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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Roman Literature
+by Charles Thomas Cruttwell
+
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+Title: A History of Roman Literature
+       From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius
+
+Author: Charles Thomas Cruttwell
+
+Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7525]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 13, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF ROMAN LITERATURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Anne Soulard, Tiffany Vergon
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+A HISTORY OF ROMAN LITERATURE:
+FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE DEATH OF MARCUS AURELIUS
+
+BY
+CHARLES THOMAS CRUTTWELL, M.A.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE VENERABLE J. A. HESSEY, D.O.L ARCHDEACON OF MIDDLESEX,
+THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
+BY HIS FORMER PUPIL, THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+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.
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+FROM LIVIUS ANDRONICUS TO SULLA (240-80 B.C.).
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_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
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+_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_.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+_The History of Oratory before Cicero._
+
+Comparison of English, Greek, and Roman oratory--Appius—Cornelius
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_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.
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+THE GOLDEN AGE.
+FROM THE CONSULSHIP OF CICERO TO THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS (63 B.C.-l4 A.D.).
+
+
+PART I.
+
+_THE REPUBLICAN PERIOD_.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_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_.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_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.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+_THE AUGUSTAN EPOCH_ (42 B.C.-l4 A.D.).
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_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.
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+THE DECLINE.
+FROM THE ACCESSION OF TIBERIUS TO THE DEATH OF M. AURELIUS, A.D. 14-180.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_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_.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+_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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+_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 literature—Conclusion.
+
+
+CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
+
+LIST OF EDITIONS RECOMMENDED
+
+QUESTIONS OR SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS, &c.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ON THE EARLIEST REMAINS OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+_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
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ON THE BEGINNINGS OF ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE INTRODUCTION OF GREEK LITERATURE--LIVIUS AND NAEVIUS (240-204 B.C.).
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ROMAN COMEDY--PLAUTUS TO TURPILIUS (254-103 B.C.).
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ROMAN TRAGEDY (ENNIUS--ACCIUS, 239-94 B.C.).
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+EPIC POETRY. ENNIUS--FURIUS (200-100 B.C.)
+
+
+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]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE EARLY HISTORY OF SATIRE (ENNIUS TO LUCILIUS)
+
+200-103 B.C.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE MINOR DEPARTMENTS OF POETRY--THE ATELLANAE (POMPONIUS AND NOVIUS,
+CIRC. 90 B.C.) AND THE EPIGRAM (ENNIUS--CATULUS, 100 B.C.).
+
+
+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.
+
+  AD PAMPHILAM.
+
+  "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."
+
+  AD PUERUM PHILEROTA.
+
+  "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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+PROSE LITERATURE--HISTORY. FABIUS PICTOR--MACER (210-80 B.C.).
+
+
+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.)
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+_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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE HISTORY OF ORATORY BEFORE CICERO.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+OTHER KINDS OF PROSE LITERATURE, GRAMMAR, RHETORIC, AND PHILOSOPHY
+(147-63 B.C.).
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+THE GOLDEN AGE.
+
+FROM THE CONSULSHIP OF CICERO TO THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS (63 B.C.-14 A.D.).
+
+
+PART I.
+
+THE REPUBLICAN PERIOD.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+VARRO.
+
+
+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:--
+
+Book I.--On the origin of the Latin language.
+
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+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_.
+
+  I.
+
+  "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."
+
+  II.
+
+  "Ergo inter solis stationem ad sidera septem
+  Exporrecta iacet tellus: huic extima fluctu
+  Oceani, interior Neptuno cingitur ora."
+
+  III.
+
+  "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.
+
+  I.
+
+  "Tum liceat pelagi volucres tardaeqne paludis
+  Cernere inexpleto studio gestire lavandi
+  Et velut insolitum pennis infundere rorem.
+  Aut arguta lacus circumvolitavit hirando."
+
+  II.
+
+  "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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ORATORY AND PHILOSOPHY--CICERO (106-43 B.C.).
+
+
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+_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:
+
+  I.
+
+  "Crede ratem ventis, animum ne crede puellis:
+  Namque est feminea tutior unda fide."
+
+  II.
+
+  "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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL COMPOSITION--CAESAR--NEPOS--SALLUST.
+
+
+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]
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+_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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE HISTORY OF POETRY TO THE CLOSE OF THE REPUBLIC--RISE OF ALEXANDRINISM
+--LUCRETIUS--CATULLUS.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+_THE AUGUSTAN EPOCH_ (42 B.C.-14 A.D.).
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+VIRGIL (70-19 B.C.).
+
+
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+HORACE (65-8 B.C.).
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ELEGIAC POETS--GRATIUS--MANILIUS.
+
+
+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]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+PROSE-WRITERS OF THE AUGUSTAN PERIOD.
+
+
+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:--
+
+  Book    I.  General description of the science--education of the
+              architect--best choice of site for a city—disposition of its
+              plan, fortifications, public buildings, &c.
+
+   "     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.
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+THE DECLINE.
+_FROM THE ACCESSION OF TIBERIUS TO THE DEATH OF M. AURELIUS_ (14-180 A.D.)
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE AGE OF TIBERIUS (14-37 A.D.).
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE REIGNS OF CALIGULA, CLAUDIUS, AND NERO (37-68 A.D.).
+
+
+1. POETS.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE REIGNS OF CALIGULA, CLAUDIUS, AND NERO.
+
+
+2. PROSE WRITERS--SENECA.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE REIGNS OF CALIGULA, CLAUDIUS, AND NERO.
+
+
+3. OTHER PROSE WRITERS.
+
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE REIGNS OP THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS (A.D. 69-96).
+
+
+1. PROSE WRITERS.
+
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+_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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE REIGNS OF VESPASIAN, TITUS, AND DOMITIAN (A.D. 69-96).
+
+
+2. POETS.
+
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+_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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE REIGNS OF NERVA AND TRAJAN (96-117 A.D.).
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE REIGNS OF HADRIAN AND THE ANTONINES (117-180 A.D.).
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+STATE OF PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT DURING THE PERIOD OF THE
+ANTONINES--CONCLUSION.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF ROMAN LITERATURE,
+FROM LIVIUS TO THE DEATH OF M. AURELIUS. [1]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF EDITIONS RECOMMENDED. [7]
+
+
+FOR THE EARLY PERIOD.
+
+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.
+
+
+FOR THE GOLDEN AGE.
+
+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.
+
+
+THE PERIOD OF THE DECLINE.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS OR SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS SUGGESTED BY THE HISTORY OF ROMAN
+LITERATURE. [8]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+[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.
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+[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_.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+[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._
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+[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.
+
+[11] III. 20, 8.
+
+[12] Imitated respectively, Virg. A. iv. 585; A. i. 539; A. x. 361.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+[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).
+
+[12] 201 B.C.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+[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._
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+[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_.
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+PART I.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+[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.
+
+[35] B. H. 5.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+[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_.
+
+[131] C. 68.
+
+[132] See Ellis, _Cat. Prolegomena_.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+[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
+
+[32] X. 3. 8.
+
+[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_.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER 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.
+
+[66] I. 898.
+
+[67] IV. 935.
+
+[68] Ib. 764.
+
+[69] V. 513.
+
+[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.
+
+[78] I. 458.
+
+[79] II. 58.
+
+[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!_
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+[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.
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+[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.
+
+[22] A. P. 102.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+[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!
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+[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.
+
+[3] I. 5.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+[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_.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+[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.
+
+[47] P. 1414.
+
+[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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+[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.
+
+
+APPENDICES
+
+[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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Roman Literature
+by Charles Thomas Cruttwell
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF ROMAN LITERATURE ***
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