylist Pliny recalls two very different writers, Seneca and Cato. In those parts where he speaks as a moralist (and they are extremely numerous), he strives to reproduce the point of Seneca; in those where he treats of husbandry, which are perhaps the most naturally written in the work, his stern brevity often recalls the old censor. Like Seneca, he considers physical science as food for edification; continually he deserts his theme to preach a sermon on the folly or ignorance of mankind. And like Cato he is never weary of extolling the wisdom and virtues of the harsh infancy of the Republic, and blaming the degeneracy of its feeble and luxurious descendants who refuse to till the soil, and add acre to acre of their overgrown estates.
Pliny has a strong vein of satire, and its effect is increased by a certain sententious quaintness which gives a racy flavour to many otherwise dull enumerations of facts. But his satire is not of a pleasing type; it is built too much on despair of his kind; his whole view of the universe is querulous, and shows a mind unequal to cope with the knowledge it has acquired.
He was considered the most learned man of his day, and with reason. He at least knew the value of first-hand acquaintance with the original authorities, instead of drawing a superficial culture from manuals and abridgments, or worse still, the empty declamations of the rhetorical schools. And after all it is his age which must bear the blame of his failure rather than himself. For while he was not great enough to rise above his surroundings and investigate, compare, and conclude on a method planned by himself, he was just the man who would have profited to the full by being trained in a sound public system of education, and perhaps, had he lived in the Ciceronian period, would have risen to a much higher place as a permanent contributor to the journal of human knowledge.
Among the younger contemporaries of Pliny, the most celebrated is M. FABIUS QUINTILIANUS (35-95 A.D.), [8] a native of Calagurris in Spain, but educated in Rome, and long established there as a popular and influential public professor of eloquence. He was intrusted by Domitian with the education of his two grand-nephews, an honour to which he owed his subsequent elevation to the consulship. His time had been so fully occupied with lecturing as to allow no leisure for publishing anything until the closing years of his career. This gave him the great advantage of being a ripe writer before he challenged the judgment of the world; and, in truth, Quintilian's knowledge and love of his subject are thorough in the highest degree. His first essay was a treatise on the causes of the decay of eloquence, [9] and the last (which we still possess) a work in twelve books on the complete training of an orator. [10] This celebrated work, to which Quintilian devoted the assiduous labour of two whole years, interrupted only by the lessons given to his royal pupils, represents the maturest treatment of the subject which we possess. The author was modest enough to express a strong unwillingness to write it, either fearing to come forward as an author so late in life, or judging the ground preoccupied already. However, it was produced at last, and no sooner known than it at once assumed the high position that has been accorded to it ever since. The treatment is exhaustive; as much more thorough than the popular treatises of Cicero as it is more attractive than the purely technical one of Cornificius. At the same time it has the defects inseparable from the unreal age in which its author lived. While minutely providing for all the future orator's formal requirements, it omits the material one without which the finished rhetorician is but a tinkling cymbal, how to think as an orator. No one knew better than Quintilian that this comes from zest in life, not from rules of art. There will be more stimulus given to one who pants for distinction in the delightful pages of Cicero's Brutus, than in all that Quintilian and such as he ever wrote or ever will write. But this is not the fault of the man; as a formal rhetorician of good principle, sound orthodoxy, and love for his art, Quintilian stands high in the list of classical authors.
He begins his orator's training from the cradle. He rightly ascribes the greatest importance to early impressions, even the very earliest; illustrating his position by the influence of Cornelia who trained her sons to eloquence from childhood, and other similar cases known to Roman history. A good nurse must be selected; an eloquent one would, doubtless, be hard to find. The boy who is destined to greatness has now outgrown the nursery, and the great question arises, Is he to be sent to school? With the Romans as with us this difficulty admitted of two solutions. The lad might be educated at home under tutors, or he might be sent to learn the world at a public school. Those who at the present day shrink from sending their children to school generally profess to base their unwillingness on a fear lest the influence of bad example may corrupt the purity of youth; Quintilian on the very same ground, strongly recommends a parent to send his son to school. By this means, he says, his tender years will be saved from the daily contamination which the scenes of home life afford. A sad commentary on the state of Roman society and the pernicious effects of slave-labour!
After school, the youth is to attend the lectures of a rhetorician. This is of course a matter of great importance, and in the second book the writer handles its various bearings with excellent judgment. Having described the duties of the professor and his pupil, and the various tasks which will be gone through, he proceeds in the next book to discuss the different departments of oratory. In this great subject he follows Aristotle, here, as always, going back to the most established authorities, and adapting them with signal tact to the changed requirements of a later age and a different nation. The points connected with this, the central theme of the treatise, carry us through the five next books. They are the most technical in the work, and not adapted for general reading. The eighth begins the interesting topic of style, which is continued in the ninth, where trope, metaphor, amplification, and other figurae orationis are illustrated at length. Throughout these books there are a large number of quotations, and continual references to the practice of celebrated masters in the art, besides frequent introduction of passages from the poets and historians. But it is in the tenth book that these are concentrated into one focus. To acquire a "firm facility" (exis) of speech it is necessary to have read widely and with discernment. This leads him to enumerate the Greek and Roman authors likely to be most useful to an orator. The criticisms he offers on the salient qualities of almost all the great classics may seem to us trite and common-place. They certainly are not remarkable for brilliancy, but they are just and sober, and have stood the test of ages, and perhaps their apparent dulness results from their having been always familiar words. Their utility to the student of literature is so considerable, that we have thought it worth while to append a translation of them to the present chapter. [11]
The eleventh book chiefly turns on memory, which the Romans cultivated with extreme diligence, and several remarkable instances of which have been noticed in the course of this work. It was to them a much more vital excellence than to us, who have adopted the practice of using rough notes or other assistance to it. Delivery, too, is in the eleventh book fully discussed; and these chapters will be read with interest as showing the extreme and minute care bestowed by the Romans on the smallest details of action as means of producing effect. Generally, their oratory was of a vehement type. Gesture was freely used, and the voice raised to its fullest pitch. Trachalus had such a noisy organ that it drowned the pleaders in the other courts. Even after the decay of freedom the fiery gestures that had been once its language were not discarded; at the same time perfect modulation and symmetry were aimed at, so that even in the most empressé passages decorum was not violated. The systematized rhetorical training at present general in France, and practised by all who aspire to arouse the feeling of an assembly, is probably the nearest, though it may be but a faint, equivalent of the vigorous action of the Roman courts. The twelfth book treats of the moral qualifications necessary for a great speaker. Quintilian insists strongly on these. The good orator must be a good man. The highest talents are nothing if distorted by evil thoughts. We thus see that he took a worthy view of his profession, and would never have degraded it to be the instrument of tyranny or a means of saturating the ears of the idle with seductive and complaisant theories of life, by which a spurious popularity is so cheaply obtained. He was a high-minded man "quantum licuit;" i.e., as far as a debased age allowed of high-mindedness. His domestic life was clouded by sorrow. His first wife died at the early age of nineteen, leaving him two sons, the younger of whom only lived to the age of seven, and the elder (for whose instruction he wrote the book, and whose precocious talent and goodness of disposition he recounts with pardonable pride) only survived his brother about four years. His death was an irremediable blow, which the orator bewails in the preface to his sixth book. The passage is instructive as revealing the taste of the day. The paternal regret clothes itself in such a profusion of antithesis, trope, and hyperbole, that, did we not know from other sources the excellence of his heart, we might fancy he was exercising his talents in the sphere of professional advertisement. Before his endowment as professor, which appears to have brought him about £800 a year, he had occasionally pleaded in the courts; he appears to have written declamations in various styles, but those now current under his name are improperly ascribed to him.
Among his pupils was the younger Pliny, who alludes to him with gratitude in one of his letters; [12] he was well thought of during his life, and is frequently mentioned by Statius, Martial, and Juvenal, both as the cleverest of rhetoricians, and the best and most trusted of teachers; [13] by Juvenal also as a bright instance of good fortune very rare among the brethren of the craft. [14]
The style of Quintilian is modelled on that of Cicero, and is intended to be a return to the usages of the best period. He had a warm love for the writers of the republican age, above all for Cicero, whom he is never tired of praising; and he preached a crusade against the tinsel ornaments of the new school whose viciousness, he thought, consisted chiefly in a corrupt following of Seneca. It was necessary, therefore, to impugn the authority of his brilliant compatriot, and this he appears to have done with such warmth as to give rise to the opinion that he had a personal grudge against him. Some critics have noticed that Quintilian, even when blaming, often falls into the pointed antithetical style of his time. This is true. But it was unavoidable; for no man can detach himself from the mode of speaking common to those with whom he lives. It is sufficient if he be aware of its worse faults, point out their tendency, and strive to avoid them. This undoubtedly Quintilian did.
Among prose writers of less note we may mention LICINIUS MUCIANUS, CLUVIUS RUFUS, who both wrote histories; and VIPSTANUS MESSALA, an orator of the reactionary school, who, like Quintilian, sought to restore a purer taste, and devoted some of his time to historical essays on the events he had witnessed. M. APER and JULIUS SECUNDUS are important as being two of the speakers introduced into Tacitus's dialogue on oratory, the former taking the part of the modern style, the latter mediating between the two extreme views, but inclining towards the modern. All these belonged to the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, and lived into the first years of Domitian.
An important writer for students of ancient applied science is SEX. JULIUS FRONTINUS, whose career extends from about 40 A.D. to the end of the first century. He was praetor urbanus 70 A.D., and was employed in responsible military posts in Gaul and Britain. In the former country he reduced the powerful tribe of the Lingones, in Britain, as successor to Petilius Cerealis, he distinguished himself against the Silures, showing, says Tacitus, qualities as great as it was safe to show at that time. He was thrice consul, once under Domitian, again under Nerva (97 A.D.), and lastly under Trajan (100 A.D.), when he had for colleague the emperor himself. He died 103 A.D. or perhaps in the following year. Pliny the younger knew him well, and has several notices of him in his letters. Throughout his active life he was above all things a man of business: literature and science, though he was a proficient in both, were made strictly subservient to the ends of his profession. His character was cautious but independent, and he is the only contemporary writer we possess who does not flatter Domitian. The work on gromatics, which originally contained two books, has descended to us only in a few short excerpts, which treat de agrorum gualitate, de controversiis, de limitibus, de controversiis aquarum. This was written early in the reign of Domitian. Another work of the same period was a theoretical treatise on tactics, alluded to in the more popular work which we possess, and quoted by Vegetius who followed him. In this he examined Greek theories of warfare as well as Roman, and apparently with discrimination; for Aelian, in his account of the Greek strategical writers, assigns Frontinus a high place. The comprehensive manual called Strategematon (sollertia ducum facta) is intended for general reading among those who are interested in military matters. The books are arranged according to their subjects, but in the distribution of these there is no definite plan followed. Many interpolations have been inserted, especially in the fourth and last book which is a kind of appendix, adding general examples of strategic sayings and doings (strategematica) to the specifically-selected instances of the strategic art which are treated in the first three. Its introduction, as Teuffel remarks, is written in a boastful style quite foreign to Frontinus, and the arrangement of anecdotes under various moral headings reminds us of a rhetorician like Valerius Maximus, rather than of a man of affairs. The entire fourth book appears to be an accretion, perhaps as early as the fourth century. The last treatise by Frontinus which we possess is that De Aquis Urbis Romae, or with a slightly different title, De Aquaeductu, or De Cura Aquarum, published under Trajan soon after the death of Nerva. In an admirable preface he explains that his invariable custom when intrusted with any work was to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the subject in all its bearings before beginning to act; he could thus work with greater promptitude and despatch, and besides gained a theoretical knowledge which might have escaped him amid the multitude of practical details. Frontinus's account of the water-supply of Rome is complete and valuable: recent explorers have found it thoroughly trustworthy, and have been aided by it in reconstructing the topography of the ancient city. [15] The architecture of Rome has been reproached with some justice for bestowing its finest achievements on buildings destined for amusement, or on mere private dwellings. But if from the amphitheatres, the villas, the baths, we turn to the roads, the sewers, and the aqueducts, we shall agree with Frontinus in deeply admiring so grand a combination of the artistic with the useful. A practical recognition of some of the great sanitary laws seem to have early prevailed at Rome, and might well excite our wonder, if such things had not been as a rule passed by in silence by historians. Recent discoveries are tending to set the early civilisation of Rome on a far higher level than it has hitherto been able to claim.
The style of Frontinus is not so devoid of ornament as might be expected from one so much occupied in business; but the ornament it has is of the best kind. He shuns the conceits of the period, and goes back to the republican authors, of whom (and especially of Caesar's Commentaries) his language strongly reminds us. We observe that the very simplicity which Quintilian sought in vain from a lifelong rhetorical training is present unsought in Frontinus; a clear proof that it is the occupation of life and the nature of the man, not the varnish of artistic culture, however elaborately laid on, that determines the main characteristics of the writer.
No other prose authors of any name have come down to us from this epoch. A vast number of persons are flatteringly saluted by Statius and Martial as orators, historians, jurists, &c.; but these venal poets had a stock of complimentary phrases always ready for any one powerful enough to command them. When we read therefore that Tutilius, Regulus, Flavius Ursus, Septimius Severus, were great writers, we must accept the statement only with considerable reductions. Victorius Marcellus, the friend to whom Quintilian dedicates his treatise, was probably a person of some real eminence; his juridical knowledge is celebrated by Statius. The Silvae of Statius and the letters of Pliny imply that there was a very active and generally diffused interest in science and letters; but it is easy to be somebody where no one is great. Among grammarians AEMILIUS ASPER deserves notice. [16] He seems to have been living while Suetonius composed his biography of grammarians, since he is not included in it. He continued the studies of Cornutus and Probus of Berytus, and was best known for his Quaestiones Virgilianae (of which several fragments still remain), and his commentaries on Terence and Sallust. LARGUS LICINIUS, the author of Ciceromastix, may perhaps be referred to this time. The reiterated commendation of Cicero occurring in Quintilian may have roused the modernising party into active opposition, and drawn out this brochure. History and philosophy both sunk to an extremely low ebb; no writers on these subjects worthy of mention are preserved.
Quintilian's Account of the Roman Authors.
We subjoin a translation of Quintilian's criticism of the chief Roman authors as very important for the student of Latin literature, premising, however, that he judged them solely as regards their utility to one who is preparing to become an orator. The criticism, although thus special, has a permanent value, as embracing the best opinion of the time, temperately stated (Inst. Or. xi. 85-131):—"The same order will be observed in treating the Roman writers. As Homer among the Greeks, so Virgil among our own authors will best head the list; he is beyond doubt the second epic poet of either nation. I will use the words I heard Domitius Afer use when I was a boy. When I asked him who he considered came nearest to Homer, he replied, 'Virgil is the second, but he is nearer the first than the third;' and in truth, while Rome cannot but yield to that celestial and deathless genius, yet we can observe more care and diligence in Virgil; for this very reason, perhaps, that he was obliged to labour more. And so it is that we make up for the lack of occasional splendour by consistent and equable excellence. All the other epicists will follow at a respectful distance. Macer and Lucretius are indeed worth reading, but are of no value for the phraseology, which is the main body of eloquence. Each is good in his own subject; but the former is humble, the latter difficult. Varro Atacinus, in those works which have gained him fame, appears as a translator by no means contemptible, but is not rich enough to add to the resources of eloquence. Ennius let us reverence as we should groves of holy antiquity, whose grand and venerable trees have more sanctity than beauty. Others are nearer our own day, and more useful for the matter in hand. Ovid in his heroics is as usual wanton, and too fond of his own talent, but in parts he deserves praise. Cornelius Severus, though a better versifier than poet, would still claim the second place, if only he had written all his Sicilian War as well as the first book. But his early death did not allow his genius to be matured. His boyish works show a great and admirable talent, and a desire for the best style rare at that time of life. We have lately lost much in Valerius Flaccus. The inspiration of Salcius Bassus was vigorous and poetical, but old age never succeeded in ripening it. Rabirius and Pedo are worth reading, if you have time. Lucan is ardent, earnest, and full of admirably expressed sentiments, and, to give my real opinion, should be classed with orators rather than poets. We have named these because Germanicus Augustus (Domitian) has been diverted from his favourite pursuit by the care of the world, and the gods thought it too little for him to be the first of poets. Yet what can be more sublime, learned, matchless in every way, than the poems in which, giving up empire, he spent the privacy of his youth? Who could sing of wars so well as he who has so successfully waged them? To whom would the goddesses who watch over studies listen so propitiously? To whom would Minerva, the patroness of his house, more willingly reveal the mysteries of her art? Future ages will recount these things at greater length. For now this glory is obscured by the splendour of his other virtues. We, however, who worship at the shrine of letters will crave your indulgence, Caesar, for not passing the subject by in silence, and will at least bear witness, as Virgil says,
'That ivy wreathes the laurels of your crown.'
"In elegy, too, we challenge the Greeks. The tersest and most elegant author of it is in my opinion Tibullus. Others prefer Propertius. Ovid is more luxuriant, Gallus harsher, than either. Satire is all our own. In this Lucilius first gained great renown, and even now has many admirers so wedded to him, as to prefer him not only to all other satirists but to all other poets. I disagree with them as much as I disagree with Horace, who thinks Lucilius flows in a muddy stream, and that there is much that one would wish to remove. For there is wonderful learning in him, freedom of speech with the bitterness that comes therefrom, and an inexhaustible wit. Horace is far terser and purer, and without a rival in his sketches of character. Persius has earned much true glory by his single book. There are men now living who are renowned, and others who will be so hereafter. That earlier sort of satire not written exclusively in verse was founded by Terentius Varro, the most learned of the Romans. He composed a vast number of extremely erudite treatises, being well versed in the Latin tongue as well as in every kind of antiquarian knowledge; he will, however, contribute much more to science than to oratory.
"The iambus is not much in vogue among the Romans as a separate form of poetry; it is more often interspersed with other rhythms. Its bitterness is found in Catullus, Bibaculus, and Horace, though in the last the epode breaks its monotony.
"Of lyricists Horace is, I may say, the only one worth reading; for he sometimes rises, and he is always full of sweetness and grace, and most happily daring in figures and expressions. If any one else be added, it must be Caesius Bassus, whom we have lately seen, but there are living lyricists far greater than he.
"Of the ancient tragedians Accius and Pacuvius are the most renowned for the gravity of their sentiments, the weight of their words, and the dignity of their characters. But brilliancy of touch and the last polish in completing their work seems to have been wanting, not so much to themselves as to their times. Accius is held to be the more powerful writer; Pacuvius (by those who wish to be thought learned) the more learned. Next comes the Thyestes of Varius, which may be compared with any of the Greek plays. The Medea of Ovid shows what that poet might have achieved if he had but controlled instead of indulging his inspiration. Of those of my own day Pomponius Secundus is by far the greatest. The old critics, indeed, thought him wanting in tragic force, but they confessed his learning and brilliancy.
"In comedy we halt most lamentably. It is true that Varro declares (after Aelius Stilo) that the muses, had they been willing to talk Latin, would have used the language of Plautus. It is true also that the ancients had a high respect for Caecilius, and that they attributed the plays of Terence to Scipio—plays that are of their kind most elegant, and would be even more pleasing if they had kept within the iambic metre. We can scarcely reproduce in comedy a faint shadow of our originals, so that I am compelled to believe the language incapable of that grace, which even in Greek is peculiar to the Attic, or at any rate has never been attained in any other dialect. Afranius excels in the national comedy, but I wish he had not defiled his plots by licentious allusions.
"In history at all events, I would not yield the palm to Greece. I should have no fear in matching Sallust against Thucydides, nor would Herodotus disdain to be compared with Livy—Livy, the most delightful in narration, the most candid in judgment, the most eloquent in his speeches that can be conceived. Everything is perfectly adapted both to the circumstances and personages introduced. The affections, and, above all, the softer ones, have never (to say the least) been more persuasively introduced by any writer. Thus by a different kind of excellence he has equalled the immortal rapidity of Sallust. Servilius Nonianus well said to me: 'They are not like, but they are equal.' I used often to listen to his recitations; a man of lofty spirit and full of brilliant sentiments, but less condensed than the majesty of history demands. This condition was better fulfilled by Aufidius Bassus, who was a little his senior, at any rate in his books on the German War, in which the author was admirable in his general treatment, but now and then fell below himself. There still survives and adorns the literary glory of our age a man worthy of an immortal record, who will be named some day, but now is only alluded to. He has many to admire, none to imitate him, as if freedom, though he clips her wings, had injured him. But even in what he has allowed to remain you can detect a spirit full lofty, and opinions courageously stated. There are other good writers; but at present we are tasting, as it were, the samples, not ransacking the libraries.
"It is the orators who more than any have made Latin eloquence a match for that of Greece. For I could boldly pitch Cicero against any of their champions. Nor am I ignorant how great a strife I should be stirring up (especially as it is no part of my plan), were I to compare him with Demosthenes. This is the less necessary, since I think Demosthenes should be read (or rather learnt by heart) above every one else. Their excellences seem to me to be very similar; there is the same plan, order of division, method of preparation, proof, and all that belongs to invention. In the oratorical style there is some difference. The one is closer, the other more fluent; the one draws his conclusion with more incisiveness, the other with greater breadth; the one always wields a weapon with a sharp edge, the other frequently a heavy one as well; from the one nothing can be taken, to the other nothing can be added; the one shows more care, the other more natural gift. In wit and pathos, both important points, Cicero is clearly first. Perhaps the custom of his state did not allow Demosthenes to use the epilogue, but then neither does the genius of Latin oratory allow us to employ ornaments which the Athenians admire. In their letters, of which both have left several, there can be no comparison; nor in their dialogues, of which Demosthenes has not left any. In one point we must yield: Demosthenes came first, and of course had a great share in making Cicero what he was. For to me Cicero seems in his intense zeal for imitating the Greeks to have united the force of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the sweetness of Isocrates. Nor has he only acquired by study all that was best in each, but has even exalted the majority if not the whole of their excellences by the inexpressible fertility of his glorious talent. For, as Pindar says, he does not collect rain-water, but bursts forth in a living stream; born by the gift of providence that eloquence might put forth and test all her powers. For who can teach more earnestly or move more vehemently? to whom was such sweetness ever given? The very concessions he extorts you think he begs, and while by his swing he carries the judge right across the course, the man seems all the while to be following of his own accord. Then in everything he advances there is such strength of assertion that one is ashamed to disagree; nor does he bring to bear the eagerness of an advocate, but the moral confidence of a juryman or a witness; and meanwhile all those graces, which separate individuals with the most constant care can hardly obtain, flow from him without any premeditation; and that eloquence which is so delicious to listen to seems to carry on its surface the most perfect freedom from labour. Wherefore his contemporaries did right to call him 'king of the courts;' and posterity to give him such renown that Cicero stands for the name not of a man but of eloquence itself. Let us then fix our eyes on him; let his be the example we set before us; let him who loves Cicero well know that his own progress has been great. In Asinius Pollio there is much invention, much, according to some, excessive, diligence; but he is so far from the brilliancy and sweetness of Cicero that he might be a generation earlier. But Messala is polished and open, and in a way carries his noble birth into his style of eloquence, but he lacks vigour. If Julius Caesar had only had leisure for the forum, he would be the one we should select as the rival of Cicero. He has such force, point, and vehemence of style, that it is clear he spoke with the same mind that he warred. Yet all is covered with a wondrous elegance of expression, of which he was peculiarly studious. There was much talent in Caelius, and in accusations chiefly he showed a great urbanity; he was a man worthy of a better mind and a longer life. I have found those who prefer Calvus to any orator; I have found others who thought with Cicero that by too strict criticism of himself he lost real power; but his style is weighty and noble, guarded, and often vehement. He was an enthusiastic atticist, and his early death may be considered a misfortune, if we can believe that a longer life would have added something to his over concise manner. Servius Sulpicius has earned considerable fame by his three speeches. Cassius Severus will give many points for imitation if he be read judiciously; if he had added colour and weight to his other good qualities of style, he would be placed extremely high. For he has great talent and wonderful power of satire. His urbanity, too, is great, but he gave himself up to passion rather than reason. And as his wit is always bitter, so the very bitterness of it sometimes makes it ludicrous. I need not enumerate the rest of this long list. Of my own contemporaries Domitius Afer and Julius Africanus are far the greatest; the former in art and general style, the latter in earnestness, and the sorting of words, which sorting, however, is perhaps excessive, as his arrangements are lengthy and his metaphors immoderate. There have been lately some great masters in this line. Trachalus was often sublime, and very open in his manner, a man to whom you gave credit for good motives; but he was much greater heard than read. For he had a beauty of voice such as I have never known in any other, an articulation good enough for the stage, and grace of person and every other external advantage were at their height in him. Vibius Crispus was neat, elegant, and pleasing, better for private than public causes. Had Julius Secundus lived longer, his renown as an orator would be first-rate. For he would have added, as indeed he had already began to add, all the desiderata for the highest ideal. He would have been more combative, and more attentive to the subject, even to an occasional neglect of the manner. Cut off as he was, he nevertheless merits a high place; such is his facility of speech, his charm in explaining what he has to say; his open, gentle, and specious style, his perfect selection of words, even those which are adopted on the spur of the moment; his vigorous application of analogies extemporaneously suggested. My successors in rhetorical criticism will have a rich field for praising those who are now living. For there are now great talents at work who do credit to the bar, both finished patrons, worthy rivals of the ancients, and industrious youths, following them in the path of excellence.
"There remain the philosophers, few of whom have attained to eloquence. Cicero, here as ever, is the rival of Plato. Brutus stands in this department much higher than as an orator; he suffices for the weight of his matter; you can see he feels what he says. Cornelius Celsus, following the Sextii, has written a good deal with point and elegance. Plancus among the Stoics is useful for his knowledge. Among Epicureans, Catius though a light is a pleasant writer. I have purposely deferred Seneca until the end, because of the false report current that I condemn him, and even personally dislike him. This results from my endeavour to recal to a severer standard a corrupt and effeminate taste. When I began my crusade, Seneca was almost the only writer in the hands of the young. Nor did I try to 'disestablish' him altogether, but only to prevent his being placed above better men, whom he continually attacked, from a consciousness that his special talents would never allow him to please in the way they pleased. And then his pupils loved him better than they imitated him, and in their imitations fell as much below him as he had fallen below the ancients. I only wish they could have been equals or seconds to such a man. But he pleased them solely through his faults; and it was to reproduce these that they all strove with their utmost efforts, and then, boasting that they spoke in his style, they greatly injured his fame. He, indeed, had many and great excellences; an easy and fertile talent, much study, much knowledge, though in this he was often led astray by those he employed to 'research' for him. He treated nearly the whole cycle of knowledge. For he has left speeches, poems, letters, and dialogues. In philosophy he was not very accurate, but he was a notable rebuker of vice. Many brilliant apophthegms are scattered through his works; much, too, may be read with a moral purpose. But from the point of view of eloquence his style is corrupt, and the more pernicious because he abounds in pleasant faults. One could wish he had used his own talent and another person's judgment. For had he despised some modes of effect, had he not striven after others (partem), if he had not loved all that was his own, if he had not broken the weight of his subjects by his short cut- up sentences, he would be approved by the consent of the learned rather than by the enthusiasm of boys. For all this, he should be read, but only by those who are robust and well prepared by a course of stricter models; and for this object, to exercise their judgment on both sides. For there is much that is good in him, much to admire; only it requires picking out, a thing he himself ought to have done. A nature which could always achieve its object was worthy of having striven after a better object than it did."
The poet is usually credited with a genius more independent of external circumstances than any other of nature's favourites. His inspiration is more creative, more unearthly, more constraining, more unattainable by mere effort. He seems to forget the world in his own inner sources of thought and feeling. As circumstances cannot produce him, so they do not greatly affect his genius. He is the product of causes as yet unknown to the student of human progress; he is a boon for which the age that has him should be grateful, a sort of aerii mellis caelestia dona. Modern literature is full of this conception. The poet "does but speak because he must; he sings but as the linnets sing." Never has the sentiment been expressed with deeper pathos than by Shelley's well-known lines:
"Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not."
The idea that the poet can neither be made on the one hand, nor repressed if he is there, on the other, has become deeply rooted in modern literary thought. And yet if we look through the epochs that have been most fertile of great poets, the instances of such self-sufficing hardiness are rare. In Greek poetry we question whether there is one to be found. In Latin poetry there is only Lucretius. In modern times, it is true, they are more numerous, owing to the greater complexity of our social conditions, and the greater difficulty for a strongly sensuous or deeply spiritual poetic nature to be in harmony with them all. Putting aside these solitary voices we should say on the whole that poetry, at least in ancient times, was the tenderest and least hardy of all garden flowers. It needed, so to say, a special soil, constant care, and shelter from the rude blast. It could blossom only in the summer of patronage, popular or imperial; the storms of war and revolution, and the chill frost of despotism, were equally fatal to its tender life. Where its supports were strong its own strength came out, and that with such luxuriance as to hide the props which lay beneath; but when once the inspiring consciousness of sympathy and aid was lost, its fair head drooped, its fragrance was forgotten, and its seeds were scattered to the waste of air.
If Lucan's claim to the name of poet be disputed, what shall we say to the so-called poets of the Flavian age? to Valerius Flaccus, Silius, Statius, and Martial? In one sense they are poets certainly; they have a thorough mastery over the form of their art, over the hackneyed themes of verse. But in the inspiration that makes the bard, in the grace that should adorn his mind, in the familiarity with noble thoughts which lends to the Pharsalia an undisputed greatness, they are one and all absolutely wanting. None of them raise in the reader one thrill of pleasure, none of them add one single idea to enrich the inheritance of mankind. The works of Pliny and Quintilian cannot indeed be ranked among the masterpieces of literature. But in elegant greatness they are immeasurably superior to the works of their brethren of the lyre. Science can seek a refuge in the contemplation of the material universe; if it can find no law there, no justice, no wisdom, no comfort, it at least bows before unchallenged greatness. Rhetoric can solace its aspirations in a noble though hopeless effort to rekindle an extinct past. Poetry, that should point the way to the ideal, that should bear witness if not to goodness at least to beauty and to glory, grovels in a base contentment with all that is meanest and shallowest in the present, and owns no source of inspiration but the bidding of superior force, or the insulting bribe of a despot's minion which derides in secret the very flattery it buys.
These poets need not detain us long. There is little to interest us in them, and they are of little importance in the history of literature. The first of them is C. VALERIUS FLACCUS SETINUS BALBUS. [1] He was born not, as his name would indicate, at Setia, but at Patavium. [2] We gather from a passage in his poem [3] that he filled the office of Quindecimvir sacris faciundis, and from Quintilian [4] that he was cut off by an early death. The date of this event may be fixed with probability to the year 88 A.D. [5] Dureau de la Malle has disputed this, and thinks it probable that he lived until the reign of Trajan; but this is in itself unlikely, and inconsistent with the obviously unfinished state of the poem. The legend of the Argonauts which forms its subject was one that had already been treated by Varro Atacinus apparently in the form of an imitation or translation from the same writer, Appollonius Rhodius, whom Valerius also chose as his model. But whereas Varro's poem was little more than a free translation, that of Valerius is an amplification and study from the original of a more ambitious character. It consists of eight books, of which the last is incomplete, and in estimating its merits or demerits we must not forget the immaturity of its author's talent.
The opening dedication to Vespasian fixes its composition under his reign. Its profane flattery is in the usual style of the period, but lacks the brilliancy, the audacity, and the satire of that of Lucan. From certain allusions it is probable that the poem was written soon after the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus [6] (A.D. 70). There is considerable learning shown, but a desire to compress allusions into a small space and to suggest trains of mythological recollection by passing hints, interfere with the lucidity of the style. In other respects the diction is classical and elegant, and both rhythm and language are closely modelled on those of Virgil. Licences of versification are rare. The spondaic line, rarely used by Ovid, almost discarded by Lucan, but which reappears in Statius, is sparingly employed by Valerius. Hiatus is still rarer, but the shortening of final o occurs in verbs and nominatives, such as Juno, Virgo, whenever it suits the metre. His speeches are rhetorical but not extravagant, some, e.g., that of Helle to Jason, are very pretty. In descriptive power he rises to his highest level; some of his subjects are extremely vivid and might form subjects for a painting. [7] During the time that he was writing the eruption of Vesuvius occurred, and he has described it with the zeal of a witness. [8]
"Sic ubi prorupti tonuit cum forte Vesevi
Hesperiae letalis apex; vixdum ignea montem
Torsit hiems, iamque Eoas einis induit urbes."
But in this, as in all the descriptive pieces, however striking and elaborate, of the period of the decline, are prominently visible the strained endeavour to be emphatic, and the continual dependence upon book reminiscence instead of first-hand observation. Valerius is no exception to the rule. Nor is the next author who presents himself any better in this respect, the voluptuary and poetaster C. SILIUS ITALICUS.
This laborious compiler and tasteless versifier was born 25 A.D., or according to some 24 A.D., and died by his own act seventy-six years later. He is known to us as a copyist of Virgil; to his contemporaries he was at least as well known as a clever orator and luxurious virtuoso. His early fondness for Virgil's poetry may be presumed from the dedication of Cornutus's treatise on that subject to him, but he soon deserted literature for public life, in which (68 A.D.) he attained the highest success by being nominated consul. He had been a personal friend of Vitellius and of Nero; but now, satisfied with his achievements, he settled down on his estates, and composed his poem on the Punic Wars in sixteen books. Most of the information we possess about him is gathered from the letter [9] in which Pliny narrates his death. We translate the most striking passages for the reader's benefit.
"I have just heard that Silius has closed his life in his Neapolitan villa by voluntary abstinence. The cause of his preferring to die was ill-health. He suffered from an incurable tumour, the trouble arising from which determined him with singular resolution to seek death as a relief. His whole life had been unvaryingly fortunate, except that he had lost the younger of his two sons. On the other hand, he had lived to see his elder and more promising son succeed in life and obtain the consulship. He had injured his reputation under Nero. It was believed he had acted as an informer. But afterwards, while enjoying Vitellius's friendship, he had conducted himself with courtesy and prudence. He had gained much credit by his proconsulship in Asia, and had since by an honourable leisure wiped out the blot which stained the activity of his former years. He ranked among the first men in the state, but he neither retained power nor excited envy. He was saluted, courted; he received levees often in his bed, always in his chamber, which was crowded with visitors, who came attracted by no considerations of his fortune. When not occupied with writing, he passed his days in learned discourse. His poems evince more diligence than talent: he now and then by reciting challenged men's opinions upon them. Latterly, owing to advancing years, he retired from Rome and remained in Campania, nor did even the accession of a new emperor draw him forth. To allow this inactivity was most liberal on the emperor's part, to have the courage to accept it was equally honourable to Silius. He was a virtuoso, and was even blamed for his propensities for collecting. He owned several country-houses in the same district, and was always so taken with each new house he purchased as to neglect the old for it. All of them were well stocked with books, statues, and busts of great men. These last he not only treasured but revered, above all, that of Virgil, whose birthday he kept more religiously than his own. He preferred celebrating it at Naples, where he visited the poet's tomb as if it had been a temple. Amid such complete tranquillity he passed his seventy-fifth year, not exactly weak in body, but delicate."
To this notice of Pliny's we might add several by Martial; but as these refer to the same facts, adding beside only fulsome praises of the wealthy and dignified littérateur, they need not be quoted here. Quintilian does not mention him. But his silence is no token of disrespect; it is merely an indication that Silius was still alive when the great critic wrote.
There is little that calls for remark in his long and tedious work. He is a poet only by memory. Timid and nerveless, he lacks alike the vigorous beauties of the earlier school, and the vigorous faults of the later. He pieces together in the straggling mosaic of his poem hemistichs from his contemporaries, fragments from Livy, words, thoughts, epithets, and rhythms from Virgil; and he elaborates the whole with a pre-Raphaelite fidelity to details which completely destroys whatever unity the subject suggested.
This subject is not in itself a bad one, but the treatment he applies to it is unreal and insipid in the highest degree. He cannot perceive, for instance, that the divine interventions which are admissible in the quarrel of Aeneas and Turnus are ludicrous when imported into the struggle between Scipio and Hannibal. And this inconsistency is the more glaring, since his extreme historical accuracy (an accuracy so strict as to make Niebuhr declare a knowledge of him indispensable to the student of the Punic Wars) gives to his chronicle a prosaic literalness from which nothing is more alien than the caprices of an imaginary pantheon. Who can help resenting the unreality, when at Saguntum Jupiter guides an arrow into Hannibal's body, which Juno immediately withdraws? [10] or when, at Cannae, Aeolus yields to the prayer of Juno and blinds the Romans by a whirlwind of dust? [11] These are two out of innumerable similar instances. Amid such incongruities it is no wonder if the heroes themselves lose all body and consistency, so that Scipio turns into a kind of Paladin, and Hannibal into a monster of cruelty, whom we should not be surprised to see devouring children. Silius in poetry represents, on a reduced scale, the same reactionary sentiments that in prose animated Quintilian. So far he is to be commended. But if we must choose a companion among the Flavian poets, let it be Statius with all his faults, rather than this correct, only because completely talentless, compiler.
To him let us now turn. With filial pride he attributes his eminence to the example and instruction of his father, P. PAPENIUS STATIUS, who was, if we may believe his son, a distinguished and extremely successful poet. [12] He was born either at Naples or at Selle; and the doubt hanging over this point neither the father nor the son had any desire to clear up; for did not the same ambiguity attach to the birthplace of Homer? At any rate he established himself at Naples as a young man, and opened a school for rhetoric and poetry, engaging in the quinquennial contests himself, and training his pupils to do the same. It is not certain that he ever settled at Rome; his modest ambition seems to have been content with provincial celebrity. What the subjects of his prize poetry were we have no means of ascertaining, but we know that he wrote a short epic on the wars between Vespasian and Vitellius and contemplated writing another on the eruption of Vesuvius. His more celebrated son, P. PAPINIUS STATIUS the younger, was born at Naples 61 A.D., and before his father's death had carried off the victory in the Neapolitan poetical games by a poem in honour of Ceres. [13] Shortly after this he returned to Rome, where it is probable he had been educated as a boy, and in his twenty-first year married a young widow named Claudia (whose former husband seems to have been a singer or harpist), [14] and their mutual attachment is a pleasing testimony to the poet's goodness of heart, a quality which the habitual exaggeration of his manner ineffectually tries to conceal.
Domitian had instituted a yearly poetical contest at the Quinquatria, in honour of Minerva, held on the Alban Mount. Statius was fortunate enough on three separate occasions to win the prize, his subject being in each case the praises of Domitian himself. [15] But at the great quinquennial Capitoline contest, in which apparently the subject was the praises of Jupiter, [16] Statius was not equally successful. [17] This defeat, which he bewails in more than one passage, was a disappointment he never quite overcame, though some critics have inferred from another passage [18] that on a subsequent occasion he came off victor; but this cannot be proved. [19]
Statius had something of the true poet in him. He had the love of nature and of those "cheap pleasures" of which Hume writes, the pleasures of flowers, birds, trees, fresh air, a country landscape, a blue sky. These could not be had at Rome for all the favours of the emperor. Statius pined for a simpler life. He wished also to provide for his step-daughter, whom he dearly loved, and whose engaging beauty while occupied in reciting her father's poems, or singing them to the music of the harp, he finely describes. Perhaps at Naples a husband could be found for her? So to Naples he went, and there in quiet retirement passed the short remainder of his days, finishing his opus magnum the Thebaid, and writing the fragment that remains of his still more ambitious Achilleid. The year of his death is not certain, but it may be placed with some probability in 98 A.D.
Statius was not merely a brilliant poet. He was a still more brilliant improvisator. Often he would pour forth to enthusiastic listeners, as Ovid had done before him,
"His profuse strains of unpremeditated art."
Improvisation had long been cultivated among the Greeks. We know from Cicero's oration on behalf of Archias that it was no rare accomplishment among the wits of that nation. And it was not unknown among the Romans, though with them also it was more commonly exercised in Greek than in Latin. The technicalities of versification had, since Ovid, ceased to involve any labour. Not an aspirant of any ambition but was familiar with every page of the Gradus ad Parnassum, and could lay it under contribution at a moment's notice. Hence to write fluent verses was no merit at all; to write epigrammatic verses was worth doing; but to extemporize a poem of from one to two hundred lines, of which every line should display a neat turn or a bon mot, this was the most deeply coveted gift of all; and it was the possession of this gift in its most seductive form that gave Statius unquestioned, though not unenvied, pre- eminence among the beaux esprits of his day. His Silvae, which are trifles, but very charming ones, were most of them written within twenty- four hours after their subjects had been suggested to him. Their elegant polish is undeniable; the worst feature about them is the base complaisance with which this versatile flatterer wrote to order, without asking any questions, whatever the eunuchs, pleasure-purveyors, or freedmen of the emperor desired. They are full of interest also as throwing light on the manners and fashions of the time and disclosing the frivolities which in the minds of all the members o£ the court had quite put out of sight the serious objects of life. They contain many notices of the poet and his friends, and we learn that when they were composed he was at work on the Thebaid. He excuses these short jeux d'esprit by alleging the example of Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice and Virgil's Culex. "I hardly know," he says, "of one illustrious poet who has not prefaced his nobler triumphs of song by some prelude in a lighter strain." [20] The short prose introductions in which he describes the poems that compose each book are well worth reading. The first book is addressed to his friend ARRUNTIUS STELLA, who was, if we may believe Statius and Martial, himself no mean poet, and in his little Columba, an ode addressed to his mistress's dove, rivalled, if he did not surpass, the famous "sparrow-poem" of Catullus. He wrote also several other love poems, and perhaps essayed a heroic flight in celebrating the Sarmatian victories of Domitian. [21]
The Silvae were for the most part read or recited in public. We saw in a former chapter [22] that Asinius Pollio first introduced these readings. His object in doing so is uncertain. It may have been to solace himself for the loss of a political career, or it may have been a device for ascertaining the value of new works before granting them a place in his public library. The recitations thus served the purpose of the modern reviews. They affixed to each new work the critic's verdict, and assigned to it its place among the list of candidates for fame. No sooner was the practice introduced than it became popular. Horace already complains of it, and declares that he will not indulge it: [23]
"Non recito cuiquam nisi amicis, idque coactus,
Non ubivis coramve quibuslibet."
He with greater wisdom read his poems to some single friend whose judgment and candour he could trust—some Quinctilius Varus, or Maecius Tarpa—and he advised his friends the Pisos to do the same; but his advice was little heeded. Even during his lifetime the vain thirst for applause tempted many an author to submit his compositions to the hasty judgment of a fashionable assembly, and (fond hope!) to promise himself an immortality proportioned to their compliments. Ovid's muse drew her fullest inspiration from the excitements of the hall, and the poet bitterly complains in exile that now this stimulus to effort is withdrawn he has lost the power and even the desire to write. [24] Nor was it only poetry that was thus criticised; grave historians read their works before publishing them, and it is related of Claudius that on hearing the thunders of applause which were bestowed on the recitations of Servilius Nonianus, he entered the building and seated himself uninvited among the enthusiastic listeners. Under Nero, the readings, which had hitherto been a custom, became a law, that is, were upheld by legal no less than social obligations. The same is true of Domitian's reign. This ill-educated prince wished to feign an interest in literature, the more so, since Nero, whom he imitated, had really been its eager votary. Accordingly, he patronised the readings of the principal poets, and above all, of Statius. This was the golden time of recitations, or ostentationes, as they now with sarcastic justice began to be called, and Statius was their chief hero. As Juvenal tells us, he made the whole city glad when he promised a day. [25] His recitations were often held at the houses of his great friends, men like Abascantius or Glabrio, adventurers of yesterday, who had come to Rome with "chalked feet," and now had been raised by Caesar to a height whence they looked with scorn upon the scattered relics of nobility. It is these men that Statius so adroitly flatters; it is to them that he looks for countenance, for patronage, for more substantial rewards; and yet so wretched is the recompense even of the highest popularity, that Statius would have to beg his bread if he did not find a better employer in the actor and manager, Paris, who pays him handsomely for the tragedies that at each successive exhaustion of his exchequer he is fain to write for the taste of a corrupt mob. [26] But at last Statius began to see the folly of all this. He grew tired of hiring himself out to amuse, of practising the affectation of a modesty, an inspiration, an emotion he did not feel, of hearing the false plaudits of rivals who he knew carped at his verses in his absence and libelled his character, of running hither and thither over Parnassus dragging his poor muse at the heels of some selfish freedman; he was man enough and poet enough to wish to write something that would live, and so he left Rome to con over his mythological erudition amid a less exciting environment, and woo the genius of poesy where its last great master had been laid to rest.
After Statius had left Rome, the popularity of the recitations gradually decreased. No poet of equal attractiveness was left to hold them. So the ennui and disgust, which had perhaps long been smothered, now burst forth. Many people refused to attend altogether. They sent their servants, parasites, or hired applauders, while they themselves strolled in the public squares or spent the hours in the bath, and only lounged into the room at the close of the performance. Their indifference at last rejected all disguise; absence became the rule. Even Trajan's assiduous attendance could hardly bring a scanty and listless concourse to the once crowded halls. Pliny the younger, who was a finished reciter, grievously complains of the incivility shown to deserving poets. Instead of the loud cries, the uneasy motions that had attested the excitement of the hearers, nothing is heard but yawns or shuffling of the feet; a dead silence prevails. Even Pliny's gay spirits and cheerful vanity were not proof against such a reception. The "little grumblings" (indignatiunculae), of which his letters are full, attest how sorely he felt the decline of a fashion in which he was so eminently fitted to excel. And if a wealthy noble patronised by the emperor thus complains, how intolerable must have been the disappointment to the poet whose bread depended on his verses, the poet depicted by Juvenal, to whom the patron graciously lends a house, ricketty and barred up, lying at a distance from town, and lays on him the ruinous expense of carriage for benches and stalls, which after all are only half-filled!
The frenzy of public readings, then, was over; but Statius had learned his style in their midst, and country retirement could not change it. The whole of his brilliant epic savours of the lecture room. The verbal conceits, the florid ornament, the sparkling but quite untranslatable epigrams which enliven every description and give point to every speech, need only be noted in passing; for no reader of a single book of the Thebaid can fail to mark them.
This poem, which is admitted by Merivale to be faultless in epic execution, and has been glorified by the admiration of Dante, occupied the author twelve years in the composing, [27] probably from 80 to 92 A.D. Its elaborate finish bears testimony to the labour expended on it. Had Statius been content with trifles such as are sketched in the Silvae he might have been to this day a favourite and widely-read poet. As it is, the minute beauties of his epic lie buried in such a wilderness of unattractive learning and second-hand mythological reminiscence, that few care to seek them out. His mastery over the epic machinery is complete; but he fails not only in the ardour of the bard, but in the vigour of the mere narrator. His action drags heavily through the first ten books, and then is summarily finished in the last two, the accession of Creon after Oedipus's exile, his prohibition to bury Polynices, the interference of Theseus, and the death of Creon being all dismissed in fifteen hundred lines.
The two most striking features in the poem are the descriptions of battles and the similes. The former are greatly superior to those of Lucan or Silius. They have not the hideous combination of horrors of the one, nor the shadowy unreality of the other. Though hatched in the closet and not on the battle-field, a defect they share with all poets from Virgil downwards, they have sufficient verisimilitude to interest, and not sufficient reality to shock us. The similes merit still higher praise. The genius of Latin poetry was fast tending towards the epigram, and these similes are strictly epigrammatic. The artificial brevity which suggests many different lines of reminiscence at the same time is exhibited with marked success. As the simile was so assiduously cultivated by the Latin epicists and forms a distinctive feature of their style, we shall give in the appendix to this chapter a comparative table of the more important similes of the three chief epic poets. At present we shall quote only two from the Thebaid, both admirable in their way, and each exemplifying one of Statius's prominent faults or virtues. The first compares an army following its general across a river to a herd of cattle following the leading bull: [28]
"Ac velut ignotum si quando armenta per amnem
Pastor agit, stat triste pecus, procul altera tellus [29]
Omnibus, et late medius timor: ast ubi ductor
Taurus init fecitque vadum, tune mollior unda,
Tunc faciles saltus, visaeque accedere ripae."
This is elegant in style but full of ambiguities, if not experiments, in language. The words in italics are an exaggerated imitation of a mode of expression to which Virgil is prone, i.e., a psychological indication of an effect made to stand for a description of the thing. Then as to the three forced expressions of the last two lines—to say nothing of fecit vadum, which may be a pastoral term, as we say made the ford, i.e. struck it—we have the epithet mollior, which, here again in caricature of Virgil, mixes feeling with description, used for facilior in the sense of "kinder," "more obliging" (for he can hardly mean that it feels softer); faciles saltus, either the "leap across seems easier," or perhaps "the woods on the other side look less frowning;" while to add to the hyperbole, "the bank appears to come near and meet them." Three subtle combinations are thus expended where Virgil would have used one simple one.
The next simile exemplifies the use of hyperbole at its happiest, an ornament, by the way, to which Statius is specially prone. It is a very short one. [30] It compares an infant to the babe Apollo crawling on the shore of Delos:
"Talis per litora reptans
Improbus Ortygiae latus inclinabat Apollo."
This is delightful. The mischievous little god crawls near the edge of the island, and by his divine weight nearly overturns it! We should observe the gross materialism of idea which underlies this pretty picture. Not one of the Roman poets is free from this taint. To take a well-known instance from Virgil; when Aeneas gets into Charon's boat
"Gemuit sub pondere cymba
Sutilis et multam accepit rimosa paludem." [31]
The effect of the "Ingens Aeneas" bursting Charon's crazy skiff is decidedly grotesque. Lucan has not failed to seize and exaggerate this peculiarity. To repeat the example we have already noticed in the first book, [32] when asking Nero which part of heaven he is selecting for his abode, he prays him not to choose one far removed from the centre, lest his vast weight should disturb the balance of the universe!
"Aetheris immensi partem si presseris unam
Sentiet axis onus."
Statius, as we have seen, adds the one element that was wanting, namely the abstraction of the heroic altogether; nevertheless, in small effects of this kind, he must be pronounced superior to both Virgil and Lucan.
The Achilleis is a mere fragment, no doubt left as such owing to the author's early death. The design, of which it was the first instalment, was even more ambitious than that of the Thebaid. It aimed at nothing less than an exhaustive treatment of all the legends of which Achilles was the hero, excepting those which form the subject of the Iliad. Its style shows a slight advance on that of the earlier poem; it is equally long- winded, but less bombastic, and consequently somewhat more natural. In one or two passages Statius [33] promises Domitian an epic celebrating his deeds, but probably he never had any serious intention of fulfilling his word. Statius had a high opinion of his own merits, especially when he compared himself with the poet fraternity of his day; but his careful study of Homer and Virgil had shown him that there was a domain into which he could not enter, and so even while vaunting his claims to immortality, he is careful not to aspire to be ranked with the poet of the Aeneid: [34]
"Nec tu divinam Aeneida tenta:
Sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora."
VALERIUS MARTIALIS was born at Bilbilis, in Hispania Tarraconensis (March 1, 43 A.D.), and retained through life an affectionate admiration for the place of his birth, which he celebrates in numerous poems. [35] At twenty- two [36] years of age he came to Rome, Nero being then on the throne. He does not appear to have been known to that emperor, but rose into great favour with Titus, which was continued under Domitian, who conferred on him the Jus trium liberorum [37] and the tribunate, together with the rank of a Roman knight, [38] and a pension from the imperial treasury, [39] probably attached to the position of court poet. It is difficult to ascertain the truth as to his circumstances. The facts above mentioned, as well as his possession of a house in the city and a villa at Nomentum, [40] would point to an easy competence; on the other hand the poet's continual complaints of poverty [41] prove that he was either less wealthy than his titles suggest, or else that he was hard to satisfy. On the accession of Trajan he seems to have left Rome for Spain, it is said because the emperor refused to recognise his genius; but as he had been a prominent author for upwards of thirty years, it is likely that his character, not his talent, was what Trajan looked coldly on. A poet who had prostituted his pen in a way unexampled even among the needy and immoral pickers-up of chance crumbs that crowded the avenues of the palace, could hardly be acceptable to a prince of manly character. At the same time there is this excuse for Martial, that he did not belong to the old families of Rome. He and such as he owed everything to the emperor's bounty, and if the emperor desired flattery in return, it cost them little pains and still less loss of self-respect to give it. Politics had become entirely a system of palace intrigue. Only when the army intervened was any general interest awakened. The supremacy of the emperor's person was the one great fact, rapidly becoming a great inherited idea, which formed the point of union among the diverse non-political classes, and gave the poets their chief theme of inspiration. It mattered not to them whether their lord was good or bad. It is well-known that the people liked Domitian, and it was only by the firmness of the senate that he was prevented from being formally proclaimed as a god. Martial does not pretend to be above the level of conduct which he saw practised by emperor and people alike. Without strength of character, without independence of thought, both of which indeed were almost extinct at this epoch, his one object was to ingratiate himself with those who could fill his purse. Hence the indifference he shows to the vices of Nero. Juvenal, Tacitus, and Pliny use a very different language. But then they represented the old-fashioned ideas of Rome. Martial, indeed, alludes to Nero as a well- known type of crime: [42]
"Quid Nerone peius?
Quid thermis melius Neronianis?"
but he has no real passion. The only thing he really hates him for is his having slain Lucan. [43]
Martial, then, is much on a level with the society in which he finds himself; the society, that is, of those very freedmen, favourites, actors, dancers, and needy bards, that Juvenal has made the objects of his satire. And therefore we cannot expect him to rise into lofty enthusiasm or pure views of conduct. His poems are a most valuable adjunct to those of Juvenal; for perhaps, if we did not possess Martial, we might fancy that the former's sardonic bitterness had over-coloured his picture. As it is, these two friends illustrate and confirm each other's statements.
Little as his conduct agrees with the respectability of a married man, Martial was married twice. His first wife was Cleopatra, [44] of whose morose temper he complains, [45] and from whom he was divorced [46] soon after obtaining the Jus trium liberorum. His second was Marcella, whom he married after his return to Spain. [47] Of her he speaks with respect and even admiration. [48] It is possible that his town house and country estate were part of his first wife's dowry, so that on his divorce they reverted to her family; this would account for the otherwise inexplicable poverty in which he so often declares himself to be plunged. While at Rome he had many patrons. Besides Domitian, he numbered Silius Italicus, Pliny, Stella the friend of Statius, Regulus the famous pleader, Parthenius, Crispinus, and Glabrio, among his influential friends. It is curious that he never mentions Statius. The most probable reason for his silence is the old one, given by Hesiod, but not yet obsolete:
kai kerameus keramei koteei kai aoidos aoido.
He and Statius were indisputably the chief poets of the day. One or other must hold the first place. We have no means of knowing how this quarrel, if quarrel it was, arose. Among Martial's other friends were Quintilian, Valerius Flaccus, and Juvenal. His intimacy with these men, two of whom at least were eminently respectable, lends some support to his own statement, advanced to palliate the impurity of his verses:
"Lasciva est nobis pagina: vita proba est."
The year of his death is not certain. But it must have occurred soon after 100 A.D. Pliny in his grand way gives an obituary notice of him in one of his letters, [49] which, interesting as all his letters are, we cannot do better than translate:
"I hear with regret that Valerius Martial is dead. He was a man of talent, acuteness, and spirit, with plenty of wit and gall, and as sincere as he was witty. I gave him a parting present when he left Rome, which was due both to our friendship and to some verses which he wrote in my praise. It was an ancestral custom of ours to enrich with honours or money those who had written the praises of individuals or cities, but among other noble and seemly customs this has now become obsolete. I suppose since we have ceased to do things worthy of laudation, we think it in bad taste to receive it."
Pliny then quotes the verses, [50] and proceeds—
"Was I not justified in parting on the most friendly terms with one who wrote so prettily of me, and am I not justified now in mourning his loss as that of an intimate friend? What he could he gave me; if he had had more he would have gladly given it. And yet what gift can be greater than glory, praise, and immortality? It is possible, indeed, as I think I hear you saying, that his poems may not last for ever. Nevertheless, he wrote them in the belief that they would."
Martial is the most finished master of the epigram, as we understand it. Epigram is with him condensed satire. The harmless plays on words, sudden surprises, and neat turns of expression, which had satisfied the Greek and earlier Latin epigrammatists, were by no means stimulating enough for the blasé taste of Martial's day. The age cried for point, and with point Martial supplies it to the full extent of its demand. His pungency is sometimes wonderful; the whole flavour of many a sparkling little poem is pressed into one envenomed word, like the scorpion's tail whose last joint is a sting. The marvel is that with that biting pen of his the poet could find so many warm friends. But the truth is, he was far more than a mere sharp-shooter of wit. He had a genuine love of good fellowship, a warm if not a constant heart, and that happy power of graceful panegyric which was so specially Roman a gift. Juvenal, indeed, complains that the Greeks were hopelessly above his countryman in the art of praise. But this is not an opinion in which we can agree. Their fulsome adulation may indeed have been more acceptable to the vulgar objects of it than that of the Roman panegyrist, who, even while flattering, could not shake off the fetters of the great dialect in which he wrote; but the efforts in this department by Cicero, Ovid, Horace, Pliny, and Martial, mast be allowed to be master- achievements to which it would be hard to find an equal in the literature of any other nation.
Martial is one of the most difficult of Roman authors. Scarce once or twice does he relax his style sufficiently to let the reader read instead of spelling through his poems. When he does this he is elegant and pleasing. The epicedion on a little girl who died at the age of six, is a lovely gem that may almost bear comparison with Catullus; but then it is spoilt by the misplaced wit of the last few lines. [51] Few indeed are the poems of Martial that are natural throughout. His constant effort to be terse, to condense description into allusion, and allusion into indication, and to indicate as many allusions as possible by a single word, compels the reader to weigh each expression with scrupulous care lest he may lose some of the points with which every line is weighted; and yet even Martial is less perfect in this respect than Juvenal. But then the shortness of his pieces takes away that relief which a longer satire must have, not only for its author's sake, but for purposes of artistic success. He must have read Juvenal with care, and sometimes seems to give a decoction of his satires. [52] It is probable that we do not possess all Martial's poems. It is also possible that many of those we possess under his name are not by him. The list embraces one book of Spectacula, celebrating the shows in which emperor and people took such delight; twelve of Epigrams, edited separately, and partially revised for each edition; [53] two of Xenia and Apophoreta, written before the tenth book of Epigrams, and devoted to the flattery of Domitian. The obscenities which defile almost every book make it impossible to read Martial with any pleasure, but those who desire to make his acquaintance will find Book IV. by far the least objectionable in this respect, as well as otherwise more interesting.
At this time Rome teemed with poets; as Pliny in one of his letters tells us, people reckoned the year by the abundance of its poetic harvest. TURNUS seems to have been a satirist of some note; [54] among others he satirised the poisoner Locusta. SCAEVIUS MEMOR was a tragedian; [55] a Hecuba, a Troades, and perhaps a Hercules, are ascribed to him. VERGINIUS RUFUS wrote erotic poems, and an epigram of his is quoted by Pliny. [56] VESTRICIUS SPURINNA was a lyricist, and had been consul under Domitian; a fine account of him is given by Pliny. [57] The only Roman poetess of whom we possess any fragment, belongs to this epoch, the highborn lady SULPICIA. She is celebrated by Martial for her chaste love- elegies, [58] and for fidelity to her husband Calenus. We suspect, however, that Martial is a little satiric here. For the epithets bestowed by other writers on Sulpicia imply warmth, not to say wantonness of tone, though her muse seems to have been constant to its legitimate flame. We possess about seventy hexameters bearing the title Sulpiciae Satira, supposed to have been written after the banishment of all philosophers by Domitian (94 A.D.). It is a dialogue between the poetess and her muse: she excuses herself for essaying so slight a subject in epic metre, and implies that she is more at home in lighter rhythms. This may be believed when we find that she makes the i of iambus long! However, the poem is corrupt, and the readings in many parts uncertain. Teuffel regards it as a forgery of the fifteenth century, following Boot's opinion. It is full of harsh constructions [59] and misplaced epithets, but on the other hand contains some pretty lines. If it be genuine, its boldness is remarkable. Great numbers of other poets appear in the pages of Martial, Statius, and Pliny, but they need not be named. The fact that verse-writing was an innocuous way of spending one's leisure doubtless drove many to it. CODRUS, or Cordus, [60] was the author of an ambitious epic, the Theseid, composed on the scale, but without the wit, of the Thebaid. The stage, too, engaged many writers. Tragedy and comedy [61] were again reviving, though their patrons seem to have preferred recitation to acting; mimes still flourished, though they had taken the form of pantomime. We hear of celebrated actors of them in Juvenal, as Paris, Latinus, and Thymele.
On the Similes of Virgil, Lucan, and Statius.
The Roman epicists bestowed great elaboration on their similes, and as a rule imitated them from a certain limited number of Greek originals. In Virgil but a few are original, i.e., taken from things he had himself witnessed, or feelings he had known. Lucan is less imitative in form, and he first used with any frequency the simile founded on a recollection of some well-known passage of Greek literature or conception of Greek art. In this Statius follows him; the simile of the infant Apollo noticed in this chapter is a good instance.
We give a few examples of the treatment of a similar subject by the three poets. We first take the simile of a storm, described by Virgil in the first Aeneid, and alluded to by the other two poets (Lucan i. 493):
"Qualis cum turbidus auster
Repulit e Libycis immensum syrtibus aequor
Fractaque veliferi sonuerunt pondera mali,
Desilit in fluctus deserta puppe magister
Navitaque, et nondum sparsa compage carinae
Naufragium sibi quisque facit."
Here we have no great elaboration, but a good point at the finish. Statius
(Theb. i. 370) is more subtle but more commonplace:
"Ac velut hiberno deprensus navita ponto,
Cui neque Temo piger, nec amico sidere monstrat
Luna vias, medio caeli pelagique tumultu
Stat rationis inops; iam iamque aut saxa maliguis
Expectat submersa vadis, aut vertice acuto
Spumantes scopulos erectae incurrere prorae."
The next simile is that of a shepherd robbing a nest of wild bees. It occurs in Virgil and Statius. Virgil's description is (Aen. xii. 587)—
"Inclusas ut cum latebroso in pumice pastor
Vestigavit apes, fumoque implevit amaro;
Illae intus trepidae rerum per cerea castra
Discurrunt, magnisque acuunt stridoribus iras;
Volvitur ater odor tectis; tum murmure caeco
Intus saxe sonant: vaeuas it fumus ad auras."
That of Statius (Th. x. 574) presents some characteristic refinements on its original:
"Sic ubi pumiceo pastor rapturas ab antro
Armatas erexit apes, fremit aspera nubes:
Inque vicem sese stridere hortantur et omnes
Hostis in ora volant; mox deficientibus alis
Amplexae flavamque domum captivaque plangunt
Mella, laboratasque premunt ad pectora ceras."
The smoke which is the agent of destruction is described by Virgil: obscurely hinted at in Statius by the single epithet "deficientibus."
The next example is the description of a landslip by the same two. Virg.
Aen. xii. 682.
"Ac velati montis saxum de vertice praeceps
Quum ruit avolsum vento, seu turbidus imber
Proluit, aut annis solvit sublapsa vetustas,
Fertur in abruptum vasto mons improbus actu,
Exsultatque solo, silvas armenta virosque
Involvens secum."
The copy is found Stat. Theb. vii. 744:
"Sic ubi nubiferum montis latus aut nova ventis
Solvit hiems aut victa situ non pertulit aetas;
Desilit horrendus campo timor, arma virosque
Limite, non uno longaevaque robora secum
Praecipitans, tandemque exhaustus turbine fesso
Aut vallum cavat, aut medios intercipit amnes."
The additions are here either exaggerations, trivialities, or ingenious adaptations of other passages of Virgil.
The next is a thunderstorm from Virgil and Lucan, (Aen. xii. 451):
"Qualis ubi ad terras abrupto sidere nimbus
It mare per medium; miseris, heu, praescia longe
Horrescunt corda agricolis; dabit ille ruinas
Arboribus stragemque satis, ruet omnia late;
Antevolant somtumque ferunt ad litora venti."
The simile of Lucan, which describes one disastrous flash rather than a storm (Phars. i. 150) refers to Caesar:
"Qualiter expressum ventis per nubila fulmen
Aetheris impulsi sonitu mundi que fragore.
Emicuit, rupitque diem, populosque paventes
Terruit, obliqua praestringens lumina flamma:
In sua templa furit, nullaque exire vetante
Materia, magnamque cadens, magnamque revertens
Dat stragem late, sparsosque recolligitignes."
No comparison is more common in Latin poetry than that of a warrior to a bull. All the three poets have introduced this, some of them several times. The instances we select will be Virg. Aen. xii. 714:
"Ac velut ingenti Sila summove Taburno
Cum duo conversis inimica in proelia tauri
Frontibus incurrunt, pavidi cessere magistri,
Stat pecus omne metu mutum mussantque iuvencae,
Quis nemori imperitet, quem tota armenta sequantur."
Lucan's simile is borrowed largely from the Georgics. It is, however, a fine one (Phars. ii. 601):
"Pulsus ut armentis primo cerramine taurus Silvarum secreta petit, vacuosque per agros Exul in adversis explorat cornua truncis; Nec redit in pastus nisi quum cervice recepta Excussi placuere tori; mox reddita victor Quoslibet in saltus comitantibus agmina tauris Invito pastore trahit."
That of Statius is in a similar strain (Theb. xi. 251):
"Sic ubi regnator post exulis otia tauri
Mugitum hostilem summa tulit aure iuvencus,
Agnovitque minas, magna stat fervidus ira
Ante gregem, spumisque animos ardentibus effert,
Nunc pede torvus humum nunc cornibus aera lindens,
Horret ager, trepidaeque expectant proelia valles."
How immeasurably does Virgil's description in its unambitious truth exceed these two fine but bombastic imitations!
These examples will suffice to show that each poet kept his predecessors in his eye, and tried to vie with them in drawing a similar picture. But the similes are not always taken from the common-place book. Virgil, who reserves nearly all his similes for the last six books, occasionally strikes an original key. Such are (or appear) the similes of the sedition quelled by an orator (i. 148), the top (vii. 378), the labyrinth (v, 588), the housewife (viii. 407), and the fall of the pier at Baiae (ix. 707); perhaps also of the swallow (xii. 473); mythological similes are common in him, but not so much, so as in Lucan and Statius. We have those of the Amazons (xi. 659), of Mars' shield in Thrace (xii. 331), condensed by Statius (Theb. vi. 665), of Orestes (iv. 471), copied by Lucan (Ph. vii. 777).
The lion, as may be supposed, furnishes many. We subjoin a further list which may be useful to the reader.
The Lion—Aen. xii. 4; x. 722; ix. 548(?). Phars. i. 206. Theb. ii. 675; iv. 494; v. 598; vii. 670; viii. 124; ix. 739, and perhaps v. 231.
The Serpent, dragon, &c.—Aen. xi, 751; v. 273. Theb. v. 599; xi. 310.
Mythological—Phars. ii. 715; iv. 549; vii. 144. Theb. ii. 81; iv. 140; xii. 224, 270.
The Sea—Aen. xi. 624; vii. 586 (?). Theb. i. 370; iii. 255; vi. 777; vii. 864.
The Winds—Aen. x. 856. Phars. i. 498. Theb. i. 194; iii. 432; v. 704.
The Boar—Aen. x. 707. Theb. viii. 533.
Trees—Aen. ix. 675. Phars. i. 136. Theb. viii. 545.
Birds—Aen. v. 213; xii. 473; xi. 721; vii. 699. Theb. ix. 858; xii. 15.
We may note detached similes like that of the light reflected in water, Aen. viii. 15, imitated in Theb. vi. 578; that of the horse from Homer, Aen. xi. 491, which Statius has not dared to imitate; and others not referable to any of the above groups may easily be found. It is clear that Virgil and Statius attached more importance to this ornament than Lucan. Their verbal elaboration was greater, and thus they both excel him. A careful study of all the similes in Latin poetry would bring to light some interesting facts of literary criticism. That descriptive power in which all the Romans excelled is nowhere more striking than in these short and pleasing cameos.
The death of Domitian was the end of tyranny in Rome. Under Nerva a new régime was inaugurated. Liberty of speech and action was allowed, and authors were not slow to profit by it. The forced repression of so many years had matured, not quenched, the talent of the greatest writers. Virtuous men had pondered in gloomy silence over the wickedness of the time, and they now gave to the world the condensed result of their bitter reflections. Amid the numerous talents of the period three have sent down to us a large portion of their works. These three are all writers of the highest mark, and two of them of commanding genius. For grace, urbanity, and polish, Pliny yields only to Cicero; for realistic intensity directed to a satiric purpose, Juvenal yields to no writer whatever; for piercing insight into the human heart and an imagination which casts its characters as in a white-hot furnace, Tacitus well deserves the name of Rome's greatest historian. Chronologically speaking, Pliny is posterior to the other two. But he is so good a type of this comparatively happy age that he may well come before us first. The other two, occupied with past regrets, reflect in their tone of mind an earlier time.
C. PLINIUS CAECILIUS SECUNDUS, the nephew of Pliny the elder, was born at Novocomum [1] 62 A.D. When he was eight years old his father died, and two years after his uncle adopted him. In the interim he was assigned to the care of his guardian, that Virginius Rufus of whom Tacitus deigned to be the panegyrist. He was brought early to Rome, and placed under Quintilian and other celebrated teachers, among whom was Nicetes of Smyrna, one of the foremost rhetoricians of the day. He served his first campaign in Syria, but seems to have given his time to philosophy more than soldiering. He was even more emphatically a man of peace than Cicero, and it is not easy to fancy him wielding the sword, though we can well picture him to ourselves resplendent in full dress uniform, well satisfied with his appearance, and trying his best to assume the martial air. While in Asia he spent much time with the old philosopher Euphrates, of whose daily life he has given a pleasing description in the tenth letter of his first book.
On his return he studied for the bar, and pleaded with success. He passed through the several offices of state, and prided himself not a little on the fact that he attained the consulate and pontificate at an earlier age than Cicero. Somewhat later he was elected to the college of augurs, an honour which prompts him to remind the world that Cicero had been augur too! In 98 A.D., when Trajan had been two years emperor, Pliny was raised for the second time to the consulate, and was admitted to some share of his sovereign's confidence. The points, it is true, on which he was consulted were not of the most important, but he was extremely pleased, and has recorded his pleasure in more than one of his charming letters. In 103 he was sent to fill the office of proconsul in Pontus and Bithynia; and while there, he kept up the interesting correspondence with Trajan, to which the tenth book of his letters is devoted.
Though eloquence was not what it had been, it still remained the highest career that an ambitious man could adopt. Even under the tyrants it had served as the keenest weapon of attack, the surest buckler of defence. The public accusation, which had once been the stepping-stone to fame, had changed its name, and become delation. And he who hoped to parry its blows must needs have been able to defend himself by the same means. Pliny was ahead of all his rivals in both departments of eloquence. He was the most telling pleader before the centumviral tribunal, and he was the boldest orator in the revived debates of the senate. His best forensic speech, his De Corona, as he loved to style it, was that on behalf of Accia Variola, a lady unjustly disinherited by her father, whom Pliny's eloquence reinstated in her rights. In the senate Pliny rose to even higher efforts. He rejoiced to plead the cause of injured provinces against the extortion of rapacious governors, who (as Juvenal tells us) pillaged the already exhausted wealth of their helpless victims. On more than one occasion Pliny's boldness was crowned with success. Caecilius Classicus, who had ground down the Baeticenses, was so powerfully impeached by him that, to avoid conviction, he sought a voluntary death, and what was better, the confiscated property was returned to its owners. The still worse criminal, Marius Priscus, who in exile "enjoyed the anger of the gods," [2] was compelled by Pliny and Tacitus to disgorge no small portion of his plunder. When carried away by his subject Pliny spoke with such vehemence as to endanger his delicate lungs, and he tells us with no small complacency that the emperor sent him a special message "to be careful of his health." But his greatest triumph was the accusation of Publicius Certus, a senator, and expectant of the consulship. The fathers, long used to servitude, could not understand the freedom with which Pliny attacked one of their own body, and at first they tried to chill him into silence. But he was not to be daunted. He compelled them to listen, and at last so roused them by his fervour that he gained his point. It is true that he risked neither life nor fortune by his boldness; but none the less does he deserve honour for having recalled the senate to a tardy sense of its position and responsibilities.
Roman eloquence was now split into two schools or factions, one of which favoured the ancient style, the other the modern. Pliny was the champion of reaction: Tacitus the chief representative of the modern tendency. Unfortunately, Pliny's best oratory has perished, but we can hardly doubt that its brilliant wit and courtly finish would have impressed us less than they did the ears of those who heard him. One specimen only of his oratorical talent remains, the panegyric addressed to Trajan. This was admitted to be in his happiest vein, and it is replete with point and elegance. The impression given on a first reading is, that it is full also of flattery. This, however, is not in reality the case. Allowing for a certain conventionality of tone, there is no flattery in it; that is, there is nothing that goes beyond truth. But Pliny has the unhappy talent of speaking truth in the accents of falsehood. Like Seneca, he strikes us in this speech as too clever for his audience. Still, with all its faults, his oratory must have made an epoch, and helped to arrest the decline for at least some years. It is on his letters that Pliny's fame now rests, and both in tone and style they are a monument that does him honour. They show him to have been a gentleman and a man of feeling, as well as a wit and courtier. They were deliberately written with a view to publication, and thus can never have the unique and surpassing interest that belongs to those of Cicero. But they throw so much light on the contemporary history, society, and literature, that no student of the age can afford to neglect them. They are arranged neither according to time nor subject, but on an aesthetic plan of their author's, after the fashion of a literary nosegay. As extracts from several have already been given, we need not enlarge on them here. Their language is extremely pure, and almost entirely free from that poetical colouring which is so conspicuous in contemporary and subsequent prose-writing.
The tenth book possesses a special interest, as containing the correspondence between Pliny while governor of Bithynia and the emperor Trajan, to whose judgment almost every question that arose, however insignificant, was referred. [3] As he says in his frank way: "Solemne est mihi, Domine, omnia de quibus dubito ad te referre." [4] The letter which opens with these words is the celebrated one on the subject of the Christians. Perhaps it may not be out of place to translate it, as a highly significant witness of the relations between the emperors and their confidential servants. It runs thus:—
"I had never attended at the trial of a Christian; hence I knew not what were the usual questions asked them, or what the punishments inflicted. I doubted also whether to make a distinction of ages, or to treat young and old alike; whether to allow space for recantation, or to refuse all pardon whatever to one who had been a Christian; whether, finally, to make the name penal, though no crime should be proved, or to reserve the penalty for the combination of both. Meanwhile, when any were reported to me as Christians, I followed this plan. I asked them whether they were Christians. If they said yes, I repeated the question twice, adding threats of punishment; if they persisted, I ordered punishment to be inflicted. For I felt sure that whatever it was they confessed, their inflexible obstinacy well deserved to be chastised. There were even some Roman citizens who showed this strange persistence; those I determined to send to Rome. As often happens in cases of interference, charges were now lodged more generally than before, and several forms of guilt came before me. An anonymous letter was sent, containing the names of many persons, who, however, denied that they were or had been Christians. As they invoked the gods and worshipped with wine and frankincense before your image, at the same time cursing Christ, I released them the more readily, as those who are really Christians cannot be got to do any of these things. Others, who were named to me, admitted that they were Christians, but immediately afterwards denied it; some said they had been so three years ago, others at still more distant dates, one or two as long ago as twenty years. All these worshipped your image and those of the gods, and abjured Christ. But they declared that all their guilt or error had amounted to was this: they met on certain mornings before daybreak, and sang one after another a hymn to Christ as God, at the same time binding themselves by an oath not to commit any crime, but to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery, perjury, or repudiation of trust; after this was done, the meeting broke up; they, however, came together again to eat their meal in common, being quite guiltless of any improper conduct. [5] But since my edict forbidding (as you ordered) all secret societies, they had given this practice up. However, I thought it necessary to apply the torture to some young women who were called ministrae, [6] in order, if possible, to find out the truth. But I could elicit nothing from them except evidence of some debased and immoderate superstition; so I deferred the trial, and determined to ask your advice. For the matter seemed important, especially since the number of those who run into danger increases daily. All ages, all ranks, and both sexes are among the accused, and the taint of the superstition is not confined to the towns; it has actually made its way into the villages. But I believe it possible to cheek and repress it. At all events it is certain that temples which were lately almost empty are now well attended, and sacred festivals long disused are being revived. Victims too are flowing in, whereas a few years ago such things could scarcely find a purchaser. From this I infer that vast numbers might be reformed if an opportunity of recantation were allowed them."
Trajan's reply, brief, clear, and to the point, as all his letters are, is as follows:—
"I entirely approve of your conduct with regard to those Christians of whom you had received information. We can never lay down a universal rule, as if circumstances were always the same. They are not to be searched for; but if they are reported and convicted, they must be punished. But if any denies his Christianity and proves his words by sacrificing to our divinity, even though his former conduct may have laid him under suspicion, he must be allowed the benefit of his recantation. No weight whatever should be attached to anonymous communications; they are no Roman way of dealing, and are altogether reprehensible."
Pliny died in 113. He shone in nearly every department of literature, and thought himself no inelegant poet. His vanity has led him to record some of his verses, but they only show that he had little or no talent in this direction. His long and prosperous life was marked by no reverse. Popular among his equals, splendid in his political successes, in his vast wealth, and his friendship wife, the emperor, Pliny is almost a perfect type of a refined pagan gentleman. In some ways he reminds us of Xenophon. He was in complete harmony with his age; he had neither the harassing thoughts of Seneca, nor the querulousness of his uncle, nor the settled gloom of Tacitus, to overcast his bright and happy disposition. Few works in all antiquity are more pleasing than his friendly correspondence. We learn from it the names of a large number of orators and other distinguished literary men, of whom, indeed, Rome was full. VOCONIUS ROMANUS, [7] SALVIUS LIBERALIS, [8] C. FANNIUS, [9] and CLAUDIUS POLLIO, [10] were among the most renowned. They are mentioned as possessing every gift that could contribute to the highest eloquence; but as Pliny's good nature leads him to praise all his friends indiscriminately, we cannot lay much stress on his opinion. In jurisprudence we meet with PRISCUS NERATIUS, JUVENTIUS CELSUS, and JAVOLENUS PRISCUS. The two former were men of mark, and obtained the consulate. The last was less distinguished, and had the misfortune to offend Pliny by an ill-timed jest. [11] Once, when Statius had given a reading, and had just left the hall, the audience asked Passienus Paulus, who had a manuscript ready, to take his place. Paulus was somewhat diffident, but finally consented, and began his poem with the words, "You bid me, Priscus…," on which Javolenus, who was sitting near, called out, "You mistake! I do not bid you!" The audience greeted this sally with a laugh, and so put an end to the unlucky Paulus's recitation. Pliny contemptuously remarks that it is doubtful whether Javolenus was quite sane, but admits that there are people imprudent enough to trust their business to him. [12] We may think a single jest is somewhat scanty evidence of dementia.
Grammar was in this reign actively pursued. FLAVIUS CAPER was the author of a treatise on orthography, and another "on doubtful words," both of which we possess. He seems to have been a learned man, and is often quoted by the grammarians of the fourth and fifth centuries. VELIUS LONGUS also wrote on orthography, and, as we learn from Gellius, a treatise De Usu Antiquae Lectionis. All the chief grammarians now exercised themselves on the interpretation of Virgil, who was fast rising into the position of an oracle in nearly every department of learning, an elevation which, in the time of Macrobius, he had completely attained. Of scientific writers we possess in part the works of three; that of HYGINUS on munitions, and another on boundaries (if indeed this last be his), which are based on good authorities; that of BALBUS On the Elementary Notions of Geometry; and perhaps that of SICULUS FLACCUS, De Condidonibus Agrorum, all of which are of importance towards a knowledge of Roman surveying. It is doubtful whether Flaccus lived under Trajan, but in any case he cannot be placed later than the beginning of Hadrian's reign.
The only poet of the time of Trajan who has reached us, but one of the greatest in Roman literature, is D. JUNIUS JUVENALIS (46-130? A.D.). He was born during the reign of Claudius, and thus spent the best years of his life under the régime of the worst emperors. His parentage is uncertain, but he is said to have been either the son or the adopted son of a rich freedman, and a passage in the third Satire [13] seems to point to Aquinum as his birth-place. We have unfortunately scarcely any knowledge of his life, a point to be the more regretted, as we might then have pronounced with confidence on his character, which in the Satires is completely veiled. An inscription placed by him in the temple of Ceres Helvina, at Aquinum (probably in the reign of Domitian), has been published by Mommsen. It contains one or two biographical notices, which show that he held positions of considerable importance. [14] We have also a memoir of him, attributed to Suetonius by some, but to Probus by Valla, which tells us that until middle life he practised declamation as an amateur, neither pleading at the bar nor opening a rhetorical school. We are informed also that under Domitian he wrote a satire on the pantomime Paris, which was so highly approved by his friends that he determined to give himself to poetry. He did not, however, publish until the reign of Trajan. It was in the time of Hadrian that some of his verses on an actor [15] were recited, probably, by the populace in a theatre, in consequence of which the poet, now eighty years of age, was exiled under the specious pretext of a military command, the emperor's favourite player having taken offence at the allusion. From a reference to Egypt in one of his later satires, [16] the scholiast came to the conclusion that this was the place of his exile. But it is more likely to have been Britain, though in this case the relegation would have taken place under Trajan. [17] He appears to have died soon after from disgust, though here the two accounts differ, one bringing him back to Rome, and making him survive until the time of Antoninus Pius. The obvious inference from all this is that we know very little about the matter. In default of external evidence we might turn to the Satires themselves, but here the most careful sifting can find nothing of importance. The great vigour of style, however, which is conspicuous in the seventh Satire makes it clear that it was not the work of the poet's old age. Hence the Caesar referred to cannot be Hadrian. He must, therefore, be some earlier emperor, and there can be little doubt it is Trajan. Under Trajan, then, we place the maturity of Juvenal's genius as it is displayed in the first ten Satires. The four following ones show a falling off in concentration and dramatic power, and are no doubt later productions, when years of good government had softened his asperity of mind. The fifteenth, sixteenth, and to a certain extent the twelfth, show unmistakable signs of senility. The fifteenth contains evidence of its date. The consulship of Juncus (127 A.D.) is mentioned as recent. [18] We may therefore safely place the Satire within the two following years. The sixteenth, which treats of the privileges of military service, a very promising subject, has often been thought spurious, but without sufficient reason. The poet speaks of himself as a civilian, appearing to have no goodwill towards the camp, and as Juvenal had been in the army, it is argued that he would scarcely have written so. But to this it may be replied that Juvenal chose the subject for its literary capabilities, not from any personal feeling. As an expert rhetorician, he could not fail to see the humorous side of the relations between militaire and civilian. The feebleness of the style, and certain differences from the diction usual with the author, are not sufficient to found an argument upon, and have besides been much exaggerated. They would apply equally, and even with greater force, to the fifteenth.
The words "ad mediam fere aetatem declamavit," as Martha has justly remarked, form the key to Juvenal's literary position. He is the very quintessence of a declaimer, but a declaimer of a most masculine sort. Boileau characterises him in two epigrammatic lines:
"Juvénal élevé dans les cris de l'école
Poussa jusqu'à l'excès son mordant hyperbole."
Poet in the highest sense of the word he certainly is not. The love of beauty, which is the touchstone of the poetic soul, is absent from his works. He rather revels in depicting horror and ugliness. But the other qualification of the poet, viz. a mastery of words, [19] he possesses to a degree not surpassed by any Roman writer, and in intensity and terseness of language is perhaps superior to all. Not an epithet is wasted, not a synonym idle. As much is pressed into each verse as it can possibly be made to bear, so that fully to appreciate the Satires it is necessary to have a commentary on every line. Even now, after the immense erudition that has been expended on him, many passages remain obscure, not only in respect to allusions, but even in matters of language. [20] The tension of his style, which is never relaxed, [21] represents not only great effort, but long-matured and late-born thought. In the angry silence of forty years had been formed that fierce and almost brutal directness of description which paints, as has been well said, with a vividness truly horrible. In preaching virtue, he first frightens away modesty. There is scarce one of his poems that does not shock even where it rebukes. And three of them are so hideous in their wonderful power that it is impossible to read them with any pleasure, though one of these (the sixth) is perhaps the most vigorous piece of writing in the entire Latin language. For compressed power it may he compared to the first chorus of the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, but here the likeness ceases. While the Athenian, even among dreadful scenes, rises to notes of sweet and almost divine pathos, the Roman's dark picture is not relieved by one touch of the beautiful, or one reminiscence of the ideal.
The question naturally arises, What led Juvenal to write poetry after being so long content with declamation? He partly answers us in his first Satire, where he tells us that it is in revenge for the poetry that has been inflicted on himself:
"Semper ego auditor tantum nunquamne reponam?"
But it arises also from a higher motive—
"Facit indignatio versum
Qualemcunque potest, quales ego vel Cluvienus."
These two qualities, vexation (vexatus toties, i. 2) and indignation, are the salient characteristics of Juvenal. How far the vexation was righteous, the indignation sincere, is a question hard to answer. There is no denying the power with which they are expressed. But to submit to this power is one thing, to sift its author's heart is another. After a long and careful study of Juvenal's poems, we confess to being able to make nothing of Juvenal himself. We cannot get even a glimpse of him. He never doffs the iron mask, the "rigidi censura cachinni;" he has so long hidden his face that he is afraid to see it himself or to let it be seen. Some have thought that in the eleventh and twelfth Satires they can find the man, and have been glad to figure him as genial, simple, and kind. But it is by no means certain that even these are not mere rhetorical exercises, modelled on the Horatian epistles, but themselves having no relation to any actual event. The fifteenth, again, represents a softer view of life, the thirteenth and fourteenth a higher faith in providence; in these, it has been thought, appears the true nature, which had allowed itself to lie hid among the denunciations of the earlier satires. But, in truth, the character of Juvenal must be one of the incognita of literature. It is a retaliation on Satire's part for the intimate knowledge she had allowed us to gain of Horace and Persius through their works. [22]
In manner Juvenal is the most original of poets; in matter he is the glorifier of common-place. His strength lies in his prejudices. He is not a moralist, but a Roman moralist; the vices he lashes are not lashed as vices simpliciter, but as vices that Roman ethics condemn. This one- sided patriotism is the key to all his ideas. In an age which had seen Seneca, Juvenal can revert to the patriotism of Cato. The burden of his complaints is given in the third Satire:
"Non possum ferre Quintes Graecam Urbem." [23]
While the Greeks lead fashion, the old Roman virtues can never be restored. If only men could be disabused of their strange reverence for all that is Greek, society might be reconstructed. The keen satirist scents a real danger; in half a century from his death Rome had become a Greek city.
In estimating the political character of Juvenal's satire we must not attach too much weight to his denunciation of former tyrants. In the first place "tyrannicide" was a common-place of the schools: [24] Xerxes, Periander, Phalaris, and all the other despots of history, had been treated in rhetoric as they had treated others in reality; Juvenal's tirade was nothing new, but it was something much more powerful than had yet been seen. In the second place the policy of Trajan encouraged abuse of his predecessors. He could hardly claim to restore the Republic unless he showed how the Republic had been overthrown. Pliny, the courtly flatterer, is far more severe on Domitian than Juvenal; and in truth such severity was only veiled adulation. When Juvenal ridicules the senate of Domitian, [25] we may believe that he desired to stimulate to independence the senate of his day; and when he speaks of Trajan, it is in language of enthusiastic praise. [26] Flattery it is not, for Juvenal is no sycophant, nor would Trajan have liked him better if he had been one. Indeed, with all his invective he keeps strictly to truth; his painting of the emperors is from the life. It is highly coloured, but not out of drawing. Juvenal's Domitian is nearer to history than Tacitus's Tiberius.
It is in his delineations of society that Juvenal is at his greatest. There is nothing ideal about him, but his pictures of real life, allowing for their glaring lights, have an almost overpowering truthfulness. Every grade of society is made to furnish matter for his dramatic scenes. The degenerate noble is pilloried in the eighth, the cringing parasite in the fifth, the vicious hypocrite in the second, the female profligate in the sixth. It is rarely that he touches on contemporary themes. His genius was formed in the past and feeds on bitter memories. As he says, he "kills the dead." [27] To attack the living is neither pleasant nor safe. Still, in the historic incidents he resuscitates, a piercing eye can read a reference to the present. Hadrian's favourite actor saw himself in Paris. Freedmen and upstarts could read their original in Sejanus. [28] Frivolous noblemen could feel their follies rebuked in the persons of Lateranus and Damasippus. [29] Even an emperor might find his lesson in the gloomy pictures of Hannibal and Alexander. [30] So constant is this reference to past events that Juvenal's writings may be called historic satire, as those of Tacitus satiric history.
The exaggeration of Juvenal's style if employed in a different way might have led us to suspect him of less honesty of purpose than he really has. As it is, the very violence of his prejudices betrays an earnestness which, if his views had been more elevated, we might have thought feigned. A man might pretend to enthusiasm for truth, or holiness; he would hardly pretend to enthusiasm for national exclusiveness, [31] or for the dignity of his own profession. [32] When Juvenal attacks the insolent parvenu, [33] the Bithynian or Cappadocian knight, [34] the Greek adventurer who takes everything out of the Roman's hands, [35] the Chaldean impostor, [36] we may be sure he means what he says.
It is true that all his accusations are not thus limited in their scope. Some are no doubt inspired by moral indignation; and the language in which they are expressed is noble and well deserves the praise universally accorded to it. But in other instances his patriotism obscures his moral sense. For example, the rich upstarts against whom he is perpetually thundering, are by no means all worthy of blame. Very many of them have obtained their wealth by honourable commerce, which the nobles were too proud to practise, and the rewards of which they yet could not see reaped without envy and scorn. [37] The increasing importance of the class of libertini, so far from being an unmixed evil, as Juvenal thinks it, was productive of immense good. It was the first step towards the breaking down of the party-wall of pride which, if persisted in, must have caused the premature ruin of the Empire. It familiarised men's minds with ideas of equality, and prepared the way for the elevation to the citizenship of those vast masses of slaves who were fast becoming an anachronism.
Popular feeling was ahead of men like Juvenal and Tacitus in these respects. In all cases of disturbance the senate and great literary men sided with the old exclusive views. The emperors, as a rule, interfered for the benefit of the slave: and this helps us to understand the popularity of some even of the worst of their number.
Juvenal, then, was not above his age, as Cicero and Seneca had been. He does protest against the cruel treatment of slaves by the Roman ladies; but he nowhere exerts his eloquence to advocate their rights as men to protection and friendship. Nor does he enter a protest against the gladiatorial shows, which was the first thing a high moralist would have impugned, and which the Christians attacked with equal enthusiasm and courage. We observe, however, with pleasure, that as Juvenal advanced in years his tone became gentler and purer, though his literary powers decayed. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth Satires evince a kindly vein which we fail to find in the earlier ones. Some have fancied that in the interval he became acquainted with the teaching of Christianity. But this is a supposition as improbable as it is unsupported.
On the style of Juvenal but little need be added. Its force, brevity, and concision have already been noticed, At the same time they do not seem to have been natural to him. Where he writes more easily he is diffuse and even verbose. The twelfth and fifteenth Satires are conspicuous examples of this. One is tempted to think that the fifteenth, had he written it twenty years earlier, would have been compressed into half its length. The diction is classical; but like that of Tacitus, it is the classicality of the Silver Age. It shows, however, no diminution of power, and the gulf between it and that of Fronto and Apuleius in the next age is immense. Juvenal's language is based on a minute study of Virgil; [38] his rhythm is based rather on that of Lucan, with whom in other respects he shows a great affinity. His verse is sonorous and powerful; he is fond of the break after the fourth foot. Though monotonous, its weight makes it very impressive; it is easily retained in the memory, and stands next to that of Virgil and Lucretius as a type of what the language can achieve.
The resentment that goaded Juvenal to write satire seems also to have inspired the pen of C. CORNELIUS TACITUS. [39] He was born 54 A.D., or, according to Arnold, 57 A.D., probably in Rome. His father was perhaps the same who is alluded to by Pliny [40] as procurator of Belgian Gaul. It is, at any rate, certain that the historian came of a noble and wealthy stock; his habit of thought, prejudices, and tastes all reflect these of the highest and most exclusive society. He began the career of honours under Vespasian [41] by obtaining his quaestorship, and, some years later, the aedileship. The dates of both these events are uncertain—another instance of the vagueness with which writers of this time allude to the circumstances of their own lives. We know that at twenty-one he married the daughter of Cn. Julius Agricola, and that he was praetor ten years afterwards. He was also quindecimvir at the secular games under Domitian (88 A.D.). For some years he held a military command abroad, perhaps in Germany. On his return he was constant in his senatorial duties [42] and we find him joined with Pliny in the accusation of Marius Priscus, which was successful but unavailing. Under Nerva (97 A.D.) he was made consul; but soon retired from public life, and dedicated the rest of his days to literature, having sketched out a vast plan of Roman history the greater part of which he lived to fulfil. The year of his death is uncertain. Brotier, followed by Arnold, thinks he was prematurely cut off before the close of Trajan's reign, but it is possible he lived somewhat longer, perhaps until 118 A.D.
The first remark one naturally makes on reading the life of Tacitus, is that he was admirably fitted by his distinguished military and political career for the duties of a historian. Gibbon said that his year in the yeomanry had been of more service to him in describing battles than any closet study could have been; and Tacitus has this great advantage over Livy that he had helped to make history as well as to relate it. His elevation to the rank of senator enabled him to understand the iniquity of Domitian's government in a way that would otherwise have been impossible; and of the complicity shown by the servile fathers in their ruler's acts of crime, he speaks in the Agricola with something like the shame of repentance. His character seems to have been naturally proud and independent, but unequal to heroism in action. Like almost all literary minds he shrunk from facing peril or discomfort, and tried to steer a course between the harsh self-assertion of a Thrasea [43] and the cringing servility of the majority of senators. This led him to become dissatisfied with himself, with the world, and with Divine Providence, [44] and has left a stamp of profound and rebellious melancholy on all his works.
As a young man he had studied rhetoric under Aper Secundus, [45] and perhaps Quintilian. He pleaded with the greatest success, and Pliny gives it as his own highest ambition to be ranked next, he dare not say second, to Tacitus. [46] Nor was his deliberative eloquence inferior to his judicial. We learn, from Pliny again, that there was a peculiar solemnity in his language, which gave to all he uttered the greatest weight. The panegyric he pronounced on Virginius Rufus, the man who twice refused the chance of empire, "the best citizen of his time," was celebrated as a model of that kind of oratory. [47]
The earliest work of his that has reached us is the Dialogus de caussis corruptae Eloquentiae, composed under Titus, or early under Domitian. It attributes the decay of eloquence to the decay of freedom; but believes in a future development of imperial oratory under the mild sway of just princes, founded not on feeble and repining imitation of the past, but on a just appreciation of the qualifications attainable in the present political conditions and state of the language. The argument is conducted throughout with the greatest moderation, but the conclusion is decided in favour of the modern style, if kept within proper bounds. The time of the dialogue is laid in 75 A.D.; the speakers are Curiatius Maternus, Aper Secundus, and Vipstanus Messala. The point of debate is one frequently discussed in the schools of rhetoric, and the work may be considered as a literary exercise; but the author must have outgrown youth when he wrote it, and its ability is such as to give promise of commanding eminence in the future. The style is free and flowing, and full of imitations of Cicero. This has caused some of the critics to attribute it to other authors, as Pliny the younger and Quintilian, [48] who were known to be Ciceronianists. But independently of the fact that it is distinctly above the level of these writers, we observe on looking closely many indications of Tacitus's peculiar diction. [49] The most striking personal notice occurs in the thirteenth chapter, where the author announces his determination to give up the life of ambition, and, like Virgil, to be content with one of literary retirement. This seems at first hard to reconcile with the known career of Tacitus; but as the dialogue bears all the marks of early manhood, the resolve, though real, may have been a passing one only; or, in comparison with what he felt himself capable of doing, the activity actually displayed by him may have seemed as nothing, and to have merited the depreciatory notice he here bestows upon it.
The work next in order of priority is the Agricola, a biography of his father-in-law, composed near the commencement of Trajan's reign, about 98 A. D. The talent of the author has now undergone a change; he is no longer the bright flowing spirit of the Dialogus, who acknowledged the decline while making the most of the excellences of his time; he has become the stern, back-looking moralist, the burning panegyrist, whose very pictures of virtue are the most withering rebukes of vice. This treatise represents what Teuffel calls his Sallustian epoch; i.e., a phase or period of his mental development, in which his political and moral feeling, as well as his literary aspirations, led him to recall the manner of the great rhetorical biographer. The short preface, in which occurs a fierce protest against the wickedness of the time just past, reminds us of the more verbose but otherwise not dissimilar introduction to the Catiline: and the subordination of general history to the main subject of the composition is earned out in Sallust's way, but with even greater completeness. At the same time the Silver Age is betrayed by the extremely high colouring of the rhetoric, especially in the last chapters, where an impassioned outpouring of affection and despair seems by its prophetic eloquence to summon forth the genius that is to be. Already, in this work, [50] we find that Tacitus has conceived the design of his Historiae, to which, therefore, the Agricola must be considered a preliminary study.
As yet, Tacitus's manner is only half-formed. He must have acquired by painful labour that wonderful suggestive brevity which in the Annals reaches its culmination, and is of all styles the world of letters has ever seen, the most compressed and full of meaning. The Germania, however, in certain portions [51] approximates to it, and in other ways shows a slight increase of maturity over the biography of Agricola. His object in writing this treatise has been much contested. Some think it was in order to dissuade Trajan from a projected expedition that he painted the German people as foes so formidable; others that it is a satire on the vices of Rome couched under the guise of an innocent ethnographic treatise; others that it is inspired by the genuine scientific desire to investigate the many objects of historic and natural interest with which a vast and almost unknown territory abounded. But none of these motives supplies a satisfactory explanation. The first can hardly be maintained owing to historical difficulties; the second, though an object congenial to the Roman mind, is not lofty enough to have moved the pen of Tacitus; the third, though it may have had some weight with him, would argue a state of scientific curiosity in advance of Tacitus's position and age, and besides is incompatible with his culpable laziness in sifting information on matters of even still greater ethnographic interest. [52]
The true motive was no doubt his fear lest the continual assaults of these tribes should prove a permanent and insurmountable danger to Rome. Having in all probability been himself employed in Germany, Tacitus had seen with dismay of what stuff the nation was made, and had foreseen what the defeat of Varus might have remotely suggested, that some day the degenerate Romans would be no match for these hardy and virtuous tribes. Thus, the design of the work was purely and pre-eminently patriotic; nor is any other purpose worthy of the great historian, patrician, patriot, and soldier that he was. At the same time subsidiary motives are not excluded; we may well believe that the gall of satire kindles his eloquence, and that the insatiable desire of knowledge stimulates his research while inquiring into the less accessible details of the German polity. The work is divided into two parts. The first gives an account of the situation, climate, soil, and inhabitants of the country; it investigates the etymology of several German names of men and gods, describes the national customs, religion, laws, amusements, and especially celebrates the people's moral strictness; but at the same time not without contrasting them unfavourably with Rome whenever the advantage is on her side. The second part contains a catalogue of the different tribes, with the geographical limits, salient characteristics, and a short historical account of each, whenever accessible.
Next come the Histories, which are a narrative of the reigns of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, written under Trajan. This work, of which we possess only four entire books, with part of the fifth, consisted originally of fourteen books, and was the most authentic and complete of all his writings. The loss of the last nine and a half books must be considered irreparable. In the Germania he had shown the power of that liberty which the barbarians enjoyed, had indicated their polity, in which, even then the germs of feudalism, chivalry, the worship of the sex, troubadour minstrelsy, fairy mythology, and, above all, representative government, existed. In the Historiae he paints with tremendous power the disorganisation, of the Roman state, the military anarchy which made the diadem the gift of a brutal soldiery, and revealed the startling truth that an emperor could be created elsewhere than at Rome.
At this period his style still retains some traces of its former copious flow; it has not yet been pressed tight into the short sententiae, which were its final and most characteristic development, and which in the Annals dominate to the exclusion of every other style.
The Annals, ab excessu divi Augusti, in sixteen books, treated the history of the Empire until the extinction of the Claudian dynasty. They contain two separate threads of history, one internal, the other external. The latter is important and interesting; but the former is both in an immeasurably greater degree. It has been likened to a tragedy in two acts, the first terminating with the death of Tiberius, the second with the death of Nero. Tacitus in this work shows his personal sympathies more strongly than in any of the others. He appears as a Roman of the old school, but still more, as an oligarchical partisan. Not that he indulged in chimerical plans for restoring the Republic. That he saw was impossible; nor had he much sympathy with those who strove for it. But his resignation to the Empire as an unavoidable evil does not inspire him with contentment. His blood boils with indignation at the steady repression of the liberty of action of the old families, which the instincts of imperialism forced upon the monarchs from the very beginning; nor do the general security of life and property, the bettered condition of the provinces, and the long peace that had allowed the internal resources of the empire to be developed, make amends for what he considers the iniquitous tyranny practised upon the higher orders of the state. Thus he writes under a strong sense of injustice, which reaches its culmination in treating of the earlier reigns. But this does not provoke him into intemperate language, far less into misrepresentation of fact; if he disdained to complain, he disdained still more to falsify. But he cannot help insinuating; and his insinuations are of such searching power that, once suggested, they grasp hold of the mind, and will not be shaken off. Of all Latin authors none has so much power over the reader as Tacitus. If by eloquence is meant the ability to persuade, then he is the most eloquent historian that ever existed. To doubt his judgment is almost to be false to the conscience of history. Nevertheless, his saturnine portraits have been severely criticised both by English and French historians, and the arguments for the defence put forward with enthusiasm as well as force. The result is, that Tacitus's verdict has been shaken, but not reversed. The surpassing vividness of such characters as his Tiberius and Nero forbids us to doubt their substantial reality. But once his prepossessions are known and discounted, the student of his works can give a freer attention to the countervailing facts, which Tacitus is too honourable to hide.
After long wavering between the two styles, he adopted the brilliant one fashionable in his time, but he has glorified it in adopting it. Periods such as those of Pliny would be frigid in him. He still retains some traces (though they are few) of the rhetorician. In an interesting passage he complains of the comparative poverty of his subject as contrasted with that of Livy: "Ingentia illi bella, expugnationes urbium, fusos captosque reges libero egressu memorabant; nobis in arcto et inglorius labor. Immota quippe aut modice lacessita pax maestae urbis res et princeps proferendi imperii incuriosus;"—[53] but he certainly had no cause to complain. The sombre annals of the Empire were not less amenable to a powerful dramatic treatment than the vigorous and aggressive youth of the Republic had been. Nor does the story of guilt and horror depicted in the Annals fall below even the finest scenes of Livy; in intensity of interest it rather exceeds them.
Tacitus intended to have completed his labours by a history of Augustus's reign, which, however, he did not live to write. This is a great misfortune. But he has left us his opinion on the character and policy of Augustus in the first few chapters of the Annals, and a very valuable opinion it is. What makes the historian more bitter in the Annals than elsewhere, is the feeling that it was the early emperors who inaugurated the evil policy which their successors could hardly help themselves in carrying out. When the failure of Piso's conspiracy destroyed the last hopes of the aristocracy, it was hardly possible to retain for the later emperors the same intense hatred that had been felt for those whose tyranny fostered, and then remorselessly crushed, the resistance of the patrician party. The Annals, therefore, though the most concentrated, powerful, and dramatic of Tacitus's works, hardly rank quite so high in a purely historical point of view as the Histories; as Merivale has said, they are all satire.
At the same time, his facts are quite trustworthy. We know from Pliny's letters that he took great pains to get at the most authentic sources, and beyond doubt he was well qualified to judge in cases of conflicting evidence. These diverse excellences, in the opinion of Niebuhr and Arnold, place him indisputably at the head of the Roman historians. We cannot better close this account than in the eloquent words of a French writer: [54] "In Tacitus subjectivity predominates; the anger and pity which in turn never cease to move him, give to his style an expressiveness, a rich glow of sentiment, of which antiquity affords no other example. This constant union between the dramatic and pathetic elements, together with the directness, energy, and reality of the language, must act with Irresistible force upon every reader. Tacitus is a poet; but a poet that has a spirit of his own. Was he as fully appreciated in his own day as he is in ours? We doubt it. The horrors, the degeneracy of his time, awake in his brooding soul the altogether modern idea of national expiation and national chastisement. The historian rises to the sublimity of the judge. He summons the guilty to his tribunal, and it is in the name of the Future and of Posterity that he pronounces the implacable and irreversible verdict."
The poetical and Greek constructions with which Tacitus's style abounds, the various artifices whereby he relieves the tedium of monotonous narrative, or attains brevity or variety, have been so often analysed in well-known grammatical treatises that it is unnecessary to do more than allude to them here.
We now enter on a new and in some respects a very interesting era. From the influence exerted on the last period by the family of Seneca, we might call it the epoch of Spanish Latinity; from the similar influence now exerted by the African school, we might call the present the epoch of African Latinity. Its chief characteristic is ill-digested erudition. Various circumstances combined to make a certain amount of knowledge general, and the growing cosmopolitan sentiment excited a strong interest in every kind of exotic learning. With increased diffusion depth was necessarily sacrificed. The emperor set the example of travel, which was eagerly followed by his subjects. Hence a large mass of information was acquired, which injuriously affected those who possessed it. They appear, as it were, crushed by its weight, and become learned triflers or uninteresting pedants. By far the most considerable writer of this period was Suetonius, but then he had been trained in the school of Pliny, of whom for several years he was an intimate friend. Hadrian himself (76-138 A.D.), among his many other accomplishments, gave some attention to letters. Speeches, treatises of various kinds, anecdotes, and a collection of oracles, are ascribed to his pen. Also certain epigrams which we still possess, and chiefly that exquisite address to his soul, composed on his death-bed: [1]
"Animala vagula blandula
Hospes comesque corporis
Quae nunc abibis in loca,
Pallidula rigida nudula?
Nec ut soles dabis iocos."
Hadrian was also a patron of letters, though an inconstant one. His vanity led him to wish to have distinguished writers about him, but it also led him to wish to be ranked as himself the most distinguished. His own taste was good; he appreciated and copied the style of the republican age; but he encouraged the pedantic Fronto, whose taste was corrupt and ruinously influential. So that while with one hand he benefited literature, with the other he injured it.
The birth year of C. SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS is uncertain, but may be assigned with probability to 75 A.D. [2] We may here remark the extraordinary reticence of the later writers on the subject of their younger days. Seneca alone is communicative. All the rest show an oblivion or indifference most unlike the genial communicativeness of Cicero, Horace, and Ovid. His father was one Suetonius Lenis, a military tribune and wearer of the angusticlave. Muretus, however, desirous to give him a more illustrious origin, declares that his father was the Suetonius Paulinus mentioned by Tacitus. We learn a good deal of his younger days from the letters of Pliny, and can infer something of his character also. In conformity with what we know from other sources of the tendencies of the age, we find that he was given to superstition. [3] At this time (i.e. under Trajan) Suetonius wavered between a literary and a political career. Pliny was able and willing to help him in the latter, and got him appointed to the office of tribune (102 A.D.). [4] Some years later (112 A.D.), he procured for him the jus trium liberorum, though Suetonius was childless. We see that Augustus's excellent institutions had already turned into an abuse. The means for keeping up the population had become a compensation for domestic unhappiness. [5] Suetonius practised for some years at the bar, and seems to have amassed a considerable fortune. We find him begging Pliny to negotiate for him for the purchase of an estate. [6] Shortly after this he was promoted to be Hadrian's secretary, which gave him an excellent opportunity of enriching his stores of knowledge from the imperial library. Of this opportunity he made excellent use, and after his disgrace, owing, it is said, to too great familiarity with, the empress (119 A.D.), he devoted his entire time to those multifarious and learned works, which gave him the position of the Varro of the imperial period. His life was prolonged for many years, probably until 160 A.D. [7]
The writings of Suetonius were encyclopaedic. Following the culture of his day, he seems to have written partly in Greek, partly in Latin. This had been also the practice of Cicero, and of many of the greatest republican authors. The difference between them lies, not in the fact that Suetonius's Greek was better, but that his Latin is less good. Instead of a national it is fast becoming a cosmopolitan dialect. Still Suetonius tried to form his taste on older and purer models, and is far removed from the denationalised school of Fronto and Apuleius.
The titles of his works are a little obscure. Both, following Suidas, gives the following. (1) peri ton par Ellaesi paidion Biblion, a book of games. This is quoted or paraphrased by Tzetzes, [8] and several excerpts from it are preserved in Eustathius. It was no doubt written in Greek, but perhaps in Latin also. (2) peri ton para Romaiois theorion kai agonon biblia g, an account in three books of the Roman spectacles and games, of which an interesting fragment on the Troia ludus is preserved by Tertullian. [9] (3) peri tou kata Romaious eniautou biblion, an archaeological investigation into the theory of the Roman year. (4) peri ton en tois bibliois saemeion, on the signification of rare words. (5) peri taes Kikeronos politeias, a justification of the conduct of Cicero, in opposition to some of his now numerous detractors, especially one Didymus, a conceited Alexandrine, called Chalcenterus, "the man of iron digestion," on account of his immense powers of work. (6) peri onomaton kai ideas esthaematon kai upodaematon, a treatise on the different names of shoes, coats, and other articles of dress. This may seem a trivial subject; but, after Carlyle, we can hardly deny its capability of throwing light on great matters. Besides, in ancient times dress had a religious origin, and in many cases a religious significance. And two passages from the work preserved by Servius, [10] are important from this point of view. (7) peri dusphaemon lexeon aetoi blasphaemiom, an inquiry into the origin and etymology of the various terms of abuse employed in conversation and literature. This was almost certainly written in Greek. (8) peri Romaes kai ton en autae nomimon kai aethon biblia b, a succinct account of the chief Roman customs, of which only a short passage on the Triumph has come down to us through Isidore. [11] (9) Syngenikon Kaisaron, [12] a biography of the twelve Caesars, divided into eight books. (10) Stemma Romaion andron episaemon, a gallery of illustrious men, the plan of which was followed by Jerome in his history of the worthies of the church. But Suetonius's catalogue seems to have been confined to those eminent in literature, and to have treated only of poets, orators, historians, philosophers, grammarians, and rhetoricians. Of this we possess considerable fragments, especially the account of the grammarians, and the lives of Terence, Horace, and Pliny. (11) peri episaemon pornon, an account of those courtesans who had become renowned through their wit, beauty, or genius. (12) De Vitiis Corporalibus, a list of bodily defects, written perhaps to supplement the medical works of Celsus and Scribonius Largus. (13) De Institutione Officiorum, a manual of rank as fixed by law, and of social and court etiquette. This, did we possess it, would be highly interesting, and might throw light on many now obscure points. (14) De Regibus, in three books, containing short biographies of the most renowned monarchs in each of the three divisions of the globe, treated in his usual style of a string of facts coupled with a list of virtues and vices. (15) De Rebus Variis, a sort of ana, of which we can detect but few, and those insignificant, notices. (16) Prata, or miscellaneous subjects, in ten or perhaps twelve books, which work was greatly admired not only in the centuries immediately succeeding, but also throughout the Middle Ages. It is extremely probable, as Teuffel thinks, that many of the foregoing treatises may really have been simply portions of the Prata cited under their separate names. The first eight books were confined to national antiquities and other similar points of interest; the rest were given to natural science and that sort of popular philosophy so much in vogue at the time, which finds a parallel between every fact of the physical universe and some phenomenon of the human body or mind. They were modelled on Varro's writings, which to a large extent they superseded, except for great writers like Augustine, who went back to the fountain head. [13] It is uncertain whether Suetonius treated history; but a work on the wars between Pompey and Caesar, Antony and Octavian, is indicated by some notices in Dio Cassius and Jerome. All these writings, however, are lost, and the sole work by which we can form an estimate of Suetonius's genius is his lives of the Caesars, which we fortunately possess almost entire.
Suetonius possessed in a high degree some of the most essential qualifications of a biographer. He was minute, laborious, and accurate in his investigation of facts; he neglected nothing, however trivial or even offensive, which he thought threw light upon the character or circumstances of those he described. And he is completely impartial; it would perhaps be more correct to say indifferent. His accounts have been well compared by a French writer to the procès verbal of the law courts. They are dry, systematic, and uncoloured by partisanship or passion. Such statements are valuable in themselves, and particularly when read as a pendant to the history of Tacitus, which they often confirm, often correct, and always illustrate. To take a single point; we see from Tacitus how it was that the emperors were so odious to the aristocracy; we see from Suetonius how it was that they became the idols of the people. Many of the details are extremely disgusting, but this strong realism is a Roman characteristic, and adds to their value. To the higher attributes of a historian Suetonius has no pretension. He scarcely touches on the great historic events, and never ventures a comprehensive judgment; nor can he even take a wide survey of the characters he pourtrays. But he is a faithful collector of evidence on which the philosophic biographer may base his own judgment; and as he generally gives his sources, which are authentic in almost every case, we may use his statements with perfect confidence.
His style is coloured with rhetoric, and occasionally with poetic embellishment, but is otherwise terse and vigorous. The extreme curtness he cultivated often leads him into something bordering on obscurity. His habit of alluding to sources of information instead of being at the pains to describe them at length, while it adds to the neatness of his periods, detracts from its value to ourselves. He rises but rarely into eloquence, and still more rarely shows dramatic power. The best known of his descriptive scenes is the death of Julius Caesar, but that of Nero is almost more graphic. It may interest the reader to give a translation of it. [14] The scene is the palace, the time, the night before his death:—
"He thus put off deciding what to do till next day. But about midnight he awoke, and finding the guard gone, leapt out of bed, and sent round messages to his friends; but meeting with no response, he himself, accompanied by one or two persons, called at their houses in turn. But every door was shut, and no one answered his inquiries, so he returned to his chamber to find the guard had fled, carrying with them the entire furniture, and with the rest his box of poison. He at once asked for Spiculus the mirmillo or some other trained assassin to deal the fatal blow, but could get no one. This seemed to strike him; he cried out, 'Have I then neither friend nor enemy?' and ran forward as if intending to throw himself into the river. But checking his steps he begged for some better concealed hiding place where he might have time to collect his thoughts. The freedman Phaon offered his suburban villa, situate four miles distant, midway between the Salarian and Nomentane roads; so just as he was, bare-foot and clad in his tunic, he threw round him a faded cloak, and covering his head, and binding a napkin over his face, mounted a horse with four companions of whom Sporus was one. On starting he was terrified by a shock of earthquake and an adverse flash of lightning, and heard from the camp hard by the shouts of the soldiers predicting his ruin and Galba's triumph. A traveller, as they passed, observed, 'Those men are pursuing Nero;' another asked, 'Is there any news in town about Nero?' His horse took fright at the smell of a dead body which had been thrown into the road; in the confusion his disguise fell off, and a praetorian soldier recognised and saluted him. Arrived at the post-house, they left their horses, and struggled through a thorny copse by following a track in the sandy soil, but were obliged to put cloths under their feet as they walked. However, they arrived safely at the back wall of the villa. Phaon then suggested that they should hide in a cavern hard by, formed by a heap of sand. But Nero declaring that he would not be buried alive, they waited a little, till a chance should offer of entering the villa unobserved. Seeing some water in a little pool, he scooped some up with his hand, and just before drinking said 'This is Nero's distilled water!' then, seeing how his cloak was torn by the brambles, he peeled off the thorns from the branches that crossed the path. Then crawling on all fours, he passed through a narrow passage out of the cavern into the nearest cellar, and there laid himself on a pallet made of old straw and furnished with anything but a comfortable pillow. Becoming both hungry and thirsty, he refused some musty bread that was offered him, but drank a little tepid water. To free himself from the constant shower of abuse that those who came to gaze poured on him, he ordered a pit to be made according to the measure of his body, and any bits of marble that lay by to be heaped together, and water and wood to be brought for the proper disposing of the corpse; weeping at each stage of the proceedings, and saying every now and then, 'Oh! what an artist the world is losing!' [15]
"While thus occupied a missive was brought to Phaon. Nero snatched it out of his hand, and read that he had been decreed an enemy by the Senate, and was demanded for punishment 'according to the manner of our ancestors.' He asked what this meant. Being told that he would be stripped naked, his neck fixed in a pitchfork, and his back scourged until he was dead, he seized in his terror two daggers which he had brought with him, but after feeling their edge put them back into their sheaths, alleging that the fated hour had not yet come. Sometimes he would ask Sporus to raise the funeral lamentation, then he would implore some one to set him an example of courage by dying first; sometimes he would chide his own irresoluteness by saying—'I am a base degenerate man to live! This does not beseem Nero! We must be steady on occasions like these—come, rouse yourself!' [16] Already the horsemen were seen approaching who had received orders to carry him off alive. Crying out in the words of Homer:
'The noise of swift-footed steeds strikes my ears,'
he drove the weapon into his throat with the help of his secretary Epaphroditus, and immediately fell back half-dead. The centurion now arrived, and, under the pretence of assisting him, put his cloak to the wound; Nero only replied, 'Too late!' and 'This is your loyalty!' With these words he died, his eyes being quite glazed, and starting out in a manner horrible to witness. His continual and earnest petition had been that no one should have possession of his head, but that come what would, he might be buried whole. This Talus, Galba's freedman, granted."
It will be seen that his narrative, though not lofty, is masterly, clear, and impressive.
Besides Suetonius we have a historian, though a minor one, in P. ANNIUS FLORUS, [17] who is now generally identified with the rhetorician and poet mentioned more than once by Pliny, and author of a dialogue, "Vergilius Orator an Poeta," and some lines De Rosis and De Qualitate Vitae. [18] Little is known of his life, except that he was a youth in the time of Domitian, was vanquished at the Capitoline contest through unjust partiality, and settled at Tarraco as a professional rhetorician. Under Hadrian he returned to Rome, and probably did not survive his reign. The epitome of Livy's history, or rather the wars of it, from the foundation of Rome to the era of Augustus, in two short books, is a pretentious and smartly written work. But it shows no independent investigation, and no power of impartial judgment. Its views of the constitution [19] are even more superficial than those of Livy. The first book ends with the Gracchi, after whom, according to the author, the decline began. The frequent moral declamations were greatly to the taste of the Middle Ages, and throughout them Florus was a favourite. Abridgments were now the fashion; perhaps that of Pompeius Trogus by JUSTINUS belongs to this reign. [20] Many historians wrote in Greek.
Jurisprudence was also actively cultivated. We have the two great names of SALVIUS JULIANUS and SEX. POMPONIUS, both of whom continued to write under the Antonines. They were nearly of an age. Pomponius, we infer from his own words, [22] was born somewhere about 84 A.D., and as he lived to a great age, it is probable that he survived his brother jurist. Both enjoyed for several centuries a high and deserved reputation. The rise of philosophical jurisprudence coincides with the decline of all other literature. It must be considered to belong to science rather than letters, and is far too wide a subject to be more than merely noticed here, Both these authors wrote a digest, as well as numerous other works. The best-known popular treatise of Pomponius was his Enchiridion, or Manual of the Law of Nations, containing a sketch of the history of Roman law and jurisprudence until the time of Julian. [23]
The study of grammar and rhetoric was pursued with much industry, but by persons of inferior mark. ANTONIUS JULIANUS, a Spaniard, some account of whom is given by Gellius, [24] kept up the older style as against the new African fashion. His declamations have perished; but those of CALPURNIUS FLACCUS still remain. The chief rhetoricians seem to have confined themselves to declaiming in Greek. The celebrated Favorinus, at once philosopher, rhetorician, and minute grammarian, was one of the most popular. TERENTIUS SCAURUS wrote a book on Latin grammar, and commentaries on Plautus and Virgil. We have his treatise De Orthographia, which contains many rare ancient forms. His evident desire to be brief has caused some obscurity. The author formed his language on the older models; like Suetonius, following Pliny, and through him, the classical period.
Philosophers abounded in this age, and one at least, Plutarch, has attained the highest renown. As he, in common with all the rest, wrote in Greek, no more will be said about them here.
A medical writer of some note, whose two works on acute (celeres passiones) and chronic (tardae) diseases have reached us, is CAELIUS AURELIANUS. His exact date is not known. But as he never alludes to Galen, it is probable be lived before him. He was born at Sicca in Numidia, and chiefly followed Soranus.
The reigns of Antoninus Pius and his son, the saintly M. Aurelius, covered a space of forty-two years, during which good government and consistent patronage did all they could for letters. But though the emperor could give the tone to such literature as existed, he could not revive the old force and spirit, which were gone for ever. The Romans now showed all the signs of a decaying people. The loss of serious interest in anything, even in pleasure, argues a reduced mental calibre; and the substitution of minute learning for original thought always marks an irrecoverable decadence. The chief writer during the earlier part of this period is M. CORNELIUS FRONTO (90-168 A.D.), a native of Cirta, in Numidia, who had been held under Hadrian to be the first pleader of the day; and now rose to even greater influence from being intrusted with the education of the two young Caesars, M. Aurelius and L. Verus. Fronto suffered acutely from the gout, and the tender solicitude displayed by Aurelius for his preceptor's ailments is pleasant to see, though the tone of condolence is sometimes a little mawkish. Fronto was a thorough pedant, and of corrupt taste. He had all the clumsy affectation of his school. Aurelius adopted his teacher's love of archaisms with such zest that even Fronto was obliged to advise a more popular style. When Aurelius left off rhetoric for the serious study of philosophy, Fronto tried his best to dissuade him from such apostasy. In his eyes eloquence, as he understood it, was the only pursuit worthy of a great man. In later life Aurelius arrived at better canons of judgment; in his Meditations he praises Fronto's goodness, [25] but says not a word about his eloquence. His contemporaries were less reserved. They extolled him to the skies, and made him their oracle of all wisdom. Eumenius [26] says, "he is the second and equal glory of Roman eloquence;" and Macrobius [27] says, "There are four styles of speech; the copious, of which Cicero is chief; the terse, in which Sallust holds sway; the dry, [28] which is assigned to Fronto; the florid, in which Pliny luxuriates." With testimonies like these before them, and the knowledge that he had been raised to the consulship (143) and to the confidential friendship of two emperors, scholars had formed a high estimate of his genius. But the discovery of his letters by Mai (1815) undeceived them. Independently of their false taste, which cannot fail to strike the reader, they show a feeble mind, together with a lack of independence and self-reliance. He has, however, a good naturel, and a genial self-conceit, which attracts us to him, and we are not surprised at the affection of his pupil, though we suspect it has led him to exaggerate his master's influence.
Until these came to light, scarcely anything was known of Fronto's works. Five discussions on the signification of words had been preserved in Gellius, and a passage in which he violently attacks the Christians in Minucius Felix. But the letters give an excellent idea of his mind, i.e. they are well stocked with words, and supply as little as possible of solid information. Family matters, mutual condolences, pieces of advice, interspersed with discussions on eloquence, form their staple. The collection consisted of ten books, five written to Aurelius as heir- apparent, and five to him as emperor. But we have lost the greater part of the latter series. Of Fronto's numerous other writings only scattered fragments remain. They are as follows:—(1) Panegyric speeches addressed to Hadrian [29] and Antoninus (among which was the celebrated one on his British victories 140 A.D.). (2) A speech returning thanks to the senate on behalf of the Carthaginians. (3) Speeches for the Bithynians and Ptolomacenses. (4) Speeches for and against individuals. (5) The speech against the Christians quoted by Minucius. (6) Appended to the letters are also some Greek epistles to members of the imperial household, a consolation from Aurelius to Fronto on the death of his grandson, and his reply, which is a mixture of desponding pessimism and philological pedantry. [30] (7) Trifles like the erotikos, a study based on Plato's theory of love, the story of Arion, the feriae alsienses, in which he humorously advises the prince to take a holiday, the laudes fumi et pulveris, a rhetorical exercise, [31] show that he was quite at home in a less ambitious vein.
The best example of his style and habits of thought is found in the letters De Eloquentia on p. 139 sqq. of Naber's edition.
His life was soured by suffering and bereavement. His wife and all his children but one died before him, and he himself was a victim to various diseases. His interest for us is due to his relations with Aurelius and the general dearth at that period of first-rate writers. He died probably before the year 169. With Fronto's letters are found a considerable number of those of Aurelius, but they do not call for any remark. The writings that have brought him the purest and loftiest fame are not in Latin but in Greek. It would therefore be out of place to dwell on them here.
A younger contemporary and admirer of Fronto is AULUS GELLIUS (l25?-175 A.D.), author of the Noctes Atticae, in twenty books, a pleasant, gossiping work, written to occupy the leisure of his sons, and containing a vast amount of interesting details on literature and religious or antiquarian lore. Gellius is a man of small mind, but makes up by zeal for lack of power. He was trained in philosophy under Favorinus, in rhetoric under Antonius Julianus and, perhaps, Fronto, but his style and taste are, on the whole, purer than those of his preceptors. The title Noctes Atticae was chosen, primarily, because the book was written at Athens and during the lucubrations of the night; but its modesty was also a recommendation in his eyes. The subjects are very various, but grammar or topics connected with it preponderate. A large space is devoted to anecdotes, literary and historical, and among these are found both the most interesting and the best written passages. Another element of importance is found in the quotations, which are very numerous, from ancient authors. The reader will appreciate the value of these from the continual references to Gellius which have been made in this work. [32]
The style of Gellius abounds with archaisms and rare words, e.g., edulcare, recentari, aeruscator, adulescentes frugis, elegans verborum, and shows an unnecessary predilection for frequentatives. [33] It is obvious that in his day men had ceased to feel the full meaning of the words they used. As a depraved bodily condition requires larger and stronger doses of physic to affect it, so Gellius, when his subject is most trivial, strives most for overcharged vigour of language. [34] But these defects are less conspicuous in the later books, where his thought also rises not unfrequently into a higher region. The man's nature is amiable and social; he enlisted the help of his friends in the preparation of his little essays, [35] and seems to have been on kindly terms with most of the chief writers of the day. Among the ancients his admiration was chiefly bestowed on Virgil and Cicero as representatives of literature, on Varro and Nigidius Figulus, [36] as representatives of science. His power of criticism is narrowed by pedantry and small passions, but when these are absent he can use his judgment well. [37] He preserves many interesting points of etymology [38] and grammar, [39] and is a mine of archaic quotation. Among contemporary philosophers he admires most Plutarch, Favorinus, and Herodes Atticus the rival of Fronto. He smiles at the enthusiasm with which some regard all that is obsolete, and mentions the Ennianistae [40] with half-disapproval. But his own bias inclines the same way, only he brings more taste to it than they. On the whole he is a very interesting writer, and the last that can be called in anyway classical. He is well spoken of by Augustine; [41] and Macrobius, though he scarcely mentions him, pillages his works without reserve. His eighth book is lost, but the table of contents is fortunately preserved.
A great genius belonging to this time is the jurist GAIUS (110-180 A.D.). His nomen is not known; whence some have supposed that he never came to Rome. But this is both extremely unlikely in itself, and contradicted by at least one passage of his works. He was a professor of jurisprudence for many years, and from the style of his extant works Teuffel conjectures that they originated from oral lectures. It is astonishing how clear even the later Latin language becomes when it touches on congenial subjects, such as agriculture or law. The ancient legal phraseology had been seriously complained of as being so technical as to baffle all but experts in deciphering its meaning. Horace ridicules the cunning of the trained legal intellect in more than one place. But this reproach was no longer just. The series of able and thoughtful writers who had carried out a successive and systematic treatment of law since the Augustan age had brought into it such matchless clearness, that they have formed the model for all subsequent philosophic jurists. The amalgamation of the great Stoic principles of natural right, the equality of man, and the jus gentium, which last was gradually expanding into the conception of international law, contributed to make jurisprudence a complete exponent of the essential character of the Empire as the "polity of the human race." The works of Gaius included seven books Rerum Cotidianarum, which, like the work of Apuleius, were styled Aurei; and an introduction to the science of law, called Institutiones, or Instituta, in four books. These were published 161 A.D., and at once established themselves as the most popular exposition of the subject. Gaius was a native of the east, but of what country is uncertain. The names of several other jurists are preserved. They were divided into two classes, [42] the practicians, who pleaded or responded, and the regularly endowed professors of jurisprudence. Of the former class SEX. JULIUS AFRICANUS was the most celebrated for his acute intellect and the extreme difficulty of his definitions; ULPIUS MARCELLUS for his deep learning and the prudence of his decisions. He was an adviser of the emperor Aurelius. A third writer, one of whose treatises—that on the divisions of money, weights, and measures,—is still extant, was L. VOLUSIUS MAECIANUS. The reader is referred for information on this subject to Teuffel's work, and Poste's edition of the Institutes of Gaius.
Among minor authors we may mention C. SULPICIUS APOLLINARIS, a Carthaginian, who became a teacher of rhetoric and grammar, and numbered among his pupils Aulus Gellius. He and ARRUNTIUS CELSUS devoted their talents for the most part to subjects of archaic interest. Erudition of a certain kind had now become universal, and was discussed with all the formality and exuberance of public debate. The disputations of the mediaeval universities seem to have found their germ in these animated discussions on trivial subjects, such as are described in chapters of Gellius to which the reader has already been referred. [43]
Historical research flagged; epitomizers had possession of the field. We have the names of L. AMPELIUS, the author of an abridged "book of useful information on various subjects," history predominating, called Liber Memorialis, which still remains; and of GRANIUS LICINIANUS, short fragments of whose Roman history in forty books are left to us.
Poetry was even more meagrely represented. Aulus Gellius [44] has preserved a translation of one of Plato's epigrams, which he calls ouk amousos, by a contemporary author, whose name he does not give. It is written in dimeter iambics, an easier measure than the hexameter, and therefore more within the reduced capacity of the time. The loose metrical treatment proceeds not so much from ignorance of the laws of quantity as from imitation of Hadrian's lax style, [45] and perhaps from a tendency, now no longer possible to resist, to adopt the plebeian methods of speech and rhythm into the domain of recognised literature. As the fragment may interest our readers, we quote it:
"Dum semibiulco savio
Meum puellum savior,
Dulcemque florem spiritus
Duco ex aperto tramite;
Animula aegra et saucia
Cucurrit ad labias mihi,
Rictumque in oris pervium
Et labra pueri mollia,
Rimata itineri transitus
Ut transiliret, nititur.
Tum si morae quid plusculae
Fuisset in coetu osculi
Amoris igni percita
Transisset, et me linqueret:
Et mira prorsum res foret,
Ut ad me fierem mortuus,
Ad puerum intus viverem."
In the fifth and last lines we see a reversion to the ante-classical irregularities of scansion. The reader should refer to the remarks on this subject on page 20.
Perhaps the much-disputed poem called Pervigilium Veneris belongs to this epoch. [46] It is printed in Weber's Corpus Poetarum, [47] and is well worth reading from the melancholy despondency that breathes through its quiet inspiration. The metre is the trochaic tetrameter, which is always well suited to the Latin language, and which here appears treated with Greek strictness, except that in lines 55, 62, 91, a spondee is used in the fifth foot instead of a trochee. The refrain—
"Cras amet qui nunquam amavit, quique amavit, eras amet,"
may be called the "last word" of expiring epicureanism.
The last writer that comes before us is the rhetorician and pseudo- philosopher, L. APULEIUS. He was born at Madaura, in Africa, 114 A.D. [48] and calls himself Seminumida et Semigaetula. [49] His parents were in easy circumstances, and sent him to school at Carthage, which was fast rising to the highest place among the seminaries of rhetoric. By his father's death he came into a considerable fortune, and in order to finish his education spent some time at Athens, and travelled through many parts of the East hunting up all the information he could find on magic and necromancy, and getting himself initiated into all the different mysteries. About 136 he came to Rome, where he practised at the bar for about two years. He then returned to Madaura; but soon growing discontented determined to indulge his restless craving for travel and acquiring knowledge. He therefore set out for Egypt, the nurse of all occult wisdom, and the centre of attraction for all curious spirits. On his way he fell ill and was detained at Oea, where he met a rich widow named Pudentilla, whom in course of time he married. Her two sons had not been averse to the match, indeed Apuleius says they strongly urged it forward. But very soon they found their step-father an inconvenience, and through their uncle Aemilianus instituted a suit against him on the ground of his having bewitched their mother into marrying him. This serious charge, which was based principally on the disparity of years, Pudentilla being sixty (though her husband maintains she is only forty), Apuleius refutes in his Apologia, [50] a valuable relic of the time, which well deserves to be read. The accusation had been divided into three parts, to each of which the orator replies. The first part or preamble had tried to excite odium against him by alleging his effeminacy in using dentifrice, in possessing a mirror, and in writing lascivious poems, and also by alluding to his former poverty. His reply to this is ready enough; he admits that nature has favoured him with a handsome person of which he is not ashamed of trying to make the best; besides, how do they know his mirror is not used for optical experiments? As to poverty, if he had been poor, he gloried in the fact; [51] many great and virtuous men had been so too, and some thought poverty an essential part of virtue. The preamble disposed of, he proceeds to the more serious charge of magic. He has, so the indictment says, fascinated a child; he has bought poisons; he keeps something uncanny in his handkerchief, probably some token of sorcery: he offers nocturnal sacrifices, vestiges of which of a suspicious character have been found; and he worships a little skeleton he has made and which he always carries about with him. His answer to these charges is as follows:—the child was epileptic and died without his aid; the poisons he has bought for purposes of natural science; the image he carries in his handkerchief is that of Plato's monarch (vous Basileus), devotion to which is only natural in a professed Platonist; and as for the sacrifices, they are pious prayers, offered outside the town solely in order to profit by the peaceful inspirations which the country awakens. The third part of the indictment concerned his marriage. He has forced the lady's affections; he has used occult arts as her own letters show, to gain an influence over her; love-letters have passed between them, which is a suspicious thing when the lady is sixty years of age; the marriage was celebrated out of Oea; and last but not least, he has got possession of her very considerable fortune. His answers are equally to the point here. So far from being unwilling to espouse him or needing any compulsion, the good lady with difficulty waited till her sons came of age, and then brooked no further delay; moreover he had not pressed his suit, though her sons themselves had strongly wished him to do so; as regards the correspondence, a son who reads his mother's private letters is hardly a witness to command confidence; as regards her age she is forty, not sixty; as regards the place of her marriage both of them preferred the country to the town; and as regards the fortune, which he denies to be a rich one, the will provides that on her death it shall revert to her sons. Having now completed his argument he lets loose the flood-gates of his satire; and with a violence, an indecency, and a dragging to light of home secrets, scarcely to be paralleled except in some recent trials, he flays the reputation of uncle and nephews, and triumphantly appeals to the judge to give a verdict in his favour. [52]
We next find him at Carthage where he gave public lectures on rhetoric. He had enough real ability joined with his affectation of wisdom to ensure his success in this sphere. Accordingly we find that he attained not only all the civil honours that the city had to bestow, but also the pontificate of Aesculapius, a position even more gratifying to his tastes. During his career as a rhetorician he wrote the Florida, which consists for the most part of selected passages from his public discourses. It is now divided into four books, but apparently at first had no such division. It embraces specimens of eloquence on all kinds of subjects, in a middle style between the comparatively natural one of his Apologia and the congeries of styles of all periods which his latest works present. In these morceaux, some of which are designed as themes for improvisation, he pretends to an acquaintance with the whole field of knowledge. As a consequence, it is obvious that his knowledge is nowhere very deep. He was equally fluent in Greek and Latin, and frequently passed from one language to the other at a moment's notice.
He now cultivated that peculiar style which we see fully matured in his Metamorphoses. It is a mixture of poetical and prose diction, of archaisms and modernisms, of rare native and foreign terms, of solecisms, conceits, and quotations, which render it repulsive to the reader and betray the chaotic state of its creator's canons of taste. The story is copied from Lucian's Aoukios ae Onos, but it is on a larger scale, and many insertions occur, such as adventures with bandits or magicians; accounts of jugglers, priests of Cybele, and other vagrants; details on the arts; a description of an opera; licentious stories; and, above all, the pretty tale of Cupid and Psyche, [53] which came originally from the East, but in its present form seems rather to be modelled on a Greek redaction. "The golden ass of Apuleius," as the eleven books of Metamorphoses are called by their admirers, was by no means thought so well of in antiquity as it is now. Macrobius expresses his wonder that a serious philosopher should have spent time on such trifles. St Augustine seems to think it possible the story may be a true one: "aut indicavit aut finxit." It is a fictitious autobiography, narrating the adventures of the author's youth; how he was tried for the murder of three leather-bottles and condemned; how he was vivified by an enchantress with whom he was in love; how he wished to follow her through the air as a bird, but owing to a mistake of her maids was transformed into an ass; how he met many strange adventures in his search for the rose-leaves which alone could restore his lost human form. The change of shape gave him many chances of observing men and women: among other incidents he is treated with disdain by his own horse and mule, and severely beaten by his groom. He hears his character openly defamed; his resentment at this, and the frequent attempts he makes to assert his rationality, are among the most ludicrous parts of the book; finally, after many adventures, he is restored to human shape by some priests of Isis or Osiris, to whose service he devotes himself for the rest of his life.
Some have considered this extravagant story to be an allegory, [54] others, again, a covert satire on the vices of his countrymen. This latter supposition we may at once discard. The former is not unlikely, though the exact explanation of it will be a matter of uncertainty. Perhaps the ass symbolizes sensuality; the rose-leaves, science; the priests of Isis, either the Platonic philosophy, or the Mysteries; the return to human shape, holiness or virtue. It is also possible that it may be a plea for paganism against the new religious elements that were gathering strength at Carthage; but if so, it is hard to see why he should have chosen as his model the atheistic story of Lucian. In a similar manner the story of Cupid and Psyche has been made a type of the progress of the soul. Apuleius was one of those minds not uncommon in a decaying civilization, in which extreme quasi-religious exaltation alternates with impure hilarity. He is a licentious mystic; a would-be magician; [55] a hierophant of pretentious sanctity, something between a Cagliostro and a Swedenborg; a type altogether new in Roman literature, and a gloomy index of its speedy fall.
Besides these works of Apuleius, we possess some short philosophical tracts, embodying some of his Platonist and Pythagorean doctrines. They are De deo Socratis, De Dogmate Platonis in three books, and the De Mundo, a popular theologico-scientific exposition, drawn from Aristotle. The general tenor of these works will be considered in the next chapter, as their bearing on the thought of the times gives them considerable importance.
During the second century after Christ we have the remarkable spectacle of the renaissance of Greek literature. The eloquence which had so long been silent now was heard again in Dio Chrysostom, the delicate artillery of Attic wit was revived by Lucian, the dignity of sublime thought was upheld by Arrian and Marcus Aurelius. It should be remarked that the Greeks had never quite discontinued the art of eloquence. When their own political independence ended, they carried their talents into other lands, into Egypt, India, Asia Minor, sowing colonies of intelligence wherever they went; but the chief place to which they flocked was Rome. At Rome the hold they gained was such that even tyranny itself could not loosen it. Their light spirits and plastic nature made them adapt themselves to every fashion without difficulty and without regret; even under Tiberius or Domitian there was always something for a cultured Greek to do. [1]
Rhetoric was the inheritance of the dethroned Greek nation, and they clung to it with all the fondness of gratitude. Long after the pacification of the world had destroyed all the subject-matter of oratory, they cherished the form of it, and practised it with a zeal proportioned to its worthlessness. Even in her best days, as we know from Thucydides, Greece had been a victim to fine talking; the words of her delicious language seemed by their mere sound to have power over those that used them; and now that patriotism had ceased to inspire her orators, they naturally sought in the splendour of the Asiatic style an equivalent for the chaste beauties of ancient national eloquence. There were two classes of Greeks at this period who effected in no small degree the general spread of culture. These were the rhetors and the sophists; properly speaking distinct, but often confounded under the general name of sophist.
The rhetors proper have been already described. We need only notice here the gradually increasing insignificance of the themes they chose. In the Claudian era the points discussed were either historical, mythical, or legal. All had some reference, however distant, to actual pleading before a court of law. But now even this element of reality has disappeared. The poetical readings which had been the fashion under Domitian gave place to rhetorical ostentations which were popular in proportion to their frivolity or misplaced ingenuity. The heroes of Marathon, [2] the sages of ancient Greece, had once been the objects of praise. They were now made the objects of derision and invective. [3] Speeches against Socrates, Achilles, or Homer, and in favour of Busiris, were commonly delivered, in which every argument was acutely misapplied, and every established belief acutely combated. Panegyrics of cities, gods, or heroes, had been a favourite exercise of the orator's art. Now these panegyrics were expended upon the most contemptible themes, infames materiae as they were called. Fronto sang the praises of idleness, of fever, of the vomit, of gout, of smoke, of dust; Lucian, in a speech still extant, of the fly; others of the ass, the mouse, the flea! Such were the detestable travesties into which Greek eloquence had sunk. Roman statesmen frequently displayed their talents in this way; but as a rule they declaimed in Greek. These orations were delivered in a basilica or theatre, and for two days previously criers ranged through the city, advertising the inhabitants of the lecturer's name and subject.
Other aspirants to fame, gifted with less refinement, paraded the streets in rags and filth, and railed sardonically at all the world, mingling flattery of the crowd with abuse of the great, and of all the restrictions of society. These were the street preachers of cynicism, who found their trade by no means an unprofitable one. Often, after a few years of squalid abstinence and quack philosophy, they had picked up enough to enable them to shave their beards, don the robes of good society, and end their days in the vicious self-indulgence which was the original inspirer of their tirades.
Every great city was full of these caterers for itching ears, the one sort fashionable, the other vulgar, but both equally acceptable to their audience. Some more ambitious spirits, of whom Apuleius is the type, not content with success in a single town, moved from place to place, challenging the chief sophist in each city to enter the lists against them. If he declined the contest, his popularity was at an end for ever. If he accepted it, the risk was enormous, lest a people tired of his eloquence might prefer the sound of a new voice, and thus force on him the humiliation of surrendering his crown and his titles to another. For in their delirious enthusiasm the cities of Greece and Asia lavished money, honours, immunities, and statues, upon the mountebank orators who pleased them. Emperors saluted them as equals; the people chose them for ambassadors; until their conceit rose to such a height as almost to pass the bounds of belief. [4] And their morals, it will readily be guessed, did not rise above their intellectual capacities. Instead of setting an example of virtue, they were below the average in licentiousness, avarice, and envy. Effeminate in mind, extravagant in purse, they are perhaps the most contemptible of all those who have set themselves up as the instructors of mankind.
But all were not equally debased. Side by side with this truckling to popular favour was a genuine attempt to preach the simple truths of morality and religion. For near a century it had been recognised that certain elements of philosophy should be given forth to the world. Even the Stoics, according to Lactantius, [5] had declared that women and slaves were capable of philosophical pursuits. Apuleius, conspicuous in this department also, was a distinguished itinerant teacher of wisdom. Lucian at one time lectured in this way. But the most eloquent and natural of all was Dio Chrysostom, who, though a Greek, is so pleasing a type of the best popular morals of the time, that we may, perhaps, be excused for referring to him. He was a native of Bithynia, but in consequence of some disagreement with his countrymen, he came to Rome during the reign of Domitian. Having offended the tyrant by his freedom of speech, he was compelled to flee for his life. For years he wandered through Greece and Macedonia in the guise of a beggar, doing menial work for his bread, but often asked to display his eloquence for the benefit of those with whom he came in contact. Once while present at the Olympic festival and silently standing among the throng, he was recognised as one who could speak well, and compelled to harangue the assembled multitudes. He chose for his subject the praises of Jupiter Olympius, which he set forth with such majestic eloquence that all who heard him were deeply moved, and a profound silence, broken only by sobs of emotion, reigned throughout the vast crowd. Other stories are told showing the effect of his words. On one occasion he recalled a body of soldiers to their allegiance; on another he quelled a sedition; on a third he rebuked the mob of Alexandria for its immoral conduct, and, strange as it may seem, was listened to without interruption. When Domitian's death allowed him to return to Rome, he maintained the same courageous attitude. Trajan often asked his advice, and he discoursed to him freely on the greatness of royalty and its duties. He seems to have held a lofty view of his mission; he calls it a proppaesis iera, [6] or holy proclamation, and he speaks of himself as a prophaetaes alaethestatos taes athanatou physeus. [7]
What he taught, therefore, was a popular moral doctrine, based upon some of the simpler theories of philosophy, such as were easily intelligible to the unlearned, and admitted of rhetorical amplification and illustration by mythology and anecdote. Considered in one way, this was a great step in advance from the total neglect of the people by the earlier teachers of virtue. It shows the more humane spirit which was slowly leavening the once proud and exclusive possessors of intellectual culture. By exciting a general interest in the great questions of our being, it paved the way for a readier reception of the Gospel among those classes to whom it was chiefly preached. But at the same time by its want of authority, depending as it did solely on the eloquence or benevolence of the individual sophist, it prevented the possibility of anything like a systematic amelioration of the people's character. This side of the question, however, is too wide to be more than alluded to here, and it is besides foreign to our present subject. We must turn to consider the state of cultured thought on matters philosophical and religious; a point of great importance as bearing on the decline and speedy extinction of literary effort in Rome.
To begin with philosophy. We have seen that Rome had gradually become a centre of free thought, as it had become a centre of vice and luxury. The prejudices against philosophy complained of by Cicero, and even by Seneca, had now almost vanished. Instead of being indifferent, men took to it so readily as to excite the fears of more than one emperor. Nero had persecuted philosophers; Vespasian had removed them from Rome, Domitian from Italy. After Domitian's death, they returned with greater influence than ever. Hadrian and Antoninus were favourable to them. Aurelius was himself one of their number. Philosophy had had its martyrs; [8] and, after suffering, it had turned towards proselytism. The provinces had embraced it with enthusiasm. The narrow prejudice which had envied their intellectual culture [9] now envied their moral advancement; but equally without effect. Long before this, Musonius Rufus, an aristocratic Stoic, had admitted slaves to his lectures, [10] and at the risk of his life had preached peace to the armies of Vitellius and Vespasian. [11] And this wide-spread movement had, as we have seen, been continued by men like Dio, and later still by Apuleius.
But by thus gaining in width it lost greatly in depth. There is a danger when teaching becomes mainly practical of its losing sight of the fundamental laws amid the multitude of details, and attaching itself to trifles. There is a superstition in philosophy as well as in religion. Epictetus gives directions for the trimming of the beard in a tone as serious as if he were speaking of the summum bonum. And stoicism from the very first, by its absurd paradox that all faults are equal, obviously fell into this very snare, which, the moment it was popularized, could not fail with disastrous effect to come to the surface.
Again, the intrusive element of rhetoric greatly impeded strength of argument. In all practical teaching the point of the lesson is known beforehand; it is the manner of enforcing it that alone excites interest. Thus philosophy and rhetoric, which had hitherto been implacable foes, became reconciled in the furtherance of a common object. Seneca had affected to despise learning; Gellius and Favorinus, on the contrary, delighted in its minutest subtleties. Philosophers now declaimed like rhetoricians, and indifferently in either language. But in proportion as they addressed a larger public, it became more necessary to use the Greek, which was now the language of the civilized world. Favorinus, Epictetus, M. Aurelius himself, all wrote and generally spoke in it.
The reconciliation between philosophy and religion was not less remarkable than that between philosophy and rhetoric. It seemed as if all the separate domains of thought were gradually being fused into a kind of popular moral culture. The old philosophers had as a rule kept morals altogether distinct from religion. Epictetus and Aurelius make the two altogether identical. The old philosophers had kept away from the temples, or, if they went, had taken pains to mock the ceremonies they performed and to announce that their conformity was a pure matter of custom. The new philosophers were strictly regular in their religious worship, and not only observed and respected, but earnestly defended the entire popular cult. The nobler side of this "reconciliation" is shown in Plutarch, the grosser and more material side in Apuleius; but in both there is no mistaking its reality. Plutarch's idea of philosophy is "to attain a truer knowledge of God." [12] Philostratus, when asked what wisdom was, replied, "the science of prayers and sacrifices." [13] These men sought their knowledge of the Divine, not, as did Aristotle, in speculative thought, but in the collecting and explaining of legends. Stoicism had sought by compromise after compromise to satisfy the general craving for a religious philosophy reconcilable with the popular superstition. Its great exponents had stretched the elasticity of their system to the uttermost. They had given to their Supreme Being the name of Jove, they had admitted all the other deities of the Pantheon as emanations or attributes of the Supreme, they had justified augury by their theory of fate, they had explained away all the inconsistencies and immoralities of the popular creed by an elaborate system of allegory; but yet they had failed to content the religious masses, who divined as by an instinct the hollow and artificial character of this fabric of compromise. Hence there arose a new school more suited to the requirements of the time, which gave itself out as Platonist. This new philosophy was anything but a genuine reproduction of the thought of the great Athenian. With some of his more popular and especially his oriental conceptions, it combined a mass of alien importations drawn from foreign cults, and in particular from Egypt.
We read how Juvenal deplores the inroads of Eastern superstition into Rome. [14] Syria, Babylon, and Asia Minor had added their mysteries to the Roman ceremonial. Astrologers were consulted by small and great; the Galli or eunuch-priests of Cybele were among the most influential bodies in Rome; and the impure goddess Isis was universally worshipped. [15] Egypt, which in classic times had been held as the stronghold of bestial superstition, was now spoken of as a "Holy Land," and "the temple of the universe." [16] The Stoics had studied in books, or by questioning their own mind; the Platonists sought for wisdom by travelling all over the world. Not content with the rites already known, they raked up obscure ceremonies and imported strange mysteries. Reflection and dialectic were no longer sufficient to ensure knowledge; asceticism, devotion, and initiation, were necessary for divine science. The idea broached by Plato in the Timaeus of intermediate beings between the gods and man, seemed to meet their requirements; and accordingly they at once adopted it. An entire hierarchy of daimones was imagined, and on this a system of quasi-religious philosophy was founded, of which Apuleius is the popular exponent.
The main tenets of this, the last attempt to explain the mystery of the universe which gained currency in Rome, were as follows—it will be seen how completely it had passed from philosophy to theosophy:—The supreme being is one, eternal, absolute, indescribable, and incomprehensible; but may be envisaged by the soul for a moment like a flash of lightning. [17] The great gods are of two kinds, visible, as the sun and stars, and invisible, as Jupiter and the rest; both these are inaccessible to human communion. Then come the daemons in their order, and with these man holds intercourse. Plutarch had adopted a tentative and incomplete form of this doctrine, e.g. he denied the visibility of Socrate's daemon, and spoke of the death of Pan. But Apuleius is much more thorough-going; he supposes all the daemons to be at once immortal and visible. Each great god has a daemon or double, who loves to use his name; and all the stories of the gods are in reality true of their daemons. In a moral point of view, daemons are of all characters—good and bad, cheerful and gloomy. [18] Their interventions, which are perpetual, explain what the stories could not explain, viz. the idea of Providence. In fact the whole current theory of the supernatural is easily explained when the existence of these intermediate beings is admitted. Aware that this theory wandered far from Roman ideas, Apuleius tries to reconcile it with the national religion by calling the daemons genii, lares, and manes, which are true Italian conceptions. To a certain extent the device succeeded; at any rate the new philosophy resulted in making devotees of the higher classes, as superstition had long since done with the people.
It seems incredible that any one who had studied the Platonic dialogues should have fancied theories like these to be their essence. Nevertheless, so it was. Men found in them what they wished to find, and perhaps no greater witness could be given to the immense fertility of Plato's thought. However, when these conceptions came to be imported into philosophy, it is clear that philosophy no longer knew herself. She had become hopelessly unable to cope with the problems of actual life; henceforth there was nothing left but the rigours of the ascetic or the ecstacy of the mystic. Into these still later paths we shall not follow it. Apuleius is the last Roman who, writing in the Latin language, pretends to succeed to the line of thinkers of whom Varro, Cicero, and Seneca, were the chief. It is true he is immeasurably below them. In his effeminate union of licentiousness and mysticism he is far removed from the masculine, if inconsistent, practical wisdom of Seneca, further still from the glowing patriotism and lofty aspirations of Cicero. Still as a type of his age, of that country which already exercised, and was soon to exercise in a far higher degree, an influence on the thought of the world, [19] he is well worthy of attentive study.
We may now, in conclusion, very shortly review the main features in the history of Roman literature from Ennius, its first conscious originator, until the close of the Antonine period.
The end which Ennius had set before him was two-fold, to familiarise his countrymen with Greek culture, and to enlighten their minds from error. And to this double object the great masters of Roman literature remained always faithful. With more or less power and success, Terence, Lucilius, the tragedians, and even the mimists, elevated while they amused their popular audiences. In the last century of the Republic, literature still addressed, in the form of oratory, the great masses to whom scarce any other culture was accessible. But in poetry and philosophy it had broken with them, and thus showed the first sign of withdrawal from that thoroughly national mission with which the old father of Latin poetry had set out. Yet this very exclusiveness was not without its use. It enabled the best writers to aim at a far higher ideal of perfection than would have been possible for a popular author, however scrupulously he might strive for excellence. It enabled the best minds to concentrate their efforts upon all that was most strictly national because most strictly aristocratic, and thus to form those great representative works of Roman thought and style which are found in the writings of Cicero and Livy, and the poetry of Horace and Virgil. The responsibility which the possession of culture involves was now acknowledged only within narrow limits. The motto, "pingui nil mihi cum populo," was strictly followed, and all the best literature addressed only to a select circle. Meanwhile the people, for whom tragedy and comedy had done something, however little, that was good, neglected by the literary world, debased by bribery and the coarse pleasures of conquest, sunk lower and lower until they had become the brutal, sensual mob, inaccessible to all higher influences, which satirists and philosophers paint in such hideous colours, but which they did nothing and wrote nothing to improve. Then came the era of the decline, in which, for the first time, we observe that literature has lost its supremacy. It is still cultivated with enthusiasm, and numbers many more votaries than it had ever done before; nevertheless, its influence is disputed, and with success, by other forces; by tyranny in the first place, by a defiant philosophy which set itself against aesthetic culture in the second, and by revived and daily increasing superstition in the third. This is the beginning of the people's retaliation on those who should have enlightened them. In vain do emperors issue edicts for the suppression of foreign rites; in vain do courtly satirists or fierce declaimers complain that Rome will not be satisfied with ancestral beliefs and ancestral virtues. The people are asserting themselves in the sphere of thought, as they had asserted themselves in the sphere of politics ages before. But the difference between the two peoples was immense. The one had consisted of virtuous peasants and industrious tradesmen, working for generations to attain what they knew to be their right; the other was formed of slaves, of freedmen, many of them foreigners, and others engaged in occupations by no means honourable; of all that motley multitude who lived on Caesar's rations and spent their days in idleness, in the circus, and in crime. Rotten in its highest circles, equally rotten in its lowest, society could no longer be regenerated by any of the forces then known to it. The national superstitions, out of which literature had at first emerged, were replaced by cosmopolitan superstitions of an infinitely worse kind, which threatened to engulf it at its close, and against which in the persons of such men as Seneca, Juvenal, and Tacitus, it strove for a while with convulsive vigour to make head. But these great spirits only arrested, they could not avert, the inevitable decay. Where public morals are corrupt, where national life is diseased, it is impossible that literature can show a healthy life. The despair that has taken possession of men's souls, which sheds a misanthropic gloom over the writings of the elder Pliny and embitters even the noble mind of Tacitus, results from a conviction that things are incurably wrong, and from a feeling that there is no conceivable remedy. Men of feebler mould strive to forget themselves in exciting pleasures, as Statius and Martial; or in courtly society, as the younger Pliny; or in fond study of the past, as Quintilian; or in minute and pedantic erudition, as Aulus Gellius. The literature of the Silver Age is throughout conscious of its powerlessness; and this consciousness deadens it into tame acquiescence or galls it into hysterical effort, according to the time and temperament of the author. Pliny the younger and Quintilian alone show the happily-balanced disposition of the Golden Age; but what they gain in classic finish they lose in human interest. The decay of Greece had been insignificant, pretty but paltry; the decay of Rome on the other hand is unlovely but colossal. Perhaps in native strength none of her earlier authors equal Juvenal and Tacitus; none certainly exceed them. But they are the last barriers that stem the tide. After them the flood has already rushed in, and before long comes the collapse. In Suetonius and Florus we already see the pioneers of a pigmy race; in Gellius, Fronto, and Apuleius, they are present in all their uncouth dwarfishness. Meanwhile the clamours of the world for guidance grow louder and louder, and there is no one great enough or bold enough to respond to them. The good emperor would do so if he could; but in his perplexity he looks this way and that, bringing into one focus all the cults and ceremonies of the known world, in the vain hope that by indiscriminate piety he may avert the calamities under which his empire groans. But nothing is of any avail. The barbarians without, the pestilence within, decimate his subjects, the hostile gods seem to mock his goodness, and the simple people who look up to him as their tutelary power wonder hopelessly why he cannot save them. And thus on all sides the incapacity of the world to right itself is made clearer and clearer. The gross darkness that had been once partly put to flight by the light of Greek genius when philosophy rose upon the world, and once again had been retarded by the heroic examples of Roman conduct and Roman wisdom, now closed murkily over the whole world. It was indeed time that a new order of thought should arise, which should recreate the dead matter and bring out of it a new and more enduring principle of life, which should give the past its meaning and the future its hope; and, in especial, should reveal to literature its true end, the enlightenment and elevation, not of one class nor of one nation, but of every heart and every intellect that can be made to respond to its influence among all the nations of the earth.
B.C. 240 Livius begins to exhibit. 239 Ennius born. 235 Naevius begins to exhibit. 234 Cato born. 225 Fabius Pictor served in the Gallic War. 219 Pacuvius born. 218 Cincius Alimentus described the passage of Hannibal into Italy. 217 Cato begins to be known. 216 Fabius Pictor sent as ambassador to Delphi. 207 The poem on the victory of Sena entrusted to Livius. 204 Cato quaestor; brings Ennius to Rome. 201 Naevius dies (?). 191 Cato military tribune. 190 Cincius still writes. 189 Ennius goes with Fulvius into Aetolia. 185 Terence born. [2] 184 Cato censor. Plautus dies. 179 Caecilius flourished. 173 Ennius wrote the twelfth book of the Annals. 170 Accius born. 169 Ennius dies. Cato's speech pro lege Voconia. 168 Caecilius dies. 166 Terence's Andria. 165 Terence's Hecyra. 163 Terence's Hautontimorumenos. 161 Terence's Eunuchus and Phormio. 160 Terence's Adelphoe. 159 Terence dies. 154 Pacuvius flourished. 151 Albinus, the consul, writes history (Gell. xi. 8). 150 Cato finishes the Origines. 149 Cato, aged 85, accuses Galba. Dies in the same year. C. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, the historian. 148 Lucilius born. 146 Cassius Hemina flourished. C. Fannius, the historian, serves at Carthage. 142 Antonius, the orator, born. 140 Crassus, the orator, born. Accius, aged 30, Pacuvius, aged 80, exhibit together. 134 Sempronius Asellio served at Numantia. Lucilius begins to write. 123 Caelius Antipater flourished. 119 Crassus accuses Carbo. 116 Varro born. 115 Hortensius born. 111 Crassus and Scaevola quaestors. [3] 109 Atticus born. 107 Crassus tribune. 106 Cicero born. 103 The Tereus of Accius. Death of Turpilius. 102 Furius Bibaculus born at Cremona. 100 Aelius Stilo. 98 Antonius defends Aquillius. 95 First public appearance of Hortensius. Lucretius born (?). 92 Crassus censor. Opilius teaches rhetoric. 91 Crassus dies. Pomponius flourished. 90 Scaurus flourished. 89 Cicero serves under the consul Pompeius. 88 Cicero hears Philo and Molo at Rome. Rutilius resident at Mitylene. Plotius Gallus first Latin teacher of Rhetoric. 87 Antonius slain. Sisenna the historian. Catullus born (?). 86 Sallust born. 82 Varro of Atax born. Calvus born. 81 Cicero pro Quinctio. Valerius Cato Grammaticus. Otacilius, first freedman who attempts history. 80 Pro Roscio. 79 Cicero at Athens; hears Antiochus and Zeno. 78 Cicero hears Molo at Rhodes. 77 Cicero returns to Rome. 76 Asinius Pollio born (?). 75 Cicero quaestor in Sicily. 74 Cicero again in Rome. 70 Divinatio and Actio I. in Verrem. Virgil born. 69 Cicero aedile. 67 Varro wins a naval crown under Pompey in the Piratic War (Plin. N. H. xvi. 4). 66 Cicero praetor. Pro lege Manilia. Pro Cluentio. M. Antonius Gnipho flourished. 65 Pro Cornelia. Horace born. 64 In toga candida. 63 Consular orations of Cicero. Pro Murena. 62 Pro P. Sulla. 61 Annaeus Seneca born. 59 Livy born(?). Aelius Tubero with Cicero in Asia. Pro A. Thermo. Pro L. Flacco. 58 Cicero goes into exile. 57 Cicero recalled. Calidius a good speaker. 56 Pro Sextio. In Vatinium. De Provinciis Consularibus. 55 In Calpurnium Pisonem. De Oratore. Virgil assumes the toga virilis. 54 Pro Vatinio. Pro Scauro. De Republica. 52 Pro Milone. Lucretius dies(?). [4] 51 Cicero proconsul in Cilicia. 50 Death of Hortensius. Sallust expelled from the senate. 49 Cicero at Rome. Varro lieutenant of Pompey in Spain. 48 Lenaeus satirizes Sallust. Cicero in Italy. 47 Cicero at Brundisium. Hyginus brought to Rome by Caesar. Catullus still living (C. 52). 46 The Brutus written. Calvus dies. Sallust praetor. Pro Marcello. Pro Ligario. 45 Cicero's Orator. Pro Deiolaro. 44 The first four Philippics. Death of Caesar. 43 The later Philippics. Death of Cicero. Birth of Ovid. 42 Horace at Philippi. 40 Cornelius Nepos flourished. Perhaps Hor. Sat. i. 2. Epod. xiii. 39 Ateius Philologus born at Athens. Perhaps Virg. Ecl. vi. viii. Hor. Od. ii. 7. Epod iv. 38 Perhaps Ecl. vii. Hor. Sat. i. 3. 37 Varro (aet. 80) writes de Re Rustica. Perh. Ecl. x. Sat. i. 5 and 6. Epod. v. 36 Cornelius Severus(?) Hor. Sat. i. 8, 35 Bavius dies. Hor. Sat. i. 4, 9, 10. 34 Sallust dies. Sat. ii. 2. Epod. iii. 33 Sat. ii. 3. Epod. xi. xiv. 32 Atticus dies. Sat. ii. 4, 5. Epod. vii. 31 Messala consul. Sat. ii. 6. Epod. i. and ix. 30 Gallus made praefect of Egypt. Cassius Severus dies. Tibullus El. i. 3. The Georgics published. Hor. Sat. ii. 7, 8, and perhaps 1, Epod ii. 29 Livy writing his first book. Propertius I. 6. 28 Varro dies. 27 Od. i. 35. Vitruvius writing his work. 26 Gallus dies (aet. 40). Second book of Propertius published (?). [5] 25 Livy's first book completed before this year. Hor. Od. ii. 4. 24 Quintil. Varus dies (= the poet of Cremona, mentioned in the ninth Eclogue [?]). 23 The first three books of the Odes published. 22 Marcellus dies. Virgil reads the sixth Aeneid to Augustus and Livia. Third book of Propertius (?). 21 Hor. writes Ep. i. 20 (aet. 44). 20 First book of Epistles. 19 Virgil dies at Brundisium. His epitaph:
"Mantua me genuit: Calabri rapuere: tenet nunc
Parthenope: cecini pascua rura duces."
Tibullus dies. Domitius Marsus writes.
18 Livy working at his fifty-ninth book.
17 Porcius Latro. The Carmen Saeculare. Varius and Tucca edit the
Aeneid.
16 Aemilius Macer of Verona dies. Od. iv. 9, to Lollius.
15 Death of Propertius. Victories of Drusus. Od. iv. 4.
14 The fourth book of the Odes(?).
13 Cestius of Smyrna teaches rhetoric.
12 Death of Agrippa.
11 The Epistle to Augustus (Ep. ii. 1).
10 Passienus and Hyginus Polyhistor.
9 Ovid's Amores.
8 Death of Horace.
7 Birth of Seneca (?).
6 Albucius Silo a professor of rhetoric.
5 Tiro, Cicero's freedman, dies (aet. 100).
4 Porcius Latro commits suicide. Ovid now in his fortieth year.
2 Ovid's Art of Love.
A.D.
1 The Remedium Amoris.
2 Velleius Paterculus serves under C. Caesar.
4 Pollio dies. Velleius serves with Tiberius in Germany.
7 Velleius quaestor.
8 Verrius Flaccus, the grammarian, flourished. Ovid banished to Tomi, in
December (Tr. 1, 10, 3).
"Aut hanc me gelidi tremerem cum mense Decembris
Scribentem mediis Adria vidita quis."
9 The Ibis of Ovid. 11 Death of Messala. [6] 12 The Tristia finished. 13 The Epistles from Pontus were being written. 14 Death of Augustus. Velleius praetor. 18 Death of Ovid at 60; of Livy at 76. Valerius Maximus accompanied Sex. Pompeius to Asia. 19 The elder Seneca writes his "recollections." 24 Cassius Severus in exile. Pliny the elder born (?). 25 Death of Cremutius Cordus. Votienus banished. 26 Haterius flourished. 30 Asinius Gallus imprisoned. 31 Valerius Maximus wrote ix. 11, 4 (extern.), soon after the death of Sejanus. 33 Death of Cassius Severus the orator. His works proscribed. Death of Asinius Gallus. 34 Persius born. 40 Lucan brought to Rome. 41 Seneca's de Ira. Exile of Seneca at the close of this year. 42 Asconius Pedianus flourished. 43 Martial born. 45 Domitius Afer flourished. 48 Remmius Palaemon in vogue as a grammarian. 49 Seneca recalled from exile, and made Nero's tutor. 56 Seneca's de Clementia. 57 Probus Berytius a celebrated grammarian. 59 Death of Domitius Afer. 61 Pliny the younger born (?). 62 Death of Persius. Seneca in danger, Burrus being dead. 63 The Naturales Quaestiones of Seneca. 65 Death of Seneca (Ann. xv. 60). 66 Martial comes to Rome. 68 Quintilian accompanies Galba to Rome. Silius Italicus consul. 69 Silius in Rome. 75 The dialogue de Oratoribus, written (C. 17). 77 Pliny's Natural History. Gabinianus, the rhetorician, flourished. 79 Death of the elder Pliny. 80 Pliny the younger begins to plead. 88 Suetonius now a young man, Tacitus praetor. 89 Quintilian teaches at Rome. His professional career extends over 20 years. 90 Philosophers banished. Pliny praetor. Sulpiciae Satira (if genuine). 95 Statii Silv. iv. 1. The Thebaid was nearly finished. 96 Pliny's accusation of Publicius Certus. 97 Frontinus curator aquarum. Tacitus consul suffectus. 98 Trajan. 99 The tenth book of Martial. Silius at Naples. 100 Pliny and Tacitus accuse Marius Priscus. Pliny's panegyric. 103 Pliny at his province of Bithynia. 104 His letter about the Christians. Martial goes to Bilbilis. 109 Pliny (aet. 48) at the zenith of his fame. 118 Juvenal wrote Satire xiii. this year. 132 Salvius Julianus's Perpetual Edict. 138 Death of Hadrian. 143 Fronto consul suffectus. 164 Height of Fronto's fame. 166 Fronto proposes to describe the Parthian war. 180 Death of Marcus Aurelius.
A large number of other dates will be found in the body of the work, especially for the later period; but as they are not absolutely certain, they have not been inserted here.
WORDSWORTH. Fragments and Specimens of early Latin. 1874.
LIVIUS ANDRONICUS. H. Düntzer. Berlin. 1835.
NAEVIUS. Ribbeck. Trag. Lat. Relliquiae, p. 5.
PLAUTUS. Ritschl or Fleckeisen. Unfinished.
ENNIUS. Vahlen. Ennianae Poëseos Relliquiae.
PACUVIUS. Ribbeck, as above.
TERENCE. Wagner. Cambridge. 1869. Text by Umpfenbach. 1870
TURPILIUS. Fragments in Bothe (Poet. Scen. V. 2, p. 58-76), and
Ribbeck's Comic. Lat. Relliq.
THE EARLY HISTORIANS. Peter (Veterum Historicorum Romanorum
Relliquiae. Lips. 1870).
CATO. De Re Rustica. Scriptores rei rusticae veteres Latini,
curante I. M. Gesnero. Lips. 1735 Vol. 1.
CATO. Fragmenta praeter libros de Re Rustica. Jordan. Lips. 1860.
THE OLD ORATORS TO HORTENSIUS. H. Meyer. _Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta.
Zürich. 1842.
ACCIUS. Tragedies. Fragments in Ribbeck, as above.
——- Praeter Scenica. Lucian Müller. Lucilii Saturaran Relliquiae.
Lips. 1872. Lachmann.
ATTA. Fragments. Bothe. Scen. Lat. v. 2, p. 97-102. Ribbeck.
AFRANIUS. Bothe, p. 156-9. Ribbeck.
LUCILIUS. Lucian Müller, as above.
SUEVIUS. Lucian Müller, as above.
ATELLANAE. Fr. in Ribbeck. Com. Lat. Rel. p. 192.
AUCTOR AD HERENNIUM. Kayser. Lips. 1854.
VARRO. Saturae Menippeae. Riese. Lips. 1865.
——- Antiquities. Fragments in R. Merkel. Introduction to Ovid's Fasti.
——- De Vita Populi Romani. Fragments in Kettner. Halle. 1863.
——- De Lingua Latina. C. O. Müller. Lips, 1833.
——- De Re Rustica. Gesner, as above. See Cato.
CICERO. Speeches. G. Long. London. 1862. In four volumes.
——- Verrine Orations. Long, as above. Zumpt. Berlin. 1831.
CICERO. Pro Cluentio. Classen. Bonn. 1831. Ramsay. Clarendon Press.
——- In Catilinam. Halm. Lips.
——- Pro Plancio. E. Wunder. 1830.
——- Pro Murena. Zumpt. Berlin. 1859.
——- Pro Roscio. Büchner. Lips. 1835.
——- Pro Sestio. Halm. Lips. 1845. And Teubner edition.
——- Pro Milone. Orelli. Lips. 1826. School edition by Purton. Cambridge.
1873.
——- Second Philippic, with notes from Halm, by J. E. B. Mayor.
——- De Inventione. Lindemann. Lips. 1829.
——- De Oratore. Ellendt. Königsberg. 1840.
——- Brutus. Ellendt. 1844.
——- Philosophical Writings. Orelli. Vol. IV.
——- De Finibus. Madvig. Copenhagen. Second Edition. 1871. F. G. Otto.
1839.
——- Academica (with De Fin.). Orelli. Zürich. 1827.
——- Tusculanae Disputationes (with Paradoxa). Orelli. 1829.
——- De Natura Deorum. Schömann. Berlin. 1850.
——- De Senectute. Long. London. 1861.
——- De Amicitia. Nauck. Berlin. 1867.
——- De Officiis. 0. Heine. Berlin. 1857.
——- De Republica. Heinrich. Bonn. 1828.
——- De Legibus. Vahlen. 1871.
——- De Divinatione. Giese. Lips. 1829.
——- Select Letters. Watson. Oxford.
——- Entire Works. Orelli. Zür. 1845. Nobbe. Lips. 1828.
LABERIUS. Ribbeck. Com. Lot. Relliquiae, p. 237.
FURIUS BIBACULUS. Weichert. Poet. Lat. Rell., p. 325.
SYRI. Sententiae. Woelfflin. 1869.
CAESAR. Speeches. Meyer. Orat. Rom. Fragmenta.
——- Letters. Nipperdey. Caesar, p. 766-599.
——- Commentaries. Nipperdey. Lips. 1847-1856.
——- Gallic War. Long. London. 1859.
NEPOS. Nipperdey. Lips. 1849. School edition by 0. Browning.
LUCRETIUS. Munro. Cambridge. 1866.
SALLUST. All his extant works. Gerlach. Basle. 1828-31.
VARRO ATACINUS. Fragments in Riese, Sat. Menippeae.
CHINA. Weichert. Poetarum Lat. Vitae, p. 187.
CATULLUS. R. Ellis. Oxford. 1867
——- Commentary. R. Ellis. Oxford. 1876.
POLLIO. Fragments in Meyer. Orat Rom. Fragmenta.
VARIUS. Ribbeck's Tragic. Lat. Relliquiae.
VIRGIL. Ribbeck. 4 vols. With an Appendix Virgiliana. Conington. 3 vols.
Oxford. A good school edition by Bryce. (Glasgow University Classics.)
London.
HORACE. Orelli. Third edition, 1850. 2 vols. School editions, by Macleane
and Currie, both with good English Notes. Odes and Epodes, by Wickham.
1874.
TIBULLUS and PROPERTIUS. Lachmann. Berlin. 1829.
TIBULLUS. Dissen.
PROPERTIUS. Paley.
OVID. Entire Works. R. Merkel. Lips. 1851. 3 vols.
——- Fasti. Paley.
——- Heroides. Terpstra. 1829. Arthur Palmer. Longman. 1874.
——- Tristia and Ibis. Merkel. 1837.
——- Metamorphoses. Bach. 1831-6. 2 vols.
GRATIUS. Haupt. Lips. 1838. Including the Halieuticon, &c.
MANILIUS. Scaliger. 1579. Bentley. 1739. Jacob. Berlin. 1846.
LIVY. Drakenborg. 7 vols. Teubner text. Weissenbom, with an excellent
German Commentary.
——- Book I. Professor Seeley. Cambridge.
JUSTIN (Trogus). Jeep. Lips. 1859.
VERRIUS FLACCUS. C. O. Müller. Lips. 1839.
VITRUVIUS. Schneider. Lips. 1807. 3 vols. Rose. 1867.
SENECA (the elder). Keissling (Teubner series). Oratorum et Rhetorum
sententiae divisiones colores. Bursian. 1857.
GERMANICUS (translation of Aratus). Breysig. Berlin. 1867.
VELLEIUS. Kritz. Lips. 1840. Halm.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS. Kempf. Berl. 1854.
CELSUS. Daremberg. Lips. Teubner.
PHAEDRUS. Orelli. Zür. 1831. Lucian Müller. 1876.
SENECA. Tragedies. Peiper and Richter. Lips, 1867.
——- Entire Works. Fr. Haase. 3 vols. 1862-71. (Teubner.)
——- Naturales Quaestiones. Koeler. 1818.
CURTIUS. Zumpt. Brunsw. 1849.
COLUMELLA. In Gesner, Scriptures Rei Rusticae.
MELA. Parthey. Berl. 1867.
VALERIUS PROBUS. In Keil Grammatici Latini. Vol. I. 1857.
PERSIUS. Jahn. Lips. 1843. Conington. Oxford. 1869.
LUCAN. C. F. Weber. Lips. 1821. C. H. Weisse. Lips. 1835.
PETRONIUS. Bücheler. Berl. 1871. Second edition.
CALPURNIUS. Glaeser. Göttingen. 1842,
ETNA. Munro. Cambridge. 1867.
PLINY. Sillig. Lips. 8 vols.
——- Chrestomathia Pliniana, a useful text-book by Urlichs. Berlin. 1857.
VALERIUS FLACCUS. Lemaire. Paris. 1824. Schenkl. 1871.
SILIUS. Ruperti. Göttingen. 1795.
STATIUS. Silvae. Markland. Lips. 1827.
——- Entire works. Queck. 1854.
——- Thebaid and Achilleid. Vol. I. 0. Müller. Lips. 1871.
MARTIAL. Schneidevin. 1842.
——- Select Epigrams. Paley. London. 1875.
QUINTILIAN. Bonnell. (Teubner.) 1861.
——- Halm. 2 vols. 1869.
——- Lexicon to, by Bonnell. 1834.
FRONTINUS. Text by Dederich, in Teubner edition. 1855.
JUVENAL. Heinrich. Bonn. 1839. Mayor. London. 1872. Vol. I. (for schools).
Otto Iahn. 1868.
TACITUS. Works. Orelli. 1846. Ritter. 1864.
——- Dialogue. Ritter. Bonn. 1836.
——- Agricola. Kritz. Berlin. 1865.
——- Germania. Kritz. Berlin. 1869. Latham. London. 1851.
——- Annales. Nipperdey. Berlin. 1864.
PLINY the younger. Keil. Lips. 1870.
——- Letters. G. E. Gierig. 2 vols. 1800-2.
——- Letters and Panegyric. Gierig. 1806.
SUETONIUS. Roth. Teubner. 1858.
——- Praeter Caesarum Libros. D. Reifferscheid. Lips. 1860.
FLORUS. Jahn. Lips. 1856.
FRONTO. Niebuhr. Berl. 1816. Supplement. 1832. S. A. Naber. (Teubner.)
1867.
PERVIGILIUM VENERIS. Bugheler. 1859. Riese's Anthologia Latina i. p. 144.
GELLIUS. Hertz. Lips. 1853.
GAIUS. Lachmann. Berlin. 1842.
——- Institutes. Poste. Oxf. 1871.
APULEIUS. Hildebrand. Lips. 1842. 2 vols.
ITINERARIUM ANTONINI AUGUSTI ET HIEROSOLYMITANUM. G. Parthey and M.
Finder. Berlin. 1848.
1. Trace the influence of conquest on Roman literature.
2. Examine Niebuhr's hypothesis of an old Roman epos.
3. Compare the Roman conception of law as manifested in an argument of Cicero, with that of the Athenians, as displayed in any of the great Attic orators.
4. Trace the causes of the special devotion to poetry during the Augustan Age.
5. The love of nature in Roman poetry.
6. What were the Collegia poetarum? In what connection are they mentioned?
7. What methods of appraising literary work existed at Rome? Was there anything analogous to our review system? If so, how did it differ at different epochs?
8. Sketch the development of the Mime, and account for its decline.
9. Criticise the merits and defects of the various forms which historical composition assumed at Rome (Hegel, Philos. of History, Preface).
10. "Inveni lateritiam: reliqui marmoream" (Augustus). The material splendour of imperial Rome as affecting literary genius. (Contrast the Speech of Pericles. Thuc. ii. 37, sqq.)
11. Varro dicit Musas Plautino sermone locuturas fuisse, si Latine loqui vellent (Quintil.). Can this encomium be justified? If so, show how.
12. "Cetera quae vacuas tenuissent carmine mentes." Is the true end of poetry to occupy a vacant hour? Illustrate by the chief Roman poets.
13. The vitality of Greek mythology in Latin and in modern poetry.
14. State succinctly the debt of Roman thought, in all its branches, to Greece.
15. What is the permanent contribution to human progress given by Latin literature?
16. Criticise Mommsen's remark, that the drama is, after all, the form of literature for which the Romans were best adapted.
17. Form some estimate of the historical value of the old annalists.
18. What sources of information were at Livy's command in writing his history? Did he rightly appreciate their relative value?
19. What influence did the old Roman system have in repressing poetical ideas?
20. In what sense is it true that the intellectual progress of a nation is measured by its prose writers?
21. Philosophy and poetry set before themselves the same problem. Illustrate from Roman literature.
22. Account for the notable deficiency in lyric inspiration among Roman poets.
23. Compare the influence on thought and action of the elder and younger Cato.
24. Examine the alleged incapacity of the Romans for speculative thought.
25. Compare or contrast the Italic, the Etruscan, the Greek, and the Vedic religions, as bearing on thought and literature.
26. Compare the circumstances of the diffusion of Greek and Latin beyond the limits within which they were originally spoken.
27. Analyse the various influences under which the poetical vocabulary of Latin was formed.
28. Give the rules of the Latin accent, and show how it has affected Latin Prosody. Is there any reason for thinking that it was once subjected to different rules?
29. "Latin literature lacks originality." How far is this criticism sound?
30. Examine the influence of the Alexandrine poets upon the literature of the later Republic, and of the Augustan Age.
31. What is the value of Horace as a literary critic?
32. Give a brief sketch of the various Roman writers on agriculture.
33. It has been remarked, that while every great Roman author expresses a hope of literary immortality, few, if any, of the great Greek authors mention it. How far is this difference suggestive of their respective national characters, and of radically distinct conceptions of art?
34 What instances do we find in Latin literature of the novel or romance? When and where did this style of composition first become common?
35. Trace accurately the rhythmical progress of the Latin hexameter, and indicate the principal differences between the rhythm of Lucretius, Virgil, and Horace's epistles.
36. Distinguish between the development and the corruption of a language. Illustrate from Latin literature.
37. "Virgilius amantissimus vetustatis." Examine in all its bearings the antiquarian enthusiasm of Virgil.
38. "Verum orthographia quoque consuetudini servit, ideoque saepe mutata est" (Quintil.). What principles of spelling (if any), appear to be adopted by the best modern editors?
39. Show that the letter v, in Latin, had sometimes the sound of w, sometimes that of b; that the sounds o u, e i, i u, e q, were frequently interchanged respectively.
40. Examine the traces of a satiric tendency in Roman literature, independent of professed satire.
41. How far did the Augustan poets consciously modify the Greek metres they adopted?
42. Is it a sound criticism to call the Romans a nation of grammarians? Give a short account of the labours of any two of the great Roman grammarians, and estimate their value.
43. Cicero (De Leg. i. 2, 5) says: "Abest historia a literis nostris." Quintilian (x. i. 101) says: "Historia non cesserit Graecis." Criticise these statements.
44. "O dimidiate Menander." By whom said? Of whom said? Criticise.
45. Examine and classify the various uses of the participles in Virgil.
46. What are the chief peculiarities of the style of Tacitus?
47. "Roman history ended where it had begun, in biography." (Merivale). Account for the predominance of biography in Latin literature.
48. The Greek schools of rhetoric in the Roman period. Examine their influence on the literature of Rome, and on the intellectual progress of the Roman world.
49. In what sense can Ennius rightly be called the father of Latin literature?
50. Can the same rules of quantity be applied to the Latin comedians as to the classical poets?
51. Mention any differences in syntax between Plautus and the Augustan writers.
62. Examine the chief defects of ancient criticism.
53. The value of Cicero's letters from a historical and from a literary point of view.
54. What evidence with regard to Latin pronunciation can be gathered from the writings of Plautus and Terence?
55. Examine the nature of the chief problems involved in the settlement of the text of Lucretius.
56. Compare the Homeric characters as they appear in Virgil with their originals in the Iliad and Odyssey, and with the same as treated by the Greek tragedians.
57. How far is it true that Latin is deficient in abstract terms? What new coinages were made by Cicero?
58. Contrast Latin with Greek (illustrating by any analogies that may occur to you in modern languages) as regards facility of composition. Did Latin vary in this respect at different periods?
59. What are the main differences in Latin between the language and constructions of poetry and those of prose?
60. The use of tmesis, asyndeton, anacoluthon, aposiopesis, hyperbaton, hyperbole, litotes, in Latin oratory and poetry.
61. What traces, are there of systematic division according to a number of lines in the poems of Catullus or any other Latin poet with whom you are familiar? (See Ellis's Catullus).
62. Trace the history of the Atellanae, and account for their being superseded by the Mime.
63. Examine the influence of the other Italian nationalities on Roman literature.
64. Which of the great periods of Greek literature had the most direct or lasting influence upon that of Rome?
65. What has been the influence of Cicero on modern literature (1) as a philosophical and moral teacher; (2) as a stylist?
66. Give some account of the Ciceronianists.
67. What influence did the study of Virgil exercise (1) on later Latin literature; (2) on the Middle Ages; (3) on the poetry of the eighteenth century?
68. Who have been the most successful modern writers of Latin elegiac verse?
69. Distinguish accurately between oratory and rhetoric. Discuss their relative predominance in Roman literature, and compare the latter in this respect with the literatures of England and France.
70. Give a succinct analysis of any speech of Cicero with which you are familiar, and show the principles involved in its construction.
71. Discuss the position and influence of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophies in the last age of the Republic.
72. State what plan and principle Livy lays down for himself in his History. Discuss and illustrate his merits as a historian, showing how far he performs what he promises.
73. Give the political theory of Cicero as stated in his De Republica and De Legibus, and contrast it with either that of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavel, or Sir Thomas More.
74. Analyse the main argument of the De Natura Deorum. Has this treatise a permanent philosophical value?
75. How far did the greatest writers of the Empire understand the conditions under which they lived, and the various forces that acted around them?
76. Examine the importance of the tragedies ascribed to Seneca in the history of European literature. To whom else have they been ascribed?
77. How did the study of Greek literature at Rome affect the vocabulary and syntax of the Latin language?
78. The influence of patronage on literature. Consider chiefly with reference to Rome, but illustrate from other literatures.
79. Are there indications that Horace set before him, as a satirist, the object of superseding Lucilius?
80. Compare the relation of Persius to Horace with that of Lucan to Virgil.
81. Account for the imperfect success of Varro as an etymologist, and illustrate by examples.
82. What is known of Nigidius Figulus, the Sextii, Valerius Soranus, and Apuleius as teachers of philosophic doctrine?
83. Sketch the literary career of the poet Accius.
84 What were the main characteristics of the old Roman oratory? What classical authorities exist for its history?
85. Prove the assertion that jurisprudence was the only form of intellectual activity that Rome from first to last worked out in a thoroughly national manner.
86. Compare the portrait of Tiberius as given by Tacitus, with any of the other great creations of the historic imagination. How far is it to be considered truthful?
87. At what time did abridgments begin to be used at Rome? Account for their popularity throughout the Middle Ages, and mention some of the most important that have come down to us.
88. What remains of the writers on applied science do we possess?
89. Is it probable that the great developments of mathematical and physical science at Alexandria had any general effect upon the popular culture of the Roman world?
90. What are our chief authorities for the old Roman religion?
91. Account for the influence of Fronto, and give a list of his writings.
92. Which are the most important of the public, and which ef the private, orations of Cicero? Give a short account of one of each class, with date, place, and circumstances of delivery. How were such speeches preserved? Had the Romans any system of reporting?
93. A life of Silius Italicus with a short account of his poem.
94. Who, in your opinion, are the nearest modern representatives of Horace, Lucilius, and Juvenal?
95. In what particulars do the alcaic and sapphic metres of Horace differ from their Greek models? What are the different forms of the asclepiad metre in Horace? Have any of the Horatian metres been used by other writers?
96. Enumerate the chief imitations of Ennius in Virgil, noting the alterations where such occur.
97. Point out the main features of the Roman worship. (See index to Merivale's Rome, s. v. Religion.)
98. Write a life of Maecenas, showing his position as chief minister of the Empire, and as the centre of literary society of Rome during the Augustan Age.
99. Donaldson, in his Varronianus, argues that the French rather than the Italian represents the more perfect form of the original Latin. Test this view by a comparison of words in both languages with the Latin forms.
100. Give a summary of the argument in any one of the following works:— Cicero's De Finibus, Tusculan disputations, De Officis, or the first and second books of Lucretius.
101. State the position and influence on thought and letters of the two Scipios, Laelius, and Cato the censor.
102. Give Caesar's account of the religion of the Gauls, and compare it with the locus classicus on the subject in Lucan (I. 447). What were the national deities of the Britons, and to which of the Roman deities were they severally made to correspond?
103. Examine the chief differences between the Ciceronian and Post- Augustan syntax.
104. Trace the influence of the study of comparative philology on Latin scholarship.
105. "Italy remained without national poetry or art" (Mommsen). In what sense can this assertion be justified?
106. What passages can you collect from Virgil, Horace, Tacitus, and Juvenal, showing their beliefs on the great questions of philosophy and religion?
107. Examine the bearings of a highly-developed inflectional system like those of the Greek and Latin languages, upon the theory of prose composition.
108. To what periods of the life of Horace would you refer the composition of the Book of Epodes and the Books of Satires and Epistles? Confirm your view by quotations.
109. What is known of Suevius, Pompeius Trogus, Salvius Julianus, Gaius, and Celsus?
110. Who were the chief writers of encyclopaedias at Rome?
111. How do you account for the short duration of the legitimate drama at Rome?
112. Who were the greatest Latin scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? In what department of scholarship did they mostly labour, and why?
113. Enumerate the chief losses which Latin literature has sustained.
114. Who were the original inhabitants of Italy? Give the main characteristics of the Italic family of languages. To which was it most nearly akin?
115. Illustrate from Juvenal the relations between patron and client.
116. Contrast briefly the life and occupations of an Athenian citizen in the time of Pericles and Plato, with those of a Roman in the age of Cicero and Augustus.
N.B.—Many other questions will be suggested by referring to the Index.
[1] Quint. I. 5, 72. The whole chapter is most interesting.
[2] How different has been the lot of Greek! An educated Greek at the present day would find little difficulty in understanding Xenophon or Menander. The language, though shaken by rude convulsions, has changed according to its own laws, and shown that natural vitality that belongs to a genuinely popular speech.
[3] See Conington on the Academical Study of Latin. Post. Works, i. 206.
[4] See esp. R. II. Bk. 1, ch. ix. and xv.
[1] E.g. Finns, Lapps, or other Turanian tribes.
[2] The Latin agrees with the Celtic in the retention of the dat. plur. in bus (Celt, ib), Rigaib = regibus; and the pass. in r, Berthar = fertur.
[3] Cf. Plaut. Cure. 150, Lydi (v. 1, ludii) barbari. So Vos, Tusci ac barbari, Tib. Gracch. apud Cic. de Div. ii. 4. Compare Virgil's Pinguis Tyrrhenus.
[4] It is probable that Sp. Carvilius merely popularised the use of this letter, and perhaps gave it its place in the alphabet as seventh letter.
[5] Inst. Or. 1, 7, 14.
[6] In Cicero's time the semi-vowel j in the middle of words was often denoted by ii; and the long vowel i represented by the prolongation of the letter above and sometimes below the line.
[7] 1, 4, 7.
[8] This subject is well illustrated in the introduction to Masson's ed. of Todd's Milton.
[9] The reader should consult the introduction to Notes I. in Munro's Lucretius.
[10] Var. L. L. v. 85.
[11] Hor. Ep. ii. 1, 86.
[12] E.g. edepol, ecastor.
[13] Prob. an old optative, afterwards used as a fut.
[14] Cf. dic. fer.
[15] L. L. vii. 26, 27.
[16] Oscan estud. This is one of several points in which the oldest Latin approximates to the other Italian dialects, from which it gradually became more divergent. Cf. paricidas (Law of Numa) nom. sing. with Osc. Maras.
[17] Pol. iii. 22. Polybius lived in the time of the younger Scipio; but the antiquity of this treaty has recently been impugned.
[18] Inst. Or. i. 7, 12.
[19] Or, accentuating differently, "quoiús formá virtútei | párisumá fúit." We notice the strange quantity Lucius, which recalls the Homeric uperopliae.
[20] From Thompson's Essay on the Sources and Formation of the Latin Language; Hist. Of Roman Literature; Encyclopaedia Metropolitana.
[1] The Ludi Romani, as they were afterwards called.
[2] Satura.
[3] The early laws were called "carmina," a term applied to any set form of words, Liv. i. 25, Lex horrendi carminis. The theory that all laws were in the Saturnian rhythm is not by any means probable.
[4] The passages on which this theory was founded are chiefly the following:—"Cic. Brut. xix. utinam extarent illa carmina, quae multis saeculis ante suam aetatem in epulis esse cantitata a singulis convivis de clarorum virorum laudibus in Originibus seriptum reliquit Cato." Cf. Tusc. i. 2, 3, and iv. 2, s.f. Varro, as quoted by Non, says: "In conviviis pueri modesti ut cantarent carmina antiqua, in quibus laudes erant maiorum, et assa voce et cum tibicine." Horace alludes to the custom, Od. iv. 15, 27, sqq.
[5] Poeticae arti honos uon erat: si qui in ea re studebat, aut sese ad convivia adplicabat, grassator vocabatur.—Cato ap. Aul Gell. N.A. xi. 2, 5.
[6] In his epitaph.
[7] See Mommsen Hist. i. p. 240.
[8] It is a term of contempt in Ennius, "_quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant."
[9] Virg. Ecl. ix. 34.
[10] Fest. p. 333a, M.
[11] Ep. ii. 1, 162.
[12] It has been argued from a passage in Livy (ix. 36), "Habeo auctores vulgo tum Romanos pueros, sicut nunc Graecis, ita Etruscis literis erudiri solitos," that literature at Rome must be dated from the final conquest of Etruria (294 B.C.); but the Romans had long before this date been familiar with Etruscan literature, such as it was. We have no ground for supposing that they borrowed anything except the art of divination, and similar studies. Neither history nor dramatic poetry was cultivated by the Etruscans.
[13] Others, again, explain fascinum as = phallos, and regard the songs as connected with the worship of the reproductive power in nature. This seems alien from the Italian system of worship, though likely enough to have existed in Etruria. If it ever had this character, it must have lost it before its introduction into Rome.
[14] Ep. ii. 1, 139, sqq.
[15] vii. 2.
[16] Macr. S. ii. 4, 21.
[17] C. lii.
[18] C. lxi.
[19] Loc. cit.
[20] Juv. viii. 191.
[21] Some have imagined that, as Saturnia tellus is used for Italy, so Saturnius numerus may simply mean the native or Italian rhythm. Bentley (Ep. Phal. xi.) shows that it is known to the Greeks.
[22] The name prochaios, "the running metre," sufficiently indicates its applicability to early recitations, in which the rapidity of the singer's movements was essential to the desired effect.
[23] Attilius Fortunatianus, De Doctr. Metr. xxvi. Spengel (quoted Teuff. Rom. Lit. § 53, 3) assumes the following laws of Saturnian metre:— "(1) The Saturnian line is asynartetic; (2) in no line is it possible to omit more than one thesis, and then only the last but one, generally in the second half of the line; (3) the caesura must never be neglected, and falls after the fourth thesis or the third arsis (this rule, however, is by no means universally observed); (4) hiatus is often permitted; (5) the arsis may be solved, and the thesis replaced by pyrrhics or long syllables."
[24] The reader will find this question discussed in Wagner's Aulularia; where references are given to the original German authorities.
[25] Dactylic poetry is not here included, as its progress is somewhat different. In this metre we observe: (1) That when a dactyl or spondee ends a word, the natural and metrical accents coincide; e.g.—ómnia, súnt mihi, prorúmpunt. Hence the fondness for such easy and natural endings as claudúntur lúmina nócte, common in all writers down to Manilius. (2) That the caesura is opposed to the accent, e.g.—árma virúmque cáno | Troiae | qui. These anti-accentual rhythms are continually found in Virgil, Ovid, &c. from a fondness for caesura, where the older writers have qui Troiae, and the like. (3) That it would be possible to avoid any collision between ictus and accent, e.g.—scílícet ómnibus ést labor ímpendéndus et ómnes: inveteráscit et aégro in corde senescit, &c. But the rarity of such lines after Lucretius shows that they do not conform to the genius of the language. The correspondence thus lost by improved caesura is partially re-established by more careful elision. Elision is used by Virgil to make the verse run smoothly without violating the natural pronunciation of the words; e.g.—mónstrum horréndum infórme; but this is only in the Aeneid. Such simple means of gaining this end as the Lucretian sive volúptas est, immortáli súnt, are altogether avoided by him. On the whole, however, among the Dactylic poets, from Ennius to Juvenal, the balance between natural and metrical accent remained unchanged.
[26] Most of the verses extant in this metre will be found in Wordsworth's Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin.
[27] A good essay on this subject is to be found in Wordsworth's Fragments p. 580, sqq.
[1] Scipio quoted Homer when he saw the flames of Carthage rising. He is described as having been profoundly moved. And according to one report Caesar's last words, when he saw Brutus among his assassins, were kahi se teknon.
[2] The reader will find them all in Wordsworth.
[3] Brut. xviii. 71, non digna sunt quae iterum legantur.
[4] Ep. ii. 1, 69.
[5] Liv. vii. 2.
[6] 19, 35. The lines are—
"Etiam purpureo suras include cothurno,
Altius et revocet volueres in pectore sinus:
Pressaque iam gravida crepitent tibi terga pharetra;
Derige odorisequos ad certa cubilia canes."
In their present form these verses are obviously a century and a half at least later than Livius.
[7] Livy, xxvii. 37.
[8] Gell. xvii. 21, 45.
[9] See page 46.
[10] The reader may like to see one or two specimens. We give one from tragedy (the Lycurgus):
"Vos qui regalis corporis custodias
Agitatis, ite actutum in frundiferos locos,
Ingenio arbusta ubi nata sunt, non obsita;"
and one from comedy (the Tarentilla), the description of a coquette—
"Quasi pila
In choro ludens datatim dat se et communem facit;
Alii adnutat, alii adnictat, alium amat, alium tenet.
Alibi manus est occupata, alii percellit pedem,
Anulum alii dat spectandum, a labris alium invocat,
Alii cantat, attamen alii suo dat digito literas."
[11] The Hariolius and Leo.
[12] Mil. Glor. 211.
[13] Brut. 19, 75.
[14] If immortals might weep for mortals, the divine Camenae would weep for Naevius the poet; thus it is that now he has been delivered into the treasure-house of Orcus, men have forgotten at Rome how to speak the Latin tongue.
[1] See Livy, vii. 2.
[2] The most celebrated was that erected by Scaurus in his aedileship 58 B.C., an almost incredible description of which is given by Pliny, N.H. xxxvi. 12. See Dict. Ant. Theatrum, whence this is taken.
[3] A temporary stone theatre was probably erected for the Apollinarian Games, 179 B.C. If so, it was soon pulled down; a remarkable instance of the determination of the Senate not to encourage dramatic performances.
[4] Done by Curio, 50 B.C.
[5] Primus subselliorum ordo.
[6] Otho's Law, 68 B.C.
[7] See Mommsen, Bk. iii. ch. xv.
[8] See prol. to Andria.
[9] Quint. x. 1, Comoedia maxime claudicamus.
[10] Hor. Ep. ii. 1, 170.
"At vestri proavi Plautinos et numeros et
Laudavere sales: nimium patienter utrumque
Ne dicam stulte mirati."
[11] De Off. i. 29, 104.
[12] iii. 3, 14.
[13] This process is called contamination. It was necessitated by the fondness of a Roman audience for plenty of action, and their indifference to mere dialogue.
[14] Cic. de Sen. 50.
[15] ii. 2, 35.
[16] Poen. v. 1.
[17] Plautus himself calls it Tragico-comoedia.
[18] We find in Donatus the term crepidata, which seems equivalent to palliata, though it probably was extended to tragedy, which palliata apparently was not. Trabeata, a term mentioned by Suet. in his Treatise de Grammat., seems = praetextata, at all events it refers to a play with national characters of an exalted rank.
[19] E.g. trahax, perenniservus, contortiplicati, parcipromus, prognariter, and a hundred others. In Pseud. i. 5; ii. 4, 22, we have charin touto poio, nal nam, kai touto dae, and other Greek modes of transition. Cf. Pers. ii. 1, 79.
[20] One needs but to mention forms like danunt, ministreis, hibus, sacres, postidea dehibere, &c. and constructions like quicquam uti, istanc tactio, quid tute tecum? Nihil enim, and countless others, to understand the primary importance of Plautus's works for a historical study of the development of the Latin language.
[21] De Opt. Gen. Or. 1; cf. Att. vii. 3, 10.
[22] "in eis quas primum Caecili didici novas
Partim sum earum exactus, partim vix steti.
* * * * *
Perfeci ut spectarentur: ubi sunt cognitae
Placitae sunt"
—Prol. 2, 14.
[23] 2 Hor. Ep, li. 1, 59. Vincere Caecilius gravitate.
[24] Adelph. prol.:
"Nam quod isti dicunt malevoli, homines nobiles
Hunc adiutare, assidueque una scribere;
Quod illi maledictmn vehemens existimant,
Eam laudem hic ducit maximam: cum illis placet,
Qui vobis universis et populo placent:
Quorum opera in bello, in otio, in negotio
Suo quisque tempore usus est sine superbia."
[25] See prol. to Andria.
[26] Suet. Vit. Ter.
[27] Tu quoque tu in summis, o dimidiate Menander, poneris, &c.—Ib.
[28] Possibly the following may be exceptions:—Andr. 218; Haut. 218, 356; Hec. 543. See Teuffel.
[29] See the first scene of the Adelphoe.
[30] Metriotaes, the quality so much admired by the Greek critics, in which Horace may be compared with Terence. Cf. Aul. Gell. vi. (or vii.) 14, 6.
[31] 1. 37, sqq.
[32] Suet. Vit. Ter.
[33] Sat. 1, 4, 53, referring to the scene in the Adelphoe.
[34] Except in the prologues to the Eun. and Hecyra.
[35] 805, "ut quimus" aiunt, "quando ut volumus non licet." The line of Caecilius is "Vivas ut possis quando non quis ut velis."
[36] Georg. iii. 9.
"Tentanda via est qua me quoque possim
Toll ere humo victorque virum volitare per ora."
He expresses his aspiration after immortality in the same terms that
Ennius had employed.
[37] Eun. v. iv.
[38] Or "Lanuvinus." Those who wish to know the inartistic expedients to which he resorted to gain applause should read the prologues of Terence, which are most valuable materials for literary criticism.
[39] Att. xiv. 20, 3.
[40] Teuffel 103.
[41] Sometimes called Tabernaria, Diomed iii. p. 488, though, strictly speaking, this denoted a lower and more provincial type.
[42] x. 1, 100.
[1] Quadrati versus. Gell. ii. 29.
[2] Cic. de Sen. 5, 14.
[3] Ep. I. xix. 7.
[4] Nunquam poetor nisi podager.
[5] Quintus Maeonides pavone ex Pythagoreo (Persius).
[6] Greek, Oscan, and Latin.
[7] Ep. II. i. 52.
[8] Fragment of the Telamo.
[9] Aufert Pacuvius docti famam senis.—Hor. Ep. ii. 1, 56.
[10] We learn from Pliny that he decorated his own scenes.
[11] We infer that he came to Rome not later than 169, as in that year he buried Ennius; but it is likely that he arrived much earlier.
[12] De Am. vii.
[13] 1, 77. "Antiopa aerumnis cor luctificabile fulta."
[14] Tusc. II. x. 48.
[15] The Antiopa and Dulorestes.
[16] Quint. I. V. 67-70.
[17] We give the reader an example of this feature of Pacuvius's style. In the Antiopa, Amphion gives a description of the tortoise: "Quadrupes tardigrada agrestis humilis aspera Capite brevi cervice anguina aspectu truci Eviscerata inanima, cum artimali sono." To which his hearers reply —"Ita saeptuosa dictione abs te datur, Quod coniectura sapiens aegre contulit. Non intelligimus nisi si aperte dixeris."
[18] Prob. 94 B.C. when Cic. was twelve years old. In Planc. 24, 59, he calls him "gravis et ingeniosus poeta."
[19] Cf. Hor. Ep. ii. 1, 56; Cv. Am. i. 15, 19. On the other hand, Hor. S. I. x. 53.
[20] Loco = decori, Non. 338, 22.
[21] Compare a similar subtle distinction in the Dulorestes, "Piget paternum nomen, maternum pudet profari."
[22] Propria = perpetua, Non. 362, 2.
[1] Vahlen, quoted by Teuffel, § 90, 3; see Gell. xvii. 21, 43.
[2] Post. Works, i. p. 344.
[3] Inest in genere et sanctitas regum, qui plurimum inter nomines pollent, et caerimonia deorum, quorum ipsi in potestate sunt reges.— Suet. Jul. 6.
[4] "Postquamst morte datus Plautus Comoedia luget:
Scaenast deserta; dein Risus, Ludus, Jocusque
Et numeri innumeri simul omnes collacrumarunt."
—Gell. i. 24, 3.
[5] "Amnem, Troiugena, Cannam Romane fuge hospes," is the best known of these lines. Many others have been collected, and have been arranged with less probability, in Saturnian verse by Hermann. The substance is given, Livy, xxv. 12. See Browne, Hist. Rom. Lit. p. 34, 35. Another is preserved by Ennius, Aio te, Aeacida, Romanes vincere posse.
[6] The shortening of final o, ergo, pono, vigilando, through the influence of accent, is almost the only change made after Ennius except in a few proper names.
[7] Compare that of the horse (II. vi. 506), "Et tum sicut equus qui de praesepibu' fartus Vincla suis magnis animis abrupit, et inde Fert sese campi per caerula laetaque prata Celso pectore, saepe iubam quassat simul altam. Spiritus ex anima calida spumas agit albas," with Virg. Aen. xi. 492.
[8] Lucr. i. 111.
[9] Tr. ii. 424.
[10] Sat. vi. 1.
[12] Imitated respectively, Virg. A. iv. 585; A. i. 539; A. x. 361.
[1] Satira tota nostra est.—Quint. x. i.
[2] Aen. vi. 847, sqq. G. ii. 190; ib. 461, sqq.
[3] On this subject the reader may be referred to Merivale's excellent remarks in the last chapter of his History of the Romans under the Empire.
[4] It is probable that there were two kinds of Greek drama satyrikon; the tragic, of which we have an example in the Cyclops of Euripides, which represented the gods in a ludicrous light, and was abundantly furnished with Sileni, Satyrs, &c.; and the comic, which was cultivated at Alexandria, and certainly represented the follies and vices of contemporary life under the dramatic guise of heroic incident. But it is the non-dramatic character of Roman Satire that at once distinguishes it from these forms.
[5] See Hor. S. i. iv. 1-6.
[6] These were of a somewhat different type, and will not be further discussed here. See p. 144. Cf. Quint, x. 1, 95.
[7] Not invariably, however, by Lucilius himself. He now and then employed the trochaic or iambic metres.
[8] Sat. i. iv. 39, and more to the same effect in the later part of the satire.
[9] "In hora saepe ducentos ut multum versus dictabat stans pede in uno." Sat. 1, iv. 9.
[10] Posthumous Works, vol. ii. on the Study of Latin.
[11] iii. p. 481, P. (Teuffel).
[13] As, e.g. the Precepts of Ofella, S. ii. 2, and the Unde et quo Catius? S. ii. 4.
[14] The words are, (1) "Hic est ille situs, cui nemo civis neque hostis Quivit pro factis reddere operae pretium," where "operae" must be pro nounced "op'rae;" (2) "A sole exoriente supra Mucotis paludes Nemo est qui factis me acquiparare queat. Si fas eudo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est, Mi soli caeli maxima porta patet."
[15] Infra Lucili censum, Sat. ii. 1, 75.
[16] L. Corn. Lentulus Lupus.
[17] Pers. i. 115.
[18] "Primores populi arripuit populumque tributim,
Scilicet uni aequus virtuti atque eius amicis."
—Hor. Sat. ii. 1, 69.
[19] Ense velut stricto quoties Lucilius ardens Infremuit, rubet auditor cui frigida mens est Criminibus, tacita sudant praecordia culpa.—Juv. i. 165.
[20] X. i. 93.
[21] Plin. N. H. Praef.
[22] De Fin. i. 3, 7.
[23] "Lucilianae humilitatis."—Petronius.
[24] Sat. i. x.
[25] Primus condidit stili nasum, N. H. Praef.
[26] As instances we may take "Has res ad te scriptas Luci misimus Aeli:" again, "Si minus delectat, quod atechnon et Eisocratiumst, _Laerodes_que simul totum ac sum meirakiodes …" or worse still, "Villa Lucani mox potieris aca" for "Lucaniaca," quoted by Ausonius, who adds "Lucili vati sic imitator eris."
[27] From which Hor. borrowed his Iter ad Brundisium.
[28] Hor. S. i. x.
[29] Cic. de Fin. i. 3, 7.
[1] Liv. vii. 2. The account, however, is extremely confused.
[2] Liv. x. 208, gnaros Oscae linguae exploratum mittit.
[3] See Teuff. R. Lit. 9, § 4.
[4] Ad Fam. ix. 16, 7.
[5] Val. Max. ii. 1.
[6] Sat. i. 10, 3.
[7] The names are Aleones, Prostibulum, Pannuceatae, Nuptiae, Privignus, Piscatores, Ergastulum, Patruus, Asinaria, Rusticus, Dotata, Decuma Fullonis, Praeco, Bucco, Macci gemini, Verres aegrotus, Pistor, Syri, Medicus, Maialis, Sarcularius, Augur, Petitor, Anulus, Praefectus, Arista, Ilernia, Poraria, Marsupium, Aeditumus, Auctoratus, Satyra, Galli, Transalpini, Maccus miles, Maccus sequester, Pappus Agricola, Leno, Lar familiaris, &c.
[8] iii. 174, vi. 71.
[9] Viz. his own epitaph, and those on Scipio, p. 78, ii. 4.
[10] xix. 9, 14.
[11] De Nat. Deor. i. 28, 79.
[12] Vit. Ter.
[13] = Pacuvi.
[1] So says Servius, but this can hardly be correct. See the note at the end of the chapter.
[2] E.g. iv. 7, 13, 20.
[3] The Roman mind was much more impressible to rich colour, decoration, &c. than the Greek. Possibly painting may on this account have met with earlier countenance.
[4] R. H. vol. i. p. 272.
[5] Liv. xxi. 38. calls him "maximus auctor."
[6] Sat. i. 12.
[7] vii. 3.
[8] The question does not concern us here. The reader is referred to Niebuhr's chapter on the Era from the foundation of the city.
[9] Cic. de Off. iii. 32, 115.
[10] This is an inference, but a probable one, from a statement of Plutarch.
[11] Vide M. Catonis Reliquiae, H. Jordan, Lips. 1860.
[12] So he himself asserted; but they did not hold any Roman magistracy.
[13] Gell. xi. 2.
[14] Plin. N. H. vii. 27.
[15] Liv. xxxix. 40.
[16] De Sen. xvii. 65.
[17] Brut. xvi. 63.
[18] See H. Jordan's treatise.
[19] This was his age when he accused the perjured Galba after his return from Numantia (149 B.C.)—one of the finest of his speeches.
[20] Cato, 3, 2-4.
[21] See Wordsworth, Fr. of early Latin, p. 611, § 2.
[22] Serv. ad Virg. Aen. i. 267.
[23] Charis. ii. p. 181 (Jord).
[24] Serv. ad Virg. Aen. xi. 700.
[25] Gell. ii. 28, 6.
[26] Gell. iii. 7, 1.
[27] xii. 11, 23.
[28] Opikes. Cato's superficial knowledge of Greek prevented him from knowing that this word to Greek ears conveys no insult, but is a mere ethnographic appellation.
[29] Plin. N.H. xxix. 8, 15.
[30] De Sen. He gives the ground of it "quia multarum rerum usum habebat."
[31] Cic. de Or. 11, 33, 142.
[32] Cic. de Off. i. 11. 10.
[33] Plin. xiii. 37, 84, and xxix. 6.
[34] De Or. ii. 12. See Nieb. Introd. Lect. iv.
[35] Annales, also Commentarii.
[36] Exiliter scriptos, Brut. 27, 106.
[37] See Quint. x. 1, passim.
[38] Gell. vii. 9, 1; speaks in this way of Piso.
[39] See Liv. i. 55.
[40] Cato, doubtless reflecting on the difficulty with which he had formed his own style, says "Literarum radices amarae, fructus incundiores."
[41] Liv. lxxiv. Epit.
[42] aulo influxit vehementius … agrestis ille quidem et horridus.— Cic. leg. i. 2, 6. So "addidit historiae maiorem sonum," id. de Or. ii. 12, 54.
[43] xxix. 27.
[44] Plut. Numa. i.
[45] ix. 13. So Fronto ap. Gell. xiii. 29, 2.
[46] Aegis katestoaumenae, as distinct from Aegis eiromenae, Ar. Rhet.
[47] vii. 9.
[48] Liv. xxiii. 2.
[49] Id. xx. 8.
[50] iv. 7.
[1] The evil results of a judicial system like that of Rome are shown by the lax views of so good a man as Quintilian, who compares deceiving the judges to a painter producing illusions by perspective (ii. 17, 21). "Nec Cicero, cum se tenebras offudisse iudicibus in causa Cluentii gloriatus est, nihil ipse vidit. Et pictor, cum vi artis suae efficit, ut quaedam eminere in opere, quaedam recessisse credamus, ipse ea plana esse non nescit."
[2] x. 1. 32.
[3] See the article Judicia Publica in Ramsay's Manual of Roman Antiquities.
[4] The reader is referred to the admirable account of the Athenian dicasteries in Grote's History of Greece.
[5] See Forsyth's Life of Cicero, ch. 3.
[6] Brut. xiv. 53.
[7] Quint. ii. 16, 8.
[8] Peitho quam vocant Graeci, cuius effector est Orator, hanc Suadam appellavit Ennius.—Cic. Br. 58.
[9] Brut. 65.
[10] Brut. 293.
[11] Cic. Sen. ii. 38.
[12] viii. 7, 1.
[13] Diom. ii. p. 468.
[14] Ep. ad. Anton. i. 2, p. 99.
[15] Jordan, p. 41.
[16] Brut. 82.
[17] Wordsworth gives extracts from Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus (228-169 B.C.), C. Titius (161 B.C.), Metellus Macedonicus (140 B.C.), the latter apparently modernised.
[18] He and Scipio are thus admirably characterised by Horace:—
"Virtus Scipiadae et mitis sapientia Laeli."
[19] Brut. xxi. 83.
[20] Cic. Brut, xxiii. The narrator from whom Cicero heard it was Rutilius Rufus.
[21] He did not attempt to justify himself, but by parading his little children he appealed with success to the compassion of his judges!
[22] In 149 B.C. Piso established a permanent commission to sit throughout the year for hearing all charges under the law de Repetundis. Before this every case was tried by a special commission. Under Sulla all crimes were brought under the jurisdiction of their respective commissions, which established the complete system of courts of law.
[23] Ch. 34.
[24] Brut. 97, 333.
[25] Hist. Rom. bk. iv. ch. iii.
[26] Cic. de Or. III. lx. 225.
[27] Brut. xxxiii. 125.
[28] The same will be observed in Greece. We are apt to think that the space devoted to personal abuse in the De Corona is too long. But it was the universal custom.
[29] Tac. Or. 26.
[30] Fronto, Ep. ad Ant. p. 114.
[31] Cic. Brut. xxix.
[32] Hor. Od. i. 12.
[33] Nobilis ornatur lauro collega secunda.—Juv. x.
[34] See Brut. xxxv. 132, sq.
[35] See Dunlop, vol. ii. p. 274.
[36] I.e. the continuous edict, as being issued fresh with every fresh praetor.
[37] De repetundis, de peculatu, de ambitu, de maiestate, de nummis adulterinis, de falsis testamentis, de sicariis, de vi.
[38] Verr. i. 14.
[39] That against Caepio, De Or. ii. 48, 199.
[40] Eloquentium iurisperitissimus: Scaevola was iurisperitorum eloquentissimus.—Brut. 145.
[41] De Or. iii. 1, 4.
[42] Brut. lv.
[43] Orator. lxiii. 213.
[44] Judiciorum rex. Divin. in Ae. Caecil. 7.
[45] Dict. Biog. s.v. Hortensius. Forsyth's Hortensius, and an article on him by M. Charpentier in his "Writers of the Empire," should be consulted.
[46] Div. in Q. Caecil.
[47] Brut. xcv.
[48] "Dellendus Cicero est, Latiaeque silentia linguae"—Sen Suas.
[1] Au vos consulere scitis, consulem facere nescitis? See Teuffel, R. L. § 130, 6.
[2] Lael. i. His character generally is given, Brut. xxvi. 102.
[3] Q. Mucius Scaevola, Pontifex, son of Publius, nephew of Q. Mucius Scaevola, Augur.
[4] Quoted by Teuffel, § 141, 2.
[5] Dict. Biog.
[6] See De Or. i. 53, 229.
[7] Ep. ii. 2, 89.
[8] ii. 4, 42.
[9] See Teuffel, Rom. Lit. 149, § 4.
[10] Compare Lucr. i. 633. Magis inter inanes quamde gravis inter Graios qui vera requirunt.
[11] Brut. lvi. 207.
[12] De Or. ii. 37.
[13] "egertika noaeseos."—Plat. Rep. Bk. iv.
[14] apatheia, ataraxia.
[15] epistaemae and doxa, so often opposed in Plato and Aristotle.
[16] Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 234. (Arkesilaos) kata men to procheiron pyrroneios ephaineto einai kata de taen alaetheian dogmatikos aen. So Bacon: Academia nova Acatalepsiam dogmatizavit.
[17] That is, all practically considered indifference or insensibility to be the thing best worth striving after.
[18] Cic. Tusc. iv. 3.
[19] Contrast the indifference of the vulgar for the tougher parts of the system. Lucr. "Haec ratio Durior esse videtur … retroque volgus abhorret ab hac."
[20] See a fuller account of this system under Lucretius.
[1] Caes. B. C. ii. 16-20. From i. 36, we learn that all further Spain had been intrusted to him. Varro was in truth no partisan; so long as he believed Pompey to represent the state, he was willing to act for him.
[2] Phil. ii. 40, 41.
[3] Cf. Hor. Ep. 2, 43, "Sabina qualis aut perusta solibus Pernicis uxor Appuli."
[4] Fr. of Catus. Cf. Juvenal. "Usque adeo nihil est quod nostra infantia caelum Hausit Aventinum, baca nutrita Sabina?"
[5] i. 4, 4.
[6] Ac. Post. i. 2. 8. He there speaks of them as vetera nostra.
[7] Given in Appendix, note i.
[8] Given in Aulus Gellius, xiii. xi. 1.
[9] v. i., et Romae quidem stat, sedet Athenis, nusquam autem cubat.
[10] We take occasion to observe the frequent insertion of Greek words, as in Lucilius and in Cicero's letters. These all recall the tone of high- bred conversation, in which Greek terms were continually employed.
[11] Mommsen, vol. iv. pt. 2, p. 594; Riese, Men. Satur. Reliquiae, Lips. 1865.
[12] See the interesting discussion in Cicero, Acad. Post. 1.
[13] Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum.
[14] He also quotes the Aeneid as a source of religious ideas. Civ. D. v. 18, 19, et al.
[15] C. D. vi. 3, qui agant, ubi agant, quando agant, quid agant.
[16] Qui exhibeant (sacra), ubi exhibeant, quando exhibeant, quid exhibeant, quibus exhibeant.
[17] Plato says, Synoptikis a dialektikos; the true philosopher can embrace the whole of his subject; at the same time, temnei kai arthpa; he carves it according to the joints, not according to his notions where the joints should be (Phaedr.) But the Romans only understood Plato's popular side.
[18] See the end of the Res Rust. Bk. i.
[19] L. L. ix, 15; cf. vi. 82, x. 16, v. 88.
[20] R. R. iii. 5.
[21] Acad. Post. i. 3.
[22] Civ. Dei iv. 31.
[23] Cic. De Or. i. 39; N. D. ii. 24.
[24] Civ. Dei vi. 5.
[25] Seneca.
[26] Civ. Dei xviii. 9, 10, 17.
[27] Ad Att. xvi. 11. The Greek term simply means "a gallery of distinguished persons," analogously named after the Peplos of Athene, on which the exploits of great heroes were embroidered.
[28] That on Demetrius Poliorcetes is preserved: "Hic Demetrius aeneis tot aptust Quot luces habet annus exsolutus" (aeneis = bronze statues).
[29] Plin. xxxv. 2; benignissimum inventum.
[30] See Bekker's Gallus, p. 30, where the whole subject is discussed.
[31] Civ. Dei, vi. 2.
[32] Aul. Gell. iii. 10, quotes also from the Hebdomades in support of this.
[33] Müller notices with justice the mistake of Cicero in putting down Varro as a disciple of Antiochus, whereas the frequent philosophical remarks scattered throughout the De Lingua Latina point to the conclusion that at this time, Varro had become attached to the doctrines of stoicism. It is evident that there was no real intimacy between him and Cicero. See ad Att. xiii. 12, 19; Fam. ix. 8.
[34] vi. 6, vii. 76.
[35] v. 92, vii. 32.
[36] v. 44, 178.
[37] v. 71, vii. 87.
[38] vi. 52, vii. 36.
[39] vii. 60; where, after a quotation from Plautus, we have—"hoc itidem in Corollaria Naevius: idem in Curculione ait,"—where the words from hoc to Naevius are an after addition. Cf. vii. 54.
[40] E.g. homo bulla—Di facientes adiuvant—Romani sedentes vincunt.
[41] Varro refuses to invoke the Greek gods, but turns to the old rustic di Consentes, Jupiter, Tellus; Sol, Luna; Robigus, Flora; Minerva, Venus; Liber, Ceres; Lympha and Bonus Eventus. A motley catalogue!
[42] ii. 4.
[43] ii. 4.
[1] The biographical details are to a great extent drawn from Forsyth's Life of Cicero.
[2] Or diosaemeia.
[3] Pro Quintio.
[4] Pro S. Roscio Amerino.
[5] See De Off. ii. 14.
[6] Pro Roscio Comoedo.
[7] Pro M. Tullio.
[8] Divinatio in Caecilium.
[9] In Verrem. The titles of the separate speeches are De Praetura Urbana, De Iurisdictione Siciliensi, De Frumento, De Signis, De Suppliciis.
[10] Pro Fonteio.
[11] Pro Caecina.
[12] Pro Matridio (lost).
[13] Pro Oppio (lost).
[14] Pro Fundanio (lost).
[15] Pro A. Cluentio Habito.
[16] Pro lege Manilia.
[17] Pro G. Cornelio.
[18] In toga candida.
[19] Pro. Q. Gellio (lost).
[20] De lege Agraria.
[21] Pro C. Rabirio.
[22] Pro Calpurnio Pisone (lost).
[23] In L. Catilinam.
[24] Pro Muraena.
[25] Pro Cornelio Sulla (lost).
[26] Pro Archia poeta.
[27] Pro Scip. Nasica.
[28] Orationes Consulares.
[29] Pro A. Themio (lost).
[30] Pro Flacco.
[31] Orationes post reditum. They are ad Senatum, and ad Populum.
[32] De domo sua.
[33] De haruspicum responsis.
[34] Pro L. Bestia.
[35] Pro Sextio.
[36] De Provinciis Consularibus.
[37] Pro Coelio.
[38] Pro Can. Gallo_ (lost).
[39] In Pisonen.
[40] Pro Plancio.
[41] Pro Scauro (lost).
[42] Pro G. Rabirio Postumo_ (lost).
[43] Pro T. Annia Milone.
[44] Pro Marcello.
[45] Pro Q. Ligario.
[46] Pro Rege Deiotaro.
[47] Orationes Philippicae in M. Antonium xiv.
[48] Such are the speeches for the Manilian law, for Marcellus, Archias, and some of the later Philippics in praise of Octavius and Servius Sulpicius.
[49] It will be remembered that Milo and Clodius had encountered each other on the Appian Road, and in the scuffle that ensued, the latter had been killed. Cicero tries to prove that Milo was not the aggressor, but that, even if he had been, he would have been justified, since Clodius was a pernicious citizen dangerous to the state.
[50] Rosc. Com. 7.
[51] In Verr. ii. v. 11.
[52] In Vatin. 2.
[53] Pro Font. 11.
[54] Pro Rabir. Post. 13.
[55] Cat. iii. 3.
[56] Pro Coel. 3.
[57] Phil. ii. 41.
[58] In Verr. v. 65.
[59] Pro Coel. 6.
[60] Pro Cluent. pass.
[61] Forsyth; p. 544.
[62] He himself quotes with approval the sentiment of Lucilius:
nec doctissimis; Manium Persium haec legere nolo; Iunium Congum volo.
[63] De Republica, De Legibus and De Officiis.
[64] N. D. ii. 1, fin.
[65] De Off. i. 43.
[66] See Acad. Post. ii. 41.
[67] De Off. i. 2.
[68] De Fin. ii. 12.
[69] De Fin. ii. 12.
[70] E.g. the sophisms of the Liar, the Sorites, and those on Motion.
[71] Ac. Post. 20.
[72] De Leg. i. 13 fin. Perturbatricem autem harum omnium rerum Academian hanc ab Arcesila et Carneado recentem exoremus ut sileat. Nam si invaserit in haec, quae satis scite nobis instructa et composita videntur, nimias edet ruinas. Quam quidem ego placare cupio, submovere non audeo.
[73] i. 28.
[74] Tusc, i. 12, a very celebrated and beautiful passage.
[75] The Paradoxes are—(1) oti monon to kalon agathon, (2) oti autarkaesaearetae pros eudaimonian, (3) oti isa ta amartaemata kai ta katorthomata, (4) oti pas aphron mainetai. We remember the treatment of this in Horace (S. ii. 3). (5) oti monos o sophos eleutheros kai pas athron doulos, (6) oti monos o sophos plousios.
[76] A well-known fragment of the sixth book, the Somnium Scipionis, is preserved in Macrobius.
[77] Latrant homines, non loquuntur is his strong expression, and in another place he calls the modern speakers clamatores non oratores.
[78] Calamus.
[79] Atramentum.
[80] Called Librarii or A manu.
[81] Caesar generally used as his cipher the substitution of d for a, and so on throughout the alphabet. It seems strange that so extremely simple a device should have served his purpose.
[82] This is Servius's spelling. Others read Temelastis, or Talemgais, Orelli thinks perhaps the title may have been ta en elasei (Taenelasi, corrupted to Tamelastis) i.e. de profectione sua, about which he tells us in the first Philippic.
[83] Brut. 75.
[84] Brut. 80.
[85] Sextilius Ena, a poet of Corduba. The story is told in Seneca, Suas. vi.
[1] Cicero went so far as to write some short commentarii on his consulship in Greek, and perhaps in Latin also; but they were not edited until after his death, and do not deserve the name of histories.
[2] Cf. ad. Fam.; v. 12, 1, and vi. 2, 3.
[3] X. i. 31. He calls it Carmen Solutum.
[4] See Bell. Civ. i. 4, 6, 8, 30; iii. 1.
[5] "Clementia tua," was the way in which he caused himself to be addressed on occasions of ceremony.
[6] B. G. iv. 12.
[7] B. G. ii. 34. and iii. 16.
[8] Ib. see vii. 82.
[9] It was then that, as Suetonius tells us, Caesar declared that Pompey knew not how to use a victory.
[10] B. G. v. 36.
[11] Ib. iii. 25.
[12] Ib. i. 6, 7.
[13] Ib. iii. 59.
[14] B. G. iii. 7.
[15] Suetonius thus speaks (Vit. Caes. 24) of his wanton aggression, "Nec deinde ulla belli occasione ne iniusti quidem ac periculosi abstinuit tam federatis tam infestis ac feris gentibus ultro lacessitis." An excellent comment on Roman lust of dominion.
[16] I am told by Professor Rolleston that Caesar is here mistaken. The pine, by which he presumably meant the Scotch fir, certainly existed in the first century B.C.; and as to the beech, Burnham beeches were then fine young trees. Doubtless changes have come over our vegetation. The linden or lime is a Roman importation, the small-leaved species alone being indigenous; so is the English elm, which has now developed specific differences, which have caused botanists to rank it apart. There is, perhaps, some uncertainty as to the exact import of the word fagus.
[17] B. G. vi. 11, sqq.
[18] Phars. i. 445-457.
[19] B. G. vi. 19.
[20] Ib. iii. 20.
[21] Ib. iv. 5.
[22] Ib. see i. 30; ii. 30.
[23] Ib. ii. 17; v. 5. Ib. iii. 16, 49, and many other passages.
[24] B. G. ii. 16, 207.
[25] Brut. lxxv. 262.
[26] "Calamistris inurere," a metaphor from curling the hair with hot irons. The entire description is in the language of sculpture, by which Cicero implies that Caesar's style is statuesque.
[27] "Praerepta non praebita facultas."
[28] B. C. ii. 27, 28.
[29] Ib. i. 67.
[30] Ib. iii. 78. Compare also the brilliant description of the siege of Salonae iii. 7.
[31] Vell. Pat. ii. 73.
[32] De Or. iii. 12.
[33] See Aul. Gell. i. 10.
[34] The word ambactus (= cliens); and the forms malacia, detrimentosus, libertati (abl.), Senatu (dat.). But these last can be paralleled from Cicero.
[36] Id. 5.
[37] Id. 33.
[38] Id. 31.
[39] Id. 5.
[40] Id. 15.
[41] Id. 19.
[42] E.g. 20.
[43] Ib.
[44] Tac. De Or. 21. "Non alius contra Ciceronem nominaretur." Quint. x. i. 114.
[45] Elegantia, Brut. 72, 252.
[46] The best will be found in Suet. Jul. Caes. vi. Aul. Gel. v. 13, xiii. 3. Val. Max. v. 3. Besides we can form some idea of them from the analysis of them in his own Commentaries.
[47] De Analogia, in two books, Suet. 56.
[48] Brut. lxxii.
[49] See the long quotation in Gall. xix. 8.
[50] Gell. ix. 14.
[51] Charis. i. 114.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Gell. vii. 9.
[54] Prisc. i. 545.
[55] Cassiod. ex Annaeo Cornuto.—De Orthog. col. 2228.
[56] Macrob. i. 16.
[57] E.g. Macrob. Sat. i. 16. Plin. xviii. 26.
[58] Sat. vi. 334.
[59] Cicero calls them Vituperationes, ad Att. xii. 41.
[60] Suet. Caes. 77.
[61] Suet. 78.
[62] Ib. 75. Flor. iv. 11, 50.
[63] Ib. 74.
[64] Doctis Iupiter! et laboriosis, Cat. i. 7.
[65] More particularly the life of his friend Atticus, which breathes a really beautiful spirit, though it suppresses some traits in his character which a perfectly truthful account would not have suppressed.
[66] This is Nipperdey's arrangement.
[67] Hist. Rom. vol. viii.
[68] ii. 2.
[69] i. 2.
[70] They are fully expounded in the second volume of Roby's Latin Grammar.
[71] Unless Cotus be thought a more accurate representative of the Greek.
[72] Nipperdey, xxxvi.-xxxviii. quoted by Teuffel.
[73] Dunlop, ii. p. 146.
[74] Suet. Caes. 45.
[75] Ib. 56.
[76] Victrix causa deis placuit, sed victa Catoni.—Phars. i. 128.
[77] Catil. 53.
[78] Cat. 3. The chapter is very characteristic; Jug. 3, scarcely less so.
[79] Suet. Gram. 15, tells us that a freedman of Pompey named Lenaeus vilified Sallust; he quotes one sentence: Nebulonem vita scriptisque monstrosum; praeterea priscorum Catonisque ineruditissimum furem. Cf. Pseudo-Cic. Decl. in Sall. 8; Dio. Hist. Rom. 43, 9.
[80] Res gestas carptim ut quaeque memoria digna videbantur, perscribere. Cat. 4.
[81] Anson, id. iv. ad Nepotem implies that he began his history 90 B.C. Cf. Plutarch, Compar. of Sulla and Lysander. And see on this controversy Dict. Biog. s. v. Sallust.
[82] Jug. 95.
[83] Suet. J. C. 3.
[84] A spe, metu, partibus, liber.—Cat. 4; cf. Tac. Hist. i. 1. So in the Annals, sine ira et studio.
[85] This is not certain, but the consensus of scholars is in favour of it.
[86] Cat. 31, Cicero's speech is called luculenta atque utilis Reipublicae, cf. ch. 48.
[87] Ib. 8, 41, compared with Caes. B. C. ii. 8; iii. 58, 60.
[88] Ib. 1, compared with 52 (Caesar's speech).
[89] See esp. Cat. 54.
[90] Jug. 15.
[91] Ib. 67.
[92] Jug. 31.
[93] Cat. 35, 43; cf. also ch. 49.
[94] Jug. 95.
[95] Cat. 5.
[96] Jug. 6, sqq.
[97] Cat. 15, and very similarly Jug. 72.
[98] Quint. x. 1. Nec opponere Thucydidi Sallustium verear. The most obvious imitations are, Cat. 12, 13, where the general decline of virtue seems based on Thuc. iii. 82, 83; and the speeches which obviously take his for a model.
[99] As instances we give—multo maxime miserabile (Cat. 36), incultus, ûs (54), neglegisset (Jug. 40), discordiscus (66), &c. Poetical constructions are—Inf. for gerund, often; pleraque nobilitas for maxima pars nobilium (Cat. 17). For asyndeton cf. Cat. 5, et saepiss.
[100] Cat. 10. The well-known line os ch' eteron men kenthoi eni phresin, allo os bazoi, is the original.
[101] Ib. i. 1, virtus clara aeternaque habetur; obedientia finxit.
[102] It should perhaps be noticed that many MSS. spell the name Salustius.
[1] The actors in the Atellanae not only wore masks but had the privilege of refusing to take them off if they acted badly, which was the penalty exacted from those actors in the legitimate drama who failed to satisfy their audience. Masks do not appear to have been used even in the drama until about 100 B.C.
[2] Second Philippic.
[3] Planipedes audit Fabios. Juv. viii. 190.
[4] "Or Jonson's learned sock be on." Milton here adopts the Latin synonym for comedy.
[5] The Pallium. This, of course, was not always worn.
[6] Ovid's account of the Mimus is drawn to the life, and is instructive as showing the moral food provided for the people under the paternal government of the emperors (Tr. ii. 497). As an excuse for his own free language he says, Quid si scripsissim Mimos obscaena iocantes Qui semper vetiti crimen amoris habent; In quibus assidue cultus procedit adulter, Verbaque dat stulto callida nupta viro? Nubilis haec virgo, matronaque, virque, puerque Spectat, et ex magna parte Senatus adest. Nec satis incestis temerari vocibus aures; Assuescunt oculi multa pudenda pati … Quo mimis prodest, scaena est lucrosa poetae, &c. The laxity of the modern ballet is a faint shadow of the indecency of the Mime.
[7] The passage is as follows (Ep. ii. 1, 185): Media inter carmina poscunt Aut ursum aut pugiles: his nam plebecula plaudit. Verum equitis quoque iam miravit ab aure voluptas Omnis ad incertos oculos … Captivum portator ebur, captiva Corinthus: Esseda festinant, pilenta, petorrita, naves … Rideret Democritus, et … spectaret populum ludis attentius ipsis Ut sibi pradientem mimo spectacula plura, etc. From certain remarks in Cicero we gather that things were not much better even in his day.
[8] This is what Gellius (xvii. 14,2) says.
[9] The whole is preserved, Macrob. S. ii. 7, and is well worth reading.
[10] Cic. ad Att. xii. 18.
[11] See App. note 2, for more about Syrus.
[12] Hor. Sat. i. x. 6, where he compares him to Lucilius.
[13] Examples quoted by Gellius, x. 24; xv. 25.
[14] vi. 21.
[15] We should infer this also from allusions to Pythagorean tenets, and other philosophical questions, which occur in the extant fragments of Mimes.
[16] Tr. ii. 503, 4.
[17] S. 1-3, et al.
[18] Vell. Pat. ii. 83, where Plancus dancing the character of Glaucus is described, cf. Juv. vi. 63.
[19] Quae gravis Aesopus, quae doctus Roscius egit (Ep. ii. 1, 82). Quintilian (Inst. Or. xi. 3) says, Roscius citatior, Aesopus gravior fuit, quod ille comoedias, hic tragoedias egit.
[20] Cic. de Or. i. 28, 130. As Cicero in his oration for Sextius mentions the expression of Aesopus's eyes and face while acting, it is supposed that he did not always wear a mask.
[21] Ep. ii. 1, 173.
[22] xiv. 15. Others again think the name expresses one of the standing characters of the Atellanae, like the Maccus, etc.
[23] Pro Sext. 58.
[24] See Book i. chapter viii.
[25] These were doubtless much the worst of his poetical effusions. It was in them that the much-abused lines O fortunam natam me Consule Romam, and Cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi, occurred. See Forsyth, Vit. Cic. p. 10, 11. His gesta Marii was the tribute of an admiring fellow-townsman.
[26] In the preface to his Lucretius.
[27] E.g. Inferior paulo est Aries et flumen ad Austri Inclinatior. Atque etiam, etc. v. 77; and he gives countless examples of that break after the fourth foot which Lucretius also affects, e.g. Arcturus nomine claro. Two or three lines are imitated by Virgil, e.g. v. 1, ab Jove Musarum primordia; so v. 21, obstipum caput et tereti cervice reflexum. The rhythm of v. 3, cum caeloque simul noctesque diesque feruntur, suggests a well-known line in the eighth Aeneid, olli remigio noctemque diemque fatigant.
[28] Suet. J. C. 56.
[29] N. H. xix. 7.
[30] Suet. vit. Ter. see page 51.
[31] See Bernhardy Grundr. der R. L. Anm, 200, also Caes. Op. ed. S. Clarke, 1778.
[32] De Bell. Alex. 4.
[33] Whenever a ship touched at Alexandria, Euergetes sent for any MSS. the captain might have on board. These were detained in the museum and labelled to ek ton ploion.
[34] The museum was situated in the quarter of the city called Brucheium (Spartian. in Hadr. 20). See Don. and Müller, Hist. Gk. Lit. vol. ii. chap. 45.
[35] The school of Alexandria did not become a religious centre until a later date. The priestly functions of the librarians are historically unimportant.
[36] It is true Theocritus stayed long in Alexandria. But his inspiration is altogether Sicilian, and as such was hailed by delight by the Alexandrines, who were tired of pedantry and compliment, and longed for naturalness though in a rustic garb.
[37] This is the true ground of Aristophanes' rooted antipathy to Euripides. The two minds were of an incompatible order, Aristophanes represents Athens; Euripides the human spirit.
[38] He must have had some real beauties, else Theocritus (vii. 40) would hardly praise him so highly: "ou gar po kat' emdn noon oude ton eslon Sikelidan nikemi ton ek Samo oude Philetan Aeidon, batrachos de pot akridat hos tis erisdo."
[39] Even an epic poem was, if it extended to any length, now considered tedious; Epyllia, or miniature epics, in one, two, or three books, became the fashion.
[40] Others assign the poem which has come down to us to Germanicus the father of Caligula, perhaps with better reason.
[41] Cic. De Or. xvi. 69.
[42] Ovid (Amor. i, 15, 16) expresses the high estimate of Aratus common in his day: Nulla Sophocleo veniet iactura cothurno. Cum sole et luna semper Aratus erit. He was not, strictly speaking, an Alexandrine, as he lived at the court of Antigonus in Macedonia; but he represents the same school of thought.
[43] They are generally mentioned together. Prop IV. i. 1, &c.
[44] Nothing can show this more strikingly than the fact that the Puritan Milton introduces the loves of Adam and Eve in the central part of his poem.
[45] The Cantores Euphorionis and despisers of Ennius, with whom Cicero was greatly wroth. Alluding to them he says:—Ita belle nobis "Flavit ab Epiro lenissimus Onchesmites." Hunc spondeiazonta si cui vis to neoteron pro tuo vendita. Ad. Att. vii, 2, 1.
[46] The reader is referred to the introductory chapter of Sellar's Roman poets of the Republic, where this passage is quoted.
[47] The reader is again referred to the preface to Munro's Lucretius.
[48] Quem tu, dea, tempore in omni Omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus.
[49] i, 41.
[50] Ep. ad Q. Fr. ii. 11. It seems best to read multis ingenii luminibus non multae tamen artis than to put the non before multis. The original text has no non; if we keep to that, tamen will mean and even.
[51] Lucr. had a great veneration for his genius, see ii. 723: Quae (Sicilia) nil hoc habuisse viro praeclarius in se Nec sanctum magis et mirum carumque videtur. Carmina quinctiam divini pectoris eius Vociferantur, et exponunt praeclara reperta, Ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus.
[52] In his treatise de Poetica he calls him physiologon mallon i poiaeten.
[53] A French writer justly says "L'utilité c'est le principe créateur de la littérature romaine."
[54] Some one has observed that the martial imagery of Lucretius is taken from the old warfare of the Punic wars, not from that of his own time. He speaks of elephants, of Scipio and Hannibal, as if they were the heroes most present to his mind.
[55] The eros philosuphus, so beautifully described by Plato in the Symposium.
[56] A Scotch acquaintance of the writer's when asked to define a certain type of theology, replied, "An interminable argument."
[57] Philetas wore himself to a shadow by striving to solve the sophistic riddle of the "Liar." His epitaph alludes to this: Xeine, Philaetas eimi, logon d' o pseudomenos me olese kai nukton phrontides esperioi.
[58] iii. 3. "Te sequor, o Graiae gentis decus!"
[59] v. 8, where, though the words are general, the reference is to Epicurus.
[60] By Sulla, 84 B.C.
[61] He defined it as a leia kinaesis, or smooth gentle motion of the atoms which compose the soul.
[62] The doctrine of inherited aptitudes is a great advance on the ancient statement of this theory, inasmuch as it partly gets rid of the inconsistency of regarding the senses as the fountains of knowledge while admitting the inconceivability of their cognising the ultimate constituents of matter.
[63] Prof. Maudesley's books are a good example.
[64] Dux vitae, dia voluptas (ii. 171). So the invocation to Venus with which the poem opens.
[65] As where he invokes Venus, describes the mother of the gods, or deifies the founder of true wisdom.
[66] Nec sum animi dubius Graiorum obscura reperta Difficile inlustrare Latinis versibus esse; Multa novis verbis praesertim cum sit agendum Propter egestatem linguae et rerum novitatem (i. 130).
[67] i. 75.
[68] Lu. i. 56-95.
[69] Ib. i. 710-735; iii. 1-30.
[70] Ib. i. 912-941.
[71] Ib. ii. 1-60.
[72] Ib. ii. 354-366.
[73] Ib. iii. 1036 sqq.
[74] Ib. i. 32-40.
[75] Contrast him with Manilius, or with Ovid in the last book of the Metamorphoses, or with the author of Etna. The difference is immense.
[76] Lu. ii. 371.
[77] Ib. v. 18.
[78] Ib. Ib. v. 3.
[79] Ib. apatheia.
[80] Ib. v. 1201, sqq.
[81] The passage in which they are described is perhaps the most beautiful in Latin poetry, iii. 18, sqq. Cf. ii. 644.
[82] E.g. omoiomepeia, and various terms of endearment, iv. 1154-63.
[83] S. i. 10.
[84] E.g. frequently in Juvenal.
[85] E.g. terrai frugiferai: lumina sis oculis: indugredi, volta, vacefit, facie are on the analogy of Ennius's cere comminuit brum, salsae lacrimae, &c.
[86] See Appendix.
[87] Besides the passages quoted or referred to, the following throw light upon his opinions or genius. The introduction (i. 1-55), the attack on mythology (ii, 161-181, 591-650); that on the fear of death (iii. 943- 983), the account of the progress of the arts (v. 1358-1408), and the recommendation of a calm mind (v. 56-77).
[88] E.g. quocirca, quandoquidem, id ita esse, quod superest, Huc accedit ut, &c.
[89] Lu. i. 914.
[90] Qu. x. 1, 87.
[91] Ov. Am. i. 15, 23; Stat. Silv. ii. 7, 76.
[92] Hor. Deos didici securum agere aerom, S. i. v. 101.
[93] Georg. ii. 490. Connington in his edition of Virgil, points out hundreds of imitations of his diction.
[94] Tac. Ann. lv. 34.
[95] We cannot certainly gather that Furius was alive when Horace wrote Sat. ii. 5, 40,
"Furius hibernas cana nive conspuit Alpes."
[96] S. i. x. 36.
[97] See Virg. Aen. iv. 585; xii. 228; xi. 73l.
[98] Hor. S. i. x. 46, experto frustra Varrone Atacino.
[99] Ov. Am. i. xv. 21; Ep. ex. Pont. iv. xvi. 21.
[100] Qu. x. 1, 87.
[101] Trist. ii. 439. For some specimens of his manner see App. to chap. i. note 3.
[102] Ecl. ix. 35.
[103] Told by Ovid (Metam. bk. x.).
[104] Cat. xc. 1.
[105] Cic. (Brut.) lxxxii. 283.
[106] Romae vivimus; illa domus, lxviii. 34.
[107] See. C. xxxi.
[108] C. xxv.
[109] C. i.
[110] C. xlix.
[111] C. xciii. lvii. xxix.
[112] What a different character does this reveal from that of the Augustan poets! Compare the sentiment in C. xcii.:
"Nil nimium studeo Caesar tibi velle placere
Nec scire utrum sis albus an ater homo."
[113] For the character of Clodia, see Cic. pro Cael. passim; and for her criminal passion for her brother, compare Cat. lxxix., which is only intelligible if so understood. Cf. also lviii. xci. lxxvi.
[114] The beautiful and pathetic poem (C. lxxvi.) in which he expresses his longing for peace of mind suggests this remark.
[115] C. lxv. and lxviii.
[116] C. xxxi.
[117] Compare, however, Lucr. iii. 606-8.
[118] C. vi. 15, quicquid habes boni malique Die nobis.
[119] See xix. 5-9, and lxxvi.
[120] Especially in the Attis.
[121] Ov. Amor. iii. 9, 62, docte Catulle. So Mart. viii. 73, 8. Perhaps satirically alluded to by Horace, simius iste Nil praeter Calvum et doctus cantare Catullum. S. I. x.
[122] The first foot may be a spondee, a trochee, or an iambus. The licence is regarded as duriusculum by Pliny the Elder. But in this case freedom suited the Roman treatment of the metre better than strictness.
[123] A trimeter iambic line with a spondee in the last place, which must always be preceded by an iambus, e.g. Miser Catulle desinas ineptire.
[124] E.g. in C. lxxxiv. (12 lines) there is not a single dissyllabic ending. In one place we have dictaque factaque sunt. I think Martial also has hoc scio, non amo te. The best instance of continuous narration in this metre is lxvi. 105-30, Quo tibi tum—conciliata viro, a very sonorous passage.
[125] E.g. Perfecta exigitur | una amicitia (see Ellis. Catull. Prolog.), and Iupiter ut Chalybum | omne genus percut, which is in accord with old Roman usage, and is modelled on Callimachus's Zeu kater, os chalybon pan apoloito genos.
[126] This has been alluded to under Aratus. As a specimen of Catullus's style of translation, we append two lines, Hae me Konon eblepsen en aeri ton Berenikaes bostruchon on keinae pasin ethaeke theois of translation, we append two lines, which are thus rendered, Idem me ille Conon caelesti munere vidit E Bereniceo vertice caesariem Fulgenlem clare, quam multis illa deorum Levia protendens brachia pollicitaest. The additions are characteristic.
[127] clxviii.
[128] Ca. clxi: lxii.
[129] The conceit in v. 63, 64, must surely be Greek.
[130] Epullion.
[132] See Ellis, Cat. Prolegomena.
[1] Tibullus was, however, a Roman knight.
[2] O. ii. 7, 10. Tecum Philippos et celerem fugam Sensi relicta non bene parmula.
[3] G. ii. 486. Flumina amem silvasque inglorius.
[4] i. 57. Non ego laudari curo mea Delia: tecum Dummodo sim, quaeso, segnis inersque vocer.
[5] Pr. i. 6,29. Non ego sum laudi, non natus idoneus armis.
[6] The lack of patrons becomes a standing apology in later times for the poverty of literary production.
[7] Pollio, however, stands on a somewhat different footing. In his cultivation of rhetoric he must be classed with the imperial writers.
[8] Dis te minorem quod geris imperas, 0. iii. 6, 5.
[9] Cicero was Augur. Admission to this office was one of the great objects of his ambition.
[10] Od. iii. 24, 33.
[11] C. S. 57; O. iv. 5, 21.
[12] Ecl. i. 7.
[13] Ep. ii. 1, 16.
[14] Prop. iii. 4, 1; Ovid Tr. iii. 1, 78.
[15] This subject is discussed in an essay by Gaston Boissier in the first volume of La Religion romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins.
[16] Tac. Ann. i. 2, Ubi militem donis, populum annona, cunctos dulcedine otii pellexit, insurgere paulatim, munia senatus magistratuum legum in se trahere, nullo adversante, cum ferocissimi per acies aut proscriptione cecidissent, ceteri nobilium, quanto quis servitio promptior, opibus et honoribus extollerentur, ac novis ex rebus aucti tuta et praesentia quam vetera et periculosa mallent.
[17] Cum divus Augustus sicut caetera eloquentiam pacaverat.—De Causs. Corr. Eloq.
[18] Pompon Dig. I. 2. 2.47 (quoted by Teuffel). Primus Divus Augustus, ut maior iuris auctoritas haberetur, constituit ut ex auctoritate eius responderent.
[19] Odi profanum vulgus et arceo (Hor. Od. iii. 1, 1), Parca dedit malignum spernere vulgus (id. ii. 16, 39), satis est equitem mihi plaudere (Sat. I. x. 77), and often. So Ovid, Fast. I. exordium.
[20] See the pleasing description in the ninth Satire of Horace's first book.
[21] Suet. Aug. 84. Tac. An. xiii. 3.
[22] Tuque pedestribus Dices historiis praelia Caesaris Maecenas melius ductaque per vias Regum colla minacium (Od. ii. 12, 9).
[23] Ep. 101, 11. I quote it to show what his sentiments were on a point that touched a Roman nearly, the fear of death: Debilem facito manu debilem pede coxa: Tuber astrue gibberum, lubricos quate dentes: Vita dum superest, bene est: hanc mihi vel acuta Si sedeam cruce sustine.
[24] He was so when Horace wrote his first book of Satires (x. 51). Forte epos acer lit nemo Varius ducit.
[25] Often quoted as the poem de Morte.
[26] Sat. vi. 2.
[27] Ecl. viii. 5, 88, procumbit in ulva Perdita, nec serae, &c. Observe how Virgil improves while he borrows.
[28] Aen. vi. 621, 2.
[29] Od. i. 61.
[30] So says the Schol. on Hor. Ep. I. xvi. 25.
[31] X. i. 98
[33] Ec. ix. 35.
[34] Virg. Ec. iii. 90; Hor. Epod. x.
[35] "Cinna procacior," Ov. Trist. ii. 435.
[36] Saepe suas volucres legit mihi grandior aevo, Quaeque necet serpens, quae iuvet herba Macer. Trist. iv. 10, 43. Quint. (x. 1, 87) calls him humilis.
[1] See Sellar's Virgil, p. 107.
[2] Pagus does not mean merely the village, but rather the village with its surroundings as defined by the government survey, something like our parish.
[3] Mantua vae miseras nimium vicina Cremonae, Ecl. 9. 27.
[4] In the celebrated passage Felix qui potuit, &c.
[5] Horace certainly did, and that in a more thorough manner than Virgil. See his remark at the end of the Iter ad Brundisium, and other well- known passages.
[6] Contrast the way in which he speaks of poetical studies, G. iv. 564, me dulcis alebat Parthenope studiis florentem ignobilis oti, with the language of his letter to Augustus (Macrob. i. 24, 11), cum alia quoque studia ad id opus multoque potiora (i.e. philosophy) impertiar.
[7] This is alluded to in a little poem (Catal. 10): "Villula quae Sironis eras et peuper agelle, Verum illi domino tu quoque divitiae: Me tibi, et hos una mecum et quos semper amavi…. Commendo, in primisque patrem; tu nunc eris illi Mantua quod fuerat, quodque Cremona prius." We observe the growing peculiarities of Virgil's style.
[8] See Hor. S. i. 5 and 10.
[9] Macrob. i. 24. See note, p. 5.
[10] As Horace. Od. I. iii. 4: "Animae dimidium meae." Cf. S. i. 5, 40.
[11] "Namque pila lippis inimicum et ludere crudis." Hor. S. i. v. 49.
[12] "A penitissima Graecorum doctrina." Macr. v. 22, 15.
[13] "Gallo cuius amor tantum mihi crescit in horas
Quantum vere novo viridis se subiicit alnus."
—Ecl. x. 73.
[14] The Ciris and Aetna formerly attributed to him are obviously spurious.
[15] vi. and x.
[16] iii. iv.
[17] viii. ix.
[18] v. vii.
[19] Macrob. Sat. iii. 98, 19, calls Suevius vir doctissimus.
[20] "The original motive of the poem can only have been the idea that the gnat could not rest in Hades, and therefore asked the shepherd whose life it had saved, for a decent burial. But this very motive, without which the whole poem loses its consistency, is wanting in the extant Culex."— Teuffel, R. L. § 225, 1, 4.
[21] Its being edited separately from Virgil's works is thought by Teuffel to indicate spuriousness. But there is good evidence for believing that the poem accepted as Virgil's by Statius and Martial was our present Culex. Teuffel thinks they were mistaken, but that is a bold conjecture.
[22] The missing the gist of the story, of which Teuffel complains, does not seem to us worse than the glaring inconsistency at the end of the sixth book of the Aeneid, where Aeneas is dismissed by the gate of the false visions. That incident, whether ironical or not, is unquestionably an artistic blunder, since it destroys the impression of truth on which the justification of the book depends.
[23] For instance, v. 291, Sed tu crudelis, crudelis tu magis Orpheu looks more like an imperfect anticipation than an imitation of Improbus ille puer crudelis tu quoque mater. Again, v. 293, parvum si Tartara possent peccatum ignovisse, is surely a feeble effort to say scirent si ignoscere Manes, not a reproduction of it; v. 201, Erebo cit equos Nox could hardly have been written after ruit Oceano nox. From an examination of the similarities of diction, I should incline to regard them as in nearly every case admitting naturally of this explanation. The portraits of Tisiphone, the Heliades, Orpheus, and the tedious list of heroes, Greek, Trojan, and Roman, who dwell in the shades, are difficult to pronounce upon. They might be extremely bad copies, but it is simpler to regard them as crude studies, unless indeed we suppose the versifier to have introduced them with the express design of making the Culex a good imitation of a juvenile poem. Minute points which make for an early date are meritus (v. 209), cf. fultus hyacintho (Ecl. 6); the rhythms cognitus utilitate manet (v. 65), implacabilis ira nimis, (v. 237); the form videreque (v. 304); the use of the pass. part. with acc. (v. ii. 175); of alliteration (v. 122, 188); asyndeton (v. 178, 190); juxtapositions like revolubile volvens (v. 168); compounds like inevectus (v. 100, 340); all which are paralleled in Lucr. and Virg. but hardly known in later poets. The chief feature which makes the other way is the extreme rarity of elisions, which, as a rule, are frequent in Virg. Here we have as many as twenty-two lines without elision. But we know that Virgil became more archaic in his style as he grew older.
[24] Molle atque facetum Virgilio annuerunt guadentes rure camenae.— Sat. i. x. 40.
[25] E.g. tutthon d' osson apothen becomes procul tantum; panta d' enalla genoito becomes omnia vel medium fiant mare, &c.
[26] Virgil as yet claims but a moderate degree of inspiration. Me quoque dicunt Vatem pastores: sed non ego credulus illis. Nam neque adhuc Vario videor nec dicere Cinna Digna, sed argutos inter strepere anser olores. Ec. ix. 33.
[27] Ec. v. 45.
[28] In his preface to the Eclogues.
[29] Page 248. Cf. also tua Maecenas haud mollia iussa, G. iii. 41.
[30] Ascraeumque cano Romana per oppida carmen, G. ii. 176.
[31] The words Ille ludere quae vellum calamo permisit agresti (Ecl. i. 10), might seem to contradict this, but the Eclogues were of a lighter cast. He never speaks of the Georg. or Aen. as lusus. So Hor. (Ep. i. 1, 10), versus et cetera ludicra pono; referring to his odes.
[32] Hor. A. P. 218.
[33] See G. i. 500, sqq. where Augustus is regarded as the saviour of the age.
[34] We have observed that except Lucretius all the great poets were from the municipia or provinces.
[35] The tenth; imitated in Milton's Lycidas.
[36] In its form it reminds us of those Epyllia which were such favourite subjects with Callimachus, of which the Peleus and Thetis is a specimen.
[37] Said to have been uttered by Cicero on hearing the Eclogues read; the rima spes Romae being of course the orator himself. But the story, however pretty, cannot be true, as Cicero died before the Eclogues were composed.
[38] Hist. Lat. Lit. vol. iii.
[39] The most powerful are perhaps the description of a storm (G. i. 316, sqq.). of the cold winter of Scythia (G. iii. 339, sqq.), and in a slightly different way, of the old man of Cerycia (G. iv. 125, sqq.).
[40] The latis otia fundis so much coveted by Romans. These remarks are scarcely true of Horace.
[41] Naples, Baiae, Pozzuoli, Pompeii, were the Brightons and Scarboroughs of Rome. Luxurious ease was attainable there, but the country was only given in a very artificial setting. It was almost like an artist painting landscapes in his studio.
[42] G. ii. 486. The literary reminiscences with which Virgil associated the most common realities have often been noted. Cranes are for him Strymonian because Homer so describes them. Dogs are Amyclean, because the Laco was a breed celebrated in Greek poetry. Italian warriors bend Cretan bows, &c.
[43] Cum canerem reges et praelia Cynthius aurem Vellit, et admomuit Pastorem Tityre, pingues Pascere oportet oves, deductum dicere carmen. (E. vi. 3).
[44] En erit unquam Ille dies tua cum liceat mihi dicere facta. (E. viii. 7).
[45] Mox tamen ardentes accingar dicere pugnas Caesaris, &c. (G. iii. 46). The Caesar is of course Augustus.
[46] This eagerness to have their exploits celebrated, though common to all men, is, in its extreme development, peculiarly Roman. Witness the importunity of Cicero to his friends, his epic on himself; and the ill- concealed vanity of Augustus. We know not to how many poets he applied to undertake a task which, after all, was never performed (except partially by Varius).
[47] Except perhaps by Plato, who, with Sophocles, is the Greek writer that most resembles Virgil.
[48] Virgil, like Milton, possesses the power of calling out beautiful associations from proper names. The lists of sounding names in the seventh and tenth Aeneids are striking instances of this faculty.
[49] It is true this law is represented as divine, not human; but the principle is the same.
[50] Niebuhr, Lecture, 106.
[51] For example, Sallust at the commencement of his Catiline regards it as authoritative.
[52] Cf. Geor. ii. 140-176. Aen. i. 283-5; vi. 847-853; also ii. 291, 2; 432-4; vi. 837; xi. 281-292.
[53] Loc. cit.
[54] Observe the care with which he has recorded the history and origin of the Greek colonies in Italy. He seems to claim a right in them.
[55] This word, as Mr. Nettleship has shown in his Introduction to the Study of Virgil, is used only of Turnus.
[56] xi. 336, sqq. But the character bears no resemblance to Cicero's.
[57] There are no doubt constant rapports between Augustus and Aeneas, between the unwillingness of Turnus to give up Lavinia, and that of Antony to give up Cleopatra, &c. But it is a childish criticism which founds a theory upon these.
[58] ton katholon estin, Arist. De Poet.
[59] "Urbis orbis."
[60] Suggestions Introductory to the Study of the Aeneid.
[61] The Greek heroic epithets dios, kalos, agathos, &c. primarily significant of personal beauty, were transferred to the moral sphere. The epithet pius is altogether moral and religious, and has no physical basis.
[62] Pater ipse colendi; haud facilem esse viam voluit, and often. The name of Jupiter is in that poem reserved for the physical manifestations of the great Power.
[63] The questions suggested by Venus's speech to Jupiter (Aen. 1, 229, sqq.) as compared with that of Jupiter himself (Aen. x. 104), are too large to be discussed here. But the student is recommended to study them carefully.
[64] Like Dante, he was held to be Theologus nullius dogmatis expers. See Boissier, Religion des Romains, vol. i ch. iii. p. 260.
[65] Aen. xii. 882.
[66] Ib. xii. 192.
[67] See Macr. Sat. i. 24, 11.
[68] Boissier, from whom this is taken, adduces other instances. I quote an interesting note of his (Rel. Rom. p. 261): "Cependant, quelques difficiles trouvaient que Virgile s'était quelquefois trompé. On lui reprochait d'avoir fait immoler par Enée un taureau à Jupiter quand il s'arrête dans la Thrace et y fonde une ville, et selon Ateius Capito et Labéon, les lumières du droit pontifical, c'était presqu'un sacrilège. Voilà donc, dit-on, votre pontife qui ignore ce que savent même les sacristains! Mais on peut répondre que précisément le sacrifice en question n'est pas acceptable des dieux, et qu'ils forcent bientôt Énée par de présages redoutables, à s'éloigner de ce pays. Ainsi en supposant que la science pontificale d'Enée soit en défaut, la réputation de Virgile reste sans tache."
[69] Aen. x. 288.
[70] "Fièrement dessiné." The expression is Chateaubriand's.
[71] xii. 468.
[72] The reader is referred to a book by M. de Bury, "Les femmes du temps d'Auguste," where there are vivid sketches of Cleopatra, Livia, and Julia.
[73] Aen. i. 402; ii. 589.
[74] A list of passages imitated from Latin poets is given in Macrob. Sat. vi., which should be read.
[75] Such as Latium from latere, (Aen. viii. 322), and others, some of which may be from Varro or other philologians.
[76] A few instances are, the origin of Ara Maxima (viii. 270), the custom of veiled sacrifices (iii. 405), the Troia sacra (v. 600), &c.
[77] The pledging of Aeneas by Dido (i. 729), the god Fortunus (v. 241).
[78] E.g. the allusion to the legendary origin of his narrative by the preface Dicitur, fertur (iv. 205; ix. 600).
[79] E.g. olli, limus, porgite, pictai, &c.: mentem aminumque, teque … tuo cum flumine sancto; again, calido sanguine, geminas acies, and a thousand others. His alliteration and assonance have been noticed in a former appendix.
[1] In the consulship of L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus. "O nate mecum consule Manlio," Od. III. xxi. 1; Epod xiii. 6.
[2] Libertino patre natum, Sat. I. vi. 46.
[3] Natus dum ingenuus, ib. v. 8.
[4] Sat. I. vi. 86.
[5] Me fabulosae Vulture in Apulo, &c.; Od. iii. 4, 9.
[6] Ep. II. i. 71.
[7] S. I. vi. 8.
[8] Juv. vii. 218.
[9] Sat. I. iv. 113.
[10] Ep. II. ii. 43.
[11] Quae mihi pareret legio Romana tribuno, Sat. I. vi, 48.
[12] O saepe mecum tempus in ultimum deducte, Od. II. vii. 1.
[13] Ib. 5.
[14] Ep. II. ii. 51.
[15] Sueton. Vit. Hor.; cf. Sat. II. vi. 37, De re communi scribae te orabant …reverti.
[16] Ep. ii. 2, 51.
[17] S. I. vi. 55.
[18] Iubesque esse in amicorum numero.—Ib. This expression is important, since many scholars have found a difficulty in Horace's accompanying Maecenas so soon after his accession to his circle, and have supposed that Sat. I. v. refers to another expedition to Brundisium, undertaken two years later. This is precluded, however, by the mention of Cocceius Nerva.
[19] S. ii. 3. 11.
[20] Ep. I. vi. 16.
[21] Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri, Ep. I. i. 14.
[22] S. I. ii. 25.
[23] Suet. Vit. Hor. Fragments of four letters are preserved. One to Maecenas, "Ante ipse sufficiebam scribendis epistolis amicorum; nunc occupatissimus et infirmus, Horatium nostrum te cupio adducere. Veniet igiur ab ista parasitica mensa ad hanc regiam, et nos in epistolis scribendis adiuvabit." Observe the future tense, the confidence that his wish will not be disputed. He received to his surprise the poet's refusal, but to his credit did not take it amiss. He wrote to him, "Sume tibi aliquid iuris apud me, tanquam si convictor mihi fueris; quoniam id usus mihi tecum esse volui, si per valetudinem tuam fieri potuisset." And somewhat later, "Tui qualem habeam memoriam poteris ex Septimio quoque nostro audire; nam incidit, ut illo coram fieret a me tui mentio. Neque enim, si tu superbus amicitiam nostram sprevisti, ideo nos quoque anthuperphronoumen." The fourth fragment is the one translated in the text.
[24] Quem rodunt omnes … quia sum tibi, Maecenas, convictor, S. I. vi. 46. Contrast his tone, Ep. I. xix. 19, 20; Od. iv. 3.
[25] Sat. I. ix.
[26] Sat. II. vi. 30, sqq.
[27] S. II. vi. 1.
[28] O. II. xviii. 14; III. xvi. 28, sqq.
[29] The year in which he received the Sabine farm is disputed. Some (e.g. Grotefend) date it as far back as 33 B.C.; others, with more probability, about 31 B.C.
[30] They were probably published simultaneously in 23 B.C. If we take the earlier date for his possession of the Sabine farm, he will have been nearly ten years preparing them.
[31] Ep. I. ix.
[32] Ep. I. xvii. and xviii.
[33] Ep. I. xiv.
[34] The first seven stanzas of IV. 6, with the prelude (III. i. 1-4), are supposed to have been sung on the first day; I. 21 on the second; and on the third the C. S. followed by IV. vi. 28-44.
[35] See p.38.
[36] C. xxxii.
[37] Od. IV. 4.
[38] Ep. I. i. 10.
[39] Ep. I. xx.
[40] Od. II. xvii. 5.
[41] E.g. the infamous Sextus Menas who is attacked in Ep. 4.
[42] Epod. 5 and 17, and Sat. I. viii.
[43] Epod. viii. xii.; Od. iv. xiii.
[44] The sorceresses or fortune-tellers. Some have without any authority supposed her to have been a mistress of the poet's, whose real name was Gratidia, and with whom he quarrelled.
[45] I. xxxv.
[46] II. xvii.
[47] Cf. Troiae renascens alite lugubri… with Occidit occideritque sinas cum nomine Troia. In both cases Juno is supposed to utter the sentiment. This can hardly be mere accident.
[48] Ep. I. i. 33, Fervet avaritia miseroque cupidine pectus; Sunt verba et voces quibus hunc lenire dolorem Possis.
[49] Od. I. xii. 17.
[50] Od. I. ii. 43.
[51] Od. IV. v. 1.
[52] Od. III. iii. 9.
[53] Ep. II. i. 15.
[54] The best instance is Od. III. vi. 45, where it is expressed with singular brevity.
[55] Od. I. xi. among many others.
[56] A. P. 391, sqq.; S. I. iii. 99.
[56] Ep. I. iv. and ii. 55.
[57] E.g. laborum decepitur, Od. II. xiii. 38. The reader will find them all in Macleane's Horace.
[58] The most extraordinary instance of this is Od. IV. iv. 17, where in the very midst of an exalted passage, he drags in the following most inappropriate digression—Quibus Mos unde deductus per omne Tempus Amazonia securi Dextras obarmet quaerere distuli, Nec scire fas est omnia. Many critics, intolerant of the blot, remove it altogether, disregarding MS. authority.
[59] Ego apis Matinae more modoque … operosa parvus carmina fingo, Od. IV. ii. 31.
[60] Od. IV. iv. 33.
[61] Od. III. iii. 17.
[62] Od. III. xxviii.
[63] Od. III. xi.
[64] Od. III. ix.
[65] I.e. the hall where rhetorical exhibitions were given.
[66] Nisi quod pede certo differt sermoni, sermo merus, S. I. iv. So the title sermones.
[67] We learn this from the life by Suetonius.
[68] E.g. invideor, imperor, se impediat (S. I. x. 10) = impediatur; amphora coepit institui for coepta est. Others might easily be collected.
[69] S. I. iv. 10; S. II. i. in great part.
[70] S. L. iv 60, Postquam Discordia tetra Belli ferratos postes portasque refregit. These are also imitated by Virgil; but they do not appear to show any particular beauty.
[71] S. I. v. 101; Ep. I. iv. 16.
[72] Neque simius iste Nil praeter Calvum et doctus cantare Catullum (S. I. x. 19). I cannot agree with Mr. Martin (Horace for English Readers. p. 57), who thinks the allusion not meant to be umcomplimentary.
[73] Parios iambos has been ingeniously explained to mean the epode, i.e. the iambic followed by a shorter line in the same or a different rhythm, e.g. pater Lukámba poion ephraso tode; ti sas paraeeire phrenas; but it seems more natural to give Parios the ordinary sense. Cf. Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo, A. P. 79.
[74] Ep. I. xix. 24.
[75] S. i. 118, Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico Tangit, et admissus circum praecordia ludit, Callidus excusso populum suspendere naso.
[76] Tib. IV. i. 179, Est tibi qui possit magnis se accingere rebus Valgius: aeterno propior non alter Homero.
[77] Od. II. ix. 19.
[78] Quint. III. i. 18. Unger, quoted by Teuffel, § 236, conjectures that for Nicandrum frustra secuti Macer atque Virgilius, we should read Valgius, in Quint. X. i. 56.
[79] Sat. I. ix. 61.
[80] Arguta meretrice potes Davoque Chremeque Eludente senem comis garrire libellas Unus vivorum, Fundani. After all, this praise is equivocal.
[81] Pindarici fontis qui non expalluit haustus…. An tragica desaevit et ampullatur in arte? Ep. I. iii. 10.
[82] Ep. I. viii. 2.
[83] Ep. I. iii. 15.
[84] Od. IV. ii. 2.
[85] Od. iv. ii. 2, quoted by Teuffel.
[86] Od. I. xxxiii.; Ep. I. iv.
[1] E.g. In the first 100 lines of the Remedium Amoris, a long continuous treatise, there is only one couplet where the syntax is carried continuously through, v. 57, 8, Nec moriens Dido summa vidisset ab arce Dardanias vento vela dedisse rates, and even here the pentameter forms a clause by itself. Contrast the treatment of Catullus (lxvi. 104-115) where the sense, rhythm, and syntax are connected together for twelve lines. The same applies to the opening verses of Virgil's Copa. Tate's little treatise on the elegiac couplet correctly analyses the formal side of Ovid's versification. As instances of the relation, of the elegiac to the hexameter—iteration (Her. xiii. 167), Aucupor in lecto mendaces caelibe somnos; Dum careo veris gaudia falsa iuvant: variation (Her. xiv. 5), Quod manus extimuit iugulo demittere ferrum Sum rea: laudarer si scelus ausa forem: expansion (id. 1), Mittit Hypermnestra de tot modo fratribus una: Cetera nuptarum crimine turba iacet: condensation (Her. xiii. 1), Mittit et optat amans quo mittitur ire salutem, Haemonis Haemonio Laodamia viro: antithesis (Am. I. ix. 3), Quae bello est habilis veneri quoque convenit aetas; Turpe senex miles turpe senilis amor. These illustrations might be indefinitely increased, and the analysis carried much further. But the student will pursue it with ease for himself. Compare ch. ii. app. note 3.
[2] Ecl. x. 2.
[3] Two Greek Epigrams (Anthol. Gr. ii. p. 93) are assigned to him by Jacobs (Teuffel).
[4] Quint. x. 1, 93.
[5] Mart. iv. 29, 7.
[6] Id. vii. 29, 8.
[7] v. 17, 18.
[8] Tr. II. x. 6.
[9] El. I. i. 19.
[10] Ep. I. iv. 7.
[11] Prisca iuvent alios: ego me nunc denique natum Gratulor: haec aetas moribus apta meis (A. A. iii. 121). Ovid is unquestionably right.
[12] Od. I. xxxiii. 2.
[13] El. I. 7; II. 1. Tibullus turns from battle scenes with relief to the quiet joys of the country.
[14] Others read Plautia, but without cause.
[15] El. ii. 21.
[16] Ib. i. 57.
[17] Ib. ii. 1.
[18] Albi, nostrorum sermonum candide index, Hor. Ep. I. iv.
[19] Ov. Am. III. ix. 32, implies that Delia and Nemesis were the two successive mistresses of the poet.
[20] El. IV. ii. 11, 12, urit … urit. Cf. G. i. 77, 78. Again, dulcissima furta (v. 7), cape tura libens (id. 9); Pone metum Cerinthe (iv. 15), will at once recall familiar Virgilian cadences.
[21] Ib. IV. vi. 2; vii. 8.
[22] Ib. IV. viii. 5; x. 4.
[23] S. I. ix. 45.
[24] Ib. iv. 23, 24; v. 8, 1.
[25] Whatever may be thought of his identity with Horace's bore, and it does not seem very probable, the passage, Ep. II. ii. 101, almost certainly refers to him, and illustrates his love of vain praise.
[26] Merivale has noticed this in his eighth volume of the History of the Romans.
[27] As instances of his powerful rhythm, we may select Cum moribunda niger clauderet ora liquor; Et graviora rependit iniquis pensa quasillis: Non exorato stant adamante vias; and many such pentameters as Mundus demissis institor in tunicis; Candida purpureis mixta papaveribus.
[28] See El. I. ii. 15, sqq.; I. iii. 1-8, &c.
[29] Ib. ii. 34, 61.
[30] El. iii. (iv.) 6 (7).
[31] Ib. v. (iv.) 7.
[32] Ib. iv. (iii.) 8 (9). Two or three other elegies are addressed to him.
[33] iv. (iii.) 1, 3.
[34] On these see next chapter, p. 320.
[35] See Contr. ii. 11.
[36] Trist. I. ii. 77.
[37] So says the introduction; but it is of very doubtful authenticity.
[38] Am. II. i. 11.
[39] A. A. III. 346, ignotum hoc aliis ille novavit opus
[40] G. iii, 4, sqq.
[41] These remarks apply equally to the Metamorphoses, and indeed to all Ovid's works.
[42] Lex Papia-Poppaea.
[43] It is probable that the Art of Love was published 3 B.C., the year of Julia's exile.
[44] Some have, quite without due grounds, questioned the authenticity of this fragment.
[45] Tac. De Or. xiii; Quint. X. i. 98.
[46] i. vii. 27.
[47] See the witty invocation to Venus, Bk. IV. init.
[48] F. ii. 8.
[49] The most beautiful portions are perhaps the following:—The Story of Phaethon (ii. 1), the Golden Age (i. 89), Pyramus and Thisbe (iv. 55), Baucis and Philemon, a rustic idyl (viii. 628), Narcissus at the Fountain (iii. 407), The Cave of Sleep (xi. 592), Daedalus and Icarus (viii. 152), Cephalus and Procris (vii. 661), The passion of Medea (vii. 11), from which we may glean some idea of his tragedy.
[50] The chief passages bearing on it are, Tr. II. 103; III. v. 49; VI. 27; IV. x. 90. Pont, I. vi. 25; II. ix. 75; III. iii. 75.
[51] Such names as Messala, Graecinus, Pompeius, Cotta, Fabius Maximus, occur in his Epistles.
[52] This continual dwelling on mythological allusions is sometimes quite ludicrous, e.g., when he sees the Hellespont frozen over, his first thought is, "Winter was the time for Leander to have gone to Hero; there would have been no fear of drowning!"
[53] His abject flattery of Augustus hardly needs remark. It was becoming the regular court language to address him as Jupiter or Tonans; when Virgil, at the very time that Octavius's hands were red with the proscriptions, could call him a god (semper erit Deus), we cannot wonder at Ovid fifty years later doing the same.
[54] E.g. 69-90.
[55] We may notice with regard to the Ciris that it is very much in Ovid's manner, though far inferior. I think it may be fixed with certainty to a period succeeding the publication of the Metamorphoses. The address to Messala, v. 54, is a mere blind. The goddess Sophia indicates a later view than Ovid, but not necessarily post-Augustan. The goddess Crataeis (from the eleventh Odyssey), v. 67, is a novelty. The frivolous and pedantic object of the poem (to set right a confusion in the myths), makes it possible that it was produced under the blighting government of Tiberius. Its continual imitations make it almost a Virgilian Cento.
[56] Tac. Ann. vi. 18.
[57] Pont. IV. xvi.
[58] Am. II. xviii. 27.
[59] IV. xvi. 27.
[60] Quint. X. i. 89.
[61] I.e. that waged with Sextus Pompey.
[62] Suas. vi. 26.
[63] Pont. VI. xvi. 5.
[64] Pont. VI. xvi. 34.
[65] The name Faliscus is generally attached to him, but apparently without any certain authority.
[68] Ib. 764.
[70] Manilius hints at the general dislike of Tiberius in one or two obscure passages, e.g. I. 455; II. 290, 253; where the epithets tortus, pronus, applied to Capricorn, which was Tiberius's star, hint at his character and his disgrace. Cf. also, I. 926.
[71] De Or. I. 16.
[72] It may interest the reader to catalogue some of his peculiarities. We find admota moenibus arma (iv. 37), a phrase unknown to military language; ambiguus terrae (II. 231), agiles metae Phoebi (I. 199) = circum quas agiliter se vertit; Solertia facit artes (I. 73) = invenit. Attempts at brevity like fallente solo (I. 240) = Soli declivitas nos longitudine fallens; Moenia ferens (I. 781) = muralem coronam; inaequales Cyclades_ (iv. 637), i.e. ab inaequalibus procellis vexatae, a reminiscence from Hor. (Od. II. ix. 3). Constructions verging on the illegitimate, as sciet, quae poena sequetur (iv. 210); nota aperire viam, sc. sidera (I. 31); Sibi nullo monstrante loquuntur Neptuno debere genus (II. 223); Suus for eius (IV. 885); nostrumque parentem Pars sua perspicimus. The number might be indefinitely increased. See Jacob's full index.
[73] These are worth reading. They are—I. 1-250, 483-539; II. 1-150, 722-970; III. 1-42; IV. 1-118 (the most elaborate of all), 866-935; V. 540-619, the account of Perseus and Andromeda.
[74] A hint borrowed from Plato's Timaeus.
[75] I. 246. An instance of a physical conclusion influencing moral or political ones. The theory that seas separate countries has always gone with a lack of progress, and vice versa.
[76] Vis animae divina regit, sacroque meatu Conspirat deus et tacita ratione gubernat (I. 250).
[77] Hyg. P. A, ii. 14.
[80] Mundi Vates, II. 148.
[81] E.g. that of spring, V. 652-668.
[82] E.g. the transitions Nunc age (iii. 43), Et quoniam dictum est (iii. 385); Percipe (iv. 818), &c.; the frequent use of alliteration (i. 7, 52, 57, 59, 63, 84, 116, &c.); of asyndeton (i. 34; ii. 6); polysyndeton (i. 99, sqq.).
[83] E.g. pedibus quid iungere certis (iii. 35).
[84] E.g. in those of Phaethon, and Perseus and Andromeda.
[85] E.g. alia proseminat usus (i. 90); inde species (ii. 155), &c.
[86] Facis ad (i. 10); caelum et (i.795); conor et (in thesi. iii. 3); pudent (iv. 403).
[87] E.g. clepsisset (i. 25); itiner (i. 88); compagine (i. 719); sorti abl. (i. 813); audireque (ii 479).
[88] E.g. the plague so depopulated Athens that (ii. 891) de tanto quondam populo vix contigit heres! At the battle of Actium (ii. 916); in Ponto quaesitus rector Olympi!
[1] He was an adept in the res culinaria. Tac. An. vi. 7, bitterly notes his degeneracy.
[2] Haterii canorum illud et profluens cum ipso simul extinctum est, Ann. iv. 61.
[3] The author of two books on figures of speech, an abridged translation of the work of Gorgias, a contemporary Greek rhetorician.
[4] Seneca and Quintilian quote numerous other names, as Passienus, Pompeius, Silo, Papirius Flavianus, Alfius Flavus, &c. The reader should consult Teuffel, where all that is known of these worthies is given.
[5] The praenomen M. is often given to him, but without authority.
[6] Probably until 38 A.D.
[7] Contr. I. praef. ii.
[8] See Teuffel, § 264.
[9] His son speaks of his home as antiqua et severa.
[10] Caesar, it will be remembered, was greatly struck with the attention given to the cultivation of the memory in the Druidical colleges of Gaul.
[11] Many of these facts are taken from Seeley's Livy, Bk. I. Oxford, 1871.
[12] L. Seneca (Epp. xvi. 5, 9) says: "Scripsit enim et dialogos quos non magis philosophiae annumeres quam historiae et ex professo philosophiam continentes libros." These half historical, half philosophical dialogues may perhaps have resembled Cicero's dialogue De Republica: Hertz supposes them to have been of the same character as the logistopika of Varro (Seeley, v. 18).
[13] Tac. Ann. iv. 34.
[14] Sen. N. Q.
[15] Plin. Ep. ii. 3.
[16] Praef. ad Nat. Hist.
[17] De. Leg. i. 2. See also Book II. ch. iii. init.
[18] Maiorum quisquis primus fuit ille tuorum Aut pastor fuit aut illud quod dicere nolo, Sat. viii. ult.
[19] E.g. III. 26. "When Cincinnatus was called to the dictatorship, he was either digging or ploughing; authorities differed. All agreed in this, that he was at some rustic work." Cf. iv. 12, and i. 24, where we have the sets of opposing authorities, utrumque traditur, auctores utroque trahunt being appended.
[20] A contemporary of the Gracchi; very little is known of him.
[21] Quaestor, 203 B.C. He wrote in Greek. A Latin version by a Claudius, whom some identify with Quadrigarius, is mentioned by Plutarch.
[22] For these see back, Bk. I. ch. 9.
[23] See App. p. 103.
[24] Fasti.
[25] See p. 88.
[26] Liv. viii. 40, Falsis imaginum titulis.
[27] viii. 18, 1.
[28] ix. 44, 6.
[29] i. 7.
[30] ii. 40, 10.
[31] xxx. 45.
[32] i. 46; x. 9.
[33] xliii. 13.
[34] i. 16.
[35] i. 26.
[36] E.g., the consuls being both plebeian, the auspices are unfavourable (xxiii. 31). Again, the senate is described as degrading those who feared to return to Hannibal (xxiv. 18). Varro, a novus homo, is chosen consul (xxii. 34).
[37] xxxvii. 39.
[38] xlii. 74.
[39] Cf. xlii 21; xliii. 10; xlv. 34.
[40] iv. 20, 5.
[41] viii. 11, Haec etsi omnis divini humanique memoria abolevit nova peregrinaque omnia priscis ac patriis praeferendo, haud ab re duxi verbis quoque iosis ut tradita nuncupataque sunt referre.
[42] Sur Tite-Live. The writer has been frequently indebted to this clear and striking essay for examples of Livy's historical qualities.
[43] xxxviii. 17.
[44] v. 44.
[45] vii. 34.
[46] As the invective of the old centurion who had been scourged for debt (ii. 23); Canuleius's speech on marriage (iv. 3); the admirable speech of Ligustinus showing how the city drained her best blood (xlii. 34).
[47] We cannot refrain from quoting an excellent passage from Dr. Arnold on the unreality of these cultivated harangues. Speaking of the sentiments Livy puts into the mouth of the old Romans, he says "Doubtless the character of the nobility and commons of Rome underwent as great changes in the course of years as those which have taken place in our own country. The Saxon thanes and franklins, the barons and knights of the fourteenth century, the cavaliers and puritans of the seventeenth, the country gentlemen and monied men of a still later period, all these have their own characteristic features, which he who would really write a history of England must labour to distinguish and to represent with spirit and fidelity; nor would it be more ridiculous to paint the members of a Wittenagemot in the costume of our present House of Commons than to ascribe to them our habits of thinking, or the views, sentiments, and language of a modern historian."
[48] The latter given by Seneca the elder, the former xxxix. 40.
[49] viii. 5.
[50] ii. 54, 5.
[51] xxx. 20.
[52] xxi. 10.
[53] i. 26, 10.
[54] E.g. Haec ubi dicta dedit: ubi Mars est atrocissimus: stupens animi; laeta pascua, &c. (Teuffel).
[55] Auctor e severissimis, Plin. xi. 52, 275.
[56] The view that he flourished under Titus is altogether unworthy of credit.
[57] See pref. to Book VI.
[58] II. pref. 5.
[59] Many of these facts are borrowed from the Dict. Biog. s. v.
[60] Pref. to Book VII.
[61] Epist. ad Car. Magn. Praef. ad Paul. Diac.
[62] Tr. iii. 14, is perhaps addressed to him.
[63] § 257, 7.
[64] Ep. i. 19, 40.
[1] The Empire is here regarded solely in its influence on literature and the classes that monopolised it. If the poor or the provincials had written its history it would have been described in very different terms.
[2] Pont. iv. 2. Impetus ille sacer, qui vatum pectora nutrit Qui prius in nobis esse solebat abest. Vix venit ad partes; vix sumtae Musa tabellae Imponit pigras paene coacta manus.
[3] Suet. Tib. 70.
[4] Sat. vii. 234.
[5] Livy and Trogus.
[6] Varro.
[7] Cicero.
[8] Juv. vii. 197.
[9] See ii. 94 which contains exaggerated commendations on Tiberius.
[10] The author's humble estimate of himself appears, Si prisci oratores ab Jove Opt. Max. bene orsi sunt … mea parvitas eo iustius ad tuum favorem decurrerit, quod cetera divinitas opinione colligitur, tua praesenti fide paterno avitoque sideri par videtur … Deos reliquos accepimus, Caesarea dedimus.
[11] The reader is referred to Teuffel, Rom. Lit. § 274, 11.
[12] Daremberg.
[13] Notices of Celsus are—on his Husbandry, Quint. XII. xi. 24, Colum. I. i. 14; on his Rhetoric, Quint. IX. i. 18, et saep.; on his Philosophy, Quint. X. i. 124; on his Tactics, Veget. i. 8. Celsus died in the time of Nero, under whom he wrote one or two political works.
[14] See Sen. Contr. Praef. X. 2-4.
[15] Quint. X. i. 91.
[16] Mart. III. 20, Aemulatur improbi iocos Phaedri.
[17] Phaed. III. prol. 21.
[18] Phaed. IV. prol. 11; he carefully defines his fables as Aesopiae, not Aesopi.
[19] Quint. X. i. 95.
[1] Cal. 34.
[2] Suet. Claud. 41.
[3] Id.
[4] See p. 11.
[5] Sen. de. Tr. 14, 4.
[6] Nero had asked Cornutus's advice on a projected poem on Roman history in 400 books. Cornutus replied, "No one, Sire, would read so long a work." Nero reminded him that Chrysippus had written as many. "True!" said Cornutus, "but his books are useful to mankind."
[7] v. Suetonius's Vita Persii.
[8] Pers. v. 21.
[9] Ib. i. 12.
[10] "Sed sum petulanti splene cachinno," Pers. i. 10.
[11] Himself a lyric poet (Quint. X. i. 96) of some rank. He also wrote a didactic poem, De Metris, of a similar character to that of Terentianus Maurus. Persius died 62 A.D.
[12] Vit. Pers.: this was before he had written the Pharsalia.
[13] Quint. X. i. 94.
[14] Mart. IV. xxix. 7.
[15] Pers. i. 96.
[16] E.g. i. 87, 103. Cf. v. 72.
[17] Pers. iii. 77.
[18] Ib. iv. 23.
[19] Ib. i. 116. The examples are from Nisard.
[20] Ep. ii. 1, 80.
[21] Pers. v. 103. Compare Lucan's use of frons, nec frons erit ulla senatus, where it seems to mean boldness. In Persius it = shame.
[23] Pers. i. 91. Compare ii. 10; i. 65. with Hor. S. II. vi. 10; II. vii. 87.
[24] Ib. i. 124.
[25] Ib. i. 59.
[26] Ib. v. 119.
[27] Ib. vi. 25.
[28] The accuracy of this story has been doubted, perhaps not without reason. Nero's contests were held every five years. Lucan had gained the prize in one for a laudation of Nero, 59 A.D.(?), and the one alluded to in the text may have been 64 A.D. when Nero recited his Troica. Dio. lxii. 29.
[29] Perhaps Phars. iii. 635. The incident is mentioned by Tac., Ann. xv. 70.
[30] Phars. i. 33.
[31] Ib. vii. 432.
[32] I.e. beyond the bounds of the Roman empire.
[33] Martial alludes to Quintilian's judgment when he makes the Pharsalia say, me criticus negat esse poema: Sed qui me vendit bibliopola putat.
[34] Phars. v. 59.
[35] Si libertatis Superis tam cura placent Quam vindicta placet, Phars. iv. 806.
[36] Superum pudor, Phars. viii. 597.
[37] Ib. 605.
[38] Ib. 665.
[39] Ib. 800.
[40] Ib. 869, Tam mendax Magni tumulo quam Creta Tonantis.
[41] Ib. ix. 143.
[42] Ib. i. 128.
[43] Phars. vii. 454.
[44] Est ergo flamen ut Iovi … sic Divo Iulio M. Antonius. Cic. Phil. ii.
[45] Nos te, Nos facimus Fortuna deam caeloque locamus, Juv. x. ult.
[46] Phars. v. 110, sqq.
[47] Ib. vi. 420-830.
[48] Ib. ii. 1-15.
[49] Ib. v. 199.
[50] Ib. ii. 380.
[51] Ib. ix. 566-586. This speech contains several difficulties. In v. 567 the reading is uncertain. The MS. reads An sit vita nihil, sed longam differat aetas? which has been changed to et longa? an differat actas? but the original reading might be thus translated, "Or whether life itself is nothing, but the years we spend here do but put off a long (i.e. an eternal) life?" This would refer to the Druidical theory, which seems to have taken great hold on him, that life in reality begins after death. See i. 457, longae vitae Mors media est, which exactly corresponds with the sentiment in this passage, and exemplifies the same use of longus.
[52] Capit impia plebes Cespite patricio somnos, Phars. vii. 760.
[53] Vivant Galataeque, Syrique, Cappadoces, Gallique, extremique orbis Iberi, Armenii, Cilices, nam post civilia bella Hic populus Romanus erit, Ib. vii. 335. Compare Juv. iii. 60; vii. 15.
[54] Phars. i. 56.
[55] Ib. vii. 174.
[56] See the long list, ii. 525, and the admirable criticism of M. Nisard.
[57] Phars. iii. 538, sqq.
[58] Ib. ix. 735.
[59] Of the seps Lucan says, Cyniphias inter pestes tibi palma nocendi est; Eripiunt onmes animam, tu sola cadaver (Phars. ix. 788).
[60] In allusion to the swelling caused by the prester, Non ausi tradere busto, Nondum stante modo, crescens fugere cadaver! Of the iaculus, a species which launched itself like an arrow at its victim, Deprensum est, quae funda rotat, quam lenta volarent, quam segnis Scythicae strideret arundinis aer.
[61] Phars. ix. 211.
[62] Ib. iv. 520.
[63] Silv. ii. 7, 54.
[64] Phars. v. 540.
[65] Ib. vi. 195.
[66] Phars. vii. 825.
[67] Ib. iv. 823.
[68] Ib iv. 185.
[69] The two passages are, Eumenidum veluti demens videt agmina Pentheus Et solem geminum et duplices se ostendere Thebas; Aut Agamemdnonius scaenis agitatus Orestes Armatum facibus matrem et squalentibus hydris cum fugit, ultricesque sedent in limiue Dirae (Aen. iv. 469). Lucan's (Phars. vii. 777), runs, Haud alios nondum Scythica purgatus in ara Emmenidum vidit vultus Pelopeius Orestes: Nec magis attonitos animi sensere tumultus, Cum fueret, Pentheus, aut cum desisset, Agave.
[70] Particularly that after the third foot, which is a feature in his style (Phars. vii. 464), Facturi qui monstra ferunt. This mode of closing a period occurs ten times more frequently than any other.
[71] I have collected a few instances where he imitates former poets:— Lucretius (i. 72-80), Ovid (i. 67 and 288), Horace (v. 403), by a characteristic epigram; Virgil in several places, the chief being i. 100, though the phrase belli mora is not Virgil's; ii. 32, 290, 408, 696; iii. 234, 391, 440, 605; iv. 392; v. 313, 610; vi. 217, 454; vii. 467, 105, 512, 194; viii. 864; x. 873.
[72] Phars. i. 363.
[73] Ib. viii. 3.
[74] Ib. i. 529.
[75] Phars. v. 479.
[76] Ib. v. 364.
[77] Metuentia astra, 51; Sirius irdex, 247. Cf. Man. i. 399 sqq.
[78] The rare form Ditis = Dis occurs in these two writers.
[79] Ep. 34, 2.
[80] Ep. 79, 1, 5, 7.
[81] See v. 208, 216, 304, 315, 334.
[82] Tac. A. xiv. 52, carmina orebrius factitare points to tragedy, since that was Nero's favourite study. Mart. i. 61, 7, makes no distinction between Seneca the philosopher and Seneca the tragedian, nor does Quint. ix. 2, 8, Medea apud Senecam, seem to refer to any but the well-known name. M. Nisard hazards the conjecture that they are a joint production of the family; the rhetorician, his two sons Seneca and Mela, and his grandson Lucan having each worked at them!
[83] Aen. iv. 11, Con.
[84] Hippol. 1124 and Oed. 979, are the finest examples.
[1] Praefectus vigilum.
[2] Plin. N. H. xxii. 23, 47.
[3] Said to have amounted to 300,000,000 sesterces. Tac. An. xiii. 42. Juvenal calls him praedives. Sat. x. 16.
[4] Au. xiv. 53.
[5] The great blot on his character is his having composed a justification of Nero's matricide on the plea of state necessity.
[6] Ep. 45, 4; cf. 2, 5.
[7] Ep. 110, 18.
[8] He was a scurrilous abuser of the government. Vespasian once said to him, "You want to provoke me to kill you, but I am not going to order a dog that barks to execution." Cf. Sen. Ep. 67, 14; De ben. vii. 2.
[9] Ep. 64, 2.
[10] Or at least in a much less degree. Tacitus and Juvenal give instances of rapacity exercised on the provinces, but it must have been inconsiderable as compared with what it had been.
[11] Ep. 6, 4.
[12] Ep. 75, 3.
[13] Ep. 75, 1.
[14] Vit. Beat. 17, 3.
[15] Ep. 38, 1. He compares philosophy to sun-light, which shines on all; Ep. 41, 1. This is different from Plato: to plaethos adunaton philosophon einai.
[16] Martha, Les Moralistes de l'Empire romain.
[17] Ep. 45.
[18] Ep. 38, 1; and 94, 1.
[19] Such as Serenus, Lucilius, &c. The old families seem to have eschewed him.
[20] Vit. Beat. 17, 1.
[21] M. Havet, Boiss. Rel. rom. vol. ii. 44.
[22] The question is sifted in Aubertin, Sénèque et Saint Paul; and in Gaston Boissier, La Religion romaine, vol. II. ch. ii.
[23] De Vir. Illust. 12. Tertullian (Ap. ii. 8, 10) had said before, Seneca saepe noster; but this only means that he often talks like a Christian.
[24] He afterwards repudiated her, and she died in great poverty. Her act shows a gentle and forgiving spirit.
[25] Claud. 25, "Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes expulit."
[26] Tac. An. xv. 44.
[27] Hodie tricesima Sabbata, S. I. ix.
[28] We have seen how the great orators Crassus and Antonius pretended that they did not know Greek: the same silly pride made others pretend they had never heard of the Jews, even while they were practising the Mosaic rites. And the number of noble names (Cornelii, Pomponii, Caecilii) inscribed on Christian tombs in the reigns of the Antonines proves that Christianity had made way even among the exclusive nobility of Rome.
[29] Prol. 13; ii. 45.
[30] 107, 12.
[31] 74, 20.
[32] Frag. 123.
[33] Ep. 110, 10 parens noster.
[34] 41, 2.
[35] Ep. 47, 18.
[36] Benef. iv. 12.
[37] E.g. In the Consol. ad Marc. 19, 5; ad Polyb. 9, 3. Even in Ep. 106, 4, he says, animus corpus est. Cf. 117, 2.
[38] 57, 7-9; 63, 16.
[39] 86, 1, animum eius in coelum, ex quo erat, redisse persuade mihi.
[40] 102, 26.
[41] Some have thought that if he did not know St Paul (who came to Rome between 56 and 61 A.D. when Seneca was no longer young) he may have heard some of the earlier missionaries in Rome.
[42] He could not have been occupied for years in governing the world, and, with his desire for virtue, not have risen to nobler conceptions than those with which he began.
[43] De. Ira, iii. 28, 1; cf. id. i. 14, 3.
[44] De. Clem. ii. 6, 2.
[45] Ep. 59, 14; 31, 3.
[46] 53, 11; cf. Prov. 66.
[47] This is the more cogent, because we find that the philosophers who were converted to Christianity all turned at once to its principles, often calling it a philosophia. Its practice they admired also; but this was not the first object of their attention.
[48] Ep. 95, 52.
[49] Ep. 95, 30.
[50] Ep. 96, 33, homo sacra res homini.
[51] Ben. iii. 28, 2.
[52] Ep. 47, humiles amici.
[53] In the treatise De Superstitione, of which several fragments remain. It is, however, probable that Seneca would have equally disliked any positive religion. He regards the sage as his own temple.
[54] Ep. 88, 37. There is a celebrated passage in one of his tragedies (Med. 370) where he speaks of our limited knowledge, and thinks it probable that a great New World will be discovered: "Venient annis secula seris Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tethysque novos detegat orbes Nec sit terris ultima Thule," an announcement almost prophetic.
[55] Ep. 48, 11. He did not advise, but he allowed, suicide, as a remedy for misfortune or disgrace. It is the one thing that makes the wise man even superior to the gods, that at any moment he chooses he can cease to be!
[1] Tac. An. xv. 16.
[2] For a full list of all the arguments for and against these dates the reader is referred to Teuffel, R. L. § 287.
[3] The exact date is uncertain. He speaks of Seneca as living, probably between 62 and 65 A.D. But he never mentions Pliny, who, on the contrary, frequently refers to him. He must, therefore, have finished his work before Pliny became celebrated.
[4] Perhaps the treatise Adversus Astrologos was written with the object of recommending the worship of the rural deities (xii. 1, 31). In one place (ii. 225) he says he intends to treat of lustrationes ceteraque sacrifitia.
[5] G. iv. 148.
[6] On the pro Milone, pro Scauro, pro Cornelia, in Pisonem, in toga candida.
[7] Scholia Bobbiensia.
[8] It is identical with the second book of Sacerdos, who lived at the close of the third century.
[9] Ann. xvi. 18.
[1] Suetonius calls him Novocomensis. He himself speaks of Catullus as his own conterraneus, from which it has been inferred by some that he was born at Verona (N. H. Praef.). His full name is C. Plinius Secundus.
[2] Dubii Sermonis, sometimes named De Difficilibus Linguae Latinae.
[3] De Iaculatione Equestri.
[4] Ep. vi. 16.
[5] Plin. vi. 20.
[6] Ib. iii. 5.
[7] Plin. N. H. ii. 1.
[8] Some have supposed that he lived much later, till 118 A.D., but this is improbable.
[9] Referred to in the proemium to Book VI. Some have thought it the work we possess, and which is usually ascribed to Tacitus, but without reason.
[10] De Institutione Oratoria.
[11] See Appendix.
[12] Plin. vi. 32.
[13] Juv. iv. 75.
[14] Juv. vii. 186. Pliny gave him £400 towards his daughter's dowry, a proof that, though he might be well off, he could not be considered rich.
[15] Mr. Parker told the writer that it was impossible to overrate the accuracy of Frontinus, and his extraordinary clearness of description, which he had found an invaluable guide in many laborious and minute investigations on the water-supply of ancient Rome.
[16] He is named by St Aug. De Util. Cred. 17.
[1] In the single ancient codex of the Vatican, at the end of the second book we read C. Val. Fl. Balbi explicit, Lib. II.; at the end of the fourth book, C, Val. Fl. Setini, Lib. IV. explicit; at the end of the seventh, C. Val. Fl. Setini Argonauticon, Lib. VII. explicit. The obscurity of these names has caused some critics to doubt whether they really belonged to the poet.
[2] Mart. I. 61-4.
[4] X. i. 90.
[5] So Dodwell, Annal Quintil.
[6] i. 7, sqq.
[7] E.g., of Titus storming Jerusalem (i. 13),
"Solymo nigrantem pulvere fratem
Spargentemque faces, et in omni turre furentem."
[8] iv. 508; cf. iv. 210.
[9] Ep. III. 7.
[10] Ren. i. 535.
[11] ix. 491.
[12] See Silv. V. iii. passim. This poem is a good instance of an epicedion.
[13] Ib. II. ii. 6.
[14] Ib. III. v. 52.
[15] Ib. III. v. 28; cf. IV. ii 65.
[16] Quint. III. vii. 4.
[17] Ib. III. v. 31.
[18] Silv. IV. ii. 65.
[19] For a brilliant and interesting essay on the two Statii, the reader is referred to Nisard, Poètes de la Décadence, vol. I. p. 303.
[20] The fifth book is unfinished. Probably he did not care to recur to it after leaving Rome.
[21] Silv. I. ii. 95.
[22] Book II. part II. ch. i.
[23] Sat. I. iv. 73.
[24] Pont. IV. ii. 34; Trist. III. xiv. 39.
[25] Laetam fecit cum Statius Urbem Promisitque diem, Juv. vii. 86.
[26] Esurit intactam Paridi nisi vendit Agaven, Juv. ib.
[27] Bis senos vigilata per annos, Theb. xii. 811.
[28] Theb. vii. 435, quoted by Nisard.
[29] "The land on the other side."
[30] The reader is referred to an article on the later Roman epos by Conington, Posthumous Works, vol. i. p. 348.
[31] Aen. vi. 413.
[32] Phars. i. 56.
[33] Theb. i. 17; Ach. i. 19.
[34] Theb. xii. 815.
[35] As i. 49, 3; iv. 55, 11, &c.
[36] In x. 24, 4, he tells us he is fifty-six; in x. 104, 9, written at Rome, he says he has been away from Bilbilis 34 years. In xii. 31. 7, he says his entire absence lasted 35 years. Now this was written in 100 A.D.
[37] iii. 94.
[38] v. 13.
[39] Nisard, p. 337.
[40] vii. 36.
[41] i. 77, &c.
[42] vii. 34.
[43] vii. 21.
[44] iv. 22.
[45] xi. 104.
[46] ii. 92, 3.
[47] So it is inferred from xii. 31.
[48] xii. 21.
[49] iii. 21.
[50] They will be found in Epig. x. 19.
[51] v. 37.
[52] See esp. ix. 48, as compared with Juv. ii. 1-30.
[53] x. 2.
[54] Mart. xi. 10.
[55] Mart. ix. 9.
[56] Ep. ix. 19, 1.
[57] Ep. iii. 1.
[58] x. 35, 1.
[59] E.g. The description of Domitian: qui res Romanas imperat inter, Non trabe sed tergo prolapsus et ingluvie albus. The underlined expression is an imitation of Aristophanes' Nub. 1275, ouk apo dokou all' ap' onou, i.e. apo nou, "He fell not from a beam, but from a donkey."
[60] Juv. i. 2.
[61] Ib. 3, recitaverit ille togatas, &c.
[1] Como.
[2] Juv. i. 49.
[3] The correspondence dates from 97 to 108 A.D.
[4] x. 96 (97).
[5] This refers to the malicious charges of acts of cruelty performed at the common meal, often brought against the early believers.
[6] Probably deaconesses.
[7] Ep. II. 13, 4.
[8] Ep. II. 11, 19.
[9] Ep. V. 5, 1.
[10] Ep. VII, 31, 5.
[11] Ep. VI. 15.
[12] An exhaustive list of these minor authors will be found in Teuffel, § 336-339.
[13] iii. 3l9.
[14] It runs: Cereri sacrum D. Junius Juvenalis tribunus cohortis I. Delmatarum, II. vir quinquennalis flamen Divi Vespasiani vovit dedicavitque sua pecunia. See Teuffel, § 326.
[15] Perhaps vii. 90.
[16] xv. 45.
[17] So, at least, says the author of the statement. But the cohort of which Juvenal was prefect was in Britain A.D. 124 under Hadrian. See Teuffel.
[18] Nuper console Junco, xv. 27. Others read Junio.
[19] Coleridge's definition of poetry as "the best words in their right places" may be fitly alluded to here. It occurs in the Table Talk.
[20] iv. 128; viii. 6, 7; xv. 75.
[21] Except in his poorer satires; certainly never in i. ii. iii. iv. vi. vii. viii.
[22] The close intimacy between Juvenal and Martial is no great testimony in favour of Juvenal. See Mart. vii. 24.
[23] iii. 61; cf. vi. 186, sqq.
[24] Cum perimit saevos classis numerosa tyrannos, vii. 151.
[25] Sat. iv.
[26] Ib. vii. 1-24.
[27] Experiar quid concedatur in illos Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina, i. 170.
[28] x. 66.
[29] viii. 147.
[30] x. 147, sqq.
[31] iii. 61, 87, 7.
[32] vii. pass.
[33] i. 32, 158.
[34] vii. 16.
[35] iii. 77-104.
[36] vi. 562, et al.
[37] See especially iii. 30-44.
[38] References, allusions, and imitations of Virgil occur in most of the Satires. For reminiscences of Lucan, cf. Juv. i. 18, 89; xii. 97, 8; with Phars. i. 457; viii. 543; ix. 781, 2.
[39] His praenomen is uncertain; some think it was Publius.
[40] N. H. vii. 17.
[41] Hist. i. 1.
[42] Agr. 45.
[43] A. iv. 20.
[44] A. xiv. 12.
[45] De Or. 2.
[46] Ep. vii. 20, 4.
[47] Ep. ii. 1, 6.
[48] Ch. 29 especially, seems an echo of Quintilian.
[49] E.g. Pallentem Famam, ch. 13. The expression—Augustus eloquentiam sient cetera pacaverat; and that so admirably paraphrased by Pitt (ch. 36), Magna eloquentia, sicat flamma, materia alitur et motibus excitatur et urendo clarescit.
[50] Ch. 3.
[51] Esp. ch. 10, 11.
[52] Notably the history of the Jews. Hist. v.
[53] Ann. iv. 32.
[54] De Bury, Les Femmes de l'Empire.
[1] For an excellent account of this inconstant prince see his biography by Aelius Spartianus, who preserves other poems of his.
[2] Cf. Dom. 12, Interfuisse me adolescentulum memini cum inspiceretur senex (a Domitiano). From Gram. 4, Ner. 57, as compared with this, we should infer that he was about fifteen in the year 90.
[3] Ep. i. 18.
[4] Ep. iii. 8.
[5] Paneg. Traj. 95.
[6] Ep. i. 24.
[7] E.g. Fronto writing under Antoninus mentions him as still living.
[8] Hist. Var. 6, 874-896 (Roth).
[9] De Spect. 5.
[10] Ad Aen. 7, 612: Tria suntgenera trabearum; nuum diis sacratum, quod est tantum de purpura; aliud regum, quod est purpureum, habet tanem album aliquid; tertium augurale de purpura et cocco. The other passage (Ad Aen. 2, 683) describes the different priestly caps, the apex, the tubulus, and the galerus.
[11] Etym. 18, 2, 3.
[12] Perhaps the word Stemma should be supplied before syngenikon.
[13] In one MS. is appended to Suetonius's works a list of grammatical observations called Differentiae sermonum Remmi Palaemonis ex libro Suetoni Tranquilli qui inscribitur Pratum. Roth prints these, but does not believe them genuine.
[14] It will be found Ner. 47-49.
[15] Qualis artifex pereo.
[16] Many of these ejaculations are in Greek. On this see note i. p. 37.
[17] Usually (from the Cod. Bamberg.) Julius Florus; but Mommsen considers this a corruption.
[18] Riese, Anthol. Lat. p. 168-70; ib. No. 87, p. 101. Some have ascribed the Pervigilium Veneris to him.
[19] ii. 1.
[20] See back page 331.
[22] Dio. xl. 5, 20.
[23] For these writers, see Teuff. § 345.
[24] i. 4, 1.
[25] He speaks of having learnt from him to epistasthai oti hae turannikae baskania kai poikilia kai hypokrisis kai oti os epipan oi kaloumenoi outoi par aemin Eupatridai astorgoteroi pos eisin.
[26] Paneg. Constant. 14.
[27] Sat. V. 1.
[28] Siccum. This shows more acumen than we should have expected from Macrobius.
[29] Ep. ad M. Caes ii. 1.
[30] In complaining of fate, he suddenly breaks off with the words: Fata a fando appellata aiunt; hoccine est recte fari? § 7.
[31] On this see a fuller account, pp. 478, 474.
[32] Some of the more interesting chapters in his work may be referred to:—On religion, i. 7; iv. 9; iv. 11; v. 12; vi. 1. On law, iv. 3; iv. 4; iv. 5; v. 19; vii. 15; x. 20. On Virgil, i. 23; ii. 3; ii. 4; v. 8; vi. 6; vii. 12; vii. 20; ix. 9; x. 16; xiii. 1; xiii. 20. On Sallust, i. 15; ii. 27; iii. 1; iv. 15; x. 20. On Ennius, iv. 7; vii. 2; xi. 4; xviii. 5.
[33] And those often rare ones, as solitavisse.
[34] E.g. in vii. 17, where he poses a grammarian as to the signification of obnoxius. Compare also xiv. 5, on the vocative of egregius.
[35] See xiv. 6.
[36] See iv. 9.
[37] See esp. xix. 9.
[38] E.g. iv. 1.
[39] Especially iv. 7; v. 21; vii. 7, 9, 11; xvi. 14; xviii. 8, 9.
[40] xviii. 5.
[41] Civ. Dei. ix. 4.
[42] Teuffel, § 356.
[43] Note 1, p. 466.
[44] xix. 11.
[45] The personal taste of the emperors now greatly helped to form style. This should not be forgotten in criticising the works of this period.
[46] Such is Teuffel's opinion, following Büchelor, L. L. § 358.
[48] This date is adopted by Charpentier. Teuffel (L. L. § 362, 2) inclines to a later date, 125 A.D.
[49] Apol. 23.
[50] Sometimes called De Magia.
[51] The word paupertas must be used in a limited sense, as it is by Horace, pauperemque dives me petit; or else we must suppose that Apuleius had squandered his fortune in his travels.
[52] The case was tried before the Proconsul Claudius Maximus.
[53] It will be found Metam. iv. 28—vi. 24.
[54] Apuleius himself (i. 1) calls it a Milesian tale (see App. to ch. 3). These are very generally condemned by the classical writers. But there is no doubt they were very largely read sub rosa. When Crassus was defeated in Parthia, the king Surenas is reported to have been greatly struck with the licentious novels which the Roman officers read during the campaign.
[55] St Augustine fully believed that he and Apollonius of Tyana were workers of (demoniacal) miracles.
[1] The reader is referred to Champagny, Les Césars, vols. iii. and iv; Martha, Les Moralistes romaines; Gaston Boissier, Les Antonins; Charpentier, Ecrivains latins sous l'Empire.
[2] The declaimers of Suaseriae in praise of the heroes of old were contemptuously styled Marathonouachos.
[3] Delivered by Fronto.
[4] One, irritated that the Emperor Antoninus did not bow to him in the theatre, called out, "Caesar! do you not see me?"
[5] Inst. Div. iii. 23.
[6] Dio. xvii. p. 464.
[7] Id. xii. p. 397.
[8] Epictetus (Dissert. iii. 26) uses the very word—theoi diakonoi ko martyres. Christianity hallowed this term, as it did so many others.
[9] See Juvenal: Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos De conducende loquitur iam rhetore Thule, xv. 1112.
[10] Dissert. i. 9.
[11] Tac. Hist. iii. 81.
[12] Plut. De Defect. Orac. p. 410.
[13] Vit. Apol. iv. 40.
[14] Jampridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes, Juv. iii. 52.
[15] Decernat quodcunque volet de corpore nostro Isis, Id. xiii. 93.
[16] Herm. 24.
[17] De deo Socr. 3.
[18] E.g. Those of Greece are cheerful for the most part, those of Egypt gloomy.
[19] He was an African, it will be remembered.
[1] From the Römische Zeittafeln of Dr E. W. Fischer, and from Clinton, Fasti Hellenici and Romani. Only those dates which are tolerably certain are given.
[2] Clinton places his birth in 193; but see Teuff. § 97, 6.
[3] Others place this event in 109 B.C.
[4] Others place this event in 55 B.C.
[5] Or, perhaps, in 24 B.C.
[6] Jerome places it in 13 A.D.
[7] The most convenient and accessible are here recommended, not the most complete or exhaustive. For these the reader is referred to Teuffel's work, from which several of those here mentioned are taken.
[8] Some of these questions are taken from University Examinations, some also from Mr. Gantillon's Classical Examination Papers.