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Title: A literary history of Rome in the Silver Age
From Tiberius to Hadrian
Author: J. Wight Duff
Release date: July 17, 2026 [eBook #79117]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: T. Fisher Unwin Limited, 1927
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITERARY HISTORY OF ROME IN THE SILVER AGE ***
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_THE LIBRARY
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LITERARY HISTORY_
A Literary History of Rome
in the Silver Age
_By the same Author_
A Literary History of Rome. _From the Origins to the Close of the Golden
Age._
“Mr. Duff’s wide acquaintance with modern literature is not the least of
his qualifications.... His treatise, full and erudite, yet everywhere
human and interesting, cannot fail to deepen in his readers the sense of
the continuity of literature and the relation of literature to life, and
the debt of the modern world to Rome.”—_The Times._
“Professor Wight Duff compels us to listen. To those who even dimly
remember their Latin there is something irresistible in his style and
arrangement, in his knowledge and in the temperate freshness of his
criticism.”—_The Nation._
“A work of rare scholarship condensed with consummate care and
judgment.”—_Scotsman._
“What particularly marks it out for suggestiveness and vigour is the
broad human platform from which it surveys the progress of Latin poetry
and prose.”—_The Daily Telegraph._
“An author who can render so many diverse authors adequately appeals to
us at once as an understanding critic at any rate.... There is labour and
erudition and a keen sense of literary values.”—_Saturday Review._
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recent philological and historical research. It is written in a style
which commands admiration for its lucidity, terseness and vigour.”—_The
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“The taste and skill of his illustrative translations indicate a critic
whose independent judgment of literary quality, and whose divination
of the final and essential charm of a masterpiece are far better worth
recording than is usually the case in works of this sort. As a matter of
fact, however, we have had no works of this sort, at all events, in our
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Zusammenhang der Dinge, wenigstens so weit beides römisch ist.”—Professor
Friedrich Leo in _Deutsche Literaturzeitung_.
[Illustration: ROMAN ART OF THE SILVER AGE.
Reliefs from frieze of temple of Minerva in Nerva’s Forum representing
the goddess’s patronage of domestic arts.
_From photograph by Alinari._]
A Literary History
of Rome in the
Silver Age
From Tiberius to Hadrian
_By_
J. Wight Duff
_M.A., D.Litt. (Oxon.), Hon. D.Litt. (Durham), LL.D. (Aberdeen);
Professor of Classics, Armstrong College (in the University
of Durham), Newcastle-upon-Tyne_
Author of
“A Literary History of Rome to the Close of the Golden
Age” and “Writers of Rome”
T. Fisher Unwin Limited
Bouverie House, Fleet Street
1927
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
LITTERARVM VETERVM
STVDIOSIS AMATORIBVS
HAS QVALESCVMQVE SVNT LVCVBRATIONES
DE AETATE ARGENTEA EXARATAS
LIBENTISSIMO ANIMO
IOANNES WIGHT DUFF
D. D. D.
ID. IVL. MCMXXVII
Preface
The favourable reception accorded in several countries to my work on _A
Literary History of Rome from the Origins to the Close of the Golden
Age_, of which the first edition appeared in 1909, suggested the idea
of continuing on similar principles the study of Latin literature into
the first and second centuries, during which the Roman empire at its
zenith in power and efficiency rendered its greatest services to human
civilisation. The project was dropped throughout the period of the Great
War, when, even if publication had been feasible, duties on a local
Brigade Committee and for a time as Acting-Principal of my College
effectually removed me from the atmosphere of literary criticism. Even
after my publisher, Mr. Fisher Unwin, was good enough to revive the
design, progress was extraordinarily slow, owing to the increasing
demands made upon time by the recurrent problems of a modern university.
As in the former volume, emphasis has here been laid on the national
character imprinted upon Latin literature despite all borrowings from
Greek models; and attention has been carefully devoted to the evidence
for the facts of an author’s life in an endeavour to recreate the
environment amidst which he wrote. Nor have material sources, whether
Greek or Latin, been overlooked: indispensable though some account of
these must be for a true conception of a writer as at once inheritor
and progenitor, it is surprising to note how little in this country
scholarship has concerned itself with the origin of encyclopaedic
learning like that of the elder Pliny. The arrangement adopted is
different from that in Professor Summers’s skilful handling of a
slightly shorter period in his _Silver Age of Latin Literature_ under
headings of various kinds of literature rather than on chronological
lines. In the present work, where historical background and literary
evolution are alike regarded as of vital importance, the treatment has
been not according to _genre_ but mainly in the order of time. While the
limits set for full discussion of authors are A.D. 14–A.D. 138, these
dates are not rigidly observed respecting relevant topics, such as the
survival of an author’s influence till modern times or the continuance of
the Roman educational system; and an epilogue is added to give a brief
conspectus of the literature which followed the Silver Age.
An attempt has been made to secure acquaintance with a reasonable
proportion of the vast number of treatises and pamphlets written in Latin
and in several modern languages upon matters related to the authors
of the period. The obligations incurred to such works may be gauged
from references in the footnotes. But it is obvious that no amount of
reading in books upon books, however valuable in substance, can avail
to produce either a vital chronicle of any age or serviceable estimates
of its writers without first-hand study of the writers themselves and
independent appreciation of their significance. I hope, therefore,
for success in conveying to readers, by summary, by quotation, and by
criticism, something of the impression made on myself during adventures
among the literary products of the Silver Age. The illustrative
translations from Latin into prose or verse are my own, and have been
for the most part composed specially for this volume. Thanks are due to
the Delegates of the Oxford University Press for permission to use a few
verse renderings which I made for my book on _The Writers of Rome_. The
general reader, whose Latin has perhaps grown rusty, may welcome these
translations as supplementing the historical and critical portions,
while he will doubtless realize that it is optional to consult or not to
consult the footnotes.
The bibliographical notes, it should be explained, are intended, not
to be exhaustive, but to give by mention of selected editions some
clue to the history of the printed text of an author and to include
representative modern studies of his literary significance.
I wish to acknowledge kind assistance rendered by Mr. Basil Anderton,
M.A., Public Librarian, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and by Miss Constance
Shipley, M.A., Lecturer in Classics at Armstrong College, in reading
and criticising some of the chapters of this book. My son, Mr. Arnold
M. Duff, M.A., B.Litt.(Oxon.), Assistant Lecturer in Greek in the
University of Aberdeen, has also perused several chapters and made useful
suggestions, while my wife copied for the press either by hand or by
typewriter almost the whole manuscript. Both have helped greatly in the
checking of proofs and in the verification of references. To Professor
Hermann Dessau of Berlin I owe several references to inscriptions which
he sent me some years ago to amplify those in my article on “Roman
Education” in _The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_. In the choice
of a frontispiece, intended to illustrate the art of the period, I had
the great benefit of advice from Mrs. Arthur Strong, Litt.D., LL.D.,
formerly Assistant-Director of the British School at Rome, in whose
penetrating discernment of the true ethos of Roman sculpture I have
found much to reinforce my argument that within the analogous domain of
literature the Romans knew not only how to borrow from Greece but also
how independently to create the beautiful.
It is a satisfaction to observe among scholars a growing insistence upon
the independent vitality of Roman literature and a growing disinclination
to regard it as a pale second-hand reflection of the splendour of Greek
literature. My friend, the late Dr. Warde Fowler, appended to his
Presidential Address on “The Imagination of the Romans,” read at the
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Meeting of the central Classical Association of
England and Wales in 1920, a note to the effect that he was in agreement
with the contentions advocated on the subject in my _Literary History
of Rome_; and only last year a German Professor, Herr Günther Jachmann,
chose as the theme of an inaugural lecture at Köln “Die Originalität der
römischen Literatur”. The value of Roman literature cannot be grasped
without recognition of the extent to which Roman authors found fresh
stimulus in surroundings widened far beyond those assigned by historical
circumstance to the brilliant intellects of Greece.
J. W. D.
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE
_July 1927_
Table of Contents
PAGE
PREFACE ix
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER
I. PROLOGUE 1
II. ROMAN EDUCATION UNDER THE EMPIRE 23
LITERATURE UNDER TIBERIUS, CALIGULA
AND CLAUDIUS, A.D. 14–A.D. 54
I. THE ELDER SENECA: ORATORS AND RHETORICIANS 42
II. VALERIUS MAXIMUS: A REPERTORY FOR SPEAKERS 65
III. VELLEIUS: CURTIUS: HISTORY 82
IV. CELSUS: MELA: MISCELLANEOUS LEARNING 114
V. PHAEDRUS AND FABLE: POETRY OF THE TIME 133
LITERATURE OF THE NERONIAN PERIOD,
A.D. 54–A.D. 68
I. COLUMELLA AND AGRICULTURE 160
II. PETRONIUS: NOVELIST AND POET 169
III. SENECA THE PHILOSOPHER: MISCELLANEOUS LEARNING 196
IV. SENECAN SATIRE AND POETRY: DRAMA OF THE AGE 237
V. PERSIUS: STOIC SATIRE 279
VI. LUCAN: HISTORICAL EPIC 296
VII. CALPURNIUS SICULUS AND MINOR POETRY OF THE NERONIAN AGE 330
LITERATURE OF THE FLAVIAN PERIOD,
A.D. 69–A.D. 96
I. THE ELDER PLINY: FLAVIAN SCIENCE AND HISTORY 347
II. QUINTILIAN: DECLAMATIONS AND ORATORS 387
III. FRONTINUS AND TECHNICAL WRITERS 422
IV. VALERIUS FLACCUS 433
V. SILIUS ITALICUS 452
VI. STATIUS 467
VII. MARTIAL AND MINOR FLAVIAN POETRY 498
LITERATURE UNDER NERVA AND TRAJAN,
A.D. 96–A.D. 117
I. PLINY THE YOUNGER AND MINOR CONTEMPORARIES 531
II. TACITUS 559
III. JUVENAL 599
LITERATURE IN THE REIGN OF HADRIAN,
A.D. 117–A.D. 138
SUETONIUS AND FLORUS 628
CONCLUSION
AN EPILOGUE—THE SECOND CENTURY AND AFTER 650
INDEX 659
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
PROLOGUE
“Silver” and “Gold” in Roman literature—The period
from Tiberius to Hadrian (A.D. 14–138)—Historical
aspects—Cosmopolitan Rome—Tangible remains—Emperors in relation
to literature—Risks in writing—Fresh individual forces in
Silver literature—The conventional in education—Declaiming and
reciting—Epigrammatic point and decorative tinsel—Corrective
factors in real life—Serious thought—Stoicism—The Stoic
opposition—Influence of Stoic doctrine—Influence of the
provinces—Variety in “Silver” themes and style—Changing
features in the language—Concentration on the terse, the
surprising, and the poetic—Grammar and vocabulary—A few summary
reflections.
In the literary history of Rome one of the most brilliant and attractive
epochs is that part of the first and second centuries of the Christian
era which critics have usually distinguished with the epithet of
“Silver.” The Silver Age of Roman Literature is regarded in the present
work as that immediately following the great times of Augustan poetry and
prose. What has been traditionally reckoned the Golden Age coincided with
the productive careers of Cicero and then Livy in prose, and lasted from
Lucretius to Ovid in verse. While, soon after it began, Catullus wrote
his anti-Caesarian lampoons, it reached its fullest glory when Virgil and
Horace by their works threw lustre around the emergence of the imperial
family—_ecce Dionaei processit Caesaris astrum_, in the language of the
Eclogues. Politically, therefore, the Golden Age saw the final overthrow
of the old senatorial republic and the inauguration of state-control by
a single ruler for Rome and the Roman dominions. Such public oratory
as Cicero’s, which adorned the earlier phases of the age amidst the
unfettered interplay of republican politics, had become an impossible
anachronism before its close, when Augustus concentrated in his person
all the significant powers of the ancient magistracies—_munia senatus
magistratuum legum in se trahere_ is the remark of Tacitus. In time,
then, the Golden Age may be dated from 70 B.C. to A.D. 14, a stretch of
eighty-four years.
The Silver Age is a longer period, even when restricted, as some prefer,
to the years between A.D. 14 and 117, that is from the beginning of
Tiberius’s reign to the end of Trajan’s. Here it has been extended to
include the reign of Hadrian, A.D. 117-138, after which Latin literature
is marked partly by sterility, partly by an artificial archaizing
movement, partly by the entirely different train of thought expressed
in Christian apologetics. Historically, this period of a century and a
quarter coincides with the reigns of all but the first two of Suetonius’s
twelve Caesars, and, in addition, the reigns of Nerva, Trajan and
Hadrian, thirteen emperors altogether. If in the preceding age the empire
was still young and so far, under Augustus, only partially tested, now
during these succeeding generations, in spite of the enormities of
individual emperors and in spite of the ghastly interval of bloodshed
among successive candidates for the purple after Nero’s suicide, the
hold of the system upon the world was firmly established, and its
organization perfected, on the whole, for the benefit of mankind. With
the _Pax Romana_ came greater safety for life and limb both in Italy
and in the provinces; governors abroad were more under the central
control; roads were improved to meet the requirements of the imperial
post-service for despatches; the water-supply of Rome and other cities
was diligently cared for; new harbours were constructed; industry and
trade increased, at any rate up to the point at which the policy of
the bread-dole effected moral ruin for the population and in the end
financial ruin for a state in which the value of free agriculture and
free capital was misunderstood. _Nihil est ab omni parte beatum_; and so,
upon examination, it is plain that amidst the material well-being and
felicities of the second century, even in the prosperous Antonine age
with which Gibbon began his history of _The Decline and Fall_, there
lurked elements of disintegration which would lead to the troubles of the
third century.[1]
During the first century events had revealed the state-secret not only
that emperors might be made by other electors than the Senate, but that
they might be made even elsewhere than in Rome. The tendency, in fact,
was towards a military monarchy, as the careers of Galba, Otho, Vitellius
and Vespasian showed. When one considers, it seems well-nigh inevitable
that an emperor’s absolute power abroad should ultimately expand his
theoretically limited power in Italy and Rome towards absolutism.
Between Augustus as first citizen at the opening of the century and
Domitian claiming to be “Lord and God” towards its end vast changes had
intervened. The dyarchy which Augustus was careful to respect had in time
gone far on its way to monarchy; for the senate not infrequently acted
under imperial coercion. More and more, too, it grew evident that the
basis of the ruler’s power was the army—a conception abhorrent to Romans
of the constitutional republic. In this connexion it is significant
that the title _imperator_ became commoner than _princeps_ about
Trajan’s time. Moreover, the worship of emperors during their lifetime
in association with the cult of the goddess Roma, and the deification
of certain emperors after death, outwardly exalted their office. It is,
however, difficult to see how the notion of _apotheosis_ could seriously
survive among thinking readers of Seneca’s satire on the dead emperor
Claudius; and it is a strange contradiction inherent in circumstances
that, while the sacrifice in honour of a Caesar as the public test of
loyalty involved the martyrdom of many Christians, yet the Caesar-worship
from which their faith revolted did actually by its attainment of
official universality prepare the way for the ultimate predominance of
the Christian religion.
The crucial problem for the empire was, as Augustus foresaw, one
of consolidation rather than aggrandisement; and the only notable
departures from this policy during the whole period were connected with
the annexations in Britain begun by Claudius and those in Dacia and the
East carried out by Trajan. Trajan’s Oriental conquests in the first
quarter of the second century, though soon abandoned by his successor,
brought the Roman Empire to its widest extent, and marked the extremity
of contrast between the primitive pastoral settlement near the Tiber
and the capital of world-wide dominions into which it had evolved.
Rome had in the first century become more cosmopolitan than ever—a
phenomenon sufficient to illustrate in the eyes of a Seneca the essential
brotherhood of mankind, but in the eyes of a Juvenal the objectionable
ubiquity of the alien interloper. It has been argued that, early in the
second century, when Juvenal and Tacitus wrote, “a very small percentage
of the free plebeians on the streets of Rome could prove unmixed Italian
descent.”[2] Here at once we meet a feature of importance for literature.
Rome possessed a wonderful power of nationalizing the foreigner; but
there was sure to be a reaction on her own life and thought. This large
cosmopolitan and international element in the capital contributed towards
a widening of their horizon for literary men, and to it the human note
unquestionably observable in the Silver Age owed a great deal.
The whole period has been made very real to us by writers within recent
times who have investigated its political, constitutional, social,
religious and artistic history.[3] Modern inquiry has combined with
ancient documents to recreate the historical background requisite for
appreciation of the literature, in such a way that few epochs of the
past are so intimately known. In some degree this clear view is due to
the strikingly human note, the living interest in man and his concerns,
which is characteristic of the ablest writers in the Silver Age. Much
of its history and many of its personages have been made to live for
us by Tacitus and Suetonius; its society by Petronius’s novel, the
miscellaneous poems of Statius, the younger Pliny’s letters, Martial’s
epigrams and Juvenal’s satires; its science by the elder Pliny; its
rhetoric by the elder Seneca and Quintilian; its practical ethics by
Seneca the younger. Inscriptions and coins tell their tale; the Colosseum
remains the most imposing monument to the Flavian dynasty; Pompeii puts
before us the dwellings, decorations and the very street-paving of the
time; and Hadrian is brought nearer through his magnificent villa, a
veritable _urbis opus_, close under Tivoli, his gateway at Athens, his
wall in Britain, and his mausoleum familiar now as the Castel Sant’
Angelo at Rome.
Before passing from the historical aspects of the age, one may observe
how the emperors comported themselves in relation to literature.[4] They
were well-educated men, and several of them showed literary talent.
Tiberius in early life cultivated the acquaintance of M. Valerius
Messala Corvinus, the friend of Horace and Tibullus, and modelled his
oratorical style on Messala’s. It was said that he imitated the pathetic
love-stories of Parthenios of Nicaea, who taught Virgil Greek. Tiberius’s
successor Caligula was no author, but he had a turn for shrewd criticism,
discernible in his sharp remark about Seneca’s style as “sand without
lime;”[5] and he recognized classic greatness in literature well enough
to be insanely jealous of it. The next two emperors, Claudius and Nero,
displayed ability as writers, the one in prose, the other in verse. If
we then turn to the Flavian emperors, we find that, although none of the
three felt so enthusiastic for literature as either Claudius or Nero
had done, yet they all extended a certain limited patronage to authors.
Vespasian, _bourgeois_ man of business though he might be, was not
unskilled in Greek eloquence, and composed memoirs. Titus, we know, wrote
a poem on a comet; while his brother Domitian was devoted to poetry in
youth, and later fostered poetic rivalry by the Capitoline and Alban
contests. That competition, when the right circumstances co-operate,
can give health to literature is evident from the lasting greatness of
Athenian drama: unfortunately, the spirit of Domitian’s reign was such as
mainly to favour mediocrity or truckling in its poets. Trajan, without
profound culture himself and no very active patron of letters, at least
maintained friendly relations with such authors as the younger Pliny and
the Greek Dion Chrysostom. His successor Hadrian, versatile and Hellenic
in taste, dabbled in Latin poetry; but, to judge from the surviving
fragments, never so successfully as at the last, when he composed his
death-bed adieu in half a dozen lines to his soul.
Even such a cursory glance at rulers of the time indicates that the
drawback for literature consisted not in their particular unfitness
to play the literary patron but in a generally untoward environment.
Artistic creation of the very freest and highest order was little likely
to thrive in the atmosphere of the first century. The risk of danger
always lay hidden in the unfathomable temperament of an emperor; and in
the very essence of the new _régime_ there wrought elements inimical to
the safe production of literary work. The outspoken oratory of the past
was unacceptable; history was capable of giving offence in high quarters;
even drama could be frowned upon for a line misconstrued as a political
allusion. At a time when Phaedrus’s beast-fables were denounced as
libellous insults, it is not surprising that histories of human affairs
should be adjudged to the flames. The prospects for literary men must
often have appeared dark during the sway of the Julio-Claudian dynasty
in situations such as were created by the espionage which Tiberius
permitted in his later days, by the incalculable caprice of Caligula,
the uncertainties of policy under the wives and freedmen of Claudius,
and the egotistic vanity of Nero. The wonder is not that we have so
small a yield from times so difficult, but that we have so much that has
proved worth preserving. Fortunately, writers took risks. Under Nero,
Petronius was safe, up to a point, in writing a novel of low adventure,
and Seneca was safe, again up to a point, in writing essays on high
moral principles, though even these might be interpreted as implied
reproofs. Lucan, on the other hand, was clearly on the thinnest ice in
writing an epic about Pompey’s heroism in his warfare against Julius
Caesar. This was doubly dangerous; because while the poem might very
well be regarded as anti-imperial, it might also stir the jealousy of
a poet-emperor. Later, under the Flavians, no one could be sure when
the court might grow too suspicious to tolerate philosophers any longer
in Rome, as happened in A.D. 75 and 90. Deep intellectual speculation
has always been liable to enmity as unsettling: and so many members of
noble houses had in troublous times found consolation in Stoicism that
its teaching particularly tended to be associated with opposition to the
imperial system. Apart from this aspect, it may be noted in passing how
Stoic thought shows itself in such poets as Persius, Lucan and Juvenal,
and in such prose writers as Seneca, the elder Pliny and Tacitus. The
period of terror during the later part of Domitian’s reign, fifteen years
of “silence” as Tacitus viewed it, pressed most severely upon history.
But it was not impossible to write securely, if an author chose remote
epic themes as Statius did, or composed scores of occasional epigrams
as Martial did. Indeed, there never was a time when dilettanti recited
more energetically their latest productions before a select circle of
friends. After Domitian’s death, history and oratory recovered a modicum
at least of their old freedom. Nerva’s principate was too brief to affect
literature deeply, though it brought that welcome release from tyranny
which bore fullest fruit in the historical labours of Tacitus under
Trajan. This fresh impulse, however, seemed almost spent by the reign of
Hadrian; for Suetonius and Florus were artistically but poor successors
to Tacitus. Under Hadrian a revival of interest in Hellenism and the
prominence of authors writing in Greek combined with the emperor’s
example to act as positive setbacks to the fashion of writing in Latin.
In its literary aspects the whole age makes a fascinating study. Its
appropriate epithet of “Silver” concedes the classic superiority of the
Golden Age (_aurea prima sata est aetas ... subiit argentea proles_);
but silver, viewed as metal or as literature, retains a value of its
own, and the metaphorical title, whether it calls to mind a glittering
style or a literary convention already somewhat silvered with time, is
both picturesque and instructive. No apology is needed for a survey
of literary works created during the greatest period of the Roman
Empire. Parallel with its administrative triumphs and its permanent
services to civilization, we discover, in an adventure among its
masterpieces, artistic production of high quality, thought commensurate
with the achievement of the times, and engrossing portrayal of life.
Convention has been alluded to, and we may trace much of it at work
among authors; yet it is only fair to point out that the Silver Age
had its unique geniuses. Nowhere else is a Tacitus or a Juvenal to be
found, each uttering an individual note, and each among the greatest
names in the domains of historical prose and poetic satire respectively.
Phaedrus in fable, Petronius in the novel, Martial in epigram, Pliny in
letter-writing were all fresh forces; nor is there any Seneca elsewhere
in Latin, whether we like his style or not. Even the massive proportions
of some works composed during this age are impressive though sometimes
forbidding—it is so much easier, and commoner, to criticize than to read
the thirty-seven books of Pliny’s _Natural History_ or the seventeen of
Silius’s epic. Before the incessant industry of the elder Pliny, less
hard-working generations might, like his nephew, stand abashed. But such
phenomenal diligence is not necessarily attractive; and probably what
most draws readers to the Silver Age is that human note already mentioned
which, in the midst of widespread artificiality elsewhere, makes many of
the authors interesting to all periods. No one can take up Petronius,
Juvenal, Martial or Tacitus without feeling that real life and real
things are being described and without feeling absorbed by that reality.
The chief formative factors of this complex literature may be rapidly
passed under review. Foremost of all the influences at work was the
contemporary education in letters and rhetoric.[6] While the general
training in letters opened up the treasures of Greek and Latin
literature as sources of inspiration for prospective writers, the special
training in the principles and practice of speaking profoundly affected
style. The predominant study of poets in the rhetorical academies tended
to obliterate the true demarcation between prose and poetry, leaving upon
prose the indelible poetic tint which is characteristic of the Silver
Age. The imitation of Virgil, traceable in Lucan, well-marked in Valerius
Flaccus, and still more so in Silius and Statius, was by no means
confined to these epic writers; it spread to occasional verse, epigram
and satire; and it invaded prose, so that the style of Tacitus must be
viewed in relation to Virgilian influence. Nor was this only a matter of
poetic colour: the bones, as it were, of the language were affected in
the altered grammar and syntax which have presently to be discussed and
illustrated.
Manner of expression came to be deeply modified by the systematic
instruction in rhetoric and by the declamatory exercises (especially the
_controuersia_ and _suasoria_) composed by the student practising the
use of figures of speech, exclamations, apostrophes, interrogations,
and innumerable other artifices, which he had been taught by a rhetor
to consider effective for the purposes of argument or display. The
declamation wore more than one aspect. A serious ingredient in the
educational system, it was an exercise to be regularly practised by
learners as a training in argument; and, whatever its futility under
some instructors, sensible authorities like Quintilian had in view the
solid kind of argument useful in a law-court.[7] It combined certain
of the functions of a modern essay with those of a debating society.
It had even a romantic side; for not a few of its themes anticipated
elements in medieval tales and modern novels. But it was open to attack
from the first. The Romans indeed showed their common sense in calling
the exercise _declamatio_—something of loud-voiced overstatement was
implied in that half-derogatory term. Being a pillar of the educational
fabric it was, like most things in education, pretty sure to be
criticized. However much pleasure it might give an admiring parent to
hear his son exhibit his eloquence on speech day, this supreme test of
the school career and reputed passport to success in life was subjected
to incisive attacks, examples of which may be read in Petronius and
Tacitus. No one could deny the readiness attainable by such practice
in the rhetorical academy, any more than one could fairly overlook
the metaphysical importance of some at least of the themes with which
medieval Scholasticism was concerned; but in the one case, as in the
other, a ceaseless immersion in verbiage caused stagnation of thought.
Obscurantist professors of what was in itself an excellent art checked
the progress of eloquence and robbed it eventually of life. Yet for
generations it defied detraction, and in spite of defects, produced a
long line of capable speakers. Unduly elaborated subtlety was at the
worst wearisome: it was not destructive like the shameless perversion of
the art practised by professional informers (_delatores_), who saw in the
share of confiscated goods allowed to them by the Government a handsome
reward for misapplying rhetoric towards compassing convictions on charges
of treason.
Two sets of circumstances reinforced this rhetorical influence; one,
the not uncommon habit of continuing exercise in declamations, either
privately or under a master, long after college days; the other, an
author’s custom, derived from Augustan times, of holding _recitationes_
of his compositions in prose or verse before an invited gathering of
friends, partly to elicit criticism, partly to advertise a forthcoming
work, and also very largely to impress the audience. Under this last
aim lay many pitfalls. Literature designed for a kind of parade tended
to repeat the qualities of the academic show-piece. The ideal coveted
was the production of telling effects. Hence ingenuity was expected in
narrative, description and argument, with the result that a wide entrance
stood open for the precious and far-fetched. A discourse, an oration,
or a poem had to exhibit its author’s ability in elaborating academic
commonplaces into surprisingly terse epigrams or _sententiae_; it had
to wear the variegated adornments of rhetoric so that the style often
became outrageously rococo in taste. Of the worst excesses of the Silver
Age one feels as did Alceste in _Le Misanthrope_, when he expressed his
disdain for Oronte’s sonnet:
“Ce n’est que jeu de mots, qu’ affectation pure,
Et ce n’est point ainsi que parle la nature.”
Artificiality driven to such extremes meant a divorce from plain common
sense; for natural feeling met its death in the exuberant riot of
epigram, word-play, antithesis, apostrophes and other devices. Similarly,
when presenting a hypothetical case in a _controuersia_ or _suasoria_,
the speaker’s temptation was to cast about for novel arguments; and the
quest after something novel was apt to lead far away from reality into
unnatural extravagances of perverted ingenuity. Both defence and attack
in the _controuersiae_ reported by the elder Seneca give, we shall find,
many examples of those incredibly smart inventions. Rhetorical gymnastics
of this sort, while they had the merit of ensuring a high degree of
readiness and finish in speech and in style as a whole, yet fostered
in some speakers and authors an empty glibness from which no great
literature could grow. The contemporary complaints about the decadence
of oratory are significant. Despite all the attention lavished upon it,
eloquence deteriorated. Over-cultivation would contribute to a measure of
staleness, and political conditions had taken the heart out of the old
type; but, beyond all that, the rhetoric of the schools was too remote
from truth to produce good style.
It was well for literature, therefore, that actual life counteracted
the cramping effects of rhetorical training. Many a promising academic
speaker got his first salutary awakening when he had to plead a real case
in a law-court. Furthermore, contact with the multiplicity of life in
Rome, and with the various peoples included in the empire, was certain to
stimulate and deepen an interest in man as such. It would be a profound
mistake to overlook the complex nature of the Silver literature, or to
imagine that we could sum up its qualities as if they were solely those
of clever rhetoric, or to forget the realists of the time—Petronius,
Juvenal, Martial. Of these three, while Petronius proves that he could
compose in the conventional vein when he liked, it is Juvenal who makes
the most interesting blend, because he can be at once declamatory and
realistic. If the worst manner of the declamations reappears in some
of the rant which disfigures Seneca’s tragedies, Juvenal on the other
hand is not mastered by but master of the declamatory element. This
simply indicates that rhetorical artifice could be turned to different
purposes by different hands: while it was used with mechanical precision
by Valerius Maximus and with oppressive ingenuity by Lucan, it attained
a miraculous brilliance under the pen of Tacitus. One feels with relief
that Tacitus avoids Lucan’s besetting sin of overdoing the epigrammatic;
for no Latin author is so absorbingly possessed by the passion for
point as Lucan. Like Ovid in his quest after cleverness, Lucan casts
about among several ways of saying the same thing, serves up obscure
subtleties, and inserts digressions favourable to erudite description.
As in his fellow epic-writers Valerius, Statius, Silius, this love of
description again and again beguiles the author into subordinating the
artistic unity of the whole to the elaboration of separate passages.
It has been pointed out that, alongside of this prevalence of the
academic, there was the corrective element of genuine interest in man
to give permanent value to much of the Silver Literature. While direct
observation of life was the best antidote to unreal rhetoric, there were
other factors which made for serious thought in preference to merely
smart expression. One, already mentioned, was the Stoic philosophy,
which offered to its followers an ordered view of the world as well as
guidance in matters of conduct, especially at a crisis in life. Now
grown more practical and therefore more Roman, since it had abandoned
its extremest paradoxes, neo-Stoicism counted among the influences
which encouraged a fellow-feeling amongst mankind. Between Stoicism
and Cynicism, which the earlier Stoics had admitted to be a short cut
to virtue,[8] there was much in common. In agreement broadly, although
not in detail, concerning virtue, reason (_logos_), cosmopolitanism and
freedom of will, both disciplines reckoned numerous adherents in the
early empire. They now definitely overshadowed the neo-Pythagoreans
and neo-Sceptics. Other schools also had lost ground. The prestige of
Epicureanism was waning, while pure Platonism and pure Aristotelianism
failed to attract the Roman mind. But Stoicism contained elements more
commendably intelligible. Above all things, it emphasized conduct: it was
an applied science of life, offering for troublesome enigmas a solution
which, even if not finally satisfying, claimed a true accord with nature,
and in the experience of many was found workable. With less demand upon
intellectual subtlety than Platonism, practical Stoicism more adequately
suited the Roman temperament as a preparation for facing the things that
may happen.[9] For many thinking Romans it must have been a consolation
to realize that, though they might feel repelled from activity in the
political sphere controlled by a Caesar, they yet remained citizens of
a cosmopolis—a world-state, wherein they were fellow-citizens with God,
participators in the divine essence and free by reason of a freedom
divinely conferred. “God is near you,” writes Seneca, “with you, within
you. This I say, Lucilius: a holy spirit abides within us, watcher of our
deeds good or evil, and guardian over us.”[10] In the spiritual realm,
then, the Stoic was an intellectual aristocrat, conscious of an eternally
virtuous power which enabled him to disdain misfortune and defy a Nero
or a Domitian. Nor was this position the outcome of tumid rhetoric or
ingenious theorizing: it was put to the proof: it was a faith in which
men died and women faced exile.
Theoretically the Stoic creed did not prevent its followers from being
loyal citizens of the empire; but in practice there was certain to be
conflict. Their exaltation of virtue and their austere regimen in life
were implicit rebukes to a luxurious emperor or court: the not uncommon
actual abstention of Stoics from politics and their half-cynical
attitude of independence gave further grounds for suspicion. Julius
Kanus offended Caligula by uncompromising argument, and Thrasea under
Nero was charged with disbelief in the deification of Poppaea and with
contempt for state-religion. Besides, the historical outlook of many
Stoics as _laudatores temporis acti_ tended to give umbrage in high
imperial quarters. Revolutionary sympathies might not illogically be
suspected in enthusiasts for “Romans of the olden times.” It had been
dangerous to call Cassius “last of the Romans”: it was scarcely less
dangerous to drink toasts to the memory of Brutus and Cassius on their
birthdays.[11] There lay significance in the fact that Helvidius Priscus,
who had been banished by Nero, renewed under Vespasian his subversive
propaganda in favour of what was termed democracy, but was really planned
to be a government of Rome by the senatorial class in consonance with
philosophical ideas.[12] It is scarcely surprising then that Vespasian
expelled all philosophers except Musonius.[13] Only after Domitian did
the imperial government become reconciled with Stoicism, which in the
second century was the prevailing creed of educated Romans and found one
of its classic exponents in the Greek reflections of an emperor.
The concept of a Stoic opposition under the empire must not call up the
picture of a regularly organized party of disaffection. The Stoic might,
like Seneca, take service with a Caesar. But among several features of
the empire which provoked hostility two at any rate stand out. A Stoic
could not avoid feeling repelled at once by Caesar-worship, and by the
development of a largely mechanical bureaucracy in which the individual
lacked scope for the competent performance of duty. Now Stoicism claimed
to supply the very competence for which there was little or no safe
outlet in imperial employment. The strong tendency among Roman Stoics
of the first century to accentuate the individual came less from an
aggressive Cynic standpoint than, as in Seneca, from a conception of the
inward development of personality effected by rigorous self-examination.
It did not amount to an assertion of the individual as an absolute
and independent entity; nevertheless, it encouraged that doctrine of
self-sufficiency and that portion of disdain for others which can be
illustrated from both Lucan and Persius.
Nor should the senatorial opposition under the Caesars be mistaken for
lineal representatives of the nobles of the republic. The old families
died out fast: some of their scions, as Tacitus and Juvenal show, lapsed
into indigence and menial occupations. The patrician houses of the senate
in Julius’s day are almost extinct by Hadrian’s time: Aemilii, Claudii,
Fabii, Manlii and Valerii are gone: it is almost a surprise to find
Cornelii. This disappearance of the ancient blood was due not so much to
tyranny as to that voluntary childlessness which imperial legislation had
attempted to discourage. A large proportion, then, of the new aristocracy
was not of the old republican stock, but represented a fresh strain drawn
from the industrial democracy of Caesar’s age: it was destined in turn to
collapse through its own prosperity.
Both on contemporary and on subsequent thought neo-Stoicism exercised
an almost incalculable influence. The insistence on a moral order in
nature to which man must conform made for salutary discipline, and the
doctrine of the immanence of the divine reason ennobled the conception
of duty. The recognition of moral progress, in contrast to the
uncompromising tenet of sudden perfection held by the early Stoics, was
a more practical, a more encouraging, a more human view which possessed
a tonic value beyond the reach of outworn paradoxes. Again, while the
Stoic teaching on the brotherhood of man fostered kindliness, that on
the equality of man fostered fairness of treatment.[14] These and other
doctrines of value colour the deep Stoic influence on Roman law. In
the field of religion, Stoicism proved ultimately to be a solvent of
polytheism; for though Stoics might profess belief in the divinities of
traditional paganism, they yet turned to allegory as an explanation of
the myths, and thus tended to undermine an unquestioning acceptance of
the gods. Stoicism, therefore, with its pantheistic trend contributed to
the annihilation of traditional religion among the intellectuals without
fully establishing monotheism to replace the polytheistic system.
Another of the more serious influences of the age, largely, though, as
we shall find, not entirely independent of rhetorical artifice, was the
practical interest in learning of an encyclopaedic sort, exemplified in
Celsus, the elder Pliny and the lost works of Suetonius. The discontent
repeatedly expressed over men’s waste of time is another reminder that
the more serious thinkers were unlikely to reap permanent satisfaction
either from social amenities or from vapid rhetoric. We have something
like a gospel of work if we combine Phaedrus’s scoffing remarks on the
fussy _ardaliones_, Seneca’s distaste for spending energy on trifles,
the elder Pliny’s nervous husbandry of hours for study, his nephew’s
grumblings about encroachments upon leisure, and even Martial’s regrets
over procrastination and lost opportunities—_soles ... nobis pereunt et
imputantur_, as he so humanly says.
Yet another influence which must not go unnoticed is that of the
provinces, and especially the influence exercised by the old province of
Spain. With some claim to have developed a partially independent culture
of its own, it spoke a Latin which naturally retained certain idioms,
words and sounds used by previous generations of soldiers and colonists.
Latin which had grown old-fashioned at Rome might still in these days be
heard in Spain. It is not altogether fanciful to detect a Spanish note
in parts of the Silver Literature; for among Romano-Spaniards of the
time were the Senecas and Lucan, Columella, Quintilian, Martial, besides
several rhetors of standing. Trajan was a native of the Spanish Italica,
where Hadrian’s ancestors had lived since the days of the Scipios. It
is significant of the contribution being made by the provinces to Rome
that the Spanish influence is observable in the first century, to be
followed by the development of an African Latinity in the second, and
the flourishing of Romano-Gallic rhetoric in the third. The contemporary
influence of Greece also acted externally upon Rome in so far as it was
exerted by Greeks who taught or wrote in the city. History has recorded
how responsive to personal contact with Greece itself were emperors
like Nero and Hadrian; but the deeper Hellenic influence lay imbedded
in the literature of the past, constantly lectured upon and assimilated
generation after generation in Rome.
The wonderful variety of the Silver literature depends on the
intermingling of such currents of influence, old and new. Tradition
and inheritance, both Greek and Roman, operate side by side with fresh
problems and interests. It was no age of stagnation. Distinctive, though
conventional, voices are heard in the epics of Lucan and of his three
successors, Valerius, Statius and Silius, whether, as in the case of the
first and the last of these, they chose a historical theme, or, as in
the case of the other two, they had recourse to mythology. Virgilianism
acted there, as it also did in the eclogues by which Calpurnius Siculus
transmitted pastoral poetry to Nemesianus. The drama of the day, never
very great, has left, besides the _Octauia_, which is the single extant
historical play in Latin, only Seneca’s mythological tragedies based
on the Greek dramatists. Far more individual power is shown in satire.
Persius, a convinced young Stoic student of Horace, fulminates in
crabbedly compressed sermonettes against moral backsliding; and later,
Juvenal, proclaiming himself to belong to the literary lineage of
Lucilius and Horace, displays his unsurpassable strength of invective.
Satire may be said to have taken a new turn early in the first century
when Phaedrus used the iambics of his beast-fables to suggest with
mischievous irony the foibles of mankind, and once more a new turn
when, in the last quarter of the century, Martial perfected the epigram
with the stinging close after the fashion which has ever since made him
famous. In the revival of the Menippean satire, formerly associated with
the name of Varro, we again encounter the medley of verse and prose. This
type is represented in Seneca’s skit on the deification of Claudius and
in Petronius’s picaresque novel.
As regards prose style, the names of Seneca and Petronius mark two
different tendencies traceable throughout the period—Seneca, usually
artificial, though less so in his satire; and Petronius, as becomes a
portrayer of manners, more influenced by the spoken Latin of his day. It
might have been expected that encyclopaedic, scientific and technical
learning should be uniformly conveyed in the simple style; but it is
not always so. Straightforward expression, as a rule, characterized
Celsus in the medical part of his encyclopaedia (and presumably also
in the lost parts), besides Columella in his agricultural treatise,
and Frontinus writing about aqueducts; whereas one detects, on the
other hand, the lure of the purple patch when the elder Pliny pauses
for intervals of reflection in his gigantic _Natural History_. So too
Pomponius Mela’s geographical manual is needlessly decorated with flashes
of intended eloquence; while Valerius Maximus’s handbook of stories
for rhetoricians would have been more entertaining, had he told the
stories in plainer style, leaving embellishment to the rhetoricians for
whom he collected them. In history restraint of style is far to seek.
Velleius Paterculus is convicted by his excessive superlatives alone,
though one forgives him much for his surprisingly original interest in
certain aspects of literary history. Curtius Rufus, handling the grand
subject of Alexander’s campaigns, shows his ability in semi-romantic
description rather than in historical inquiry. During the Neronian era,
we meet the epigrammatic manner in Seneca’s philosophy. The brilliant
neatness of his sentences lent them a quotability which essayists in
later literatures have loved. But this is a manner whose qualities cloy;
and a revulsion from his style soon took place, when in the Flavian era
Quintilian’s lectures warned students against the seductions of Senecan
prose and beckoned them back to Cicero’s rounded periods as the true
models for composition. A modified Ciceronianism is, therefore, visible
in Quintilian, and a still more modified Ciceronianism in his pupil, the
younger Pliny. It also marks Tacitus’s early dialogue on oratory; but
his characteristic style, that of his historical writing, is notoriously
the triumph of an original genius in verbal parsimony. The closing phase
of the Silver Age still exhibits the two tendencies side by side in
Suetonius’s business-like sentences and in Florus’s feeble echoes of
rhetorical utterance.
The language which was the medium for this literature may be briefly
surveyed. Some aspects of Silver Latinity have been incidentally touched
upon in connexion with the preponderating amount of poetry read at
school, which bore fruit not merely in poetic phraseology and Virgilian
imitations, but in constructions (like the familiar dative of the agent
with a passive verb) now transferred from poetry to prose. No doubt
some of the typical usages and idioms which we shall find illustrated
in Silver authors are due to the inevitable change which any living
language must undergo. Old words gain a new meaning:[15] new words are
introduced. The Latin of Cicero could not have been, either in vocabulary
or in sentence-structure or in grammar, the Latin of five generations
later:[16] hence we are prepared to observe in Tacitus and other writers
of the Silver Age alterations in the employment of the subjunctive mood,
fresh meanings of prepositions (like _circa_ and _citra_), new usages of
and new positions for connective particles.[17]
In tracing differences between Silver and earlier Latin, it is difficult
to assess the relative importance of the universal tendency in language
towards change and of such special influences as the systematic drill
in rhetoric and poetry. Some apparent changes such as are noticeable
in the position of _igitur_, in a seemingly strange word, or strange
meaning, or in the use of a mood, are in reality inheritances from one
or two prose writers of the Golden Age, especially Sallust and Livy:
what had once been an exception has become, if not the rule, at least
much commoner. Apart, however, from the inevitable laws of development,
the Latin language of the first century and a half of the Christian
era was most deeply affected by three fixed attitudes of mind—the
rhetorical passion for terseness, the rhetorical passion for novel modes
of expression, and the rhetorical concentration of study upon poetic
authors. Of these, compression was especially admired in the clause or
phrase with epigrammatic point, but its pursuit was accountable not only
for the shorter sentence in vogue, but for all sorts of ellipses[18] in
grammar and for a copious employment of asyndeton. The avoidance of the
stereotyped made for the introduction of new words and meanings, greater
freedom in the handling of moods, and a departure from the more regularly
balanced clauses and phrases of Ciceronian Latin. Many of the changes
in vocabulary are due to the individual genius of prose writers who
invented words, or, by adopting them from the common speech, gave them
a literary _cachet_. Under this head, Tacitus is an excellent example
both as innovator and as lover of the rare word. Probably few who use the
term “accumulator,” in speaking of modern apparatus, know that it was
invented by Tacitus to describe one who heaps up wealth. The liking for
the unusual which pervades his sentence-structure, his expression and his
syntax descends into his selection of words. Thus, when there is a choice
between noun-forms ending in _-men_ and _-mentum_, he characteristically
decides for the more uncommon form: he actually invents _imitamentum_,
though _imitamen_ had the poetic sanction of Ovid.
The wholesale invasion of prose by the poetic element already emphasized
calls only for a few illustrations in a preliminary survey. It is poetic
example that leads Seneca to write _senium_ for _senectus_, _Venus_ for
_amor_, _iuuenta_ for _iuuentus_, and leads Tacitus to use Lucretian
words like _insatiabiliter_, Virgilian words like _breuia_ (“shoals”),
and adjectives like _indefessus_ and _intemeratus_ which both Virgil and
Ovid had used before him. It is the poetic turn of expression also that
fostered the increasing boldness of personification in prose, the use of
abstract nouns in a concrete or personal sense,[19] and the substantival
use of a neuter adjective.[20] Poetry affected the grammar of cases and
tenses as well. Thus the Latin perfect used in a general sense, like the
gnomic “aorist of experience” in Greek, was in Augustan Latin still a
poetic usage of which Virgil was fond in the _Georgics_; but by Seneca’s
time it had passed into imperial prose.[21] These and other instances,
too many for citation here, make it evident that the language no less
than the literature of the Silver Age has the interest of possessing
distinctive features of its own.
A few reflections may fitly form a summary and conclusion to this
introduction. When considering the Silver Age, in style so easily
contrasted with its golden predecessor, one must beware of so isolating
its artificialities as to produce an impression that it teems with
faults. The truth rather is that the Silver Age does by a natural
process of literary evolution continue tendencies already present in
Augustan times. There is in Horace an artificiality which in some measure
anticipates Persius and Statius; there are in Ovid ingenuities prophetic
of Seneca and Lucan; and in Sallust and Livy aspects of prose which
foreshadow Tacitus. There was no violent break; but in time, if only
by reason of a gradual and apparently cyclic exhaustion of genius, the
changes become too obvious to miss. It is perfectly reasonable, it is
indeed incumbent, to state the differences; but they must be so stated
as to include not merely signs of stylistic variation but fresh notes
of wider outlook in certain later writers who come close to the general
human heart, perhaps because less exclusively aristocratic than the elder
Romans. A catholic criticism must do justice to their strength as well as
to their weakness.
Such a caveat is needful, because the factors of national deterioration,
even though they worked slowly, were unquestionably manifold. They were
not merely political and economic: they were physiological and, what is
of deep significance for literature, they were psychological. Though it
is easy to to take an exaggerated view of vice under the empire, there
is nevertheless significance in the fact that the most powerful voices
in the whole period are the voices of protest raised by Juvenal and
Tacitus: satire and irony inevitably flourished in such an environment.
There is a strong temptation to see little but proof of decadence in the
conventional imitators among the poets of the age, its literary conceits,
and unreal rhetoric, and even in its occasional recourse to the opposite
tendency towards innovation, which French criticism has taught us to
associate, as much as imitation, with decadent literature. Broadly the
undeniable truth is that the Silver poets, whatever their literary skill,
have fallen off in sheer artistic achievement. To turn from Lucretius
and Virgil to Valerius Flaccus and Statius is to recognize an inferior
quality of soul. The Silver poets have less whereon to feed man’s higher
nature. Virgil’s profundity of feeling and reflection is something more
enduring than refinements based on rhetorical commonplaces. Enough has,
however, been said to lay stress upon the variety of the Silver Age,
and upon the unfairness of estimating it solely as an age of decadence.
One can no more affix a single label on a composite era than one can
indict a nation. If the feeble echo or the falsetto note is often heard,
it is not the only sound. The literature of the time must be judged
positively by its own appeal to the world. Under this aspect, the
Silver Age has its unique luminaries, the individuality of whose genius
ensures them permanent fame. The mark of the true classic is the power
of giving pleasure to the young and old of many generations through
some fascinating and constantly renewed testimony to the indestructible
continuity of human nature. Its interest is therefore universal, and its
popularity unrestricted to an epoch. Readers of different countries at
different epochs find in such work a source of eternal delight: it is not
alien to them, nor they to it. In so far as authors of the Silver Age
can address themselves successfully to mankind, and some of them beyond
challenge retain this power, their place is secure among the immortals.
CHAPTER II
ROMAN EDUCATION UNDER THE EMPIRE
Connexion of Roman Education with Literature—Evolution through
three periods—Emergence of three grades in education—Some
problems of elementary education—Suitable nurses and
reading-books—“Secondary” training under _grammatici_—Province
of “grammar”—Exercises prescribed—Authors taught by
_grammatici_—The higher training in rhetoric—Exercises
preliminary to declamation—The _suasoria_—The
_controuersia_—Ingenuity and unreality combined—The broad
basis of sound oratory—Subjects included in Roman schemes
of education—Spread of the traditional system in imperial
times—Decay of Greek in the West—Growth of governmental
interest in education—Attitude of emperors towards provincial
academies and the later fortunes of the old education.
The main clue to the literary qualities of Silver Latin is to be found
in education, and particularly in rhetorical education. No social
or political factor exercised so determining an influence upon the
literature of imperial Rome. It cannot be too clearly realized how
potent must have been the effect of a training which was undergone by
the writers, speakers and civil servants of each generation, and which
had for its cardinal aims, first, to secure a thoroughly appreciative
acquaintance with the best poetry in the literatures of Greece and Rome,
and, next, to equip students with the power of effective and persuasive
speech. A connected account of the education in vogue is, therefore, a
fitting prelude to the evidence for the rhetorical system which may be
drawn from such sources as the _Controuersiae et Suasoriae_ collected by
the elder Seneca, Quintilian’s _Institutio Oratoria_, Tacitus’s _Dialogus
de Oratoribus_ and the notes by Suetonius _De Grammaticis_ and _De
Rhetoribus_.
* * * * *
Roman education, viewed in its continuity, underwent certain well-defined
processes of evolution.[22] Its history from first to last, from simple
to complex, possesses the interest of showing how the primitive domestic
discipline made way for a cosmopolitan culture imparted in great measure
by skilful foreigners, and how the ancient training of what we should
call a primary type came to be amplified by a “secondary” curriculum,
and still further by advanced courses of a “University” character.
Interesting, however, as is the whole of this development, it is with
definite phases and periods that we are here concerned. One may, in
fact, conveniently think of Roman education as falling broadly into
three ages, ending, each in its turn, with the Punic Wars, the reign of
Hadrian (_circ._ A.D. 120), and the close of the Western Empire. Here
we are mainly concentrating attention on the earlier generations of the
Christian era; and what we find, as regards education, is that, before
the opening of our period, scholastic training at Rome had gone through
its most progressive stage, and, in range of subjects and interest,
had left far behind the ancient parental instruction. That old type of
instruction is best exemplified by the rigid, unromantic and severely
practical method according to which the elder Cato brought up his
son,[23] and which, despite limitations, was well adapted to the mind,
body and estate of the older Romans. It was a grounding in the elements
of reading, writing and arithmetic, coupled with sound physical and
moral instruction, and had been entrusted by custom largely to those
agents of education in the home whom Seneca happily calls the “domestic
magistrates.”[24] In those early times which the younger Pliny[25]
recalls with admiring regret, it was possible that every parent should be
an instructor and that the intimate companionship between father and son
should be relied upon to guarantee not only proficiency in the barest
essentials of intellectual education, but also ability to serve in the
army, knowledge of the laws and of religious rites, propriety of conduct
and experience helpful in advising or controlling men.
As the ages passed, however, increased complexity of social conditions,
together with the influx of Greeks whether bond or free, tended
inevitably to relegate the work of equipping youthful minds to cultured
slaves under parental supervision, and, at a later stage, very often to
grammarians, rhetoricians and philosophers who settled in Rome eager to
convey knowledge. Besides, the Romans, as conquest brought them nearer
to world-dominion, were shrewd enough to recognize that a training
which had suited the burgher of a city-state stood in need of generous
extension, if it were to mould the citizens of a governing power charged
with imperial responsibilities. The momentous agent of expansion in Roman
education was the influence of Greece.[26] The expansion itself may be
fairly gauged from the acquaintance with the principles of Greek rhetoric
common among the upper classes at Rome by the middle of the second
century B.C., and from the establishment of three several grades of
education controlled respectively by the _litterator_, the _grammaticus_
and the _rhetor_. These correspond roughly to the elementary, secondary
and University standards of modern days.[27] While, however, literary
and rhetorical education had reached a high pitch of proficiency long
before our period opens and ceased to alter much in method, there are,
on the other hand, before our period closes, signs of a changed attitude
towards education on the part of the imperial authorities—signs, in fact,
indicating some amount of endowment and control by municipalities and by
the Emperor.
Allusion has been made to the emergence of three grades of education.
Of these, the “secondary” and “University” grades possessed under the
Empire the deepest significance for their effects upon literature because
of the attention bestowed upon the grammatical and aesthetic study of
authors, upon rhetoric and upon philosophy. But while the bearing on
literature is necessarily closer at these second and third stages in the
educational fabric, still one cannot ignore the “primary” training, which
contained features of fundamental importance for thought and literary
production. It is not germane here to consider, as Quintilian does in
the first book of his treatise, the methods of conveying to children the
rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic,[28] or to comment on the
awkwardness of the Roman numerals.[29] Perhaps, in passing, it may be
worth remark that the proportion of illiterates in ancient Rome was less
than many might be disposed to guess; for elementary education must have
been fairly extensive by the time of Polybius to admit of the circulation
of military orders in writing; and the scribblings on walls in Pompeii
argue a widespread ability to read and write in the first century
A.D. But two problems in the most elementary education are not to be
passed over, for they appeared to ancient thinkers to be vital in their
influence upon character and taste. These were the choice of a nurse,
and, at a subsequent stage, the choice of books from which reading should
be taught. To Quintilian both were matters of serious consideration.
Although primitive custom preferred, and learned authors[30] argued, that
mothers should suckle their own infants, and although the devoted care
of a mother remained up to imperial times an appreciable and appreciated
factor in shaping youthful lives,[31] still there is evidence for the
employment, at an early period in Rome, of both foster-mothers and dry
nurses. At a later period the large number of household nurses may be
inferred from inscriptions.[32] Their province, it was recognized, was
not confined to sound alimentation; they helped to form character for
better or worse, and to eliminate bad habits, mischievous notions and
incorrect pronunciations. Hence the emphasis laid upon the selection
of suitable nurses in Quintilian and in the treatise _De Educatione_
ascribed to Plutarch.
The other matter in the elementary education which bears on literary
equipment is the choice of reading-books. The scarcity of literary texts
in Latin, which stimulated Livius Andronicus in the third century B.C.
to translate the _Odyssey_, had long since ceased to trouble teachers;
the difficulty came to lie rather in the embarrassing wealth of available
material. Quintilian is emphatic in his counsel that for the earliest
lessons good authors should be selected; and his preference is for
Greek.[33] He believed in the stimulus obtainable from great literature,
even where the pupils are too young to appreciate its full meaning and
beauty. In any case there were simple fables and extracts from standard
authors in abundance to serve as convenient lesson-books.
The second and third stages of education were entrusted to a
_grammaticus_ and a _rhetor_ respectively; here the methods and subjects
produced manifest effects upon literary men in Rome. Age-limits for
the different grades of study varied considerably owing to individual
capabilities and the overlapping of which Quintilian complained; but
commonly a pupil passed from elementary instruction to the “grammar
school” at about twelve or thirteen, and then to the school of rhetoric
at about sixteen. The function of “grammar” was to train pupils in the
intelligent and effective reading of standard authors both Greek and
Latin; and the teachers themselves were of diverse origin and rank. Most
of the series of _grammatici_ mentioned by Suetonius were Greeks, and
many were freedmen;[34] but there were native Romans quick enough to
adopt the principles of criticism illustrated by Crates in his lectures
upon Greek literature about 165 B.C., and to transfer them to their own
poets, with the result that Naevius, Ennius and Lucilius speedily became
school authors.[35] Though instances occurred of Roman knights taking up
such work, still, as a rule, a profession of meagre returns and meagre
repute attracted only a motley concourse of strange fellows—the retired
apparitor, the unsuccessful pantomime-actor or the ex-boxer.[36] But that
the demand for instruction was considerable is plain from the mention by
Suetonius of the time when there were twenty flourishing grammar schools
in the capital.[37] Many Greek _grammatici_ in Rome towards the end of
the Republic added to their duties the teaching of Latin; thus, the
freedman Ateius Philologus, a native of Athens, was called by Asinius
Pollio _nobilis grammaticus Latinus_,[38] and Gnipho who taught Cicero
was _non minus Graece quam Latine doctus_.[39] Specialism, however, in
the one or the other literature was usual in the schools of the Empire,
and the testimony of inscriptions proves the existence of separate
masters for Greek and for Latin.[40]
The implications and functions of ‘Grammar’ were wider than with us.
Its two main concerns, as we shall find in Quintilian, were the correct
employment of language (_recte loquendi scientia_) and the appreciative
criticism of poetry (_poetarum enarratio_).[41] The former comprised
study of the parts of speech, accidence, metres, and faulty usages in
word, idiom, pronunciation or spelling. The latter involved much more
than knowledge of literature; for, since its aim was the elucidation
of a poet’s complete value and meaning, it demanded acquaintance with
subsidiary subjects like music, geometry, astronomy, physics and
philosophy.[42] One feature in the training which had lasting effects
upon literature and which coloured diction under the Empire, is the
signal preference for lecturing on poets rather than on prose-writers:
this was an old tendency, for Cicero had raised his voice against the
comparative neglect of history.[43] It is also of interest to recollect
the attraction which even the drier and more detailed aspects of Grammar
possessed for many great Romans, for scholars like Varro, leaders of men
like Caesar, and emperors like Claudius. Keil’s _Corpus Grammaticorum
Latinorum_ may be said to establish the study as one of the monuments
of the Roman genius; and such representative commentators upon Virgil
as Macrobius and Servius are good examples of the mode in which capable
grammarians were expected to annotate a classic.
The main exercises prove the attention given to composition. They
included the re-telling of Aesop’s fables by word of mouth or in writing,
paraphrases, training in moral maxims (_sententiae_), extracts of
ethical import (_chriae_), sketches of character (_ethologiae_), brief
stories (_narratiunculae_) of a poetic order where the momentous thing
was information rather than style.[44] The treatment of literature—on
which ancient “grammar” laid very great stress—embraced expressive
reading (_lectio_) free from sing-song and provincialisms;[45] the
elaborate explanation (_enarratio_) of subject-matter; textual criticism
(_emendatio_); and literary criticism (_iudicium_).
The authors taught by the professor of grammar were largely the same as
those taught subsequently by the professor of rhetoric. The tenth book
of Quintilian, therefore, gives a representative list, subject to the
qualification that rhetoric required more prose than grammar did. The
difference lay not so much in the authors as in the mode of treatment:
the _grammaticus_ taught literature, the _rhetor_ taught oratorical
effect. In Greek it was traditional to start with Homer, as in Latin,
under the Empire, with Virgil. Other usual Greek authors were Hesiod,
who was valued for his practical maxims; the lyric poets, in excerpts
“bowdlerised” to minimize the erotic element; the masters of Attic
tragedy; and the comic writers, particularly Menander, in selections.
Among Latin authors, Livius Andronicus’s translation of the _Odyssey_
into saturnians still held its ground when Horace went to school; and
generations of schoolboys were reared on the older epic poets Naevius
and Ennius, and on the dramatists Plautus, Caecilius, Terence, Pacuvius,
Accius, Afranius. Virgil was introduced into the course by Caecilius
Epirota, the freedman of Cicero’s friend Atticus, and soon took a premier
position. Horace, too, speedily realized his own alarmed anticipation
of becoming a text-book; and a passion for novelty, combined with a
revulsion from the archaic, helped to bring about lectures on the
works of Lucan, Statius and Nero himself, while the authors were still
alive. Reaction was a recurrent feature in Roman literary taste as in
education. It was a protest against the predominance of the moderns
in the second century A.D. that actuated the revived enthusiasm for
ante-Augustan poetry. The poets, then, on the whole, played rather too
oppressive a part at this stage of education; and it was inevitable that
the rhetorician should adjust the balance, for his pupils were to be
concerned mainly with prose as their medium. Cicero had become a model
in his own day, and Quintilian regards him as a fine exemplar from the
outset (_iucundus incipientibus quoque et apertus_). Of the historians,
Quintilian prefers Livy to Sallust because the latter, he considers,
demands a more advanced intelligence. Here it is but right to say he has
in view especially the needs of students of declamation.
If we class philosophy, especially when pursued by Romans abroad, as a
kind of “post-graduate” study, we may regard the formal education in Rome
as culminating in rhetoric. The training under the _rhetor_ was designed
to equip pupils for the vocations of public life—for deliberative and
forensic oratory; and, despite obvious faults, it undoubtedly furnished
in the best days of the Empire a constant supply of men of affairs,
magistrates and lawyers, wielding speech with a standard of efficiency
beyond the prevalent attainments of civil servants in modern times. The
Roman, inheriting a native turn for oratory, had been easily drawn to
the study of Greek rhetoric, which was based upon prolonged theorizing
and practice in Sicily, Athens and Asia Minor. So insistent appeared
to be the demands of rhetoric that teachers were constantly tempted to
initiate their pupils into it too soon,[46] when they ought to have been
continuing grammar; and this overlapping was the natural occurrence in
the old days before any line of professional demarcation had been drawn
between the provinces of grammar and rhetoric.[47] But even much later,
it often remained a point of honour with grammarians to give boys at the
grammar school practice in rhetoric so that they might do themselves
and their masters credit when they joined the rhetorical academy.[48]
The training in rhetoric at Rome had been in touch with Greek methods
from the second century B.C.; but education was profoundly affected by
the introduction early in the first century B.C.[49] of the composition
declaimed on a purely imaginary theme; and in time the Latin term
_declamatio_, which had signified the forcible delivery of a speech,
came to be applied to the academical exercise in rhetoric on an invented
subject. Thenceforward declamation was the supreme test and crowning
exercise in rhetoric, success in which was the ambition of pupils and the
pride of parents.[50] Practice in it spread from Italy to the schools of
the west, in Gaul and Spain.
Before students were matured for declamation, they had to pass through a
prescribed series of preliminary exercises.[51] These included narratives
less poetic in cast than those of the “grammar school,” investigation of
debateable questions in history, panegyric and invective, examination
of good and bad laws, comparison of character, moral studies or “common
places,” (_communes loci_) serviceable for attacking vices, questions
of a general type for debate (_theses_, _e.g._ “Is town life preferable
to country life?” “Is forensic or military renown the greater?”), and
questions involving reasons for particular facts (_coniecturales causae_,
which Quintilian recollected from his student days as entertaining
exercises, and which he illustrates by the example, “Why is Cupid winged
and furnished with arrows and torch?”)[52] Lectures on great masters in
oratory and history were also requisite; and here models like Cicero and
Livy might be studied with the maximum of profit. Quintilian maintained
that the student should memorize passages from the masterpieces of
standard authors instead of wasting energy on “cold cabbage heated
up”—the _crambe repetita_ of the pupil’s own show-pieces.[53]
The two most advanced exercises were the _suasoria_ and the harder
_controuersia_—the former intended to prepare for deliberative oratory,
the latter for pleading in the law-courts.[54] Ample illustrations of
their nature are furnished by the seven _suasoriae_ and five books of
_controuersiae_ which have come down, along with excerpts from five
lost books, out of the collection of the elder Seneca. Quintilian
cites examples of stock themes, and there exist also the declamations
of the pseudo-Quintilian and excerpts from Calpurnius Flaccus. The
_suasoria_ was an imagined consideration of the action suitable at
a historical crisis: sometimes it was a supposed soliloquy, _e.g._
“Alexander deliberates whether he shall cross the ocean,” “Agamemnon
deliberates if he should sacrifice Iphigeneia,” “Cicero deliberates
whether he should burn his works to secure his safety from Antony”;[55]
sometimes it was a supposed joint deliberation, _e.g._ “The three hundred
Spartans at Thermopylae consider whether they ought to retreat,” “The
Conscript Fathers discuss the propriety of surrendering the Fabii to the
Gauls”;[56] at other times it was a supposed address conveying counsel of
the kind which Juvenal remembered offering to the dictator Sulla by way
of exercise in the academy where he suffered the cane.[57] Similarly,
many a junior aspirant after eloquence composed an advisory speech to
Hannibal urging him to advance straight upon Rome after Cannae.[58]
Seneca[59] records some interesting facts concerning Ovid’s attitude to
this exercise. After commenting on the influence of the schools upon
Ovid’s poetry and on the young poet’s reputation as a declaimer, he tells
us that Ovid rarely declaimed _controuersiae_, and in any case only those
of a psychological nature (_non nisi ethicas_): his preference was for
the _suasoria_, and he found arguing irksome.[60] These illuminating
remarks explain both the aspect of Ovid’s genius exhibited in the
_Heroides_, and his failure to carry out his father’s wish that he should
become a lawyer. For entire success, it should be noted, this hortatory
declamation required historical knowledge, psychological insight, some
dramatic power, and distinct gifts of imagination and style.
In the _controuersia_ one has passed from monologue to a debate which
professed to represent the pleadings in an imaginary suit or criminal
trial, where, as Addison’s Sir Roger would have it, “much might be
said on both sides.” The students virtually acted an invented case in
a sham court. They argued for or against—sometimes, to gain additional
readiness and thoroughness, they argued first on one side, then on
the other. Though there was a semblance of observing legal forms,
yet the circumstances, the laws assumed to be applicable, and the
standing characters were largely drawn from a realm of imagination
which undeniably evoked marvellous ingenuity in argument, but merited
the strictures in Petronius and Quintilian because of its divorce from
actual life. Magicians, pirate chiefs, and their susceptible daughters,
preternaturally hard-hearted fathers, and unconscionably cruel tyrants
appear and reappear. Suetonius[61] cites two specimens of the less
extravagant _controuersiae_. The first concerns the disputed ownership of
a treasure which happens to be dragged up in a fishing-net after certain
youths have, by way of speculation, purchased in advance that particular
cast from the fishermen—are the purchasers entitled to the fish plus the
gold, or to the fish only? The other concerns the disputed freedom of a
slave from the East so valuable that the dealer disguised him and falsely
declared him as a free man at Brindisi to escape the duty exigible by the
Customs officers—has the slave been legally emancipated in virtue of his
owner’s declaration before witnesses?[62] In Seneca the situations are
often more unreal. Take his very first case:—One of two brothers who were
at variance had a son; when his uncle fell into poverty, the kind-hearted
nephew helped him, but was disinherited by his father for so doing:
he was, however, adopted by his uncle, who luckily had a great estate
left to him: meanwhile the young man’s father came to want, and though
forbidden by his uncle, the lad now insisted on helping his father: in
consequence, he is disinherited by his uncle—the question is, can he
successfully impugn his uncle’s decision?[63]
Such exercises, incredible though the situations might be, imparted,
through the mental gymnastics involved, a nimbleness of mind, a quickness
in propounding or refuting arguments, a versatility in treatment, and a
finish of speech which again and again fell little short of the amazing.
The adept could equip himself with skilful mastery from the whole armoury
of rhetoric. Yet, whatever merits may be claimed for rhetoric here or in
the chapter on the elder Seneca, the training had obvious drawbacks. For
its range was narrow and unreal: it handled things and persons such as
never were on land or sea: and these same unreal cases were handled an
infinite number of times, so that the depressing round of declamation, as
pupil after pupil rose from the bench, was calculated, Juvenal says, to
bore luckless professors to death![64] Any ambitious pupil had to take
refuge in innovations upon the threadbare theme; and his most promising
chance lay in suggesting some _colour_, some ingenious line of defence
undreamt of by any predecessor. Hence the far-fetched absurdities with
which the pleadings teem. At any cost, old material had to receive a new
dress, bedizened with all the frippery of rhetoric; and this compulsion
produced an inordinate concentration upon tricks of expression to the
detriment of matter and sense. A frequent result was an inartistic
phantasmagoria of artificialities, conceits, antitheses and quibbles.
Nor was the effect upon morals always better than upon aesthetics, for
such a system was at times apt to engender a heedlessness of truth or
falsity in fact, and callousness to the justice or injustice of a plea,
provided only it could be made telling. Another dangerous fruit was
pretentious glibness of speech of the kind which the staid author of
the _De Educatione Liberorum_ repeatedly denounced as obnoxious;[65]
and—most far-reaching of all the consequences—the rhetorical declamations
were largely accountable for the unreal pose and mannerisms of the Latin
literature of the Silver Age.
For such artificiality the best cure lay in extended knowledge. No sound
critic ever based oratory on mere tricks of speech. Practised judges like
Quintilian and Tacitus complained that true eloquence had deteriorated
owing to the extravagance and ignorance of declaimers. Agreeing with
Cicero, Quintilian views ideal oratory as founded upon a strong moral and
intellectual basis; for to Quintilian, as to Cato generations earlier,
the effective orator was the good man skilled in speaking (_uir bonus
dicendi peritus_).[66] Mere plausibility or claptrap is ruled out by his
insistence upon the orator’s knowledge of the subject on which he is to
speak. Put this way (_mihi satis est eius esse oratorem rei de qua dicet
non inscium_), Quintilian’s requirements seem more moderate than Cicero’s
sweeping demand for wide knowledge of all great subjects (_omnium rerum
magnarum atque artium scientiam_),[67] yet Quintilian too believes in
the study of subjects outside the professional training in rhetoric,
especially ethics, physics and dialectic, law, and history.[68]
At a much earlier period, indeed, Romans of the better class had been
expected to cover a wide field of knowledge. Cato, for instance,
included in his scheme oratory, agriculture, law, war and medicine.
A century later, Varro’s nine departments of education were grammar,
dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music, medicine and
architecture. In the first three of these one recognizes the “trivium”
and in the next four the “quadrivium” of the medieval education, while
Cato’s subjects of agriculture, law and war have come to be regarded
as professional. Medicine would tend to be more and more superficially
studied, by reason of the number of Greek practitioners who came to Rome.
The inclusion of architecture in the list is a testimony to the interest
taken in the principles of a fine art which constituted an integral
portion of Roman civilization, and reminds one of the broad education
which Vitruvius believes should go to the training of an architect. But
one may assume that architecture was in practice a special profession,
and that an encyclopaedic education became less and less attainable, as
knowledge deepened, although, under the Empire, writers like Celsus and
Pliny still made an encyclopaedic appeal, at least to mature readers.
It was, indeed, largely in philosophy that the abler youths followed
“post-graduate” courses, either at Rome itself, where Epicurean, Academic
and Stoic thought had long been represented, or abroad, especially at
Athens, as the time-honoured fountain-head of the schools. Under the
later Republic, the custom of seeking breadth in education is well
exemplified by the studies which famous authors had pursued. Thus
Virgil, besides his literary reading, worked at rhetoric, philosophy,
mathematics, medicine and law; and study at a “foreign University,” which
became common under the Empire, is illustrated in the careers of Caesar,
Cicero and his son, Horace and Ovid.
Our present concern, however, is not with philosophy under the Empire but
with grammar and rhetoric; and this for two reasons—firstly, grammar
and rhetoric affected literary style more than philosophy ever did,
deep though the influence of Stoicism was in imperial days; secondly,
it was the time-honoured curriculum in grammar and rhetoric which was
most widely diffused in the Roman world, and which was, especially at
many Western seats of learning, taught to the absolute exclusion of
philosophy. In the Greek portions of the Empire, the so-called “Second
Sophistic” was represented in the second century A.D. by itinerant
rhetoricians presenting their displays of eloquence before audiences
whose powers of criticism proved the continuance and diffusion of the
ancient education.[69] In the Western portions, it is interesting to note
that the ancient system of grammar and rhetoric came to be preserved
particularly at Carthage in Africa and in the academies of Gaul.
Marseilles, Autun, Lyons, Bordeaux, and, later, Toulouse, Narbonne and
Trèves were typical centres of instruction. The educational movement was
of old standing in Gaul, where Marseilles had long exercised a magnetic
attraction. Memories of the sound education which he had enjoyed at
Marseilles doubtless weighed with Agricola when, about A.D. 80, he
established schools in Britain for the sons of chieftains;[70] and
there was in Britain doubtless a serious enthusiasm for Roman culture,
although Juvenal makes game of it by his jesting allusions to the
influence of Gallic eloquence on British advocates and to the talk in
the “Farthest North” about establishing a chair of rhetoric.[71] Later
in the second century, the regular three grades with some amplifications
are illustrated in the studies of Marcus Aurelius; his early lessons
from the _litterator_ were varied by others from an actor and a tutor
who taught both music and mathematics; next, he worked under professors
of grammar, one of Greek and three of Latin; and at the later stage he
had three Greek masters of rhetoric, among whom was Herodes Atticus,
and one Latin master, who was Fronto. He studied philosophy under many
teachers, and devoted much attention to law. Public declamation also had
an attraction for him.[72] The firm hold obtained by such courses as we
have described is plainly seen for many generations beyond our period.
Alexander Severus early in the third century passed through just such a
course as Marcus Aurelius had done.[73] The instruction which many of
the Christian Fathers underwent in youth was on the old pagan lines, and
the _Confessiones_ of St. Augustine are typical from this standpoint,
because they are the vivid reminiscences of one who had been a student
of rhetoric at Carthage and a professor at Milan. The conditions of
education in Gaul in the fourth and fifth centuries are best known
from the writings of Ausonius and Sidonius Apollinaris.[74] Christians
and non-Christians then found a bond of union in the literary studies
familiar during their “college days”; so that some measure of vitality
was left to the old training despite the degeneration consequent upon its
bondage to unreal and conventional dexterities.
One life-giving element of our period, however, gradually vanished out
of the Western schools. That was Greek. Whereas Seneca includes Greek
arguments in his _Controuersiae_, and whereas, in the days of Apuleius
and Tertullian, scholars knew Greek as well as Latin, yet by the fourth
century both in Africa and in Gaul it was little taught. St. Augustine,
for instance, had no liking for or proficiency in Greek, and read Plato
mainly in Latin translations.[75] This severance of the two literatures
was prophetic of the approaching division of the Empire and of the usual
Latin curriculum in the Middle Ages.
A highly interesting feature in education during imperial times is the
closer _rapprochement_ of the government therewith. This was a growing,
though a slowly growing, tendency. The state had shown solicitude over
morality by enacting sumptuary laws and encouraging marriage, but
had been reluctant to patronize education directly. The Caesars had,
however, foreshadowed a new policy. Julius paid respect to erudition by
granting citizenship to _peregrini_ who settled in Rome as medical men
or teachers of the liberal arts.[76] Augustus exempted teachers from an
edict banishing foreigners, and he transferred Verrius Flaccus with his
school to the Palatium at a handsome salary, so that he might instruct
the imperial grandchildren.[77] Tiberius and Claudius were personally
interested in grammatical studies; but the next practical step towards
imperial patronage consisted in the fixing by Vespasian of an annual
stipend of 100,000 sesterces for Greek and Latin rhetors. Whether
Vespasian’s decree was intended to apply beyond the walls of the capital,
and how soon it actually came into force inside the walls is not quite
clear; at any rate, Jerome says Quintilian was the first professor at
Rome to receive payment from the _fiscus_, and he sets this down to a
year in Domitian’s reign.[78] Trajan, recognizing the value of education
as a means of training the future citizens of a state, decided to secure
public instruction for five thousand poor boys.[79]
But it was left for Hadrian to take that new departure which constitutes
his reign an epoch in educational history. Versed in literature, a
skilled musician and painter, fond of declamation, the emperor had a
taste for keeping learned men at Court, and fellow-feeling made him
kind to them. Upon teachers who had grown too old for duty he conferred
a retiring allowance.[80] At Rome he housed rhetoric handsomely in his
famous Athenaeum, and in the provinces he founded schools, awarded them
subventions, and made appointments of teachers to them. It is worth while
to trace the tendency beyond the limits of our period. Hadrian’s active
policy of generous interest was continued by Antoninus Pius, who improved
the status and income of professors of rhetoric and philosophy all over
the Empire.[81] Furthermore, he exempted from certain state-imposts
rhetors, philosophers, grammarians and physicians, defining the number
of teachers entitled to such immunity in different towns—thus, the
minimum _personnel_ for the smallest place touched by his edict consisted
of five physicians, three sophists and three grammarians.[82] This
imperial measure bears witness to the connexion of both central and
municipal authorities with a local educational staff. In fact, the burden
of maintaining local academies fell on the municipalities, and what
an emperor did was by special benefits to stimulate local educational
policy. It seems, therefore, natural that Marcus Aurelius in A.D. 176
should have devoted money towards the establishment of professorial
chairs at Athens.[83] Beyond his reign it must suffice to indicate
only the most significant symptoms.[84] Alexander Severus in the third
century introduced a bursary system for deserving lads.[85] In the next
century, repeated edicts exhibit emperors in the light of protectors of
underpaid or irregularly paid teachers against the penurious economies
and dilatory finance of local bodies. Beneficence had established rights
of control: hence, at the end of the third century, when Constantius
Chlorus nominated Eumenius as principal of the reorganized school at
Autun, the town accepted the emperor’s action as a matter of course.
Julian in 362 explicitly claimed the prerogative of appointing professors
to chairs, and, although he entrusted the sifting of candidates to the
municipalities, he subjected them to the first definite restriction
imposed by an emperor on local liberty of selection, when he forbade
the teaching of literature by any Christian. Gratian’s edict—which is
of interest as showing the hand of his adviser and old tutor, the poet
Ausonius—fixed the emoluments for different grades of teachers; thus, a
rhetor was to be paid twice as much as a grammarian. Virtually in this
way, although the Government did not make direct grants, yet money for
educational salaries was earmarked in the municipal budgets. So the
chronicle of the imperial organization of public instruction proceeds;
and, if it did little to affect the methods in vogue, still the patronage
was of value in keeping learning alive. The last great event in this
connexion was the establishment by Theodosius II at Constantinople of
a University staff consisting of thirty-one professors. Little over a
century later came the dissolution by Justinian.
LITERATURE UNDER TIBERIUS, CALIGULA AND CLAUDIUS
A.D. 14–A.D. 54
CHAPTER I
THE ELDER SENECA: ORATORS AND RHETORICIANS
Rhetoric in operation—The elder Seneca’s life—Character and
tastes—His surviving _Controuersiae_ and _Suasoriae_—His
marvellous memory—Value of the prefaces—Their portrayal
of rhetoricians—Critical views—Unpractical nature
of declamations—Recollections—The academic and the
forensic—Seneca’s method—Cases criminal, civil, social—Immoral,
romantic, incredible elements—Sources—Literary ability—Effect
of the exercises—Ingenuity—Interest of digressions—Silly
arguments—Qualities of declamations in relation to Silver
Literature.
Speakers of two generations—The emperors Tiberius, Caligula and
Claudius—Some rhetoricians and orators of the time—Informers.
A study of the elder Seneca[86] is invaluable, not merely for the light
which he sheds upon the methods pursued by professional speakers,
but also for his knowledge (illustrated by a wealth of anecdote
and reminiscence) concerning the individual literary qualities or
even mannerisms of orators and rhetors both Augustan and Tiberian.
Acquaintance with the system represented in his collection of
_Controuersiae_ and _Suasoriae_ is indispensable for an appreciation
of the position and prospects of oratory reflected in Quintilian’s
treatise and Tacitus’s dialogue. But Seneca’s work is much more than an
illuminating introduction to works about oratory: it constitutes the
great exemplar of the Roman rhetorical education in operation, which
must be grasped in order to estimate the stylistic merits or demerits of
verse and prose in the Silver Age. Seneca is a gateway through which the
history of Latin expression must pass towards Lucan as well as towards
Tacitus, and to examine the academic exercises recorded by him is to
go far on the path to understand the style of two centuries; for, like
much subsequent prose and verse, they contain elements pointed to the
degree of monotony, ingenious to the degree of unreality, and sometimes
half-poetic in virtue of a spice of far-fetched romanticism.
L. Annaeus Seneca[87] was born at Corduba, an ancient patrician colony
of Rome in Spain—a town with literary traditions in Cicero’s time,
and by Martial’s days able to boast of having produced three noted
members of a single family, namely, the two Senecas and Lucan.[88] This
provincial family had attained equestrian rank, as we learn from words
assigned to the younger Seneca.[89] The elder Seneca was prevented by
the civil wars from hearing Cicero[90] declaim “with his great pupils in
their _praetextae_,” _i.e._ during the consulate of Hirtius and Pausa
in 43 B.C.; and, since the young Spaniard could not well have attended
declamatory performances under the age of twelve, it is not likely
that he was born later than 55 B.C. He was a boy (_puer_, _Contr._, I,
_praef._ 3) when he first reached Rome, probably in 42 B.C., after the
battle of Philippi. He may have come with his Spanish friend, Porcius
Latro: in any case, they were classmates in the rhetorical school of
Marullus,[91] who was perhaps recommended to them by his Spanish origin
more than by outstanding merit. But Seneca did not restrict himself to
one teacher. He had Arellius Fuscus for one of his early masters, and
he evidently made a practice of listening to all available speakers, if
we may judge from his wide acquaintance with their modes of argument
and expression in the _Controuersiae_. This implies long residence in
Rome, though there is no proof to support his frequent designation as
a “rhetor.” Guess-work would assign to him the official duties of a
procurator, and would by the call of such duties explain his return to
Spain for a period. It was in Spain that he married Helvia, the mother
of his three sons—M. Annaeus Novatus, who took the name of his adoptive
father Gallio and, as pro-consul of Achaea, had the apostle Paul brought
before him;[92] L. Annaeus Seneca, the philosopher; and M. Annaeus Mela,
Lucan’s father.
Clearly Seneca was in Rome at a date between 29 and 24 B.C., when he
heard Ovid declaiming under Arellius Fuscus;[93] and still later in 17
B.C., when he heard Latro’s embarrassing reference to the subject of
adoption in the presence of Augustus and Agrippa.[94] He was back in
Rome before Asinius Pollio died, A.D. 5; for he mentions having heard
Pollio’s youthful oratory and afterwards the oratory of his old age.[95]
The date of his death is to be inferred approximately. His allusion to
the extinction of the Scaurus family (_Suas._ ii. 22) cannot be earlier
than A.D. 34; and we can feel reasonably sure that he outlived Tiberius;
for the account of that emperor’s death given by Suetonius[96] on the
authority of “Seneca” is plausibly referred to the lost historical
work, which, as we know from a fragment of the younger Seneca, his
father composed. The outspoken criticism on the policy of burning books
(_Contr._ X. _praef._ 7) suggests that publication did not precede
Tiberius’s death in 37. On the other hand, when the younger Seneca was
banished in A.D. 41, his mother was a widow;[97] so that the father can
be presumed to have died at an age well over ninety, between A.D. 37 and
41.
A man of old-fashioned austerity,[98] the elder Seneca recalls Cato the
Censor, whom he admired. It is provincial virtue more than a love of
rhetorical commonplace that speaks when he censures the moral decadence
of the times; and one cannot but admire the straightforward sincerity
in his manner of addressing his sons for whom he put together the
_Controuersiae_. Even if public service interested him for part of his
life, he can confidently be described as a scholar by preference. Not
modern enough in his tastes to sympathize with the higher education of
women, he discouraged Helvia from devoting herself to those philosophical
studies in which their second son was destined to see a remedy for
most of the ills of existence. Yet the attraction of the past did not
render him hostile to the imperial system, which, under Augustus, he
found compatible with reasonable liberty:[99] and, while repressive
book-burning stirred his anger, he declined to waste pity on speakers
who would give utterance to treasonable words at the risk of their
lives.[100] His patriotism burned strongly enough to give him pleasure
in pitting the epoch of his model Cicero against the oratorical claims
of “arrogant Greece.”[101] In general, he distrusted the smart levity
of Greek rhetoricians,[102] and his occasional compliments to them were
oftener than not accompanied with a qualification.[103]
Of his ten books of _Controuersiae_, five (III, IV, V, VI and VIII)
are represented only by the headings and excerpts of a fourth-century
epitomator,[104] with the fortunate addition, however, of prefaces to
books III and IV. The other five books (I, II, VII, IX, X) survived in
spite of being summarized and give a reasonably full presentation of the
arguments used in different declamations, though gaps are especially
noticeable in the transcription of the debating points made in Greek. The
prefaces to these five books have also survived, except that the preface
to IX is incomplete. The survival of excerpts for the fuller books
enables us to survey the method followed in epitomizing. The total number
of subjects debated is seventy-four, of which thirty-nine are represented
by excerpts only. The number of _Controuersiae_ in a book varies from
six to nine. There are seven _suasoriae_ (perhaps part of a larger
collection), of which the first has lost its beginning. These exercises
have been defined and illustrated in the chapter on Roman education: it
remains to examine Seneca’s subjects, method and judgements.
This elaborate collection of arguments on rhetorical themes was the
compilation of his old age, and evidence has been cited to show that
some parts were written after A.D. 37. It does not follow, however, that
the whole was put together at the beginning of Caligula’s reign by a man
over ninety:[105] it is more likely that the author had begun his task
years before when his sons would be practically interested in rhetorical
exercises, and that he spread its composition over the later period of
Tiberius’s reign without publishing until the emperor was dead. The
_Suasoriae_ were composed after the _Controuersiae_.[106]
Seneca’s purpose is stated in his first preface, which is addressed to
all three sons, and yet meant for the public at large.[107] It was to
recall the manner and diction of declaimers of the older school, and to
represent speakers whom his sons could not have heard. Impressing on
these young men the wisdom of taking bygone rhetoric into account along
with contemporary rhetoric, he is conscious of a decadence in oratory
to be measured against the greatness of Cicero and his times. To the
author the causes appear to be three: luxurious laziness; the fact that,
since oratory came to offer fewer rewards, men turned to pursuits less
honourable but more profitable; and a natural law of reaction. Realizing
the scarcity of works representative of the greatest declaimers and,
still worse, the circulation of forgeries (_quod peius est, falsi_), he
declares it his duty to rescue noble names from oblivion. Hence it is
natural to respond with pleasure to his sons’ request that he should
undertake so extensive a task.[108] Only a marvellous memory could have
achieved it; but Seneca possessed a Macaulay-like gift of remembrance,
and, as he remarks with obvious truth, it was the distant past he
recalled the more surely. There had been a time when he was capable of
repeating a list of 2000 names read over once. This is partly the secret
of his proficiency in citing arguments from about 120 different speakers,
though one is not precluded from believing that he had preserved notes,
and that he consulted published collections.
The seven prefaces possess great interest. One may weary of the
seventy-four themes and the often scrappy arguments, even although they
are genially diversified by criticism, digression and reminiscences;
but the prefaces are eminently readable in respect of subject-matter
and style. They are valuable for characterization of speakers, for
critical judgements, and for their record of facts otherwise unknown to
literary history: they are attractive for their entertaining stories.
Besides, they give the best opportunity of weighing Seneca’s own literary
qualities in contradistinction to the text of his _themata_, where he
is for the most part professedly reporting the words of others. His
Latinity, in its pleasant freedom from artifice, is worthy of an author
who consistently revered Cicero and was aware that an inferior type of
eloquence had emerged. This alone would constitute him an important link
between the Golden and the Silver Age. Indeed, the first preface shows
his realization of that change from oratory to declamation for which the
principate was largely accountable. Commenting on the alteration of the
Ciceronian _causae_ into the later _controuersiae_, he proceeds to draw
the distinction between the public speaking of an orator (_uera actio_)
and the private exercise (_domestica exercitatio_) of a declaimer. The
new declamation, he notes, was a product of his own period.
Each preface, as a rule, treats one rhetor prominently, and in the
succeeding book that rhetor’s arguments are reported with considerable
fullness. Thus, the opening preface sketches a delightfully graphic
picture of Seneca’s friend, Porcius Latro, his bodily strength and strong
voice, his ineradicable Spanish ways, his passion for work in defiance
of the laws of digestion, his memory for written notes, his mastery
over historical detail, and his method of practising the artifices of
his craft. Such realistic portrayal cannot but rivet our attention upon
his advocacy in the _controuersiae_ which follow; and Seneca explains
that the first controversy in his collection was so placed because
he remembered it to be the earliest of Latro’s declamations in the
academy of Marullus. Similarly, the next preface describes Fabianus,
the teacher of the younger Seneca, and in Book II a special effort is
made to recall his arguments. The preface to III deals particularly with
Cassius Severus; that to IV deals with a pair, Asinius Pollio and Q.
Haterius; that to VII is mainly on Albucius; that to IX considers why
Votienus Montanus did not practise declamation; and the last preface,
when Seneca is tiring of his subject, gives rapid impressions of various
speakers—Mamercus Scaurus (a great orator spoiled by laziness); Labienus,
nicknamed “Rabienus,” a Pompeian in spirit who had his books publicly
burned; Musa, objectionable for unnatural rhetoric; a group consisting
of Moschus, Pacatus, Sparsus, Bassus, Capito; and finally the Spanish
declaimers Gavius Silo and Turrinus Clodius.
Seneca’s admirable criticisms are well seen in his second preface which
contrasts Fabianus with his master Arellius Fuscus. Here he commends
the study of rhetoric as a fitting pursuit for his favourite son Mela,
whose talents he rated more highly than those of his two brothers, then
preparing for public life. Among instructive features in the preface
to III are the demarcation of forensic from academic speaking, and the
explanation offered by Cassius Severus of his relative inferiority as a
declaimer. Severus, it may be noted, was a good extempore speaker, and
anger improved his pleading. After arguing that _non omnia possumus
omnes_, that the individual’s gifts are often confined to a single field,
that Cicero’s style was inferior in verse and Virgil’s in prose, he
accounts for his success at the bar in words which implicitly censure the
whole method of declamation:
“I have been accustomed to address not an audience, but a judge; I
have been accustomed to answer not myself, but an opponent. I avoid
superfluous words as much as inconsistent ones. In scholastic speaking
what may not be considered superfluous, when the whole thing is a
superfluous practice?... When I speak in court, I am doing something;
when I declaim, I seem to be toiling in dreamland (_in somniis
laborare_).... Declaimers are like hot-house plants that droop in the
open (_uelut adsueta clauso et delicatae umbrae corpora sub diuo stare
non possunt_).... There is nothing to be said for testing an orator in
such a childish exercise. What would you think of judging a pilot on a
fish-pond?”[109] Seneca, then, is by no means blind to the unpractical
nature of declamation. Elsewhere he records instances of the absurdity of
some rhetorical figures in a law-court,[110] and the inability of even a
practised declaimer to plead in the forum under the open sky without the
familiar associations of four enclosing walls.[111]
Part of the charm in the prefaces depends on random recollections.
We grow familiar with Seneca’s _Memini_.[112] It is not the least of
their merits that some of the reminiscences are humorous and satiric.
He takes care to chronicle Severus’s amusing attitude to the conceited
Cestius, whose modern declamations students got up by heart, though in
Cicero they studied only speeches to which Cestius had composed replies.
“One day I remember entering his lecture-room when he was to deliver
a speech against Milo (_i.e._ a rejoinder to Cicero’s _Pro Milone_).
Self-satisfied as usual, Cestius was saying, ‘If I were a Thracian
gladiator, I should be a Fusius; if I were a pantomime-actor, I should
be a Bathyllus.’ Unable to check my wrath I burst out, ‘Yes, and if you
were a drain, you’d be the main drain!’—huge guffaws from everybody!
The pupils gazed, curious to see what uncouth sort of creature I was.
Cestius, ready to answer Cicero, had no answer for me!”[113]
Other interesting points occur in the preface to IV. They include a
glance at the select audiences of Asinius Pollio, who was the first
to give _recitationes_ before invited guests; Seneca’s recollection
of Pollio’s instructing his grandson how to look on both sides of a
declamation; and references to the extempore declamations by Q. Haterius,
“the one among all Romans known to me,” he says, “who transferred Greek
facility to Latin.” His speed of utterance made Augustus remark, “Our
friend Haterius needs a brake put on” (_sufflaminandus est_). The sketch
of Albucius in the preface to VII is diverting. He was fearless in his
employment of ordinary words: “sour wine” and “flea-bane,” “fallow
deer” and “rhinoceros,” “latrines” and “sponges” came all alike to him
in speaking. A chameleon orator, for ever adopting fresh styles, he
sometimes proved unlucky in his figures, as when he asked rhetorically
“Why is a cup smashed if it falls, and why is a sponge not?,” on which
Cestius commented, “To-morrow he’ll give a declamation on why thrushes
fly and gourds don’t!” It was Albucius who, in the debate about a
parricide set adrift in a boat, invented the far-fetched joke of calling
the boat “the wooden sack” (_culleum ligneum_) instead of the real sack
used in the punishment of parricides.
The incomplete preface to IX resumes the criticism of declamation as
unpractical. Seneca recognizes the defects afterwards emphasized by
Petronius and Tacitus,[114] when he points out that the dominant aim in
declamation is to please, not to carry conviction (_non ut uincat sed
ut placeat_). This is why it hunts for alluring ornaments (_lenocinia
conquirit_) and avoids solid reasoning. Declamations composed on the
assumption that one has only fools for opponents (_aduersarios quamuis
fatuos fingunt_) must provide a poor training for a court of law. The
conditions of practice are too easy in an academic exercise: gladiators,
it should be remembered, train with heavier weapons than those with which
they fight in the arena.
The final preface is notable for the author’s frank confession that he
had exhausted his recollections and they him (_fatebor uobis: iam res
taedio est_). Indignant at the governmental revenge taken on the writings
of Scaurus and of Labienus, he yet thanks heaven that these punishments
of genius did not begin until genius itself was deteriorating. Musa’s
extravagance of language is illustrated and condemned:
I remember his saying “Birds that fly, fish that swim, beasts
that run, find graves in our insides. Ask now why we men die
suddenly—we live by deaths!”
Freeman though he was, Musa, in Seneca’s view, richly deserved flogging
like the veriest slave for such artificiality. “Much, I consider,
must be allowed to talent,” he adds; “one must allow faults, but not
monstrosities.”
The traditional title _Oratorum et Rhetorum Sententiae Diuisiones
Colores_ indicates the method. On a case propounded, the sentiments
(_sententiae_) and contentions of a number of speakers for or against are
given, often mere jottings; then a skeletonic mapping out (_diuisiones_)
of _quaestiones_ involved; and, finally, a selection of more or less
plausible conceptions (_colores_) designed to put a special complexion
on certain acts under review. Invention and ingenuity find their best
opening in the third group, but the ingenuity often overleaps itself into
absurdity. A few extracts from II. i. may serve by way of illustration.
A rich man who has already disinherited no fewer than three sons, asks
for a poor man’s only son in order to adopt him: the poor man says
“yes;” but the son says “no,” and is thereupon disowned by his father.
Arguments from eleven speakers in favour of the son are cited, among them
those of Porcius Latro and Arellius Fuscus, whose arguments on the other
side are afterwards given. Latro opens for the youth: “And this is my
fate—disowned and adopted at the same moment! The home that sheltered my
father up to old age cannot admit me!... (_To the rich man_) You suppose
gold and silver to be riches, but they are the playthings of fortune.
I give you warning: even if I come to you, I shall take care—and it is
a very easy thing in _your_ house—to get disinherited! Strange things
do happen, but I never dreamt that my father would hate children, or
the rich man want them. I desire no patrimony: happiness is a frail
fleeting thing”—and he cites examples. Vibius Rufus makes the young man
argue: “The very father that does not like keeping his children, judges
it necessary to have children! I invited his disinherited sons into
our humble abode. Am I going to rob them of their home after promising
them mine? What am I to do? If I obey, I shall get disinherited: if I
don’t obey, I shall get disinherited. I love my father: and that is my
offence.” Among Fuscus’s points are these: “(_To the rich man_) You ask
for a son: well, there are crowds of youths without a father! (_To his
father_) Lay on me any command you choose: I shall go to sea, go on
war-service, provided that, wherever I am, I remain yours”; and much of
his oration turns on the perils of wealth. Then Fabianus also declaims
against the corrupting influence of riches, and uses his noted gift
of description to contrast domestic decoration with natural landscape
scenery, which is the possession of the poor. When Latro in turn argues
for the father, he represents him as saying: “If I did not know what an
evil poverty is, I should understand it now: my son does not dread being
disowned. Adoption amalgamated the families of the Fabii, the Aemilii
and the Scipios. From the foundation of Rome to our own days our famous
patrician nobility has depended on it. Adoption cures the wounds of
fortune (_adoptio fortunae remedium est_).” The marshalling of arguments
under the _diuisio_ follows: _e.g._ Pompeius Silo began, on behalf of the
reluctant son, with the trite question, “Is a father to be obeyed in all
things? And even if in all things, does this include an act that would
make him no longer one’s father? Can a son be handed over for adoption
against his will? If he cannot, can he be disowned for exercising his
own will?” and so through logical alternatives on to his proof that the
proposed adoption was, firstly, disgraceful; secondly, useless; thirdly,
dangerous. When the _colores_ are reported, Seneca comments on their
risky allurements and adduces warning examples of silliness. He does
not mince words when he disapproves. This is a _color_ from Latro in
defence of the young man, who is supposed to say: “I was always friendly
with the three disowned sons: I am their friend still. When they were
disinherited, I advised them to keep quiet and by yielding soften their
father. I told them, ‘As soon as you think it the right time, my father
will entreat yours.’ Well, now they assure me that the most favourable
moment is here. They are right: my father cannot find any more favourable
moment for the reconciliation: the rich man is seeking sons.” And here is
Latro’s _color_ when he spoke on the other side: “This,” says the father
to his son, “is my aim: I want to hand you over for adoption, so that
the disowned sons may be by your means more readily reconciled to their
father.”
While the exact point at issue varies greatly in the _Controuersiae_, the
general question under debate falls into one of three types—criminal,
civil, social. The fourth book may illustrate this division, as well as
the unlikelihood of the themes. Of its eight cases, three are criminal,
three civil, and two involve questions of public status. The criminal
cases are: (IV. i.) A man is dragged from the grave of his three children
by a wild young roysterer who plays upon him the prank of forcibly
shaving him, dressing him in festal attire and compelling him to take
part in a banquet; (iv.) During war-time a man who has lost his weapons
in battle seizes weapons from a hero’s tomb, fights bravely and restores
them: he is charged with sacrilegious violation of the monument; (vi.) A
man’s wife dies in giving birth to a boy: the father marries soon after,
and the boy borne by the second wife has a remarkable resemblance to
his half-brother. Both are brought up in the country and become almost
indistinguishable. After many years, on their reappearance in town,
the father, who knows which is the elder, will not tell his wife which
is her child: he is charged with cruelty. The civil cases are: (iii.)
The ravisher of a girl secures from her exiled father a command that
she shall elect to marry him, but her brother at home insists on her
claiming the culprit’s death: the brother is disinherited for opposing
his father’s will; (v.) A stepson, who is a doctor, declines to attend
his stepmother, and his father disinherits him; (viii.) A proscribed
master in time of civil war is sheltered by a faithful freedman to whom
he promises remission of all future claims on his service; when he is
restored to his belongings, he makes demands on the freedman, which the
latter resists. The two cases of status are: (ii.) Metellus, in rescuing
the Palladium from the burning temple of Vesta, has lost his eye-sight:
as a blind man, he is refused the right to exercise the priesthood;
(vii.) A man taken in adultery by a tyrant wrests his sword from him,
kills him, and claims a public prize as a tyrannicide.
In the whole collection the criminal charges predominate: of the 74,
there are 30 criminal, 26 civil, while 18 affect status. But many side
issues are involved. There are about a score of cases concerning immoral
relations such as adultery, seduction, outrage and prostitution: almost
as many turn on the disinheriting of children; seven on poisoning; seven
on tyrants, a theme more at home in Greece. Pirates add a mild flavour
of danger to some, but again and again the imagined circumstances
are hopelessly unnatural and bizarre, and encourage extravagance of
treatment and style. Certain _controuersiae_ sound like sketchy novels
with impossible plots, and must have been so handled in the _narratio_
of a clever rhetor, who aimed at the diversion of a leisured and _blasé_
audience. One instance[115] combines the following episodes: a tyrant is
slain; an illicit _liaison_ results in homicide; a father’s intercessions
are rejected by a son, who is afterwards captured by pirates; they
demand a ransom, but the unforgiving father replies that, if they cut
off their prisoner’s hands, he will pay twice the amount; the captive is
eventually liberated by the gang; later the father falls into beggary;
and finally his son refuses to help him. Anything may be expected in such
a jumble—rhetorical outbursts, Homeric quotations, a plea of insanity,
or the _color_ devised by a professor with a voice like a hundred
nutmeg-graters (_centum raucorum uocem_) that the father’s offer to the
pirates “You will be paid double for cutting his hands off” was merely a
regrettable secretarial error (_librario una syllaba excidit ‘non’_) for
“You will be paid double for _not_ cutting his hands off!”
The ultimate sources of most of the themes are undiscoverable. Many had
become stereotyped in Greek rhetorical schools, and, with little or no
modification, were transmitted through generations at Rome. Thus, actual
Greek history supplied material for the _suasoria_ on Alexander’s entry
into Babylon, and Greek tragedy for Agamemnon’s deliberation whether
he shall immolate his daughter. Sometimes the historical kernel was
of the smallest. It is, for instance, an invention that the Athenians
deliberated about removing their Persian trophies under Xerxes’s threat
to return with his army. Sometimes the law invoked was a genuine one
from the Attic code: often, however, it was a figment of the schools. An
example is the debate on whether the priestess convicted of immorality
who was thrown from a rock and survived might be subjected to punishment
a second time: by Roman law a guilty priestess was buried alive. From
Sulla’s time onwards there had been a growing accumulation of material
for the free use of declaimers either to thrash out on Greek lines or
to fuse with Roman elements. The treatise _Ad Herennium_ and Cicero’s
_De Inuentione_ supply a long list of themes drawn from Roman as well as
from Greek history; but details were liberally altered in declamations to
secure rhetorical effect; for a good point counted more than historical
accuracy. Mythology was also a source: and fertile imagination yet
another.
Seneca’s ability as a writer is shown both in his suggestive comments
and in a Boswellian aptitude for reproducing the words and style of
others. In criticism nothing could be sounder than his grasp of that
psychological endowment which made Ovid successful in a _suasoria_, of
the wilfulness which made that poet love the bizarre lines which others
censured, and the quality in his lost oratory which made it poetic
prose (_solutum carmen_, _Contr._ II. ii. 8). Most illuminating are
the remarks on Montanus’s passion for repetitions: he was “the Ovid of
orators” because he could not let well alone (_nescit quod bene cessit
relinquere_, _Contr._ IX. v. 17). It argues a genuine feeling for style
that Seneca, besides characterizing good and bad speakers, can also
represent their actual manner, such as Latro’s exclamatory qualities
in Book I or his outburst on Popillius’s barbarity in killing Cicero
in Book VII. Similarly in the case of the Roman official who had a man
beheaded at a banquet to satisfy the curiosity of a _fille de joie_,
Seneca reproduces Murredius’s tetracolon which ended in nonsense “to
complete the rhythm”—“Justice was subservient to the bed-chamber, a
praetor to a harlot, prison to a banquet, day to night” (_Seruiebat forum
cubiculo, praetor meretrici, carcer conuiuio, dies nocti_, IX. ii. 27).
The heartlessness of the same scene is vividly brought home by Seneca’s
illustration of Vibius Gallus’s realism, “A toast was drunk to the
headsman for his deft stroke” (_lictori quia bene percusserat propinatum
est_, IX. ii. 23).
The pernicious effect of some of the subjects upon the morality of pupils
may easily be overstated. It is doubtful whether there was more of the
violent and the illicit in them than is illustrated on a modern cinema
film, which does not provide an equal stimulus towards thought and
expression. Much, indeed, in ancient declamations was morally sound and
bracing, even if rather commonplace: there was a healthy spirit in the
denunciations of luxury and of tyranny, which might pass safely in an
academic exercise, but might spell ruin in a historical work under the
Empire. It is, besides, doubtful whether students altogether failed to
realize the unreality of their controversial world; even the far-fetched
elements may be said to have been attempts to satisfy the perennial human
desire for romance. With so many stock subjects common to the successive
periods represented by Seneca, Quintilian and the pseudo-Quintilian,
by Calpurnius Flaccus,[116] and later in Greek by Libanius, it was
inevitable that sensible arguments should run dry, and relief from
the hackneyed should be sought either in artificial embroidery or in
capricious invention. The incentive to invent operated often without the
check of common sense: so that one is reminded of nothing so much as of
the pedantically ingenious questions which were devised by the fantastic
imagination of the Troubadours to be pleaded and decided in a Court of
Love.
Ingenuity is so characteristic of the Silver Age that it deserves to be
noted in the making. It is most observable in the cunningly contrived
rebuttal of a charge. At first sight, one might condemn as beyond all
excuse the scandalous practical joke already mentioned which was played
upon a man at his children’s grave. Subjected forcibly to a fashionable
toilette, the mourner had been presented by an unruly young reveller
to his boon companions and coerced into attending their banquet in a
neighbouring garden. What fair complexion shall an enterprising defence
put upon such conduct? One answer to the prosecution follows these
lines: Was it not reasonable to be touched by the old man’s mourning and
loneliness? Was it not heart-breaking to notice that he had no kinsman
to console him? Now when it is too late, the offenders, of course, can
see that his friends must have deserted him, because they knew he was
mad. In fact, “all was meant in kindness” is the explanation offered by
this misunderstood young gentleman! “It was a festive occasion, and I
was entertaining some of my good friends, when one of them said, ‘Why
do we let that poor fellow in the cemetery kill himself with grief?
Nobody can make up his mind spontaneously to abandon sorrow: people are
bashful about it: they want compulsion....’” To prove the continuance
of his friendly attitude, the defendant assures the complainant: “I’m
perfectly ready to give you more consolation of the same sort—only, you’d
just accuse me again!” The danger of such smartness in rhetoric and in
literature is that it constantly tends to be overdone. Ingenuity of idea
and phrase palls even in Ovid and in Lucan; but, indulged in by the
smaller mind of a rhetorician in quest of specious argument or pointed
epigram, it becomes grotesque, as Seneca shows by his censures.
The seven deliberative exercises, or _Suasoriae_, exhibit similar
rhetorical qualities to those in the _Controuersiae_, and furnish
continued proof of the attraction which digressive anecdotes, luckily
for his readers, possessed for Seneca. At times he conscientiously pulls
himself up (_longius me fabellarum dulcedo produxit; itaque ad propositum
reuertar_, _Suas._ i. 7); but to his deviations from the strict lines of
argument we owe interesting comments, _e.g._ on Virgil’s avoidance of
bombast (i. 12); Pedo’s lines describing Germanicus’s voyage (i. 15);
Arellius Fuscus’s description of the moon in contrast with Virgil’s
simpler and happier words (iii. 4); Gallio’s amusingly nonchalant
attitude towards impassioned oratory at which he jested as “plena deo”
(iii. 6-7); the records of Pollio’s hostility to Cicero’s reputation (vi.
14); an extract from Livy on the death of Cicero (vi. 17); Cornelius
Severus’s hexameters on the same subject (vi. 26); and Cestius’s praise
of Cicero’s services in exalting the Latin language over Greek (vii. 10).
Seneca had not spared foolish arguments in the _Controuersiae_.
Murredius, quoted in the seventh book for a foolish point regarding
Popillius, the ungrateful murderer of Cicero, and for another ineptitude
on a poisoning charge, is declared to be “as silly as ever” in the ninth
book.[117] In the murder mystery, where a woman is found wounded, her
husband killed, and a breach made in the wall between the house and
the neighbouring one, Seneca justifiably stigmatized as fatuous the
bit of description “My father had holes made in him as if he were the
wall” (_pater meus tamquam paries perfossus est_).[118] So it is with
absurdities in the _Suasoriae_. The deliberations of the 300 Spartans
in the pass whether to retreat or face the Persian are marked both by
excellences and by inanities. “Whither will you, hoplites, flee, who are
yourselves the walls of Sparta?”—that, in four neat words,[119] is cited
by Seneca as the best hit made by any Greek speaker in this _suasoria_.
On the other hand, his strictures upon overstrained point are severe; for
he says the prize-winner for puerility (_inter has pueriles sententias
uidetur palmam meruisse_) was the speaker who played with the conceit
that the inscription to the fallen Spartans was written in blood squeezed
from their wounds—“ink,” he exclaimed, “worthy of a Spartan!” (where
the Latin _atramentum_ gives a more violent contrast to the red blood).
The last _suasoria_ concludes with two remarks from “that most likeable
fool” Gargonius, “than which not even he had ever said anything sillier.”
Turgid rhetoric receives corresponding castigation. The author, in making
fun of his namesake Seneca “Grandio” (ii. 17), so called because he liked
everything big from sandals to a sweetheart, recalls his handling of the
300 Spartans at bay. Lifting his arms and rising on his toes (that was
his way of making himself bigger!) he declaimed in swelling accents a
Spartan’s imaginary soliloquy: “So all Greece has abandoned us. So much
the better, I am glad, I am glad.” We wondered, remarks Seneca drily,
what there was to be glad about. “Why? Because I shall now have the
Persian to myself. That monarch, Xerxes, who has stolen seas with his
armada, who has confined the earth but extended the deep, whose orders
impose a new aspect upon universal nature, that monarch may doubtless
encamp over against the heavens; but I shall have the gods for comrades!”
If the elder Seneca’s good sense had been more widely shared, such
bombast would have been frowned out of existence.
From these exercises, then, one may take an inventory, as it were, for
the literary stock-in-trade of Silver Latin. There are exclamatory
and high-flown outbursts typified in the apostrophe to the monster of
cruelty who maimed foundlings to make money out of their begging;[120]
common-places on themes like the mutability of fortune,[121] or the
effect of calamity on the mind; _sententiae_, embodying ancient wisdom
in proverbial form, such as “The cure may be worse than the disease”
(_quaedam remedia grauiora ipsis periculis sunt_), “There are many
paths to death,” “Innocence is a protection in danger,” “Nature has
given none the breath of life for ever”;[122] the purple patches in
elaborate descriptions of ocean or tempest or natural scenery;[123]
the brief and pointed epigram designed to surprise by ingenuity or
paradox, “Weeping is a modest curse directed against human calamity”
(_fletus humanarum necessitatum uerecunda exsecratio est_);[124] and
the frequently allied antithesis, “the greatest runaways among the
brave, the greatest laggards among runaways” (_inter fortes fugacissimi,
inter fugaces tardissimi_).[125] The indictment which lies against
rhetoric for extravagance in the use of these and other artifices,
and for its frequent self-divorce from real life, must not blind us
to the good services which it rendered. Though but a simulacrum of
the old free oratory, it was cherished by the Romans with almost
pathetic assiduity, and from their devotion to it as an end in itself
they gained at least sharpened wits and facility of expression. The
rhetorical training maintained in the Empire a high standard of ability
in the use of language. This was not its sole advantage. Declaimers
were not, as a rule, politicians, but the declamations afforded a safe
outlet for a certain amount of social criticism and even a certain
amount of republican feeling. Some of the themes, we have seen, gave
the mind the satisfaction of entering upon mildly romantic adventures.
The very fact that the law assumed in a case was not the actual law of
Rome aided the growth of a new sentiment of equity. Further, there was
ethical value in the moral and humane reflections of an experienced
declaimer, while the attacks made upon luxury and riches were in keeping
with a literary exaltation of the poor and the humble, which implied a
broadening conception of the worth of the individual. To suppose that the
declamations produced merely expert phraseology and did not stimulate
thought is a profound mistake.
* * * * *
Seneca places before us the speakers of two generations in Rome, who by
their various nationalities—Italian, Greek, Spanish and Gallic—indicate
the cosmopolitan hold obtained by rhetoric. Most of the older generation,
as Augustans, are outside our present limits; some speakers belong to
both generations; and some definitely to the reign of Tiberius. Of the
quartette (τετράδιον) placed by Seneca in the highest rank[126]—Porcius
Latro, Arellius Fuscus, Albucius Silus and Junius Gallio—the first
three had been recognized as eminent before the Christian era began.
Ovid studied under Latro and Fuscus, and doubtless a subtle portion of
their rhetorical influence descended through the poet to his imitators
in the first century. Fuscus also had for a pupil Papirius Fabianus, a
philosopher still more than a speaker, who taught the younger Seneca.
Gallio, whose arguments are often exemplified in the _Controuersiae_, was
noted for a jingle (_tinnitus_) of style in speaking. One of his writings
was an answer composed to Labienus’s invective against Bathyllus, the
favourite of Maecenas; and other publications of his were declamations
and a treatise on rhetoric. He was exiled in A.D. 32. Though Cestius
Pius from Smyrna was pre-Tiberian, his pupils, Surdinus, Aietius
Pastor, Quintilius Varus (son of the general crushed by the Germans in
A.D. 9), formed a group towards the beginning of Tiberius’s reign; and
Argentarius, his assiduous ape (_Cestii simius_), belonged clearly to the
same time. Cestius had a swarm of followers who, we have seen, learned by
heart his speeches in preference to Cicero’s.
In passing to speakers definitely under Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius,
it is worth while to remember that the emperors themselves were by
education products of the rhetorical system. Tiberius,[127] as a student
of rhetoric under Theodorus of Gadara, imbibed new principles—very
different from those which his predecessor Augustus had learned from
Apollodorus of Pergamum. The Apollodoreans, emphasizing _narratio_,
stood for regularity in the division and structure of a speech,
whereas the Theodoreans, eager for greater freedom, were content if
the _argumentatio_ alone was adequately handled. Tiberius’s years
of retirement at Rhodes, before he was emperor, had perfected his
acquaintance with Greek rhetoric; and his skill in the diplomatic and
even cryptic use of language is apparent in the reports of his senatorial
speeches given by Tacitus.[128] In Latin, his tendency was to prefer
archaic to foreign words and to base his oratory on the manner of
Messalla Corvinus. Among his literary compositions were memoirs, while
his verses showed the influence of Euphorion and other Greek poets.
His successor, C. Caesar Caligula, from whose insane jealousy sprang
his desire to annihilate the works of Homer, and his scathing attacks
upon Virgil as well as Livy, did not publish works, though he was well
trained in rhetoric, capable as a speaker especially when stimulated
by anger, and critically contemptuous of the younger Seneca’s style as
“sand minus mortar.”[129] His uncle Claudius, the next emperor, was a
voluminous writer in Greek and Latin. An early taste which he evinced
for history had been fostered by Livy; and his learning in other fields
was extensive. Now a play, now a book on gambling, now an apology for
Cicero against the strictures of Asinius Gallus, came from his pen. He
even proposed three additional letters, the inverted digamma (Ⅎ) for
consonantal _u_, antisigma (Ↄ) for _ps_, and the left half of H (Ⱶ) for
the _y_ sound between _i_ and _u_.[130] Part of the speech delivered by
Claudius before the senate in A.D. 48, supporting the admission of Gallic
nobles to Roman offices, was found recorded on a bronze tablet at Lyons
in 1524, and forms an interesting subject of comparison with the version
by Tacitus (_Ann._ XI. xxiv). Claudius’s consort, Agrippina, wrote
memoirs, which the elder Pliny and Tacitus consulted.[131]
Of rhetoricians at least partly of the time of Tiberius, like Asprenas,
Bruttedius, Turrinus and Capito, it is enough to distinguish the last for
his declamation regarding Cicero’s murderer Popillius, which remained in
circulation and was erroneously ascribed to Latro.[132] Many speakers
published collections of their speeches or manuals on speaking. Junius
Otho, praetor in A.D. 22, was the author of four books on _Colores_;[133]
and Rutilius Lupus, towards the end of Seneca’s lifetime, brought out
an abridged translation of a work on figures of speech by Gorgias,
who taught at Athens in the first century B.C. Alfius Flavus, one of
Cestius’s pupils, wrote also in verse. Senatorial eloquence under
Tiberius was (in addition to Junius Otho) represented by Asinius Gallus,
son of Asinius Pollio, and inheritor of his caustic style; Aeserninus,
Pollio’s grandson; Valerius Messallinus Cotta, younger son of the
Augustan Messalla Corvinus, and consul in A.D. 20, a pleasure-seeker
with gifts in verse-making and in pleading (Ovid in exile had read a
speech which he had delivered in court); Mamercus Scaurus, the easygoing
aristocrat whose friendship with Sejanus and authorship of a tragedy,
_Atreus_, proved his ruin; Q. Haterius, who died an old man in A.D. 26
and whose startlingly rapid delivery called forth Augustus’s remark
already mentioned, that he needed a brake put on;[134] L. Arruntius,
a man of ability at once academic and forensic; Votienus Montanus,
from Narbo, who made his mark in an inheritance case for Galla Numisia,
and was exiled for treason in A.D. 25; and L. Calpurnius Piso, one of
the most dignified characters of the day, who alarmed Tiberius on one
occasion by denouncing the infamy of informers and threatening to quit
Rome in disgust.
To the time of Caligula and Claudius belongs Crispus Passienus, son of
the Augustan Passienus. His published speeches were among those familiar
to students in Quintilian’s boyhood.[135] It is notable that Caligula
allowed the condemned works of certain Augustan orators and historians,
T. Labienus, Cremutius Cordus and Cassius Severus, to circulate
again.[136] Of these Cremutius belongs to the annals of history.
Labienus, more noted as an orator than as a historian, was disliked for
exceeding the due limits of free speech, and his enemies were pleased
when his books were given to the flames by senatorial decree about A.D.
12.[137] The blow was one which he refused to survive. Cassius Severus,
another prominent orator in the _Controuersiae_, had offended Augustus by
libels upon men and women of high station, and died in miserable poverty
after twenty-five years of exile. There are reasons for believing that
his death happened about A.D. 37, five years later than the date assigned
by Jerome. Tacitus connects with his condemnation Augustus’s first
attempt to repress literature.[138]
Many orators were occupied rather as political accusers than as literary
creators, finding it lucrative to place delation at the service of
any emperor whose aim was to ruin the potentially dangerous scions of
aristocratic families, the so-called opposition under the Caesars. Some
were unquestionably able persons, like Domitius Afer of Nemausus (Nîmes),
who pleaded in the law-courts, occupied high positions in several reigns,
and was known for legal writings _De Testibus_, and for published
speeches mentioned by Quintilian. He had begun his career as an accuser
by A.D. 26, and lived into Nero’s times (A.D. 59).[139] P. Suillius, one
of the dreaded informers under Claudius, eventually fell himself under
sentence of banishment. Vibius Crispus, already by Claudius’s time active
in the nefarious intrigues of the delator, survived until about A.D. 90,
one of many links between this period and the Flavian age.
CHAPTER II
VALERIUS MAXIMUS—A REPERTORY FOR SPEAKERS
Valerius Maximus—His date—His nine books and their aim—A
collection for rhetoricians—Method and arrangement—National
subject-matter and spirit—Sources—Survival of his
influence through abridgements—Limitations in historical
outlook—Adulation of the Caesars—Moralizing and sententious
reflections—His style a mirror of the period—The poetic
element—Rhetorical exclamations and declamations—Balanced
structure—Artificial conceits—Language—Abstractions—Vocabulary
and syntax.
Little can be surmised regarding the life of Valerius Maximus,[140] the
compiler of a significant repertory for rhetoricians; but that little is
enough to settle his period. Vossius,[141] rejecting the suggestion that
he belonged to the third century A.D., proved that he must be referred
to the age of Tiberius; and there is not much to add to his arguments.
Aulus Gellius, in the second century, cites from the eighth book of
Valerius.[142] Further, what are almost the only explicit personal
reminiscences in Valerius’s work afford evidence of date; for his great
friend, the eloquent Sextus Pompeius, with whom he visited Asia and to
whose kindly patronage he pays a tribute in his chapter on friendship, is
identical with one of the consuls in the last year of Augustus’s and the
first year of Tiberius’s reign, A.D. 14.[143] Pompeius was also a friend
of Germanicus, and the patron to whom Ovid addressed certain epistles
from Pontus:[144] he became proconsul of Asia about A.D. 27. Besides, the
tone in which Brutus and Cassius are charged with “parricide” for their
share in the assassination of Julius Caesar savours of the repressive
times of Tiberius.[145] Confirmatory impressions may be derived from
Valerius’s style; and, finally, if more precision in dates be desired for
an author not so lavish in their use as Velleius Paterculus was, then two
passages may be cited bearing on the time of composition. The prefatory
remarks to his treatment of _pudicitia_ must have been written before
Livia’s death in A.D. 29; and the denunciation directed against Sejanus
(though it does not name him) must have been written after his downfall
in A.D. 31.[146] Valerius’s work, then, appeared at latest within a few
years after the publication of Paterculus’s history in A.D. 30; for
its dedication to Tiberius, who is the Caesar addressed[147] and often
flattered, shows that it was not subsequent to the close of his reign in
A.D. 37.
His work, _Facta et Dicta Memorabilia_, consists, as we have it, of nine
books; and though his epitomator, Julius Paris, implies there were ten,
this is most likely an error. The author’s aim will be best understood in
the light of a summary of the contents:—
Book I. Religion, auspices, omens, prodigies and marvels
ranging from more to less awe-inspiring instances—from a
mysterious utterance or miraculous intervention of a god, to
such merely curious cases as those of the man who forgot how to
read, or the princess with a double row of teeth, or a heart
stuffed with hairs!
Book II. A _pot-pourri_ of subjects, perhaps in this book
more loosely interrelated than in any—marriage, magistracies,
military regulations and discipline, public games, foreign
customs, censorial strictness, and so on.
Book III. Mental and moral endowments, bravery, endurance, rise
from humble origin to greatness, degeneracy, self-confidence,
etc.
Book IV. Moderation, abstinence, conjugal love, friendship,
generosity, etc.
Book V. Clemency, gratitude, ingratitude, filial duty,
brotherly affection, patriotism, paternal love and severity.
Book VI. Chastity, outspoken retorts, strict punishments,
weighty words and acts, justice, national honour, fidelity of
wives and of slaves (where the comment _quo minus exspectatam
hoc laudabiliorem fidem_ speaks eloquently of the prevailing
distrust felt by masters), and mutability of fortune.
Book VII. Good fortune, wise sayings or acts, smart sayings or
acts, military _ruses_, defeat at elections, the straits of
necessity, wills cancelled or ratified.
Book VIII. A book covering an extensive range, but furnishing
only a few brief examples under some of its headings—Acquittals
and convictions in public trials, famous private law-suits,
women who pleaded cases, testimony borne in court, those who
committed faults which they punished in others, industry,
leisure, eloquence, expression and gesture, striking effects
of the arts, memorable old age, desire of glory, magnificent
honours conferred.
Book IX. Luxury and lust, cruelty, anger and hatred, avarice,
arrogance, perfidy, temerity, mistakes, vengeance, wicked
sayings and doings, deaths out of the common, desire of life,
enrolment in families by fraud.
The utility of this fairly full, but not exhaustive, list rests on its
indication of the author’s intention to illustrate subjects likely to be
touched on by an orator. The design relates the work to the rhetoric of
the times. Here was ready for use a collection of noteworthy anecdotes
constituting a serviceable _Vade mecum_ for speakers or teachers. And
this aim, easily discernible from a table of contents, is openly avowed
by the compiler: his task, he tells us, was to make a handy digest of
memorable deeds and sayings with a view to saving his readers the trouble
of hunting among the scattered authorities whose writings he himself had
to consult.[148] It is a fair guess that he was a professor of rhetoric.
Dividing each book into chapters on separate topics, Valerius generally
subdivides each chapter into Roman and foreign examples. The latter
(_externa_) are fewer and are sometimes omitted.[149] Occasionally he
confesses to a sense of perplexity between the mass of available material
(_sermo infinitis personis rebusque circumfusus_) and the claims of
reasonable brevity:[150] and so he feels bound under certain heads to
reduce the number of examples (_satietas modo uitanda est_).[151] Some
parts of the work show little sign of systematic dovetailing: others
exhibit closer interconnexion. From time to time he is at pains to
indicate his method of grouping illustrations; thus, he exemplifies
self-confidence, first in war, next in peace, then introduces the poet
Accius avowedly as a link between Roman and foreign instances.[152] Or,
again, just as he is about to pass to foreign examples, some insistent
Roman illustration may arrest his attention with a demand to be recorded
(_ad externa ... transire conanti M. Bibulus ... manus inicit_);[153] and
equal emphasis marks his transition from Book IV to V—from generosity
to its “fit companions, humanity and clemency.” These and other such
instances prove that he had an artistic regard for unity, and that
it would be unfair to view him as an accumulator of higgledy-piggledy
miscellanea.
In subject-matter, and in spirit no less, he is decidedly national. The
predominance of examples from native life, custom and history makes
this inevitable; yet it is, after all, but one aspect of the Roman in
him. He is Roman in the practical aim wherewith he composed his digest
for rhetoricians and their pupils; in the typical position assigned
to religion at the forefront of the work; and in the conservative
note upon which his text opens. This Roman conservatism animates his
dignified pride in recording the ancestral habit of referring intricate
ceremonial to pontifical wisdom, the sanction for action to augural
observation, oracular responses to prophetic books, and the fit treatment
for portents to the lore of Etruria. About illustrations from foreign
history he is conscious that, if they do not make the same direct appeal
as national examples, still they introduce a pleasant variety in the
Latin subject-matter (_attingam igitur externa; quae, Latinis inserta
literis, ut auctoritatis minus habent, ita aliquid gratae uarietatis
afferre possunt_). No less patriotic is the enthusiasm with which, after
mentioning the lays of ancient Rome once sung at banquets, he praises the
old Roman training, and with a rhetorical climax turns his list of great
families so educated into a compliment to the Caesars:
_Maiores natu in conuiuiis ad tibias egregia superiorum opera
carmine comprehensa pangebant, quo ad ea imitanda iuuentutem
alacriorem redderent. Quid hoc splendidius, quid etiam utilius
certamine?... Quas Athenas, quam scholam, quae alienigena
studia huic domesticae disciplinae praetulerim? Inde oriebantur
Camilli, Scipiones, Fabricii, Marcelli, Fabii: ac ne singula
imperii nostri lumina simul percurrendo sim longior, inde,
inquam, caeli clarissima pars diui fulserunt Caesares._
A similar spirit pervades his record of the honour secured for Latin
as the official and imperial language everywhere;[154] his apostrophe
eulogizing Marius’s disdain for Greek eloquence;[155] and his genuine
admiration for the old national deliberative body:
“The Senate-house was the trusty deep-set heart of the commonwealth,
fortified, walled all round with the healthiness of silence. As men
crossed its threshold, they cast aside personal and put on national
affections.”[156] So too one notes his pride in “the most tenacious
bond of military discipline,” which he pronounces “the especial glory
and mainstay of the Roman power, having been by salutary steadfastness
kept untarnished and unscathed to the present time.”[157] It is the same
with his panegyrics upon Rome;[158] his gratified consciousness of the
progressive evolution from “Romulus’s small hut” (_paruula Romuli casa_)
to “the pillar of the world” (_terrarum orbis columen_);[159] his belief
in the generosity of the Roman people;[160] his rhapsodic outbursts like
_O munificentiam gentis Romanae, deorum benignitati aequandam!_[161] or
his satisfaction in Roman justice.[162]
In the absence of systematic acknowledgment of his borrowings, it is
impossible to give an exact account of the sources of Valerius. Any
reader will observe that Livy has been largely drawn upon, even though
he is mentioned but once.[163] Cicero is mentioned oftener;[164] but
the mere occurrence of his name is no gauge of the extent to which he
was used. Varro must have been an authority in many instances.[165] We
may also infer the consultation of Sallust and Asinius Pollio, and, for
foreign examples, of Trogus.[166] Besides mention of such poets as Livius
Andronicus and Accius, there are references to the historian Caelius
(Antipater), to the _Collecta_ of Pomponius Rufus, and to M. Scaurus’s
autobiographic _Memoirs_.[167] Cato’s work on _Origines_ is cited
definitely in one passage,[168] and may elsewhere be reasonably thought
to have supplied material. That work, as well as Cato’s _Orations_, must
have been in Valerius’s mind when he wrote the words _ornata sunt ab eo
(sc. Catone) literarum Latinarum monimenta_.[169] About a score of Greek
authors are cited. His treatment of sources varies. The original may
be copied with fidelity, or paraphrased and rhetorically embellished,
or condensed, or sometimes misrepresented thanks to bungling; for
superficiality betrays him into many confusions.
Yet, blemishes notwithstanding, there are, as testimonies to a great
measure of utility and vitality in his work, at least two well-known
abridgements[170] of it—one by Julius Paris, made about the fourth
century, and intended, like the ampler original, for schools; the other
by Januarius Nepotianus, the extant form of which breaks off in the third
book (III. ii. 7), but which was evidently drawn from a manuscript of the
original superior to any now extant, because it summarizes the gap in
the first book (I. i. _ext._ 4–I. iv. _ext._ 1). Possibly the C. Titius
Probus, to whom is ascribed in some MSS. the summary on Roman names at
the end of Valerius, was an earlier epitomizer than Julius Paris and may
have left an epitome afterwards combined with his; but, as the summary on
names cannot by any stretch of imagination be called literature, there is
scant profit in discussing the date of Titius Probus or his relationship
to Julius Paris.[171] Suffice it to add that the existence of late
abridgements and the number of MSS. of the full text which have come down
are indications of its hold upon medieval education. Niebuhr, indeed,
declares that Valerius “was considered the most important book next to
the Bible throughout the Middle Ages; it was the mirror of virtues and
was translated into all the languages of Europe.”[172] Teuffel[173] more
cautiously remarks that he was not rarely read (_nicht selten gelesen_)
in the Middle Ages; but even this modified statement is an illustration
of the continued enthusiasm for Roman history.
His outlook on the world and his attitude towards historical questions
do not argue a penetrating or independent genius. He relates omens and
miracles in a spirit of unquestioning superstition; _e.g._ after his
record of prodigies sent by Jupiter to dissuade Pompey from resistance to
Caesar, Valerius asserts that “the overmastering principles of destiny
prevented a heart not otherwise possessed by folly from weighing the
prodigies aright.”[174] He is also uncritical in his acceptance of
traditional stories; if they are ancient, he argues that antiquity should
secure credit for them, while it is his own function not to reject as
idle such tales as gained the sanction of famous literary documents.[175]
On many historical matters his attitude is distorted by bias. He is
an apologist for Caesarism, animated by an unconcealable dislike for
inflammatory agitations conducted by the tribunes of the people in the
days of the republic.[176] Thus, although he admits the moderation
of Tiberius Gracchus, he elsewhere brands him “an enemy of his
fatherland.”[177] Gaius Gracchus he regards as one who might have
been a champion of the state, but who preferred to be its impious
disturber.[178] Consistently with this anti-democratic leaning, his
attitude towards the imperial family is throughout one of such fulsome
adulation that the author deteriorates into a toady; and this without,
so far as we know, the excuse which may be offered for the flatteries
of his contemporary Paterculus, on whose personal notice war had forced
some of the admittedly able traits in Tiberius. Valerius’s invocation
had described the reigning emperor as one “whose heavenly foresight
guarantees a kindly fostering care for the virtues about which I am to
speak”; and he delights to note that Tiberius has nobly united the blood
of the Nerones with that of the Livii (_in ortum salutaris principis
nostri conflueret_).[179] Again, he makes allusions to the blessings of
contemporary life under an excellent emperor;[180] but his enthusiasm
embraces the whole kith and kin of the Caesars—they are heavenly
luminaries risen from the time-honoured Roman training.[181] So Julius
Caesar is mentioned or addressed in terms of religious adoration, well
seen in the apostrophe[182] _Tuas aras tuaque sanctissima templa, Diue
Iuli, ueneratus oro_, ending with an artificially balanced reference
to the assassination: “Then burst forth the parricidal act of those
whose design to subtract thee from the number of mankind involved
thine addition to the conclave of the gods!” Elsewhere Caesar’s good
qualities are declared to have given him the _entrée_ into heaven,
and his repurchase from pirate captors in earlier days is noted as a
strange transaction on the part of Fortune; for then she ordained that
a small ransom should buy back “the brightest star in the universe”:
why, then, should ordinary men complain concerning Fortune, if she does
not spare even the Caesars, “sharers in her own divinity”?[183] This
commendation of Caesarism lasts up to the end of the work:[184] now the
author couples Julius and Augustus as _patrem et filium ... diuinitatis
fastigio coniunctos_;[185] now it is on Augustus that he concentrates
attention;[186] now on the palace, as a hallowed abode—_ad Augustam
domum, beneficentissimum et honoratissimum templum_.[187] Sycophany
reaches its acme of enormity in his shameless association of Chastity
with the marriage-bed of the princess Julia.[188]
In another way the narrowness of Valerius’s outlook is discernible. He
is given to moralizing, a habit which in itself might afford a thinker
opportunities for philosophic criticism of men, conduct and events.
As it is, the actual pronouncements cannot hide the shallowness of
the author’s intellect. His denunciations of luxury, partly perhaps
sincere and usually justifiable, are also partly perhaps suggested by
conventional _sententiae_ within the cognizance of all educated Romans.
These reflections, many of them second-hand or ready-made, constitute
practically all his philosophy. He takes few steps towards scientific
history. Eagerness to make a point renders him indifferent to healthy
doubt; for his aim is to teach, if not history, at least rhetoric, by
examples.[189] With almost a fabulist’s fondness for pointing a moral,
he enjoys conveying lessons on the degeneracy of his fatherland. He
has praise for the old-fashioned _probitas_ and _continentia_ once
under censorial scrutiny and by him regarded as the righteousness
that strengthens a nation—_quid enim prodest foris esse strenuum, si
domi male uiuitur?_[190] Incidentally his protests afford glimpses of
social history. He remarks on the advance in luxury at Rome since the
days when Rufinus, an ex-consul, was struck off the senatorial roll
for acquiring ten pounds’ weight of silver plate;[191] and he glances
at the contemporary craze for building-sites more extensive than the
farm-lands of Cincinnatus.[192] So, too, after dating the growth of Roman
pleasure-seeking from the close of the Second Punic War and the conquest
of Macedon, he contends that the abrogation of the Oppian law regulating
the expenses of women was the thin end of the wedge which made an opening
for greater extravagance in adornment.[193] Another passage emphasizes
the spread of luxurious customs within a single generation—_cuius
adulescentia priscos mores uidet, senectus nouos orsa est_.[194]
Occasions are fastened upon to inculcate venerable saws on the “riches of
him who hath no desires” (_omnia nimirum habet qui nihil concupiscit_),
or on the necessity of checking vice at the start (_neque enim ullum
finitur uitium ibi ubi oritur_).[195]
His reflections, however, are not confined to the topic of effeminacy;
for there is a wealth of general truths and half-proverbial sayings.
They have the pointed expression suitable for clinching an argument or
adorning a speech: _e.g._ “Necessity makes the most effectual hardening
for human weakness” (_humanae imbecillitatis efficacissimum duramentum
est necessitas_), or “There is a standing antipathy between valour and
poltroonery” (_sic enerues animos odisse uirtus solet_).[196] Similarly,
of Theramenes’s bravado in toasting his enemy Critias out of the very
poison he had been sentenced to drink, “To face punishment with such ease
is assuredly to free oneself from punishment” (_profecto est supplicio
se liberare, tam facile supplicium perpeti_);[197] of the harm done
to oneself by indulgence in angry passion (_dolorem cum inferre uult,
patitur_);[198] or of the altogether admirable bravery that comes from
true philosophy (_illa uehemens et constans animi militia_);[199] or yet
again, of the vital interconnexion between home and country.[200] Among
more elaborate passages of this reflective cast is one (with a typical
mixture of metaphors) upon the fleeting nature of human blessings:
Too perishable and frail, too much resembling the toy rattles
of children, are your so-called human strength and human
wealth. Their rising tide is as instantaneous as their ebb
is sudden: at no place and in no person do they stand firmly
fixed to steadfast roots; but, driven hither and thither by the
wayward blast of fortune, they miserably plunge in an abyss
of disaster those whom they have raised aloft and who are now
deserted by an unforeseen retreat. And so things which by their
loss double the bitterness of the hardships inflicted ought to
be neither considered nor called blessings.[201]
To sum up, although he is superstitious, uncritical, time-serving and
in his moralizing somewhat hackneyed, yet Valerius is not to be denied
credit for protesting against luxury, whether in an independent spirit
or from sympathy with the emperor’s policy; and occasionally his genuine
appreciation of the greatness of Rome may condone his rhetoric.
This leads to a consideration of his style. Wearing the characteristic
guise of the period, it is rhetorical to the verge of bombast; it is
metaphorical; it is, as we have seen, given to _sententiae_; and marked
by artifice especially in its penchant for the balanced and epigrammatic.
At his briefest he does not hold us—the curt paragraphs allotted to
some illustrations are little better than a catalogue; and at times
he is himself conscious of the defects attendant upon this mode of
treatment.[202] Many examples are incidents compressed from such authors
as Livy and, it must generally be added, spoiled in the compressing.
How much more effective, for instance, and dramatic is Livy’s handling
of the trick whereby a Roman cheated a Sabine out of a cow intended
for a sacrifice to bring good fortune![203] Still, justice compels the
admission that sometimes Valerius relates a story both briefly and
well—particularly where there is a neat dialogue to introduce. Such
merits, however, as he has fail to raise his conglomerate of anecdotes
into an aesthetic whole.
The influence of the rhetorical schools dominates his poetic and
exclamatory vein, and not seldom beguiles him into turgidity. A piece
representative of his occasional touch of poetic fancy follows his story
about the symbolic wheat-grains heaped by ants into the mouth of the
sleeping infant, Midas:
To the ants of Midas I incline with justice and reason to
prefer the bees of Plato; for the former proved harbingers
of a prosperity perishable and frail; but the bees foretold
prosperity solid and everlasting, when they placed the honey
inside the lips of the little child asleep in his cradle. On
hearing of what had befallen, the interpreters of prodigies
declared that from his mouth should flow a dulcet eloquence
unparalleled. Yet to my thinking it was not on Mount Hymettus,
fragrant with thyme blossom, that these bees fed, but on the
Heliconian mountain-slopes verdant with learning of every kind,
and so by the inspiration of the goddesses they instilled into
a noble genius the sweetest nourishment of the most exalted
eloquence.[204]
Uncurbed by artistic repression, he indulges too freely in the
exclamatory. This tends to inflation, and through over-employment
becomes wearisome. Take the outburst (_O spectaculum admirabile!_) on
the preparations for carrying out the sentence of scourging passed by
the dictator Papirius upon his insubordinate master of the horse; or the
apostrophe to the dictator Postumius, who adjudged his own son to death
for disobedience to a military command.[205] Touching the Macedonian
envoys to Rome, who volunteered to carry the funeral bier of Aemilius
Paullus, the author exclaims:
Twice did Macedonia show our city, Paullus, that you were an
illustrious man; during your life, by its spoils; on your
death, by its shoulders![206]
It is a forced point made at the expense of simplicity. The section on
the praises of poverty ends in characteristic tones:
Why then do we lacerate with daily invective a moderate
fortune, as if that were an especial hardship for mankind?...
Let us rather rise in spirit and with the memory of the olden
times refresh our souls enfeebled by gazing upon money; for by
the hut of Romulus, and by the modest dwellings of the ancient
Capitol, and by the everlasting hearths of Vesta, content to
this day with earthen vessels, I swear that no riches can be
preferred to the poverty of such men![207]
If the passage were not so declamatory one might accept the suggested
implication that the author’s means were moderate; as it stands, its
autobiographic significance may be doubted.
Akin to the rhetorical element in Valerius are the copiousness
and boldness of his metaphors. Their free introduction without a
semi-apologetic _uelut_ or _quoddam_ or _ut ita dicam_, if un-Ciceronian,
is in a stylistic sense more modern. The metaphors may be violent, or
overdone, or actually mixed. One of many instances occurs in the contrast
between Euripides and a self-confident contemporary proud of his powers
in rapid composition:
The writings due to the fertile rush (_fertilis cursus_) of the
one have collapsed without reaching the first turning-posts of
memory (_intra primas metas memoriae_); the work of the other,
a product of the lamp and of the hesitating pen, shall be borne
with the full sails of fame along the passage of all time.[208]
Again, the degeneracy of Scipio’s son is “a birth of darkness from
the lightning” (_Di boni, quas tenebras ex quo fulmine nasci passi
estis!_);[209] and the break in the even tenour of Polycrates’s happiness
is thus expressed: “Once only did he change countenance, shaken with a
very brief jolt of sadness” (_semel dumtaxat uultum mutauit perquam breui
tristitiae salebra succussum_).[210]
The balance so representative of his time is a favourite device in
summing up illustrations, as _inimicorum existimatione punitus, suo
iudicio finitus_ (of the death of Theramenes), or _ita alteri tectum
mendacium, alteri ueritas aperta finis uitae fuit_,[211] or in his
prologue to Book I, “the other gods we have received, the Caesars we have
given” (_deos enim reliquos accepimus, Caesares dedimus_). In a later
book he remarks that the difference between the poet Accius and Julius
Caesar lay in books not busts (_ibi uoluminum non imaginum certamina
exercebantur_), while of Virginius resolved to deliver his daughter from
the designs of Appius Claudius he says: _puellam occidit pudicaeque
interemptor quam corruptae pater esse maluit_.[212]
His artificiality is largely due to the inveterate habit of hunting for
effective contrasts, and to a passion for the epigrammatic in expressing
facts and reflections.[213] Overreaching his aim, he constantly falls
into far-fetched conceits. Some of these smart sayings are as heartless
and tasteless as the headlines of certain modern newspapers. Take his
comment on the intended result of the punishments inflicted upon Romans
who had surrendered to a force of slaves: the object was, he says grimly,
that those who had been lured by the desire for life into
permitting runaways richly deserving crucifixion to set up
trophies over them, those who had not blushed to have the
ignominious yoke imposed upon their own liberty by the hands of
slaves, should now find that their share in the light of day
could be embittered, and should now have a manly longing for
that death of which they had felt a womanish dread.[214]
Here the final antithesis between _effeminate timuerant_ and _uiriliter
optarent_ is singularly unnatural and strained. He is scarcely less
artificial when he declares that “from the gallant wounds” of Cato of
Utica “flowed more glory than blood,” and that by falling on his sword he
taught mankind “how the upright should prefer honour without life to life
without honour.”[215] The tendency resembles Dryden at his earliest and
worst, and the riot of conceit during one phase of English literature in
the seventeenth century.
No less in the narrower aspect of vocabulary and constructions does the
Latin of Valerius Maximus bear the stamp of the Silver Age. His prose
shares the fondness noticeable in Phaedrus’s verse for abstract turns
of expression. As Phaedrus uses _maiestas ducis_ for “the Emperor,” so
Valerius uses _mea paruitas_ for “my humble self.”[216] This liking
for the abstract, conjoined with abundance of metaphor, contributes to
give his phraseology a more modern ring than the strictly classical
Latin idiom has. When Marius is described as hostile to the upholders
of ancient lineage, Valerius merges such persons in the abstract term
_uetustas_, and the incompetent warriors who belittled successful
men risen from lowly origins are grouped under the phrase _militaris
ignauia_.[217] He refers to Aemilius Lepidus despatched by the senate
to be a guardian for a young Egyptian prince as _amplissimique et
integerrimi uiri sanctitatem_.[218] In similar fashion, he mentions “men
who have slipped into this deviation (of luxury) unknown to old-world
temperance,” where a simpler and earlier style of Latin might have said
“unknown to our temperate ancestors.”[219]
As might be expected, new words rise into prominence and old words are
used in changed senses. For example, he appears to favour _sugillare_,
which, like _sugillatio_,[220] is a Livian word—a significant point when
it is remembered that Livy marks the transition between republican and
Silver Latinity.[221] Valerius gets the unusual and “post-classical”
word _uaframentum_ (“a trick”) into his head at VII. iii. _ext._ 2,
and repeats it in the fourth and seventh paragraphs of the chapter.
Indeed, he is given to this repetition of words and expressions which
capture his fancy. Symptoms of the change coming over the language may
be detected in his invention or acceptance of fresh meanings and fresh
usages. Thus he widens the metaphorical use of words: _e.g._ _Cimonis
incunabula opinione stultitiae fuerunt referta_ (VI. ix. _ext._ 2) is a
more artificial employment of _referta_ than in Cicero’s _uita undique
referta bonis_ (_Tusc. Disp._ V. xxxi. 86). The adjective _numerosus_,
too, appears in its late Latin sense.[222] Nor are his constructions
those of stricter days. As in Phaedrus, _persuadere_ is used personally
in the passive;[223] and infinitives are joined freely with verbs which
in the Golden Age took a dependent _ut_ and subjunctive.[224] In all
such linguistic matters Valerius is as symptomatic of his age as when
he serves the needs of disputants and declaimers, or makes his verbal
obeisances before imperial authority. So, while he is not a thinker
even to the limited extent that Paterculus is, while he is casual in
investigation, superficial in comment, and too often showy in style, yet,
as a literary landmark, he possesses historical importance sufficient to
justify an attentive examination of his work.
CHAPTER III
VELLEIUS, CURTIUS AND HISTORY
Minor historians of the period—Cremutius Cordus, Aufidius
Bassus and others.
Velleius Paterculus—Ancestry—Interest in literature and
in the East—Military service under Tiberius—Scheme of the
compendium—Obligation to be brief—Sources—Subjective factors of
interest in Velleius—Symptoms of Silver Latin—The rhetorical
element—Epigrammatic antitheses—Literary conceits—Merits
of style—Sententious sayings—Defects and merits as
historian—Subjective historical method—Character-pieces—His
picture of Tiberius—The close on an imperial note.
Q. Curtius Rufus—The puzzle of his identity—Probable date
under Claudius—Eight surviving books—The attractive theme of
Alexander the Great—Curtius, Plutarch and Arrian in relation
to sources—Want of critical method and historical grasp—Gift
of narration—The hero’s character—A psychological study in
deterioration—Fortune and Fate—Stoicism in Curtius—Freedom from
superstition—Rhetorical element—Some features of style.
MINOR HISTORIANS
Under Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius history did not greatly flourish:
under Nero, we shall find, it flourished still less. There are only two
historians of note in the period—Velleius and Curtius. Before considering
them, we may pause on a few minor names. Cremutius Cordus illustrates
the danger of historical composition in the early Empire, especially if
a writer gave offence to a powerful minister like Sejanus. Cremutius was
charged with praising Brutus in his annals, and with calling Cassius
“last of the Romans.” He starved himself to death, and the senate had
his books burned in A.D. 25, though Tacitus says copies were hidden and
published.[225] Similarly, the downfall of the republic and the initial
phases of the Empire occupied Aufidius Bassus in Tiberius’s reign. He
gave attention to Rome’s wars with the Germans, and his work is cited and
continued by the elder Pliny.[226] The elder Seneca’s lost historical
work has been recorded as containing an account of the end of Tiberius.
A later group includes Caligula’s victim Gaetulicus, who governed Germany
for ten years, but whose writings on Germans and Britons may, like
other works of his, have been in verse;[227] then, in Claudius’s time,
Servilius Nonianus who wrote on recent as well as contemporary history,
and Bocchus who treated chronology and the marvels of Spain.
VELLEIUS PATERCULUS
The circumstance that C.[228] Velleius Paterculus[229] was quaestor
elect in A.D. 6[230] warrants the inference that his birth took place
not later than 19 B.C. After A.D. 30, the year of the consulate of M.
Vinicius, to whom he dedicated his history and whom he often addresses
in its course, we know nothing of Velleius; and, indeed, he seems to
have played no prominent part in the reign of Tiberius, for throughout
the sixteen years which elapsed after his nomination as a _candidatus
Caesaris_ for the praetorship in the year of Augustus’s death[231] we
have no information about him. Then comes the fact that he published his
book; and as to his biography the rest is silence. For us, therefore, his
activity lies within narrow limits of time: its outstanding feature, that
which determined his outlook on history, was his career in the public and
especially the military service during the first fourteen years of the
Christian era.
He came of a family which, as he is at pains to remind his readers, had
been strenuous in civic life and in the profession of arms. Dealing
with the Italian franchise war, he declares that mistaken modesty
(_uerecundia_) shall not deter him from doing justice to the part
played by an ancestor (_atauus_), Minatius Magius, who in turn was the
grandson of a notable Campanian, Decius Magius. This more distant forbear
figures in Livy’s pages at Capua as a stubborn advocate of fidelity to
Rome despite the threats of Hannibal.[232] The author’s grandfather,
C. Velleius, a _praefectus fabrum_, had been honoured by Pompey and
remained so keen an anti-Caesarian that he ran himself through with
his sword, when by reason of years he felt unable actively to support
Tiberius Nero (the future emperor’s father) after his defeat by Octavian:
“I shall not defraud my own grandfather,” says Velleius admiringly
with a Johnsonian emphasis, “of a testimony which I should give to a
stranger.”[233] He notes elsewhere that his father, like himself, had
been _praefectus equitum_.[234] Again, he records the assistance given
by Capito, his uncle (_patruus meus_), a man of senatorial rank, to
Agrippa in prosecuting C. Cassius after the assassination of Caesar.[235]
To his brother, Magius Celer Velleianus, he makes several allusions,
chronicling his recognized ability as lieutenant-general under Tiberius
Caesar in Dalmatia and his association with the author both in attending
Tiberius’s triumph, and later as one among “Caesar’s candidates” for the
praetorship.[236]
Concerning his formal education we have scant knowledge; yet,
considerable rhetorical training may be argued from his artifices of
style; and he must have imbibed an interest in books and authors, to
judge from his pronouncements on Homer, Hesiod and Cicero, and from
excursuses on literary men of the Gracchan, Ciceronian and Augustan
periods.[237] About the beginning of our era he was a young officer
(_tribunus militum_) who had gained preliminary insight into military
life under Vinicius’s father in Thrace and Macedonia, and was next on
service in the East.[238] Such service doubtless provided a stimulus
towards writing the now mutilated compendium upon Oriental and Greek
affairs near the outset of his history. Elsewhere, too, we meet
transient suggestions of Oriental colour and memories—as when he recalls
his good fortune in beholding a gorgeous Durbar held on an island in
the Euphrates between C. Caesar and the Parthian monarch;[239] or when
there flashes on his inward eye the pleasant recollection of “so many
events, places, nations and cities” of the East;[240] or when he recounts
Antony’s luxurious chariot-ride through the streets of Alexandria as
the new Father Bacchus, “ivy-wreathed, clad in a golden robe, thyrsus
in hand, and buskins on his legs;”[241] or again when, _con amore_, he
devotes picturesque touches to his description of the extravagant mummery
of Antony’s quondam friend, Plancus, who acted Glaucus “naked and painted
sea-green, wearing a chaplet of reeds on his head, dragging a tail after
him and crawling upon his knees.”[242]
But no experience left upon his history so distinctive an imprint as
his military service under Tiberius. This meant contact virtually for
eight years on end with a powerful and able personality.[243] For his
commander’s greatness he conceived and expressed unbounded enthusiasm
in an almost eighteenth-century sense of the term. It is an enthusiasm
which amounts to a bias for Tiberius in particular and for the Caesars
in general. The question of the character of Tiberius may be with
greater appropriateness raised in considering Tacitus; but at least
more light and shade might have been expected from Velleius, if, as an
actual observer (_spectator_), he aimed at producing an impartial and
realistic picture of the man. What one can say without prejudice is
that he had abundant opportunity for estimating the merits of Tiberius
as a general, and that both the author and the subject of his eulogies
were men of proved military experience. The future historian went out
as a cavalry officer with Tiberius to Germany in A.D. 4; two years
later, when quaestor-elect, he took charge of reinforcements despatched
from Rome to Tiberius, who was then coping with the danger threatening
Italy from Dalmatia and Pannonia; and after the quaestorship at Rome
he acted as _legatus_ under him.[244] “What battalions of the enemy
did we not behold in that first year!” exclaims Velleius proudly.[245]
The ultimate surrender of Pannonia confined war-like operations to
Dalmatia, where Velleius and his brother were assisting Tiberius.[246]
Scarcely was Dalmatia pacified in A.D. 9 when the appalling disaster
to the Roman arms under Varus in Germany summoned Tiberius thither to
the rescue of imperial fortunes, or, to follow Velleius’s artificial
expression, as the _patronus_ who took up the case of his client, the
state: “the never-failing champion of the Roman Empire undertakes the
cause so familiar to him.”[247] With Velleius’s attendance at Tiberius’s
triumph in the winter of A.D. 12-13 the record of his career as a soldier
fittingly closes.
It is natural that, like Livy on a larger scale, Velleius should treat
with greater fulness events nearest to his own day; but his treatment
of early history would look less disproportionate, if his compendium
had come down in more perfect form. As it stands, Book I has lost its
opening; and only eight chapters have survived to represent the affairs
of the East and Greek and Tyrian enterprise before the foundation of
Rome. An allusion to the rape of the Sabine maidens is interrupted by a
gap of well-nigh six hundred years in the narrative, which is resumed
in the second century B.C., at the period of the second Macedonian war.
Then ten extant chapters of Book I include the fall of Carthage and
Corinth, an account of Roman colonies, reflections on the multiplicity
of geniuses at certain epochs and remarks on Roman literature and
oratory. Book II, in 131 chapters, ranges over more than a century and
a half from Tiberius Gracchus to Tiberius Caesar. The last definite
historical allusion is to the emperor’s bereavement by the death of
the dowager-empress Livia, which happened in A.D. 29.[248] The tone of
encomium adopted towards Sejanus would prove, even if we did not know the
date of Vinicius’s consulate, that the work ended before his fall in A.D.
31.[249]
In reviewing the literary and historical qualities of Velleius, one
must keep before one the intentionally compendious nature of his work.
Readers are indeed not likely to forget it; for he repeatedly pauses to
explain that he is in haste, harping on the point till it sounds like a
refrain among his themes. This brevity was a kind of literary fashion,
comparable with that to which Phaedrus lays claim at the same period.
Velleius seems desirous of illustrating the merits of his compendious
system when applied to a serviceable digression upon Roman colonies
(_non inutili rerum notitia in artum contracta_).[250] At another time,
he feels impelled to digress on the recurrence of periods distinguished
for special talent, although he is sensible that the “headlong rapidity”
of his composition, “like the revolution of a wheel, or the downrush
of a torrent, admits of no halt, and involves rather the exclusion
of necessary details than the acceptance of the superfluous.”[251]
Similarly he realizes the necessity laid upon him by his limits to
deal succinctly with even such a subject as the greatness of Pompey
(_operis modus paucis eam narrari iubet_);[252] while the greatness of
Caesar forces him to stop despite his urgency (_quamlibet festinantem
in se morari cogit_.)[253] Again, he offers a condensed account of the
outbreak of the Civil War in contradistinction to the copious volumes
of others;[254] almost apologetically he regrets that his promise to be
brief involves racing over details in Caesar’s campaigns against the
Pompeians;[255] with equal regret he exclaims that the boons conferred
upon the world by the victory at Actium could not have justice done them
in so rapid a survey as his abridgement;[256] and elsewhere he asserts
the impossibility of describing adequately the magnificence of Octavian’s
triumphant return to Rome “even in the compass of a regular history, let
alone a work so abbreviated as this.”[257] But it is in connexion with
Tiberius that he becomes still more insistent upon his obligation to
be concise; thus, he promises to discuss in a different work Pannonia,
Dalmatia and other countries subdued by Tiberius;[258] he reserves,
presumably for the same intended work, the circumstances attending that
prince’s withdrawal from Rome into temporary seclusion at Rhodes;[259]
he looks forward to conveying an impression of the popular joy over his
adoption “in that regular history” (_in illo iusto opere_); so too with
further Dalmatian and Pannonian victories and the Varian disaster which
called Tiberius to Germany.[260] The alarming effect of Augustus’s death
he avers to be beyond description: “I have no leisure in so precipitate a
narrative to portray it, and he who has leisure is unable to do it.”[261]
All this may savour of protesting too much on the part of one who would
be brief; yet it has its importance as a proof that he had a conception
of, and perhaps yearnings after, a different method of writing history;
while, to some extent, his confessedly compendious aim disarms criticism
or, at least, palliates certain blemishes and omissions. It is beside
the point to reproach him with sketchiness when his plain object is to
be sketchy; nor is it surprising that in his hurry he should be at times
careless in composition, awkward in structure, conversational in tone,
and given to tasteless repetition in word and phrase.[262]
In a work which makes no pretence to be exhaustive we cannot expect
an enumeration of authorities. Some sources he does, in fact, mention;
others we are left to infer. Discussing the foundation of Capua and Nola
(in a manner half suggesting that he belonged to the former town),[263]
he cites vaguely “some authors,” and then descends in particular upon
Cato, whose _Origines_ he is certain to have found useful, and from whom
he dissents “with all due deference to his carefulness.”[264] He alludes
to the _Annales_ of Hortensius as authoritative upon the Italian war
of Sulla’s time; to an inscription, in proof of a religious ceremony
performed by Sulla; to ampler details “in the larger volumes of others”
who had treated the outbreak of the Civil War; and to the autobiographic
memoirs of Augustus.[265] The effect of the annalists’s method is
observable in his inclusion of a survey of Greek colonization; and we may
readily suppose, since the works of Atticus, Cornelius Nepos and Pompeius
Trogus[266] were available, that he made use of them. Livy, who was
republican enough to be dubbed “Pompeian” by Augustus, would not possess
the pro-Caesarian enthusiasm likely to commend him to Velleius.
The curtness of the specially compendious parts does not conduce to
interest, and for this reason one welcomes occasions when summary gives
place to slightly more spacious digressions such as those on colonies,
on early Roman literature and the natural law regulating the emergence
of genius, on literature and oratory at the Gracchan period, on great
authors of the Augustan age, on Roman provinces, and on the boons of
the Augustan _régime_.[267] But it is only fair to say that the general
effect compares favourably with that of most compendium-writers in Latin.
For instance, his compendium is of much greater force and individuality
than that of Florus. Velleius can at least be spirited and interesting
(even if over-enthusiastic), when he relates his personal impressions
of Tiberius. This may be due to an excess of that subjectivity which
is a characteristic of the Silver Age; but it has the merit of winning
attention. He leaves us under no misapprehension as to his likes or
dislikes. He is no democrat: he hates the ‘pernicious’ agitations of
the Gracchi; he detests Marius and Cinna and the tribune of the people,
Manilius (_semper uenalis et alienae minister potentiae_);[268] on
the other hand, he is full of admiration for Marcus Cato, while his
affection for the Caesars emerges at every opportunity, continuously
from the chapter recording Octavius’s birth, on through the appreciative
comparison of Julius Caesar’s achievements in Gaul with the subsequent
exploits of Tiberius, until he reaches those passages where he sounds the
praises of the _princeps_ or of his minister Sejanus.[269] Now, while
these antipathies and sympathies imply partiality, they by no means make
the historian less entertaining. It is one thing to be trustworthy, and
another to be readable. Besides, as we shall find, the very style, faults
notwithstanding, has a good deal of colour and variety: it is no dead
monotony in its choice of words and ideas.
Already in his prose there are evidences of the change which had set
in towards Silver Latinity. Traces of such tendencies may be remarked
in Livy,[270] but in Velleius they are more prominent; for the old
massive and, on the whole, straightforward periods are largely replaced
by briefer sentences where pointed phrase and emphatic contrast argue
a style at once disdainful of absolute simplicity and ambitious of
attracting notice to the manner of expression. Where he attempts the long
sentence, the inferiority of his literary architecture becomes patent:
it is often an ill-built fabric of clumsy patchwork. Thus, the character
of Julius Caesar is portrayed in a rambling sentence where the first
word “hic” is separated from the closing verb “elapsus est,” to which
it is nominative, by nearly 130 words forming an overcrowded series of
subordinate clauses and phrases.[271]
The evolution of Latin prose during the first century A.D. is so closely
wrapped up with the educational training undergone by writers, that
one instinctively looks for traces left by the rhetorical school upon
Velleius. They are not far to seek among his plentiful exclamations and
interrogations: _e.g._ the apostrophe denouncing Antony for Cicero’s
murder:
“You gained nothing, however, Mark Antony (for indignation bursting
from heart and spirit compels me to depart from the regular form of my
history), you gained nothing, I tell you, when you paid the hire for
cutting off a divine gift of utterance and a most noble head, or when
you procured for a ghastly wage the assassination of a man once the
preserver of the commonwealth, once a consul so illustrious! You robbed
Cicero on that day of a life of trouble, of an age in the yellow leaf,
of an existence more pitiable under your domination than death could be
under your triumvirate; but his reputation, the renown of his actions and
words, these, instead of taking away, you enhanced. He lives and will
live in the memory of all the ages; and as long as, whether framed by
chance or providence or by what means soever, there shall endure unharmed
this fabric of the universe, which he almost alone of Romans could see in
the mind’s eye, could grasp with his genius, and could illustrate by his
eloquence, so long shall it carry the praise of Cicero as the companion
of its own continuance. All posterity will admire his writings against
you, and will curse your conduct towards him!”[272]
The poetic element in his diction is an allied feature; and another
kindred symptom is an inordinate fondness for superlatives.[273]
But it is his habitual quest after the striking and epigrammatic that
classes Velleius’s Latin as definitely Silver.[274] His antitheses—and
some are excellent—would impress one more, if they were fewer; their
frequency palls, and amid such an embarrassment of material, one need
but select the examples first to hand. “Scipio, by the destruction of
Carthage and Numantia, freed us from the dread of the one, and the
insults of the other” (_excisa Carthagine ac Numantia ab alterius nos
metu, alterius uindicauit contumeliis_).[275] A little more elaborate is
the studied contrast of nouns, adjectives and tenses observable in the
following:
_ne quid usquam malis publicis deesset, in qua ciuitate semper
uirtutibus certatum erat, certabatur sceleribus, optimusque
sibi uidebatur qui fuerat pessimus_.[276]
Another chapter contains a balanced summary of the rivals’ position at
the outbreak of the Civil War:
_alterius ducis causa melior uidebatur, alterius erat
firmior; hic omnia speciosa, illic ualentia: Pompeium senatus
auctoritas, Caesarem militum armauit fiducia_,[277]
in reading which one cannot help thinking of Lucan’s famous antithesis
concerning the same struggle, _Victrix causa deis placuit sed uicta
Catoni_, and the fuller comparison between the protagonists which follows
that line.[278] So one might quote the distinction drawn between Brutus
and Cassius, or the portions of the chapter on Actium where he piles
antithesis upon antithesis.[279]
Sometimes his artificiality lies in straining after an affectedly remote
way of conveying a mental picture; and such literary conceits may or may
not be combined with the trick of antithesis. He introduces a fanciful
idea of the solace which the outcast Marius might derive from the ruins
of Carthage, each contemplating, each comforting the other (_cum Marius
aspiciens Carthaginem, illa intuens Marium, alter alteri possent esse
solacio_).[280] When Catulus asphyxiated himself, he found a death rather
after the wish than the design of his enemies (_mortem magis uoto quam
arbitrio inimicorum obiit_).[281] Similar anxiety to compass a smart
saying animates the conceit implying that Catiline’s end had cheated
the executioner: “gallantly fighting, he yielded up the breath of life
already due to capital punishment” (_fortissime dimicans quem debuerat
supplicio spiritum reddidit_).[282] So of Sextus Pompey, the son of the
pirate-crusher turned pirate, as Velleius must remind us: so, of the
heroic lady, who “bringing about a premature death by swallowing live
coals was compensated for death by deathless fame” (_uiuo igni deuorato
praematura morte inmortalem nominis sui pensauit memoriam_).[283]
His prose style demands attention, both as a type of its period and as
the subject of strictures which have sometimes been too unqualified.
Although nowise comparable to the _lactea ubertas_ of Livy, yet a careful
examination will show that it cannot fairly be dismissed as absolutely
meagre. There are qualities which recall Sallust: and that must be
imputed to Velleius for literary virtue. His very artifices save him
from baldness, while, as a military author, he displays, with all his
faults and affectations, more sense of style than, for instance, the
continuators of Caesar.[284]
His semi-proverbial sayings, which read like so many condensations of a
reflective wisdom, rather heighten than otherwise one’s opinion of him
as an author. Such pronouncements as the following imply, not absolute
invention, but a faculty of insight and expression: “rivalry nurtures
talent” (_aluntur aemulatione ingenia_); “continuance at the height of
perfection is hard” (_difficilis in perfecto mora est_); “what one cannot
overtake one ceases to follow” (_quod assequi non potest sequi desinit_);
“precedents do not stop where they start” (_non ibi consistunt exempla
unde coeperunt_); “men are indulgent critics of themselves” (_familiare
est hominibus omnia sibi ignoscere_); “any port in a storm” (_exitialem
tempestatem fugientibus statio pro portu_); “ease is the deadliest foe
to discipline” (_res disciplinae inimicissima otium_); “great tasks
need great helpers” (_magna negotia magnis adiutoribus egent_).[285]
On at least two occasions he propounds the ancient notion that those
predestined to calamity are forced upon foolishness by some higher power,
be it “God” or “Destiny’s force that none may wrestle against.”[286]
For his historical method at large profundity cannot be claimed. He
does not appreciate great movements in history; he does not exhibit the
essential nexus or continuous evolution between periods; and though his
eye to their relationship in time is noticeable in the frequent insertion
of a date, even this laudable habit is discounted by inconsistencies
in chronology. On the other hand, if he shows no keen discernment for
the causal link conjoining ages, he can grasp and criticize certain
political, social or economic developments which constitute differences
between them: thus, he remarks forcibly upon the increase at Rome of
civil broils (II. iii.), aestheticism (I. xiii.), luxury (I. xi.,
xv.),[287] and house-rents (II. x.). And while the vital significance
of great movements is not made luminous, he at least realizes the
duty of assigning causes, as in his speculation upon the contemporary
emergence of great geniuses (I. xvii.). It adds to his merits that he
recognizes the play of human passions and in virtue thereof remains no
mere chronicler, but becomes a discerner and recorder of motives—as in
the case of the outbreak of the Civil War, where he accounts for Pompey’s
attitude, or where he states the respective objects of Pompey, Caesar and
Crassus in forming their triumvirate.[288] If, then, it may be admitted
that Velleius writes history without deep penetration into what Teuffel
calls “the internal connexion of things”;[289] yet it is going too far to
say that “his interest centres upon individuals only.” For, surely, his
actual search for motives must relate the individual to his surroundings;
and, as indicated, he is not entirely neglectful of the need for tracing
causes. Besides, his serviceable digressions, already glanced at, arise
expressly from his sense of the inferior force of isolated details in
history as compared with their effect when grouped together.[290]
With these qualifications, however, the truth remains that his history is
written mainly from a personal or subjective standpoint; and its cardinal
method is the biographic, with some of the merits and most of the defects
entailed. It is, then, not highly scientific or philosophic: on the other
hand, though Velleius believes in the universal sway of fortune,[291]
there is in such a character-loving method little danger of representing
historical figures as mere puppets controlled by some indefinable but
apparently inexorable “Will of the Age.” With him prominent men are no
tools of impersonal forces, but living actors who logically deserve
moral blame or commendation when their qualities come to be weighed.
So, through his own interest in character, he increases his readers’
interest in his personages and seldom leaves a doubt as to his opinion
for or against a man. Strong sympathies, indeed, may be consistent with
a claim to be candid and dispassionate.[292] Velleius is, however,
too enthusiastic to realize the extravagance of his praises. Bias has
blinded the judge. Tiberius was doubtless an able soldier, but Velleius
damages the emperor’s character by excessive eulogy. Perilously endowed
with an inexhaustible capacity for laudation and an insatiable thirst
for superlatives, he resembles a professional writer of testimonials in
favour of the Caesars.[293]
The likes and dislikes are not confined to persons. He is almost
Puritanic in his suspicion of art and wealth as detrimental to the
community;[294] and yet this distrust of aestheticism does not conceal
from him the crass ignorance (although he is too grave to see the
humour) which Mummius showed in serving his celebrated notice upon the
contractors for the removal of pictures and statues from Corinth to
Rome, to the effect that any masterpiece lost must be replaced![295] He
is scathing in his denunciation of proscription, and sarcastic on the
tendency to minimize contemporary greatness and on homage rendered to
high place.[296] Still, it is upon his character-drawing that one should
focus attention. His briefer character-pieces, containing many neat
strokes, include, in the first book, that of Scipio (xii.-xiii.); in the
second, Marius (xi.); Mithradates (xviii.); Cinna (xxiv.); Cato, finely
called “the very likeness of Virtue” (_homo uirtuti simillimus_, xxxv.);
Clodius (xlv.); Curio, “a most ingeniously good-for-nothing person”
(_homo ingeniosissime nequam_, xlviii.); Caelius, who resembled Curio
and was not _minus ingeniosissime nequam_ (lxviii.); Brutus and Cassius
(lxxii.); Lepidus (lxxx.), Shakespeare’s “slight unmeritable man,”
called by Velleius “the biggest of fools without a single good quality
to deserve the long indulgence of fortune”; Maecenas, whose voluptuous
effeminacy during leisure-hours is noted in _otio ac mollitiis paene
ultra feminam fluens_, and his sleepless vigilance at an emergency in
the no less striking words _ubi res uigiliam exigeret, sane exsomnis_
(lxxxviii.). The sketch of Drusus comes later (xcvii.). Fuller portrayals
are given of Pompey (II. xxix.) and Caesar (xli.). Still more elaborate
is the character of Tiberius conveyed in different chapters; and to this
picture we now turn, remembering that a complete estimate of the real
Tiberius involves the attitude of Tacitus. Tiberius is introduced in a
comparison with Julius and Augustus;[297] but we get our first historical
glimpse of him when, a child of two, he lay in the arms of his mother
Livia, then a fugitive from the troops of the man whose consort she was
one day to be.[298] Really, however, he enters on Velleius’ stage in his
nineteenth year, announced with a fanfare of praise as a quaestor of
promise:—
“Tiberius Claudius Nero ... brought up on a system of the loftiest
principles, a youth of high birth, good looks and imposing stature,
thoroughly equipped with an excellent education and superior talents, who
from the outset had awakened expectations equal to his present greatness,
and even to the eye had proclaimed himself a prince.”[299] For almost
forty chapters Tiberius is the dominating figure; but it is mainly his
career previous to his accession which Velleius describes; for it is
only in five closing chapters that he touches briefly on his reign. This
brevity is the more disappointing in view of the account which Tacitus
gives in the _Annals_; and those at least who accept it must charge
Velleius with _suppressio ueri_. About twenty chapters are occupied with
Tiberius as a soldier.[300] They contain material illustrative of his
greatness, such as the indescribable enthusiasm for him as a general:—
The very sight of him drew tears of joy from the soldiers. They
were all eagerness, with a sort of unexampled rapture in their
salutation and a passion for touching his hand: they could
not restrain themselves from immediately adding ‘Is it really
you, General? Have we got you back in safety?’ and then, ‘_I_
was with you in Armenia, General,’ ‘_I_ was in Raetia,’ ‘_I_
had a reward from you in Vindelicia,’ ‘_I_ in Pannonia,’ ‘_I_
in Germany’—a scene not to be expressed in words, and perhaps
scarcely capable of winning belief.[301]
This forms an effective prelude to his military successes in Germany.
Another impressive incident is that of the tall and aged German chieftain
who in a native “dug-out” paddled half across the river between the
enemy and the Roman camp to request the privilege of looking upon
Tiberius.[302] Tiberius’s solicitude for the health of subordinates (his
provision of an ambulance for sick officers is one illustration), and
his self-discipline on active service, are among the admirable traits
emphasized.[303] Apart, however, from handling his prowess, Velleius has
ways of elevating his hero. He touches on Tiberius’s dignified leisure at
Rhodes, the disturbing effect exercised upon the peace of the world by
this retirement, the widespread joy over his adoption by Augustus, and
his modest reluctance to accept imperial sovereignty.[304] Then, looking
back from A.D. 30 over Tiberius’s years upon the throne, in a passage
whose textual variations fortunately do not impair the sense, our author
paints in _couleur de rose_ his picture of the reign:
“Of the transactions of these last sixteen years, massed (_ingerantur_,
Ellis; _inhaereat_, Kritz) as they are before the eyes and mind of
everyone, who shall venture upon a detailed account? Our emperor secured
the consecration of his sire not by authority, but by scrupulous
reverence (_non imperio sed religione_); he did not simply give
Augustus a divine title—he made him a god. Financial stability has been
recalled to our public life and political disaffection cleared out of
it (_summota_), as bribery has been from the elections, and strife from
the senate-house. Justice, equity, industry, long buried and cumbered
with mould (_sepultaeque ac situ obsitae_), have been restored to the
state. There has been an enhancement of prestige for the authorities
(_magistratibus_ instead of _militibus_), of grandeur for the senate,
and of dignity for the law-courts. Rioting in the theatre has been put
down, and upright conduct has been either the aim inspired in all or a
necessity imposed upon them: integrity is honoured and irregularities
are punished. The humble man respects the powerful without fearing him,
while the powerful takes precedence of a humbler man without despising
him. When were provisions more moderate in price? When was peace richer
in blessings? Spread over the regions of east and west and everywhere
within the bounds of south or north, the Augustan Peace to the uttermost
corner of the earth preserves men immune from the dread of brigandage.
Accidental losses sustained not only by individuals but by cities are
made good through the generosity of our prince. Cities in Asia have
been repaired; provinces have been secured against the wrong-doing of
governors. Office is the ready reward of merit; crime is certain to meet
with punishment, even if it comes late. Influence is surpassed by a
fair claim, and intrigue by desert; for our best of princes by his own
practice teaches his countrymen to act aright, and while he is greatest
in power, he is even greater as an example.”[305]
Later we read his panegyric upon Tiberius composed in exclamatory fashion:
“With what precepts did he equip his dear Germanicus and imbue him
with the principles of campaigning in his own company long before he
welcomed him back as the conqueror of Germany! What were the honours
which he heaped upon his young manhood, when the style of his triumph
corresponded to the greatness of his exploits! How often has he honoured
the people with donations, and how willingly, when he could do it with
the approval of the senate, has he made good a deficiency in a senator’s
income without either offering inducements to extravagance or allowing
honourable poverty to be deprived of dignity!... What a formidable war,
stirred up by the Gallic chieftain Sacrovir and Julius Florus, did he
suppress with a rapidity and a gallantry so marvellous that the Roman
people found itself a conqueror before it was conscious of being at
war, and the messenger of victory outstripped the news of danger! The
highly alarming conflict in Africa, too, despite its daily increase in
seriousness, was, under his auspices and direction, speedily laid to
rest. What public works has he erected of his own (_sua_ rather than
_suo_), or in the name of his family! With what dutiful generosity,
surpassing human belief, is he rearing a temple to his sire!... Anything
that has at any time enjoyed eminent renown, he considers to have the
claim of kindred upon his protection. With what liberality on other
occasions, but, especially at the recent conflagration on the Caelian
Mount, has he out of his own patrimony come to the rescue of the losses
of people in every rank! How little are the public disturbed when,
without the consternation involved in a levy, he organizes the raising of
troops, a matter of prolonged and peculiar alarm!”[306]
Having thus belauded his talent for training youth in military science,
his benefactions, energy, businesslike grasp, filial piety, and gift for
organization, Velleius proceeds humbly to protest his wonderment that the
gods should permit plots to be formed against so good a ruler, and to
bemoan the sorrowful bereavements and shameful domestic trials which have
befallen the emperor.
So the historian praises not wisely but too well. There is no whisper
about unfair treatment of Germanicus to besmirch the spotlessness of the
emperor: nor is there a suggestion of fault in Sejanus, for the powerful
minister had not yet fallen. In the pages of Tacitus we look upon a
different portrayal of the emperor and his times. But with Velleius
all is right in the Roman world. As an old soldier he is unflinching
in loyalty to his _imperator_. He could not belong to the political
opposition. From the first warmly affected towards the Caesars, he shows
his favourable attitude to the Empire in his sketch of the benefits
conferred by the Augustan _régime_.[307] Consistently with this feeling
of approval a sense of the continuity of Rome animates and dignifies his
closing prayer. This is an appeal for national preservation and defence
addressed to Jupiter of the Capitol, to Mars as author of the Roman name
and mainstay of its power, to Vesta as warden of the ever-burning fires,
and finally to all those majestic divinities who had conferred imperial
destiny upon Rome:
_Voto finiendum uolumen est. Iuppiter Capitoline, et auctor
ac stator Romani nominis, Gradiue Mars, perpetuorumque custos
Vesta ignium, et quidquid numinum hanc Romani imperi molem
in amplissimum terrarum orbis fastigium extulit, uos publica
uoce obtestor atque precor: custodite, seruate, protegite hunc
statum, hanc pacem, hunc principem._[308]
Q. CURTIUS
A story is told about Alfonso V of Aragon and I of Sicily and Sardinia
that once, when ill, he had Quintus Curtius’s narrative of the exploits
of Alexander the Great read to him, and that the result proved to be
more than relaxation; for the King was cured. This anecdote of a ruler
in the fifteenth century notable for kindness to scholars who fled from
Constantinople to escape the Turks is one which indicates the right
approach to Curtius. He is to be read rather for entertainment than for
exact instruction; yet, after all, this is to certify his possession
of a considerable literary gift. The manuscripts give his name as Q.
Curtius Rufus;[309] but details of his life are not forthcoming and
his date is a matter of inference. There seems no way of settling his
relationship to or identity with the Curtius Rufus[310] in Tacitus who
was son of a gladiator, gained a triumph for overworking his soldiers at
silver mines in Germany, beheld an ominous midday vision recorded[311]
by both Tacitus and Pliny, and eventually became proconsul of Africa.
It has been argued that, if he had been a writer, Tacitus would have
mentioned the fact; that a proconsul might have been expected to be more
proficient in military history than our Curtius is; and that an imperial
official characterized by a “sullen sycophancy towards superiors”
(_aduersus superiores tristi adulatione_) would not have been so
independent in criticisms on Alexander’s arrogance, and on his courtiers’
subservience—“the perpetual curse of princes, whose power has been
overthrown oftener by flattery than by foes.”[312] Plausible answers can
be framed to each of these arguments; for example, it is unfortunately
too innocent (and Sallust will serve as an instance) to assume that a
writer’s morality is equal to his moralizing. But, all things considered,
no absolute conclusion can be reached. Rather more satisfactory is
the contention that he wrote under Claudius; for the two contemporary
references[313] traceable in his work best suit that period. One arises
out of the siege of Tyre, “now that prolonged peace restores all things,
Tyre, reborn after her destruction, finds repose beneath the protecting
clemency of Rome”; and the other contrasts the dissolution of Alexander’s
dominions after his death with the happier condition of the Roman Empire:
“Rightly does the Roman people acknowledge a debt of safety to a prince
that shone forth like a new star of the night which wellnigh proved our
last: most truly it was his rising, not the sun’s, that restored light to
a world in gloom (_caliganti_) when, deprived of their head, its members
were in conflict and panic.” The most satisfactory explanation of the
second passage is that it refers to the night in January, A.D. 41, when
Caligula was murdered and Claudius found himself suddenly elevated to
the throne; and the suggestion has been made that _caliganti_ is a play
on the dead emperor’s name. The “prolonged peace” of the earlier passage
applies appropriately to the period up to 41: and if the historian is
the Curtius Rufus given between Porcius Latro and Valerius Primanus
in Suetonius’s list in _De Rhetoribus_, then the order of names would
suggest a similar date.[314]
Of the ten books which Curtius composed on Alexander’s exploits,
the first two are lost. Other gaps occur at the end of Book V and
beginning of VI, and there is a break in the last book. Freinsheim in
the seventeenth century wrote Latin supplements for the missing parts,
drawing his material from many authors including Plutarch and Arrian. The
eight surviving books narrate Alexander’s career from 333 B.C., when he
was twenty-three and had reached Phrygia in his Asiatic expedition, up to
his death at Babylon in 323 with the resultant confusion and rivalries.
Falling short of first-rate history, the work is yet a wonderful and
often enthralling pageant of adventure, diplomacy, barbarity, kindliness,
privation, battle and sieges with “scapes i’the imminent deadly breach.”
We need not read far in the existing Latin text before Alexander
characteristically cuts the Gordian knot; and the will-power thereby
displayed is soon triumphantly seizing the passes of Cilicia, winning the
battle of Issus, and capturing the Persian queen and queen-mother (Book
III.). Tyre falls after protracted siege-operations calling forth many
inventions. In Egypt Alexander visits the oracle of Jupiter Hammon, is
declared the god’s son, founds Alexandria, and on his return into Asia
defeats King Darius at Arbela (IV.). The great cities of Babylon, Susa,
Persepolis, fall into the victor’s hands, and Darius, to Alexander’s
indignation, is murdered by two of his own commanders (V.). Oriental
luxury increases its hold on the conqueror; and he has to face danger
from conspirators (VI.). An emissary is despatched to kill Parmenio, his
general in Media, whose son had been, on insufficient evidence, put to
death for treason. Then Alexander carries his conquests into the heart of
Asia (VII.). His murder of Clitus is the outcome of quarrelling over the
wine-cups, and his domineering arrogance is depicted as on the increase.
Besides, his espousal of an Oriental bride, Roxane, causes widespread
disapproval. The next episode is the invasion of India, and a description
of the country is attempted as a preliminary. The Indus is crossed and
King Porus defeated (VIII.). After continued operations in the Punjaub,
the army protests against proceeding further and Alexander reluctantly
sanctions withdrawal. Nearchus is told off to investigate the Indian
Ocean (IX.). Mutinous outbreaks hamper Alexander’s schemes of universal
conquest and at Babylon he dies. After much scheming and counter-scheming
Perdiccas divides the lands overrun by Alexander as provinces to be ruled
by different generals, and Ptolemy transfers the embalmed body of the
monarch to Alexandria (X.).
The barest summary of such achievements serves as a reminder, though
not as an explanation, of the greatness which the ages have conceded to
Alexander. This unique personality remains an enigma: how much was due
to personal ambition or actually to blood-lust, how much to thirst for
adventure, how much to any definite or indefinite notion of disseminating
Greek culture through the absorption of many ancient sovereignties into
one far-extended empire, historians have found it hard conclusively
to decide. But though the motives are beyond exact measurement, and
though they palpably changed amidst the growing brilliance of repeated
triumphs, the general results are unmistakable. Alexander’s was a career
destined to alter the course of civilization, and open a new epoch for
the world. Naturally, then, history has always felt the attraction of
his name. Professional writers accompanied his expedition and, like
modern war-correspondents, employed their eyes and ears to advantage;
official records were kept of Macedonian affairs, of campaigns by land,
of coasting voyages, and survived long enough to be documents for later
research; so that, between authors with war experience and authors of
the study, a gigantic literature was composed on the conqueror in the
Alexandrian epoch. The theme in turn fascinated Rome. Livy, jealous of
the Macedonian’s fame, makes a patriotic digression[315] to argue that he
would not have had the success against Rome that he had against Persia
and India: and Livy’s contemporary, Pompeius Trogus, concerned himself
with Macedon, as is plain from the epitome by Justinus. Some realization
of the adventurous element in his career prompted the academic exercise
recorded by the elder Seneca “Alexander deliberates whether he should
cross the ocean.”[316] Finally, the extent to which the glamour of his
life fascinated the Middle Ages is shown in Chaucer’s words:
The storie of Alisaundre is so comune
That everie wight that hath discrecioun
Hath herd somewhat or al of his fortune.
Curtius, therefore, entered upon a great inheritance. Yet he cannot
be said to have made full use of his available sources. Only in two
passages[317] does he name authorities: in both Clitarchus is mentioned,
and in one of them Timagenes as well. It is possible indeed that he
drew from Clitarchus (_c._ 300 B.C.) mainly through Timagenes (_c._ 55
B.C.). But, supposing he drew directly, Clitarchus was not a first-rate
source; for it is an erroneous inference from Diodorus[318] and Strabo
that he actually served under Alexander. Further, he was turgid rather
than veracious, and Cicero[319] thinks poorly of him, counting it against
Sisenna that he was content with imitating Clitarchus, an inferior model
at the best. In many respects, Curtius seems to have less historical
method than the two authors who not long after treated the same subject
in Greek, namely, Plutarch and Arrian. Plutarch (born _c._ A.D. 40) at
the outset of his _Life of Alexander_ records his consciousness of the
mass of material available, but is careful to add that he is writing
“not histories but biographies.” All the same, he shows more critical
acumen than Curtius, and does not necessarily accept, on a disputed
point, the opinion of the majority. Arrian (_c._ A.D. 90-170), the latest
classical historian of Alexander, possessed qualities which made him on
the whole the best. His training in Stoic philosophy under Epictetus,
his experiences as a soldier, his ability to write on _Tactics_, and the
good sense with which he amply fulfils the promise of his proem to rely
upon the evidence of Aristobulus and Ptolemy, both of whom served with
Alexander—all contribute to the success of his story.[320]
Most of Curtius’s defects lie on the surface. His geography is not
infrequently at fault, his accounts of military operations are less
than satisfying, his understanding of politics is far from profound,
and his speeches are not individualized, but sound the same rhetorical
note irrespective of variations in nationality and character. Virtually
he renounces all claim to be critical when, relating the tenacity
wherewith an Indian dog even with amputated limbs holds on to a lion,
he declares,[321] “Certainly I transcribe more than I believe; for I
cannot bring myself to affirm what I doubt, nor to suppress what I have
received.” In connection with the plain speaking of Scythian envoys[322]
who reproached Alexander for rapacity, Curtius professes to give it
accurately (_incorrupta_), adding “though their speech be despised,
our integrity ought not to be.” Laudable enough so far; but faithful
reproduction of selected material (if indeed it was selected with
discrimination) would for him preclude actual invention, and yet freely
permit literary embellishment. Such negation of any high standard of
critical inquiry is in keeping with his weakness of historical grasp. He
takes no synoptic view of the meaning and results of Alexander’s career:
thus, although he does contrast the posthumous dissolution of his power
with the unity of the Roman Empire,[323] he never attempts to estimate
the debt of civilization to the wars of Alexander.
Notwithstanding such limitations, he displayed literary virtue. Above
all, he can tell a story well. He had an inkling of the romance inherent
in so intrepid an invasion of the gorgeous but perilous East, and
his incidents are telling, sometimes positively exciting. Rhetorical
erudition prompts him to over-indulge in descriptions: so that he
enters with zest into details of difficulties overcome—a river reckoned
impassable, a jungle wellnigh impenetrable, a rocky hill-fort to all
appearance unscalable, the hazards of snowdrift and frostbite, or of
sun-scorched wastes. He shows, however, to most advantage where he
can best import dramatic movement; _e.g._ in V. xii., the treacherous
conspiracy against Darius carried out at night when the monarch is
deserted by his guards and a portentous silence broods over his tent; VI.
vii.-xi., the plot against Alexander, involving its thrill of intrigue
and discovery, with the pleading for life before the army, the hideous
tortures to extort confession, and a final spice of mystery concerning
the guilt or innocence of Philotas; VII. ii., the camel-ride of Polydamas
disguised as an Arab across the desert, and his fulfilment of Alexander’s
crafty scheme of murdering Parmenio without trial as he reads a forged
letter purporting to be from his son Philotas; VII. xi., the scaling of
the rock-fastness in Sogdiana; VIII. i., the fatal quarrel at the banquet
when Clitus, annoyed at Alexander’s boastfulness, quotes Euripides on
Greek kings who monopolize the glory of others and then with drunken
licence goes on openly to denounce Alexander’s murder of Parmenio and to
mock at Alexander’s claim to be a son of Zeus; VIII. vi., the scheme of
the pages of the bedchamber to assassinate the king after a carousal, the
long wait for the expected chance, and the melodramatic interruption of
their plan by a woman reputed to be a crazed prophetess; and, in IX. ix.,
the struggle against an unforeseen tide from the ocean.
Another element of interest is furnished by Curtius’s conception of his
hero’s character. From one standpoint the work is a psychological study
in progressive deterioration caused by prosperity. Here is a favourable
sketch of Alexander which comes in the first of the surviving books:[324]
“It is not easy to describe, apart from their inborn reverence for their
monarchs, how far the people surrendered themselves to an admiration
for this monarch in particular, or, you might equally say, burned with
affection for him. To begin with, it looked as if he could essay nothing
without heaven lending assistance: as luck was everywhere at his side,
his very rashness had turned to his glory. Then, even his years were
scarcely ripe for achievements of such moment, and yet they were more
than enough, for they threw a halo round all his exploits; and things
that are commonly thought insignificant not infrequently find their way
to the common soldiers’ heart. He took his physical exercise among them;
his dress and style were little different from the ordinary man’s; while
he possessed true military energy. Such were the natural endowments or
mental skill that had secured for him an equal share of affection and
respect.”
Henceforward the author’s task is to display the effect of constantly
triumphant warfare on such a character: and his method throughout is to
record noble and chivalrous qualities in Alexander, but at the same time
to produce the impression that gradually, under the influence of success,
luxury and drink, the king yielded oftener to arrogant, arbitrary and
cruel impulses, so that Jekyll-like he found it increasingly difficult
to return from his inferior to his better nature. Hence a sort of
alternation between good and bad strikes the reader as the tale is
unfolded. The demoralization of the army at Babylon (V. i. 36-39) is a
significant presage; still the conqueror feels qualms (V. ii. 13-15)
about setting his feet on a table at which Darius used to dine, and he
shows tactful respect for the feelings of the captive mother and queen
of Darius (V. ii. 18-22) when he apologizes for his unfortunate, and to
Persians impossible, suggestion that the royal ladies should work at
woollen clothes like those from Macedonia. Similarly the moderation which
marked one part of his career (V. iii. 15, _moderationem clementiamque
regis quae tunc fuit_) becomes evident in his mercy to enemies at the
intercession of Darius’s mother. Then falls a dark shadow: his fine
traits of endurance, activity, honour and clemency are sullied by his
insuperable passion for wine, and the drunken advice of the harlot Thaïs
leads to the wanton burning of Persepolis, for the royal guests “rise
from table intoxicated to fire a city which they had spared when they
had arms in their hands” (V. vii. 5, _surgunt temulenti ad incendendam
urbem cui armati pepercerant_). In the next book, Curtius pronounces
Alexander a victim of luxury; “the man whom Persian arms had not broken
was defeated by vice” (VI. ii. 1, _quem arma Persarum non fregerant,
uitia uicerunt_); nevertheless he is still considerate towards captives
(_ibid._), and, out of courtesy to Artabazus, an old Persian in his
ninety-fifth year, orders a horse for both, forgoing his well-known
preference for marching on foot (VI. v. 5). It is noted that his outward
appearance disappointed the Amazonian queen (VI. v. 29), as it afterwards
did the Scythian envoys (VII. viii. 9), being in both cases “not at all
proportionate to his reputation.” Meanwhile, Oriental tastes and habits
(VI. vi.) were driving him in the direction of ostentatious pomp. Luxury,
however, did not prevent the king from sharing the privations of his
men. The same chapter (VII. v.) which relates his merciless barbarity
at Branchidae relates also his self-abnegation, despite the pangs of
thirst, in declining water meant for some young men in the army. Yet this
temperate warrior became an insufferable boaster in his cups, lauding
his own exploits and belittling his royal sire Philip (VIII. i. 22).
True, he undergoes agonies of remorse after his hasty murder of Clitus
(VIII. ii.); but now that Clitus’s unbridled tongue has led to his doom,
frankness in presence of the king becomes impossible (VIII. iv., _sub
fin._, _post Cliti caedem libertate sublata_). Alexander succumbs to the
charms of Roxane, because “amid fortune’s subservience to him, he could
less control his desires now” (VIII. iv. 24, _minus iam cupiditatibus
suis imperantis inter obsequia fortunae_). Scheming to be proclaimed a
god, he resents Macedonian objections (VIII. v.). “His greed for glory
and insatiate lust for fame grew intolerant of all obstacles” (IX. ii.
9, _auaritia gloriae et insatiabilis cupido famae nihil inuium nihil
remotum uideri sinebat_). The chronicle reveals a grotesque chaos of
pleasure and pain: immediately after the riotous Bacchanalian march
of Alexander’s army in the East, Curtius remarks “This pomp had the
executioner at its heels, for the satrap Aspastes already mentioned was
ordered to be put to death: so cruelty is no bar to luxury, nor luxury
to cruelty” (IX. x. _sub fin._). A similar strain is heard in the last
book: “He began to be impetuous in executing punishments, and likewise
in believing ill of people. Prosperity, it is plain, has power to alter
one’s nature, it being a rarity for anyone to be sufficiently guarded
in respect of good fortune” (X. i. 39-40). In the final summary of his
character (X. v. 26-37) we read “it is plain to all fair judges of the
king, that his merits were due to nature, and his faults to fortune or
his time of life,” and later in his estimate Curtius elaborates this. For
on the one hand he attributes to “fortune” failings such as Alexander’s
claim to equal the gods or his exaction of divine honours—sins of pride,
in fact, generated by his victories; and on the other hand he views his
irascibility and intemperance as slips of youth which time would have
abated. “It must, however, be allowed that while he owed a very great
deal to merit, he owed more to fortune, whom he alone of mortal men held
within his power.”
This raises a fundamental question touching the historian’s conception of
Alexander’s whole career.[325] The ascription of virtues to “nature” and
faults to “fortune” takes us but a little way towards explaining a great
man. The antithesis resembles Plutarch’s account of Alexander’s success
as due to fortune (τύχη) combined with generalship (_Alex._ xx. 675), and
it does not obviously fit into the Stoic view which Curtius elsewhere
professes to be his solution for the enigma of life. “Fortune” indeed
counts for much with Curtius. It was what we should call sheer luck that
the enemy did not attack and crush Alexander’s troops while they revelled
on Mount Meros. “It is incontestable that glory is oftener the gift of
fortune than of merit” is the comment (VIII. x. 18, _quis neget eximiam
quoque gloriam saepius fortunae quam virtutis esse beneficium?_). So,
too, of a week’s Bacchanalian progress when the revelling host might
have been an easy prey, “Fortune who ordains the credit and value of
things here also turned a military scandal into glory” (IX. x. 28,
_fortuna quae rebus famam pretiumque constituit ..._). Alexander’s aims
against Spitamenes were secured without exertion on his part, because
“fortune, never weary of favouring him, managed the matter without
his presence” (VIII. iii. 1, _fortuna indulgendo ei numquam fatigata
..._)—a personification like that implied in the “homage paid by fortune”
(_obsequia fortunae_, VIII. iv. 24) which, as already shown, rendered him
less master of his passions when he met Roxane, the satrap’s daughter.
The king’s quick decision to segregate the Macedonian grumblers over
Parmenio’s death proved, like everything else, fortunate for him, because
they always afterwards fought gallantly to remove the stigma (VII. ii.
37, _consilium temerarium forsitan ... sicut omnia alia felicitas regis
excepit_): and in his last adventure oceanwards “the one consolation of
his rashness was his unfailing success” (_unum erat temeritatis solacium
perpetua felicitas_). Little wonder, then, that Alexander should believe
in his _felicitas_ (VII. vii. 28) or his _fortuna_ (_fortunam cui
confidat_, VII. ix. 1, _fortunae suae confisus_, VII. xi. 27) like Julius
Caesar after him.
In some of these instances Curtius may appear to imply little more than
luck. But logically he is no believer in chance. He is a fatalist in his
view of human life and is clearly influenced by Stoicism: so that his
“fortune” in the last resort would be merged in “fate.” The inevitability
of fate is a thought repeated in various contexts: of Alexander’s risk
of a wound he says, “but to my mind, fate is unavoidable” (IV. vi. 17,
_sed, ut opinor, ineuitabile est fatum_); of Darius’s incapacity to take
advice that would rescue him, he says, “he is doomed to his own lot” (V.
xii. 8, _destinatus sorti suae_), and of an intrigue to ruin an innocent
man, “destiny, whose appointment is inevitable, was at hand” (X. i. 30.,
_fatum cuius ineuitabilis sors est appetebat_). His theory of history is
made explicit apropos of the failure of Patron, the Greek, to save Darius
by warning him against the treachery of Bessus:
This incident may afford amusement to those whose conviction
it is that human affairs roll on driven by blind haphazard.
I favour the belief that every series of events follows by
immutable law its course as the result of eternal ordinance and
the nexus of mysterious causes long since preordained.[326]
An aspect of Curtius’s thought commonly overlooked is a certain
enlightenment of mind which argues his emancipation from some of the
superstitious obsessions of antiquity. He condemns as unacceptable to
the gods the ancient Tyrian sacrifice of a freeborn boy (IV. iii. 23):
he remarks, on the recourse to a soothsayer about an accident to a
crow, that Alexander’s “mind was not without its touch of superstition”
(IV. vi. 12, _ut erat non intactae a superstitione mentis_), and on the
consultation of the oracle of Hammon that “the prophet had set himself
to flatter” (IV. vii. 26, _uates in adulationem compositus_). He dubs
the employment of diviners for a military problem as “the outcome of a
superstitious mind” (V. iv. 1, _a superstitione animi_). A noticeable
example occurs in the introductory description of the judicious Cobares
who, after reminding the Persian satrap Bessus incidentally that a dog’s
bark may be worse than its bite and that still waters run deep, advocates
coming to terms with Alexander: “there was at the feast one Cobares, of
Median nationality, more renowned for his profession of the magical art
(if it really is an art and not a jest at the expense of the silliest)
than for any knowledge thereof” (VII. iv. 8). Plainly Curtius would
have one take note that such things mean weakness: it was when ill and
confronted with serious menaces that Alexander, “who had, since Darius’s
overthrow, given up the consultation of soothsayers and prophets,
fell back on that superstition—the delusion of mankind” (VII. vii. 8,
_humanarum gentium ludibria_). It must have given Curtius satisfaction to
record later how Alexander dismissed the warnings of a fortune-teller as
unseasonable hindrances (IX. iv. 27-30).
Speeches and descriptions yield Curtius his readiest outlet for rhetoric.
Not offensively overdone, it is most patent in the sententious remarks
introduced into narrative and speeches alike. Of gallant fighting in a
tight corner he says “necessity, I hold, sharpens even cowardice, and
despair is often the cause of hope” (V. iv. 31, _ut opinor, ignauiam
quoque necessitas acuit et saepe desperatio spei causa est_). When
Alexander tried to win indulgence for his Oriental luxury by generous
gifts, the comment is, “but, I hold, to the free the price of slavery
is unwelcome” (VI. vi. 11, _sed opinor, liberis pretium seruitutis
ingratum est_). The story of a poor scion of a royal race brought from
garden-work to a throne calls forth an almost Juvenalian cynicism:
“the cause of his poverty was as usual—honesty” (IV. i. 20, _causa ei
paupertatis, sicut plerisque, probitas erat_). Two instances may be given
from a speech: “Those bear afflictions best who conceal them” (V. v.
11, _optime miserias ferunt qui abscondunt_) and “no man loyally loves
one he disdains, for calamity is querulous and prosperity proud” (V. v.
12, _nemo fideliter diligit quem fastidit, nam et calamitas querula est
et superba felicitas_). Some of the inserted epistles have a rhetorical
ring, as in Alexander’s haughty words to Darius: “I know both how to
conquer and how to consider the conquered ... when you write to me,
remember that you are writing not only to a king, but to your king” (IV.
i. 10-14).
As regards the technique of his prose, Curtius’s sentence-endings show a
distinct preference for a cretic followed by spondee or trochee, a rhythm
which perhaps no contemporary employs so often. An ending about half
as often used—though still comparatively common—is the double cretic;
next to that, the cretic followed by a tribrach, and then the double
trochee.[327]
His style in general is influenced by Sallust, Virgil and, most of
all, by Livy. But there is in him a sameness of expression for similar
situations which becomes monotonous, and marks his inferiority in prose
to Livy’s brilliant variety. One cannot read far without noticing his
pluperfect indicatives, his employment of a future participle in Greek
fashion to denote purpose, his loose ablatives absolute, his repetition
of the connectives _ceterum_ and _quippe_. Some rhetorical constituents
of his style have already been illustrated. Yet it must be conceded that
neither mannerisms, nor the poetic strain in him debar him from being
generally clear: not seldom he is even vivacious.
CHAPTER IV
CELSUS: MELA: MISCELLANEOUS LEARNING
Cornelius Celsus—Contents of his encyclopaedia—The eight
books, _De Medicina_—Sources—Relation to his times—Common
Sense—Curiosities of Celsian medicine—Style.
The first Roman Geography—Pomponius Mela—The coasting
method—Some aspects of his treatment—Faults and
merits—Sources—Enlivening touches—Description of customs
and marvels—Mela on tides—Rhetorical elements and his
rhythm—Miscellaneous learning of the age.
CELSUS
The biography of A. Cornelius Celsus,[328] the encyclopaedist, is a
blank; and, in the absence of details, inquiry must rest satisfied with
the guarantee of his gentile name through its occurrence in Columella and
the elder Pliny.[329] Celsus was a senior contemporary[330] frequently
mentioned by Columella, who belongs to the time of Claudius. Pliny’s
statement that Julius Graecinus made use of the agricultural work of
Celsus suggests that at least the books on farming were written before
the close of Tiberius’s reign; for Graecinus was executed under Caligula
about A.D. 39.[331] The subsequent books on medicine may be presumed to
precede A.D. 47, when Scribonius Largus published among his prescriptions
a cure for quinsy which Celsus declares he has not found in medical
treatises.[332]
The encyclopaedic habit of Cato and Varro[333] descended to Celsus. His
labours included agriculture, medicine, military tactics, rhetoric,
jurisprudence and philosophy—all subjects of traditional importance in
the higher education of a Roman. To each he devoted several books;[334]
but the one surviving portion is the _De Medicina_ in eight books.
His military writings, whether in the encyclopaedia or in separate
pamphlets composed as late as Nero’s reign, were consulted by Vegetius
and Lydus.[335] The books on philosophic systems, in which (Augustine
informs us) the aim was rather exposition than refutation, may have been
included in the encyclopaedia; but he evidently wrote other treatises
on philosophy.[336] Quintilian, who bestows modified praise upon
Celsus’s style in discussing philosophy, cites his opinions on rhetoric,
frequently to disagree with them.[337] This is not unnatural when it
is remembered that Celsus’s cursory treatment of rhetoric would not be
calculated to satisfy a specialist like Quintilian; and it may be guessed
that Celsus’s rhetorical portion was in fact eclipsed by the fuller
treatment of the great professional authority and so sank into oblivion.
Regarding the order of parts in this encyclopaedia, we can be certain
that the five books _De Agricultura_ opened the work, and that the _De
Medicina_ followed, forming Books VI to XIII[338] of the whole _corpus_.
Detached from the encyclopaedia, they possess the unique importance
of representing the healing art in classical Rome. At the close of an
introduction, which is an epitome and criticism of prevailing tendencies
in medical science, Celsus summarizes his own position and announces
his plan of handling first rules of health and next phenomena and cures
of disease. To this end Book I is largely of diet; II of symptoms and
therapeutics; III of fevers; IV of internal diseases, considered in order
from the head to the joints of the feet; V and VI of drugs and ailments
for which they are specifics (with numerous prescriptions); VII and VIII
of surgical operations.
His sources are mainly, but not entirely, Greek; and among those
the influence of Hippocrates and Asclepiades is pre-eminent. The
authority of the former is recognized in the preface to Book II;
his teaching on massage, Celsus notes, was in nowise superseded by
the more diffuse Asclepiades; and again his magnanimous avowal of a
professional mistake is admired, but without any such encomiastic
fanfaronade as to justify the nickname “Hippocrates’s ape” sometimes
given to Celsus.[339] Asclepiades is also in high favour: his books on
preservation of health and on general remedies are cited; his cure for
a tertian fever is approved for its rejection of the faulty method of
Cleophantus; he is quoted in contrast with Erasistratus to show that
doctors differ about the treatment of hemorrhage or about the stress to
be laid on diet.[340] Erasistratus is another medical authority often
mentioned.[341] Prescriptions are ascribed to an imposing array of
practitioners—especially in the pharmacy of the fifth book.[342] Further,
the punctiliousness with which Celsus introduces Greek synonyms indicates
the origin of much of his reading.[343] Yet it would be a mistake to
suppose that he confined himself to the older Hellenic sources. He had
the work of recent practitioners, both native and foreign, like Cassius
or Themison, to draw from; he had his own observation, though this plays
no great part; so he introduces, sometimes with emphasis, his individual
views and criticisms, and throughout displays a practical common sense
which is typically Roman.
Some of these points demand attention, as illustrations of the author’s
relation to his times. Indeed, it is not surprising that Celsus, who
in another field incurred the disapproval of Quintilian because of an
“excessive passion for novelty,”[344] should have in medicine shown
himself abreast of the latest tendencies and discoveries. Thus, though
he does not always agree, he takes pains to record Themison’s advice
as something modern;[345] and in his preface remarks on the attitude
of his followers (_Themisonis aemuli_) to the vexed question of theory
_versus_ practice. Cassius, again, is singled out for characterization as
“the most talented leech of our age,” and is elsewhere mentioned as the
proud discoverer of a remedy for disease of the larger intestine.[346]
The opening remarks by Celsus upon the diverse views of contemporary
schools, and subsequent comparisons between medical practices of his
own day and those of predecessors, prove that he was alive to advances
or at least changes in the healing art.[347] Sometimes he inserts
original examples, such as the method of inducing perspiration pursued
near Baiae.[348] At other times his personal opinions or results of
his observation are stated with a dogmatism that would do credit to
wide practical experience.[349] Scaliger, indeed, believed that Celsus
practised; but this has been stoutly denied, and one notices nothing in
him that a vigilant eye and a perusal of medical books might not have
yielded. It is difficult to credit that, if he had been a practising
physician or surgeon, he would have refrained from quoting cases which
he had attended. Undoubtedly, however, he gains in interest by combining
an individual note with a continual suggestion of his environment. It
is Celsus himself who speaks when the increased recourse to bleeding is
noted as a novelty, and especially when he proceeds with his cautionary
remarks on its unsuitability in certain cases and its murderous results
in others.[350] Like most contemporary writers, he feels impelled to
stigmatize the two great moral and hygienic perils of the Empire—idleness
and luxury.[351] As a whole, his background forms for modern readers an
attractive index to other days and other lands. The risks to health in
autumn are naturally important to one writing in Rome: the mention of a
siesta at midday comes from a southern clime: the careful description of
the way to extract an arrow revives pictures of antiquated warfare: and
the stress laid upon reading aloud as an exercise beneficial or injurious
in certain bodily affections takes the reader back to the declamatory
_recitatio_ which once played its great part in the Roman social and
educational system.[352]
The common sense noticeable in Celsus is in part an inheritance from
earlier medical systems and ancient human experience; but in part
an individual trait of tone and attitude. The wisdom evident in the
preface must be credited to the author himself; for there, after an
able statement of the issue between empirics and theorists in medicine,
he holds the balance fairly, and votes for a combination of experience
(_usus, experimenta_) with science (_rationalis ars_). Proposing,
therefore, a _uia media_ as likeliest to lead to truth, he sagely argues
that the great doctors of the past were not made doctors by scientific
investigation independently of practice, but were by the fusion made
greater doctors still.[353] Among enlightened points in the same
introduction are his freedom from the superstitious notion that diseases
originate in divine wrath (a supposition logically denounced as a barrier
to medical research and progress); his insistence upon the quest for
true causes; and the emphasis laid upon anatomy and dissection. Celsus
is indeed scientific enough to state principles which were ultimately
to antiquate and supersede him: thus, under the head of dissection, he
advocated the acquisition of a knowledge destined in due time to convict
him of errors; for his anatomy, when he comes to it, is not beyond
reproach. His remarks on vivisection are interesting. While he states
the argument for experimenting upon condemned criminals, he also states
with sympathy, and even some tenderness, the contrary argument on behalf
of those surgeons who aim at “cure, not kill” (_prudentem medicum non
caedem sed sanitatem molientem_), who recognize that the chances of
the arena or war or an affray often provide a view of internal organs
during life without dependence upon the scalpel of some “ruffian bandit
of a doctor,”[354] and who are content “to learn through pity what
others have come to know by fiendish cruelty” (_idque per misericordiam
discere quod alii dira crudelitate cognouerint_). His final verdict
is that vivisection is superfluous, but dissection imperative.[355]
On many matters his counsels may involve no more than an ability to
profit by ordinary human experience and medical tradition; yet, they
are counsels which require continual restatement and are violated in
all ages. Instances may be found in his rules for preservation of
health, in the limits assigned to bodily exercise, in the reduction of
food after hard work, in the advantages of a rest cure,[356] or in the
physiological restrictions incumbent upon the scholar’s burning of the
midnight oil—restrictions, more salutary,[357] if less romantic, than the
enthusiasm of the student in Bailey’s _Festus_,
When night hath set her silver lamp on high,
Then is the time for study.
With equal plausibility he advocates the benefits of change: it is good
for a cough, while the climate that made one ill is the very worst for
the invalid:[358] similarly a voyage is recommended for consumption.
Noteworthy acumen, too, marks his insistence on the fundamental position
that strong probability is enough to justify a belief in the power of
medicine.[359] There is, however, no attempt to overestimate the value
of drugs; for he bears in mind the curative efficacy of nature,[360] and
in another connexion declares the best medicine to be diet seasonably
given.[361] Other illustrations of sound sense are his reminder of the
tact requisite in a physician about to take an invalid’s pulse, his
admission that the confident quack may succeed with another’s patients
better than with his own (_quos ratio non restituit temeritas adiuuat_),
and his suspicion of too rigid a theory concerning “critical days” during
an illness as being apparently due to the misleading influences of
Pythagorean numbers upon medical calculations.[362] Throughout his work
he gives the impression that he set himself in a business-like manner to
illustrate the aims which Asclepiades ascribed to a capable physician and
which Celsus approves as an ideal _uotum_, namely, “to effect a cure with
safety, despatch, and pleasantness” (_ut tuto, ut celeriter, ut iucunde
curet_).[363]
The person likely to reap the maximum of enjoyment from Celsus would be
a medical man with historic instincts and a liking for straightforward
Latin. A perusal will not recompense the seeker after either elaborate
style or unquestionably sound advice; but to any reader passably
acquainted with modern medical theory and practice his pages offer
much in the way of interest, and occasionally of entertainment. Celsus
represents the stage of medical knowledge attained in the early Empire,
and the regimen and prescriptions found in his work indicate the method
of treating or maltreating Roman citizens unlucky enough to need
professional attendance. In a system so many centuries prior to the
germ-theory of disease or to antiseptic and anaesthetic surgery, all
sorts of quaint precautions and quaint remedies are advocated. There
is a difference of atmosphere which, once felt, exerts a fascination,
partly in spite of and partly in virtue of its errors. It is true that
his teaching on anatomy leaves much to be desired; but the lay reader
soon forgives mistakes such as those regarding the spleen.[364] His
surgery takes one back to a period ages before chloroform or ether,
when one essential merit of the operator was intrepidity sufficient “to
resist being influenced by the patient’s shrieks into hurrying more than
the case demanded or cutting less than was needful,”[365] and when, in
an operation for cataract, the head had to be held fast to prevent a
movement which might be permanently fatal to the eyesight.[366] Among
curiosities of Celsian medicine may be cited blood-letting for the
spitting of blood,[367] and a queer precaution against headache, to
wit, the avoidance of moonlight particularly before the conjunction of
sun and moon.[368] Some pronouncements on diet are extraordinary—pork
is the lightest and beef the heaviest of foods (_leuissima suilla est,
grauissima bubula_).[369] His recipe for quinsy is to eat a young
swallow salted, burned, and administered as a powder in hydromel; and
his comment here implies by contrast that, as a rule, book-knowledge
rather than practice is the basis of his pharmacy—“although I have
not read this in medical treatises, still I believe it ought to be
included in this work of mine.”[370] The powdered liver of a fox[371] for
asthmatic troubles is comparable to the roast mouse still recommended
in parts of Norfolk for whooping-cough. Not the least interesting
are those prescriptions which, like so many survivals from primitive
magic-healing, belong to what may be called excremental medicine.
Prominent ingredients in his pharmacopoeia are not only such as deer’s
marrow, bull’s suet, hog’s lard, but also the ordure of various animals.
Lizard’s dung and pigeon’s blood are among the purgatives; and the dung
of lizard, pigeon, ring-dove, swallow and sheep among caustics.[372] As
an encyclopaedic summarizer of previous and current medicine, Celsus
could not be expected to go beyond his own age; but at least this may
be urged that his emancipation from a number of earlier superstitions
and his sensible attitude on the combined merits of theory and practice
were far-off presages of a time when medicine should abandon the copious
blood-letting and clysterizing of coprophagous patients. An illustration
of the mark left by Celsus upon medicine was the implicit claim to have
eclipsed him which was made in the name “Paracelsus” assumed some four
centuries ago by the clever Swiss alchemist and quack Theophrastus
Bombast von Hohenheim. If in the twentieth century Celsian medicine
lies under a cloud, it is mainly because, notwithstanding his professed
anxiety to give fair-play to both theory and experiment, he does not
convince practising doctors that he founded his work sufficiently upon
observation. Book-learning and the experience of others do not, from
the standpoint of science, counterbalance this absence of a commanding
personal authority.
We have seen that Quintilian, who would be most prone to appraise
Celsus by his work on rhetoric, did not consider him an author of
eminent genius. Without, however, exalted merit, Celsus had a sanity
which is reflected in his style. One aspect of his good sense is that
gift of straightforward expression which differentiates him from the
artificiality of contemporary Latin. He states a plain fact or counsel or
argument in a plain way. Some, indeed, of his readers, attracted by the
elegance of his brief sentences, have declared that more store should
be set by his Latinity than by his medicine. It is an elegance which
consists in no literary adornment beyond what comes of lucid, facile and
neat exposition in sound Latin.[373] There is almost nothing in the way
of literary allusion. Quite exceptional in this respect is the passing
reference to the poets’ accounts of Ajax or Orestes as illustrating
the creations of a disordered imagination.[374] Apropos of swallow’s
blood prescribed for an injured eye he mentions the _fabula_ which
told how the old birds healed the eyes of their young with a herb, but
_fabula_ here may mean popular tradition rather than the literary fable.
Signs of the usages of Silver Latin occur: _igitur_ begins sentences
in the manner of Sallust and Tacitus: _frequens_ is used in its later
sense: and occasionally he shows the tendency to use abstracts for
concretes.[375] But he keeps clear of contemporary mannerisms. When he
uses balance, as in his opening words, it is not so much for ornament
as for clearness;[376] and herein he presents a strong contrast to such
writers as Velleius Paterculus and Valerius Maximus. A well-sustained
example of his style is his introduction, where he is free to discuss
general subjects at some length and to state his views. In it, the
sentences are short and direct—well adapted, without artifice, to the
subject in hand. He is not concerned to avoid the repetition of a word
or phrase by hunting after remote equivalents. Once, indeed, he seems
to hesitate on a matter affecting his choice of words: it is, however,
a hesitation animated not by rhetorical motives but by those qualms of
modesty in expression which led many cultured Romans to avoid the Stoic
outspokenness in “calling a spade a spade” and to reject even innocent
collocations of sounds capable of conveying indecent suggestion. The
question from this latter standpoint is discussed in the well-known
letter by Cicero where he furnishes a salutary motto in the opening
phrase _amo uerecundiam_.[377] It will be readily gathered that the
difficulty for Celsus arises not in collocations of sounds, but in terms
which he feels he must use in certain delicate parts of his subject.[378]
His quandary is to secure clearness with a due observance of the dictates
of modesty and the requirements of medicine.[379] Finally he decides in
the interests of health that his treatment must be open and exhaustive;
and it is noteworthy that, while he regards Greek terms in such
connexions as more acceptable, he prefers in fact to use Latin words.
One may conclude with a passage on the duties of a physician, where the
_clausulae_ of two sentences recall the Ciceronian _esse uideatur_:
In the case of these (external injuries), it is beyond
everything imperative upon a medical man to know which are
incurable, which involve difficulty, which greater ease
in treatment. For the wise doctor’s duty is, first, to
decline handling a patient ill beyond the possibility of
recovery, and so avoid the appearance of having killed one
who was already cut off by his own fate; next, where there
is serious apprehension—falling short, however, of absolute
hopelessness—to inform the relatives of the person in danger
that the case is risky, so that, if his skill is baffled by the
malady, he may not produce the impression either of ignorance
or of deception. But, just as this is the fitting attitude for
a wise man, so on the other hand it is worthy of a charlatan to
magnify a trivial case in order to produce the impression of a
greater achievement.[380]
POMPONIUS MELA
Pomponius Mela[381] makes at least this claim on attention that his
is the first Roman geography which has come down. A study holding a
central position between natural sciences such as physics, astronomy,
geology, zoology on the one hand and human sciences such as history,
anthropology, ethnology, sociology on the other, might reasonably have
been expected through its multifarious orientation to appeal to the
didactic tendencies of Roman writers. One might have expected that upon
the physical, mathematical and ethnographical foundations laid by the
Greeks, imposing edifices would be raised by a people whose commercial
and military interests opened the world to them, and that the continuous
expansion of Rome beyond Italy would stimulate geographical inquiry.
No doubt Varro did contribute to the subject, and Caesar, at any rate,
incidentally. But for generations systematic investigation remained in
the hands of Greeks and made little advance upon the knowledge attained
in the times of Alexander and Alexandria. It is significant, then, that
at a date when the Romans held the greater part of Britain, they had
added scarcely anything to the facts learned by the voyage in northern
waters made by Pytheas of Massilia about 330 B.C. Much later, indeed,
when Pompey’s operations against Mithridates opened out the lands in Asia
between the Black Sea and the Caspian, the opportunity for recording
fresh geographical results had been seized not by any Roman but by the
general’s Hellenic comrade Theophanes from Mytilene. Later still, the
newly consolidated Roman Empire of the Augustan era received a systematic
description from a Greek of Pontus, the renowned Strabo, who, friendly
to Rome as he was, entertained but a poor opinion of Roman geographers,
remarking that they imitated Greeks without much success, and without
bringing to the subject much love of inquiry.[382] These considerations
render such Roman works on the subject as exist the more noteworthy;
and time has left to us only two, first, the _Chorographia_ (or, as it
is sometimes called, _De Situ Orbis_) by Pomponius Mela, largely an
unoriginal compendium, and later, the portions in the _Natural History_
of Pliny which handle geography in no very scientific manner, though
their author has too high a regard for truth to acquit Roman writers of
falsification or carelessness in their investigations.[383]
Pomponius Mela was, he tells us,[384] a native of Tingentera in Spain,
not far from Gibraltar. A slight balance of evidence[385] suggests that
he wrote his description of the world under Claudius and that he refers
to that emperor and his triumph of A.D. 44, rather than to Caligula,
when he says: “About the nature of Britain and the nature of her sons it
will not be long before more definite and better ascertained details are
given. Closed for ages, Britain is now being opened up by the greatest
of emperors,[386] victorious over tribes not only unconquered before
his own day, but actually unknown. The evidence of its peculiarities
which he aimed at in his campaign, he brings home to render clear by his
triumph.”[387]
The method of Mela was prompted by the coasting survey of early
travellers, and the tradition of such works as the partially genuine
_Periplus_ or “Cruise” of Scylax[388] in the fourth century B.C. In the
first two of his three books Mela follows the Mediterranean seaboard
from west to east along the southern shores and then back from east to
west along the northern shores: the third book is left for countries
outside this scheme which, though it could not possibly be exhaustive,
still with a certain appropriateness had for its hinge the Mediterranean,
the ancestral home of geography. Thus, his brief introduction over,
Mela deals in Book I with the main divisions of the world, and, after a
summary description of Asia, Europe and Africa, turns to a particular
description, starting with Morocco, and from Egypt and Arabia proceeding
by the coast of the Levant, Aegean, and Black Sea round Asia Minor until
in Scythia he reaches Europe. In Book II the course is in the main
westwards from European Scythia by Thrace, Greece, Italy, Southern Gaul
to Spain with a digression on islands of the Mediterranean suggested
by the “Gades insula.” Book III is concerned with coasts and countries
outside the Mediterranean. The ocean brings him to the subject of tides,
and he next follows the outer seaboard of Spain, proceeds by Gaul and the
Baltic (his Codanian Gulf) to Germany, Sarmatia and Northern Scythia,
then notices the islands of the ocean (including Britain and Thule),
India, the Persian Gulf, and by a short circuit of Africa works his way
back to the part of Mauretania bordering on the Atlantic, so that he ends
where he began.
The Mediterranean (_nostrum mare_) is viewed as a continuous sea
contracting at the Hellespont (Dardanelles), expanding in the Propontis
(Sea of Marmora), narrowing again in the Bosporus, but once more
widening into the Black Sea. The method of an imaginary voyage has the
disadvantage of greatly neglecting interior countries (_e.g._ in Asia,
Assyria); and Mela, in the later part of his work, feels compelled to
leap eastwards to seas which shall secure him contact with India and
Ethiopia. Being a Spaniard, he treats Spain with comparative fulness.
In some other cases he holds that the reputation of a city or region
dispenses him from elaborate description: Athens, for instance, is too
famous to require notice (_clariores quam ut indicari egeant Athenae_),
and Italy is handled in a matter-of-fact way without bursts of enthusiasm
for the land of his adoption. He will be brief, he promises, concerning a
country the treatment of which is demanded rather by the claims of system
than by a need for exposition, since here “all is known” (_nota sunt
omnia_).
He blunders in thinking that the Danube flows into the Adriatic and that
the Alps bound Germany, and he is unscientific in blending mythology with
geography; but he has the merit of knowing about the north-western sweep
of the Gallic coast and about northern seas and the Orkneys (_Orcades_).
Of Mela’s sources we have scanty information. He quotes Cornelius Nepos
twice,[389] and mentions a report by Hanno the Carthaginian after a
voyage of discovery, for which Mela’s authority may be Nepos. The
knowledge of Spain acquired by Varro, when a Pompeian officer in that
country, may possibly have been accessible to the author,[390] who in
turn became a source for the elder Pliny. He is cited on Ireland by the
scholiast on Juvenal and on the channels of the Ganges by Servius in
opposition to Seneca.[391]
With something like a grudge the author in his proem declares that
his task is of a sort which does not admit eloquent treatment; as it
involves an array of names, its subject-matter is tedious rather than
genial (_longa est magis quam benigna materia_). At the same time, it
is well worth study (_aspici cognoscique dignissimum_) and calculated
to recompense attention through the very thought put into it, if not
through the talents of the author.[392] Though the work be dry and little
susceptible of ornament (_facundiae minime capax_), Mela does grasp
opportunities of embellishing and enlivening his theme; and the alert
reader may, among geographical details, discover and even welcome a
rhetorical word-picture or record of wonders.
One of these purple patches is the description of the cavern of
Corycus[393] in Cilicia, environed by charming greenery and entered by
a narrow and difficult footpath which descends among rustling trees and
dancing rivulets to a grotto within a grotto, darker and more mysterious,
filled with a sound as of crashing cymbals, where a great river seems
to issue forth only to vanish again: and beyond are the depths of the
cavern unmeasured and inexplorable. What otherwise would be a catalogue
is lighted up by passing allusions to famous battlefields, scenes with
historical, poetic or legendary associations, birthplaces of celebrities,
and monuments to the mighty dead; and no little entertainment may be
got from his mention of customs[394] and of marvels. It is not every
geography that provides readable fare like the strange fountain of the
Sun in Cyrenaica which boils at midnight and is icy cold at noon (I.
viii.); queerly illogical African tribes who curse the Sun both at his
rising and at his setting, and who have no individual names and are a
dreamless people; or cave-dwellers feeding on serpents; or headless
creatures with faces in their chests; the Pyramids (I. ix.), and the
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (I. xvi.)—representative wonders of the world;
birds that shoot their wing-feathers like arrows (II. vii.); the land
of the midnight Sun (III. v.); the rich pastures of Ireland on which
flocks might feed till they burst (III. vi.); the island of “hairy
women” (presumably some species of apes, III. ix.); and the well that
brings on a fatal laugh (III. x.). One may read how to defy the serpents
of Colubraria (II. vii., _ad fin._); or may be half persuaded, apropos
of the rocky district of the Lapideum (Le Crau) in Southern France,
to believe the old fable that it once rained stones there (II. v.).
The attraction of the marvellous is for Mela irresistible; Syracuse,
for example, interests him not for its situation or history, but for
the legend of Arethusa: and perhaps, if he could not be completely
scientific, it was well that he should thus frankly display his not
unengaging limitations.
Yet he can be serious and perspicacious. He notes the German love of war
for little or no reason (_ex libidine_) except the desire of having a
desolation round a country where might is right (_ut circa ipsos quae
iacent uasta sint; ius in uiribus habent_); and he apologizes that he
cannot give German geography exhaustively, because the names are too
barbarous for Roman lips to pronounce (_quorum nomina uix est eloqui ore
Romano_, III. iii.). His description of the Atlantic tides,[395] with his
alternative theories about their cause, may be translated:
“A vast limitless sea, stirred by great tides (that is the term for
its movements) at one time floods the plains, at another uncovers them
widely and retreats. It does not work so on plain after plain in turn;
it does not by alternate advances sweep round in full rush first on
these and next on those; but after pouring out from its centre upon the
shores of all countries and islands alike, however far apart, it quits
them, and again massing towards its centre returns upon itself. Such is
the regular force of the incoming tide that it drives back even mighty
rivers, and either overtakes land animals or leaves sea-creatures high
and dry. So far there is no definite decision whether this is the action
of the universe through its own heaving breath, attracting and repelling
the waters everywhere (on the assumption of savants that the world is a
single animate being); or whether there exist some cavernous depressions
for the ebb-tides to sink into, thence to well out and rise anew; or
whether the moon is responsible for currents so extensive.”
The traces of rhetoric are visible not only in descriptions, but also
in balanced clauses and exclamatory parentheses which recall Valerius
Maximus. Of the bridging of the Hellespont by the Persians he exclaims
“marvellous and mighty feat!” (_mirum atque ingens facinus!_), and of
the devotion of the Carthaginian brothers buried alive to settle a
boundary dispute in their country’s favour, “Marvellous feat most worthy
of remembrance!” (_mirum et memoria dignissimum facinus!_).[396] But he
is not long-winded, and indeed has caught some of Sallust’s brevity, as
where he remarks of the rivers Simois and Scamander near Troy that for
them “fame has done more than nature” and so gives pithy expression to
a feeling which many a traveller on the Trojan plain must have shared.
Nor is Mela a mere echo of others: his prose has a rhythm of its own.
Even without careful enumeration one is struck in reading his Latin by
the frequency of double cretic and dactylic endings to his sentences.
Closer investigation has shown that while he quite remarkably avoids the
double trochee endings which are so much more common in Celsus, Curtius,
the Senecas and Tacitus, he almost as markedly exhibits a preference
for closing on a cretic followed by an anapaest or tribrach (–⏑–⏑⏑⏓) or
on one of the favourite types of Greek _clausulae_, the double dactyl
(–⏑⏑–⏑⏑).[397]
MISCELLANEOUS LEARNING
In the miscellaneous learning of the age may be included its philosophy,
criticism and grammar, jurisprudence and medicine. To take the last
first, one recognizes in Scribonius Largus,[398] court physician to
Claudius, a sort of pendant to Celsus; for about A.D. 47 he made his
collection of medical prescriptions. The jurists included Ateius Capito’s
pupil, Masurius Sabinus, who gave his name to the “Sabinian” school, and
influenced legal thought through his three books on the _ius ciuile_.
In contrast with him M. Cocceius Nerva, the emperor’s grandfather,
trained by Labeo, the great Augustan rival of Capito, was a forerunner
of Proculus from whom the “Proculians” took their name.[399] Among the
grammarians were Julius Modestus, Hyginus’s freedman, who followed
his master’s broad conception of grammar; the strict purist Pomponius
Marcellus;[400] and the successful but immoral teacher, Q. Remmius
Palaemon (_flor._ A.D. 48), whose handbook (_Ars_) had a great vogue,
and with whom Persius and Quintilian studied. Columella drew from Julius
Atticus and Julius Graecinus, both writers on vine-culture in the time of
Tiberius; and the botanists Caepio and Antonius Castor were used by the
elder Pliny.
Apicius, pre-eminent as the ideal gourmet, belonged to the reign of
Tiberius. His culinary lore was, as we know from Seneca and from a note
on Juvenal,[401] committed to writing. The work, however, on cookery in
ten books which passes under his name (_Apicius de re coquinaria_)[402]
is a compilation of some centuries later, poorly and even ungrammatically
written, although entertaining for its astounding variety in ingredients
and modes of dressing fish, flesh and fowl, as well as for such naïve
receipts as that for improving honey: “mix two parts of good honey with
the bad and put on the market.”
In philosophy the austere morality of the Sextii, father and son, in
the Augustan age, had been transmitted through their adherent Papirius
Fabianus to the youthful Seneca. Celsus, as we have seen, also wrote on
philosophy. Theoretical speculation, however, might prove politically
disastrous; for the uncompromising arguments of Julius Kanus, or
Canus, led to his being sentenced to death by Caligula:[403] it was
a philosopher who attended him to the place of execution, Julius
undertaking that, if he discovered the condition of souls in the other
world, he would revisit his friends to inform them. But the Stoics in the
time of Nero form a more powerful group of thinkers, and, as we shall
see, left a permanent mark on literature.
CHAPTER V
PHAEDRUS AND FABLE: POETRY OF THE TIME
Phaedrus—His Life—Books of Fables and “Appendix”—Text
incomplete—His Greek exemplar—Relationship to Aesop—Novelties
introduced by Phaedrus—Anecdotes based on Roman
life—Political allusions and prosecution by Sejanus—The
gentle art of making enemies—The injustices of life—Human
weaknesses—The serious and the humorous—Perennial interest
in fable—Realism—Phaedrus as man of letters—Fable in the
later Roman world—Style—Art—Phaedrus and La Fontaine—Metre—A
concluding view.
The poems of Tiberius—Germanicus Caesar’s _Aratea_—Mythological
Astronomy—Albinovanus Pedo—Decadent forms of drama—Mime,
Atellan farces and _Fabulae Salticae_—Pomponius Secundus.
PHAEDRUS: THE FABULIST OF ROME
Phaedrus,[404] the fabulist of Roman literature, was an alien slave of
Thracian, or, to use his own adjective, “Pierian” origin. The lines[405]
in which he laid claim to birth “almost in the very school of the
Muses” are to be taken, according to the spirit of the context, in the
strict geographical sense and not as a metaphorical anticipation of
the Tennysonian conception that “the poet in a golden clime is born.”
Perhaps the plain prose of the matter is that his birthplace was the
Roman colony of Philippi. Evidently he was brought to Italy when
young; for he refers to studying Ennius in boyhood.[406] His Latin and
Greek education followed the customary routine, to judge from the fact
that, although fables do not readily lend themselves to a display of
erudition, yet his yield proof of acquaintance with such authors as
Virgil, Euripides and Simonides.[407] Hardly mentioned in classical
literature, his name first appears as a nominative, “Phaedrus,” in a
prefatory letter of Avianus;[408] but some have argued that it is more
in accord with linguistic usage and inscriptional evidence to call him
“Phaeder.” Inasmuch, then, as he became a freedman in the household of
Caesar Augustus, one may consider his full name C. Julius Phaeder or
Phaedrus.[409] Concerning the limits of his life, and its scanty details,
we are dependent upon deductions from his writings. There is a prevalent
consensus among critics that the first two of his five books were
published during the reign of Tiberius,[410] perhaps together, perhaps
separately, as Professor Ellis supposed,[411] and that the third book
appeared under Caligula, some time between A.D. 37 and the beginning of
41. Now, since passages[412] in that book suggest that the author was
already conscious of approaching age, there is justification for guessing
that he was born some fifteen years before the Christian era.[413]
Although in Book III he had decided to relinquish authorship, he explains
his change of mind in the prologue to the next book,[414] and even after
that we possess a fifth, the product of his advanced years.[415]
The two opening books, which explain in their prologues the relationship
between the present fables and those of Aesop, may be regarded as
dedicated to readers at large;[416] but the rest were dedicated to
individuals; namely, Book III to Eutychus, plausibly identified with the
chariot-driver of the Greens prominent under Caligula;[417] IV to one
Particulo, for whom Phaedrus entertained a respect enhanced, doubtless,
by gratification at being quoted in his compositions;[418] and Book V to
a certain Philetes, or Philetus, who is pointedly expected to see the
applicability to the aged author of the tale about the old hunting-dog
past its best:
Praise what we _were_, if what we _are_ you blame:
Nicely, Philetes, you can grasp my aim.[419]
In addition to these five books, for which (discounting the recorded
readings of the lost _Remensis_ and three imperfect codices) only a
single manuscript[420] is extant, there is an “Appendix” of about thirty
fables. These, although they look tinctured with medieval colour and
show signs of having been supplemented from the Greek collection of
Babrios, are considered to have been drawn by Perotti in the fifteenth
century from a subsequently lost abridgement of Phaedrus.[421] Twenty
so-called “New Fables” gained from the prose paraphrases associated
with the name of the medieval Romulus, appeared in Nilant’s edition
early in the eighteenth century. The traces discernible therein of their
original verse-form led scholars like Dressier and Lucian Müller to
rewrite them in metre.[422] Recently Zander in his _Phaedrus Solutus_
has reclaimed thirty fables which he has re-written in senarii after a
careful investigation of the three prose-collections—the Ademarian, the
Wissemburgensis and “Romulus.” Zander has aimed at separating Phaedrian
and non-Phaedrian elements in the prose paraphrases; he has isolated the
traces of fifth-century or sixth-century Latin comparable with what is to
be found in Salvianus or Gregory of Tours; and, following principles of
Phaedrian metric expounded by Havet, he has made a rather more successful
iambic reconstruction of missing fables than some of his predecessors in
this field.
Much of Phaedrus, then, is lost. This is a safe conclusion, if only
from gaps in our existing text and from the disproportionate length of
the books—the total of 93 fables in the five books being made up of the
constituent numbers 31, 8, 19, 25 and 10. Besides, an objection of the
imaginary matter-of-fact critic forestalled by Phaedrus[423] is that “not
merely beasts but trees do speak” in his fables; yet, in such of the
surviving tales as are incontestably by Phaedrus, trees nowhere appear
among the interlocutors.[424]
If Phaedrus had been asked what was the origin of his material, he would
have answered “Aesop” without hesitancy or qualification. Yet the true
answer is not so simple. On the one hand, the well-springs lay far deeper
in primeval Aryan tales than Phaedrus could have dreamed, and on the
other hand the fables which he assumed to be by Aesop consisted largely
of accretions subsequent to Aesop’s time. The primitive beast-story,
so widespread an element in folklore, becomes literary when it is
shaped either to satiric or to moral purpose. Some such shaping of the
beast-fable lies at the root of the renown of the Samian slave, the
actual “Aisopos,” who flourished in the middle of the sixth century
B.C. From tradition and experience—that great repository of practical
morality—the Greek observer drew his store. But in the history of
literature “Aesop” became gradually a vague name; for later tales were
freely ascribed to him as a kind of father of fable, and such tales
enjoyed wide popularity among Greek democracies both as a convenient
cloak for social criticism and as a simple form of amusement. In this
respect, then, there is an “Aesopic” just as there is a “Homeric”
Question. The supposed Aesopic fables (λόγων Αἰσωπείων συναγωγαί) were
gathered about 300 B.C. by Demetrius of Phaleron, once tyrant at Athens,
and afterwards _savant_ at Alexandria, where he did much to establish
the great library. This Greek prose collection it was—altered and
interpolated by Alexandrine scholars—which formed the basis of Phaedrus’s
neat version in Latin iambics. The same collection, it may be inferred
from the reappearance of several stories in Plutarch (or in writings
attributed to him), was a source common to Phaedrus and Plutarch (or the
pseudo-Plutarch).[425] Further, there is ground for holding that the
modern “Aesop” contains actually more of Phaedrus than of Aisopos, thanks
to the influence exerted by Phaedrus in medieval times, mainly if not
entirely through the prose-forms to which his verses had been reduced.
Phaedrus was not the first who used the fable in Roman literature. It
had been employed incidentally by Ennius, Lucilius and Horace.[426]
Phaedrus, however, was the first to compose separate volumes of fables
in Latin: this was the one Hellenic form not yet taken over. Drama,
epic, didactic, elegy, lyric, history presented no fresh openings; but a
limited claim to originality might be based on free poetic adaptations
of Greek prose-fables current under the name of “Aesop.” The attitude
of Phaedrus to “Aesop” was not one which paused critically to examine
the implications of the name, but evidently accepted “Aesop” as the
personality responsible for the fables ascribed to him. Phaedrus,
therefore, felt that, however much he might modify or add, he
individually owed Aesop a debt for the substance at least of the fables;
and this relationship to the Greek sage is proclaimed at the outset:
Matter which first old Aesop did rehearse
Hath Phaedrus polished in iambic verse.
Two boons my book hath: it can laughter raise,
And gives sage counsel in life’s wildering maze.
Howbeit, should one think to criticize,
Since beasts, nay even trees, here sermonize,
Let him remember that in fables we
Divert ourselves with unreality.[427]
Indeed, throughout we are continually being reminded of his model. The
epilogue to the second book—an _envoi_ to the volume which began with the
piece just cited—gives utterance to his admiration in the sentiment which
possessed a strong attraction for De Quincey:
To Aesop Athens reared a statue great,
And set on lasting marble base a slave——[428]
a proof, says Phaedrus, that the pathway of honour lies open to all and
that glory depends on merit instead of birth. If he follows in Aesop’s
steps, it is in no spirit of envy, but in one of fair emulation:
If Latium shall countenance my task,
More authors shall she have to match with Greece.[429]
The prologue of the next book shows that this ambitious desire of
bringing honour to Roman literature harmonizes with his own patriotic
appreciation of Hellenic traditions:
If Phrygian Aesop by his genius,
If Scythian Anacharsis could by his
Build deathless glory, why should I, who am
Of nearer kin to literary Greece,
Forsake in idle sleep my country’s fame?[430]
In a later poem, he pictures Aesop brought out in “the fresh buskins” of
the tragic trimeter;[431] elsewhere,[432] he protests against carping
detractors who set successes among the fables to Aesop’s account but
failures to Phaedrus’s own account. The last prologue offers the
explanation that he employs Aesop’s name to recommend his works, as great
artists’ names might be inscribed on productions not by themselves: this
is virtually to amplify his remark in another place that the fables are
not “Aesop’s, but Aesopian.”[433]
It may well be, as Lucian Müller suggested,[434] that Phaedrus used a
more complete Aesop than is now available, and that we therefore cannot
know how much he owed; but, however extensive his debt, it does not
amount to servile borrowing. Independence is not surprising in an author
who explicitly recognizes individuality in literature,[435] and who,
while he undertakes to imitate Aesop’s principle of instruction through
examples, at the same time engages to introduce novel and diverting
anecdotes:
The sage’s method I shall keep with care:
Yet should it please me add some incidents
Whereby variety may charm the taste,
I pray thee, reader, take it courteously.[436]
By such promised anecdotes, some from bygone Greek life, some from
contemporary Rome, and by allusions to current events sufficiently
caustic to bring trouble upon his head, Phaedrus added greatly to the
living force of his work. Bent on his twofold purpose of amusement and
counsel, he could not, without becoming a dull second-hand plagiarist,
shut his eyes to his own times. Occasionally, indeed, the Roman setting
is plainly revealed. It is so in the case of the too-credulous father
who slew his son under a misapprehension, and then by his suicide left
his suspected wife to be haled before the _centumuiri_: it is so in the
tale of the conceited flute-player called “Princeps,”[437] who used to
play accompaniments to the _pantomimus_ Bathyllus and who, with sublime
assurance, mistook for plaudits in his own honour the acclamations of the
theatre intended for the real _princeps_, the emperor. Equally Roman, or
at least Italian, is the atmosphere in the entertaining tale about the
peasant who competed in pig-squeaking on the stage against a professional
ventriloquist, and, despite his ingenious precaution of keeping a
live porker hidden beneath his clothes to be pinched surreptitiously,
was howled down by the audience as defective in realism! The closing
situation is one of delicious irony when he turns the laugh against his
judges by openly displaying the authentic grunter:
Look ye, this shows what critics you must be.[438]
Again, the painted “history” of the warfare between mice and weasels[439]
seems to allude to wall-paintings of a comic or burlesque nature such
as can be illustrated from Pompeii. Another instance is a hit at the
_ardaliones_,[440] the fussy triflers and ineffectual meddlers of Roman
society. They are derided under the semblance of an officious slave who,
by forcing his gardening labours upon the attention of his imperial
majesty, tried hard to curry favour and possibly win the ceremonial slap
(_alapa_) that conferred liberty:
A tribe of busy-bodies lives at Rome,
Hot-headed bustlers, pressed mid idleness,
Panting _sans_ effort, and with much ado
Effecting naught, a plague unto themselves
And most detestable to other men.
This tribe, if I but can, I would reform
By this true tale, which will repay your care.
Tiberius Caesar once, when Naples-bound,
Had reached his villa at Misenum’s Cape,
Which, by Lucullus on the headland built,
Gazes far over the Sicilian main,
And looks right down upon the Tuscan Sea.
The Prince was strolling ’mid its pleasant glades,
When one of his high-girt domestic slaves,
Whose tunic of Egyptian linen fell
Loose from his shoulders with its drooping fringe,
Started with wooden watering-pot to spray
The droughty ground, and for parade of work
Got laughed at. Then by well-known cuts he gained
Another terrace, quick to lay the dust.
Caesar observed the man and grasped his game
Of counting on some profit to be earned.
“Come here!” the Emperor cried; the knave skipped up,
Brisk with the joy of sure gratuity.
Then his Imperial Highness had his jest:
“You’ve not scored much, and all your fuss is lost:
Far more with me the slaps of freedom cost!”[441]
But Phaedrus’s satire was not merely social: it invaded politics. In
one passage he refers to fable as a literary invention which might be
of service when one dare not be outspoken;[442] and though it would be
an exaggeration to consider him an organ of political opposition, he
clearly did give umbrage in high quarters by criticisms. There are always
people ready to fit the satiric cap on their heads; and much in Phaedrus
could be deemed offensive by a bad conscience. Some doubtless detected
a political allusion where none was intended; yet there were lines which
inevitably summoned up before the mind recent chapters in Roman history.
No one, for instance, with republican sympathies in his heart could avoid
putting his own interpretation and comment upon the lines:
Amid a change of government in states
Poor folk change nothing but their master’s name.[443]
Besides, certain fables definitely entered on dangerous ground. Thus, the
familiar tale of the Wolf and the Lamb is explicitly levelled at false
accusers, deriving special significance from the increase of informers
(_delatores_), eager to secure convictions for treason, and encouraged by
the authorities.[444] Nor is hatred of _delatores_ under Tiberius far to
seek in the story of the evil end which befell the Wolf who bore false
witness to support the Dog as plaintiff in his invented claim against
the Sheep for a loan.[445] Indeed, there is a good deal of fun in the
fables at the expense of law-courts and judges. The problem whether
the emperor liked the anecdote (previously translated) concerning his
snub administered to the officious slave must remain undetermined; and
equally insoluble is the question whether he recognized his portrait in
the dread King Water-snake sent to succeed King Log, the _roi fainéant_
against whom the Frogs had petitioned;[446] but, at any rate, for the
emperor’s minister Sejanus there was decidedly unpalatable reading in the
first two books. Sejanus was very like the upstart Jackdaw in peacock’s
feathers and his projected alliance with Livia, widow of the younger
Drusus, possibly lent a sting to the protests of the Frogs against
the marriage of the Sun who, even as things were, dried up the pools:
“what will result if he have progeny?”[447] Whichever may have been the
offending fables in the volume of Bad Beasts, Sejanus assuredly did
institute proceedings against the author, who resented the indignity of
suffering “calamity” at such hands.[448] There is no evidence as to the
punishment inflicted—whether it was banishment or imprisonment or even a
return to slavery—but Phaedrus’s tone proves that it left him sore; and
the incident is one among many illustrations of the repressive influence
of the imperial _entourage_, a circle where few dared say the thing they
felt.
It was not only through political strictures that Phaedrus made enemies.
As we shall find, his very style, his love of brevity and pith, incurred
hostile criticism, and, like Terence, he felt bound to devote portions of
his prologues to answering detractors. Annoyance was also given by the
manner in which his fables upheld honesty and justice:
Hard task it is one’s feeling to restrain,
When, conscious of sincere integrity,
’Tis badgered by the insolence of knaves.
“Who are they?” you will ask: well, time will show.
There is a motto which I learned at school:
“An open growl from common folk is crime.”
While I have wits, I shall remember well.[449]
Perhaps he is over-insistent on the didactic element in his work and on
the lessons derivable from regarding him seriously:
You take my work for jest; with naught to do
More grave, I wield an airy pen, ’tis true:
Howbeit, scan my trivial lays with care,
And how great profit shall you gather there![450]
It is an important aspect of his relation to his times, and a powerful
factor in his social criticism, that he emphasizes the ubiquitous
presence and frequent triumph of injustice. It would be too much to call
him gloomy or pessimistic; yet his figures move in a beast-world where,
notwithstanding the moral sermonettes, much hardship and unfairness are
perforce endured. The Wolf tyrannizes unmolested: the Lion insists that
the whole spoil is his “share” and defies his allies to demur: the Ass,
captured by robbers, feels no worse for the change of owner than, as a
rule, Rome might when she gets a new emperor.[451] When the great fall
out, humble people have to suffer—so argue the Frogs about the battles of
the Bulls.[452] In a life so troublous, resignation is assumed to be a
wise precaution—the Frogs, oppressed by their terrible King Water-snake,
after lazy King Log, come to realize that it is best to let well
alone, or even if things are not well, to bear the ills one has.[453]
Accordingly, there is much acceptance of fate. This is a wicked world,
and must be recognized as such; for so far are rogues from infallibly
getting their deserts that their success is often a good advertisement
for villainy (_successus improborum plures allicit_, II. iii. 7).
Phaedrus, however, looked beyond the Rome of his day to that wider sphere
of human nature which the best fables always illustrate and to which they
owe much of their perennial attraction:
My scheme will brand no individual,
But life itself and human ways describe
—“A heavy task to promise,” one may say.[454]
This relation to life at large comes to a great extent under the second
of his professed objects—sound counsel. For example, it is with becoming
seriousness that he treats the idea of the two wallets for human
shortcomings familiar in Catullus’s allusion and forming the ancient
analogue to Burns’ aspiration:
Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
In Phaedrus it takes this shape:
Two wallets Jove on us hath slung—
One stuffed with faults ourselves have made
He set upon our back; and hung
Before our breast the other, weighed
Down with all other people’s vice.
Hence our own frailty ’scapes our eyes:
Let neighbours slip—we criticize![455]
With similar seriousness of tone he uses the instance of the
treasure-dragon to introduce his impressive apostrophe to the miser.[456]
In another poem we find the wise pilot’s advice for voyagers across the
ocean of life:
Rejoice restrainedly and murmur slow;
For life is one long blend of weal and woe.[457]
There is also a note of pathetic truth to human experience and of wistful
yearning in the little piece on the rarity of affection in ordinary life:
The name of friend is common; friendship, rare.
When a small home was built by Socrates
(I would not shun his death to win his fame,
I’d yield to odium, if but cleared when dust),
One of the people—name unknown, of course—
Asked “Why so small a house for one so great?”
The answer came “’Twill hold my real friends.”[458]
Yet it would be unfair to leave the impression that even in his satire on
human nature Phaedrus constantly wears a sober face. He does not forget
that one of his objects is amusement; and although there may be little
enough of the “laughter” which he promised, still many subjects are
treated lightly and pleasantly. In such manner he handles the recurrent
foibles of humanity exemplified in braggarts, in public gullibility, in
interested advisers, in the old lady with a weakness for drink, and so
forth.[459] Here is his glance at good-looking and lucky fools:
Sir Reynard once a tragic mask espied:
“How fine a face to have no brain inside!”
Said he. And so with those to whom their fate
Gives rank and glory, but an empty pate.[460]
Here again, a little more fully than in the Horatian _parturiunt montes,
nascetur ridiculus mus_, we have a vivid illustration of “much cry and
little wool”:
A mountain once was brought to bed
With frantic groans of labour torn.
Earth in excitement lost its head—
When lo! a tiny mouse was born!
This story is designed for one
Of mighty threats, fulfilment none.[461]
There is humour, too, as of some irresolute Sir Roger de Coverley, in Mr.
Justice Ape’s summing up of a case where prosecutor and defendant are
alike disreputable, and there has been unscrupulous cross-swearing. After
hearing two clever but conflicting perorations, the Justice pronounces
with Gilbertian comicality for both sides:
“You, Wolf, it seems, ne’er lost what now you claim:
I find, glib Fox, you stole it all the same!”[462]
One must not overlook another source of charm. Good fables have a right
to be read for the story alone. Now, as has been pointed out, much in
Phaedrus comes down through Aesop from the primitive beast-story and
folklore of the Aryans: much is but the residuum of what prehistoric
fancy was capable of inventing and believing in far-off times when
quadruped, reptile and bird were supposed to talk. Phaedrus gave classic
expression in verse to tales which have appealed to countless generations
of children, and which hold their own in the modern nursery. For, as M.
Reinach would like us to believe, our youngsters love such tales because
they are unconscious totemists![463] To read Phaedrus, therefore, is like
meeting friends that everyone must know, because the stories illustrate
the common experience of mankind. So, granted a judicious ability to
overlook the obtrusion of a moral first or last in a fable, one never
tires of The Wolf and the Lamb, The Jackdaw in Peacock’s Feathers, The
Lion’s Share, The Ambitious Frog and the Ox, The Sham Hospitality of Fox
and Stork, The Mule with the Load of Gold and the Mule with the Load of
Barley, The Wolf at Large and the Dog with a Collar,[464] The Pearl in
the Dung-heap, Aesop tossing Nuts or All Work and No Play, The Fox and
the Sour Grapes, The Viper and the File, The Snake in the Bosom, The
Forelock of Opportunity, and Old Bald-pate with the Fly or Adding Insult
to Injury.[465]
Human realism, in fact, has been imparted to the beast-fable. Constantly
forgetting that one is reading about animals, one does not care if the
doings and sayings are inconsistent with the laws of physics or natural
history. It matters little that a swimming dog is unlikely to see his
reflexion in the water, and that cats do not habitually eat young
pigs.[466] The passions, wiles and talk of the animals are convincing
because of the resemblance to mankind. In this sense, how natural it all
is—how true to life! The cynical ingratitude of the bitch after borrowing
shelter for herself and whelps; the mortally wounded pride of the old
lion who endures a double death (_bis uideor mori_) when kicked by the
ass; the much to be suspected outburst of sudden generosity on the part
of designing persons in contrast with the staid fidelity of a watchdog;
the dignified contempt wherewith the boar declines to avenge a lewd
insult (_inquinari nolo_)—these[467] and many such have close parallels
in actuality. Little wonder, then, that contemporaries not infrequently
beheld themselves under the disguise. So entirely apposite were many
stories that, as already seen, offence was sure to be taken where none
was meant.
Without being among the great in achievement, Phaedrus yet exhibits
the genuine attitude of a man of letters. He is intensely sensitive to
unfriendly criticism; he repeatedly makes retorts on cavillers;[468] he
is proud of literary qualities like brevity;[469] believes he has his
place as the introducer of a new form in Roman literature;[470] and has
confidence in the survival of his writings.[471] He takes pleasure in his
vocation; for it is with obvious satisfaction that he recounts the value
of literature to Simonides.[472] Yet, equipped as he was with talent and
self-reliance, and likely to secure an initial recommendation from his
connexion with the imperial court, he admits that he made his way with
difficulty. The admission occurs in the passage where, after mentioning
his birth, he avows his disdain for wealth and his devotion to poetry:
I came to birth on that Pierian hill,
Whereon the hallowed dame, Mnemosyne,
Nine times a mother, bore to Thunderer Jove
The Muses’ Choir. Though almost in that school
I first saw light, though from my breast I have
Erased all lust for gain, and with fair fame
Undimmed, have set my heart on my career,
Still ’tis but grudging welcome I receive.[473]
In face of opposition, however, he feels the superiority of his own
unappreciated pearls: it is like throwing them on a dung-hill to offer
fables to unresponsive readers:
Once in a dung-heap, as for food it sought,
A barnyard fowl a pearl to light had brought:
“Ah, what a gem to lie so low!” he cried;
“If found by one for thy true worth keen-eyed,
Long since thou hadst regained thy pristine pride.
But I, thy finder, much prefer my food:
Nor I to thee, nor thou to me dost good!”
I mean the present fable to allude
To those who Phaedrus have not understood![474]
The tardy acceptance of his writings during his lifetime seems in harmony
with the silence regarding him in the classics at large. Seneca, writing
about A.D. 43, pronounces the fable to be work “unattempted by the
_Roman_ genius.”[475] Possibly in this remark he may definitely have the
Greek Phaedrus in mind, though he does not name him. Quintilian, while
he finds a place for fable in his scheme of education,[476] does not
mention Phaedrus. Before Avianus, who wrote in the fourth century, the
single allusion generally cited as applicable to him, namely, Martial’s
_an aemulatur improbi iocos Phaedri?_ is not beyond dispute. While it is
appropriate in Martial to call the fables _ioci_, as their author does,
the epithet _improbus_, if it seriously means “shameless,” is remarkably
inappropriate as a fair description of our moralist, even when we grant
that he can be coarse. It is just possible that the coarsest in him has
not survived; but unless one adopts a supposition of this sort, there
is a temptation to fancy that the Phaedrus whom Martial meant may have
been some obscure writer of mimes.[477] More justice was done to his
reputation in later centuries when abridgements were in vogue; and in the
Middle Ages he may said to have had his revenge.
This is a suitable point at which to note briefly the later fortunes of
fable in the Roman world. It was not till after the time of Augustus
that a group of Indian beast-stories with ethical applications was
brought to Alexandria by a Cingalese embassy. Translated as the “Libyan
Fables” of one “Kybises,” they had pithy conclusions pointing the moral
to be deduced. In the days of Marcus Aurelius, a rhetor at his court,
Nicostratus, formed a _corpus_ out of the old Greek collection of
Demetrius and the Libyan collection of “Kybises.” This body of fable from
the nearer and the farther East was next turned into Greek choliambics by
Valerius Babrius, about whose date there has been considerable dispute,
but who was perhaps tutor to the young son of Alexander Severus. It is
the Libyan element, rather than the Aesopic, which predominates among
the forty-two fables done into Latin elegiacs by Flavius Avianus in the
fourth century; and his uninspiring verses close the ancient records on
this subject. With the later and more fascinating history of fable we are
not concerned except to observe that in the Middle Ages it was Phaedrus
who was especially read and paraphrased among fabulists. About eighty of
his fables were collected in prose, perhaps in the ninth century,[478]
and went under the name of “Romulus.” The prose collection which once
belonged to the monk Ademar of Chabannes or Chabanais,[479] and was
possibly written by himself early in the eleventh century, possesses the
historic interest of preserving some portions of Phaedrus otherwise lost;
elsewhere among its contents are prose versions of existent verse fables
in Phaedrus with but slight alterations.[480]
The outstanding qualities of the style and art of Phaedrus are his direct
simplicity of language and unpretentious neatness of phrase and line. On
brevity, as already indicated, he plumed himself, though on occasion he
is half-apologetic over it. Brevity, we know, is not necessarily simple;
but his brevity is. With him, condensation was not purchased at the
expense of clearness; for his style is on the whole flowing and easy.
Its natural turns, which seem to grow out of the nature of the subject,
are at once appropriate to his animal speakers and a contrast to the
artificial rhetoric beginning to inundate Latin literature. At the same
time, he was aware of this increasing tendency towards the high-flown
and the far-fetched; for in a passage[481] where he makes telling retort
on the hypercriticism launched at him, he composes a specimen of the
tragic manner, and proclaims the impossibility of pleasing a fastidious
Cato[482] of a critic by means of either _fabellae_ (fables) or _fabulae_
(plays). It is, then, vastly to his credit that, while he thus affords
proof of what he could do in aping tragic diction, he yet so avoids
inflation and preciosity as to attain a strict and almost Attic sobriety
of style comparable with the clear-cut and restrained work of Terence
in the drama or of Caesar in prose. His use of antithesis, which is not
tediously overdone, may be cited in illustration of his restraint; _e.g._
Strangers he gulls, but friends make fun of him
(_Ignotos fallit, notis est derisui_, I. xi. 2)
or
Bores to themselves, to others _caviare_
(_Sibi molesta et aliis odiosissima_, II. v. 4).
In a certain fondness for abstract[483] turns of expression one remarks
a resemblance to the style of Valerius Maximus, and therefore a symptom
of the movement in the language towards Silver Latinity. In general,
despite his foreign origin, the Latin of Phaedrus obeys correct canons,
though there are occasional vulgarisms and instances of loose grammatical
usage.[484]
He does not possess in any remarkable degree the artist’s eye. The
picturesque may be said to begin and end for him in a few vivid
synonyms like “long-ears” (_auritulus_) for an ass, “the wizened one”
(_retorridus_) for an old mouse, or in epithets like those in “branching
antlers” (_ramosa cornua_) of a stag, or “lightning-flashing tusks”
of the wild boar (_fulmineis dentibus_).[485] He may pause to give a
condensed description; but it is rare to find anything so full in this
kind as Juno’s summary of the peacock’s advantages:
Thou bear’st the palm for beauty as for size;
The gleam of emerald illumes thy neck;
A tail thou spread’st with brilliant plumes begemmed.[486]
Nor does he trouble, we have seen, to keep true to nature; except in
wonderland, cow, she-goat and sheep make a curious triple alliance
for a lion on a carnivorous expedition. Really, Phaedrus is in Roman
fashion bent upon moralizing so that his readers shall reap benefit
(_utilitatem_);[487] and this domination of the moral is one factor which
prevents any free and accurate study of animals. Not one of the world’s
mighty sages, he has rather a thin philosophy to propound; and on his
narrow stage the beasts sometimes display no more vitality than wooden
marionettes. This renders his psychology too naïve—his animals reason
in a manner patently subordinate to the intended lesson. The doves, for
instance, harried by the kite, see at last the error of their ways and
acknowledge the justice of their punishment:[488] and the outcome has a
smack suggestive of a death-bed repentance in accord with the distinctly
self-regarding morality inculcated.
Although the parallel of La Fontaine’s fables must cross the mind
insistently during a study of Phaedrus, yet any elaborate comparison
between the two would be futile. There is so much that is incommensurate.
The claim of Phaedrus had been to polish in iambic verse the prose of
“Aesop”; and it may be granted that his fables have more picturesque
turns than their Greek originals. But they pale before the masterpieces
of the French writer. Phaedrus does not possess the knowledge, the
penetration, the dramatic power, the sense of style—he has not, in short,
the genius which makes La Fontaine a great poet at a great epoch, and
_par excellence_ the thinker and artist among fabulists. The Russian
fabulist Kriloff, who is manifestly under obligations both to La Fontaine
and to Aesop, may in one striking way be said to continue the Phaedrian
tradition; for, whereas La Fontaine’s fables are impersonal, Kriloff’s
had a frequent and pointed bearing on affairs and circumstances in the
Russia of his time.
The metre of Phaedrus is the iambic senarius throughout. It is not the
iambic line favoured by Catullus, Bibaculus or Horace, but broadly that
employed by the ancient comic writers. He may have been influenced by
Publilius Syrus, to whose sententious manner the moral of a fable often
bears resemblance. We meet with a different type of iambic trimeter in
Seneca, who, owing to Ovidian influence,[489] composed lines unlike the
early Roman tragic iambic; for neatness and monotony have in the Senecan
iambic replaced the strong rough lines of Ennius, Pacuvius and Accius.
But it is the ancient iambic line, as used in comedy by Plautus and
Terence, which descends lineally to Phaedrus. Only, while he may offend
a fastidious ear by admitting spondees in the second and the fourth
feet, he is generally careful to avoid overloading his verse with long
syllables and to secure variety of sound by introducing other metrical
feet[490] and by attention to elision.
Regarding the fables as a whole, Dr. Mackail contends that “their
chief interest is as the last survival of the _urbanus sermo_ in Latin
poetry”;[491] but perhaps this view too exclusively estimates them from
the linguistic and stylistic side. Slight from the standpoint of purely
literary merit, the fables of Phaedrus do however possess considerable
historical importance. They hold their place in the chronicle of European
fable-literature; they form a chapter in the book of Rome’s debt to Greek
models; they contain a significant amount of original material, with a
virile bearing upon contemporary life; and, farther, it is not the least
of their claims to attention that they wielded a potent influence in
medieval times, and, if only as one of those lesson-books which sink deep
into the memory, they have been beloved by many generations of readers.
POETRY OF THE TIME
To the exiguous body of minor poetry during his own times Tiberius
contributed a lyric lament on the death of L. Caesar, and poems in the
late Greek manner.[492] It has already been observed that the emperor had
profited by his studies in rhetoric, under Theodorus and others, enough
to acquit himself proficiently in speaking and in writing, though he
cultivated at times a halting and obscure manner. Towards the close of
Augustus’s reign, Manilius[493] had written his _Astronomica_, viewing
the universe on Stoic principles and displaying a style not uninfluenced
by Ovidian dexterity.
A famous but ill-starred prince has a niche in the history of that
particular type of didactic poetry which descended from Cicero and
Manilius. The emperor’s nephew and adopted son, Germanicus[494] (15
B.C.–A.D. 19), added to military ability a command of his own language
as speaker and poet.[495] He wrote Greek comedies which have perished,
and in both languages elegiac epigrams, a few of which have been
preserved, including a Latin one on a boy who met with a fatal accident
on ice. To him are usually assigned the hexameter translations or
adaptations of the Greek poems by Aratus of Soli in Cilicia on astronomy
and weather-forecasts (Φαινόμενα and Διοσημεῖα) which have come down,
some 700 and 200 lines respectively, under the name of “Claudius
Caesar.” There is ancient authority for the ascription to Germanicus;
Lactantius, for instance, quotes a line from “Germanicus Caesar in his
Aratean poem.”[496] An apostrophe to Augustus in the poem (l. 558)
implies the death of that emperor, and _genitor_ in l. 2 is applicable
to his adoptive father Tiberius. Rutgers’s advocacy for the authorship
of Domitian (who did not take the title “Germanicus” until after his
campaign against the Chatti in A.D. 84) has found little acceptance.
Astronomy formed in antiquity an integral part of a liberal education:
a cultured Roman in reading about the heavens was far from being so
helpless as is the average reader of to-day, nor was the ancient so
ignorant when he looked at the starry sky. The work translated and
amplified by Germanicus is, in effect, an indication of a different type
of knowledge, requirement and interest from that usual in modern times,
and its compound of astronomy and mythology cannot retain the attraction
which it once exercised. A heavenly body is not merely mentioned in its
position or for its influence: it is connected with the legend from
which its name is derived, and so the didactic is lit up with faint
gleams of poetry, in which perhaps Germanicus excels his original. Thus
the deteriorating ages of the world appear as in Ovid, and the name of a
constellation like Andromeda leads away from science into fancy:[497]
The picture of her woe abides: she still extends
Her arms as once when bound to cruel cliff.
Long ago, Frey[498] pointed out the prince’s free treatment of his Greek
original, his correction of mistakes in the light of later knowledge,
and his insertion of passages of his own composition, somewhat in the
fashion observable in Coleridge’s rendering of Schiller’s _Wallenstein_.
If time-honoured legends are not subjected to critical examination, they
are at least sometimes introduced apologetically: “if an old tale may
find favour,” “if in truth Juppiter was suckled as a child,” “if in truth
Atlans upholds the realms of Jove.”[499] This independence of method and
spirit is one of the features which distinguishes Germanicus’s version of
the _Aratea_ from the preceding attempt by Cicero and the later one by
Avienus in the fourth century.
A poem concerned with Germanicus may appropriately be mentioned here,
because it connects the age of Augustus and that of Tiberius. It is a
fragment in hexameters which stops short in the twenty-third line as
quoted by the elder Seneca[500] to illustrate Latin power in describing
the ocean. The verses are by Albinovanus Pedo,[501] a poet of Ovid’s
set, who had written a _Theseid_ and elegies, including a consolation
to Livia on the death of Germanicus’s father, Drusus, some twenty-four
years earlier than this poem on the expedition under Germanicus into
the North Sea. Tacitus has described the storm which befell this same
expedition in the _Annals_ (II. xxiii.). In turgid style Pedo aims at
conveying the nervous alarm of adventurers braving the unknown hazards
of high latitudes, with a sense of being exiled (_extorres_) beyond the
known limits of the globe into sunless realms where Ocean “bears enormous
monsters ’neath its sluggish tides”: They exclaim:
Heaven calls us back, forbidding mortal eyes
To know the boundary of the world: why force
With oars those alien seas and haunted waves?[502]
Though Pedo is mainly Augustan, his declamatory lines composed under
Tiberius possess the interest of forming a link between the rhetorical
qualities observable in Ovid and the epic poetry of the Silver Age.
The rarity of names of contemporary playwrights is a reminder that the
drama, usually at Rome outrivalled by less intellectual entertainments,
had fallen upon evil days. The popular dramatic performances, in favour
of which comedy[503] had virtually disappeared, were now the mime and the
Atellan farce. The mime, realistic and often coarse though it was in its
picture of life, yet, according to the opinion of so staid a philosopher
as Seneca, shared with ancient classical tragedy and comedy the merit of
conveying impressive lessons of practical wisdom;[504] and there is a
familiar anecdote told of the death-bed scene when Augustus asked those
around him whether he had played the “mime” of life well, capping his
query with Greek verses which solicited their applause.[505] A writer
of Caligula’s time named Catullus composed mimes, two of which were
_Phasma_ (“The Spectre”) and _Laureolus_, whose title-rôle of a bandit
was on one occasion sustained by a wretched criminal who underwent a
real crucifixion upon the stage.[506] The Atellan farce held its ground
during several reigns,[507] and was presumably all the more acceptable
because some line or lines might strike the audience as covertly directed
against an emperor.
Tragedy can scarcely be said to have had a real survival in the atrophied
forms of _fabulae salticae_ and dramatic recitations.[508] The _fabula
saltica_ expressed action, feeling and character, sometimes no doubt
with marvellous dexterity, through the dancing, gesture and garb of a
_pantomimus_, while the words of the play were assigned to a chorus.
Had the librettos come down, some might conceivably have entered into
literary history: we know, for instance, that Lucan wrote fourteen such
librettos; and, later, Statius wrote an _Agaue_ for the dancer Paris.
Many pieces, however, were based on the most unsavoury stories in
mythology, and represented a Pasiphaë, a Myrrha, or a Leda. As regards
the pathetic recitations extracted from plays or composed specially to
recite, this mutilated or attenuated form of drama became one of the
great amusements of Nero both as writer and performer.
Dramatic composition under the Empire was in reality no safer for authors
than history was. If a mere line about a ruler’s folly in a tragedy
apparently so remote from contemporary politics as his _Atreus_ involved
the downfall of Mamercus Scaurus,[509] it is hardly matter for surprise
that an equivocal jest in an Atellan farce should lead Caligula to have
its luckless author burned in the amphitheatre.[510] The friendship
of P. Pomponius Secundus[511] with a son of Sejanus had rendered him
suspect under Tiberius, and for years he remained under surveillance with
enforced leisure for literary creation. Outliving Tiberius, he again
became a public figure. The elder Pliny speaks of him as of consular
rank, served under him against the Germans, and wrote his biography. Why
the mob in the theatre attacked the dramatist in A.D. 47 is not clear.
Quintilian, at any rate, considered him far the best tragic poet he had
seen. A single title of his plays survives—the _Aeneas_, presumably a
_praetexta_ dramatizing portions of the legendary history of Rome.[512]
LITERATURE OF THE NERONIAN PERIOD
A.D. 54–A.D. 68
CHAPTER I
COLUMELLA AND AGRICULTURE
Columella’s works—His date—Subjects treated in _De Re
Rustica_—His outlook on agriculture—Vivid glimpses of
farm-life—Attitude to sources—Prose style—Feeling for
colour—His verse-book on gardens—Things useful and things
beautiful.
The _De Re Rustica_ of L. Junius Moderatus Columella[513] is our best
witness to methods of husbandry in the earlier Empire. A Spaniard by
birth—his native place was Gades[514] (Cadiz)—he took both a family and
a personal interest in farming. His uncle, “the most diligent husbandman
in the province of Baetica,”[515] whom he several times cites with
respect, gained great experience in land-owning: and when Columella
himself acquired estates in Italy,[516] he added practical knowledge
to his study of Greek, Carthaginian and Roman writers on the subject.
An inscription[517] tells that he was of the Galerian tribe and served
as an officer in the _legio sexta ferrata_; so it is a reasonable
conjecture that, when that legion was stationed in Syria, he took the
opportunity of observing agricultural operations which he recalled when
he came to write.[518] Besides his _De Re Rustica_ in twelve books
(originally designed to end with the tenth book which is in verse), he
had previously written a manual on agriculture, of which the second
book, _De Arboribus_, is left. A work now missing was his counterblast
to fortune-telling, _Adversus Astrologos_ (XI. i. 31); and he at least
had it in mind to compose[519] an account of rituals followed in farming,
which would have been of great value for a student of Roman religion.
He wrote after Julius Graecinus and Cornelius Celsus (the agricultural
part of whose encyclopaedia he often quotes), but before the elder
Pliny, who in turn used Columella. One other chronological point can be
determined, which shows he was writing in Nero’s reign. In the third
book of the _De Re Rustica_ he mentions Seneca, “a person of excellent
genius and learning,” as holding a Nomentan estate[520] not far from his
own; and, as Seneca acquired this late in life but must have already
held it long enough to make it known for its abundant vintage-yield, the
inference is that this book was written not much before Seneca’s death in
A.D. 65.
Briefly these are the subjects of the twelve books:
I, General rules for country life, _e.g._ on choosing land, securing
water and staffing a farm; II, treatment of land, ploughing, manuring,
various crops; III-IV, vineyards and vines; V, land dimensions, elms,
olives, fruit-trees; VI, cattle, horses, mules; VII, sheep, goats, and
(after a chapter on cheese-making) swine and dogs; VIII, poultry and
fish-ponds; IX, wild cattle and bees; X, gardens (in verse); XI, duties
of a farm-bailiff, work for different months, and gardens (in prose);
XII, duties of a bailiff’s wife—provisions, pickling, fruit-preserving;
on mead, cheese, figs, raisins, making and treatment of wines, savoury
olive marmalade, salting swine’s flesh.
From the mere headings one can see at once that such work is technical
rather than literary; yet there is much in it to recreate important
aspects of the environment of the Romans in the first century. Columella
was conscious that agriculture, the traditional strength of Rome, was
being sapped by the multiplication of parks and country-seats and by
wasteful mismanagement of estates through incompetence. He is very
insistent on the abuses due to absentee landlords, and equally insistent
on the need for practical farming and personal control. The owner who
manages for himself ought to secure better returns than he would by
letting to tenant-farmers, though this latter method avoids some of the
risks consequent on running the farm by slave-labour under a farm-bailiff.
A summary examination of his preface to the first book illustrates his
general outlook and his advocacy of restored attention to agriculture,
for which he has imbibed a traditional Roman veneration. The old Roman
practice, he says, of land-tilling in which a consul or a dictator
used to take personal delight, the pursuit which might be called “own
sister to philosophy” (_quasi consanguinea sapientiae_), has fallen
on evil days. There are teachers for all other sciences and arts,
including trumpery, luxurious, and even disreputable ones; but, he adds,
“of agriculture I have never known any to profess themselves either
instructors or students.” Mother earth is foolishly alleged to have
declined in fertility, whereas the true reason is that skilled labour
is not being devoted to her. Feeble old town-slaves will be banished to
do country work, although rural toil demands both knowledge and “green
age” capable of standing fatigue. In contrast with olden times, we Romans
“have crept (_correpsimus_) inside the city-wall and ply our hands rather
in circuses and theatres than among crops and vineyards.” We misspend our
days and nights and “consider ourselves lucky because we never see a
sunrise or a sunset.” Things are come to such a pass that “in this Latium
and Saturnian land we let out by public auction the importation of corn
from our provinces.” Agriculture is no easy thing to excel in; but the
right attitude is not despair in face of its vast variety (_tam variae
tamque uastae scientiae_), but determination to use the knowledge handed
down by Greek and Roman writers (many of whom Columella names),[521]
and to make diligent practical experiment. As he remarks in his first
chapter, “practice and experience are masters in the arts”: books and
rules are only auxiliary: nothing benefits the farm so much as the
master’s own presence.
Naturally the didactic value in such work outweighs the artistic; but
there is a great deal of old-world information which can hardly fail
to interest, though it may but concern the right contrivance of an old
Italian hen-house, the food proper for poultry, recipes for preserving
pears, the way to make mead of the very best honey, or the mode of
reasonably encouraging treatment which Columella found efficacious with
his slaves. It is something to have thus brought home to the mind what
life meant on farms in the imperial period, to learn that a shepherd’s
dog should be white so that it could be distinguished on dark mornings
or at evening twilight from the dangerous wolf, to note the frugality
and energy laid down as ideally requisite in a competent farm-bailiff,
to admire the methodical regularity declared to be equally essential in
the farm-bailiff’s wife as in a chorus of singers or (as the author says,
no doubt with a touch of personal reminiscence) in the army. One of the
truly Roman features in Columella is his maintenance of a standard of
hard work, fortified by his citation from Cato, “by doing nothing men
learn to do evil.” It is true his science is far from impeccable: some
of his cures are appallingly foolish, and his astronomy little likely to
produce a sound calendar. But then even blunders may have the merit of
affording amusement; and, besides, there is in him a modesty which half
disarms criticism. It appears very prettily in his final sentence, when,
now an old man, and conscious of the magnitude of his theme, he comes to
say good-bye to it:
As a conclusion of my work now accomplished, I think it not
improper, Publius Silvinus, to declare to my readers (if truly
any be found who deign to take cognizance of such affairs)
that I nowise doubted the existence of wellnigh an infinity
of matters capable of being ingrafted upon this subject, but
that I judged it right that only such as seemed most necessary
should be handed down to remembrance. Nature has not, however,
bestowed even on grey hairs insight into all things; for even
whosoever have been esteemed the wisest of mortals are said to
have known many things, but not all.[522]
Columella’s sources include, besides Greek authorities and Mago, the
Carthaginian, whose work the senate of the republic had ordained to
be translated into Latin, Cato,[523] the Sasernae (father and son),
Tremellius Scrofa, Varro, Virgil, Hyginus, and among later writers
Graecinus, Julius Atticus and Cornelius Celsus. The two last he
characterizes as “the most celebrated authors of our age.”[524] He often
adduces Celsus’s opinions, just as he often quotes Virgil’s _Georgics_.
Columella is noticeably more specific, in fact more honest, touching his
sources than many writers of antiquity were. Nothing could be more open
than his introductory remarks on bees and beehives. It is solely for the
sake of completeness, he explains, that he must include the theme: for on
it “no precepts can be given more carefully than have been delivered by
Hyginus, nor more gracefully than by Virgil, nor more elegantly than by
Celsus.”[525]
Columella writes on a practical subject in a practical way. Of course
there must be rare technical words drawn from operations that fall to be
described, like _abnodare_ (“cut off knots,” IV. xxii. 4, IV. xxiv. 10),
_decacuminare_ (“cut tops off,” IV. vii. 3, V. vi. 12), _canteriatae_
(of vines supported by trellis-work, V. iv. 1, _cf._ _canterius_, IV.
xii. 1), _impedatio_ (“propping,” IV. xiii. 1), _scabrata_ (of a vine
roughened by pruning, IV. xxiv. 22), _glocire_ (of a hen’s clucking,
VIII. v. 4).[526] His sentences are clear and business-like, though
without the archaic and bare jerkiness of Cato. Generally his most
polished style appears in his prefaces; and, where he aims at finish,
the influence of Cicero can be traced. Even without exact statistics,
the ear detects the cadences of his _clausulae_—a liking for cretics
(or resolved cretics) followed by trochee or double trochee, spondee or
double spondee. One feature anyway is refreshing: he does not weary his
reader with purple patches or with the artifices of his age. There are
allusions to Spanish habits and Spanish names, but there is no Spanish
rhetoric. When he is enthusiastic, his enthusiasm is natural, and that is
why one can honestly welcome a certain poetic vein in him. Independently
of his constant quotations from Virgil and his verse-book on gardens, an
artistic sentiment stirs within the author, and his eye does not fail
to mark nor his pen to convey the colours of an Italian vineyard in
autumn:[527]
Even the greatest stranger to rural life, should he come into
your grounds planted in due season, must with a transport of
pleasure marvel at the kindliness of Nature, to see there
the Bituric vines rich in fruitage, and here their rivals,
the pale yellow vines, match each other.... Bounteous earth,
rejoicing over the annual return of the season, as it were some
eternal child-bearing, offers to mankind her breasts distended
with new wine. Amidst all, while Bacchus favours the pregnant
vine-branches whether of the white kind or golden and ruddy,
or agleam with purple brightness, everywhere doth Autumn shine
lustrous, laden with parti-coloured fruits.
This feeling for colour is met with again in his verses:
Plant many-colour’d blooms, those stars of earth—
White gilly-flower and gold-eyed marigold,
The fair-tress’d daffodil and “lion’s maw”
Fierce gaping, lilies too that keep
Their greenness in grey baskets, hyacinths
Or snowy-white or blue. Add violets
Pale-creeping or with gold and purple proud,
And roses over-full of modest blush.[528]
His treatment of horticulture in the tenth book, like his motive for
writing it, was partly utilitarian, partly, but only partly, poetic. He
was scarcely free enough in soul to take a garden, as Bacon did, for
“the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man”; nor would Bacon’s
threefold division of “a greene in the entrance, a heath or desart in
the going forth, and the maine garden in the midst” ever have occurred
to Columella. The luxury of contemporary banquets shocked him, he says
in his preface; no poor man could afford such extravagance. Yet thrifty
use might be made of a garden, and this would have been handled in
prose but for Silvinus’s request that Columella should write in verse
what Virgil expressly bequeathed in the fourth _Georgic_ for literary
posterity. Parts of the subject seemed so insignificant that the author
feared its treatment might resemble “making ropes out of sand”; and thus
throughout the 436 hexameters there may be traced a sort of conflict
between the desire to give serviceable advice concerning a market-garden
and an artistic yearning after beauty. Columella, indeed, succeeds, as
Martial did after him, in making some at least of his vegetables poetic.
Flowers are a godsend to him. Besides, there are Virgilian echoes from
_Eclogues_, _Georgics_ and _Aeneid_, but also occurrences of compound
adjectives proportionately rather more frequent than in Virgil.[529]
The start is made on useful topics—soil proper to a garden, trees
indicative of suitable ground, the wall or fence, the undesirability of
statues save of the protective wooden Garden-God; then, after a pause
to utter a conventional invocation, the author advocates digging and
ploughing regardless of mercy for “mother earth.” The season
When nesting swallows twitter “Spring is come”[530]
calls for the employment of manure, hoe, rake and spade, and for the
planting of gay flowers, as in the passage already translated. Herbs of
various potency, different kinds of cabbage, watering of young plants and
the management of a dry hill-plot lead to his insistence on work at the
right moment:
Be wakeful, men! noiseless the Seasons ply
Their pace, and all the year turns round unheard.[531]
Then follows a procession of vegetables—parsley, leeks, parsnips and
lettuces, with a side-glance directed to the “thousand hues” secured by
the skilled gardener, till the fertility of spring wakes a rhapsody on
the dominion of Venus as reminiscent of Lucretius and of Virgil’s second
_Georgic_, as it is anticipative of the _Peruigilium Veneris_:
Hence ocean, hence the hills, hence all the world
Do keep spring-time; hence lust in man and herd
And fowl: the fire of love lit at the heart
Rageth within the marrow, till o’ercloy’d
Venus fulfils the fruitful frame and gets
Manifold offspring, peopling still the world
With young, lest in a barren age it faint.[532]
Here, however, the poet checks himself: let such themes be reserved for a
bard inspired to sing of nature’s mysteries: he must answer the call to
humbler matters:
Knit strains with slender thread such as ’mid toil
The pruner, bending o’er his shrubs, may sing
Attuned, or gardener in his pleasaunce green.[533]
So we find ourselves among cresses, artichokes, pomegranates and beet;
till again the brilliant array of spring-blossom fills the poet with glee
over the flower-harvest:
Yea, harvest presseth on the scented blooms:
Now is spring gaudy, now the bounteous earth
Is glad to deck her brows with coronal
Of all the proud-pied increase of the year.
Now Phrygian lotus shows its gem-like face,
And violet-beds unclose their winking eyes.
The “lion” yawns and, tinged with nature’s blush,
The rose unveils her maiden cheek to pay
The gods due worship and their sanctuaries
Perfume with blended scents of Araby.[534]
So for the moment he is on the verge of fairyland invoking the nymphs.
Then comes the thought that in workaday Italy and in its market towns
there is money to be made from the produce; so one must remember the
tasks appropriate as the day lengthens and the southern heat increases:
one must be on guard against inroads of insects and danger to ripe fruits
from rain and hail, and must grow cucumbers and melons, plums, peaches
and figs, not forgetting Vulcan’s feast in autumn. But, at this autumnal
allusion, the vintage beckons us away from gardens to obey the summons
of Bacchus, and with that Columella finishes his task self-imposed in
pursuance of the behest of Virgil, the Roman Hesiod,
Who sang through Roman towns the Ascraean lay.[535]
CHAPTER II
PETRONIUS: NOVELIST AND POET
The remains of the _Satyricon_—The name Petronius Arbiter—The
Petronius of Nero’s time—Identity of the author—Menippean
form—Earlier adventures of three ne’er-do-wells in the
extant text—The banquet of Trimalchio—Arrival of guests and
host—Courses surprising and excessive—Conduct of the host—His
blunders and egotism—Talk of the guests—Adventures resumed
after the banquet—Sea-voyage and shipwreck—The impostors
at Crotona—Love-episodes and closing scenes—The dramatic
date—Sources and the author’s originality—Traces of literary
convention even in first realistic romance—Morals and
realism—Elements picaresque and sensual—Qualities anticipative
of modern novels—Certain contrasts with Apuleius—Latin of the
_Satyricon_—Plebeian speech—Examples in Petronius—Contrast
with certain contemporary tendencies—His poetry—_De Bello
Ciuili_—Short poems attributed to him—Nature and love.
An intensely interesting, though fragmentary, work, now by common
consent ascribed to Nero’s reign, is usually entitled the _Satyricon_ or
_Satiricon_ (originally a Greek genitive plural), though the fragments
are in the manuscripts also called _satirae_ or _satyri_, and referred
to Petronius Arbiter as author. Like the _editio princeps_ of about
1482,[536] several editions appeared without the famous “Banquet of
Trimalchio,” which was recovered at Trau in Dalmatia only in the middle
of the seventeenth century. In that unique manuscript (_Traguriensis_)
an entry had been made to the effect that the fragments belong to Books
XV and XVI of Petronius’s “Satyri”; if this is trustworthy, then merely
a fraction of a long work has come down to us. Since that thrilling
discovery at Trau, all claims to have found additions have proved to
be based on forgeries, like the passages published at Paris in 1693 by
Nodot, who pretended they were contained in a manuscript from Belgrade.
Quotations from “Arbiter” or “Petronius” are made by several ancient
scholars (_e.g._ Diomedes, Servius, Priscian); Fulgentius cites him as
“Petronius Arbiter”; Terentianus Maurus calls him “Arbiter disertus,”
and Sidonius Apollinaris classes him among renowned masters _eloquii
Latini_; but the process of excerpting (like epitomizing, often fatal
to an original) probably accounts for the disappearance of the complete
work about the seventh century. The limited Petronius now extant was
presumably the portion known to Eugenius Vulgarius in the tenth century,
to John of Salisbury in the twelfth, and to Vincentius of Beauvais in the
thirteenth.
Niebuhr’s opinion that the work was of the third century and Beck’s that
it belonged to the time of Augustus or Tiberius have by general consent
given place to the established belief that it was written in Nero’s
age.[537] Its social atmosphere, its style, its echoes of Seneca, Lucan
and even of the emperor, all point the argument in the same direction.
Likewise it is in the highest degree probable that the author is the
Petronius whose death is dramatically recorded by Tacitus and whose
character is attractively idealized by Sienkiewicz in “Quo Vadis?” Gaius
(or as Nipperdey[538] preferred, Titus) Petronius was one of a series of
Nero’s victims in A.D. 66, and Tacitus devotes two chapters[539] to the
career and end of a very remarkable man:
With him day passed in sleep, night in the duties and
amusements of life. Energy makes some men’s reputation, but
idling had made his: he was considered, not a debauchee and
spendthrift like most squanderers of their wealth, but a man
of polished luxury. The freer his sayings and doings and the
more seeming carelessness they displayed, the more cordially
were they construed as looking like straightforwardness. Yet
when governor of Bithynia and afterwards when consul, he showed
himself alert and a match for business. Then, falling back
on vice or aping vice, he was selected by Nero to be one of
his small inner circle, his judge of etiquette (_elegantiae
arbiter_); for the emperor thought nothing charming and
elegantly voluptuous, unless Petronius had given him approval
of it.
As ill luck would have it, he roused the dangerous jealousy of
Tigellinus, who proceeded to compass his ruin through a false charge.
Nero was in Campania when Petronius received an ominous command to
confine himself to Cumae. He was not the man to tolerate fluctuations of
fear and hope: on the other hand he was little disposed to fling life
away by precipitate suicide: so he alternately opened and bandaged his
veins, exactly as he chose, held receptions for his friends and indulged
in conversation neither serious nor suggestive of stoical virtue.
He listened as they repeated, not views on the immortality
of the soul or on the theories of philosophers, but light
poetry and sportive lines. To some of his slaves he gave
generous gifts, to others a flogging. He went in to dinner,
then indulged in sleep so that, though forced upon him, his
death might appear the result of chance. Even in his will he
did not, like most doomed men, flatter Nero or Tigellinus or
any other powerful personage; instead, he wrote a description
of the prince’s scandalous excesses, prefixing the names of
the profligates and the women concerned, and detailing every
immoral novelty; then sealed the document and sent it to Nero.
This _chronique scandaleuse_ written in Petronius’s last hours cannot,
as some have hastily surmised, be the _Satyricon_, a far more elaborate
production, which must have demanded prolonged leisure for its
composition. But the _Satyricon_ enables one to imagine the pith and
realism of the terrible indictment hurled at the depraved despot by one
who had been his minister of amusements. Certainly, in the qualities
ascribed to Petronius by Tacitus, there is nothing to render it unlikely
that the ascription of the fragments in the manuscripts to Petronius
Arbiter refers to any other person than the Petronius who is called
by the historian the emperor’s _elegantiae arbiter_. It is immaterial
that Tacitus did not allude to any previous literary work by him: the
historian’s grave judgement might not have considered its tone worth
mention, and, in any case, it is not his way to record the writings of
historical figures. We should never, for instance, have known about
Seneca’s voluminous compositions from Tacitus. On the positive side
it may be affirmed that the Tacitean portrait of Petronius wears the
very features to be expected in the author of a novel depicting low
and vicious life in tones which argue intimacy of knowledge and at the
same time the almost cynically detached spirit of a spectator. This
Mephistophelian _insouciance_ of attitude has the artistic merit of
leaving the wickedest and vulgarest characters of the story to act in
an absolutely natural way, and exactly fits the brilliant courtier for
whom, in spite of a spasmodic energy suggestive of higher capacities,
the favourite business of life was the invention, organization and
criticism of sensuous enjoyments. A psychology thus complex may well
have baffled his closest friends. It might amuse so great a master of
facile accomplishment to surprise Rome by an unsuspected talent for
administration abroad. The controller of the revels may have been able
at will to listen with assumed gravity to philosophical discussions and
rhetorical performances, or even take part in what might one day furnish
material for satire; in all probability he narrowly observed Seneca
and Lucan at court as potential “copy”; but his real affair was to be
the ultimate authority on pleasures for exalted society, and, with a
defiant unconcern, to live the life of an expert in everything that could
contribute towards passing time gaily away.
What remains of the _Satyricon_ is (like the contemporary
_Apocolocyntosis_ by Seneca) in the form of the Menippean satire taken
over into Roman literature by Varro[540] from the Cynic philosopher
Menippus of Gadara, and therefore in prose interspersed with verses. Its
story of adventures, many of them unutterably disreputable, is related
by Encolpius, one of a trio on a round of escapades among the half-Greek
cities of Southern Italy. His fellow-wanderers, rogues like himself,
are Ascyltus, a young freedman, and Giton, a handsome serving-boy, who
is a bone of contention between them. The narrative is diversified with
a few entertaining tales—about a werewolf, about witches substituting
a straw changeling for a boy, and the famous one of the widow of
Ephesus[541]—digressive stories within a story, which long remained a
convention of the novel, like the history of “the man of the hill” in
_Tom Jones_.
Our present text opens somewhere on the coast of Campania—perhaps,
if indeed it is necessary to locate the scene, at Cumae,[542] though
Naples, Puteoli and Misenum are among the rival suggestions. Encolpius,
a student of rhetoric for the time being, is delivering a tirade against
the unreality and futility of a rhetorical education totally divorced
from the business of the actual world. Professor Agamemnon, who is in
his company, argues in defence that teachers have to suit current taste
or close their academies. The faulty training of the day he ascribes
to parents’ insistence on an easy and quick road to proficiency;
and, breaking into verse, he recites choliambics on the simple life
advisable for an orator, and hexameters on the needful study of Socratic
philosophy and Demosthenes. Meanwhile Ascyltus had slipped off, and a
crowd of students pour into the colonnade. Encolpius starts in pursuit
of his comrade; asks his way of a greengrocer-woman, who guides him to
a disorderly establishment, where he discovers his friend, and soon
afterwards enters on one of a series of jealous wrangles with him over
Giton. In the market-place the pair meet with exciting experiences, told
in Latin so admirably natural as to place everything before our eyes. A
brawl breaks out because the pair are taxed with being in possession of
a stolen cloak (_pallium_), and because at the same time they challenge
a countryman wearing a lost tunic of their own, threadbare indeed but
very precious for the secret stock of gold coins sewed into it. Folk are
much puzzled with the strangers’ willingness to renounce the cloak for
the shabby tunic. They just escape arrest, and, when they have reached
their inn, are visited by one Quartilla, who, preceded by her servant
and attended by a little girl, has come to declare that they owe her
penance for disturbing her ritual in the chapel of Priapus. Later, the
scene changes to her house, where an orgy leads to general drowsiness,
broken at length by the entry of two burglars. When their depredations
are interrupted, the robbers pretend to snore, and the convivial
licentiousness is renewed.
Then comes the morning of Trimalchio’s banquet (§§ 26-78)—a free repast
secured for the adventurers through Agamemnon. Out of the existing
total of 141 sections, over 50 are concerned with this episode, whose
details vividly recreate an extravagantly vulgar dinner-party given by
a wealthy _parvenu_ of the freedman class to people of similar standing
and to uninvited guests. It reads like an excursion into an ancient and
not unreal land of Cockaigne. There is scarcely a dull piece among all
the kaleidoscopic changes from incident to incident between the opening
glimpse of the host,
a bald old man in a reddish shirt, playing at a game in which
he never stooped to pick up a ball, if it touched the ground,
but had a slave to supply fresh ones from a bag,
and the final scene during which, amidst the confusion caused by the
irruption of the fire-brigade, Encolpius and his friends, surfeited and
bored, made good their escape.
Four decorated lackeys precede the great man’s litter, which brings
him home in a scarlet woollen wrap from the preliminary bath, while a
musician plays small pipes close by, so that Trimalchio shall have music
wherever he goes. The guests reach the entrance:
There stood a porter in green, with a cherry-coloured belt,
shelling peas in a silver dish. Over the doorway hung a golden
cage and a spotted magpie in it greeted arrivals.
These splashes of colour make a fitting prelude to the exuberant
profusion throughout. Everywhere is a lavish parade of wealth and such
an over-plentiful variety of viands that one feels of Trimalchio as of
Chaucer’s frankeleyn:
It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke,
Of alle deyntees that men coude thinke.
Trimalchio is drawn as the representative of a new rich class whose
social aspiration in any community must always be entrance at all costs
into the envied circle of people of quality—that old caste which it
must ape in default of manners and traditions of its own and whose
culture it must affect with a nervous sense of inferiority imperfectly
concealed under blatant self-assertion. A huge chained dog painted on the
wall with large letters above, “CAVE CANEM,” played on guests the same
mild joke as the familiar mosaic at one of the thresholds in Pompeii.
This was, however, merely an introduction to other decorations, which
represented Trimalchio in the slave-market, Trimalchio guided to Rome by
Minerva, Trimalchio learning book-keeping, Trimalchio appointed steward,
Trimalchio at various stages in his successful rise, “and just where the
wall-space of the colonnade gave no more room, Mercury had lifted him by
the chin and was hurrying him to his elevated official dais (as a sevir
Augustalis).” No wonder that Fortune should be there with a horn of
plenty and the three Fates spinning golden threads. Trimalchio was one of
those who find in their own career a substitute for ancestors. His name
reappears incessantly inscribed on as many things as possible: one part
of the dining-room door-posts ended in a sort of ship’s beak bearing the
legend “presented by the steward Cinnamus to Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio,
priest of the college of Augustus”; besides, silver dishes might be noted
with the host’s name and their weight scrupulously engraved on the edges.
The diners take their places and have _hors d’oeuvres_ served without
Trimalchio, who arrives purposely late to the strains of music, his
shaven head peeping out above a scarlet cloak and a fringed napkin
round his neck—an irresistibly funny figure at which any guest off his
guard was sure to laugh (_expressit imprudentibus risum_). His display
of rings, bracelet and bangle indicated no better manners than his
explanation to his guests that it was inconvenient for him to come so
soon, but that he had sacrificed his own pleasure to avoid keeping them
waiting. Even so, he means to finish his game with crystal pieces on a
draughts-board of terebinth wood.
From this point the banquet proceeds through a whirl of surprise courses
and surprise incidents. The pea-hen’s eggs distributed from under a
wooden hen prove, though doubtful-looking at first, to contain a fat
beccafico wrapped in spiced yolk of egg. A slave-boy is boxed for
troubling to pick up a silver entree-dish that had fallen—by orders of
the host it must be thrown down again and swept away. To ensure a fair
field as in war, he has arranged that each guest shall have a separate
table: “so the stinking slaves will make us less hot by crushing past
us” (_obiter et putidissimi serui minorem nobis aestum frequentia sua
facient_). When his fine old Falernian, labelled one hundred years
in bottle, is produced, he indulges in one of his ill-bred remarks,
“Yesterday I didn’t supply such a good brand, and there were far
more genteel people at dinner” (_heri non tam bonum posui, et multo
honestiores cenabant_). The old wine, like other incidents of the dinner,
sets the host moralizing. “Ah me, so wine lives longer than poor mankind:
so let’s have a good ‘wet’ (_tengomenas_). Wine is life”; but next moment
a slave brings in another reminder of death, a mechanically jointed
silver skeleton, on which Trimalchio reflects in verse:
Alack for us poor men! man’s little all
Is naught: so shall we all be when we pass
Below. Then let us live while luck allows.[543]
One can but summarize, without entering into details, the fare provided.
A Zodiac dish with symbolic dainties above for each of the twelve signs
(on which the host insisted on giving a rambling astronomical lecture
afterwards) has much finer delicacies concealed underneath. A wild boar
on a tray is attended by huntsmen and hounds, and when the boar is
opened, the birds begin to fly—thrushes, to wit, limed by fowlers in the
dining-room for the astonished banqueters. Three white pigs are driven
in, one of them to be turned into a dinner on the spot. Soon after, a pig
is served up, to all appearance ungutted, and when by a prearranged jest,
the seemingly negligent _chef_ has been stripped for punishment, a stab
at the animal releases a tumbling mass of cooked sausages! What promises
to be a last course (_epideipnis_) consists of thrushes of fine meal
stuffed with raisins and nuts, followed by quinces stuck all over with
little spikes to resemble hedgehogs; but to their horror and loathing the
sated guests are next confronted with a fat goose garnished ostensibly
with fish and different birds, and yet all made, as Trimalchio boasts, by
his expert cook Daedalus out of the same ingredient, namely, hog’s flesh!
Suddenly two slaves fall a-fighting and smash the waterpots that hang
round their necks, thus revealing oysters and mussels to be handed round
presently in competition with the cook’s snails on a silver gridiron.
Still more entertainment is derivable from the conduct and talk of the
diners than from the conglomerate _menu_. The host at one time inflicts
on his guests a hideous tune from a mime; he must crack his joke in
shouting “Carve ’er!” (_Carpe_) at his slave “Carver” (_Carpus_), he
talks very plainly on subjects customarily thought delicate; he needs to
be told by his wife to remember his dignity; and yet later in the meal
lets a favourite slave mount on his back and slap him. Loving to create
astonishment, he has an enormous hoop let down from an opening in the
ceiling to convey golden crowns and perfume-boxes as souvenirs; and he
has cakes and fruits prepared to spurt out saffron. After acrobatic
performances come Homeric reciters clashing spear and shield. Trimalchio
tries to follow their Greek in some sort of Latin _Iliad_, until he
thinks fit to explain the situation by his own fatuous version of the
tale of Troy:
“You know the story they’re doing? Diomede and Ganymede were
two brothers. Their sister was Helen. Agamemnon ran off with
her and palmed off a hind on Diana in her place. So Homer is
now telling of the fighting between Trojans and Parentines. Of
course Agamemnon won, and married his daughter Iphigenia to
Achilles. That’s what drove Ajax out of his mind, and he’ll
make the sequel clear in a second.”[544]
And so a charger is carried in bearing a calf boiled whole and helmeted
for a raving “Ajax” to slash at and divide on the point of his sword
among the onlookers.
Another curious recitation is that by a young slave-boy of Habinnas’s,
who, with his wife Scintilla, had arrived late in the evening, mellow
from a wake. The boy starts with the opening line of _Aeneid_ V., but,
being a foreigner, soon makes blunders and actually sandwiches in between
Virgilian pieces scraps from Atellane farces “so that for the first time
in my life,” comments the smart Encolpius, “even Virgil hurt my finer
feelings” (_ut tunc primum me etiam Vergilius offenderit_).[545] This
production is, however, in keeping with Trimalchio’s own standard of
attainment; for it is one of the signs of his vulgarity that he pretends
to a learning which he does not possess. He attempts literary talk with
the professor present, claiming culture on the ground that he owns two
collections of books—one Greek, one Latin.[546] He used to read Homer
when a boy, he adds; and with what effect is evident from the “howlers”
in his story of the origin of Corinthian bronze, which bears some
resemblance to that of Charles Lamb regarding roast-pig:
“When Troy fell, that charlatan and big rascal Hannibal heaped
all the statues of bronze, gold and silver on to a single
funeral pile and set them on fire: they turned into one
amalgam of bronze. From this mass artificers took pieces and
made cups, dishes and statuettes.”[547]
Such mixed history prepares one for his mixed mythology when he boasts of
his ownership of a round hundred beakers
“engraved with Cassandra killing her children—and the little
boys are lying dead so naturally that you’d think they were
alive.[548] I have also a thousand cups, which Mummius left to
my late master; and on them Daedalus is shutting Niobe into the
Trojan Horse.”
The proud egotism of the self-made man who has risen in the social scale
is admirably made to betray itself by such means as the engagement-book
displayed prominently, the daily gazette of events on his estates read
at dinner,[549] his narrative of how he got on in business, or even his
attempts at pathos by reading his will, the directions for his tombstone
and his own epitaph:[550]
HERE RESTS
C. POMPEIVS TRIMALCHIO MAECENATIANVS:
NOMINATED TO THE AUGUSTAL PRIESTHOOD
IN ABSENCE, HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN MEMBER
OF ANY CIVIL GUILD IN ROME, BUT DECLINED.
DUTIFUL, BRAVE, FAITHFUL,
HE STARTED WITH LITTLE, BUT LEFT THIRTY MILLIONS:
YET HE NEVER HAD A COLLEGE EDUCATION.
FAREWELL BOTH HE AND THOU!
The talk of the guests makes a refreshing change from what would
otherwise be intolerable gorging. Here the author proves his dramatic
realism by drawing from the spoken Latin of the day, introducing its
colloquialisms and faulty grammar. A few translated extracts may suggest
the off-hand character of the conversation:
“I couldn’t eat any more so I turned to my neighbour to get
all the news I could, and started raking up stories and asking
him who the woman was that was bustling up and down. ‘That’s
Trimalchio’s wife,’ says he, ‘her name’s Fortunata, and she
measures her shekels by the bushel. And what was she just a
little while ago? Well, you must excuse my saying it, but
you wouldn’t have taken a bit of bread from her hand. Now—I
can’t say why or wherefore—she’s in the seventh heaven: she’s
Trimalchio’s _factotum_ (_topanta_). The truth is, she’s only
got to tell him at high noon that it’s dark, and he’ll believe
it. He hasn’t a notion of what he owns—he’s such a plutocrat;
but this lynx of a woman keeps a look-out on everything, even
where you wouldn’t think it.’”
And he proceeds to describe her as sober and thrifty, but a shrew and
capable of inflicting, like Mrs. Caudle, curtain-lectures on her husband
(_est tamen malae linguae, pica puluinaris_).[551]
Nowhere do we hear more of the true ring of chatter than when the host’s
temporary retirement removes all restraint:[552] Dama bawls for an extra
tankard:
“Day doesn’t count: it’s night before you can turn about. So
the best you can do is to go right from bed to dinner. And nice
chilly weather we’ve had. Hot baths has scarcely warmed me up.
(_uix me balneus calfacit_). After all, hot drinks is equal
to an overcoat. I’ve had some good pulls, and am absolutely
tight (_plane matus_). Wine’sh gone to my head” (_uinus mihi in
cerebrum abiit_).
Seleucus breaks in—he has been at a funeral:
“Well, well, he’s joined the majority (_abiit ad plures_).
The doctors did for him, or rather his evil stars has done it
(_immo magis malus fatus_). A doctor’s only a comfort to the
mind. Still he had a fine funeral ... and the mourning was
jolly good—he left several slaves their freedom—even if the
widow was stingy with her tears. What if he didn’t treat her
over well? Woman taken all round is a bird of prey. One should
never do a good turn: it’s just like chucking it down a well.
But an old love nips like a crab.”[553]
One bore is interrupted by another; “Let’s remember the living,” shouts
Phileros, but he too is soon talking about the dead man and his brother.
Next Ganymedes insists on having his growl over profiteers and high
prices until Echion, the rag-merchant, the optimist of the party, brings
him to book:
“Do give up whining. Now it’s this way, now it’s that, as
the countrymen said when he’d lost the spotted pig. What one
doesn’t get to-day, one will to-morrow—that’s how life pushes
on. S’help me, ye couldn’t mention a better country, if only
it had the right people.... If you emigrate, you’ll be telling
how pigs trot round at home ready-cooked. And, mark ye, we’re
going to have a topping gladiatorial show (_munus excellente_)
in three days more—the public holiday.”[554]
And, reckless of grammar, he rattles on about gladiatorial matches, till
he takes to chaffing the professor:
“Now, Agamemnon, I fancy you’re saying ‘what’s this bore
blethering about?’ Folks like you that’s able to speak doesn’t.
You don’t belong to our sort, and so you jeer at the remarks of
we ’umble people. We know as how much learning doth make you
mad.”[555]
With their escape from this maelstrom of junketing, the youths recommence
their adventures. It was no easy task after hard drinking to find the way
back to their inn in the dark through a strange town. Luckily Giton had
made chalk-marks on columns in the daytime, and the white could be seen.
Renewed quarrels between Encolpius and Ascyltus give place to a fresh set
of incidents. Encolpius in a picture-gallery has met a shabbily dressed
and unprincipled old poet Eumolpus. He can talk effectively on the decay
of art[556] owing to the disappearance of the ancient times of rivalry
in hard work, when unselfish toil for posterity contrasted with the
modern love of wine, women and wealth. Seeing Encolpius interested in
a picture of the taking of Troy, he recites sixty-five iambics on this
_Troiae Halosis_, introducing the Trojan horse and Laocoon with the
serpents as in _Aeneid_ II, and thus briefly handling a theme which had
interested Nero. His verses have a way of bringing a shower of stones
about his head, but he remains an incorrigible versifier, even later
when in imminent danger from shipwreck. Encolpius has deemed it wise to
share Giton’s favour with Eumolpus, and the three have made their way
aboard ship when Encolpius discovers to his alarm that the ship belongs
to an old enemy, Lichas, and that he, with Tryphaena, another deadly
enemy made in a lost part of the story, is actually on the vessel. To
avoid detection, Encolpius and Giton agree to be shaven and branded to
look like slaves; but a sea-sick passenger notices in the moonlight the
shaving—an evil omen at sea—and discovery follows, with a free fight in
which passengers and crew take part until a treaty of peace is made.
Then there are rejoicings aboard, and Eumolpus indulges in elegiacs and
hendecasyllabics on the tonsure of the youths, for whom wigs and false
eyebrows have to be obtained. To illustrate fickleness, Eumolpus recounts
the tale of the apparently inconsolable widow of Ephesus and the kindly
soldier. In a storm Lichas is blown overboard and drowned, and the voyage
ends in shipwreck.
The closing scenes are laid in Crotona, whither Encolpius and Giton
accompany Eumolpus with much bravado and assurance to practise fraud
and wilful imposition for their livelihood. Legacy-hunting is the
great industry of the city (_nam aut captantur aut captant_, 116). The
strangers have decided that Eumolpus shall act the part of a fabulously
wealthy landed proprietor from Africa who has unfortunately been
shipwrecked, but who can presumably more than repay in the long run any
hospitality received at Crotona. Before the impostors set to work, a
pause in the narrative permits Eumolpus to propound critical doctrines
on historical poetry in his remarks introductory[557] to nearly three
hundred hexameters[558] upon the _Bellum Ciuile_ of 49 B.C. It is in the
mouth of Eumolpus that the author places the famous phrase about the
studied grace of Horace (_Horatii curiosa felicitas_).
Adventures are to the adventurous; and Encolpius, now called Polyaenus,
is not long in Crotona before a serving-maid makes amorous overtures to
him on behalf of her mistress, and his introduction[559] to this fair
Siren named Circe is related with a romantic beauty which deserves to be
linked with a less unsavoury intrigue:
“It was not long before she ushered her mistress from her hiding-place
and escorted to my side a lady perfect beyond all dreams. There is no
language that can contain her charm: words of mine must fall short—her
tresses all over her shoulders, a cascade of nature’s own curls; a low
forehead with the hair turned back from it; eyebrows running on to the
line of her cheeks and, between the eyes, almost united again; eyes
brighter than the gleaming stars when there is no moon; just a curve on
the nose; and sweet lips such as Praxiteles imagined Diana had. And then
her chin, her neck, her hands, and the whiteness of those feet set in a
tiny band of gold—she had eclipsed the marble of Paros. I had long loved
Doris: I thought nothing of Doris now.”
The meetings with Circe end, however, disastrously for her lover, whom
her servants finally expel with ignominy as an unsatisfying swain. Other
troubles are in store when he has the misfortune to kill one of three
sacred geese, but the imperfections of the text give a disjointed effect
to the remaining episodes, which close with a very natural uneasiness
on the part of the tricksters that they may be found out, and the grim
jest which Eumolpus plays upon expectant beneficiaries under his will by
making it a condition in one of the clauses that his heirs shall after
his death slice him up and eat him!
* * * * *
While the period of composition may be taken as Neronian, the time of the
events related is most likely not much earlier. Though Mommsen put the
dramatic date under Augustus, Friedländer prefers the close of Claudius’s
reign or beginning of Nero’s; and this proposition fits the case of
Trimalchio “Maecenatianus,” freed in boyhood by his patron Maecenas, who
died in 8 B.C. Petronius describes Trimalchio as old (_senem caluum_,
27) at the time of his entertainment; hence it may be imagined to have
happened about the middle of the first century.
On possible literary sources of the _Satyricon_ perhaps too much has
been written in view of the fact that whatever the borrowing, suspected
or unsuspected, the work remains a monument of originality for its
realistic portrayal of certain grades of contemporary Italian life. The
debt to that human fund of material and to the author’s unique genius for
artistic handling eclipses any debt to literary sources. Of these sources
the most obvious concerns his method of relieving prose with verse after
Varro’s Menippean fashion: and to this particular medley (without any
claim to the Varronian spirit) the title of _saturae_ may allude. There
are also a few burlesque echoes of epic,[560] although, in the absence
of the missing books, one cannot be justified in accepting the theory of
“The Wrath of Priapus”[561] as a motive comically analogous to a Homeric
“Wrath of Poseidon,” and thereby imagined to link the escapades into a
unity suggestive of an obscene Odyssey. Persecution by an offended deity
of sex-lust may plausibly be considered to operate for part of the story
in the spirit of the lines,
Angry Priapus of the Dardanelles
Hunts me on earth and where grey Ocean swells;[562]
but it remains problematic whether it dominates the whole.
Other literary forms have been put forward as credible sources of
influence on the _Satyricon_—the serious heroic romance, stories of
adventure implied in certain rhetorical exercises among the elder
Seneca’s collection, the prologue of comedy, and, with more plainly
apposite bearing, the mime for its realism and the erotic Milesian
tales[563] in Greek, if not in Sisenna’s adaptations from Aristides.
The hypothesis that Petronius travestied such Greek love-romances as
are represented by the Ninos story[564] recovered on a first-century
papyrus can scarcely hold good where we find no structure clearly
suggesting parody to a reader: manifestly the tone of Petronius is far
removed from that of the conventional courtships, piracies, voyages,
shipwrecks, separations and reunions in the love-stories of later Greek
literature.[565] Time has even been spent on an endeavour to prove that
picaresque Greek novels existed from which Petronius might have borrowed
his rascally heroes. No doubt he owed much: there is equally no doubt
that he created the realistic novel; for before him such prose fiction as
had appeared in the form of fable, parable or anecdote fell far short of
a sustained romance well filled with incident and characterization.
But just as the _Satyricon_ as a whole, however original in spirit, owed
something to literary convention, so the _Cena_ repeats stock-features
of Greek banquets like the performances by acrobats and reciters, the
appearance of the uninvited guest (Habinnas), the quarrel, and the
dog-fight.[566] The _Cena_ in Roman Satire had a tradition beginning
perhaps in Ennius, but certainly established by Lucilius and developed
by Horace; and between Nasidienus’s banquet in Horace and Trimalchio’s
dinner-party there are points of resemblance[567] enough to prove
how fresh and independent Petronius could be even when he handled a
tralatician idea like that of a rich and ill-bred parvenu, or reckless
extravagance, or an accident at the feast, or the efforts of guests
to smother laughter at their entertainer, or the obvious freedom from
restraint among the guests during their host’s temporary withdrawal.[568]
A sentence written in the eighteenth century makes a good introduction
to much of the criticism passed on Petronius: “I told him that, in my
opinion, he wrote with ease and vivacity, but was withal so lewd and
indecent that he ought to find no quarter or protection among people
of morals and taste.” So Smollett makes Roderick Random answer Earl
Strutwell when he has raised the question of Petronius’s “taste in
love” as “generally decried and indeed condemned by our laws.”[569] The
judgement has the interest of occurring in a novel which presents a
parallel to the _Satyricon_ in its spirit of adventure into more than
questionable companies and in its background of rascality and immorality.
Petronius’s own line,
You damn a work of fresh outspokenness[570]
may be taken as an anticipation of the attitude of many. In this faithful
picture of seamy aspects of Italian life and manners there is much that
is loathsome, but there is much that is merely vulgar, much that is
innocuously humorous, while as a true presentment all of it retains its
value in the history of society. It should be noted too that if Petronius
does not condemn, neither does he commend. As a recording spectator with
a patrician’s half-amused cynicism and a jaded voluptuary’s thrill from
contemplating low life in contrast to court ceremonial and luxury, he was
justifiably conscious that he had inaugurated something new in literature.
Any who may entertain misgivings about the title of Petronius’s work to
rank as a realistic romance would do well to consider Guy de Maupassant’s
preface to _Pierre et Jean_. There he states and defends the position
of the realistic artist among novel writers. The realist, because
misunderstood, is sometimes injudiciously condemned. No mere slavish
copying of contemporary life will produce an adequate sense of simple
reality; for an endeavour to incorporate within the limits of a book
the whole truth and nothing but the truth would inevitably result in
desperate entanglement among an endless number of insignificant details.
So the artistic realist, as surely as he values art and under pain of
becoming a commonplace verbal photographer, must select characteristic
details only, must communicate some meaning which underlies the
bewildering miscellany of apparently incongruous incidents, and must, by
his readjustment of actualities, compose a synthesis more intelligible
and more cogent than life itself. This is a task which genius alone
has power successfully to achieve; and, indeed, so subtle is the
genius demanded that the higher order of realists must, as Maupassant
suggested, prove themselves to be illusionists. In this connexion, one
conceives that Petronius’s presentment of Trimalchio’s dinner-party is
more effective and more memorable than the exact record of an actual
dinner-party would have been. The quality of the host’s character and
motives is grasped best from the artist’s manipulation of incidents;
for without recourse had to elaborate psychological analysis there can
be unmistakeably conveyed, by means of such conversation, behaviour and
gestures as the author’s foresight has introduced, a convincing picture
of the mental endowment of persons under observation. And, if this is
the case with character, so too the events may be chosen and marshalled
in such a way as to suggest their special significance in the narrative.
These a realist like Petronius will choose and marshal with unabashed
candour, disdaining nothing that is common to humanity, and unhindered by
qualms of gingerly prudishness.
It is his mode of representing life that places Petronius in the company
of Rabelais, Fielding and Smollett. His is a gay, outspoken, unashamed
sensuality, flitting naturally from pleasure to pleasure and accepting
for his characters without hesitancy the experiences of the world which
come their way. This is the true spirit of the picaresque romance. Now
one thinks of Gil Blas as a parallel, now of some of Dumas’s adventurers.
An amour, a fight, a theft, a carousal, come all alike to Encolpius;
and it is among the author’s distinctive merits that without pointless
embroideries or reflective digressions he uses an accumulated experience
of cities and men to fashion a straightforward and life-like story. It is
briskly told, and because its characters seem flesh and blood it smacks
of truth. Its living people reveal themselves in part through their
doings or misdoings, in part through natural talk; they are, in fact,
the sport of their own weaknesses, whether they be the wandering rogues
Encolpius and Ascyltus or the self-satisfied profiteer Trimalchio or some
of his fellow-freedmen in affluent or in reduced circumstances. From the
pen of an adept in sternly realistic treatment of figures and situations
the reader must expect the shocking as well as the mirth-provoking;
so that frank avowals and naked abandonment of reticence give to the
_Satyricon_ some of that kind of realism which is discoverable in certain
French and Russian novels. The sensuality is, however, by no means sexual
only. There is something Gargantuan, as there is certainly intended to
be something satiric, in the overdone profusion which marks Trimalchio’s
hospitality; and yet its variety and surprises imply that sort of sensual
delight in good food which animates Anatole France’s description, in his
_Histoire Comique_, of the Castelnaudary stew a-cooking twenty years
till the added ingredients in the pan imparted a quality like that in
the women’s amber-flesh of old Venetian masters. This Roman, this Gallic
interest in food is not understood in England, where people do not talk
about meals as they did at Rome and do in France; but then the renown of
England does not lie in her cookery.
It is as a novelist that Petronius must be appreciated. A full judgement
on his achievement is prevented by the loss of much the greater part of
his work, though enough survives to prove his mastery of some qualities
felt to be most enjoyable in the modern novel; such as his humour of
situation and dialogue, often as pronounced as in Dickens; his restrained
irony of attitude, not tragic as in Hardy, but verging towards Meredith’s
comic spirit; his creation of incidents lively and varied, carrying the
reader along as rapidly as in Dumas; and his management of pervading
atmosphere in consonance with incidents and characters—a great secret in
all the most effective tales. But in these light chapters of ancient life
let no reader look for depth of thought or passion, or any of that pity
and tenderness which make the strength of some of the greatest modern
fiction.
The _Metamorphoses_ or _Golden Ass_ of Apuleius in the second century
is the only other fictitious narrative in Latin prose. One must place
in a separate category _The Marriage of Philology and Mercury_ written
by Martianus Capella in the fifth century. That work was designed by
Capella to precede his educational encyclopaedia on the _triuium_ and
_quadriuium_. It follows the Menippean form, as the _Satyricon_ did, but
is a pedantic allegorical fantasia. _The Golden Ass_ and the _Satyricon_
are alike of a higher imaginative order than the stereotyped romances of
erotic adventure which subsequently became common in Greek; but, though
they are both more readable than the loves of Theagenes and Chariclea in
Heliodorus’s _Aethiopica_ or of Daphnis and Chloe in Longus’s elegant
prose pastoral, the _Satyricon_ excels _The Golden Ass_ because of its
greater originality and its more typically Roman colour. _The Golden
Ass_ betrays more of the influence of Greek Milesian tales, notably in
its long[571] but charming episode of _Cupid and Psyche_; and, while
it may be considered a satiric romance in its mockery of contemporary
superstition, priestly imposture, and a weak police-system under which
brigands enjoyed too much licence, still its atmosphere of the marvellous
and the magical is widely dissimilar to the prevailing realism of the
_Satyricon_, which, except in incidental tales concerning werewolf or
witches, seldom departs from fidelity to actual life. Lucius, the hero
of the later romance, whose lubricity and prying are responsible for his
transformation into an ass, is, no doubt, as the victim of the mismanaged
spell, brought into contact with different classes of individuals,
different homes, and different religious rites including the mysteries
of Isis so finely described towards the close; but the realism is less
telling in Apuleius than in Petronius, because the incidents are related
in a bizarre African style, whose colour and ring contrast markedly with
the natural Latin of the _Satyricon_.
This Latin of the _Satyricon_ has a natural ring, partly because, even
where Petronius writes in literary Latin, he is, as a rule, simple,
direct and non-rhetorical; partly because he constructs a life-like
framework of easygoing remarks; partly because he employs the actual
words of everyday conversation. His style is not a unity. He is master of
two styles—one educated, the other colloquial.[572] Encolpius, like the
rhetorical professor Agamemnon and the poet Eumolpus, expresses himself
usually in the polished urbane Latin, which, without being over-formal,
is still distinct from the vulgar Latin in which the freedmen speak.
Even within this latter sphere, difficulties have been encountered in
rigidly demarcating ordinary colloquial elements from plebeian and
possibly dialectic elements. It is unlikely that Petronius took pains to
manufacture an accurate mosaic of Campanian words: enough, that through
broad strokes imitative of the locutions of humble folk he produced an
effect like that of the “racy genuine language” which Borrow somewhere
admires in criminals’ accounts of themselves; and, in fact, there are
echoes as of an ancient Newgate Calendar. This dialogue is as true to
life as the talk in Kipling’s “Soldiers Three” or in Conrad’s “Nigger
of the Narcissus.” One of the great values, therefore, of Petronius is
that his realistic novel, along with comedy, satire and the less formal
letters of Cicero, affords examples of that popular Latin which is so
important for understanding the genesis of the Romance languages. To take
the most familiar instance, it is significant that _caballus_, which
descends as the word for “horse” into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
French and Roumanian, should be found in writers like Lucilius, Horace
and Juvenal as well as in Petronius.[573]
This _sermo plebeius_, then, Petronius causes to live again for his
readers with just admixture enough of Greek[574] to remind us that we
are supposed to be in Campania. And so the freedmen, while they dine and
revel, speak slangily and ungrammatically, uttering their thoughts in too
casual and disconnected a manner to trouble about logical subordination
of clauses or periodic form, and interspersing their talk quite
appropriately with saws or scraps of popular wisdom, rare compounds and
diminutives,[575] irregular inflectional endings and false genders. The
sententious is rolled off by Trimalchio with a negligence of grammar
which can be paralleled, if not exactly echoed, in English:
“My friends, even slaves are human beings, and they drinks the
same milk as us, even if their evil stars has downed them.”[576]
Commending his wine, he declares “Fishes must swim” (_pisces natare
oportet_). Ganymedes grumbles “This district’s going down as the calf’s
tail grows” (_haec colonia retrouersus crescit tanquam coda uituli_).
“One good turn deserves another” (_manus manum lauat_) says the next
guest, who concludes in Latin less commendable than the sentiment,
“Education’s a treasure and culture never dies” (_litterae thesaurum est
et artificium nunquam moritur_, 46).
The spoken language, being conservative no less than innovating,
retained, as it does in many countries, a proportion of archaisms, so
that Petronian diminutives and other formations find parallels in early
Latin writers. _Gaudimonium_, 61, and _tristimonium_, 63, remind one of
words like _mercimonium_ in Plautus; and there is an old-fashioned sound
in _sestertiarius_, 45, _dupunduarius_, 58 and 74, _linguosus_, 43 and
63, _dignitossus_, 57, with adverbs like _improbiter_, 66, _largiter_,
71, and _urceatim_, 44. Similarly, several frequentative and intensive
verbs are of the sort used by comic authors, and may be referred to
the _sermo cotidianus_ rather than to the _sermo rusticus_.[577]
Plebeian speech was also, like comedy, rich in transitives of the first
conjugation (_e.g._ _argutare_, 46, 57; _aginare_, 61) and in compounds
(_recorrigere_, 43, shared with Seneca and Tertullian; _adcognoscere_,
69; _domusio_, 46; _caldicerebrius_, 45, _nesapius_, 50). To the vulgar
speech we may set down most of the departures from classic grammatical
form, such as 3rd declension nouns transferred to 1st, _e.g._ the Greek
words _schemas_, 44, _stigmam_, 45, 69; 2nd declension nouns transferred
to 1st, _triclinia_, 71, _intestinas_, 76; 1st to 2nd _margaritum_,[578]
63; 3rd to 2nd _uasus_, 57, _pauperorum_, 46. _Bouis_, 62, and _Iouis_,
58 appear as nominatives: so too _lacte_, 38, which with the adjective
in _munus excellente_, 45, is almost Italian. Changes of gender are
seen in _caelus_, 39, 45; _uinus_, 41; _balneus_, 41; _fatus_, 42, 71,
77; _fericulus_, 39 (= _ferculum_ with epenthetic vowel from vulgar
pronunciation); _lorus_, 57. Notable verb-forms are _uinciturum_, 45,
for _uicturum_; _fefellitus sum_, 61; _faciatur_, 71; _mauoluit_, 77.
Alterations in voice occur; _e.g._ _potes loquere_, _non loquis_, 46;
_pudeatur_, 47. As might be expected, old words are used in new senses;
_e.g._ _notaui_, 6 (= “I noticed”),[579] and departures are made
from standard syntax; _e.g._ _temptemus si adhuc sorbilia sunt_, 33;
_persuadeo hospitem_, 62.
True as he is to certain phases of life and speech, Petronius is yet a
contrast to contemporary literary tendencies. In this very realism of his
he is independent, and in large measure it must have rescued him from the
risk of indulgence in the rhetorical artificialities of the period. He
is, besides, a sort of flippant Epicurean counterfoil to the grave Stoic
thought in Seneca’s treatises, and he is out of sympathy with Lucan’s
manner in composing a historical poem.
Petronius is himself one of the figures in the poetry of the Neronian
age. His own poetical attainments were considerable. The mere skill
is evident from the varied verse-passages, long or short, in the
_Satyricon_. Some of these have a literary bearing like Agamemnon’s
didactic lines on the training of an orator, or Eumolpus’s iambics _On
the Sack of Troy_—uninspired in face of the inevitable comparison with
Virgil, but undeserving of that shower of stones which Petronius merrily
makes the reciter earn. The longest piece consists of 295 hexameters
to illustrate Eumolpus’s dogmas concerning the dangers which beset a
poem on the _Bellum Ciuile_. Without naming Lucan, these pronouncements
imply a criticism on his epic, especially in their objection to taking
actual facts for poetic material and in their advocacy of divine
interventions (_deorum ministeria_) which the _Pharsalia_ had eschewed.
The poem itself cannot be read without thoughts of Lucan, particularly
in its description of portents and panic. The alarm in Rome over
Caesar’s approach is described in a passage characterized by rhetoric,
artificialities and monotony in phrase and metre,[580] while it contains
pithy sentences recalling Lucan’s style: _e.g._ “as each man fears, so
great his flight” (_quantum quisque timet, tantum fugit_), and “slays, if
prayers could slay, his absent foe” (_absentem uotis interficit hostem_).
More poetic feeling is shown in some of the shorter pieces, such as the
lines picturing the love of Circe and Encolpius in a flowery setting like
that of Mother Earth in Jove’s embrace:
Forth flashed rose, violet, and iris soft,
And from the meadow green white lilies laughed:
So bright the ground that to the lush grass called
Our love: and day grew fairer to befriend
Our hidden sighs.[581]
Apart from verses in the _Satyricon_, there are short poems which,
with different degrees of authority and in different number, have been
considered Petronian. Bährens gives 37.[582] Sixteen pieces follow the
epigrams assigned to Seneca in the Codex Vossianus Q. 86, and include
two guaranteed as Petronian by Fulgentius, who quotes from them; eleven
others were drawn by Binet from a now lost MS. which apparently ascribed
them to Petronius, from whom Fulgentius in any case cites one; and they
were followed by eight in regard to which at most a stylistic argument
can be used; while four more (including, however, two from our mutilated
_Satyricon_) are entitled as by Petronius in a different MS., Codex
Vossianus F. 111. There is fair reason to believe that these, with a
few possible exceptions, are his work, and they may be excerpts from
vanished portions of the _Satyricon_. Not unnaturally they vary in theme,
metre and style, so that an appropriate motto is furnished by one of the
couplets:
Find here what each desires: men’s pleasure goes
Strange ways: one pulls a thorn and one a rose.[583]
The fear that created gods, the emigrant with the world before him,
the triumph of worthlessness, an old man’s torrent of tears, betrayal
of secrets, perils of the sea, nature’s infinite variety, sympathy in
suffering, a sweetheart’s gift of apples, a parrot from India, and a
theory of dreams, are among the subjects. A few end in epigrammatic
manner with a line which has some of the point though not all the
sharpness of Martial. Nowhere, however, can we more readily believe that
we have the genuine accents of Petronius than in poems which imply a
cordial delight in natural beauty. It is more than a sated epicure’s itch
for change from town, because in some a truer poet speaks than in the
pastorals of his contemporary Calpurnius Siculus. Thus, Petronius leads
his brief description of an autumn scene up to a neat final line:
All the year’s promise stood before our eyes.[584]
Or he pictures his simple country house lovingly indeed, but with a sense
of disillusion and an almost Senecan consciousness of wasted time:
Care-free the shelter of my cottage-roof;
And wine-rich clusters hang from fertile elm.
Red apples and ripe cherries load their boughs;
Pallas’ own olive breaks with fruited branch....
Go to now: sell the fleeting hours of life
For rich repasts! I pray my waiting end
May find me here to answer for my hours.[585]
In another poem he hails the sea-side with rapture
O strand more sweet to me than life! O sea!
Blest he who visits oft thy neighb’ring shores.
O lovely day! Once in this scene I used
To rouse the Naiads with alternate stroke.
Here’s depth of pool, there’s seaweed from the bay,
Here trusty haunt for passion unrevealed.
My life is lived; for grudging fortune ne’er
Shall filch from me what happier hours bestowed.[586]
But he has nothing finer than his sonnet-like poem in fourteen lines on
the tyranny of love:
In night’s first silence couched, scarce had I found
Repose and given to Sleep o’erwearied eyes,
When cruel Love clutches my hair and cries:
“Keep vigil thou, I say, for all thy wound.
Canst thou, my slave, by thousand amours bound
Alone, alone, thou block, lie sluggard-wise?”
Thereat, barefoot, with tunic loose, I rise
And try all paths, but follow no path round.
I run, I slacken speed, I half retrace
My tracks, then in the highway blush to wait.
Lo! hushed are human sounds and traffic’s roar,
And note of bird and trusty pack that bays.
Alone of all, both sleep and couch I hate,
Heeding, great Cupid, thy imperial lore.[587]
CHAPTER III
SENECA THE PHILOSOPHER: MISCELLANEOUS LEARNING
Widely varied problems regarding Seneca—His
family—Education—His relations with Caligula, Claudius and
Nero—Retirement from the imperial court—Character—Works lost
and extant—Vexed questions of chronology—Brief survey of his
prose writings—Style in theory—Style in practice—Seneca as
essayist—The pithy sentence—Composite language—Ancient traces
of his influence—The exponent of Latin Stoicism—Vitality of the
Stoic creed—The human and the humorous—Bracing spirit of his
philosophy.
Contemporary learning—History, jurisprudence and
philosophy—Stoics of the day—Scholarship—Asconius and
Probus—Orators, informers and rhetoricians.
SENECA THE PHILOSOPHER
The jungle of literature which has grown up around Seneca[588] testifies
to the manifold inquiries stimulated by his personality and works.
The bare enumeration of representative treatises or essays on Senecan
subjects becomes oppressive. In Latin and in many modern languages they
have dealt with problems of his life—the cause of his exile, his moral
character, his inconsistencies, his political significance and control
or want of control over Nero; they have dealt with the chronology of his
writings; with his theology, philosophy and cosmology, so that what he
thought of God, man and the world has been scrutinized in relation to
Stoicism as well as to those eclectic modifications which were always
typical of the practical Roman; they have dealt, too, with his science,
with aspects of his style, his characteristic prose, his gift of piquant
satire, his poetic and tragic powers; with difficulties, still unsolved,
in his text; with questions of his influence upon Christian literature,
European drama and modern essay-writing. There is, then, no lack of
Senecan themes, and his influence makes him one of the most prominent
figures in the history of letters.
The Seneca family belonged to Corduba, the chief city of Baetica, which
was the most civilized province of Spain. There, about 4 B.C.,[589] L.
Annaeus Seneca,[590] second son of the so-called “rhetor,” was born.
His mother Helvia, we learn in the _Consolatio_ sent to her by her
exiled son, had a philosophical bent—a contrast in this respect to her
husband, whose interest lay in rhetoric. The family was well-to-do and
talented. The elder Seneca and Helvia had three sons. The eldest was
Novatus, to whom his brother dedicated his treatises _On Anger_ and _On
A Happy Life_: he became “Gallio” through adoption by L. Junius Gallio,
the orator, and, when governor of Achaea in 51-52, happened to have the
apostle Paul brought before his tribunal.[591] The second son, called
“Seneca” by his father, became, as a statesman and writer, the most
famous bearer of the name. The youngest son, Mela, of whose ability his
father[592] held a high opinion, was of a more retiring disposition,
but, without courting senatorial honours, proved himself a successful
money-maker, and possesses his best title to fame as father of Lucan.
Seneca was brought when a child, in the arms of an affectionate
aunt,[593] to Rome, whither his parents either preceded or followed him.
His preliminary training under a _grammaticus_ left him with a memory
of much barren detail and a pronounced distaste for verbal criticism
or the _minutiae_ of book learning;[594] his subsequent training in
rhetoric by such masters as Mamercus Scaurus, Gallio, Musa, Julius
Bassus,[595] and under the auspices of his father, made an indelible
impress upon his genius. No doubt his true intellectual love was
reserved for philosophy, and he saw the weaknesses of declamation;[596]
but we have his father’s evidence that all three sons were captivated
by rhetorical _sententiae_,[597] and Seneca’s own style—disconnected,
pointed, antithetic, metaphorical and piquant—is the best proof of its
own origin. With his philosophical studies came a fuller satisfaction
for intellect and spirit. Seneca was thoroughly Roman in emphasizing the
practical aspect of philosophy. “Philosophy,” he says, “consists not
in words but in realities. She sits at the helm and steers the voyage
through the hazards of the waves.”[598] More and more Seneca was drawn
to it, not merely as a guide to conduct, but as something that filled a
profound need of the soul. To him it signified the divine way, truth,
and life: it made, especially through the Neo-Stoicism which he accepted
and developed, a religious appeal. For the elect there was a turning
away from the world,[599] a disdain of earthly things,[600] the duty
of self-examination,[601] the joys of conversion,[602] the apostolic
call to enlighten others.[603] There were ascetic privations,[604]
hard at first in their disciplinary stringency, although afterwards
joyously welcomed: there were ecstatic possibilities of drawing close
to God.[605] The boy might not at once grasp all the implications of
the higher teaching, and in life he may have practised very imperfectly
the doctrines to which he gave eloquent and noble expression; yet it
is certain that from the outset his philosophical masters exercised a
deep influence upon him. They were three disciples of the Sextii—Sotion,
Attalus and Fabianus. Sotion, arguing on Pythagorean principles,
persuaded Seneca to become vegetarian; Attalus, the Stoic, with a
contempt for luxury, induced him to renounce perfumes, wines, oysters,
mushrooms and a soft bed; while Fabianus, who had given up a career as
a speaker to devote himself to philosophical discussion, conveyed to
him much of his own enthusiasm. Seneca was the first to arrive for a
lecture, and last to leave: his abstinence and fasts were so rigorous
that his health, never of the best,[606] began to suffer, and his father
intervened with the timely reminder that he might be mistaken for a
devotee of the foreign superstitions which Tiberius had endeavoured to
extirpate about A.D. 19. If Seneca sighed as a theorist, he obeyed as a
son. Fits of melancholy drove him to thoughts of suicide, which Stoicism
permitted in certain circumstances: only regard for his father prevented
him from losing control over himself. The state of his health may have
accounted for visits to Pompeii and to Egypt, where an aunt was wife of
the Governor.[607] One of his early works, a lost treatise on Egyptian
religious practices (_De Ritu et Sacris Aegyptiorum_), must be put down
to his stay in the country. His aunt was more than a good nurse; she
could use her influence for her nephew, and on his return to Rome about
A.D. 31 helped to secure the quaestorship for him. Then his career
as a speaker at the bar began. Some years passed, and his oratorical
performances drew upon him the jealousy of Caligula, who, not content
with sneering at them as “mere competitive exercises” and “sand without
lime,”[608] would have put Seneca to death but for the whisper from one
of the emperor’s favourites that he was in any case doomed to die soon
from consumption.[609] Threatened men, however, live long, and Seneca’s
future fame lay in other fields than the dangerous one of oratory.
By degrees his own preference turned him to literature and
philosophy.[610] Some of his lost works belong to this period—collections
of discourses and poems, a physical treatise _De Motu Terrarum_, a
biography of his father, who died about A.D. 39, and perhaps the
_Consolation to Marcia_. Most likely, too, the material for the three
books _On Anger_ was collected about the same time, and published, with
its bitter allusions to Caligula,[611] soon after that emperor was safely
dead. Seneca was not a recluse: a measure of self-effacement may have
been judicious under Caligula, but Seneca’s own choice was to make the
student’s loneliness alternate with social engagements. “There should be
a blend, an alternation of solitude and society: the former will cause
us to want human kind, the latter to want ourselves. And the one will be
a cure for the other: solitude will heal dislike for a crowd, a crowd
will heal the weariness of solitude.”[612] The school of the world was
essential to the thinker on wisdom. He was a good business man, able to
advance his financial interests; and he had gifts of elegant expression
which fitted him to mix with the highest circles in Rome. At court, after
Caligula’s murder, Seneca occupied a prominent position as an asset in
the party of the princesses, Julia Livilla and Agrippina, daughters of
Germanicus and nieces of the emperor. His happiness was short-lived. A
charge was brought against him of an immoral intrigue with Julia.[613]
Messalina, the unscrupulous empress, is not unreasonably suspected
of having for political reasons invented the accusation to weaken a
rival faction. It involved Julia’s death ultimately, and Seneca’s trial
before a subservient senate, where the death-sentence was at Claudius’s
suggestion commuted to banishment. So for eight years, from 41 to 49, he
underwent the punishment of “relegation” in Corsica.
In writing his _Consolation to Helvia_, probably a good many months
later, he endeavours to cheer his mother by philosophical arguments
that exile is quite tolerable, and very much what the exiled person
makes it; but his real feelings of weary despondency are expressed in
certain epigrams and in his _Consolation to Polybius_ of A.D. 43, when
his sympathy proffered to Claudius’s learned Secretary for Petitions
(_a libellis_) and his cringing flattery of the emperor were designed,
though in vain, to facilitate his recall. Certainly, he had books
and literary pursuits to occupy his mind; slaves may have been in
attendance; and his friend Caesonius Maximus seems to have stayed with
him for a time; but there was much that was depressing. He had lost his
father, his wife and a child: like other ancients, he could take little
pleasure in rugged scenery: and there was a limit to his interest in
the ethnology of the island. For a capitalist, diplomat and courtier,
for a literary man with social instincts, banishment meant the same
poignancy of suffering as Ovid knew on the shores of the Black Sea. But
relief came for Seneca as it never came for Ovid. In 49 he was recalled
and made praetor, through the influence of Agrippina, who realized that
a man of his literary reputation would make a suitable tutor for her
boy Nero.[614] The young prince’s education consisted of all available
subjects of culture, with two chief limitations according to Suetonius:
Nero’s mother disapproved of philosophy for a future ruler, and Seneca
jealously discouraged the study of the old orators, so that his own
modern style might remain Nero’s ideal.[615] When Claudius was done
to death in 54, it fell to the imperial tutor to compose a suitable
panegyric for his pupil, the new emperor, to deliver: and so began the
period of five years—the _quinquennium_[616] praised long afterwards by
Trajan—during which Seneca, aided by the good sense of Burrus, prefect of
the guard, kept Nero on paths of comparative decency and moderation.[617]
Part of Seneca’s policy was directed towards keeping Nero free from
undue interference on the part of his imperious mother,[618] who hotly
protested against “the claim of the cripple Burrus and the exile Seneca
to govern mankind with a maimed hand and a scholar’s tongue.”[619] At
this period Seneca’s influence as a statesman reached its zenith; and
it is a reasonable conjecture that for a time he contrived to mould
governmental policy in the spirit of his own broadminded cosmopolitanism.
It was of some service to the world that the author of the _De
Clementia_, addressed to Nero when he was eighteen, should now be his
chief adviser. Dio himself, who is usually a hostile witness where
Seneca is concerned, gives to him and Burrus credit for able and fair
administration.[620] There were, however, black crimes which Seneca,
whether privy to them or not, had to condone. Britannicus, the true heir
to the purple, had been got rid of by poison at the emperor’s table in
55; and in 59 came Agrippina’s murder by her son’s command. State policy,
the historical cloak for many infamies, might argue a case on behalf of
both acts: the one removed a rival and secured the throne, the other
ended a woman’s ascendancy and secured the emperor’s freedom.[621] It
was Seneca who composed for Nero the statement to be read in the Senate
respecting his mother’s death. One can only guess what acquiescence meant
for a man who could both think and feel. To his credit be it said that
he seems at least to have pleaded with Nero to save his cruelly maligned
empress Octavia in A.D. 62.
That was the year of Burrus’s death and of Tigellinus’s elevation, when
Nero had begun to lean upon worse advisers, who urged him to shake off
his mentor.[622] The mentor himself, recognizing that his influence was
undermined, placed before Nero his request to retire.[623] The wealth of
a professing Stoic made an easy target for criticism,[624] and a tempting
lure for an avaricious emperor. Seneca’s speech, therefore, at his
interview, as reported by Tacitus, took mainly the form of an _apologia
pro diuitiis suis_. His wealth amassed in these years of service was an
index surely of his Majesty’s bounty; and, now that he was old, it should
return to his Majesty. Nero’s own ability to give a ready rejoinder he
adroitly set to the credit of his excellent teacher, who was not nearly
so old that his imperial pupil could think of dropping his pilotage and
whose wealth he could not possibly accept—for what would people say?[625]
Fair dissembling words did not deceive Seneca. From that day he changed
his mode of life: he no longer kept open house or made public appearances
attended by troops of friends. He had some three years yet to devote to
studious retirement: and to this period, A.D. 62-65, can be assigned
with confidence his essay _On Leisure_ (_De Otio_), his elaborate _Moral
Letters_ (_Epistulae Morales_), the seven books of the _Quaestiones
Naturales_, and with less certainty some other works. Once again he made
an offer of his substance to the emperor: it was in A.D. 64 when he
proposed to help in repairing the devastation caused by the burning of
Rome.[626] He was not however destined to escape the despot. In 65, on
an allegation of complicity in Piso’s conspiracy—and there were some who
said that the next emperor was intended to be the philosopher[627]—the
old man was ordered to put himself to death. What Tacitus records of the
last hours of Seneca, his dignified calm, his reliance upon philosophy,
his farewell advice to friends, his devoted wife’s desire to die with
him, the too slow ebbing of life from the chill, attenuated frame, is an
account few can read unmoved.[628]
The character of Seneca presents anomalies comparable to those which
are notorious in Lord Bacon’s case. If Seneca does not merit to the
full the absolute superlatives which Pope applied to Bacon, “the
wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind,” still the noble grandeur of his
theoretical morality was deplorably sullied by lapses in actual life.
Many of the charges date from his own time; and never was the calumny
of enemies more rife, more gross, more readily believed than in the
days when creatures like Suillius threw their slanderous mud. Among
the historians, Dio is too biased to be trusted in his enumeration of
the immoralities and inconsistencies laid to Seneca’s account. The
story of improper relations with Julia so obviously served Messalina’s
machinations that it cannot be accepted as incontrovertible fact, while
the suggestion of an amour with Agrippina is even more incredible.
That Seneca was privy to the deaths of Claudius, of Britannicus and of
Agrippina was whispered and repeated, but the rumours can be neither
proved nor disproved. His weak condonation of such deeds very naturally
subjects him to suspicion. That he advocated the contempt of wealth and
yet accumulated it, is not to be gainsaid; even so, and granted that he
lent money on interest, we are not bound to believe Dio’s statement that
Seneca caused an insurrection in Britain by suddenly calling in the huge
sum of forty million sesterces. If he was a thrifty financier all his
life, he at least thereby escapes the accusation of a vicious abuse of
his money in an age of luxury.
While, however, some of the blackest charges may be parried as not
proven, one count in the indictment is beyond denial, even if it be
capable of extenuation. Outside the study, he lacked true moral bravery.
Nothing could transcend the elevation of his ethical theory; but this
emphatic assertor of moral principles tamely saw them trampled upon at
court. Circumstances overbore his protests, perhaps even his qualms: his
wisdom failed in courage and his prudence degenerated into pusillanimity.
A voluptuous court, it must be allowed, had no atmosphere of bracing
discipline in which an austere philosopher could practise virtue: its
extravagant opulence and titanic depravity were better calculated to
stifle the moral sense with a rankly perfumed sultriness. The danger
was twofold: at one time, the aesthetic taste and social charm of Nero
might lull the conscience to rest; at another, his tigerish nature might
unnerve any counsellor. Let it be admitted that Seneca was incapable
of maintaining an impolitic opposition, and that he was, in Carlyle’s
words, “so wistfully desirous to stand well with Truth and yet not
ill with Nero” that he remains “our perhaps niceliest proportioned
half-and-half, the plausiblest plausible on record.” Such scathing words
may be glibly repeated by critics who are safe from Nero. But is no
allowance to be made, if Seneca failed to transfer the dogmatism of the
schools to an emperor’s acts? The philosopher’s heart at least was on
the side of goodness. Nero’s court, life, policy must have often caused
inexpressible pain to a believer in the Fatherhood and Providence of
God, the brotherhood of man, the divine spark within all, the sovereign
excellence of virtue, the vanity of worldly goods, the sin of luxury; and
it must have been hard to adapt to Neronian orgies Seneca’s own ascetic
preferences and practices. But a personality endowed with philosophic
will, like Seneca’s, aimed sincerely at a higher life for himself and a
better world for others: it could not choose but exert some influence.
When one complains of Seneca’s inconsistencies, is one prepared to say
that he would have served Rome better by avoiding court? To say this
is to forget the good he did. To his credit stand Nero’s promising
_quinquennium_, a policy of toleration in religion, and an endeavour to
lessen cruelty in gladiatorial shows: besides, he preached clemency in
life, as the author of the _Octauia_ makes him do in the play. Nero’s
deterioration after Seneca’s retirement is in itself a testimony to his
previous authority.
Perhaps it is not merely fanciful to trace a dynamic evolution in
Seneca’s character determined by his continuous struggle against
hindrances and failures. If a worldling like Petronius came in time to
feel out of touch with the vanity of court life, what of Seneca, who
realized its vanity from the outset? In spite of much to disillusionize
and to disgust, he persevered at court until his prospects of influencing
Nero faded into nothingness, and his offered renunciation of riches
had been hypocritically declined. His very faults made him in a sense
a better man, and so acquired a spiritual value; for a recognition of
his own backsliding and cowardice showed the force of temptation and
taught indulgence towards human frailty. This is why Seneca is less
bigoted, less overbearing than most of his fellow-Stoics. His habit of
self-examination must have often revealed his faults to him, so that one
outcome was a tolerance which might well be imitated in judging him. “We
have all done wrong,” he says in the _De Clementia_[629]—_peccauimus
omnes_. It is then, more charitable, as well as more profitable, to
forget his imperfections and omissions in favour of positive qualities
like his humility[630] and humanity—to forget his timidities in favour of
his bravery at the end. In one of his later years he wrote to Lucilius:
“Before old age my aim was a good life; in old age my aim is a good
death.”[631] And in another letter there is an utterance of dignified
courage on which the hour of trial set the final seal of validity:
Without dread, then, I am composing myself for that day on
which, laying aside shifts and subtleties, I shall have to
judge respecting myself whether I merely speak or really feel
as brave men should, whether all my insolent words hurled
against fortune were mere pretence and mumming. Discount
man’s opinion: it is uncertain and partial. Discount the
philosophical pursuits of a lifetime: it is death that is
to pass judgement on you. ’Tis true: discussions, literary
conversations, words collected from the precepts of sages, and
learned discourse do not exhibit the true strength of the mind.
The greatest cowards can talk big. What you have achieved will
then be made plain when you come to die. I accept the terms: I
do not shrink from the decision.[632]
Besides his tragedies, short poems and the satire on Claudius, which
are to be considered in another chapter, the following prose works
by Seneca are extant—twelve so-called _Dialogues_, two books _On
Clemency_, seven _On Benefits_, seven books of _Natural Problems_,
and 124 _Moral Epistles_. His works that are lost, or survive only in
fragments, trenched on the provinces of geography, physics, natural
history, biography and ethics. Among these were _De Situ Indiae_, _De
Ritu et Sacris Aegyptiorum_, _De Motu Terrarum_, _De Forma Mundi_, _De
Piscium Natura_, _De Vita Patris_, _De Superstitione_, _De Immatura
Morte_, _Moralis Philosophiae libri_. Some of his _Orationes_ and
additional books of _Letters_ also circulated. The twelve _Dialogi_
collected in the Ambrosian MS. are given in the following order: _De
Prouidentia_, _De Constantia Sapientis_, _De Ira libri_ III, _Ad Marciam
de Consolatione_, _De Vita Beata_, _De Otio_, _De Tranquillitate Animi_,
_De Breuitate Vitae_, _Ad Polybium de Consolatione_, _Ad Heluiam
Matrem de Consolatione_. Unfortunately, these are not in the sequence
of composition; had they been so, fuller light would have been shed
on the author’s intellectual development. Much labour has been spent
on the chronology of the works, and respecting some of them at any
rate the conclusions reached by inquirers are vain and conflicting.
Several avenues of approach have been explored along the lines of
internal evidence drawn from statement, expression or rhythm. But
contemporary allusions (apart from those sometimes merely imagined in the
searcher’s enthusiasm) are scarce in Seneca, as if to remind us that the
treatises are concerned with themes which are independent of the years.
Similarities of thought yield inconclusive criteria of contemporaneous
composition in an author who, on some subjects, expressed himself in
much the same manner from first to last throughout his career, but who
conversely, on other subjects, contradicted himself within the range
of the same treatise. Then, again, statistics, like M. Bourgery’s,
showing relative frequency of definite metrical sentence-endings form
an unsubstantial foundation on which to base theories of earliness or
lateness in composition. M. Pichon[633] in 1912 considered that, on the
chronology of the works, Gercke in his _Seneca-Studien_ of 1895 had to
a great extent superseded Jonas’s dissertation of 1870; and now it is
suggested[634] that M. Albertini[635] has made it almost unnecessary
to consult Gercke. If one constructs a table to exhibit the dates
assigned by different critics to the works, the variation of opinion is
at first sight bewildering. For instance, the _Consolatio Ad Marciam_,
which Lipsius placed after the exile, was, according to others, written
during it (41-49); and, according to Albertini, before it (A.D. 40). All
three books of the _De Ira_ were, according to Jonas, published in 41,
but, according to Lehmann and Rossbach, in 49 after the recall; or—to
take what marks perhaps the maximum of divergence—the _De Prouidentia_,
in which Waltz sees a similarity of tone linking it with the _De
Constantia_, is referred by him to the first months of exile, 41-42,
while Albertini, agreeing with Gercke that it is “_après la disgrâce_,”
gives A.D. 63. Respecting dates for the tragedies, opinions are equally
at variance. The general proportion of uncertainty is so great that one
is tempted to fall back upon Madvig’s dictum of 1873, _librorum Senecae
praeter paucos tempora incerta sunt_.[636] Yet, after all, there are
points on which we can lay firm hold. Few of the extant prose works were
written before Seneca’s exile in 41, and most of the best-known ones
belong to the sixteen years which he had to live after his recall, when
he was well over fifty years of age. There is much to say for believing
that the _Consolatio Ad Marciam_ is the oldest of the surviving treatises
(A.D. 40), and that at least two books of the _De Ira_ were composed in
41. We can be quite certain that the other two _Consolations_, namely _Ad
Heluiam_ and _Ad Polybium_, belong to the early part of the exile, the
one to 41-42, the other to 43. No other work can be, without challenge,
ascribed to this Corsican period, although some authorities think that
to it belong the _De Breuitate Vitae_ as well as the _De Constantia_ and
the _De Prouidentia_. As to the period after Seneca’s recall in 49, there
is no doubt that the _De Clementia_ was written early in Nero’s reign,
probably in 55 (Albertini thinks 56). It is generally agreed that the _De
Otio_, _Epistulae Morales_, and the _Quaestiones Naturales_ follow the
retirement of A.D. 62, the composition of the last two works spreading
over more than one year.
Realizing, then, that a full and exact chronology is unattainable, we
proceed to a brief survey of the works.[637] Of the twelve _Dialogi_[638]
it may be convenient to consider the three _Consolations_ first, then the
three books _On Anger_, and finally the remaining half-dozen treatises.
The _Consolations_ are not spontaneous expressions of sympathy, but
literary efforts following broadly a scheme. It was a Greek invention
thus to cure one of the maladies of the soul—grief; and the philosophers
of different schools[639] who composed such exercises were in time joined
by the rhetoricians, so that two streams of influence converged in what
was a kind of popular philosophy, with general features of similarity.
Among these features were eclecticism in argument; insistence upon
our inability to control external circumstances in contrast with the
possession of our own reason and will; the employment of rhetorical _loci
communes_ and historical examples, as in a declamation; and a typical
structure. Usually this structure consisted of an introduction, on the
evil to be remedied; the main body of the consolation, on the cause of
the affliction and the person afflicted; and a conclusion. It is evident
that this species of moral pharmacy, based on an established science of
consolation, possessed its time-honoured conventions alike in plan and
thought. While, therefore, in Seneca the colour borrowed from Stoics and
others is pronounced, it is fruitless to endeavour to trace his sources
in detail. What gave a _Consolation_ its distinctive value was very much
what gives value to any work of art—the genius of its author and his
power, within the limitations of an old form, to achieve a fresh result.
The special circumstances deplored, the personality of the individual
consoled, sometimes even digressions indulged in, and the signal mastery
of style displayed, might all open up paths to an original effect.
The _Ad Marciam_ is addressed to the brave daughter of Cremutius Cordus,
who published some of the writings of her dead father, one of Sejanus’s
victims. Its design is to console her in her continued mourning for her
son, whom she had lost three years earlier. Between its exordium and its
peroration it contains a fairly systematic reasoning based on examples
of other mothers in grief and on precepts for the control of grief.
Seneca’s hand, however, is not so sure as it is in the _Ad Heluiam_, the
most regularly arranged and, at the same time, the cleverest and most
readable of the three _Consolations_. Once he has passed the exordium and
a recapitulation of the troubles which have already taught his mother,
Helvia, to be courageous, he addresses himself to the immediate task of
consoling her under the loss of her exiled son—himself. The situation,
it will be observed, was unique; for the person whose loss is mourned
comforts the mourner. His ingenuity and prevailing Stoicism are apparent
in the defence of the two main positions. On the one hand, the exile
himself is not really unfortunate, because he has been trained not to
mind the deprivation of external blessings; banishment is but a change of
place which cannot affect virtue; enforced poverty does not hurt the sage
(an argument which gives a handle for invectives against luxury); and
the disgrace of exile lies only in man’s opinion. On the other hand, his
mother is not really unfortunate; it cannot be that she laments her son’s
support, since her affection has always been disinterested; her natural
pangs over the separation give her an excellent chance of displaying
fortitude after the manner of other courageous women whom Seneca proceeds
to cite; her melancholy can be dispelled through her favourite studies
in philosophy, and through the affection of the dear ones who are
left. Seneca’s recognition here of ordinary human feelings outside the
chill reason of the Stoics makes the one truly touching portion of his
_Consolation_. For himself, he is happy to have leisure both for the
study of the universe and for light literary work.
In the _Ad Polybium_, written about the middle of A.D. 43, he is far
less cheerful. Here the object is to comfort Polybius, a learned and
influential freedman at court, on the death of a brother. Apart from the
reasoned consolation, two features stand out—the author’s acknowledgement
of his misery in a remote corner (_angulo_) of the world, where his very
Latin might suffer,[640] and his flatteries of the emperor in the hope
of securing a remission of his sentence. The inconsistency with his
previous fortitude and the undignified abasement in respect of Claudius
have made all Seneca’s admirers wish that he had never written this
treatise. Diderot’s denial of Seneca’s authorship in the eighteenth
century has, however, received only slight support in modern times. The
manner is Seneca’s, and there are not wanting memorable sayings; _e.g._
on the obligations of high rank, “great fortune is great servitude”
(_magna seruitus magna fortuna_, vi. 5); on a dilemma for mourners, “to
lament one in bliss is jealousy; to lament the non-existent, insanity”
(_beatum deflere inuidia est, nullum dementia_, ix. 3); on life as a
torture (_omnis uita supplicium est_, ix. 6), at the beginning of a
fine passage on the troublous ocean of life whose one final haven is
death; respecting the dead man, “he has not left us but gone before”
(_non reliquit ille nos sed antecessit_, ix. 9); and on the grumbler
under a reversal of fortune, “the man who gives to the close of a spell
of pleasure the name of injustice has no gratitude” (_ingratus est qui
iniuriam uocat finem uoluptatis_, x. 2).
The three books _De Ira_ (which have certain gaps) were dedicated
to Seneca’s brother, Novatus. They investigate the characteristics,
uselessness and curability of anger. The plan, although the author
several times indicates his line of treatment and his transitions, is not
satisfactory.[641] There are repetitions and contradictions,[642] and
the relation of Book III to the preceding couple presents difficulties.
The work must be later than Caligulas’s reign; for it contains frank
criticism on his mad anger, I. xx. 8-9, and on his barbarities, III.
xviii. 3-4 and xix. 1-2. In the last passage Seneca indulges in the
bitter climax: “Caligula tortured his victims by means of all the
grimmest things in the world, with the cord, boot, rack, fire, and with
that face of his (_uultu suo_).” Possibly the first two books were
written, as Albertini suggests, in 41, just before the banishment;
and Book III, which reads as if it came from Nero’s preceptor, may
have been added in 49 to the work interrupted eight years before.
Seneca’s handling of so unfortunately common a human frailty could not
fail to possess interest. He reminds us that ungovernable rage is the
one passion that seizes a nation as a whole and so leads to war.[643]
The gift of apt illustration which marks the _Letters to Lucilius_ is
already noticeable. Irascible men, he suggests, ought not to meddle with
the more exacting sorts of task, or, if they do, should stop short of
weariness: their tempers need to be softened with milder pursuits; “for
who does not know that clarions and trumpets are irritants, just as some
airs are lullabies to soothe the mind? Green is good for wearied eyes
(_confusis oculis prosunt uirentia_), and some colours are restful for
weak sight, while the brilliancy of some is dazzling.”[644] There is the
gift too of graphic description and anecdote. A reader never forgets
the opening chapter, where, after citing the sage who called anger “a
brief insanity,” the author gives his tellingly repulsive portrayal of
the outward symptoms of mad wrath leading up to his words of dismissal,
“You could not tell whether the vice is more hateful or ugly.”[645] Nor
does one forget the idle Sybarite who was annoyed over seeing a labourer
hard at work, and who complained about the discomfort caused him by the
rumpling of some of the rose-leaves on which he lay.[646]
Years elapsed before Seneca indited to the same brother the now
imperfect _De Vita Beata_. Novatus had become Gallio by adoption, as the
superscription _Ad Gallionem_ shows: most likely his governorship of
Achaea was over. Two main questions are propounded—what makes life happy?
and what is the way to the happy life? Happiness for Seneca consists not
in what the many, but in what Stoic sages, think happy. It is “to live
according to nature,”[647] in possession of a sound mind, true courage,
true patience, and a true estimate of things, so reaping “an immense
joy, unshaken and equable, along with peace and harmony of spirit,
greatness of mind and gentleness; for all savagery is the outcome of
weakness.”[648] From another point of view, happiness is to practise
virtue. Against pleasure a polemic is directed, although Seneca takes
up a broadminded attitude towards the Epicurean system when properly
interpreted (ch. xii). The mode of attainment to happiness is not clearly
formulated, but the essay develops a spirited retort to those who yelp
(_conlatrant_) at philosophy on the ground that philosophers do not
perform what they preach.[649] In particular a defence is needed for the
ownership of wealth by the sage who affects to despise it. For himself
Seneca can reply that he does not claim the virtuous perfection of the
sage, but a wise use of wealth justifies its retention. Even in high
estate a virtuous life may be led. Since the impression is given that the
author is answering criticisms levelled at him as a rich man, a plausible
date is 58 or 59, after Suillius’s attack upon Seneca.
The three treatises _De Constantia Sapientis_, _De Tranquillitate Animi_,
and _De Otio_ were addressed to a recipient, whose name, Serenus, fits
the tenets conveyed. Annaeus Serenus died as prefect of Nero’s _uigiles_
during one of Seneca’s later years: he had been accommodating enough
to lend himself as a screen to prevent Agrippina from detecting Nero’s
passion for the freedwoman Acte. Waltz,[650] following Hense, has pointed
out that the three treatises mark progressive stages of philosophical
attitude in Seneca’s pupil. In the _De Constantia_ Serenus is Epicurean;
in the _De Tranquillitate_, he is already Stoic in sympathy, though
restless; in the _De Otio_, he is a convinced disciple. The fuller
title for the _De Constantia_, states its theme, “that the wise man can
receive neither wrong nor insult” (_nec iniuriam nec contumeliam accipere
sapientem_). Not unnaturally, considering its subject, some have referred
it to the early months of exile; but a reference to a recent discussion
on Cato[651] implies Rome rather than Corsica as the place of writing.
As the purpose is to prove a paradox—admittedly a hard saying for
Serenus—Seneca begins by explaining that Stoic doctrine is too manly to
aim at attractiveness. The answers to the supposed adversary’s objections
involve a good deal of hair-splitting; but there is a fine confidence
in the emphasis laid upon the calm of the sage amidst the storm of war;
“for no siege-engines can be invented to shake the well-established mind”
(_nulla machinamenta posse reperiri quae bene fundatum animum agitent_),
and he sums up:
See, then, Serenus, that the perfect man, full of virtues human
and divine, can lose nothing: his goods are girt with solid
and unscalable ramparts.... You cannot compare with them the
walls of Babylon which Alexander entered, nor the battlements
of Carthage or Numantia.... Those which protect the sage are
safe from fire and invasion: they yield no passage: they tower
impregnable, equalling gods. You have no ground for saying, as
you are wont to do, that this sage of ours is nowhere found. We
invent no such unreal glory of human genius (vi. 9-10).
At the opening of the _De Tranquillitate_, Serenus confesses his uneasy
vacillation in the pursuit of peace of mind. What, for instance, should
be the attitude of man amidst luxury? What are the claims of leisured
retirement against the worries of public life? What satisfaction comes
from literary fame? The answer gives Seneca’s views on the attainment
and maintenance of such an unruffled course that the mind shall take
pleasure in itself and in its surroundings. An extraordinary amount of
human wisdom is contained in this treatise, which seeks to provide a
cure for ennui and nerves. Among the interesting topics are failures in
life; the restless traveller in quest of change; the teacher who performs
genuine social service (_in priuato publicum negotium agit_); the value
of friendship (_nihil aeque oblectauerit animum quam amicitia fidelis
et dulcis_); property as a source of anxiety (a theme illustrated with
characteristic fertility); foolishness in book-collecting (_multoque
satius est paucis te auctoribus tradere quam errare per multos_); the
defiance of fortune; the vanity of human wishes; the interest in the
condition of spirits beyond death; the proper estimate of human failings
and sorrows; the torment of an artificial life; and the advisability of
a little nonsense now and then to obviate the dullness produced by all
work and no play (_danda est animis remissio ... nascitur ex assiduitate
laborum animorum hebetatio quaedam et languor_).
The _De Otio_ (mutilated at beginning and end) defends the moral value
of leisure from affairs, in reply to Serenus’s statement of the strict
Stoic position. Seneca’s plea is that at every age it is permissible
to renounce action for philosophical meditation; but most of all is it
permissible for those who have grown old in active service. Amid general
corruption, such withdrawal is countenanced on both Stoic and Epicurean
principles. We each belong to two commonwealths, and in retreat the sage
may usefully serve the universal cosmopolis, the world at large, through
his speculative life in accord with nature. Especially may he with profit
devote himself to satisfying that inquiring disposition implanted in man
by Nature herself. Nature has produced us to be spectators of her vast
works: her beauty and complexity are not meant to pass unobserved. So by
the right path of research, man must “discover something more ancient
than the world itself” (_aliquid ipso mundo inueniat antiquius_); for
“our thought bursts through the battlements of heaven, dissatisfied
with knowing merely what is shown” (_cogitatio nostra caeli munimenta
perrumpit nec contenta est id quod ostenditur scire_). The scientific
impulse here is that which animates the _Quaestiones Naturales_, and the
general tone befits the statesman who has resigned all responsibility for
public policy.
There is a link between the _De Otio_ and the much earlier _De
Breuitate Vitae_; for its final advice to Paulinus, controller of the
grain-supply for Rome, is that he would make the best use of life by
retiring to cultivate philosophy. Such advice could hardly come with
full effectiveness from an exile; while, on the other hand, a reference
shows that the treatise must have been written before Claudius extended
the _pomerium_ of the city on January 24th, A.D. 50. Its date lies,
therefore, presumably somewhere in 49 between the author’s recall and
his acceptance of a regular appointment.[652] Paulinus perhaps was
related to Seneca’s second wife.
The treatise is full of good things. Nowhere in literature are there
to be read pithier remarks on the value of time. The first century of
our era displayed a peculiarly keen sense of the way in which days
are wasted. Under Tiberius, Phaedrus, we have seen, made fun of those
fussy triflers, the _ardaliones_; and late in the century Pliny chafes
against the petty but innumerable inroads made on leisure, while Martial
betrays the same nervous spirit. Here Seneca speaks for the Neronian
period. Life is short: yes, but it is we who make it so: life is long
enough, if well employed. The general blindness to the worth of time is
amazing: men will resist encroachments on land or money, but will let
people trespass freely on their time, which is in reality their life.
They are spendthrifts with the one thing in which greed is honourable
(_profusissimi in eo cuius unius honesta auaritia est_). We live, in
fact, as if we were to live for ever. You hear men coolly postponing
leisurely reflection till after fifty or sixty: should they not blush to
reserve for the sovereign duty of reflection the mere remnants of a life
no longer fit for business? Drusus once declared that he was the only
person who had never had holidays even when a boy: precocity like that
must have an evil end. But the really great man will not let his hours
be filched away from him; and his life will be long because devoted to
self-improvement. Many a wrinkled grey-haired man has merely existed,
not lived, a long time (_non ille diu uixit, sed diu fuit_). Yet for
all men’s extravagance with this most precious of things, confront them
with the peril of death, and how they plead for more time! For what
purpose? To learn how to live and how to die demands a lifetime; but the
paramount concern is laid aside in favour of toilsome exertions for a
future on which no one can count. Thus the true life suffers from that
procrastination which is the thief of our to-days (_expectatio quae
pendet ex crastino perdit hodiernum_): so old age comes as a surprise,
and death as a terror, to those who have been busy (_occupati_) over
the wrong things, and have squandered time on luxury, affectation or
vice. That man has true leisure who has the sense of leisure: its secret
lies with philosophy, through whose study one may master centuries that
are past and commune with all the ages and all the sages. Those great
thinkers—not the arrogant snobs whom some court in Rome—constitute the
true society of the world; and yet, Seneca reminds us, as Ruskin did
long afterwards in _Sesame and Lilies_, none of those great thinkers
will refuse access to him. The communicable wisdom of the ages points
the right path towards immortality, and what philosophy has hallowed is
beyond the reach of injurious time.
The remaining dialogue is the _De Prouidentia_, given first in the
Milan MS. It is addressed, like the _Naturales Quaestiones_ and
the _Epistulae_, to Seneca’s friend Lucilius, a man with literary
tastes,[653] who had held procuratorial offices in various parts of the
Roman world, including Sicily, and in whom some have seen the author
of the _Aetna_. The subject discussed is summarized in the fuller
title—why any misfortunes befall good men, when a Providence exists
(_quare aliqua incommoda bonis uiris accidant, cum prouidentia sit_).
From the Stoic doctrine of a providential government of the universe, it
follows that suffering must serve a good purpose. Discipline is one of
the ends subserved: misfortune is a school for virtue, and a spectacle
noble enough for the gods to witness is that of good men struggling with
adversity—_non miror si aliquando impetum capiunt spectandi magnos uiros
conluctantis cum aliqua calamitate ... ecce par deo dignum, uir fortis
cum fortuna mala, utique si et prouocauit_. The last clause “especially
if he has actually thrown out the challenge,” is an addition symptomatic
of a rhetorical over-statement too common in this essay. The imperfect
way in which some points in the argument are worked out has led certain
critics to hold that a portion is lost at the end.[654]
Of the _De Clementia_, once in three books, we possess the first and a
portion of the second. The idea of writing on clemency was suggested
to Seneca through recollecting Nero’s words, when he reluctantly signed
a death-warrant, “Would that I had never learned to write!”[655] If one
is tempted to jeer at Seneca’s compliments to Nero and his expectations
that a better era had dawned, one must in fairness remember the high
hopes reposed and realized during the earlier years of the young prince’s
reign. Book I discusses the need for clemency in a ruler. The emperor, as
war-lord, is urged to recognize his responsibilities. He should follow
the model of the gods: things a subject might do, a monarch cannot,
in the full light that beats upon a throne (_multa contra te lux est,
omnium in istam conuersi oculi sunt_). Cruelty makes a tyrant; but the
affection of subjects is a stronger defence for a prince than their
fear. Book II degenerates into tedious attempts at the definition of
_clementia_ in contrast with what the Stoic condemns as weaknesses—mercy
(_misericordia_) and pardon (_uenia_).
The seven books _De Beneficiis_ addressed to Aebutius Liberalis were
not issued together. An allusion towards the close of Book I[656] shows
that Claudius was dead, and it is likely that the first four books had
appeared some years after 54; being followed by the remaining books,[657]
perhaps by V and VI together, as Gercke thinks, before the retirement
of 62, and by VII still later.[658] The praise of Demetrius in VII.
viii.-xii. best suits Seneca’s closing years. Based upon Hecaton,
Panaetius and other Stoics, the treatment of _Benefits_ is marked by
insight into human nature and generosity of impulse rather than by
strict method. It may be too much to say that the work is incapable of
analysis,[659] but it is safe to say that an attempted analysis shows the
absence of exact system.
There are repetitions and anticipations, apparently because the author,
instead of punctiliously exhausting a particular aspect of his subject,
preferred to record, as they came, in characteristically concise and
striking language, his thoughts upon points which he left himself free
to illuminate again as occasion might offer. He is not unaware of such
repetitions.[660] He is aware, too, of his digressions, on which he
imposes a closure in such terms as, “Let us now return to the theme set
before us,” or “My enthusiasm is carrying me away rather too far, for
the subject is a tempting one.”[661] Even his initial definition of a
benefit is unduly deferred (I. vi. 1) until after five somewhat rambling
chapters. Such traits, although they may be adjudged faults in logic,
actually contribute to the easiness and readability of his work.[662]
Besides, some of his best thoughts are repeated in such varied form that
they cannot fail to arrest the attention and impress themselves on the
memory. Despite, then, a dearth of method, no man can rise from the most
casual reading of a tractate by Seneca without having grasped its spirit.
The redoubled beats, so keen and insistent in their staccato, ensure that
effect.
The commonness of ingratitude is in Book I put down largely to the
wrong mode of conferring benefits. The essence of a benefit lies in
the attitude of the giver, and two points need consideration, the kind
of benefits to be conferred and the mode of giving. The latter point
is dealt with in Book II which turns to the mode of receiving, a topic
involving that of the ungrateful disposition. Book III continues the
subject of ingratitude, stating and answering problems: “Can ingratitude
be prosecuted?” No. “Can a slave benefit a master?” Yes. “Can children
confer on a parent more benefits than they have received?” Yes. Book IV,
dealing with aspects of benefits and gratitude, puts the query, “Should
one benefit the ungrateful?” The later books, from their investigation of
_quaestiones_, are casuistic in character, but by no means uninteresting.
Book V asks “Is it a shame to be surpassed in benefits?” then takes up
the Stoic paradoxes “No one can be ungrateful,” “All are ungrateful”;
and proceeds to find fresh puzzles, “Must a son be grateful for benefits
done to his father?” “Is that a benefit which was not intended?” Among
the problems in Book VI are “Do we owe gratitude to one who has benefited
us against his will?”, or “without knowing it?”, or “incidentally in
furthering his own interests?,” and in the last book “Can one benefit the
sage who possesses all?” and “What is the position where the giver has
forgotten the benefit conferred?” Although many of the problems end in
unfruitful refinements, there is much to treasure in Seneca’s permanently
valuable and shrewd criticism of human conduct. He is genuinely anxious
to correct by his counsels one of the most detrimental and heartbreaking
mistakes made in life; for he well realises how much pain is caused by
ignorance in conferring or in receiving a benefit. A few citations will
illustrate some aspects of his attitude:
“I should find it hard to say whether it is meaner for the
recipient to repudiate a benefit, or for the giver to press for
its repayment, inasmuch as a benefit is a sort of loan whose
return absolutely depends on the spontaneous action of the
debtor.”
“We find many people ungrateful; yet we make more people so,
because at one time we are insistent and harsh in our claims
for return, at another time we are fickle enough to regret
our generosity. By such conduct we spoil the whole favour....
A benefit is felt to be a debt in the same spirit as that in
which it is bestowed.”
“If a man does not give because he does not receive, he must
have given in order to receive, and that justifies ingratitude.
How many there are who are unworthy of the light of day, and
nevertheless the sun rises.”
“Persevere in your generosity. Assist one with your means,
another with credit, another with your favour, or your advice,
or a word in season. Is he ungrateful for one benefit?
After receiving a second, perhaps he will not be so. Has he
forgotten two? Perhaps the third kindness will bring back the
recollection of those that slipped his mind.”
“The reality of a benefit lies not in gold, nor silver, but in
the goodwill of the giver.”
“What is a benefit? It is the doing of a kindness which gives
pleasure and in the giving gets pleasure.... The spirit
animating the act is what exalts trivial things, throws lustre
on ordinary things, while it can discredit great and highly
valued ones.”
The _Naturales Quaestiones_ is in Seneca’s eyes an excursion into the
highest speculation; for such physical inquiries concern God’s universe,
whereas moral philosophy concerns man. The subject had occupied Seneca in
Corsica,[663] and for many years he must have collected material to be
combined (not over methodically) in these seven books. At the opening of
Book II he gives his threefold division of the knowledge of nature into
astronomy, meteorology, and geography, according as the investigation
is directed to phenomena in the heavens (_caelestia_), or between the
heavens and earth (_sublimia_), or upon the earth (_terrestria_). He
does not, however, treat these subjects equally or in order, as a glance
at the contents of the different books will prove. Indeed, the order
of these books is much disputed.[664] It is possible that Seneca never
finally settled their succession; for the work may have been ultimately
issued by Lucilius, to whom it was dedicated. The time of composition can
be determined within limits. Book III shows that it was the work of the
author’s old age after his retirement in 62, and the opening of Book VI
records the earthquake at Pompeii in February of 63.
The main themes are distributed among the books thus: I, Fire (meteors,
rainbow, mock sun, etc.); II, Air (Thunder and Lightning); III, Water in
various forms; IV, The rise of the Nile and (after a sudden break) snow,
hail, and rain; V, Wind and atmospheric movement; VI, Earthquakes; VII,
Comets.
The historical importance of the work is considerable. Here Seneca
is in the succession to the Augustan Sextii, who had some reputation
for scientific inquiry. Their influence and that of the “pneumatic”
physicians, who took a Stoic view of the mechanism of physiology,
contributed to keep physical speculation alive in the first century.
Science, however, was still too much a literary manipulation of
material bequeathed by predecessors to facilitate real advance. This
in the main applies to the compiler of the _Naturales Quaestiones_.
Although he undoubtedly developed germs of independence (_e.g._ in
ridiculing the divination with which he could not irrevocably break),
he is not possessed by his subject, as the Epicurean poet Lucretius
was. For Western Europe, in default of direct access to Aristotle,
the work remained during the Middle Ages the prevalent authority on
cosmology; but scientific, according to modern standards, it certainly
is not. The absence of the exact equipment nowadays available rendered
nice experiment impossible, and with the best will in the world the
observer was exposed to all the risks attendant on the inaccuracy of
sense-perception. To the utmost of his ability, nevertheless, Seneca
sought to secure trustworthy data; _e.g._ with respect to a comet (VII.
ii.); he was a searcher after causes, and stated fairly the points of
conflicting theories; eclectic by preference, he even rejected the
explanations of his own Stoic school when he deemed them incorrect; and
he realized that generations of workers might be needed to reach truth
in complex subjects (VII. xxv.). On the other hand, he never learned
to divorce ethics from physics, and consequently some of the most
interesting parts of the _Naturales Quaestiones_ are his unscientific
digressions. Thus, lightning suggests other presages and leads to
discussions on fate and religion in Book II. Closing the same book, he
recognizes that some would rather be delivered from the fear of lightning
than know its origin, and, conceding that a moral should attach to every
study, he proceeds to reason against the dread of death. Again, the
chafing of the sea, he believes, indicates that Nature will ultimately
inundate the world to make a new world. Lucilius is admonished at the
beginning of Book IV that he must not be arrogant, although governor of
Sicily; for the island is “a province, not an empire”; and the topic
of snow occasions one of his tirades against the despicable luxury of
effeminate Romans who would bathe in it or use ice to cool their thirst.
In such passages the physicist has reverted to the moral philosopher.
Much labour has been spent in arguing that the 124 _Epistles to Lucilius_
were not real letters. In the last resort, the question is hardly a
vital one; for supposing the form were proved to be fictitious, Seneca
must at least have meant the collection to be taken for a budget of
correspondence despatched by him to his friend, because he introduces
references to letters received.[665] Several scholars[666] have followed
Lipsius in his denial of the reality of the correspondence; but it
is more satisfactory to accept the epistles as representing a real
correspondence subjected to the author’s editorial suppression of the
regular opening or closing phrases, of very intimate passages, and
of certain personal names. They were written in A.D. 63 and 64, and
sent, as written, to Lucilius. At different points in the collection a
subject is often reopened, and there are inconsistencies in thought, so
that no logical order is to be looked for, although it is possible to
trace certain chronological groups[667] according to Seneca’s change of
reading or residence. Thus, the model of Epicurus’s letters to Idomeneus
especially pervades the first twenty-nine letters, most of which close
with an Epicurean maxim sent to Lucilius under some such jocular labels
as “a little gift” (_munusculum_), “a windfall” (_lucellum_) or “toll”
(_portorium_). Similarly, we note the effect of his concurrent study of
Posidonius in many letters after No. 78. About forty letters (Nos. 49-87)
seem to have been composed in Campania, and the subsequent letters in
Rome or the neighbourhood. Some are brief notes: others treatises many
pages long. Seneca remarks on the difference between Cicero’s epistolary
notes[668] about current politics and his own letters discussing moral
and intellectual problems. Promising Lucilius a literary immortality[669]
through the publication of the correspondence, he keeps his eye fixed on
posterity as firmly as ever the younger Pliny or Madame de Sévigné did.
The variety of interest is great, when it is remembered that the
prevailing object is the consideration of philosophical points, and that,
therefore, many personal details were intentionally excluded. Nothing
stands out more, throughout a perusal, than Seneca’s faith in the eternal
and inestimable value of philosophy, for which everything should be
sacrificed. Philosophy is the guide of life (xvi.) and its joy (xxiii.):
more vital than any physical exercise, it promotes the health of the mind
(xv.), guarantees a pleasant old age (xii.), and teaches how to face
death (a recurrent topic): it offers the glory of literary immortality
(xxi.), and deserves to be made a man’s life-work (lxxii.). Hunger and
poverty must be endured cheerfully in the quest after wisdom (xvii.), and
social pleasures rigidly renounced to win the needful seclusion (_recede
in te ipse quantum potes_, vii. 8). Such seclusion involves hard mental
toil, not for oneself but for posterity (viii.), to increase the store
of human wisdom. Philosophy must be studied earnestly in Stoic writings
as a whole, not in merely convenient anthologies (_flosculi_, xxxiii.);
for Stoics decline to practise window-dressing (_ocliferia_: “We don’t
trick a purchaser, so that, when he has entered the shop, he’ll find
nothing beyond what was hung up in front,” xxxiii. 3). The time-honoured
traditions of philosophy stamp it as a gradual achievement of
civilization (xc.). It is no self-regarding morality, but has duties to
discharge—the reclaiming of backsliders (xxv.) and help for the wretched
(xlviii.). Genuine philosophy is in touch with human kind (v.), despite
the risk of debasement from mixing with the mob (vii.): truly democratic,
it is no respecter of pedigrees (_stemma non inspicit_, xliv. 1), and it
is an occupation of the heart, not a pose marked by outward peculiarities
(v.).
His counsels are couched in terms of winning modesty. He is not perfect,
he confesses (xxvii.); if he ventures to prescribe remedies, he is in
the same infirmary (_ualitudinario_, xxvii. 1) talking with other moral
invalids about common ailments of the soul and their cure. This note of
sympathy with frailty in utter forgetfulness of dogmatic Stoicism is
one of the most likeable traits in Seneca: it increases his hold over
us and his power of doing us good. So he preached abstinence (xviii.)
more effectively than many a temperance bigot; recommended the right
behaviour for travel (_i.e._ learn to be at home everywhere as a citizen
of the world, xxviii. 4); and pleaded the duty of kindness to slaves
(“_slaves?_—nay, our humble friends: _slaves?_—nay, our fellow-slaves,
for the real slavery is that of the mind, and no slavery is baser than
self-imposed slavery in high rank,” xlvii. 1). He was too sensible to
be misled by Stoic paradoxes about the self-sufficing sage who had no
need of a friend (ix. and cix.): there had to be a _uia media_ between
contamination amidst the madding crowd (vii.) and deterioration in
solitude: alone with oneself, he reminds us, one might be in bad company
(x.). Thus he writes:
When friendship is made, one must trust; before it is made,
one must judge. There is a topsy-turvy confusion in your folk
who, in disobedience to the rule of Theophrastus, judge one
after making a friend of him instead of making him their friend
after judging him. Ponder long whether a given person is to be
admitted to your friendship: when you have decided that he is
to be so, welcome him with all your heart. Converse with him as
boldly as with yourself (iii. 2).
The human appeal of the letters is intensified by the light thrown
on contemporary life. They place before us the loathsome butchery at
gladiatorial shows (vii.), the seductions of a seaside resort (li.),
the arrival of mailboats from Alexandria (lxxvii.), the treatment of
runaway slaves (cvii.), the pleasure of travelling light in contrast to
the overpowering magnificence of some travellers (lxxxvii.). No less
enlivening are personal details which bring the author nearer to us—even
his asthma (liv.) and other ailments (lxxviii.), depressing attacks
of fever, and his decision to be careful out of consideration for his
wife’s solicitous feelings (civ.), sea-sickness on a trip in the Bay of
Naples (liii.), an outing in a litter (lv.), trying experiences during
a day of mud and dust in a tunnel near Naples (lvii.), lodgings over a
noisy public bath (lvi.), feelings on the death of a friend (lxxvii.
and lxiii., 1 and 4, “at a friend’s loss the eyes should be neither dry
nor streaming ... let us see to it that the recollection of our lost
ones is a pleasant one”), attendance at philosophy lectures when old
(lxxvi.), thoughts suggested by a wrestling-school or Scipio’s villa
(lxxxvi.). Here the work on Italian fields is put before us (“It’s late
June ... this very day I noticed peasants harvesting beans and sowing
millet,” lxxxvi. 16); and another letter gives Seneca’s own experiences
in vine-grafting (cxii.). Elsewhere we find reminiscences of his teachers
with entertaining anecdotes (cviii.), or a hint to Lucilius that he must
climb Aetna (lxxix.). His attitude to the government of the day appears
in exhortations to practise circumspection and avoid offence (xiv.).
It is noteworthy that he says nothing to indicate whether he looked
back with satisfaction upon his public life. No doubt, his own tastes
preferred the serene detachment of an onlooker portrayed in the following
passage:
You dun me for more frequent letters: let’s compare
accounts—you’ll not be solvent! The bargain, of course, was
that _you_ were to start—_you_ were to write, I was to write
back. But I’m not going to make difficulties: I know you’re
safe for credit, and so I’ll pay in advance, and not do as that
master of style, Cicero, tells Atticus to do—write anything
that rises to his lips, even if he has got no news. I can never
be at a loss for matter, though I skip all the details that
fill Cicero’s letters—what candidate is in difficulties; who
is fighting with other people’s backing, who with his own;
who is standing for the consulship in reliance on Caesar or
on Pompey or on a money-chest; what a skin-flint Caecilius
is, out of whom his own relations can’t shift a coin under
twelve per cent. No, it’s better to handle one’s own troubles
than other folk’s, better to examine oneself to see in how
many affairs one is a candidate, and yet decline to vote.
This, my dear Lucilius, is the noble line—the line that means
tranquillity and freedom—to compete for nothing, and entirely
to give the elections of fortune the go-by. How great do you
take the pleasure to be when the assembly of the tribes has
been summoned, when the candidates are on tenterhooks within
their respective quarters, when one is offering money, another
acting through an agent, another smearing with kisses the hands
of folk to whom he’ll refuse his handshake after election, when
all are waiting in dumb amazement for the crier’s voice—how
great the pleasure to stand at one’s ease, a spectator of that
Vanity Fair without either buying or selling anything?[670]
The discussions frequently bear, like St. Paul’s epistles, the mark of
the Stoic diatribe. Objections are supposed to be raised (_inquis_) by
Lucilius or by an imaginary opponent to be scrutinized and refuted.
And there is something Bionean in sharp sarcasms recalling those of
the _Apocolocyntosis_. The philosopher makes great game of the futile
queries raised by pedantic teachers (lxxxviii. 7-8 and 37); of brainless
pleasure-seekers in Rome, the human “antipodes” who turn night into day
(cxxii.); of an outrageously vulgar parvenu freedman who purchased highly
educated slaves to enable him to parade learning by proxy (xxvii.); of a
philosophical lecturer’s rapid delivery, which was too like the glibness
of a cheap-jack (xl. 3, _istam uim dicendi rapidam atque abundantem
aptiorem esse circulanti quam agenti rem magnam ac seriam docenti_); or
of luxurious baths hot enough to parboil a condemned criminal (lxxxvi.
10).
The remarks on style in various letters are instructive, as coming from
one whose own style has provoked severe criticism in ancient and modern
times. Letter 84 discusses the assimilation of reading, and states a
theory of style in the making: bee-like we should gather widely, but
the combined products must finally be made our own. In Letter 100,
writing for the soul is contrasted with writing for the ear, and Seneca
distinguishes the prose of Fabianus with the artificially inverted prose
of the day. Letter 114 examines decadence in style, which is explicable
on the hypothesis that it is a mirror of morals. Seneca’s citations here
illustrate the loose and undisciplined compositions which, he argues,
reflected the character of Maecenas. With the spread of luxury the
affected manner in literature keeps pace, and eccentricity of expression
captures the cultivated public as well as the common herd. There is no
absolute standard: fashion sways style. While some ape the diction of
earlier generations, others cannot abide the old-fashioned; and Seneca
points the distinctions between the long rhythmic sentences of Cicero
and the terse abruptness of Sallust. In the next letter, 115, he warns
Lucilius not to be over-anxious to attain to a fine style: matter is more
than manner—the question should be “what?” not “how?” Then, anticipating
the famous _Le style est de l’homme même_, he declares that style is the
yield of a man’s mind (_oratio cultus animi est_).
This raises the question of Seneca’s own prose. The stress laid on
the “what,” rather than the “how,” goes some way, though not all the
way, towards explaining why he wrote, as many would have it, so badly.
Quintilian, the champion of a phase of restored Ciceronianism in the
next generation, may be taken to speak for the hostile critics. In a
well-known passage[671] he examines Seneca’s merits and demerits. In
Quintilian’s eyes Seneca’s style was spoilt by all sorts of blemishes,
and he felt it his duty to point his students to stricter standards of
taste. Tacitus afterwards recorded Seneca’s power of appealing to his
contemporaries.[672] This very attractiveness Quintilian recognized, but
feared: “he charmed because of his faults only” (_placebat propter sola
uitia_). Conceding Seneca’s ready and rich intellect, his learning and
versatility, brilliant _sententiae_ and moral value, he at the same time
indicates his weaknesses—liability to be misled by those who “devilled”
for him in scientific inquiries (_aliquando ab his quibus inquirenda
quaedam mandabat deceptus est_); want of strict accuracy in philosophy;
and a style all the more pernicious because full of fascinating faults
(_eo perniciosissima, quod abundant dulcibus uitiis_). Yet Quintilian
considers that, in spite of wilful mannerisms, Seneca is safe reading
for those of maturely trained judgement, for he allows there is much
in him to approve and to admire. Next century, when an archaising
movement had set in, Fronto condemns his style more sweepingly for its
“fever-producing plums” (_febriculosis prunuleis_), while Gellius records
some readers’ dislike for his glib vulgarity as well as other alleged
defects, and censures Seneca for having, in the now lost twenty-second
book of the _Epistles_, dared to pass unfavourable criticisms on Ennius,
Cicero and Virgil.
It is clear that a lover of Cicero’s polished amplitude will not feel
drawn to the Senecan sentence which, by comparison, must appear offhand,
and, despite frequent use of pointed balance, to a large extent
formless. In order that a sententious thought might go home impressively
and might be easily recalled and quoted, a premium was set upon its smart
and brief formulation. The literary fashion was everything by fits and
starts and nothing long; for the copious rounded periods of the older
oratory had for the time lost their power of attraction. So eloquence
no longer flowed in a full broad stream, but glittered iridescent like
intermittent jets shot into sunlight from a cleverly contrived fountain.
Seneca himself writes[673] that he would like his _Letters to Lucilius_
to be as natural in tone as if he were chatting with his friend seated or
walking at his side; and so colloquial words and phrases do not surprise
us. Indeed they fit the easygoing argument, as homeliness fits some
sermons. But Seneca adheres to this simple model no more rigidly than
Wordsworth to his theory of “a selection of the language really spoken
by men.” Seneca is far from avoiding the artificial; and his style, like
his character, has complexities and inconsistencies. It is intelligible,
then, that critics should distinguish good and bad qualities in his
composition, but perhaps it is more profitable to ask whether, with
his style, he fulfilled his main object in writing. He had to face the
fresh problem of composing readable tracts on ethical questions mainly
Stoic: so, as an experimenter and innovator, he was sure to depart from
traditional lines. Yet sometimes it looks as if he were censured for not
being another Cicero. In literature, however, there are many mansions.
The opening for Seneca was to create the Latin philosophical essay; and
here he is, on the whole, a success.
To this success his power of awakening interest greatly contributed;
for he is not a dull writer. He secures varied effects by neglecting
logical method, so that he becomes pleasantly discursive; he diversifies
his science with rhetorical descriptions; he illuminates a point with
wonderful fertility in examples; and he holds the attention by his lively
manner in arguing a question. Homeliness of expression alternates with
elevation of thought. It is a personal and unmistakeable style, crowded
with those disconnected, jerky, antithetic and epigrammatic sentences
which made Macaulay say: “to read him straightforward is like dining on
nothing but anchovy sauce.” After all, those same forcible and quotable
sentences have the merit of leaving Seneca’s position clear. Now, the
virtue of an essay, in the true and original sense, lies largely in this,
that, while it may not exhaust a subject, it must, if a good essay,
convey a lucid impression. The qualities here noted are parallel to those
in the writings of Montaigne and Bacon, and constitute Seneca one of the
most admirable essayists in the world.
Everywhere we meet with such terse sayings as these:[674] “A life is
not incomplete, if it is honourable”; “it is not an important matter to
live—it is important to die honourably, wisely, courageously”; “as a
play, so is life—it matters not how long, but how good the acting is”;
“success is a restless thing ... it intoxicates in more ways than one”
(_res est inquieta felicitas ... mouet cerebrum non uno genere_); “a
humiliating and grotesque sight is an old man at his A B C” (_turpis
et ridicula res est elementarius senex_); “old age is an ailment for
which there’s no cure” (_senectus insanabilis morbus est_). There are
paradoxes like “some people have stopped living before they could start”
(_quidam ante uiuere desierunt quam inciperent_); or balanced clauses,
“in a multitude of books is distraction—so, as you can’t read all you’ve
got, it’s enough to have as much as you can read”; or pieces of workaday
wisdom, “what’s the good of meeting one’s trouble halfway? You’ll have
the trouble fast enough when it comes” (_quid iuuat dolori suo occurrere?
satis cito dolebis cum uenerit_), or “if you don’t want a man to lose his
head in a crisis, you should give him practice beforehand.”[675]
Superabundant terseness of this sort leaves the reader dazzled and
fatigued. Seneca’s is a prose which produces an effect analogous to that
of his nephew Lucan’s hectic verse.
His language,[676] as we might expect, is an amalgam of the literary
and the vulgar. On the one hand, there is the contribution of rhetoric
and learning—poetic words, archaisms, philosophical terms, Hellenisms;
on the other hand, the contribution of spoken Latin. A good deal of
his vocabulary he shares, not with the more literary authors, but with
Varro, Columella and the elder Pliny. From trade come such words as
_botularius_ (“sausage-maker”) and _libitinarius_ (“undertaker”); and
from agriculture, such as _folliculus_ (“pod”) and _retorridus_ (“parched
up”). There are colloquial words like _pilicrepus_ (“ball-player,” found
in inscriptions), _scordalus_ (“brawler,” in elder Seneca and Petronius),
and diminutives like _centunculus_ (“a little patch”). There are also
rare words, not known before Seneca, like _collatrare_ (“yelp at”) and
_perpessicius_ (“much enduring”). To other words he gives a new meaning.
Traces of Seneca’s influence are found in Juvenal and Tacitus; and early
Christian writers[677] like Tertullian, Lactantius and Jerome were
attracted by the spirit and words of one who was for long believed to
have corresponded with St. Paul. His prose style is definitely echoed in
Tertullian’s _Apologeticum_; for its peroration, fiercely triumphant in
its eulogy upon martyrdom, contains antitheses, exclamations, historical
instances and short crisp utterances which ring as if they might have
come from a converted Seneca.
If only as the exponent of Latin Stoicism, Seneca deserves lasting fame.
The spirit of the later Stoicism can be gathered from his Latin essays
and epistles, and in Greek from the _Discourses of Epictetus_ recorded
by Arrian and from the _Meditations_ composed by the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius. In the eyes of all three, the Stoic mode of thought guarantees
healing for the wounds of life. But internal peace can be attained only
by hard-won victories over self and over circumstance, by persevering
progress towards virtue—a progress which, Seneca wisely insists, is in
itself virtue—by trust in Providence, by acceptance of the Divine Will,
by harmonizing oneself with Nature. The precept of Epictetus, “endure
and abjure” (ἀνέχου καὶ ἀπέχου), expresses much of this ascetic faith.
The tranquillity which the stricter Stoics of Greece would confine to
the perfect sage is, in the more sensible Roman spirit, claimed by
Seneca for him also who is advancing and has made some headway. It is a
hard fight to advance, he says, but “you are sworn to make yourself a
good man”[678] and the very striving is virtue.[679] This is typical of
the Roman rejection of the more pedantic early Stoicism. In Seneca the
system has become an enlightened and broadened one, too practical to
mistake paradoxes for genuine intellectual or moral sustenance. So too
Seneca’s breadth of sympathy indicates the widening of the moral ideal;
for cosmopolitanism has transcended the old opposition between Greek
and barbarian. The claims of others are infinitely heightened, when in
each fellow-man there is recognized, notwithstanding imperfections, some
spark of an all-pervading divine essence. Forbearance, kindliness and
true humanity are the fruits of such a creed: so out of a once rigid and
unbending system disdainful of feeling, intolerant of human frailty, was
evolved the Neo-Stoicism which could not but be moved by the sorrows and
follies of the world, and could not look upon a distressed gladiator or
a sick slave without seeing a kinsman deserving commiseration. It was a
great gain for the world that at Rome the strength of Stoicism had grown
less harsh, its exaltation less arrogant, its integrity less priggish,
its calm less unfeeling.
At first it is not unnatural that in the restrained and self-confident
Stoic philosophy a reader might seem to encounter a remote and even
repellent quality as of a system too unreal to be literally practical.
Yet in fact this is a mistake. The Roman Stoicism of the first century
was no mere theoretic elaboration: it was a faith which offered genuine
consolation amidst desperate afflictions. It could confer upon a believer
the victory in defiance of the most malignant arrows of fortune. In such
a faith some men could steel themselves, for the sake of the state,
to help the work of government in trying times, and some could die
triumphant over human injustice. History bears the clearest testimony to
the inspiring vitality of the creed; and it is from this standpoint that
one can best observe the human side of Seneca. Behind his preaching of
Stoic doctrine there worked a powerful earnestness which goes far to
justify the iteration of counsels throughout the massive corpus of his
treatises and letters.
The very seriousness of this philosophy, then, related it to life: it
is in part the outcome of actual and often dangerous experience in dark
times. It is a seriousness which makes the lighter human touches rarer
and more precious. No doubt the sage cannot descend so easily to earth
from an Olympian superiority as the ordinary _littérateur_ who may be
content to view mankind from the plain rather than from the heights; and
one realizes that is was easier for Cicero and Pliny to unbend in their
_Letters_ than for Seneca in his. It is, then, all the more to the credit
of Seneca’s good sense, as it certainly adds to his interest, that,
though the _Letters_ primarily subserve the purpose of permanent ethical
instruction, he is by no means wanting in “small talk” and humour. The
same breadth of mind that saved him from being a rigid dogmatist taught
him to discover material for comment everywhere—vegetarianism, study in
rowdy surroundings, slops for an invalid, the invasion of a dining-room
by kitchen appliances to keep dainties hot.[680] He can make fun of
and, at the same time, defend the Stoic annihilation of emotion: with
a touch of mischief he reports the young man’s question to Panaetius,
“Should the good Stoic fall in love?”[681] Never interested in logic,
he jests at syllogisms more than once:[682] they are not applicable, he
insists, to the supreme question of human good and human conduct: “such
subtleties make savants rather than saints” (_non faciunt bonos sed
doctos_). A similarly jocular vein at the expense of pedants runs through
his letter on virtues viewed as _animalia_,[683] where he leads the Stoic
argument by a _reductio ad absurdum_ to the conclusion that to make a
wise speech in the senate is an “animal.” Referring to his sea-sickness,
he remarks facetiously that if he had regularly to be put ashore, as he
was after one brief trip on the Bay of Naples, then a voyage anywhere
would take him twice as long as Ulysses’s wanderings lasted, and with
mock seriousness he affects to think that we owe the elaborate _Odyssey_
ultimately to the hero’s _mal de mer_.[684] So, too, he drops the
philosophic mantle to give us vivid pictures like that of his picnic with
a friend,[685] or a tissue of exaggerations in satirizing the luxury
of the day: “We have reached such a pitch of luxury that we decline to
tread on anything but precious stones” (_eo deliciarum peruenimus ut nisi
gemmas calcare nolimus_, lxxxvi. 7).
Such ordinary human notes strengthen Seneca’s power over us when we turn
to his grave and elevated thought. He does not work out systematically
for us the whole body of the Stoic doctrines; but few can rise after
reading in his books without feeling the better for it. A tonic bracing
of the spirit comes from the serene forbearance advocated in the _De
Ira_; the uncalculating generosity so estimably pervading the _De
Beneficiis_; the princely, if Stoically guarded, clemency recommended in
the _De Clementia_; the widely sympathetic understanding of human nature
evident in the _Letters_; the virtuous conquest of desire proclaimed
as the secret of bliss in _The Happy Life_; and the complete mastery
of the soul indispensable for _The Constancy of the Wise Man_ or for
_The Tranquillity of the Mind_. The closing words of his last letter to
Lucilius show the true Stoic independence of worldly standards:
I shall give you in brief a rule whereby to measure yourself,
whereby to gauge your development: in that day you will come to
your own, when you realize that the successful are of all men
most miserable. Good-bye.
MISCELLANEOUS LEARNING
After the study of achievement so manysided as Seneca’s in philosophy,
oratory and natural science (apart from his contribution to satire and
drama), a brief sketch of contemporary learning is appropriate. In
history the Neronian period did not shine. The impressions of Domitius
Corbulo in Asia, of C. Suetonius Paulinus in Mauretania, of Ti. Claudius
Balbillus in Egypt, and of L. Antistius Vetus in Germany made little
mark. Agrippina, the emperor’s mother, composed memoirs which the elder
Pliny and Tacitus quote. Works by jurists were not directly literary; but
they were so frequently influential on Roman thought and its formulation
that it is right to record the names of the younger Nerva, father of
the future emperor; Proculus from whom the “Proculians” took their name,
and, among their “Sabinian” rivals, C. Cassius Longinus. Much philosophy
continued to be written in Greek, as was done by Musonius Rufus and by
Cornutus, who also was the author of works on grammar and rhetoric. But
Latin was employed for philosophical purposes not only by Seneca but by
Papirius Fabianus and Celsus. Stoicism, whether in formal exposition
or in the actual lives of its professors, became one of the mighty
intellectual and moral forces of the time. The independence of spirit,
too, which the system fostered made its followers suspect: some of their
tenets might readily be misconstrued as those of a political opposition,
while a defiantly courageous manner of dying gave to many victims of an
emperor’s cruelty a semi-religious halo of martyrdom. Among such victims
were Barea Soranus, and Paetus Thrasea of Patavium, author of a panegyric
upon the younger Cato which Plutarch used. Thrasea’s ruin in A.D. 66
involved his son-in-law Helvidius Priscus in banishment; but Helvidius
returned when Galba had succeeded Nero, impeached twice unsuccessfully
his father-in-law’s accuser, and brought upon himself a second exile
under Vespasian.
It was to Nero that Caesius Bassus dedicated his metrical treatise: he
may, as mentioned elsewhere, be identical with Persius’s poet-friend.
Scholarship was also represented by Q. Asconius Pedianus (A.D. 3-88)
and M. Valerius Probus of Berytus. The former proved himself a thorough
investigator into the subject-matter and meaning of classical writers
in his _Liber contra obtrectatores Vergilii_ and his commentaries upon
Cicero’s speeches. We possess, in impaired form, his commentaries on
five speeches.[686] One most valuable portion is his introduction to the
_Pro Milone_. On Cicero’s Verrine orations notes of a very different
character, as superficial as the genuine Asconius is satisfying and as
grammatical as he is historical, have come down along with the other
comments, but are usually referred to a “Pseudo-Asconius” of the fifth
century. The eminent grammarian Valerius Probus[687] belongs to the
Neronian period, though he outlived it by many years.[688] His provincial
education had brought him under the influence of older Latin books, and
as a teacher in Rome he retained that interest in the style of the past
which guaranteed linguistic equipment for his editions of Latin authors.
He left a miscellany of notes upon archaic Latin;[689] and Gellius, who
often cites him, shows that he delivered lectures to his pupils on the
subject. He elucidated, with critical notes, Terence, Lucretius, Virgil,
Horace and Persius.
The oratory of the day recalls the names of the Stoic speakers in the
Senate, Paetus Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus. Eprius Marcellus made
himself notorious as a _delator_; the rhetorician Julius Africanus we
shall find praised by Quintilian[690] and coupled with Domitius Afer;
Galerius Trachalus had his talents used by the Emperor Otho in the
composition of speeches.[691] Fabricius Veiento, who was accused in
A.D. 62 for his satiric codicils directed against senators and priests,
was banished by Nero, and had his books burned, but was in Rome again
practising delation under Domitian. Among the professors of rhetoric
were Clodius Quirinalis from Arelate (Arles); Antonius Liberalis who
maintained a feud with Palaemon; and Verginius Flavus, the eminent
teacher, who had Persius for a pupil.[692]
CHAPTER IV
SENECAN SATIRE AND POETRY: DRAMA OF THE AGE
_Apocolocyntosis_—A summary—Title and conclusion—Spirit and
purpose of the skit—Menippean qualities—Style and metres.
Seneca’s short poems—The nine tragedies—Authenticity—When
written—Not intended for the stage—Contrast with Greek
spirit—Sources of the tragedies—Deviations in plot from Greek
originals—Influence of previous Latin dramatists—Influence
of Euripides—Outstanding defects—The unintentionally
ludicrous—Effective qualities of style—Thrust-and-parry
lines—The epigrammatic—Poetry—Philosophical
passages—Stoicism—Roman colour—Metre—Seneca’s influence
on Italian and French drama—Seneca and Elizabethan
tragedy—Transmission of stock characters and horrors—A quieter
stream of influence.
The _Octauia_ play—Date and authorship—Historical
content—Misplaced erudition.
Comic drama of the age—Emperor and theatre—Curiatius Maternus
and other tragic poets.
SENECAN SATIRE, POETRY AND DRAMA
The _Apocolocyntosis_,[693] or “pumpkinification” of the Emperor
Claudius, being, as a Menippean Satire, to some extent in verse, is a
convenient link between Seneca the prose-writer and Seneca the poet.
Many light and flippant touches in this skit, coupled with the metrical
facility shown when prose is dropped, enable us to believe that he could
have also written the verse-epigrams ascribed to him. A summary may
convey some notion of its contents and spirit.
“I wish,” he begins, “to record the proceedings in heaven on October
13th in the new year which opens this fortunate era. No concession is to
be made to malice or favour. It’s simple truth.” Then the author pokes
fun at historians, philosophers and poets. One may inquire if this is
to be a true story of Claudius’s translation? But who ever demanded
witnesses from a historian? The exact hour of day? Well, you may
expect philosophers will say the same thing before clocks will! Was it
afternoon? Oh, these poets! not content with raving about a sunrise or a
sunset, they must interfere with our noontide:
Now Phoebus’ car had passed its mid career.
That was the very time when Claudius lay dying, and he was an
unconscionable time over it. Mercury had to remonstrate with one of the
Fates: “Isn’t the poor wretch ever to have a rest? Why, it’s sixty-four
years since he started gasping. What grudge have you got against him and
the nation?” But Clotho remarked, “I wanted to give him a tiny bit of
time longer, till he should confer Roman citizenship on the two or three
left without it!...” However, she consents to leave a few foreigners in
the world, just as a kernel (_in semen_):
Round the foul spindle then she twined the thread
And snapped the life-span of Prince Dunderhead.
Meanwhile Lachesis has a new golden thread to manipulate—Nero’s; and
Apollo is there to chant approval:
Ye Fates, cut not this short: let him outlive
The span of mortal life, like me in face,
Like me in grace, my peer in voice and song....
“Nothing loth to look kindly on a handsome man, Lachesis went on spinning
by the handful, and presented Nero with many extra years, on her own
(_annos de suo donat_). Just then Claudius bubbled forth (_ebulliit_)
the ghost, and consequently ceased to convey even the impression of
being alive! He breathed his last as he was listening to a company of
comedians, so there’s good reason for dreading _them_!”
(_The scene shortly after changes._)
“Now listen to what took place in heaven. My informant will guarantee
my accuracy (_fides penes auctorem erit_). Jupiter had got word that
a person had arrived—a rather tall person and rather grey: he was
threatening something or other, it was thought, for he was constantly
shaking his head: he dragged the right foot. They’d asked what his
country was, but couldn’t make his answer out. He wasn’t a Greek; he
wasn’t a Roman—didn’t belong to any known race, in fact.”
So, at Jupiter’s suggestion, Hercules, who had travelled the whole
world over, was told off to interview this outlandish stranger. Greatly
troubled, Hercules thought a thirteenth labour was upon him! Still, as
the new arrival looked like some sort of human being (_uisus est quasi
homo_), he tried him with Greek—a line from Homer. Claudius was delighted
to find savants (_philologos_) in heaven; there would therefore be
some room for his own works on history! So he answered in Greek, and,
Roman-like, claimed Troy as his place of origin. Unluckily for this
remark, the Goddess Malaria, who had attended him from Rome, interrupted
with a flat contradiction, “It’s an absolute lie. He was born at Lyons:
he’s a genuine Gaul: so, of course, he took Rome—the proper thing for a
Gaul to do!” Thereat Claudius blazed out in anger and (like the Queen
of Hearts in _Alice in Wonderland_) shouted, “Off with her head!” But
you might have fancied the bystanders were his own freedmen for all the
notice they took! Thereupon Hercules called him to order: “You just mark
my words. Drop playing the silly ass. You’ve come where mice nibble iron.
Make a clean breast of it—else I’ll bang the _sottise_ (_alogias_) out
of you.” And to look more awful, Hercules assumed the tragic rôle, and
declaimed:
What place of birth you vaunt, be quick to show;
Else felled to earth this club shall lay you low.
This club has often butchered fiery kings!
Why babble these uncertain murmurings?...
Claudius’s reply, as far as it could be understood, was an attempt to
mollify Hercules, reminding him of days spent by the emperor on law-cases
near his temple.
His success in this attempt must have been described in a passage now
lost; for we are suddenly present at the debate in heaven concerning
Claudius’s eligibility for deification. Some deity is quizzing Hercules
on his proposal:
“Only do tell us what sort of a god you want that creature made. He
can’t be an Epicurean god; for such a one _ne dérange ni soi-même ni
les autres_ (οὔτε αὐτὸς πρᾶγμα ἔχει τι οὔτε ἄλλοις παρέχει). There’s
a bit of the Stoic deity in him, I can see; for he’s got neither heart
nor head.... Is this person to make our crooked ways straight? Why,
he doesn’t know what to do in his own bedroom, and now he ‘scans the
purlieus of the sky’—wants to be a god! He’s not content with having a
temple in Britain and with savages for worshippers!”
At this point Jupiter “spies strangers” in the House, and in accordance
with the rules Claudius has to retire. Janus, on being asked to express
his views, makes a long speech too fast for the shorthand writer to
keep up with (_quae notarius persequi non potuit_). Arguing that the
honour of being a god must not be given to the _canaille_, he proposes
a motion of exclusion in general terms. The next speaker, Diespiter,
moves that Claudius be made a god in view of his relationship to Augustus
and Augusta, and in view of Romulus’s need for a comrade in devouring
boiled turnips! Many speeches are made and Hercules canvasses the gods in
Claudius’s favour; but Augustus opposes in an oration of scathing irony:
“I call you to witness, Conscript Fathers, that since I was made a god,
I have never uttered a word. I always mind my own business. But I can no
longer disguise my feelings. Was it for this that I secured peace on land
and sea?... Words fall short of my indignation.... This man, Conscript
Fathers, who looks as though he couldn’t disturb a fly, used to kill folk
as readily as a dog squats down.”
Claudius is then denounced as a murderer of Augustus’s descendants, and
is apostrophized with the question why he passed death-sentences in cases
that were untried:
“Where is this usual? It’s not done in heaven. Look at Jupiter. He’s
been ruler for ever so many years, but Vulcan’s the only person whose
leg he has broken. He lost his temper with his wife and hung her up, but
he didn’t kill her, did he?... Who’s going to worship Claudius as a god?
Who’s to believe in him? Make a god of such as he is, and nobody will
believe you are gods yourselves!”
Augustus’s motion for deportation is carried, and Claudius is haled
off to the lower regions by Mercury. As they pass down the Via Sacra,
they can see Claudius’s funeral in progress—a lovely (_formosissimum_)
funeral and an extravagant one, obviously the obsequies of a god (_plane
ut scires deum efferri_). And now Claudius realizes that he is dead,
since there is din enough for him to hear the anapaestic dirge:
Pour out your weepings, your sorrows make known:
Deafen the forum with many a groan!...
O weep for the dead, for none had the head
To settle suits faster, and every point master,
Tho’ only one side of the case had been tried,
And oft he had heard from neither a word!
Who now will be drudge, and thro’ the year judge?
All this was most enjoyable. Claudius would have liked to watch his
funeral longer, but he is hurried off below. Now, who should be in the
lower world to meet him but his freedman Narcissus, spick and span,
fresh from his bath? He had got ahead by a short cut (_antecesserat
compendiaria_), and says he, “What have _gods_ to do with mere mortals?”
But Mercury breaks in: “Be sharp and tell them we’re coming.” Narcissus
flies off faster than you could say the word. Everything slopes in hell,
you must know: it’s easy going down. So Claudius, gouty though he was,
arrived at Pluto’s door in a twinkle. Cerberus, “the hundred-headed
brute” to use Horace’s phrase (_ut ait Horatius, belua centiceps_),
was on the scene; and it was a little trying to face a shaggy black
monster-dog after being used to a small whitish pet-bitch (_subalbam
canem in deliciis habere adsueuerat_). But Narcissus shouted the
announcement “Claudius is coming!” and immediately there was a throng
of his victims to give him a reception! Then, as they crowd round,
consuls, prefects, relatives and freedmen, the absent-minded emperor
remarks, “_Voici mes amis partout!_ How did _you_ come here?” to which
they answer, “Who but yourself sent us, you assassin of all your friends?
To court with him!” So he is brought before Aeacus, and statistics are
produced of those he had put to death: and Aeacus, being a person of
perfect fairness, judges Claudius on Claudian principles; that is, he
hears only the case for the prosecution! The verdict is “Guilty.” What
should the sentence be? A new sort of penalty is wanted, and, after
discussion, Aeacus decrees that Claudius must rattle dice for ever
in a box with no bottom. The convict had already begun this fruitless
task, when all of a sudden Caligula appeared on the scene to claim him
as a slave. Witnesses prove that they had seen Caligula thrashing him:
so clearly he must have been in servitude, and is therefore assigned
to Caligula, who gives him as a gift to that most righteous judge,
Aeacus: and Aeacus hands him over to his Greek freedman Menander to be a
law-clerk in attendance upon cases for evermore.
So the satire ends. Some critics will not allow the author to be funny
in his own way, and they express dissatisfaction. They gravely point
out that Claudius is not turned into a pumpkin, a metamorphosis which
they understood was promised in the title: therefore they urge that
perhaps the real conclusion is lost, or perhaps the real pumpkinification
belonged to another pamphlet altogether.[694] There is no need to be
so literal: Claudius, an imperial applicant for divine honours, is
sufficiently metamorphosed when he is degraded from heaven to a trumpery
post in hell, and when throughout the satire he is treated as a silly
pumpkin-head[695] of a man. The title in the best MS. (Sangallensis)
is _Diui Claudii incipit Apotheosis_ (spelt Ἀποθήοσις) _Annei Senece
per satiram_, which does not, at first sight, square with the title
_Apocolocyntosis_ recorded by Dio Cassius.[696] Yet, on examination,
the MS. title betrays a confirmatory corruption. It is tautological,
as it stands, for one does not deify a deified emperor; all, however,
is intelligible if it be, as Bücheler guessed, a contamination of an
original superscription _Diui Claudii Apocolocyntosis_ with a gloss,
_Apotheosis per satiram_, to explain the parody implicit in the rare word.
The conclusion has been otherwise impeached.[697] Some have thought the
Caligula episode illogical after Claudius had been sentenced to perpetual
dice-playing: others have thought the end too abrupt to be effective.
Logic, however, is not to be demanded from a merry jest, and the fun
lies exactly in its inconsequent suddenness. So far is the _dénoûment_
from being pointless that in reality its point is double. Firstly, it
represents a ruler who had yielded excessive power at his court to
freedmen, as being now adjudged a slave, and transferred, like the
veriest chattel, to be a freedman’s underling; secondly, it represents
one who had a passion for acting the judge on earth as doomed to remain a
mere law-clerk (_a cognitionibus_) in the infernal regions till the end
of time. Several references to Claudius’s freedmen in the body of the
satire are in keeping with this conclusion, especially the ironical gibe
at their contemptuous disobedience;[698] similarly, there are previous
references to his performances in law which make the finale perfectly
appropriate.[699]
The question of Seneca’s authorship involves different problems. Is
the satire a likely product of his genius? How could he consistently
write such an attack after his grovelling adulation of Claudius in the
_Consolatio ad Polybium_,[700] and after composing the funeral laudation
for Nero to pronounce at the ceremonial sanctification of Claudius?[701]
The two questions of ability and consistency must be kept separate.
About Seneca’s versatility and control of brilliant style there can be
no doubt, while humorous and satiric qualities are not wanting in his
_Letters_: about his consistency it must be allowed that this never was
his strong point. Few philosophers are more vulnerable than the Stoic who
amassed wealth and the moralist who drafted exculpatory orations to be
delivered by a tyrant. Modern feeling cannot but see indecency in this
bitter invective against a deceased sovereign. Seneca laughs mercilessly
at the dead emperor’s frailties, mental and physical—his pedantic
stupidity, offensive absent-mindedness, capricious temper, unreasoning
tyranny, shambling gait, and stammering utterance. The unprepossessing
picture is painted with increasing bias until in Augustus’s denunciation
of Claudius the author takes full opportunity for venting his spleen.
There is no intention of being any fairer than Aristophanes was to
Euripides or Socrates. One must expect nothing about the better aspects
of Claudius’s policy or scholarship, or about the building schemes
of his reign, nor any pity for the deep damnation of his taking off.
Cunningly his contemptuous dismissal by the Fates is set in juxtaposition
with Apollo’s praise of his young successor. A feeble dotard had gone:
with the new _princeps_ a golden era would return. Ignoble we may call
it, but it can at any rate be explained. Years before, to suit his own
longings for recall from exile, Seneca had resorted to gross flattery
of Claudius in addressing Polybius; he had by request composed a formal
speech on the dead emperor to suit the immediate state-occasion; but
now, shortly after, he was quick enough to see that no reverence was
shown to Claudius’s memory. His own oration, spoken by Nero, had been
received with undisguised merriment when it mentioned “the foresight and
sagacity”[702] of the departed prince; and Nero’s conscience over the
poisoning of Claudius troubled the emperor so little that he came to
joke[703] about mushrooms as food for the gods—had not Claudius gone by
that means to heaven? On the whole, however, it suited the poisoners,
Nero and Agrippina, that Seneca should take an opportunity of adopting
their official version of the death and say nothing awkward about
mushrooms. At the same time, if he depreciated Claudius and magnified
Nero, so much the better: the predecessor would be the less missed, and
the successor the more commended on the threshold of his reign. So at
last Seneca’s chance came for unmasking his true attitude. He detested
Claudius:[704] he had an old score to wipe out: he probably felt a
sincere contempt for his pedantry: and thus a clever and venomous
pasquinade was written by a man of flesh and blood, a Spaniard who could
let his feelings—especially those of hatred—go. It rings as if it must
have been written very soon after the official deification which it
burlesques, _i.e._ soon after the middle of October, A.D. 54.[705] The
latest occurrence to which the author refers is the death of the imperial
freedman Narcissus, whose removal followed hard upon that of his master.
The idea of a visit to the other world was familiar in ancient epic and
drama, and could be made to serve either a serious or a comic purpose.
The gods are treated by Seneca cavalierly; but Lucilius, Lucretius,
even Cicero, had accustomed readers to such literary irreverence, and
in Seneca no systematic attack on state religion was contemplated.
Combined with the spirit and form of Menippean satire, such a framework
and such an attitude gave excellent promise of burlesque effect; for the
Menippean satire, thanks to Cynic traditions, encouraged the outspoken,
the abrupt, the inconsequent, the startling in manner. Inherited from
Menippus of Gadara and transmitted through Varro, it could be employed
as an irresponsible and defiant medley. Seneca’s satire is less akin to
the generally good-natured outlook of Varro[706] than to that Cynicism
in Menippus which is the secret of the Gadarene’s attraction for
Lucian.[707] But while Seneca shared in the spirit and conventions of
the traditional Menippean, his place in this succession must not obscure
his originality. The _Apocolocyntosis_ is far too fresh and lively, too
direct in its satiric bearing upon an actual personality, to be anything
but work of an individual stamp. Obviously it is in many respects a
contrast to the contemporary Menippean of Petronius. It had its own
descendants, too: long after the classic age, two definite imitations of
Seneca’s satire appeared; one, Lipsius’s _Satura Menippea_ towards the
end of the sixteenth century; the other Cunaeus’s _Sardi Venales_ in 1612.
Critics have differed about the style of the _Apocolocyntosis_ in
comparison with that of Seneca’s philosophical works. But two things have
to be remembered: Menippean Satire does not claim the finish of style
that suits philosophy; on the other hand, so expert a writer as Seneca
had the ability to produce a fresh type of prose, if necessary, and to
sprinkle it with homely proverbs, colloquialisms, slang plebeian grammar
and a plebeian want of syntax.[708] Adroitness in turning from higher to
lower style is nowhere better seen than in his contemporary Petronius.
The versification is that of a skilled hand. The interspersed hexameters
are comparable in quality with those of the epigrams and minor poems
ascribed to Seneca. Behind the anapaestic dirge on Claudius lies the
author’s facility gained in writing choral odes for his tragedies,[709]
and even the fourteen iambic _senarii_ exhibit the same fondness for
anapaests[710] which marks his dramatic speeches and dialogues.
* * * * *
Seneca as poet must be judged not only by his dramas but by a collection
of brief pieces[711] in the _Anthologia Latina_ compiled at Carthage in
the sixth century. Of the opening seventy-three poems three are assigned
by the MSS. to Seneca; but most, or indeed all, of the seventy-three may
be his. Except a few in hendecasyllables, the poems are elegiac. They
touch on miscellaneous themes—the mutability of things, a quiet life,
the hardships of exile, republican heroes like Cato and Pompey, the true
friendship of such as Crispus (presumably Passienus Crispus, the able
orator who was consul a second time in A.D. 44), the false friendship of
the great, imperial victories, luxury, riches, and the evils of civil
warfare. While the reader is prepared for Stoic lines on simplicity of
life and the dissolution of the universe, he is perhaps surprised to
find erotic poems in the collection, until he realizes that Seneca was
no exception to the common practice whereby Romans amused themselves
with composing verses inferior in morality to their authors’ actual
behaviour.[712] Even in the amorous pieces, however, it is a moralist
that professes to speak—he sets limits to immodesty, and admires the
fair one who relies on natural rather than artificial charms (_naturae
simplicitate ualet_). There is, at the same time, in other poems much
that fits the true Seneca—lines to his native Corduba (xix.), a reference
to his two brothers (v. 14), and, elsewhere, to his little nephew,
plausibly identified with Lucan:
Our sweetly prattling Marcus will, I pray,
Challenge both uncles’ eloquence some day.[713]
He curses Corsica, the island
That terrifies at summer’s earliest glow,[714]
and can be yet crueller as the season advances. Amidst a plentiful lack
of blessings, there are only two things to find there, “the place of
exile and the exile’s self” (_exul et exilium_). He asks merely for an
undisturbed existence: “Let the praetorship fall to those who wish it,”
he says, and it is significant that Seneca had not risen higher than
quaestor before his banishment. His fulsome and repeated eulogies on
Claudius’s victories are partly redeemed by their romantic association
with distant Britain “severed by the dreary sea” (_uasto disiuncta
Britannia ponto_),
Where the chill constellation of the North
Outshineth aye the stars that do not set.[715]
The nine plays[716] ascribed to Seneca in the Codex Etruscus and other
MSS. of the same family are given in the following order: _Hercules_
(_Furens_), _Troades_, _Phoenissae_, _Medea_, _Phaedra_, _Oedipus_,
_Agamemnon_, _Thyestes_, _Hercules_ (_Oetaeus_). Inferior MSS. give the
alternative titles of _Thebais_ for _Phoenissae_ and _Hippolytus_ for
_Phaedra_. They add the _Octauia_, which cannot be by Seneca for reasons
to be mentioned later.
The testimony to the manysidedness of Seneca[717] is so strong that
there is no need to pay attention to Sidonius Apollinaris’s blunder in
separating Seneca the dramatist from Seneca the philosopher. It is true
that Quintilian does not give Seneca’s name in his list of dramatists;
but he certifies his interest in tragic diction (VIII. iii. 31), and
quotes part of a line from the _Medea_ as Seneca’s (IX. ii. 8). Six
plays, _Medea_, _Hercules Furens_, _Troades_, _Phaedra_, _Agamemnon_ and
_Thyestes_, are cited by Latin authors or grammarians. The remaining
three, _Oedipus_, _Phoenissae_ and _Hercules Oetaeus_ are, like the
others, regarded in the MSS. as by Seneca. These three have had their
authenticity attacked, but scholars generally accept all but portions
of the _Hercules Oetaeus_. This last play extends, as we have it, to
nearly 2000 lines, and its very length, along with echoes of previous
plays, arouses suspicion: further investigation into such a feature as
its double chorus (in which it resembles Seneca’s _Agamemnon_) or into
its change of scene leads to the conclusion that it is a patchwork due,
in part, to other hands than Seneca’s. The attribution of the plays as
a whole to Seneca is confirmed by internal evidence. The short pointed
_sententiae_ both in form and in expression resemble his prose: and there
are frequent parallels in thought, especially if, as often occurs, the
thought assumes a Stoic cast.[718]
The question when Seneca wrote the tragedies is one which has received
various and inconclusive answers. It has been dogmatically asserted[719]
that most of them were composed after 54 and none before 49.
Recently,[720] fresh emphasis has been laid on Quintilian’s recollection
of hearing _praefationes_ in which the propriety of a phrase for tragedy
was discussed between Seneca and Pomponius Secundus. The plausible
suggestion is made that these _praefationes_ were spoken, not written,
introductions to public readings of tragedies. Quintilian mentions the
incident as a reminiscence from his youth, and, as he was born about A.D.
35, this implies a date in the early fifties of the first century. The
point bears on the two problems whether Seneca’s dramas were meant for
the stage and when they were composed. It may be that some of Seneca’s
plays, like some by Secundus, were read, if they were not written, in the
early fifties, and a desire to foster in his pupil Nero an interest in
Greek adaptations might explain why Seneca should give tragic readings
about that period; but it does not follow that all the plays are to
be so dated. Pomponius Secundus had been in Germany in 50 and 51, and
his debate with Seneca may therefore have followed his return. He had,
however, produced plays or at least some kind of dramatic compositions
before, as we know from the storm raised against him in the theatre in
A.D. 47.[721] So too Seneca, who returned from banishment in 49, may have
written plays during his years of enforced leisure in Corsica. It is
not surprising that this is the period of his life to which prevailing
guess-work has ascribed the tragedies. But the problem appears insoluble:
there was abundant time for Seneca to have written tragedies even
before he was exiled, a man of over forty, and there are elements in
the tragedies more nearly akin to a clever student’s rhetoric than to
philosophical maturity. Nor would it be easy to disprove a contention
that some at least of the plays consisted of early material worked over
and touched up at a later date.
That Seneca intended his dramas for the stage is incredible. No doubt
there were still in the Neronian period tragic representations, but many
of Seneca’s elaborate speeches would have been unsuitable in a theatre,
and some scenes would not act as they stand. It was one thing for Seneca
merely to imagine Medea slaying her children in public, but another thing
to have this shown before actual Roman audiences, accustomed though
they were to horrors. The author’s retention of three actors is not so
much an attempt to meet theatrical conditions as an adherence to Greek
convention. On the other hand, the rhetorical dexterity and descriptive
power exhibited in the tragedies suited the taste of literary coteries
before whom dramatic compositions could be read with effect.
As an adapter of Greek tragedy, Seneca was attracted most to the blend
of realism and romance which characterises Euripides. Out of nine plays
his model is definitely Euripides in four, _Hercules Furens_, _Troades_,
_Medea_ and _Phaedra_. Besides, in the imperfect and inconsistent remains
of the _Phoenissae_, Euripidean material is drawn from the Greek play of
that name, though there are also contributions from Aeschylus’s _Seven
Against Thebes_ and Sophocles’s _Oedipus at Colonus_. On Aeschylus was
based the _Agamemnon_, and on Sophocles the _Oedipus_ as well as the
drearily long _Hercules Oetaeus_, whose authenticity has most been
called in question. The _Thyestes_ has no equivalent among extant Greek
plays. These Latin plays are in no sense versions of the Greek: Seneca
did not feel himself bound to adhere to the original plot in detail, but
either introduced departures or followed Roman predecessors in their
departures.[722] The essential contrast, however, is one of spirit, which
no reader can fail to realize, if he turns from Aeschylus’s _Agamemnon_,
Sophocles’s _Oedipus Tyrannus_ and Euripides’s _Medea_ to their Senecan
descendants. In the Latin plays one has entered a new world, where genius
has been replaced by cleverness, and an eminently classic directness
of expression by rhetoric. Despite the recurrence of philosophical
sentiments, there is no longer felt, like a pervasive force, the old
Aeschylean preoccupation with fundamental themes of life and destiny, an
atmosphere of altitude in thought and emotion whence a poet can survey
the deepest problems concerning God and man, sin and suffering; there is
no longer that combination of serenity and of tense drama which makes
the _Oedipus Tyrannus_ one of the greatest of plays; nor is there any
longer the wide Euripidean humanity to win full sympathy for the outraged
wifehood of Medea.
The most cursory comparison of Seneca’s plays with extant originals will
indicate the nature and sometimes the object of his alterations. The
_Hercules Furens_ dramatises the hero’s madness which is with terrible
irony turned upon his own wife and children after his triumphant return
from the underworld in time to rescue them from the tyrant Lycus. For the
sentence of death against the absent hero’s sons in Euripides the Roman
dramatist has substituted a compulsory, and defiantly refused, offer of
marriage from the tyrant to Hercules’s wife Megara; and he has introduced
Theseus, not towards the close, as in the Greek play, but much earlier,
so as to facilitate a long description of adventures shared by Theseus
with Hercules during their raid upon the infernal regions. Another
significant contrast is that Seneca treats Hercules’s slaying of wife and
children as an exhibited part of the dramatic action, and not as material
for narration in accord with Greek usage.
The _Troades_, on afflictions which befell the captive dames of Troy,
combines material from the play of the same name by Euripides with parts
of his _Hecuba_. In fact, Seneca’s play is cited under the title of
_Hecuba_ by Probus. The sacrifice of the princess Polyxena, which the
ghost of Achilles demands shall be made at his tomb before the Greeks
sail away, is based on the _Hecuba_. To it Seneca adds from the _Troades_
the Greek precautionary execution of Astyanax, the little son of Hector
and Andromache. The extent of Seneca’s originality in what is one of
his best plays could not be absolutely assessed without more knowledge
than we are ever likely to obtain of two lost plays by Sophocles—the
_Polyxena_ and the _Captive Women_ (Αἰχμαλωτίδες).
The presence among Accius’s plays of an _Astyanax_ and a _Troades_ raises
the question of a possible influence of the older Roman tragic writers
upon Seneca. It is certain that in his prose works Seneca occasionally
cites them, either from direct knowledge or indirectly through Cicero.
Some doubt may be felt whether earlier Roman tragedy retained all the
prestige ascribed to it by Ribbeck; for, though it may not have entirely
vanished from the stage, the taste of the Neronian age was even more
pronounced than that of the Augustan in regarding it as old-fashioned and
uncouth. If the fragments of Accius indicate departures from Euripides
in which Seneca resembles him, this does not prove positively the
influence of the earlier Latin poet: they may have used a common source
in Sophocles. At best, however, all this is conjecture, though it has
been gravely made material for learned tractates.[723] There remains
the obligation to remember that one need not find a source for every
departure made by Seneca from extant Greek plays. He is entitled to
credit for a measure of originality and a desire to entertain readers
or hearers with inventive variations of his own on a familiar plot as
well as with ingenious rhetorical points. This is his express theory of
literary borrowing; for he advocates, it will be remembered, a bee-like
diligence in blending borrowed materials into a new and distinctive
flavour, so that even if the original source is manifest, the product
shall be something different.[724]
The fragmentary _Phoenissae_ presents puzzling features. The title
suggests that Seneca contemplated importing from the Greek a chorus
of Phoenician damsels. Its 664 lines fall into two portions. The
earlier portion presents, as in Sophocles’s _Oedipus at Colonus_, the
self-blinded and self-exiled king wandering under the guidance of his
daughter Antigone, who has vowed never to desert him. With a rhetorical
echo of Roman Stoicism, he claims volubly the right of self-murder, a
right which, during three years of misery, he has not exercised and
which Antigone is at pains to refute by argument. A sudden break, where
a choral ode might have been expected, leads to a brief episode in which
Oedipus bitterly prays that his sons, Eteocles and Polynices, at war
with each other, may act worthily of such a miserable father. From l.
363 a new episode, partly akin to the situation in Aeschylus’s _Seven
against Thebes_, represents Antigone as now in Thebes, no longer with
her father, but with her mother Jocasta, who has not committed suicide
as in Sophocles’s _Oedipus Tyrannus_ or in Seneca’s _Oedipus_, and whose
feelings are torn between the two brothers at enmity:
But though I love both sons with equal warmth—
Where pulls the stronger cause and poorer luck,
There bends a heart that ever aids the weak.
Woe makes the sufferer dearer to his kin.[725]
The hopelessness of her attempt to conciliate the pair is seen in
Eteocles’s theory of power which is propounded, and in Senecan manner
expanded, towards the close of the fragment:
Who fears being hated wills not to be king.[726]
A reference to the literature[727] on the _Phoenissae_ shows how some
have held these passages are excerpts from one or more completed dramas;
others that they are fragments of one or more dramas never completed;
others again that they are only dramatic studies or sketches not designed
to be worked up into play-form.
The main differences of plot-construction which distinguish Seneca’s
_Medea_ from Euripides’s play are that, for the chance visit of King
Aegeus to Corinth when he promises to protect Medea during her imminent
exile, Seneca substitutes a scene in which Medea’s wonder-working powers
are described; and that, while in the Greek play the children of Jason
and Medea are sentenced to exile along with their mother, in the Latin
she begs in vain to be allowed to take them with her. Jason’s confession
that he could not live without his children suggests to her the most
terrible part of her revenge:
Thus doth he love the boys? ’Tis well. He’s caught.
The spot for wounding him hath been laid bare.[728]
How far these and other changes either in plot-management or in
expression are due to Seneca himself is past finding out. Medea’s story,
dramatized half a dozen times in Greek, was a theme that attracted
several Latin writers. Long after Ennius and Accius it had been handled
by Ovid, both in the _Heroides_ and in a play now lost; later, in
Seneca’s time, it occupied the attention of his nephew, Lucan, and of
Curiatius Maternus. Seneca’s admiring imitations of Ovid, demonstrable
elsewhere in his writing, render it likely that here too he owed him much.
A subject not nearly so congenial to Roman tastes as Medea’s revenge
was the guilty passion of Queen Phaedra for her stepson Hippolytus, an
almost Puritanic devotee of the chase, for whom life in the open air
meant everything and woman nothing. The extant version of this romantic
theme by Euripides is his famous _Hippolytus_ of 428 B.C., which has been
designated _Hippolytus Crowned_ (Ἱππόλυτος στεφανηφόρος or στεφανίας) to
distinguish it from his previous and less successful drama _Hippolytus
Veiled_ (Ἱππόλυτος καλυπτόμενος). It is an interesting literary point
that Seneca seems to have been attracted to the earlier version;[729]
for he restored in the plot of his _Phaedra_ what Euripides apparently
cancelled in deference to Athenian censure—the personal avowal of her
love by Phaedra to her stepson. In the extant play by Euripides the nurse
takes it upon herself to open Hippolytus’s eyes to the Queen’s feelings;
and, after his horrified recoil, the shame-stricken Phaedra strangles
herself, leaving a note with false charges against the innocent youth.
But in Seneca, as she has in person confessed her love, so in person does
she malign him to her husband Theseus; and so again, when Hippolytus has
met an undeserved death, it is Phaedra in person (not, as in Euripides,
the goddess Artemis) who reveals her crime and clears Hippolytus.
In incidents, structure, and spirit, the _Oedipus_ is a woeful falling
off from Sophocles’s thrilling development of the steps in the revelation
of the king as the unwitting murderer of his father. In Sophocles the
seer Teiresias is sent for in time of crisis, and, when forced to speak,
declares, though he is not believed, that Oedipus is the criminal sought
for: in Seneca much space is laboriously wasted upon the description of
gloomy sacrifices and necromancy. Instead of announcing, as in the Greek,
the suicide of the queen, Seneca towards the close brings face to face
the two chief victims of tragic circumstance, before Jocasta openly kills
herself. But the very construction of the play is inferior. Devoting over
300 lines to lyric portions and over 200 to details of sacrifices and
necromancy, the Roman writer has left himself only some 500 lines for the
disentanglement of a complicated dramatic story.
Equally disappointing, when contrasted with its renowned Greek original
by Aeschylus, is the _Agamemnon_. The disproportion of 1012 Latin lines
to 1673 Greek could be compensated for by nothing short of vastly
superior literary power; and of that there is no sign. The prevailing
absence of genuine thought and feeling in choric songs and invocations
based on a frigid mythology is in strong contrast to the profound
reflections in the choruses of Aeschylus. It may be that, as Leo
thinks,[730] this was Seneca’s first essay in drama, and the _Oedipus_
his second. In any case, the deviations from Aeschylus are noticeable.
Instead of the watchman, who in the Greek announces the beacon-sent
tidings of Troy’s capture, there is substituted a much more typically
Senecan figure—the ghost of Thyestes, filled with the spirit of revenge
against his hated brother Atreus, father of Agamemnon, and therefore
urging Aegisthus, the queen’s paramour, to perform his destined part
in the hour of Agamemnon’s triumphant return from war. Clytemnestra,
in the episode which follows, seems disposed to listen to the advice
of her nurse—another typically Senecan figure—and abandon the design
of murdering her husband. Less strong-willed than the Aeschylean
Clytemnestra, she is confirmed in her purpose by Aegisthus. A further
Senecan trait is the detailed description by the herald of the appalling
storm which overtook the Greeks on their homeward voyage. Appearing late
in the play (l. 782)—considerably after the band of captive Trojan women
led by Cassandra—Agamemnon makes his exit less than 30 lines further
on. One misses the famous and symbolic scene of the purple carpet in
Aeschylus: it is replaced by brief and unheeded warnings of Agamemnon’s
impending death from Cassandra. One misses too the single line of final
anguish from the victim within. The Latin play represents Cassandra,
not as murdered along with her captor, but as relating outside the
palace the crime that is being perpetrated. An exciting moment occurs
when Electra hurries from the palace and succeeds in sending her young
brother Orestes, the future avenger, away into safety under the care of
King Strophius, who has opportunely arrived in his chariot on his way
home from an Olympic victory. Aeschylus represents the boy as already
staying at the court of Strophius. His sister Electra, who at the close
of Seneca’s play is sent to imprisonment while Cassandra is sent to her
death, makes no appearance in the _Agamemnon_ of Aeschylus. Some of these
variations are foreshadowed in the fragments of Livius Andronicus’s
_Aegisthus_, and Accius’s _Clutemestra_[731]—a coincidence which suggests
either Seneca’s knowledge of the older Latin plays, or his use, in common
with Andronicus, of a Greek play by a dramatist junior to Aeschylus.
There is no surviving Greek original with which to compare Seneca’s
_Thyestes_, a gruesome play on the fiendish revenge wrought by Atreus
upon his ambitious and adulterous brother Thyestes. But some parts at
least of this dark story touching the accursed house of Pelops, son
of Tantalus, had been dramatized by Sophocles and Euripides in plays
entitled _Thyestes_. It was a common theme for Roman writers. Three at
least had handled it before Seneca: Ennius in his _Thyestes_; Accius in
his _Atreus_, containing the cynical words _oderint dum metuant_; and,
more famous still, Horace’s contemporary Varius in his _Thyestes_, which
was praised by Quintilian as worthy to be set beside any of the Greek
tragedies.[732] Whether the earlier Latin plays influenced Seneca or
not, it is barely conceivable that he should have missed reading Varius.
But even after Seneca the subject continued to attract. Under Vespasian,
Curiatius Maternus composed a _Thyestes_ as he did a _Medea_, and in the
_Dialogus de Oratoribus_ is rallied by Aper for wasting his time on such
material. Presumably the Ligurinus addressed in Martial III. 45, and
certainly the Bassus twitted by him in V. 53, had handled the theme of
Thyestes.
Occasional brilliance in expression and occasional loftiness in thought
fail to outweigh those bombastic utterances and those innovations in
incident or character-drawing which rob the _Hercules Oetaeus_ of the
delicacy exhibited by Sophocles in the _Trachiniae_. As we have it,
patched by Seneca himself or another,[733] it runs to a length of
almost 2000 lines—over 700 more than there are in Sophocles’s play.
In particular, the character of Deianira has suffered under Roman
hands. From a heroine who was in the beginning tenderly attracted with
Hellenic sweetness towards the captive Iole, and who was only by degrees
tempted into jealousy, she is transformed by Seneca into one who hates
at first sight—“like to one maddened and with lowering gaze,” in her
uncontrollable anger “a tigress” or “a Maenad,”[734] full of malevolence
towards rival and husband. It is impossible to give to Seneca’s Deianira
the sympathy felt for the broken-hearted wife in Sophocles when she
realizes too late that the promised love-charm must mean death to
Hercules. Other additions are the introduction of the hero’s mother,
Alcmena, to bewail his sufferings, and the incorporation into the
play of his deification at the burning pyre on the summit of Oeta.
There are, besides, signs that Seneca drew from Ovid’s _Heroides_ and
_Metamorphoses_.[735]
Even the brief glances here directed at Seneca’s deviations from
well-known Greek originals serve to suggest many of his characteristics.
His affinity with Euripides already indicated is significant. In truth,
Seneca may be said to have, in great measure, although with inferior
dramatic genius, pursued the path along which Euripides led. There was
much to link together those two spirits, separated though they were by
four centuries. There was above all a common interest in speculative
philosophy and in live humanity. Already in Euripides there is the
same craving after variety and effect, betrayed in situations intended
to be telling, in pathetic or even harrowing detail, in picturesque
descriptions, in smart argument, in sententious reflections. Here, if
in any field, Seneca’s rhetorical training equipped him. Even when he
breaks away from Euripides, he is but following his example in the
quest of variety. The more he changes, the more he imitates. It would,
therefore, be difficult to overrate the Euripidean influence upon him,
and this should be remembered in any estimate of Senecan influence upon
the literature of the Renaissance. On the other hand, while historically
carrying on a late development in Greek drama, Seneca is the child of his
own age, imbued with Latin rhetoric, and capable of using it alike with
imposing and with futile effect. It cannot be contested that in his free
treatment of borrowed material he leaves his individual impress for good
or bad upon his plays. There is a Senecan ring, for which he must himself
accept credit or discredit, in his curtailment or expansion of plots, his
elaboration of descriptions, his choice of impressive dramatic moments,
and in that aim at heightened colour which is betrayed by his fondness
for the weird, for ghosts, for incantations, and by his introduction of
death as an integral part of the action.
His faults lie on the surface. Mythological conventionality in plots
which were already, despite variations, fully exhausted in Greece;
feebleness of moral significance; monotony of character; lack of nature’s
infinite variety and lack of fidelity to much of the human nature
selected for portrayal—such defects hinder the plays from powerfully
enchaining the interest. The positive influence of rhetoric too is
responsible for many far-fetched dialogues, high-flown declamations,
and pedantic recitals. Seneca’s Medea may be regarded as an epitome of
his method. Barbaric though she is by hypothesis, she is yet in Seneca
too little a woman and too much a sorceress: we miss the more natural
evolution of character given in Euripides: from the outset her fury is
rhetoric, and, while we loathe the craven ingratitude of Jason, her
wrongs fail to move us fully, because her transports of insane hatred
are demonstrably manufactured. Medea can pause to weigh her anger
mythologically:
What Scylla, what Charybdis swallowing
Italian or Sicilian tides, or what
Mount Aetna o’er a gasping Titan poised,
Shall boil with threats like mine?[736]
Mythology is one of Seneca’s besetting perils. Jason is extravagantly
praised as handsomer than Bacchus or Apollo;[737] and the choric song
praying that he may never be a victim of misfortune like his Argonautic
comrades is too learnedly allusive,[738] though not so irrelevant as the
chorus upon the labours of Hercules which follows the tardy and brief
appearance of Agamemnon in the play bearing his name. One mythological
group of which Seneca never can have enough is that of the familiar
sufferers of punishment in Hades—Ixion, Sisyphus, Tantalus and Tityos:
mentioned in the _Medea_ without Tityos, they recur in at least four
other plays, and are taken over for literary ornament by the author of
the _Octauia_.[739] This may be a little tiresome, but nothing to the
dreary boredom which reigns over long speeches like Medea’s catalogue
of the charms needed for her murderous purposes, in which the author
is determined that his acquaintance with ancient geography and legend
shall be unmistakable. Some such over-elaboration, some such inability to
tell a plain and simple tale, explains the account, too ludicrous to be
pathetic, of the piecing together of the mutilated remains of Hippolytus
as if they were a jigsaw puzzle:
CHORUS. The scattered limbs of that torn frame do thou,
His sire, in order set, and straggling parts
Put duly back; here for his strong right hand
Is place; here set the left, skilled guide of reins;
Of his left flank I recognize the marks.
How great a part is missing for our tears!
THESEUS. My nervous hands, be firm for task of woe:
Be dry, my cheeks, and stay the flowing tear,
The while a father portions to his son
His limbs and makes a body. What is this—
Shapeless and ugly, maimed with many a gash?
What piece of thee, I know not: yet ’tis thine.
Here put it—not in place, but where there’s room.[740]
It is a dangerous realism which produces unintentional comicalities. What
shall we say about the ghost of Thyestes who, because during his life he
had been served with the hideous meal of his slaughtered children, could
grotesquely claim to be “full of three sons buried in me?”[741] No less
peculiar is the chorus on the universal sway of love which reaches the
climax of absurdity among enamoured whales and elephants:
Love holds the raving sea’s leviathan,
Love holds the Lucan kine.[742]
A similar desire to be at once literal and smart leads to the silliness
of Hercules’s words on recovering his wits after he has slain his family:
“I have lost all,” he cries, “lost soul, arms, honour, wife, children—and
madness too!”[743] A deeper sense of humour would have made Seneca
more tragic. Further, more self-criticism in the light of common sense
would have spared us much of what fatigues us in him—the pedantry, the
senseless bombast,[744] the epigrams which so inevitably come, no matter
who is speaking; for a nurse will talk like a manual of rhetoric or
like Seneca the moralist.[745] When Phaedra’s nurse sagely reflects on
love-madness and on inordinate desire as the companion of high estate,
she adorns her remarks about luxury with semi-proverbial wisdom, and
proceeds, through a contrasted picture
Why dwelleth hallowed love in lowly homes?
to her epigrammatic conclusion
Excessive power seeks power beyond its power.[746]
As in set speech or soliloquy, so too in dialogue, there is displayed
an allied and wonderful cleverness, but it is preternatural. The reader
is not captured, as he should be, by the dramatic illusion: he never
quite forgets that beings of real flesh and blood are not so ingenious
in tragic situations. He is, besides, positively wearied with Ovidian
elaboration of the same picture by fresh strokes, or choral platitudes
ringing changes on the same idea.[747]
Yet all is not exaggeration in sentiment and style. When the worst has
been urged against Seneca, there remain speeches that are spirited,
descriptions that are effective, and thoughts that are memorable. The
style is in general lucid, and, if epigrammatic, is founded on pure
Latin and on harmonious versification. Perhaps no better example of the
dramatic speech in Seneca can be given than that from the _Troades_ in
which Agamemnon pleads against the proposed sacrifice of the Trojan
maiden Polyxena at Achilles’s tomb. The arguments, put with clearness
and vigour, are characteristically fortified by _sententiae_ and
antitheses:
Why stain with murder foul the noble shade
Of that famed chief? First shouldst thou learn
What victor ought to do, what vanquished dree.
None keeps a sway of violence for long:
’Tis self-restraint endures. The higher Chance
Hath raised and magnified the power of man,
The more ’tis fitting he should curb his joy
And quake at chequered circumstance, afraid
Of gods too kind. Conquest hath taught me how
A moment ruins greatness. And doth Troy
Swell us with over-daring pride? We Greeks
Stand on the spot Troy fell from. Once, I own,
Self-willed I bore my kingship haughtily.
But Fortune’s smile, in others cause belike
For pride, hath tamed in me such arrogance.
Thou, Priam, mak’st me proud—but frightened too!...
I will confess, (thy pardon, Argive land,
For these my words!) I wished our Phrygian foes
Mastered and crushed; but ruin, that hath laid
Their town in dust, I fain had warded off ...
Enough, and more, of penalty is ta’en.
That now a royal maid should fall, a gift
Given to a tomb, and with her blood bedew
Dead ashes, yea, that crime so hideous
Be called a marriage, I will ne’er allow.
On Agamemnon comes the guilt of all.
Who stops not crime, tho’ able, orders it.[748]
A few other illustrations chosen from the same play are the more
appropriate because nowhere so much as in the _Troades_ does he hold
his own in rivalry with his Greek sources. It is characteristic that
the agonized mother, Andromache, concealing her boy in her husband’s
sepulchre with the hope of eluding the murderous foe, should make the
antithetic point:
If fate helps misery, here is escape:
If fate deny thee life, here is thy tomb.[749]
There is plausible rhetoric in the alliterative excuse which Helen
proffers for luring Polyxena into an expectation of marriage when she is
really to be executed:
Death without dread of death is welcome death;[750]
and Helen’s own plea for her guilty self is a clever appeal suggesting
that she was more sinned against than sinning:
Was I the cause of wars and all the wreck
That came on Troy?...
Yet if triumphant Aphrodite gave
Helen to be a guerdon to her judge,
Then pity that poor prey;[751]
nor does one lightly forget the single utterance by the doomed
boy—_miserere, mater_.[752] One wonders, too, whether Seneca was
thinking of his own almost miraculous rescue from Caligula’s
death-warrant when he declared:
This cause alone hath fended many a man
From doom—belief that he was dead.[753]
Another dramatic feature often dexterously managed consists of the
thrust-and-parry strokes in single lines—the Greek _stichomythia_. A
suitable example comes from the passage where the nurse urges Medea to
drop her daring resolution:
MEDEA. Fortune doth dread the brave: cowards she quells.
NURSE. Courage that finds its hour must win applause.
M. Never can courage fail to find its hour.
N. For ruined cause no hope reveals a way.
M. With naught to hope, of naught should one despair.
N. Thy Colchians are gone; thy lord is false;
Of thy resources naught is left to thee.
M. Yet is MEDEA left: in her thou hast
Sea, land, sword, fire and gods with thunder-flame!
N. Beware the king!
M. My father was a king.
N. Fear’st thou not arms?
M. Not though from earth they rise.
N. ’Tis death!
M. I wish it.
N. Flee!
M. Flight I’ve forsworn.[754]
An allied neatness of expression, not uncommonly strengthened by
antithesis, marks the sententious epigrams found in isolated verses
throughout. The following are a few from three plays:[755]
Crime ever finds its safest path through crime.
What reason cannot, oft delay hath cured.
Best follow hazard when the mind’s at fault.
Nor throne nor bridal bed brooks rivalry.
Too late to be on guard in peril’s hour.
To wish for healing is the half of health.
Success gives certain crimes the stamp of right.
Light pangs are eloquent: deep pangs are dumb.
Sometimes the whole of a character’s attitude in a given dramatic
situation is summed up in a single line, as in Medea’s words,
My crime-won home I must in crime forsake,
or her appeal to Jason later in the play,
Hold thou her sinless who has sinned for thee![756]
Compared with such a plethora of ingenious epigram, the flights into
poetry are rare. Yet Seneca’s eye was not closed to nature. He paints
daybreak in its colour and its human significance:
Dawn sprinkles red on thorny brake
And Phoebus’ sister doth forsake
Till night the sky:
Hard toil uprises and doth wake
A world of cares and housefolk make
Their work to ply.[757]
Some instinct, too, as of a seer, may have inspired his well-known
prophecy:
Late in the years an age will dawn
When Ocean must all things unseal,
And earth lie ope like one great lawn,
When Tethys must new worlds reveal
And Thule be Earth’s End no more.[758]
In view of the doubt sometimes needlessly cast upon Seneca’s authorship
of these dramas, it is of importance to note the strong tincture of
philosophic thought which colours many of the speeches and choral
odes. The _Troades_ presents us with a chant on the doctrine of utter
annihilation:
Can it be truth that we utterly die?
Is there no part of us left, when the soul
At the final breath-flicker soars into the air,
Mingling with cloudland so soon as the torch
Lays fingers of fire on the corpse lying bare?...
After our death there is naught. Death is naught
But the finishing goal of a race quickly run....
The way into Hell and the cruel King’s realm
And Cerberus guarding the Perilous Gate
Are idlest of gossip and meaningless words—
A fable that sounds like a feverish dream.
Dost thou ask where thou liest when death sets thee free?
Thou shalt lie where the things lie that have not been born.[759]
A familiar Stoic dogma suggested the lines upon true kingship in the
_Thyestes_:
Treasures do not a monarch make,
Nor garb of Tyrian hue,
Nor diadem on royal brow,
Nor portals bright with gold.
A king is whoso quelleth fear
And curséd guilt of heart,
Who mid ambition’s wild caprice
And mid the wayward cheers
Of hot-head mob abides unmoved;
and a little later the sage’s serenity is limned:
Set in security of place,
He vieweth all beneath:
With a will he meets his fate
Nor murmureth to die.[760]
Similarly Stoic are the notions of freedom, of equality with monarch and
with God, and of the right to abandon life at will, which are propounded
in the _Agamemnon_:
All slavish bonds he’ll burst in twain
Who can capricious gods disdain,
Who on black Acheron’s countenance
And on the Stygian gloom can glance
Untouched by gloom himself, and dares
To fix the close of earthly cares.
Peer of a king—of gods, is he.
Know how to die and so be free![761]
It is this creed of the open door leading out of life on which Oedipus
harps in the _Phoenissae_[762] and which the guilty queen proclaims in
the _Phaedra_,
Death ne’er can fail the man who wills to die.[763]
As we should expect, it is stated in the prose works[764] of Seneca, and
so brings him into touch with contemporary history; for it is but the
theoretical formulation of that right to suicide which many of the Roman
Stoics in opposition during the darkest days of imperial tyranny not only
claimed but exercised.
While, however, much of the philosophic colour in the plays reflects
their author’s Stoicism, Seneca is dramatist enough to introduce
non-Stoic views also. He allows, for instance, the chorus in the
_Phaedra_ to adopt an Epicurean and pessimistic attitude. It comes in an
ode addressed to Nature and to “Olympus’s Lord,” beseeching a solution to
one of the riddles of the universe—why it is that external nature is so
regularly controlled by law, whereas the Ruler of all things appears to
be indifferent to man, and human affairs appear to be a chaotic realm of
chance.[765]
Philosophy, whether Stoic or not, is, after all, one of the personal
notes imported by Seneca into his adaptations from Greek drama. Like his
yet more pervasive rhetoric, it is of Roman cast, and, if anachronistic
in its Hellenic environment, it is but an additional sign of his
independence of his originals. He is not at pains to avoid national
colour: and thus, reckless of inconsistency, he puts into the mouth of
Mycenaean elders certain terms redolent of Roman political history; turns
the thought of a Theban chorus towards the _clientes_ and _patroni_
of Rome, and, later in the same play, towards a Roman rather than a
Greek holiday; represents the ex-king of Thebes as quoting, like a
_paterfamilias_, his power of life and death;[766] and—more surprising
still—not merely fuses into a Corinthian marriage-hymn elements in
the bantering Fescennine spirit (“rarely against our lords is license
legalised”), but actually, a few lines further on, where the metre has
become hexameter, names that familiar feature of a wedding at Rome:
Let glib Fescennine hurl its merry gibes.[767]
Another national trait lies in his debt to Latin predecessors. This is
especially observable in his relation to Virgil and Ovid. To the former
he owes much in language and in idea: one cannot, for example, read
Theseus’s description in the _Hercules Furens_[768] of his descent into
the Lower World, nor Andromache’s account in the _Troades_[769] of her
vision of the dead Hector, without noticing reminiscences of _Aeneid_
VI in the one case and of _Aeneid_ II in the other. Ovid, to whose
rhetorical abilities Seneca’s early attention must have been directed
by his father, is the ultimate inspirer of many of his epigrams and
mannerisms as well as of some of his metrical characteristics. Seneca,
however, though a borrower in most fields, remained in part original
and inventive. This holds good of his choice of words. Such compounds
as _luctificus_ and _fatidicus_ he would, like other poets of his
century, inherit from Virgil; and similarly such words as _securiger_ and
_multifidus_ from Ovid. But some compounds it would be hard to find in
other authors, _e.g._ _incestificus_ and _superbificus_, and _nidificus_
too, although the verb _nidificare_ rises to the mind in connexion
with a famous tale of Virgil’s readiness in verse-making. _Pacificus_,
apparently used by Cicero once, Seneca seems to have originated in verse
and bequeathed through his nephew and Martial for its most familiar use
in the Vulgate version of the Beatitudes.
The iambic trimeter used by Seneca for dramatic speeches and dialogue is
in his hands a finished line more akin to that of Greek tragedy than to
the rugged senarius of the oldest Latin dramas. Like the Augustans, and
in all likelihood under the influence of Ovid’s lost _Medea_, he would
regard the verses of Ennius, Pacuvius and Accius as uncouth. Seneca,
for instance, does not imitate the heavy Ennian line with its spondees
in second and fourth feet, and at least before a cretic ending shows a
preference for elision. But the general effect is a polished monotony,
towards which contributing factors are scarcity of the more subtle
elisions, want of varied pauses, and a pronounced liking for either
spondee or anapaest in the fifth foot. According to Lucian Müller, in
all Seneca there are only six examples of a double iambic ending to a
line;[770] and statistics indicate that the anapaest in the fifth place,
as a variant for the spondee, occurs rather oftener than once in every
five lines. Seneca’s iambic trimeter is at its neatest, as it is at its
sagest, in the _stichomythia_ of the dialogue. When in long speeches the
sense too often closes with the end of each line, the sharp ring which is
suitable in _stichomythia_ becomes mere jerkiness. His trimeters—indeed
Latin trimeters as a whole—never attain the charm which can be
illustrated from any Greek tragedy. Herein it contrasts with the Latin
hexameter, which possesses a beauty and nobility rivalling any effect
achieved in Greek. Trochaic tetrameter is used in three passages,[771]
amounting to a total of 34 lines, based rather on the Greek model than on
early Latin septenarii. But one departure is the admission of a dactyl in
the sixth foot—a practice metrically analogous to the favour shown for an
anapaest in the fifth foot of an iambic trimeter. Of choral measures he
employs a considerable variety, some being feeble imitations of, others
unfortunate departures from, Horace. The mixed metres in the _Agamemnon_
and _Oedipus_[772], are such failures that some, forgetting how much of
an experimenter Seneca was in dramatic composition, have denied that he
wrote those plays. The sum of the matter is that the choruses, lacking
strophic arrangement and often dull in theme, suffer from the wearisome
continuance of the same line without the break of a shorter closing
one. Long passages in Sapphics without an Adonic, or in Asclepiadeans
without a Glyconic, or in anapaestic dimeter without a monometer, almost
madden the reader because of their sameness; and, unluckily, while Seneca
declines to afford the relief of a Glyconic among longer Asclepiadeans,
he has no qualms about perpetrating a run of Glyconics for seventy or
eighty lines on end.
Time, however, has not judged Seneca by the monotony of his choral
metres. In literature it is not too much to say that he has been a
world-wide influence; for without him the history of the drama in most
countries would have run an entirely altered course. By the fourteenth
century his influence upon writers in Italy was evident—on Mussato,
for example, whose iambic tragedy _Ecerinis_ was a literary triumph
in 1314 or 1315.[773] Seneca’s historical function was to be a link
between the incipient modern drama and Hellenism, which could not be
directly accessible, or indeed intelligible, so long as Greek study was
in its infancy. As a force at the birth of modern drama he completely
eclipsed the other dramatists of antiquity: Sophocles counted for very
little, Aeschylus for less, and Euripides mainly for as much of his
spirit as operated through Seneca. When, therefore, Latin plays gave
place to Italian tragedy in Cammelli’s _Filostrato e Panfila_, Seneca
was reckoned an appropriate personage to pronounce the prologue. At the
period of the revival of learning, his plays had become renowned over
Europe—Scaliger, it should be noted, rated him above Euripides—and his
authority, except for Trissino’s preference in favour of Greek models,
was riveted on Italy. In France it was the Latin plays which Buchanan
and Muret wrote for their scholars to act that introduced the Senecan
model and pointed the way towards the French tragedy of the Pléiade. In
contrast to comedy, over which Terence’s influence did not retain its
hold, French tragedy continued for three centuries to follow the foreign
classical exemplar with the strictness observable in Corneille and Racine.
The immense popularity of Seneca in England during the sixteenth century
is illustrated by the production of his _Troades_ at Trinity College,
Cambridge, in 1551-52, as well as by frequent translation and frequent
imitation. A reason is easily found. English playwrights, confronted
with the task of shaping the amorphous native drama, saw in his plays
orderly patterns to suit their purpose. Here was a type of drama which
was a descendant of the ancient Greek, with still less action than in the
Greek, with choruses even more divorced from the action, but conveniently
demarcating the play into definite episodes or acts; while, in spirit,
this type of drama exhibited what was for the Elizabethan playgoer an
acceptable store of moral reflections and harrowing situations. One could
accordingly combine the satisfaction of hearing good talk about rectitude
one moment, and of revelling in horrors the next. Morality could be
blended with melodrama. The leaven worked rapidly after Heywood began
a series of translations of Seneca’s plays in 1559. Our first English
tragedy, _Gorboduc_, 1561, is framed on the Senecan model, which had
already captured the playwrights of Italy, France, and, in a measure,
Germany. The division into five acts and the introduction of choruses
(as lyric interludes rather than as integral parts in the drama) show
Seneca’s influence upon the form of such plays as _Gorboduc_ and _The
Misfortunes of Arthur_. Dramas, however, that can be called fairly and
fully Senecan are not numerous in English; for the drama in England was
turned into a freer course by Marlowe and Shakespeare, as it was in Spain
by Lope de Vega and Calderon. The more lasting influence of Seneca on
drama in France is largely attributable to the closer affinity between
the Senecan and the French taste for rhetorical finish. But even where
the model was not closely followed in England, the spirit of Seneca was
operative; for it should be realized that it acted on the romantic drama
no less than on the classical.
Thus, stock characters like the nurse, the ghost, the tyrant—each of them
borrowed from Greek by Seneca, but each slightly modified—are handed on
to the English drama. The nurse is a feature in five of the ten plays
which Elizabethans ascribed to Seneca;[774] in a sixth, _Thyestes_,
there is an attendant on Atreus who hears his secrets and gives advice,
while in a seventh, _Oedipus_, Manto, daughter of the blind Tiresias,
fills the office of trusted attendant on her father, like Antigone in
the _Phoenissae_. Such figures are prototypes of the nurse in _Romeo and
Juliet_ and the confidante of the French stage. Thyestes’s ghost designed
in the _Agamemnon_ to personify a Spirit of Revenge is the ancestor of
the murdered Andrea’s ghost in Kyd’s _Spanish Tragedie_ and the ghost
of the hero’s father in _Hamlet_. The ruthless Lycus in _Hercules
Furens_, Medea resolute in her contemplated barbarity, and Atreus openly
avowing villainy, are types of character that descend to Elizabethan
literature—to Barabas in Marlowe’s _Jew of Malta_, to Lorenzo in Kyd’s
_Spanish Tragedie_, and to “Crookback the Tyrant” in Shakespeare’s
_Richard III_. There is indeed much that is Senecan—as if we were to
fancy that some old Spanish traits in Seneca were being revived—in _The
Spanish Tragedie_, a ghastly medley of blood and thunder, ghosts and
horrors. Its lurid description of the road to hell is after the manner of
Seneca’s eeriest passages. This aspect is handed on to plays like _Titus
Andronicus_, and persists in Webster’s _Duchess of Malfi_ and _The White
Devil_. _Richard III_, too, has many Senecan lineaments besides that
already mentioned. One of the tragedies of blood, it has a multiplicity
of ghosts: it has even a Senecan tendency to that rant from which
Shakespeare did much to rescue drama; while the old tones of repartee,
subtly developed in Athenian tragedy and transmitted through Seneca to
the moderns, ring out in the dialogue between Richard and the Queen
Elizabeth in Act IV, Scene iv.
This stichomythia is the chief feature common to the popular playwrights
of Shakespearean times and an author who represents a widely divergent
line of Senecan tradition—namely, Sir William Alexander, Earl of
Stirling. He followed the more classical Seneca, the Seneca of argument,
description and apophthegm. Tyrannical wickedness and inflated bombast
make room in his plays for discussions and reflections. When Ben Jonson’s
_Sejanus_ and _Catiline_ had failed to keep Seneca on the boards of the
playhouse, scholars turned to write dramas, as Seneca himself had done,
for the study. Independent of popular taste, they were free to copy the
quieter, the less wildly romantic, side of Seneca, to restore the chorus,
to banish action, and create monuments of unreadable dullness. Works,
however, like Alexander’s are interesting contrasts to such dramas of the
theatre as displayed Seneca’s influence in almost hypertrophied vitality.
DRAMA OF THE AGE
The _Octauia_, in 983 lines, is the one surviving Roman historical
drama. We have only more or less fragmentary traces of eleven other
_praetextae_—Naevius’s _Clastidium_ and _Romulus_, Ennius’s _Ambracia_
and _Sabinae_ (if we can be sure these two were plays), Pacuvius’s
_Paulus_, Accius’s _Brutus_ and _Decius_, Cornelius Balbus’s _Iter_,
and, under the Empire, the _Aeneas_ of Pomponius Secundus and the
_Domitius_ and _Cato_ of Curiatius Maternus. It is difficult to see why
the traditional ascription of the _Octauia_ to Seneca ever deceived
anyone. That Seneca should have introduced himself on the stage is barely
credible; but that he, or anyone, should, during Nero’s lifetime, have
ventured to portray the emperor as a heartless monster[775] to mother
and wife, as well as a vindictive tyrant to his people, is absolutely
incredible. It has long been recognized, too, that the dramatic prophecy
of Nero’s doom is too circumstantially accurate to have been composed
till after the event in A.D. 68; and Seneca had died three years before.
The play no doubt recalls his manner. It has a ghost: it has a couple of
nurses: it has, like the _Agamemnon_ and _Hercules Oetaeus_, a couple
of choruses: but its doleful repetitions are too many and its epigrams
too few for Seneca. Also, the metre, in spite of certain similarities,
such as the liking for an anapaest in the fifth foot, shows significant
differences; for example, though Seneca was not so careful as the Greek
dramatists in linking lines together, he did not allow hiatus and a
_syllaba anceps_ at the close of lines nearly so often as the author of
the _Octauia_. This is a further reason, if further reason be needed, for
repudiating Seneca’s authorship.[776]
Many conjectures have been made about the date of its composition, which
has been put arbitrarily as late as the fourth century, not to speak of
the absurd notion that the play was invented ten centuries later. The
case for a date early in Domitian’s reign has been argued solemnly[777]
with little regard to the likelihood of such a publication under such
an emperor. So too critics have cast around for an author and lighted
upon Maternus, who, we know, wrote _praetextae_. These guesses take
us nowhere. The most that can be said is that the author is unknown,
but that he plainly studied Seneca; and that an extremely probable,
because suitable, date is one of the years immediately succeeding Nero’s
fall.[778]
The scene is laid in Nero’s palace, and the time is A.D. 62. The
play opens with a lyric lament by Nero’s neglected empress, Octavia,
who “outwails the sea-bred Halcyons” in her grief over the criminal
follies of her dead mother Messalina, and over the wickedness shown
by her stepmother Agrippina (now also dead) in poisoning her imperial
husband, Claudius, Octavia’s father, and in taking Octavia from her
betrothed, Silanus, to marry her to young Nero. To these enormities
and to the poisoning of Octavia’s brother, Britannicus, rightful heir
to the throne, the melancholy heroine and her nurse repeat their
sombre allusions until they cease to be artistically effective. Nero’s
barbarity in murdering his mother, mentioned many times and once fully
described,[779] and his maltreatment of his wife, leave the unhappy
Octavia nothing to hope for but death. On one occasion she is goaded into
half a threat, which the nurse, however, unable to take it seriously,
answers with scorn:
OCT. Let Nero kill me too, lest I slay _him_!
NURSE. Nature hath not bestowed on thee such strength.
OCT. Pain, hate, grief, wretchedness and woe will serve.
NURSE. Nay, by compliance win thy cruel lord.
OCT. To give me back my brother, foully slain?
NURSE. To be thyself unharmed, and yet restore
Thy father’s tottering house with babes of thine.[780]
The nurse, like her mistress, is versed in mythology and endeavours
to console Octavia for Nero’s infidelities by relating Jupiter’s
misdemeanours as Swan or Bull or Golden Shower. The next choral chant
recites a rumour that Nero has decided to espouse a new consort, and
in the following episode Seneca enters soliloquizing on the dangers of
prosperity, on his own greater safety as an exile “amid the cliffs of
the Corsican sea,” and on the deterioration of mankind. Nero arrives
blustering angrily and issuing orders to his prefect for two executions.
Seneca’s vain appeal for clemency is succeeded by his equally vain
expostulation against the projected marriage with the wanton Poppaea.
Nero declares his resolution to make the morrow his wedding-day. On his
departure, the ghost of his mother appears in order to symbolize the
vengeance that must come, and her speech contains the prophecy of Nero’s
doom (619-631), on which rests the conviction that the play is later
than his death. Another choral ode precedes a scene between Poppaea,
distraught by alarming dreams, and her nurse. Then to the chorus of
Poppaea’s sympathizers enters a messenger reporting a revolt in favour of
Octavia. The emperor reappears, breathing merciless fury and determined
to revenge himself on Octavia, who in the final scene is exhibited under
an armed guard bound for exile and death. She came with a wail and she
goes with a wail.
Although one cannot withhold sympathy from the victim of Nero’s
heartlessness, the many feeble repetitions, the tiresome lamentations,
and a minimum of incident, make the _Octauia_ unforgivably dull. Even
Agrippina’s ghost is unimpressive. If the reader wonders what business
mythology has in this particular galley, he must remember the Senecan
tradition. But, obviously, mythological lore removes all chance of making
a historical drama realistic. It is grotesque when the nurse whitewashes
Nero by giving a list of Jupiter’s lapses from connubial rectitude, or
when Octavia herself, in railing against her wicked husband, opines that
Mother Earth did not produce a worse monster in Typhon. Instead of all
this, one would have liked a historical play to stir the feelings with
abuse of Nero in good set terms and in plain Latin. And so with pity no
less than indignation. If we are to sorrow with Octavia, she must first
(as Horace would remind us) sorrow herself—naturally too, not uttering
the artificial question, “What nightingale can match with plaints my
tears?”[781] But the incubus of learning is sometimes historical as
well. The chorus take occasion to cite, as instances of the disastrous
results of popular favour, the Gracchi and Livius Drusus, regretting that
present grief prevents them from giving additional examples—presumably
by ransacking historical or rhetorical manuals like the collection of
_exempla_ by Valerius Maximus. More perhaps than any other handicap, such
misplaced erudition balks this tragic story in its intended emotional
appeal.
The place occupied in the early Empire by _fabulae salticae_, _mimi_,
_pantomimi_, and recitations excerpted from standard tragedies or
composed for the occasion, has been already touched upon. Literary
comedy fared no better than literary tragedy: mimes and Atellan farces
had displaced it. The same thing holds good in the next period as in
the Neronian age; such a comedy as the younger Pliny tells us[782] he
heard Vergilius Romanus reading was modelled on classical lines and
stood no chance of winning popularity. The mime, on the other hand,
when it sketched ordinary life, had the spice of realism, united
sometimes to that wisdom of experience which Seneca recognized as truly
philosophic, and which, he suggests, it shared with writers of tragedy
and _togatae_.[783] It is interesting, in this connexion, to note that
Afranius’s old _togata_ of “The House on Fire” (_Incendium_) was played
in Nero’s time, truth to life doubtless being enhanced by the permission
granted to actors to keep any furniture which they saved from the
flames.[784] The Atellan farce had the additional and dangerous spice of
veiled jests at exalted personages; but Suetonius gives us to understand
that Nero showed surprising indulgence towards offending authors, so that
joking allusions to the deaths of Claudius and Agrippina involved no more
serious penalty than exile.[785]
The variety of public amusements with which serious drama had to compete
may be estimated from several passages in Suetonius’s _Life of Nero_. It
was at best but a spurious drama that found its way to the boards. Nero
liked appearing on the stage as a tragic character.[786] The matricide
Orestes, the blinded Oedipus, the mad Hercules were parts that appealed
to him;[787] and it may be inferred that, like Lucan, he wrote the words
to be recited or chanted. The quinquennial contests of the “Neronia,”
even if established from vainglorious motives, proved his interest in
poetry and music, and stimulated production of a kind. The emperor’s
final performance on the stage was in an iambic chant from _Oedipus
in Exile_, a theme similar to that of the opening part of Seneca’s
_Phoenissae_; in this piece, however, Nero used Greek.[788]
Pomponius Secundus, who had made his _début_ as author long before, as
already recorded, lived far into Nero’s reign. Whether the riot in the
theatre over his _carmina_[789] in Claudius’s reign implies that he
merely wrote verses for actors, or whether he put complete tragedies on
the stage, one cannot say. Curiatius Maternus,[790] a famous orator
who renounced public life for poetry and whose house is the scene of
Tacitus’s _Dialogus_, had written his first play in Nero’s time. One of
his two _praetextae_, entitled _Domitius_, was concerned with an ancestor
of Nero’s who opposed Julius Caesar and died fighting at Pharsalia. His
other historical play, _Cato_, had just made a great stir in Rome at the
time of the _Dialogus_, A.D. 79-81. Like Seneca he wrote tragedies on the
Greek subjects of _Medea_ and _Thyestes_.
It is clear, then, that, whether or not complete tragedies continued
to be represented on the stage, tragic poets at least continued to
compose, if only in a dilettante manner. But no real survival of tragedy
can be inferred from the shadowy list of names and titles yielded by
allusions in Juvenal and Martial[791]—_Alcithoe_ by Paccius, _Thebae_
(or _Thebais_) and _Tereus_ by Faustus, _Atreus_ by Rubrenus Lappa,
_Hercules_ and _Hecuba_ (or _Troades_) by Scaeva or Scaev(i)us Memor,
who belongs to the reign of Domitian. It is one of literature’s little
ironies that Memor should be addressed by Martial as “the glory of the
Roman buskin” (_Romani fama cothurni_).
CHAPTER V
PERSIUS: STOIC SATIRE
The _Vita_ by Valerius Probus—Persius’s friends—Cornutus, his
Stoic teacher—The six satires—Sources of Persius—Horatian and
Bionean influences—The charge of obscurity—Vivid pictures—Other
features of his style—His hexameter—Did he assail Nero?—Varying
judgements upon him.
PERSIUS
The essential facts of the short life of Aulus[792] Persius Flaccus
are preserved in a biography taken from the commentary on the poet by
Valerius Probus. Persius[793] was born at Volaterrae in Etruria, and
lived nearly twenty-eight years, from December, A.D. 34, to November,
62. Jerome, who felt attracted to his thought, corroborates both dates
on the Abrahamic system of chronology. When about six years old, the boy
lost his father, a man of equestrian rank; and his mother, who bore the
Etruscan name Sisennia, remarried, but lost her second husband Fusius, a
municipal knight, a few years later. It is recorded of the youth that he
was of gentle and modest character, good-looking, and affectionate to his
female relatives, his mother, sister and aunt. Till he was twelve he was
brought up in Etruria; his education at Rome began in A.D. 46. First he
studied literature under the able but unprincipled Remmius Palaemon, and,
even if temperamentally and morally antipathetic to this famous teacher,
Persius would at any rate learn the technique of poetry in a school where
the authors specially taught included Terence, Horace and Virgil. Later
he worked at rhetoric under Verginius Flavus, whose renown for eloquence
earned Nero’s hatred and who was banished at the same time as Musonius
Rufus, the Stoic. There is little to support Lehmann’s hypothesis[794]
that republican tendencies were conveyed by Verginius to Persius; but
at least the rhetorical method, practised though it apparently was by
Verginius with some modifications, must have influenced Persius through
such features as its search for striking phrases, and its introduction
of _communes loci_. All the same, Persius had been schoolboy enough to
play truant from rhetorical exercises, which he found unprofitable and
distasteful: a touch of oil might produce an appearance of weak eyes
and enable him to shirk the recitation lesson and so avoid declaiming
some fine dying speech of Cato. Dice or a top might be preferable to the
_suasoria_.[795]
Among his friends was the lyric poet Caesius Bassus, addressed in his
sixth satire, who became his posthumous editor. He respected like a
father Servilius Nonianus, ex-consul, orator and historian, who one
day by the plaudits of his audience attracted the Emperor Claudius to
a reading which he was giving near the Palatine Hill.[796] Persius’s
relationship to the younger Arria brought him into touch with the Stoic
senator Thrasea, whose _Life of Cato_ was a source for Plutarch, and
who, though not in active opposition, wore a look of gravity equivalent
to a permanent rebuke for Nero.[797] Neither Thrasea nor Nonianus would
necessarily have inculcated upon Persius hatred of the imperial system,
and yet one may guess that Thrasea’s conservatism had its influence on
his sympathies and tastes. He had composed juvenile verses on the death
of the elder Arria; and he mixed in Stoic circles. At sixteen he began a
close and uninterrupted friendship with the Stoic teacher Cornutus, and
through him became acquainted with two Greek philosophers of the day,
Claudius Agathurnus (or Agathemerus) and Petronius Aristocrates, and with
the young poet Lucan, like himself one of Cornutus’s pupils. Lucan’s
admiration for his friend’s talent was enthusiastic: Persius’s writings,
he declared, were genuine poetry, and his own mere sportive pieces (_illa
esse uera poemata, sua ludos_). To Seneca, Lucan’s uncle, Persius was
not drawn:[798] the courtier’s pliant and adaptable Stoicism evidently
did not commend itself to this young devotee. Literature apart, the most
vital influence on Persius came from the intimacy and instruction of
Cornutus,[799] to whose philosophic power his pupil’s satires are the
best surviving testimony. Cornutus was also a tragic poet, grammarian
and author of a commentary on Virgil. Already, no doubt, suspect as a
professor of Stoicism, he was banished for the suggestion that Nero’s
projected epic on Roman history would be too long in 400 books.
Affectionate gratitude towards his master is one of the winning traits in
Persius and adds greatly to the human interest of the fifth satire, which
is addressed to him. On quitting boyhood, Persius relates he had been
welcomed to “the Socratic bosom” of Cornutus, and had all moral twists
straightened by a rule applied with subtle skill:
What share, sweet friend Cornutus, of my soul
Thou art, ’tis joy to show. Strike it and test
With care what part rings true, what is but paint
And plaster of the tongue. Here would I ask
A hundred voices to proclaim clear-toned
Thy firm enlodgement in my bosom’s folds
And let my words unseal the secret love
Deep-hid unutterable in my heart....
Just when my way grew puzzling, when, unversed
In life, my ignorance let nervous thoughts
Stray down the branching cross-roads, I consigned
Myself to thee, and thou, Cornutus, tookst
To thy Socratic breast my tender years.[800]
A few lines later he rejoices in their close union in relaxation and toil:
With thee I wore away long sunny days
And with thee culled the early bloom of night
For banqueting, I can recall; we twain
Were one in work, with one set time for rest,
O’er modest board unbending gravity.
Doubt not hereof—our lives by law ordained
Accord, both guided by a single star.[801]
Persius died of an ailment of the stomach on his estate about eight
miles out of Rome along the Appian Way. Possessed of considerable wealth
(2,000,000 sesterces), he bequeathed a collection of books, including
700 volumes by the Stoic Chrysippus as well as money and silver plate
to Cornutus, who accepted the library but renounced the other legacies
in favour of his pupil’s relatives. Persius left only a small amount of
literary work, for the _Life_ remarks that he wrote seldom and slowly
(_scriptitauit et raro et tarde_), as might be inferred from his style.
His juvenile works included a _praetexta_, a book of travels[802] (if
_Hodoeporicon_ is the true reading in the _Vita_), and his lines already
mentioned on the heroic Arria. All these were, after his death, destroyed
by the advice of Cornutus, who made slight corrections on the half-dozen
satires before entrusting their publication to Caesius Bassus.
There is much to make Persius an interesting study. He was the first
Stoic verse satirist of Rome; he was possessed by a moral earnestness
almost preternaturally beyond his years, and died comparatively young;
with his one book, as Quintilian remarked,[803] he earned genuine
glory; he has throughout the ages attracted some and repelled others;
he is undoubtedly difficult to understand, and yet has exerted a great
influence on thinkers.
His six satires amount only to 650 hexameters: the shortest (iv.) being
52 lines long, and the longest (v.) 191. None but the first, for which
it is said he received stimulus from reading Lucilius, can be strictly
called a satire: the other five are “sermons,” rather in the modern than
in the Horatian sense. Besides, there have come down fourteen choliambic
lines appearing in some MSS. as a prologue, in others as an epilogue.
They may well be neither, but the single piece saved from Persius’s
other poems—a mock-modest disclaimer of inspiration which need not be
taken literally as containing solemn misstatements by the poet about
himself.[804]
Satire I, on the right and wrong spirit in current literature, is
combined with the important secret (_opertum_) that everybody is an ass
(_auriculas asini quis non habet?_)—a jocular offgrowth of the Stoic
creed that all but the sage adept are fools. This initial attack on the
corruption of literature furnished hints for the first satire of Juvenal.
Persius in his imagined dialogue with a friend judges decadent literary
taste to be a symptom of moral decay, and this stings him to pungent
criticisms upon the foppery and ostentation of public recitations by
authors who titillate the inward parts of a depraved audience with their
licentious poetry. Private dinner-parties end in listening to insipid
trash about a Phyllis or a Hypsipyle—but can a host get honest opinions
on his poems from his guests? Heroics are attempted by writers who could
not describe a simple rural scene, and there is a mania for archaisms
and archaic poets, like Accius and Pacuvius.[805] What is the good of
artificial oratory and polished antitheses, if there is a plain charge of
theft to meet? And surely the manhood of the old Roman past has vanished
when poetry apes nerveless stuff like,
Grim horns they filled with Mimallonean booms.[806]
The poet’s friend remonstrates: such unpopular truths may win a chilling
reception for him in high society. By way of answer, Persius recalls
the outspokenness of Lucilius and Horace’s winning pleasantries at the
expense of human foibles.[807] Is it sacrilege for Persius to mutter
the truth and confide his little whispered secret, this joke of his own
(_hoc ridere meum_), to the safe-keeping of a hole in the earth—“All
the world’s got donkey’s ears?” He asks for readers who have drawn an
inspiring breath from the masters of the old Greek comedy—Cratinus and
Eupolis and the “Grand Old Man” (_praegrandi sene_) of comic drama,
Aristophanes. This satire, then, is a manifesto of literary independence
in contrast to the prevailing mode and of censorial independence after
the example of Lucilius. The remaining five contain his Stoic message to
his generation.
Satire II, on praying aright, is a brief disquisition addressed to a
learned friend, Macrinus, on a similar theme to that in Juvenal’s tenth
Satire. If Persius cannot rival Juvenal’s brilliant rhetorical skill and
force, he at least surpasses him in the impression which he leaves of
moral dignity and almost religious fervour. Condensed and scathing in
its denunciation of the immorality and foolishness of petitions brazenly
offered to the gods though unfit to be overheard by men, the poem rises
to a noble elevation at its close upon the spiritual value of true
worship:
O souls bent earthward, with no heavenly spark,
What good to take our human thoughts to prayer,
Judging God’s pleasure from this sinful flesh?...
It sins, flesh sins, yet gains by sin; but say,
Ye priests, what profits gold in holy place?
As much as maiden’s dolls at Venus’ shrine!
Give we the gods what from his lordly plate
Messala’s blear-eyed scion could not give—
Duty to God and man in soul well blent
And stainless inmost thoughts and noble heart
In honour steeped—these let me to the shrine
Convey and humble meal will win my prayer.[808]
Satire III, on right living and right thinking, expostulates with
laziness which childishly fails to face the serious purposes of life. It
opens with a concrete picture of lounging: “already bright morning enters
the windows, widening the narrow chinks with light,” and yet we go on
snoring off last night’s debauch. Is it not a scandal to pass an unworthy
existence like a Natta?—Only, his vice is ingrained hopelessly:
He feels no guilt; knows not his loss; deep-drowned
He makes no bubble at the surface more.[809]
May the Great Sire inflict on monsters of wickedness no other punishment
than a revelation of virtue as she is:
Let them see Virtue—pine for Her they’ve lost.[810]
Then the poet commends the wisdom derivable from true philosophy in spite
of the guffaws of the unsympathetic soldier:
Learn, hapless ones; the causes grasp of things;
Grasp what we are, what life we’re born to live;[811]
and from the same Stoic system one must learn the way at turning-points
in one’s career, the limits of wealth and of desire, the claims of
fatherland and kin, and the part God has ordained one to play.
Satire IV, on the right knowledge of oneself, opens with a brief Socratic
examination of the claim made by “great Pericles’s ward” (Alcibiades) to
guide the state. Of course, wisdom comes before he has a beard! (_ante
pilos uenit_). He ventures to advise the “Quirites” (a Roman touch in
what is a Greek situation) on delicate problems of policy, while making
mere enjoyment his chief good and having no higher conceptions than those
of an old vegetable-woman of the streets (an allusion that recalls the
crone in the _Satyricon_, who was Encolpius’s conductress to a haunt of
vice).
How few to sound their own true nature try!
Inside the bag of one in front they pry;[812]
and yet the popular estimate of your character is worthless; you must
retire within yourself and examine the state of your soul:
Dwell with yourself: learn your scant furnishing.[813]
Satire V, on the right freedom conferred by Stoic principles, has
already been cited for its cordial acknowledgement of the poet’s debt
to the guidance of Cornutus. The model on which the whole is based is
the seventh satire of Horace’s second book. In contrast to the unity of
feeling between himself and Cornutus, Persius notes the variety of aims
in the world:
Motley is life: thousand the sorts of men.[814]
Men will not learn the one true lesson: they are in perpetual quest after
a to-morrow which is never reached. What man needs is freedom—not the
merely civic sort granted when a Roman praetor turned a slave into a
freedman by formal stroke of the rod, but the true freedom guaranteed by
moral reason:
’Twas not a praetor’s task to give to fools
Fine sense of duty or grant power to use
Our fleeting life: you’d sooner teach the harp
To any hulking clown.[815]
Without reason, which enables a man to distinguish good from bad, his
every act is sin (one of the hard sayings typical of orthodox Stoicism):
Reason has granted naught to thee: put out
A finger: _that_ is wrong. Yet what so slight?
But never frankincense will win thy prayer
That e’en a short half-ounce of right shall dwell
In fools. God sunders right from foolishness.[816]
And so, if you have passions within that master you, or if you feel the
rival claims of avarice and luxury, then you are a slave. The two hooks
pull opposite ways. If you escape once, you may still drag your chain.
The truly free man is he who can inhibit himself from an evil impulse and
disentangle himself from weaknesses like ambition or superstition.
Satire VI, on the right use of wealth, is not so decidedly a Stoic homily
as its four predecessors. Wintering at Luna on the Ligurian coast by
the Tuscan Sea (_meum mare_), Persius addresses to Caesius Bassus his
claim to spend money on reasonable objects, supporting it by an argument
with a supposed heir who desires to have the fortune saved intact. The
statement by the biographer that some lines were removed from the last
book (_uersus aliqui dempti sunt ultimo libro_) is best understood to
imply that this final satire is incomplete.[817]
The subject of the sources of Persius is one of considerable complexity.
His material was largely provided by his education, associates, and
his own tastes. Stoic by training and conviction, he was more orthodox
and more dogmatic than most Romans, and so took over and restated with
scant argument some of the extreme paradoxes of the School. His studies
under rhetoricians who preferred the classic Augustan models account
for the opposition which he displays in his first satire to the revived
Alexandrinism of Rome, and for his borrowings from Virgil, and beyond
all others from Horace. Along with Horace he adopted for imitation
Horace’s outspoken master in satire, Lucilius.[818] His Horatian debts
are visible everywhere, in reminiscent word or phrase or idea, all
retaining the mark of their origin despite Persius’s inveterate habit
of contorted involution, which of set purpose departs from Horace’s
clear straightforwardness. Thus, the simple rule of pathos in the _Ars
Poetica_, “If you would have me weep, you must yourself grieve first,” is
by Persius elaborated into
He who would bow me down with woeful plaint
Must shed true tears, not tears prepared o’ernight.[819]
The reappearance of Horatian names gives an added effect of imitation,
_e.g._ Pedius (i. 85), Nerius (ii. 14), Natta (iii. 31), Craterus (iii.
65), Bestius (vi. 37). Even a partial consideration of Persius’s sources
shows that his aim was to express Stoic thought in language largely
Horatian—a _tour de force_ bound to fall short of perfect success; for
no writer could hope to wed the suppleness of Horace to Stoic rigidity.
Jahn emphasized the influence of the mime on Persius in addition to
that of Horace; and there is a possibility that the dramatic realism of
mime-writers like Sophron acted on the satires.[820] To these must be
added the influences of rhetoric and of the Cynico-stoical disputations.
Rhetoric accounts for many of the diverse elements in his style, such as
literary reminiscence, academic common-place, and argumentative artifice.
Stoic preaching, which had for long been abandoned either to professional
orators or to popular speakers, was now brought by Persius into
literature. He might easily have imbibed the style of the Stoic diatribe
(διατριβή), or polemic disputation, from Cornutus; and at Thrasea’s
house he could have heard expositions by a Stoic like Musonius or by a
Cynic like Demetrius.[821] Cynic inspiration had already operated on
Roman literature through Varro’s Menippean satires, and Horace alludes
to the bitter wit of Bion.[822] The Bionean diatribe, given to blending
learned argument with forceful words from popular speech, was likely to
win attention from a writer fired, like Persius, almost to proselytizing
ardour; and Greek Cynic literature had itself inherited and in turn
bequeathed elements from Socratic dialogue and drama and rhetoric which
contributed to the vigorous presentation of a philosophical argument.
Just as the argumentative manner of certain of St. Paul’s epistles is
affected by the Stoic diatribe, so Persius keeps up a similar tradition
when he develops a theme by answering an objector implied or definitely
introduced.[823]
Worked on by influences thus complex, enamoured of condensation, of
allusiveness, of subtle borrowings, jerky in his management of dialogue
so that a change of speaker is sometimes difficult to detect, Persius
developed a crabbed manner of expression which makes him the hardest
of Latin poets to read. Enjoyment is apt to vanish amidst the toil
of disentanglement. Conscious as he was of the mission to proclaim
salutary truths, he yet seems to have forgotten the effective force
of clearness, and his curiously laboured style is certainly not that
of the Cynico-stoic disquisition. The failure to support by connected
argument dogmatic tenets, in themselves possibly intelligible enough, and
the departure from a logical order of thought in the structure of some
satires further contribute to his obscurity. Strictures upon him date
from ancient times. Johannes Lydus, whose record of Persius’s imitation
of Sophron, though challenged, has some facts in its favour, added that
Persius surpassed the obscurity of Lycophron.[824] In the time of Louis
XIV Nicolas Chorier in his _Aloisia_ imagined a letter apostrophizing
Persius: “You wrapped yourself in blind night.... You did not want to be
understood, perchance you too did not understand!... You lurked inside
yourself, lest the painstaking sagacity of learning might discover you.
You were your own envelope.”[825]
The obscurity often lies in expression. A notoriously difficult line
occurs at iv. 49.
_si puteal multa cautus uibice flagellas_,
which, even supposing it is to be translated “if craftily you scourge the
exchange with many a lash,” still leaves the sense cryptic. Excessive
compression may prove puzzling, as “While I pluck forth old _grandams_
from your breast,”[826] meaning “grandmotherly notions”; or, on testing
the true meaning of applause, “Shake out thoroughly all this ‘_bravo_!’
(_belle hoc excute totum_); what does it not hold inside?” Another
example turns on Janus’s luck in having two faces so that he cannot be
mocked behind his back by imitation of a stork’s bill, or of the ears of
an ass, or by shooting out the tongue:
O Janus, whom the stork ne’er pecks behind,
Nor hand that nimbly apes white donkey-ears,
Nor tongue as long as parched Apulian dog’s,[827]
where strangely enough the essential key-notions of mockery and of
putting out the tongue are omitted. Occasionally an idiom may pull
the reader up, for example his liking for infinitives in substantival
meanings.[828] Thus it is not at first obvious either to readers or
commentators that _iratus mammae lallare recusas_ is intended to signify
“pettishly refuse your nurse’s lullaby.” Elsewhere the difficulty may
lie in the disconnected course of his thought and the suddenness of his
transitions; so that one is kept on the alert by what is no light reading
for tired heads.
There are, however, compensations. The test is whether under a cloud of
difficulties there remains something real and sincere. Immediate delight
is not obtainable from Persius: there are no flights of pleasant fancy,
no ideal scenes, no passages of sheer beauty; and, if the reader is
transported to no ideal world, he may be tempted to doubt—some critics
have doubted—whether the world of the young satirist is a real world,
whether his exposure of human weakness smacks more of Stoic books than of
actual life. Persius did not write for the crowd: he in particular does
not yield his secret except to the intimacy and sympathy of a thinking
mind. His very obscurity is a fruit of a half-cloistered delicacy which
shrank from revealing itself in ordinary modes of expression, and
therefore adopted a composite style in which Lucilius and Horace, the
mime and the argumentative Stoic diatribe are all ingredients. At the
same time there has too often been a disposition to regard him mainly
as a youthful zealot, fanatically fervent in his Stoicism, who had not
mixed with his fellow-men. Sometimes it is forgotten that while he can be
provokingly obscure, he can also be vivid, and, though his range is not
wide, can show a power of observing life around him.
Among his sketches memorable for realism are those of the affected
reciter;[829] the laziness of the debauchee snoring as the sunshine pours
through the shutter-chinks and the shadow touches the fifth line of the
sun-dial;[830] the fretful struggle to get to work with book and ink and
pen;[831] the truant’s games;[832] the centurion’s idea of philosophers as
lugubrious Solons
With head bent down, pinning their eyes to earth;[833]
a national holiday on the occasion of a victory over the Germans;[834] a
shipwrecked friend who
Lies on the beach himself, with gods hard by—
Huge figures off the vessel’s stern—and ribs
Of his maimed ship now in the seagulls’ path;[835]
or the funeral of a Roman master by whose last will and testament his
favourite slaves have been emancipated:
Doorwards he stretches heels now stiff and cold;
Then cits, made yesterday, in freedom’s cap
Shoulder the corpse.[836]
Vigour also characterizes his metaphors. A warning against offending high
society by outspokenness is given thus:
Beware, please, lest the doorsteps of the great
Turn cool to you (_limina frigescant_).[837]
A kindred vigour produces violent expressions like “purveying titbits
for other people’s ears” (_auriculis alienis colligis escas_), or the
forcible personification of money spent on costly sacrifices in an
unrewarded pursuit after wealth:
Till the last coin, now hopeless and befooled
At the purse-bottom heaves its sigh in vain.[838]
A passage in the fifth satire[839] is illuminating as to Persius’s
own opinion of his style. There Cornutus is imagined to tell the poet
that his forte lies not in mouthing high-flown tragedy, nor in foolish
cawing (_cornicaris_) of mysterious nonsense, nor in straining his
puffed cheeks with rhetoric till they go bang with a _pop_,[840] but, as
he declares in Latin words which intentionally echo Horace, “Nay, you
follow the language of ordinary life, dexterous in the subtlety of your
phrase-making” (_iunctura callidus acri_); or, in other terms, it was for
Persius to cultivate plain satire instead of dramatizing any mythological
supper of horrors. The words _iunctura callidus acri_ provide a clue
both to his merits and to his defects; for his phrase-making, at times
strikingly successful, at other times overleaps itself and becomes one
factor in his Browningesque obscurity.
The ring of Persius’s hexameters differs from that of Horace’s, which
were constructed without regard to the high-sounding epic tradition and
designedly lowered in tone to suit the half-conversational character of
his _sermones_. It is natural that Persius, who interpreted his Stoic
message as lofty and severe, should not write with so easy a movement,
but should adopt a more mechanical structure and more conventional
cadence. There is in Persius a smaller number of spondaic words, a
different management of _caesurae_, and a rarer use of monosyllabic
endings; but, like Horace, he freely admits elision, and so presents a
contrast with one of the features of the hexameters parodied in his first
satire, as well as of the contemporary verse of Calpurnius Siculus, of
the Einsiedeln eclogues and of the _Laus Pisonis_.
A hypothesis maintained with different degrees of detail by different
commentators would make Persius not merely a mouthpiece of Stoicism but a
political satirist who ventured to assail Nero. In the _Vita_ a closing
paragraph of unsettled authenticity affirms that in his fulminations
against the modern school of literature he included an attack on the
emperor.[841] This contained the expression _auriculas asini Mida rex
habet_, which Cornutus altered for safety to _auriculas asini quis non
habet?_ to prevent Nero from thinking he was aimed at. Then the scholia
gave varying accounts of the source of the hexameters in the first
satire at which Persius jests, but one view was that they were Nero’s;
and so ancient commentators began to see throughout the satire a series
of allusions to the emperor. Casaubon maintained that in Satire IV
Alcibiades, the would-be statesman, stands for Nero, and though Jahn does
not follow him here, as he does regarding Satire I, Casaubon has had
supporters in Pretor and others.[842] Lehmann has gone further. He has
claimed to find covert but stinging allusions to Nero in Satire V, the
very satire which to most readers must appear remarkable in that, while
it handles freedom, it avoids all political aspects of the question.
The more the hypothesis grows by accretion of hitherto unrecognized
allusions, the weaker it seems. Why should Nero alone be attacked? Why
should the author have been so unphilosophical as to single out for
constant censure an individual when all the world fell far short of Stoic
perfection? Might not Persius well remember that Horace, his model, left
politics on one side? And are we to be asked to believe that Cornutus
took the trouble to alter the words “King Midas” to avoid giving possible
offence to the emperor, and yet left in the text not merely copious hits
at his Majesty more or less veiled, but actually lines of Nero’s own
composition of which the satirist made fun?
Opinions have varied greatly concerning Persius. His fellow-student
Lucan, as already mentioned, praised him whole-heartedly, and his
satires on publication won immediate esteem.[843] He was popular with
the Fathers of the Church for his strong advocacy of virtue and his
_anima naturaliter Christiana_, and he has attracted enthusiastic
commentators since the days of Valerius Probus in his own century. Isaac
Casaubon wrote of his own unsparing labours on him: _in Persio omnem
ingenii conatum effudimus_. On the other hand, Joseph Scaliger remarked
sarcastically about that same commentary: _au Perse de Casaubon la
saulce vaut mieux que le poisson_. It is common literary knowledge that
he left his mark on Rabelais and Montaigne, on Ben Jonson and Boileau,
which argues in him something deeper than what Nisard saw—the knack of
reproducing servilely in verse ready-made philosophical ideas. Simcox
thinks he improves upon every reading, and a French editor[844] declares
_je quitte Perse avec un sincère regret et comme on quitte un vieil ami_;
whereas a German scholar is delighted to lay him down: _mit Freuden legen
wir den Dichter aus der Händen_,[845] and another writer discovers in
the satires a sea of darkness.[846] It may be a half-cynical suggestion
that editors come to love Persius in proportion to the toil which he has
cost them, but one may fairly take leave to doubt whether an exponent of
doctrines with which he hopes to better his fellowmen is justified in
being so far from plain. It is true that a recent editor sought to acquit
him of obscurity, arguing that he is difficult but not obscure.[847]
Most students will hold that he is both, and that it must be largely a
matter of disposition whether a reader will resent or not the trouble
involved. Even that very earnestness in preaching morality which has
gained him champions may appear to others the priggishness of a bookish
young recluse. Still, in justice to Persius, it should be remembered that
his lack of knowledge of the world may be easily overstated: his very
education in rhetoric would open his eyes to evil; he had travelled; and
many of his pictures show that he had observed life.
Persius set himself the task of presenting Stoic homilies in Horatian
guise—a task perhaps harder, perhaps involving more incompatible elements
even than that which Lucretius undertook when he wedded Epicureanism to
the heroic hexameter. But whatever their obstacles, Lucretius attained
his goal triumphantly, whereas Persius cannot be said to have won
that perfect mastery over form and material which begets the greatest
literature. Yet, obscurities notwithstanding, his voice has influenced
the world and its thinkers; for it has at least been understood that
there breathes through Persius no light-hearted complaisance with the
frivolities of life, but a stern urgency always beckoning towards an
austere ideal.
CHAPTER VI
LUCAN: HISTORICAL EPIC
The author of the _Pharsalia_—Authorities for his life—His
career—Relations with Nero—Lost works—The _Pharsalia_—Summary
of the ten books—What was its contemplated length?—The three
books first composed—Daring in choice of subject—Originality
in epic treatment—Lucan’s sources, historical, philosophical
and literary—Historical value—Misstatements and anti-Caesarian
bias—Stoicism—Influence of previous poets—How rhetoric affected
him—Erudition—Realism—Speeches—Pointed style in _sententiae_—A
vein of poetry—His hero.
LUCAN
Precocity and enthusiasm were eminent characteristics of the young poet
who first throve under Nero’s favour and finally succumbed to that
emperor’s jealousy. Byron, dying at thirty-six, is reckoned a fertile
genius; but when Lucan had to face death at an age earlier by more than
ten years, there stood to his credit an almost equally wonderful mass
of work—letters and speeches, epic and drama, miscellaneous verse,
court-poetry, panegyrics and satires, as well as librettos for mimes. Of
all these, however, time has spared only his _Pharsalia_, broken off in
the tenth book. The determining factors in his career were his descent
from two prominent Spanish families and his rhetorical education; for
upon these depended the success and failure of his life, and the main
qualities of his thought and style.
Lucan’s maternal grandfather was Acilius Lucanus, a Corduban speaker of
note. His paternal grandfather was the elder Seneca, well known to Roman
literary circles in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius; his father
was Annaeus Mela, an _eques_, apparently something of a philosophic
recluse,[848] while his uncles were M. Annaeus Novatus (the “Gallio” of
the Acts of the Apostles) and the philosopher L. Annaeus Seneca. To the
latter he owed his introduction to court-life, which proved an incentive
to brilliant achievement but ultimately compassed his ruin.
While the impersonality of epic precludes the _Pharsalia_ from yielding
details about Lucan’s life, yet from it alone sure influences could be
drawn as to his training in literature, rhetoric and philosophy, his
anti-Caesarism, his self-confident and impetuous spirit. We are not,
however, without definite biographical sources. There are two lives of
importance, one imperfect and inimical, manifestly the basis of Jerome’s
entry[849] regarding the death of Lucan, and, since the days of Joseph
Scaliger, concluded with justice to come from Suetonius’s _De uiris
illustribus_; and the other life a fuller and appreciative one, assigned
to Vacca, a grammarian of the sixth century. Statius and Martial were
admirers of Lucan and joined with his widow Polla in keeping his memory
green; hence the _Genethliacon Lucani_ of the former and several short
pieces by the latter poet supply additional information.[850] The record
of Lucan’s connexion with the Pisonian conspiracy is in Tacitus, who also
in the _Dialogus_ ranks Lucan as already a classic alongside of Horace
and Virgil.[851]
M. Annaeus Lucanus[852] (A.D. 39-65) was born, about the year of his
grandfather Seneca’s death, at the “Patrician Colony” of Corduba, itself
for generations a centre of intellectual importance in Spain. The infant,
when eight months old, was brought to Rome; for it was natural that his
father Mela should migrate in response to the lure of the great city,
where already his own father and brother had made their mark. Later,
there are interesting references by the philosopher Seneca to the child.
In the _Consolatio_ addressed to his mother Helvia he writes about a
nephew, who must be Lucan, as a winning boy whose merry playfulness
and talkativeness would keep anyone amused (_ad cuius conspectum
nulla potest durare tristitia ... cuius non lacrimas illius hilaritas
supprimat?_)[853] and an epigram of his prays that one day this prattling
child (_dulci Marcus qui nunc sermone fritinnit_) may rival his uncles
in eloquence.[854] His education under the best teachers was directed
towards the realization of that very wish. Grounded in literature and
in the traditionally wide range of learning subsidiary to “grammar,” he
proceeded in due course to the study of rhetoric and philosophy. His
declamations in Latin and Greek were of astonishing ability, eclipsing
the efforts of his fellow-students, if not of his masters, and commanding
the applause of his hearers. Such brilliance was at once a result and
a cause of self-confidence: and the habitual desire to win attention
confirmed him in many artificial conceits inseparable from the rhetorical
system. Some philosophy he derived from his uncle; but he had at least
one other famous Stoic teacher in Cornutus, at whose lectures, if we may
trust Probus, he met Persius.[855] For Persius’s poetry Lucan expressed
cordial admiration—a noticeable tribute from one whose precocious
fertility had led him to compare himself favourably with Virgil.[856]
Quite early in his reign[857] Nero had his attention drawn by Seneca
to a nephew so talented. Little is known precisely regarding the
development of his relations with the emperor; but we read of a visit
paid to Athens from which Nero recalled him to join his _entourage_, and
of honours conferred, such as the quaestorship before the regular age
of twenty-five, and an augural priesthood. In A.D. 60, when twenty-one,
he achieved his first public literary triumph in his _Laudes Neronis_
at the quinquennial festival of the _Neronia_, then newly established,
and at this date Nero and his youthful panegyrist were evidently on
the best of terms. But Lucan’s position became insecure as Nero’s
dislike for Seneca grew pronounced. It was perilous to vie with a
clever and conceited imperial egotist prone to arrogate a principate
in arts as well as in state, and an award of the prize to Lucan in a
competition where he had the hardihood to enter against Nero rankled in
the ruler’s heart. Suetonius implies that the final breach arose from
Lucan’s sensitive fancy that Nero’s attitude towards his recitations
was deliberately insulting, and from the poet’s unbecoming ridicule of
the emperor’s verses. Vacca ascribes the quarrel to Nero’s jealousy of
Lucan’s powers, and declares that he was forbidden further poetical
production or forensic pleading. Thus silenced, except for covert
satire, his passionate and wounded genius was driven into the bypaths of
Piso’s conspiracy, in which he took a prominent part,[858] indulging,
according to Suetonius, in ferocious threats against the tyrant and
in rapturous praises of tyrannicide. When, however, this over-ripened
intrigue was unmasked, disaster revealed the weakness of his character;
for, oblivious of his professed Stoicism, he descended to abject
entreaties, and, in anxiety to save his life, made confessions involving
among his accomplices his apparently innocent mother. That at least is
what Suetonius records.[859] But pusillanimity did not capture Nero’s
indulgence. Lucan was ordered to die; and after a sumptuous repast had
his veins opened. Then he recollected, and recited as his last words, a
piece of his own about a soldier similarly bleeding to death. This dying
quotation, although Tacitus’s words[860] might very well suggest that it
belonged to a separate poem, has been sought for in three[861] different
places in the _Pharsalia_, and by some[862] identified with a passage
from the ninth book:
His tears were blood; and, where the ooze can find
An outlet, wells abundant gore; the mouth
And open nostrils stream: his sweat comes red:
And every limb is drenched from teeming veins.
So the whole body is a single wound.
Thus, when “the mad despot’s crime” (_rabidi nefas tyranni_) cut short
the poet’s career, his epic was incomplete and only in part published.
“Why doth cruel allotment debar greatness from old age?” asks Statius in
his tribute to Lucan’s memory.[863]
Thirteen of Lucan’s lost works were known to Vacca, and five of these
are alluded to by Statius, who adds the _Adlocutio ad Pollam_.[864]
Suetonius, who confirms the other two authorities regarding the _Laudes
Neronis_, mentions also a lampoon on Nero. The sagacious Vacca is clear
that his thirteen are minor works compared with the epic on the civil
war, but still “not all to be disdained”;[865] and one might guess
that the most important are those common to Vacca and Statius—the
_Iliacon_ from the Trojan cycle, the _Catachthonion_, a descent into the
underworld, the _Laudes Neronis_, and the _Orpheus_. Naturally, although
in all likelihood less important, the _Adlocutio_ to Lucan’s wife Polla
is mentioned by Statius in his poem addressed to her in widowhood; but
we do not know whether it was in prose or verse, unless its inclusion
immediately after the _De Incendio Vrbis_, the one prose composition in
Statius’s list, raises a presumption that it likewise was in prose. The
remaining items in Vacca’s list are the _Saturnalia_, on the gaieties
of December,[866] ten books of miscellaneous _Siluae_, the unfinished
tragedy of _Medea_, fourteen _Salticae Fabulae_,[867] _Epigrammata_;[868]
and in prose (besides his account of the Great Fire at Rome) a series
of _Epistulae ex Campania_ (which, if they had survived, ought to have
proved a fascinating addition to our specimens of ancient letter-writing)
as well as a speech for and one against Octavius Sagitta. These
_orationes_ suggest that Lucan in A.D. 58, perhaps filled with the
detective instinct characteristic of not a few literary men, seized upon
one of the most exciting murder trials of the day[869] as material for
two clever rhetorical show-pieces in proof of what a versatile genius
could say on both sides of a case complicated by cross-swearing and by an
innocent freedman’s self-accusation.
The number of these works would be reduced by one on the suggestion
which has been made[870] that the _Catachthonion_ and _Orpheus_ may be
identical. But this seems impossible. True, both concern the underworld
and are in hexameters;[871] but Statius makes separate allusions to them,
and they are mentioned at different points in the _Life_ by Vacca in the
sixth century, when Lucan’s works were, as his words imply, still extant.
The ten books of the _Pharsalia_,[872] on the war which broke out in 49
B.C. between Caesar and Pompey, amount to over 8000 hexameters, but do
not complete the poet’s design; for the tenth book, about 150 lines
shorter than the next shortest, ends abruptly, leaving Caesar at war in
Egypt.
Book I, though in many respects powerful, might have had more epic force,
had it plunged at once into the narrative. As it is, the action is
delayed by the announcement of the theme, a remonstrance on the iniquity
of civil warfare, the comforting reflection that but for that warfare
Rome would have had no Nero, the fantastic picture of the emperor as
a god, and a fawning address to him as sufficient inspiration for the
poet without need to invoke Apollo or Bacchus. The ensuing sketch of
the causes of strife omits the burning question between the Senate and
Caesar concerning Caesar’s command, but contains a vivid glance at the
motives and characters of the two protagonists, spurred by rival claims
(_stimulos dedit aemula uirtus_):
Caesar could brook no man in front of him,
Pompey none by his side.[873]
Referring to Pompey’s lack of recent campaigning, Lucan unduly stresses
his advanced age.[874] Now a man of 58, he was only six years older
than his opponent, and, as Lucan more than once reminds us, had become
Caesar’s son-in-law by marrying Julia, whose death rendered the breach
between them more likely. In Pompey the poet, warmly though he espouses
his cause, discerns a man over-confident in his previous record, who
Finds not new strength, but trusting much past luck
Stands there the shadow of a mighty name.[875]
The contrasting figure of Caesar is drawn with force, though not with
sympathy:
His manhood knew
No rest—his only shame to lose a fight.
Keen and untamed, where hope or anger called,
He turned his hand, nor quailed to stain his sword ...
To make a path by havoc was his joy.[876]
Strict narrative begins with Caesar’s passage of the Alps (l. 183),
bringing his big plans to the small river Rubicon—the antithesis in
adjectives is Lucan’s—to be confronted with the majestic image of his
native country protesting against further advance:
The waters of the little Rubicon
Were won, when, in the general’s sight, arose
The mighty Phantom of his land, dismayed,
Clear through the darkling night, most sad of look,
Letting her grey locks stream from head that wore
A crown of towers: so, with her tresses torn,
Bare-armed she took her stand hard by and spoke
Words blent with groans: “Men, whither press ye on?
Where bear my standards? If with right ye come,
Or if as citizens, thus far ye may.”
Then thrilled a shudder through the general’s frame,
Stiffening his hair, and on the river’s brim
Curbing his march a languor held his steps.
Forthwith he prayed: “O Thou, that lookest forth
From the Tarpeian Rock down on the walls
Of our great city, O Thou Thunderer,
And Phrygian Home-Gods, ... Vestal Fires, and peer
Of highest Godhead, Rome, bless my design!
Not thee do I pursue in frenzied arms.
Lo! I am Caesar, lord on land and sea
O’er all the world, and with thy leave e’en now
Thy champion.”[877]
The Rubicon crossed, Ariminum is taken; Caesar is met by Curio and
other tribunes expelled from Rome. A summons sent for troops from Gaul
gives occasion for digressions on Gallic tribes, tides and Druids:
then a description of panic in Rome at Caesar’s approach leads to the
introduction of prodigies and expiatory rites. The book ends gloomily
amidst presages of disaster. Lucan, it will be noted, while he removes
from his historical poem the conventional gods of epic, supplies their
place by the supernatural, as represented here by the symbolic figure
of Roma, by portents, and by the prophetic second sight of both an
astrologer and a matron so weirdly possessed that she has power to behold
Pompey already lying dead.
A hesitant note of philosophy opens Book II. Stoics were perpetually
confronted with the problem of reconciling belief in fate with
divination. Why, asks Lucan, is man allowed knowledge of future woes
through omens? Then, with a transient departure from Stoic dogmatism, he
speculates on the operation of cause in the world. Is it the outcome of
law or chance? Yet he clinches this old debate with the Epicureans by
uttering the prayer,
Thy will be done forthwith: let human thought
Be blind to coming doom: grant hope mid fear![878]
Mourning, as at a death, falls on Rome: men pray for the peril of foreign
attack in preference to internecine strife. It is a passage typically
rhetorical in the tumid declamation of its earlier portion and the
argumentative point of its close:
Make Rome the foe of all the nations, but
Spare us a civil war! Let Dacians hem
Us here and Getae there: one rival should
Meet Spain, the other turn his standard ’gainst
The quivers of the East. And let thy hand,
O Rome, have no relief from toil! Or, if,
Ye Gods, ye will to blast th’ Italian name,
Then let all ether, fallen into fire,
Crash manifold in lightning on the earth!
O wrathful Father, in one instant smite
Both sides, both leaders, ere they yet have earned
Their doom! From such a crop of novel crime
Seek they to prove which shall be lord at Rome?
Scarce had it been worth while to stimulate
A civil war, if neither were to rule.[879]
The chief incidents of the book are the remarriage to Cato of his former
wife, Marcia, widow of Hortensius; the resistance to Caesar offered
by Domitius (pointedly introduced because an ancestor of Nero) and
the driving of Pompey southwards to Brundisium and thence overseas to
Epirus. What Heitland frankly calls “padding” consists in digressions on
the civil wars between Marius and Sulla and on the rivers of Italy. The
figure of Cato is of significance in relation to Book IX, where he plays
a commanding part. In Lucan’s eyes Cato is the incarnation of virtue,
hitherto guiltless of his country’s blood, but now, as Brutus tells him,
drawn perforce into the struggle:
Thy virtuous past shall have this one reward—
War makes thee guilty as it finds the rest:
(_Accipient alios, facient te bella nocentem._)[880]
Full of admiration for Cato’s ascetic ordering of his life, the poet
proudly depicts his Stoic ability to combine a self-sufficing virtue with
altruistic claims,
To keep the Mean and hold due boundary,
To follow Nature, spend a life for Rome,
Deeming his birth was for the world, not self:
His feast to stifle hunger, and his Gods
To ward the storm from roof-tree: richest garb
For him to draw i’ the old way round his limbs
The Roman burgher’s shaggy gown.... But ne’er
Did selfish joy creep in to steal a part
In Cato’s deeds.[881]
Book III, mainly concerned with Caesar’s doings on his return to Rome
and during his siege of Massilia, is impoverished by a wearisome list
of Pompey’s eastern allies and an incessant series of too ingeniously
horrible deaths which befall the combatants. But among compensating
passages are the descriptions of Pompey’s farewell to Italy and of the
eerie forest near Massilia. The former opens the book with a note of
poetry and pathos:
The South Wind fell upon the yielding sails
And sped the Armada till its argosies
Ploughed through the midmost deep: each mariner
Kept steadfast outlook for the Ionian Main.
Pompey alone ne’er turned his eyes aside
From Italy, but all the while he watched
The homeland havens fade away and shores
That ne’er would meet his sight again, and peaks
Cloud-wrapt, and scarce distinguishable hills.[882]
The second passage, a study in the sombre touched with the spirit of
Celtic romance, describes the grove of the Druids. Here we are in a
haunted twilight wood, polluted with inhuman rites, shunned by bird
and beast as by sylvan deities, and though windless yet aquiver with a
mysterious thrill in its leaves (_arboribus suus horror inest_)—a forest
of black waters and misshapen images of eldritch gods, awesome through a
wan aspect of decay and nameless terrors, where caverns resound with the
rumble of the earthquake, where the hewn death-yew comes to life again,
where flame plays among branches that do not burn and serpents hold the
oak in their embrace.[883]
Three episodes constitute most of the action in Book IV—Caesar’s Spanish
operations against Afranius and Petreius near Ilerda; the failure of one
of three Caesarian rafts to escape the Pompeian blockade in Illyria;
and the descent of Curio, in Caesar’s interest, upon Africa, when he
is defeated by Juba and meets death. The pangs of thirst suffered by
Pompeians in Spain prompt one of Lucan’s denunciations of luxury,[884]
while the counsel of Volteius to his men on the trapped raft that they
must slay each other rather than surrender is argued in the overstrained
manner of the schools, and is an ingenious combination of special
pleading and boastfulness. When the crew carry out their dreadful compact
of mutual slaughter, like the offspring of the teeth of mythical dragons,
characteristic realism is indulged in to describe the crawling writhing
bleeding agony of the lacerated men. But this virtual suicide closes in a
reflection that consoled many of Nero’s subjects as well as Lucan—death
is a ready way of eluding tyranny. Here it is still the Stoic who speaks;
for Stoicism, while recognizing the theoretical obliquity of suicide,
admitted that it was in certain circumstances defensible:
Despite such, lessons shown of manliness,
Yet craven peoples will refuse to learn
How smooth the path of valour which the hand
Can make to ’scape from bondage; but a King
Is dreaded for the steel; and liberty
Is galled with cruel arms, in ignorance
That swords were given that none might be a slave.
Ah Death! That thou mightst scorn to take from life
Cowards, and none but brave be free to die![885]
The African expedition suggests the single long deviation of this book
on the legend of the earth-born Antaeus strangled by Hercules. Curio’s
soliloquy before battle reflects his not unnatural nervousness as
commander of soldiers who had become Caesarians only by surrendering at
Corfinium:
’Tis daring cloaks great fear: myself shall first
Seize arms, and let my men, while yet mine own,
March down to level ground; for idleness
Aye bringeth changeful mind. End plots by fight!
When blood-lust prompts and sword is firmly gripped,
The helmet covers qualms. Who minds to weigh
Opposéd leaders then or balance claims?
Each backs the side he stands on; as at shows
Within the fateful amphitheatre,
No ancient grudge makes combatants engage—
Pairs hate at sight.[886]
The apostrophe to Curio after his death leads up to the familiar line
which implies that his desertion to Caesar’s side turned the scale of
history:
_Momentumque fuit mutatus Curio rerum._
Though Book V opens in Epirus with the assembly of the Senate friendly to
Pompey and closes with his decision to send his wife Cornelia for safety
to Lesbos, yet Caesar is the dominant figure, especially when he cows
the mutineers (who express their grievances with pointed rhetoric), and
recrosses the Adriatic in a small boat on a tempestuous night to bring
Antony to his aid. The action is delayed by a digression of about 150
lines on the Delphic Oracle consulted by Appius.
Caesar’s will-power is well brought out in his defiant braving of the
storm despite the fisherman’s warning. He is content to have Fortune for
his sole attendant (_sola placet Fortuna comes_) in crossing the sea to
ensure the transport of his troops from Italy; for
Mad-set on battle-mellay was his heart.[887]
But the storm proves an irresistible temptation to Lucan. Having
exhausted his list of contending winds, he turns to hyperbole—mountains
long buffeted in vain now at last succumb, and portentous waves new to
those seas roll in from the encircling ocean. Next he elaborates the
description by a resort to mythology. Much more human, however, is the
concluding episode, in which Pompey, deeply affected, can scarcely bring
himself to tell his wife that for her safety they must part:
Words fail him, though his purpose be resolved;
And so he fain would clog what is to come,
Indulge delay and moments steal from doom.
All slumber banished and the night far gone,
Cornelia clasps his breast that teems with care,
And seeks fond kisses from her lord now turned
Away. She marvels that his cheeks are wet,
And, smitten with a wound mysterious,
She dare not find great Pompey shedding tears.
He sighing said: “My own, more dear than life—
I mean the life of happier times, not this
That burdens me—the woeful day hath come,
Which we postponed too little, yet too much:
Caesar is nigh, all eagerness for fight!”[888]
Overloaded with digressions, besides detail of Caesar’s scheme to enclose
his enemy at Dyrrachium, and hyperbolical praise of the centurion
Scaeva’s repulse of Pompey’s attempt to break through, Book VI is not on
the whole successful. The plan to construct gigantic lines of investment
is at first as little grasped by Pompey
As wild waves boiling on the Kentish shore
Rave all unfelt by Caledonians.[889]
In time, he is driven to counter-movements, and would have made a
victorious sortie but for the prowess of one outstanding Caesarian,
on whom, with incredible exaggeration, the whole fighting is made to
concentrate. This champion is not to be dislodged save by a war-engine;
he bristles with a thick forest of missiles in his chest; he offers the
resistance of an African elephant; and, tearing out his eyeball along
with the arrow which pierced it,
Stamps on the weapon and his eye as well![890]
This and much more is neither poetry nor common sense. The rest mainly
concerns the temporary discomfiture of Caesar, who retires upon Thessaly
followed by Pompey. If only Pompey had been a Sulla, reflects Lucan,
and had used his advantage for an immediate descent upon Rome, there
would have been no Pharsalia. The mention of Thessaly is responsible for
digressions on geography and magic; and, though the wizardry and witches
of Thessaly appear more convincing in the pages of Apuleius, yet Lucan,
when he leaves off cataloguing the astounding potency of Thessalian
enchantments over love, weather, rivers, mountains and laws of the
universe, does achieve an effect of gruesome _diablerie_ through Sextus
Pompey’s morbid longing to learn the future, not from oracles but, like
Saul at Endor, from necromancy. After he and his attendants have made
their way past ruined tombs towards the sunless and hell-like cavern
when the sorceress Erichtho sits crooning her malignant spells, he holds
a midnight _séance_ with the hag. Conceding his request, she scares off
birds and beasts of prey from the battle-field, and selects a fallen
warrior to be revivified by loathsome ingredients and eerie incantations
for the purpose of revealing prophetic messages from the other world.
The revelation is that the shades await both Sextus’s father and his
house; Caesar’s daring, on the other hand, delights the spirits of dead
Roman revolutionaries, but his triumph will be short. With such ominous
responses Sextus returns to his father’s camp before daybreak.
Book VII is not free from turgidity and extravagance, but it is the
greatest book of the poem, and describes the feelings of both rivals
before Pharsalia as well as their fortunes in the culminating battle.
With an outburst of enthusiasm, Lucan predicts the enduring power of his
subject to engross readers:
’Mid tribes in far-off years, ’mid folks unborn,
Haply by fame alone to time bequeathed,
Or haply profited by such renown
As e’en my toiling pen can lend the great,
When men shall read of war, this tale shall still
Move hope and fear alike, or futile wish.
Spellbound each reader still shall fancy doom
Is yet to come, not past and gone, and so
Will favour thee, great Pompey, to the end.[891]
In the famous passage on Pompey’s dream, he is fancied to be once more
receiving the plaudits of the Roman people in his own theatre:
In dreamland Rome seemed his. Break not that sleep,
O camp-watch! Ne’er let bugle strike his ears!
To-morrow’s ghastly night, sad to recall
The day, brings naught but deadly battle-lines.[892]
He awakes to realities. The Pompeians clamour for the fray and criticize
their leader’s caution:
In Pompey’s camp “Pharsalia!” was the prayer.[893]
Unhistorically Cicero, who was not present, is introduced as urging him
to give battle. He consents under protest and his men have their will; but
On many a face was paleness as of death
To come—a look most eloquent of doom.[894]
Amidst other presages of disaster, Lucan’s bias insinuates that Caesar
sacrificed to the infernal powers. The harangue to his followers is,
some of it plausible argument, some of it rhodomontade, but, by reason
of its vigour, all very readable. Observing the disposition of Pompey’s
troops (Lucan’s account of which does not agree with that of other
authorities), and seeing his wish fulfilled in the enemy’s descent upon
the plain, Caesar confidently addresses his soldiers as the true arbiters
of his destiny:
No need for prayer: woo fortune now by fight,[895]
and continuing his alliterative rhetoric:
Wave but the blade and bring the whole world low.[896]
With corresponding alliteration, and not without bravado, Pompey’s speech
to his army expresses his reasons for confidence:
Our better cause bids hope for help from Heaven.[897]
But in vain. Tyranny, in Lucan’s view, was triumphant at Pharsalia. Why
did Rome ever know freedom, if she was to lose it?[898] Surely, the gods’
apathy had led through civil warfare to the creation of new deities
and a new religion in emperor-worship![899] Refraining from details of
individual horrors on the battle-field, Lucan contrasts the fugitive
Pompey looking back upon lost greatness with Caesar, whose adversary is
henceforward not Pompey but freedom,[900] and who to discerning eyes
might well be an object of pity—“’twas worse to win” (_uincere peius
erat_). The picture of the conqueror is not flattering. According to
Lucan, Caesar encouraged his men to plunder, was leader of the really
guilty side, was hunted Orestes-like by avenging furies, callously
surveyed the dead, and withheld from the rotting corpses that cremation
which would not be refused (and here a piece of far-fetched Stoicism is
dragged in) by the universal conflagration at the end of the world.
The main interest of Book VIII lies in Pompey’s flight to Egypt and
his murder as he is about to land: it is broken by reflections on and
apostrophes to both Egypt and Pompey. A prey to nervous fears, alarmed
at the rustle of woodland leaves in the wind,[901] the defeated warrior
escapes in a frail craft to Lesbos, where he endeavours to console his
swooning wife:
Thy husband’s woe alone may win thee praise.
Take heart: let thine affection strive with fate
And love me for myself, a vanquished man.[902]
He sets sail with her in anxiety great enough to make unnatural his
converse with the pilot upon astronomy. By the Levant he reaches Cilicia,
the scene of his old victories over piracy, and holds council with his
remaining supporters on the policy, cunning but unprincipled, of playing
East against West. Why not entangle and weaken Parthia by inducing her
to fight in Rome’s civil wars? This proposal of Pompey’s is scouted as
dishonourable by Lentulus—why not rather, he argues, keep the conflict
within the Roman world, and try Egypt, whose King, Ptolemy, owed his
throne indirectly to Pompey? So he sails to meet the death prepared for
him by Ptolemy’s cynical adviser Pothinus, whose contention is that
expediency must be preferred to right and that it is wisdom to side with
the conqueror:
Freedom in crime protects a hated sway....
Who would be good must quit a royal court:
Virtue and sovereign power do not accord.
Blush to be cruel and you’ll always fear![903]
In the offing at Pelusium, overmastering fate secured that Pompey should
be enticed from his high-sterned vessel into a small boat, where, within
sight of wife and son, he was stabbed by the traitor Septimius. Achillas,
that “Pharian satellite,” claimed the right to carry the victim’s head to
the young king. Having noted the majesty of Pompey’s looks as preserved
in death, Lucan yields to his besetting passion for realism and spoils
the pathos of the scene. Instead of Virgil’s dignity of sorrow, or beauty
of simile, we have the repulsive details of the still gasping mouth and
the drooping neck laid cross-wise on a boat-thwart to be hacked through;
there are sinews and veins to cut; there are bones to break; it all
takes time (_diu_); for the art of whirling off the head at a single
blow, Lucan remarks (with his thoughts perhaps on Caligula), had yet to
be developed—_nondum artis erat caput ense rotare_.[904] Such realism is
rendered superfluous by what follows:
To let the curséd boy prince know the dead,
Yon manly wealth of hair by kings admired,
The locks which graced that noble brow, were seized,
And, while the features lived and sobbing breath
Yet moved the lips to murmur, while the eyes
Unclosed were glazing, on a Pharian spear
Was fixed that head whose word for war had rung
The knell of peace, the head that swayed our laws
In _campus_ or from _rostra_ eloquent.
This face, O Roman Fortune, pleased thee once!
The headless body is recovered from the sea in the moonlight by Cordus,
one of Pompey’s Roman attendants, and, after an incomplete cremation, for
which the material has to be supplied by the somewhat ludicrous device of
theft from a conveniently deserted funeral pile, it is buried hastily;
for the dawn has surprised Cordus at his ceremonial. But the lonely grave
on the beach cannot confine one so illustrious:
The Roman name and the wide realms of Rome
Mark the true boundary of great Pompey’s tomb.[905]
Imprecations upon Egypt follow—futile, because Lucan’s curse of
barrenness, if it could have been fulfilled, would have closed the chief
granary of Rome. With further wild rhetoric on the burial-place the book
ends.
Pompey’s apotheosis begins Book IX:
Not in Egyptian ashes lay his soul:
A little dust held not so great a shade.
Spurning the tomb and quitting limbs half-burned
And the unworthy pyre, it makes for Heaven.
The lamentations of Cornelia, her announcement of her husband’s
injunction that unceasing war must be waged for liberty against Caesar,
the vengeance on Egypt threatened by Pompey’s elder son when he learns of
his father’s murder, and Cato’s dignified praise of the dead leader are
preliminary to the chief theme of the book—the heroism of Cato. He will
have none of the argument that continuance of war is criminal, now that
Pompey is dead. Expostulating with reluctant Pompeians, he sarcastically
declares that Caesar will believe they did him an intentional benefit by
running before him at Pharsalia—here and in other passages erroneously
called Philippi. As their next objective is Juba’s kingdom, Lucan is
enabled to describe the treacherous quicksands of the Syrtes, a storm
that imperils Cato’s fleet, and the swamps of Triton which most of the
ships reach in safety. The resolution to march across the desert to
Mauretania occasions a digression on Libya as well as passages recounting
Cato’s marvellous endurance[906] of thirst, and his refusal to consult
the oracle of Hammon (whose misplacement is one of the not uncommon
geographical blunders in Lucan). Labienus would have the will of Jupiter
ascertained by this austere captain of men:
The laws above have ever ruled thy life,
And thou dost follow God. Lo! now the leave
Is thine to speak with Jove. Ask of the doom
That waits accursed Caesar, and hold search
Into thy country’s future character.[907]
Cato, however, in tones worthy of the oracle itself, scouts the idea,
criticizing it on Stoic principles:
What should be asked? Whether I’d rather die
Free, arms in hand, or look on tyranny?
Whether a life is naught, e’en when prolonged?
Or if years make a difference? Or if
A good man can be hurt by any blow?
Does Fortune drop her threats when Virtue fights?
Is it enough to wish what merits praise?
Does right ne’er grow by gain? All this we know:
Jove cannot plant it deeper in our heart.[908]
Cato’s inspiring fortitude during the march with his soldiers is almost
smothered beneath the mass of irrelevance expounding the origin of
serpents in Africa, and catalogues enumerating not only various species
of serpents but also various sorts of death from snake-bite. Late in
the book Caesar reappears on a voyage which brings him to the ruins of
Troy; and Lucan’s confidence in his own literary immortality prompts an
apostrophe to poetry as conferring eternal renown:
Hallowed and mighty toil of bards empowered
To rescue all from fate and grant the gift
To mortal nations of eternity!
Grudge not, O Caesar, fame to heroes old—
If Latin poësy may promise aught,
Then, long as Homer’s honours shall endure,
Peoples to come will read both thee and me;
For my _Pharsalia_ will live, and time
Shall ne’er damn Lucan to obscurity.[909]
Caesar’s veneration of his ancestral gods at Troy would have received
more sympathetic treatment from Virgil. Lucan is content to record his
coasting voyage along Asia Minor and his crossing by Rhodes to Egypt,
where, amidst his hesitation whether to land, one of Ptolemy’s courtiers
comes aboardship with the head of Pompey. To Lucan his grief over his
rival’s murder is hypocrisy: now that he had ocular proof of the crime
and thought it safe to be a good father-in-law (_tutumque putauit iam
bonus esse socer_),
Some tears he shed that fell not of freewill,
And forced his moanings from a mirthful heart.
Book X, on Caesar in Egypt, would fit better into an epic on the mighty
Julius himself than into the _Pharsalia_. Yet it has energy, in spite of
a divagation on Alexander the Great, against whom Lucan inveighs as a
“successful bandit” (_felix praedo_), and a longer excursus on the Nile.
The principal incidents are Caesar’s visit to Alexander’s tomb, his amour
with Cleopatra, her magnificent banquet after a reconciliation with
Ptolemy, the plot of Pothinus to kill Caesar, and the attack at dawn with
Caesar at bay:
He dreads the onset, yet disdains to dread:
So roars some noble brute in cage confined
And gnaws his prison till he breaks his teeth.[910]
Before the book is broken short, his arch-enemies, Pothinus and Achillas,
are dead; but the renewal of resistance by Ganymedes brings him again
into imminent danger. There we leave the Caesar of Lucan. In the opinion
of so Pompeian a poet, he cannot be fittingly punished by any blow from
Egypt:
Not till his country’s swords transfix the heart
Of Caesar, shall great Pompey be avenged.[911]
This reference to the postponement of a fated penalty has in some eyes
lent colour to the view that the poem was designed to continue Caesar’s
history up to his assassination in 44. The tenth book is on the face of
it incomplete; even were that not obvious, we should detect an unfinished
scheme from the assurance given to Sextus Pompey that his fate would be
foretold by the shade of his dead father.[912] That promised episode,
a parallel to Anchises’s prophecy uttered to Aeneas, would have come
into one of the unwritten books. A likely chronological limit would be
Thapsus and the suicide of Cato in 46 B.C. That is M. Pichon’s view,[913]
which seems more commendable than his associated argument that, as the
necromancy of _Pharsalia VI_ corresponds in weirdness to the descent
into the lower world in _Aeneid VI_, therefore twelve books must have
been planned to answer to Virgil’s twelve. Much closer parallelism
between the several books of _Pharsalia_ and _Aeneid_ would have to exist
before this contention had validity. In the seventeenth century, the
historian Thomas May, whose works in verse and prose are all forgotten
save his translation of the _Pharsalia_, believed that Lucan meant to
carry his epic as far as Caesar’s death. To fill the gap. May composed
a _Supplementum_, which Hallam ventured to call “the first Latin poetry
which England can vaunt.” The whole matter is, however, conjectural;
and the arguments for a contemplated prolongation to 44 B.C. are not of
compelling cogency.
Another point on which there is divergence of opinion concerns the three
books first composed according to Vacca’s _Life_. Ussani thinks they were
I, VII, IX; Pichon thinks II, VII, VIII. One might defend I, II, VII as
a more likely group than either, if one took certain mistakes in VII to
prove its comparative earliness and were to offer a plausible explanation
of its touching-up with anti-Caesarism. In all the suggestions, however,
there are difficulties concerning Lucan’s attitude to Caesar and Nero;
and waverers may do worse than fall back on the traditional view,
which presents at least as few difficulties, and is the most natural
interpretation of Vacca’s words, namely, that I, II, III constituted the
_tres libros quales uidemus_.
The seven books not published till after Lucan’s death may have been
already known to literary circles from the author’s readings; for
the composition of the _Pharsalia_ presumably extended over several
years before A.D. 65. If one is satisfied that Lucan even in his first
book,[914] as well as in others, borrowed from Seneca’s _Naturales
Quaestiones_ belonging to A.D. 62 and 63, then that circumstance may
be taken to limit the period; but Vitelli’s endeavour still further to
narrow the time of writing seems unconvincing.[915]
Let us realize the audacity of this youthful author. Himself in touch
with an imperial court, he dared write a long poem glorifying the
opposition to the founder of the imperial principle at Rome. Possibly, in
an age of ingenious and bizarre compositions under a clever sovereign,
he imagined that his work might pass muster or evade censure as an
artistic _tour de force_, and that a generous interpretation would be
placed upon a historical thesis handled with epic talent and oiled with
introductory adulation. But Lucan must have been sufficiently intimate
with the arbitrary despotism of Nero to recognize that in taking such a
risk he played a game involving the highest of stakes. A consciousness
of genius and an independence of spirit combined with the impetuosity of
youth to drive him upon a hazard, in which perhaps he was keen to welcome
the fascination of double danger. It was jeopardy enough to challenge
the ruler of the world by rivalry in any field of literary eminence;
but it was still more perilous to champion the defenders of the ancient
republican system. Theirs had been a lost cause; and yet Lucan by setting
himself to make idols of Pompey and Cato threw down the gauntlet to
Caesarism again. Several factors contributed to this anti-Caesarism.
Corduba, the Spanish home of his family, acknowledged a traditional
allegiance to Pompey; Lucan’s own boyish imagination conjured up roseate
visions of the republican past; his reading in the Pompeian books of Livy
confirmed his attitude; and the sense of Nero’s intolerable unfairness in
trying to silence him eventually turned intimacy into detestation.
This independence of spirit has its literary side, where Lucan proves
himself an original genius. Apart from possession of a distinctive style,
he refused to be encumbered by tradition. His originality lay not in
the choice of a Roman historical theme—for there had been many epics,
renowned and unrenowned, on national history—but in the decision to treat
his theme without the conventional introduction of gods as controllers
of the action. This novel method of treatment is, we know, criticized in
Petronius.[916] Well aware of the intrinsic greatness of the figures in a
colossal struggle, Lucan relied for his effects more on history than on
romance. In his theme he thus broke away from Virgilian precedent, and
substituted for legendary glamour the interest of a fierce human conflict
waged in comparatively recent times.
His equipment for his task may be indicated by a sketch of his
sources—historical, philosophical and literary. As regards history, the
theory which holds the field is that certain lost books of Livy are the
well-springs of Lucan’s subject-matter.[917] This thesis, the outcome
of a hint given by Reifferscheid to Baier, his pupil, was maintained
by the latter in a work published in 1874. It has in recent years been
reaffirmed by M. Pichon,[918] whose skill, in what is the most complete
study of Lucan’s sources, has addressed itself to the emancipation of
Baier’s hypothesis from the exaggerations of Ziehen and Vitelli, and to
its defence against the objections of Westerburg and Ussani. For the
accessory material in his digressions Lucan no doubt went elsewhere:
serpent-lore he could draw from Macer, who had copied Nicander;
geography, in which he is inaccurate, from some general treatise; and
data about Egypt in particular very likely from Seneca’s missing work on
that country. Much of his merely allusive and decorative matter could
be furnished from the standard academic learning, amplified by his
own experience—he had been a quaestor, an augural priest, and he had
travelled. But for details of his main theme there lay open at that time
the complete decades of Livy, who had derived information from Caesar,
Posidonius and others. Material contemporary with the civil war could
thus be reached through Livy as an intermediary. By Livy it had been to a
large extent already Pompeianized. Lucan was not temperamentally likely
to follow Caesar’s own account; he would distrust Asinius Pollio, as
one too active on Caesar’s side; and although he might well have found
facts to recommend the writings of Cremutius Cordus, we do not know that
Cordus related the struggle between Caesar and Pompey. On the other
hand, Livy was an author for whose literary power the Senecas expressed
warm admiration, and Lucan, while subscribing to the opinion entertained
by his grandfather[919] and his uncle,[920] felt the special call of
political sympathy.
Lucan’s historical value must remain a debatable question. It is
comparatively easy, though it costs time, to construct a formidable
list of his inexactitudes and deliberate departures from fact.[921] It
is also easy to illustrate his strong bias against Caesar. The bias
may be readily explained; but it is not always so easy to be sure that
the unhistorical in him is due either to bias or to ignorance. When,
for instance, he introduces Cicero, contrary to truth, in Pompey’s
camp before Pharsalia, is he simply careless, or has he yielded to
a half-poetic, half-rhetorical desire to insert a speech from the
orator? The almost infectious enthusiasm of M. Pichon for Lucan, while
it makes him too tolerant of his wearisome digressions, too laudatory
of poetic merit in his rhetoric, too appreciative of the originality
of his borrowings, at the same time makes him perhaps too ingenious
in finding excuses for his misstatements. Yet the defence is at times
justifiable. For example, as regards the frequently criticized epithets
applied to Gallic tribes, their appropriateness is plausibly supported on
historical, philological and archaeological grounds.[922] Again, on the
alleged confusion between Arverni and Aedui (I. 427), Lucan’s language
need not involve the mistake commonly supposed, if proper stress be laid
on both verbs in the line,
Aruernique ausi Latios se fingere fratres.
Certainly, to construct against Lucan a laborious indictment of error is
quite misleading. It should, in any case, be noted that his additions
are fewer than his omissions, and many alterations of historical fact
charged against the _Pharsalia_ may be due to Livy. One may surmise that
Lucan himself is responsible for the silence about Caesar’s pacific
overtures, for the sinister misconstruction laid upon Caesar’s clemency,
and for the undervaluing of Caesarian bravery; because Livy, writing
near the events, could hardly have risked such falsification of history.
But, to hazard a guess—and here it is all guesswork—if Livy recorded
generous acts by Caesar with some reserve as to their motives, then Lucan
might conceivably drop them out because he did not think them sincere;
and if characteristic episodes of bravery among the Caesarians were
recorded, as we might expect, by Livy, then Lucan might with a kind of
Stoic casuistry decline to take them over, because it would be evil to
praise valour so ill employed. On the other hand, the elimination of
Pompeian bloodthirstiness is presumably a feature already occurring in
Livy;[923] and it is highly probable that incidents which put Pompey
in an unfavourable light would be toned down by the historian who was
twitted with having proved himself a good “Pompeian.” In short, Lucan’s
suppressions and transpositions of fact are sometimes those of a partisan
(and herein Livy preceded him), sometimes those of the artist who is
interpreting history in a poet’s way.
One result of his choice of subject, it will thus be seen, is that some
questions affecting Lucan are not literary questions at all, but concern
historical value and misstatements intentional or unintentional. There is
a risk of harbouring an exaggerated estimate of his historical acumen.
Granted that he is at least scientific enough to note certain causes of
the civil war, yet he betrays no conception of the vital constitutional
principles involved, of the extent to which past abuses rendered the
conflict inevitable, or of the real significance of the victory for the
destinies of Rome and the world. Though in some aspects very Roman, Lucan
is without Virgil’s profound insight into the mission of the Empire.
Readers will concede that he is sensitive to the nefarious horror and
enormity of civil strife, for he calls shame upon it in exclamatory
outbursts repeated till we weary; but this fervour arises less from
social or moral or even vaguely humanitarian considerations than from his
ingrained rhetoric. One should not presume to blame him: we have little
right to demand scientific history from a poet. Although he selected a
historical subject and so must remain, faults notwithstanding, a source
of history,[924] yet it is not by historical standards that Lucan must
be judged, nor, despite his Livian basis, could we unreservedly use his
text to supply some of the missing matter of Livy. Frank allowance must
be made for prejudices and inconsistencies, which are but natural to
juvenile ardour and emotion. He had definitely taken his side, and it is
absurd to look for a dispassionate attitude to Caesarian or Pompeian.
Interested in philosophy without being a philosopher, he was not
concerned to reflect how un-Stoic it was, and in any case, how futile, to
reproach Caesar, the man of destiny, for being also a man of blood. Here,
as so often, he lets feeling speak.
What philosophy appears in the poem is Stoic. Remembering the poet’s
family and his training alongside of Persius, we should expect nothing
else; but it should also be remembered that the philosophical colour is
incidental, and that the _Pharsalia_ must, in the last resort, be judged
less for its history or its philosophy than for its poetry. Critics like
Heitland make as great a mistake in claiming a systematic character for
Lucan’s Stoicism as Souriau does in over-emphasizing its contradictions.
To demand rigid consistency in his thought is to end in the negative
conclusion of Lejay—that Lucan had no philosophy. If a lapse into
pessimism caused him to wonder whether the world is guided by the Stoic
Providence or by blind chance, it was a very human aberration from his
normal creed; and if, poet-like, he used the older mythological beliefs,
such literary decoration must be no more pressed against him than against
Lucretius.
Lucan’s literary training implied acquaintance with the classics of the
past. It would be far too much to call him a disciple of Virgil: his
spirit is alien to the Virgilian, and yet his debt to the great epic
poet was inevitable owing to the education of the times. Here the truth
lies between Merivale’s astonishing opinion that Lucan was in style
practically independent of Virgil and Heitland’s that Lucan was “steeped”
in Virgil’s language. The debt is seen in borrowed words and locutions
(like _felix qui potuit_, IV. 393, and _uenit summa dies_, VII. 195),
in a fresh use of Virgilian epithets and phrases, in a heightening of
Virgilian simplicity to achieve strong effects, and in imitation of
Virgilian episodes. Conscious and subconscious echoes are so plentiful
and obvious that one cannot feel like Merivale “almost tempted to
imagine that he had never read Virgil.” At the same time, there is no
need to hunt for parallels where no parallels exist. Many of the alleged
analogies in Heitland’s elaborate list are too vague and faint to be
reckoned as definite borrowings; and even M. Pichon, who adopts a sounder
attitude regarding the Virgilian influence, scarcely convinces us in his
claim that the vanishing of Julia’s ghost is modelled on that of Creusa,
or that a father’s anguish over a dying son is modelled on Anna’s grief
over Dido.[925]
Horace influenced Lucan slightly, Ovid very considerably. Sharing his
uncle’s admiration for Ovid, he not only borrowed mythological material
from him but also inherited much of his rhetorical dexterity. The Ovidian
gift of repeating an idea in surprisingly new ways reappears in Lucan,
and accounts for Fronto’s criticism that in his first seven lines he
simply rang the changes on the one idea of “worse than civil wars.”[926]
He has not Ovid’s wonderful lightness and facility, but in the smoothness
and monotony of his versification it can be seen that the rhythms of
the _Metamorphoses_ have told upon him. Resemblances to earlier poets
like Ennius[927] are not distinct enough to base conclusions upon; and
a similarly negative result, many will agree, comes from the evidence
adduced by Hosius[928] to detect verbal influences exerted by Manilius,
by the author of _Aetna_, by the earlier books of Livy and by Q. Curtius.
This inquiry has considerable interest in its bearing on works so
conjectural in date as the _Astronomica_, _Aetna_ and the _History of
Alexander_; but unfortunately the evidence rests upon slight similarities
and amounts to little. Some of the not very impressive resemblances
between Curtius and Lucan are due to analogy of facts (deserts, for
example, are much alike the world over, and prompt similar terminology);
other resemblances may be ascribed to community of source; and others
are simply part of the common stock of Latin expression. One exceptional
case is that of Seneca, some of whose works, particularly the tragedies,
appear (after allowance has been made for the wide prevalence of the same
mythology and the same rhetoric) to have affected Lucan. This hypothesis,
if accepted, would prove the anteriority of the tragedies and support
their attribution to Seneca.
Far more important, however, than the discovery of verbal similarities
is the consideration of the action of rhetoric on Lucan’s genius. When
it is remembered that the essential aim in academic declamation was to
appear clever and striking at all costs, the central characteristic
of his epic is at once grasped. The dominant note is one of display.
The object, not to be natural, but above everything to be piquant and
impressive, is pursued with marvellous vigour and with mastery of all
effective artifices. To his training, therefore, and to his aim we
owe the parade of erudition which leads him into digressions[929] and
enumerations; the descent into realistic detail which is calculated to
cause a shudder; the subtlety of argument which makes a debating speech
cogent; the tendency to hyperbole which is bound to arrest attention;
the love of point, epigram, antithesis which produces memorable phrases;
and the recollection or invention of pithy maxims which embody human
experience. His erudition is in part encyclopaedic, based on the science
of the day, and in part mythological, based on the ancient literary
education. The former accounts for excursuses on subjects like astronomy
and geography,[930] many of which are out of place; the latter appears
in allusions or descriptions. The allusions may be straightforward,
as when the preparations for Pharsalia are likened to those before
the giants’ war, and when Caesar haunted by ghosts is likened to the
matricide Orestes;[931] or they may be slightly more recondite, as when
the olive-branch is called “the leafage of Cecropian Minerva,” and
when Marius is said to “gather Libyan wrath,” because, like the giant
Antaeus, he drew fighting-force from the soil of Africa.[932] Myth in
Lucan’s eyes yields opportunities for exhibiting book-knowledge and so
overpowers his philosophy upon occasion. Certainly in a critical mood
he would, Stoic-like, reject the legends. It is the free-thinker that
speaks through Cornelia’s guarded promise to follow her husband “through
hell, if hell there be” (_per Tartara, si sunt ulla_, IX. 101-102). But
should the old traditional colour seem requisite, Lucan makes no scruple
about its introduction: thus Julia’s ghost, expelled from Elysium (III.
12), knows that Tartarus is being enlarged to punish human misdeeds.
His attitude is, in fact, not consistent: On the one hand, when Pompey
reaches Cyprus, Lucan resists the attraction of the tale which long
after inspired Botticelli’s “Nascita di Venere,” and so surrenders to
rationalism with the unpoetic caveat “si numina nasci credimus”[933]: on
the other hand, he is romantic enough to discern in the story of Antaeus
or of the Golden Apples a chance for a telling description:[934]
None but a churl insults time-hallowed eld
And summons bards to tell plain truth. There was
Once on a time a forest all of gold
Whose wealth weighed down its boughs with yellow fruit.
A troop of maidens watched that radiant grove:
And round the trees, ’neath ruddy metal bowed,
A serpent never doomed to slumber coiled.
Realism in Lucan is now natural, now morbid, now grotesque. Too often
it is coupled with the desire to harrow by dwelling on the horrible.
Hence he revels in describing tortures, the agonies of the wounded, the
repulsive ghoulishness of a witch, the still twitching mouth of Pompey
after his head has been hacked off, revolting aspects of cremation, and
equally revolting aspects of putrefaction.[935] So zealous is he in
making a point that he again and again overshoots the mark, as in his
account of a crowd of victims mutually smothering each other;[936] or of
an old man’s reminiscence of searching among the slain during the Sullan
Terror for a body whose neck would fit his brother’s head, which he was
carrying;[937] or of Curio’s slaughtered men in Africa having no room to
fall:
Hemmed by the throng each corpse still kept its feet
(_Compressum turba stetit omne cadauer_, IV. 787).
When the realism is strained to breaking-point, it becomes unreal, as
in the carnage during the seafight at Massilia. There the devilish
ingenuity in inventing bizarre modes of death fails to make the struggle
truly heroic, because the artificiality detracts from strong simplicity
and pathos.[938] The poet, having caused smiles by far-fetched conceits,
only just succeeds towards the end in striking a note of human feeling
when he relates the parting of the mortally wounded Argus from his
father.[939]
Good examples of Lucan’s management of speeches are those of Caesar and
Pompey in Book VII, where the two great opponents are made to express
themselves in the author’s forceful, if rather bombastic, rhetoric. In
Volteius’s speech in Book IV, encouraging his men to slay each other,
we have virtually a thesis supported by the tricks of the schools and
transferred to verse: the men by their death have to make a spectacle
of themselves and the speech is correspondingly spectacular. The same
rhetoric, often powerful and ingenious, invades parts of the epic
where there is no set speech, but where the poet becomes declamatory,
rendering his work, Quintilian thought, _magis oratoribus quam poetis
imitandus_. Thus the reflections upon Pompey’s grave in Book VIII are
composed after the fashion of a special pleader in a _controuersia_. The
smartness in shifting positions and the disregard for consistency argue
little solidity; and even where, as in this passage,[940] the author’s
favourite Pompey is concerned, the limited depth of feeling is comparable
to nothing so much as that of a versatile advocate. One is naturally
reminded of Lucan’s lost prose speeches for and against Sagitta.
Hyperbole is among his most noticeable rhetorical tendencies. He
overstates and, in pursuit of overstatements, is drawn into the kind
of elaboration which characterizes the storm in Book V.[941] But the
exaggeration is often confined to a single idea: so, to convey the notion
of Caesar’s immense lines of circumvallation near Dyrrhachium, Lucan
avers that, inside them, rivers run their whole length from source to
mouth,
There many rivers rise and speed their course
Till yet within the lines they join the sea;[942]
and, of Thessaly polluted by the slain,
What crop shall rise unstained with tainted blade?
Thy plough shall ever wound a Roman ghost![943]
One of the great secrets of Lucan’s brilliant rhetoric is his subtle
power of expressing thought in terse[944] pointed form, often assisted
by antithesis. When this subtlety is not carried to excess, the results
are extraordinarily effective in producing memorable lines and phrases,
epigrammatically summarizing a character or a situation or, in the
older meaning of _sententia_, a general truth. Even his less natural
conceits have a way of clinging to the memory, like his paradoxical
manner of suggesting that when Caesar’s ships lie helpless on a still
sea the crews would prefer a watery grave to being thus becalmed: “all
hope of shipwreck vanishes” (_naufragii spes omnis abit_).[945] Typical
common-places admirably expressed in his neat Latin are those on the
peril of success,
Greatness is wrecked upon itself: the gods
Have set that limit on prosperity
(_In se magna ruunt: laetis hunc numina rebus_
_Crescendi posuere modum_, I. 81-82);
on the danger of delay,
Postponement ever hurts the well-prepared
(_Semper nocuit differre paratis_, I. 281);
on famine as a cause of revolt,
A starving people knows not fear
(_Nescit plebes ieiuna timere_, III. 58);
on the secret happiness of death,
From those who are to live the gods conceal
The bliss of death; so they endure their life
(_Victurosque dei celant ut uiuere durent_
_Felix esse mori_, IV. 519-520);
on condonation of a widely supported fault,
The sin that many share goes unavenged
(_Quidquid multis peccatur inultum est_, V. 260);
on death, as viewed in Pompey’s last words,
In life success is mutable: in death
Man meets not misery.
(_Mutantur prospera uitae,_
_Non fit morte miser_, VIII. 631-632);
on the true attitude to death,
The brave man’s finest lot
Is knowledge how to die; next, death enforced
(_Scire mori sors prima uiris, sed proxima cogi_, IX. 211).
Alliteration is noticeable in some of the examples cited. Lucan does not
use it so sparingly as Heitland suggests: on the contrary, much of his
verse gains additional emphasis from being alliterative, as does his best
known line,
Heaven loved the winning cause, Cato the lost
(_Victrix causa deis placuit sed uicta Catoni_, I. 128);
or the simile descriptive of a storming charge by African horse,
The loud sound shook the land: from shattered earth,
High as the dust the Thracian whirlwind drives,
A cloud dimmed heaven and drew the darkness down
(_Tum campi tremuere sono: terraque soluta_
_Quantus Bistonio torquetur turbine puluis,_
_Aëra nube sua texit traxitque tenebras_, IV. 766-768).
A scrutiny of Lucan’s feverish mannerisms and wilful faults must
not blind one to his merits. It is true that he is rhetorical and
sensational; and that behind his clever artifices lies no mystery. He is
able half to surprise, half to weary us with dazzling tricks of style;
but he seldom enchants us with beauty. Yet, when all his inaccuracies,
distortions, conceits, digressions and tediousness have been urged
against him, his great passages prove that, in spite of artificiality,
he can be fiery[946] and well-nigh irresistible. He would have gained
extraordinarily by compression: that is to say, he shows to most
advantage in extracts. His best rhetoric is something intensely stirring,
though it is a style more appreciated in France than in England. Nor,
even if he seldom is deeply poetic, should the vein of poetry that is in
him be overlooked: it appears in passages such as that on Pompey’s last
look at Italy, or on Cornelia in love with sorrow:
Locking in fast embrace her cruel grief,
She hath her joy in tears, enamouréd
Of woe that henceforth is her lord,
(_Saeuomque arte complexa dolorem_
_Perfruitur lacrimis et amat pro coniuge luctum_, IX. 111-112).
Some have submitted that the _Pharsalia_ is an epic without a hero, or
alternatively an epic with three. Perhaps it is truer to argue that
Lucan in a real degree rose to the inherent greatness of his theme by so
portraying Caesar that, while Pompey was his formal hero and Cato his
spiritual hero, Caesar, however much disliked and maligned by the author,
was and still is the practical hero of the poem in virtue of the defiant
egoism and the untiring energy summarized in the line,
Thinking naught done while aught remained to do,
(_Nil actum credens cum quid superesset agendum_, II. 657).
CHAPTER VII
CALPURNIUS SICULUS AND MINOR POETRY OF THE NERONIAN AGE
Calpurnius and Nemesianus—Calpurnius belongs to Neronian
period—Is “Meliboeus” Seneca?—The Seven Eclogues—_Panegyric_
on _Piso_ possibly by Calpurnius—Identification of the patron
eulogized—Some aspects of style.
The Einsiedeln Eclogues—Uncertain date and authorship of
_Aetna_—A blend of dullness and enthusiasm—The best passage—The
_Latin Iliad_—Latin translations from Homer—Suggested
acrostics bearing on authorship—Why was the Latin Homer called
“Pindar”?—Departures from the Greek original—Nero as poet—The
lesser lights.
CALPURNIUS SICULUS
The importance of the eclogues of T. Calpurnius Siculus[947] rests as
much upon their testimony to the continuance of one aspect of Virgil’s
influence as upon intrinsic poetic value. Eleven eclogues for long went
under his name; but the edition by Angelus Ugoletus about 1500 cites
the authority of a manuscript now lost for assigning the last four to
Nemesianus, who wrote late in the third century. There is, in any case,
good internal evidence for the separation; for, in the last four, elision
is much commoner; more unclassical shortenings of final _o_ appear; the
parenthetic insertions of _memini_ and _fateor_ frequent in the first
seven are absent; nor are there any of the allusions to the emperor which
were familiar in the previous group. Besides, the ninth eclogue imitates
parts of the third, though its taste is more questionable; and there are
stylistic resemblances between the final eclogues and the undoubted work
of Nemesianus on the chase—his _Cynegetica_.
Whether the epithet “Siculus” means that he came from Sicily or that
he was a follower of the Sicilian pastoral of Theocritus cannot be
decided. His date too has been the subject of debate. The older theory of
Wernsdorf, Gibbon and Bernhardy, that Calpurnius wrote under the Emperor
Carus and his sons in the third century has been rejected by most modern
authorities for cogent reasons which combine to fix the eclogues early in
the reign of Nero. The ruler they mention is young (i. 44; iv. 85, 137;
vii. 6),[948] good-looking (vii. 83-84),[949] divine (i. 84 _ipse deus_;
vii. 6) and eloquent (i. 45; iv. 87). This applies to Nero satisfactorily.
The contemplation of a better time as in prospect (i. 42, 54),[950] and
of fairer treatment of the senate (i. 62) is in keeping with the actual
relief and confidence felt in the opening reign of Nero, when contrasted
with the closing years of Claudius. The comet described in the first
eclogue is most plausibly identified with that which, according to the
elder Pliny, Suetonius, and Dio Cassius, betokened the death of Claudius
and lasted into Nero’s reign.[951] The scene of the games described in
the seventh eclogue is not the Colosseum (which was not begun till the
reign of Vespasian), but the wooden amphitheatre of Nero’s time mentioned
by Tacitus and Suetonius.[952] No other epoch, then, suits all these
references so well as the early Neronian.
How far we can rely on Corydon’s mention of a brother or of poverty for
autobiographic information about the poet is extremely doubtful. The
reference to Meliboeus as a patron who saved him by assistance from the
need of going to Spain[953] may have a personal bearing and the question
of identifying the patron has been much discussed. Granted that he is a
historical figure, Sarpe’s[954] contention that Meliboeus was Seneca is
more satisfying than Haupt’s identification of him with Calpurnius Piso,
who in the _Laudatio Pisonis_ is spoken of as under the patronage of
Apollo. The fourth eclogue[955] describes Meliboeus as a poet under the
auspices of Apollo and the Muses; and further it is suggested that he is
an authority on winds and weather. Both references suit Seneca, who was
a tragic poet and an observer of physical phenomena in his _Quaestiones
Naturales_. Meliboeus is evidently a personage of exalted influence, and
the idea of his acting as intermediary between the rustic singer and the
emperor[956] is consistent with Seneca’s high position at the imperial
court.
The seven eclogues range in length from 84 lines (vii.) to 169 (iv.),
and amount to 759 hexameters altogether. They are smoothly composed; and
the echoes of Virgilian thought, expression, and poem-construction are
obvious. Other Augustans are also laid under contribution. The whole
effect, allowing for the artificiality and conventionality inseparable
from the pastoral, is pleasing rather than forceful. The poet as
“Corydon” is conscious that to seek to be a second Virgil (“Tityrus”) is
an ambitious task, and so he represents Meliboeus as saying:
High aim’st thou, Corydon, if Tityrus
Thou striv’st to be. He was a bard inspired
Who on the reed-pipe could outplay the lyre.[957]
Eclogue I is modelled loosely on the so-called Messianic eclogue of
Virgil. Two rustics, Corydon and Ornytus, are sheltering from the
scorching heat of the noontide,
Where ’neath its very root the beechtree keeps
Guard o’er the bubbling waters of the brook
And casts a tangled shade with swaying boughs,[958]
when they find, carved on the bark of a tree, a prophecy by Faunus which
heralds the dawn of a new golden age of peace and clemency associated
with the accession of a young ruler, “a very god, who will take in his
stout arms the weight of the Roman empire.” Eclogue II, after the manner
of Virgil’s seventh eclogue, contains an amoebean contest in quatrains
in which a shepherd and gardener praise Crotale, the object of their
admiration, and make rival offers in this wise:
_Idas._ Lambs countless bleating ’neath the teat I feed;
Countless Tarentine ewes yield wool for me,
And all the year my snow-white cheese is press’d.
Come, Crotale! This store shall all be thine.
_Astacus._ Who seeks to count the apples which I pick
Below my trees, will sooner count fine sand;
Winter nor summer checks my crop of herbs.
Come, Crotale! The garden all is thine.[959]
In III, Iollas searching for a lost heifer meets Lycidas, who tells
how jealousy has driven him to lose his temper so far as to beat his
sweetheart, Phyllis. Penitently he now would woo her love back in song,
and the poem ends with lollas’s undertaking the part of peacemaker.
“Out-and-out country, and clownish at that” (_merum rus idque inficetum_)
was Scaliger’s sweeping judgement on the eclogue, which has however
redeeming touches of delicacy and chivalry. Eclogue IV, entitled
“Caesar,” and much the longest eclogue, is full of eulogy for the
youthful emperor, whose services to the world are chanted in responsive
verses by Corydon and Amyntas before their patron Meliboeus, who is
besought to bring the verses under the eye of his imperial majesty:
_Corydon._ O how my lines that run in slender strain
Would, Meliboeus, then resound, if e’er
Men said I had a home among those hills,
If e’er I chanc’d to see a farm my own!
For oft unkindly poverty would pluck
My ear and say “The sheepfold is thy task.”
Yet, Meliboeus, should’st thou think my lays
Worth noticing, then bear them to our Lord;
For heaven grants thee right to pass within
The Palatine Apollo’s holy walls.[960]
Eclogue V is more reminiscent of the _Georgics_ than of the _Eclogues_,
and therefore savours more of work than of the idealized recreation which
is the feature of pastorals. It is extravagantly praised in the hexameter
summaries of Brassicanus’s edition, to the effect that the agricultural
writers Varro, Palladius, Columella, Cato and Virgil himself were all
outdone here by the brief precepts enjoined by Mycon upon his young pupil
Canthus. The precepts largely concern the management of sheep and goats.
The subject of VI is a not very entertaining wrangle between a pair of
shepherds over a decision which one of them had pronounced in a musical
contest between two other swains. The wrangle, it is proposed, might
be settled by a poetic competition between the disputants; but their
bad temper and abuse force the selected umpire to decline to act. The
last poem, VII, with a similarity in scheme to Virgil’s first eclogue,
possesses a special archaeological interest by reason of the description
which the countryman Corydon, newly back from town, gives of the wooden
amphitheatre in Rome, where a “young god” of an emperor exhibited
thrilling and surprising contests. The variety of rare animals and quick
scenic changes had filled the rustic eyewitness with wonderment; and at a
distance he could see the emperor himself:
Unless my eyesight lied, one face methought
Combined Apollo’s look with that of Mars.[961]
It will be noted that these poems are not all strictly pastoral: under a
bucolic guise the first, fourth, and seventh are essentially court-poetry
with semi-political flavour and no little adulation. And in any case,
whether they contained flatteries of the emperor or not, poems so
artificial, as pastorals must be, were more likely to appeal to courtly
readers than to any other audience of their day. The literary influence
of Calpurnius Siculus was transmitted through Nemesianus to later
centuries than the third, reappearing in the Renaissance pastorals of
the Italians, Baptista Mantuanus, Sannazaro, Andrelinus and in the more
prosaic French scholar Arnolletus (Arnoullet) of Nevers.[962] The first
among these, the “good old Mantuan” cited in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_,
printed ten eclogues in 1498, and through them affected many authors of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including Alexander Barclay’s
“egloges” and, more memorable still, three “aeglogues” in the _Shepheards
Calender_ of Spenser.
* * * * *
_A Panegyric on Piso_[963] (now generally taken to be C. Calpurnius
Piso, the figurehead in the abortive plot against Nero in A.D. 65) has
been claimed by some as the work of Calpurnius Siculus.[964] The 261
hexameters _De Laude Pisonis_ are carefully composed, and, like those of
Calpurnius’s eclogues, contain few elisions.[965] The passage where the
panegyrist addresses Piso as his Maecenas and a passage in Calpurnius’s
fourth eclogue addressed to Corydon’s patron Meliboeus resemble each
other in the application of the epithet _tereti_ (probably “slender”) to
verse; but the coincidence does not make irrefragable proof of unity of
authorship.[966] The utmost that can be said is that the identification
is plausible. The ascription to Virgil, reported from a lost manuscript
of the whole poem, is impossible; while the ascription to Lucan in
a manuscript of extracts results from a copyist’s blunder; and such
resemblances in diction to the _Pharsalia_ of Lucan as can be traced[967]
in the panegyric are due to identity of period rather than of authorship.
As conceivable authors of the poem three other names, Ovid, Saleius
Bassus and Statius, have been put forward, of whom the first lived too
early and the second and third too late to write it.
More certain ground is reached regarding the person eulogized. The poet,
who declares himself under twenty summers old (261), poor, but ambitious
for literary fame in preference to wealth (219-221), directs his praises
to a youthful patron, eloquent, courteous, generous, musical, fond of
games, and especially expert on the draught-board. Such characteristics
accord with the description of C. Calpurnius Piso in Tacitus[968] and
with Juvenal’s “Piso bonus” of _Satire_ V. 109, where the old scholium
recounts Piso to have been such a celebrity for his playing with
_latrunculi_ that people flocked to watch him. The panegyric was most
likely composed earlier than the eclogues of Calpurnius Siculus; and it
does not follow, though the “Maecenas” of the one poem is C. Calpurnius
Piso, that the “Meliboeus” in the other poems need be the same patron.
The laudation tends to monotony, though it never becomes absurdly
fulsome. Piso, whom the poet more than once addresses as _iuuenis
facunde_ (32, 109), is honoured for having renounced the martial glory of
his ancestors to
Wage kindly war before a legal judge;[969]
for ability to stir the emotions of the court,
if thou sayest “weep,”
He weeps, then smiles if forced by thee to smile;[970]
and for captivating clients by his courtesy,
thou dost show the path
Of deference, and loving courtest love.[971]
Judged by the test of style alone, the piece has the ring of the first
century, and the spirit of the references to oratory is unmistakably
post-Augustan. It should be pointed out that the repeated use of _chelys_
for the “lyre” suggests a similar period.[972] But reliance on internal
stylistic evidence is ancillary rather than essential, where the
recipient of the panegyric has been definitely identified.
MINOR NERONIAN POETRY
Further examples of the bucolic verse of Nero’s age are furnished by
the Einsiedeln Eclogues. These are two brief pieces contained in a
tenth-century manuscript at Einsiedeln.[973] The first, in 49 hexameters,
is a contest of the conventional type between two shepherds who praise
the emperor’s dexterity on the _cithara_, the one likening him to Apollo
and the Thunderer, the other alluding to his poem on the burning of
Troy. The umpire’s decision is wanting. The other piece, 38 lines long,
rejoices over the return of the Golden Age,
_Saturni rediere dies, Astraeaque uirgo_,
in the spirit of Calpurnius Siculus’s
_Aurea secura cum pace renascitur aetas_,
and must belong to the happier opening years of Nero’s reign. Beyond
this there is no certainty about date or authorship, though considerable
learned speculation[974] has been expended on two rather inconsiderable
eclogues. The frail argument, for instance, has been used that Seneca’s
expression _fas sit uidisse_ in Letter 115 (probably 64 B.C.) must refer
to and so be later than _fas mihi sit uidisse deos_ in the first poem.
The higher literary quality of the second piece has appeared to some
sufficient reason for assuming dual authorship: others have in both seen
lost eulogies by Lucan on the emperor: others still ascribe them to C.
Calpurnius Piso,[975] laying stress on the way in which the first words
of the second poem _Quid tacitus, Mystes?_ seem to be echoed in the first
words of Calpurnius Siculus’s fourth eclogue, _Quid tacitus, Corydon?_
Since the speaker there is Meliboeus (identified by some scholars, as we
have seen, with Calpurnius Piso), the idea is that he may be quoting from
a production of his own. One metrical feature may be pointed out: in the
49 lines of the first eclogue there are fully twice as many elisions as
in the 261 lines of the _De Laude Pisonis_, and about as many as in the
whole of Calpurnius Siculus.
* * * * *
According to the opinion of many, though the opinion is by no means
unchallenged, this same Neronian period produced the _Aetna_,[976] a
didactic poem in 644 hexameters on the volcano. Traditionally, it came
down among the minor works attributed to Virgil, although even by the
time of Donatus doubt had been thrown on the attribution. While, then,
it cannot be omitted in an account of the _Appendix Vergiliana_,[977]
it equally calls for mention in a review of the later age to which
many prefer to assign it. There have not been wanting modern attempts
to prove an early date: Kruczkiewicz[978] has reasserted the Virgilian
authorship, and Alzinger[979] has argued for the earliest date of all,
about half a dozen years after Lucretius’s death in 55 B.C. Independently
of obvious imitations of Lucretius in the poem, its general style
alone would point to some subsequent generation: technically and
after a ponderous manner, the hexameters are Virgilian in cast, and
Bücheler[980] would put them at least later than Ovid and Manilius. One
cannot but be struck with the frequency of the elisions, if one turns
to the _Aetna_ straight from Calpurnius Siculus. The extreme inferior
limit of time, on the other hand, is A.D. 79, the year of the eruption
of Vesuvius, because in _Aetna_, 424-431, the fires of the sulphurous
lands round Naples are regarded as extinct—a view impossible after the
renewal of volcanic activity.[981] Scaliger, accepting the authority of
certain fifteenth-century MSS., believed that Cornelius Severus was the
writer; but a common theory since Wernsdorf has been that the author
was Lucilius Junior, the correspondent of the philosopher Seneca and
imperial procurator in Sicily. To Lucilius Seneca addressed his moral
epistles, the first book of his so-called dialogues, and his _Quaestiones
Naturales_. We know from Seneca that he wrote verse and had literary
tastes. We know too that Seneca wrote to Lucilius intimating that he
expected from him a description of his tour round Sicily, and urging him
to climb Aetna and send him information about the mountain:[982]
But you were sure to indulge your own weakness, without a
suggestion from anybody. There’s no fear of your failing
to describe Aetna in your poem (_ne Aetnam describas in
tuo carmine_) and so touch on this commonplace of all the
poets. Virgil’s previous treatment was no hindrance to Ovid’s
handling the theme; and a pair of predecessors did not frighten
Cornelius Severus off it.... Aetna is making your mouth water
(_Aetna tibi saliuam mouet_), or I don’t know you! You’re bent
on writing something fine (_grande_) to match former attempts.
The terms of the letter, it should be observed, suggest not so much a
separate poem as the insertion of a description to form an episode in a
poem on which Lucilius was at work; and the arguments advanced, taken as
a whole, do not avail to place the problem completely outside the range
of question.
Should the author ever be indisputably unearthed, his literary reputation
will not be vastly enhanced by the discovery; for there is little in the
poem to relieve its dullness; textual uncertainties apart, it is not
seldom obscure; and, despite the author’s professed search for causes, it
makes but indifferent science. So one finds difficulty in understanding
Teuffel’s apparently serious criticism of it as “very attractive”;[983]
but there is no accounting for taste. At the same time, the author must
be credited with an earnest enthusiasm for the study of certain natural
phenomena and a disdain for legendary subjects, which at the outset he
dismisses as hackneyed, though he himself lapses inconsistently into
mythology where he portrays Jupiter as amazed at Aetna’s fiery crashing
menace and as alarmed lest the giants are once again to make war on
heaven (ll. 202-203).
Men tour the world to see places celebrated in story, he points out, and
then scornfully asks, “Do you think such things worth visiting? Study
the mighty work of nature the artificer” (_artificis naturae ingens opus
aspice_, l. 599). Far less extended, however, than this maxim should
imply, his own theme is a single circumscribed corner of nature, almost
trivial compared with the _De Rerum Natura_, just as his spirit is one
of remarkably tempered seriousness compared with the passionate ardency
of Lucretius. Unfortunately, the volcanic fire of which he wrote did not
transmit itself to his style; and for his lack of interest in mankind
he has paid the penalty of failing to engage a reader’s interest.
Significantly, he is most impressive when he leaves off theorizing about
the subterranean action of water, wind and fire, or describing ominous
hidden rumblings and engulfing lava-streams, in order to show how the
danger might affect human beings and elicit high moral qualities. This
he does towards the close by introducing the episode of two brothers who
rescue their father and mother during a volcanic eruption. The passage,
though a little exclamatory and tautological, remains deservedly the
best-known part of the poem. The following are excerpts translated from
it (604 _sqq._):
Once Aetna burst its caves and glow’d with fire;
As if its inmost furnaces were wreck’d,
One wave of sweeping heat poured forth afar....
Ablaze were crops in fields, and like their lords
Rich acres burn’d, and wood and hill gleam’d red....
Then each man, as his will or strength to snatch
Might prompt, essay’d to save his property.
One groans ’neath gold; another, gathering arms,
Puts them once more around his foolish neck.
One, faint with seizing things, is burdened by
His verses: lightly-laden run the poor!...[984]
All is the prey of fire that spareth none
Or spares the good alone. Yea, once a pair
Of noble sons, one named Amphinomus,
And both brave-hearted in the task they shar’d,
When fires roar’d close upon their homestead, saw
Their father and their mother, bent with eld,
Alas! sink on the threshold wearily.
Cease, men of greed, to lift your spoils belov’d!
Mother and father were _their_ only wealth:[985]
This spoil they’ll snatch, and through the midmost flames,
That gave them confidence, they haste to flee.
O sense of loving duty, best of goods,
Surest salvation for an upright man!
The fire-flames blush’d to touch the pious youths,
And wheresoe’er they turn’d their steps, retir’d.
Blest was that day: the ground they trod unscath’d:
Grim burning reign’d to right and blazed to left.
The title of _The Latin Iliad_ (_Ilias Latina_),[986] though it might
well raise great expectations of literary achievement, is conferred upon
1070 hexameters of condensed paraphrase rather than of translation from
the long Homeric epic. Judged solely as a summary, its representation of
its original is most disproportionate; for over half the Latin total is
given to the first five books of the Greek twenty-four. Whereas several
of the earlier books get over 100 Latin lines, several of the later get
under 10; the fifth book, for instance, gets 149, the seventeenth only
3. The work must have been designed for an educational text-book, and
to its employment in schools it doubtless owed its survival, and, what
is notable in a production of no outstanding power, its happy chance
of materially aiding the knowledge of letters in post-classical times;
for in the dark medieval centuries, when Greek was forgotten in Western
Europe, this “Latin Homer,” if only with faint and borrowed light, had
the incontestable merit of reflecting some of the old radiancy of “the
tale of Troy divine.”
Although by no means the sole attempt to give a Latin dress to the epics
of the Trojan cycle, in which the Romans by virtue of their fabled
descent always felt a national interest, the _Ilias Latina_ is yet the
only one which has come down. Other workers in the same field have left
of their performance fragments only, or nothing. Roman literature indeed
may be said to have dawned with the translation of the _Odyssey_ into
Saturnian verse by Andronicus.[987] In Sulla’s time, Cn. Matius, and
probably also in the first century B.C. Ninnius Crassus, had rendered
the _Iliad_ into hexameters[988] without making any great mark. Then two
attempts of imperial date may be mentioned besides the _Ilias Latina_.
Attius Labeo, whom the scholiast on Persius declared “unscholarly”
(_indoctus_)—exactly the opposite epithet, by the way, to that which
Aulus Gellius applied to Matius—turned both _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ into
Latin hexameters. Persius calls his _Iliad_ “drunk with hellebore”
(_ebria ueratro_),[989] and time has mercifully spared but one line of
it. The other attempt was in prose and was the composition of the Emperor
Claudius’s influential freedman Polybius. Seneca, in the _Consolatio_
addressed to him, refers to this production twice[990] in commendatory
terms. Apparently Polybius had translated Homer into Latin and Virgil
into Greek; for Seneca says:
Homer and Virgil have been benefactors of mankind as much as
you have been a benefactor of these poets and of everyone in
deciding to make them known to a wider circle than that for
which they wrote,
and, again,
Take in your hands the poems of either of the two authors
(Homer and Virgil)—poems, the fame of which the abundant toil
of your genius has enhanced, and which you have paraphrased
(_resoluisti_) in such a way that, although their metrical form
has gone (_quamuis structura illorum recesserit_), the charm is
nevertheless preserved; for you have transferred them from one
language to another so well as to secure that most difficult
effect, the bringing of all the beauties of the original over
into a foreign speech.
The _Ilias Latina_ can with good reason be referred to some date earlier
than Nero’s death, because its author has introduced into it a passage
coloured with loyal Roman sentiment which could have been composed at no
time except under the Julian dynasty of the Caesars:
Had not great Ocean’s ruler saved the prince (= Aeneas)
To flee and build New Troy in happier lands,
Raising a stock majestic to the stars,
The clan Rome loves would ne’er have come to stay.[991]
Its hexameters are post-Ovidian, and Plessis[992] ventures not over
convincingly to fix its composition as early as in the era of Tiberius,
in which case the author must have been contemporary not with Lucan,
but with Phaedrus. This author he believes to have been Italicus—not
Silius, but another of previous date; and in that belief is involved
the question of alleged acrostics at the beginning and end of the poem,
which has attracted the curiosity and ingenuity of certain commentators.
The initial letters of the first eight lines spell _Italices_ and of
the last eight lines _scqipsit_. A conjectural change in the seventh
line gives _Italicus_ and a mere transposition of words gives in the
latter case _scripsit_. Some are content to leave the opening seven
lines unaltered and read _Italice_, either as a vocative, or an adverb
(“he wrote Italian-wise”). But the idea of the vocative has prompted
tamperings with the next few lines to extract _Sili_, so that the poem
would address Silius Italicus. To the acrostics[993] is added the further
elaboration of finding after the caesurae in the first six lines the
letters of a mesostich, _Pieris_, to mean “The muse wrote it.” Such
coincidences, however, in each case partly engineered, lead to no sure
ground. Even if “Italicus” were accepted, the style of the _Ilias Latina_
is so unlike[994] that of Silius Italicus in the _Punica_ that believers
in the acrostic have had recourse to guessing it to be a work either of
his youth or by some one else bearing the same name.
Another puzzle has arisen on the title “Pindarus” which MSS. of the
Middle Ages imposed on the Latin Homer. Why should two very different
Greek poets have been thus confused? Referring to Lucian Müller’s[995]
attempted explanation of this alternative title as based on the coupling
of Homer with Pindar in Horace’s _Odes_,[996] Tolkiehn has suggested
that the intrusion of “Pindarus” may have been due to the presence in
earlier MSS. of “Thebanus,” a possible epithet for Homer in respect of
his legendary association with Thebes in Egypt.
As in the _Aratea_ of Germanicus, new matter, though on a smaller scale,
is sometimes introduced by the translator. An example of inserted Roman
sentiment has been already cited. The last eight lines addressed to
Calliope and other powers constitute the translator’s personal farewell
to his task, and some of his departures from events or details, as
narrated in the Greek, may be caused by his reminiscences of Virgil
and Ovid or by his trusting to memory. The modifying influence of
Virgil is traceable in a simile here and there; in his making Aetna the
forge of Vulcan (856-857), which is not Homeric; and in many turns of
expression.[997] There are, besides, positive inexactitudes, such as the
assignment of some of Ulysses’s words to Nestor (ll. 151 _sqq._), or the
slaying of Democoon by Agamemnon (ll. 372-373) instead of by Ulysses
as in Homer. These very additions and negligences acquit the author of
having been a slavishly close translator. His Latin possesses the virtue
of straightforward clearness, and his versification a considerable share
of easy grace.
* * * * *
Nero[998] also was among the poets, although he was one of the friends
from whom literary men might reasonably pray to be saved. His education
had been to some extent warped; for his mother Agrippina prevented
the future emperor from studying philosophy deeply, and Seneca had in
eloquence directed his pupil less to the old standard oratory than to the
modern school in which the tutor himself cut a prominent figure.[999]
It was observable that, unlike previous emperors, he preferred to have
his speeches composed for him,[1000] and Seneca could at least check
the tasteless bombast of which he sometimes betrayed signs. Towards
poetry he had a bent, though he missed supreme success. One may conclude
that caprice and mannerism outweighed Nero’s readiness and technique,
without believing that the lines ascribed to him by the scholiast on
the first satire of Persius are genuinely his. Seneca[1001] commends
for its elegance his line about the play of light on a dove’s neck as
it moves (_colla Cytheriacae splendent agitata columbae_); and Nero
certainly displayed versatility in sportive, satiric and erotic verses,
in monologues of a tragic character suitable for his own recitation on
the stage, and in his epic _Troica_, whence may have come the episode of
“The Taking of Troy” which scandal alleged he chanted to the cithara
while Rome was in flames.[1002] His establishment in A.D. 60 of the
quinquennial competition of the _Neronia_ arose fully as much from his
own ambition to win the prize in public as from any desire to patronize
music and poetry.
Caesius Bassus, one of Persius’s senior friends, was a lyric poet of whom
Quintilian thought highly.[1003] He may be the same as the author of a
work on prosody dedicated to Nero.[1004] Seneca’s friend Vagellius,[1005]
who had some reputation as a poet, the satirical versifiers Antistius
(Sosianus) and Curtius Montanus mentioned in Tacitus,[1006] and the
Serranus included by Quintilian among epic authors may close the list
of those who were lesser lights in Neronian poetry, unless the fact
that Serranus is coupled by Juvenal with Saleius implies that he lived
somewhat later.[1007]
LITERATURE OF THE FLAVIAN PERIOD
A.D. 69–A.D. 96
CHAPTER I
THE ELDER PLINY: FLAVIAN SCIENCE AND HISTORY
Life—His public appointments—Eruption of Vesuvius—Avidity
for knowledge—Six lost works—Contents and arrangement of
the _Natural History_—Sources and method—Pliny’s lists of
authorities—_Quellenkritik_—Some of its services—Variations
in use of Greek and Latin sources—Difficulties as to
minor authorities—Pre-eminent authorities—A few contrasts
with modern science—Obvious weaknesses—Historical value
of the encyclopaedia—Attractive features—Information
pleasantly conveyed—Stoic outlook—Nature and
man—Mother-earth—Human society—Human progress—Political
views—Literary qualities—Rhetoric, sarcasm, epigram—Pith
of expression—Purple passages—The common-place and the
poetic—Sentence-structure—Survival of influence.
Flavian historians (a) under Vespasian, (b) under Domitian.
THE ELDER PLINY
What everyone knows about an author is not necessarily of supreme
importance; but the two most familiar facts about the elder Pliny—that
he composed a massive _Natural History_ and that he perished while
investigating an eruption of Vesuvius—lie in their implications at
the very roots of his title to fame. A meagre life by Suetonius has
to be supplemented by information from the colossal work which is his
imperishable monument and from his nephew’s admiring testimony in four of
his letters.[1008] C. Plinius Secundus[1009] was born of an equestrian
family at Novum Comum in A.D. 23 or 24,[1010] and his birth near Lake
Como led him to claim Catullus as a fellow-Northerner (_conterraneum
meum_).[1011] He must have come early to Rome, because Nonianus, whom
the boy saw in his consulate,[1012] held the office in A.D. 35. If we
know little about his education, we can see from his style that rhetoric
was not omitted; and, while there is no proof that the poet Pomponius
Secundus formally trained him in literature, we can at least be sure
that he deeply influenced the younger man, who was destined to write his
biography. Pliny’s allusions to Pomponius are full of respect, and he
recalls how on one occasion he saw at Pomponius’s house specimens—then
about two centuries old—of the handwriting of the Gracchi.[1013]
Similarity of disposition may have linked them together; for, like Pliny,
Pomponius showed ability to combine literary with official duties.
Pliny’s youthful pleading at the bar was followed by military service.
When twenty-three or twenty-four he was a cavalry officer under Corbulo
in Germania Inferior, and his first book was written on the use of the
javelin by mounted troops. His comradeship (_castrense contubernium_)
which he mentions[1014] with the future Emperor Titus may have happened
ten years later, about A.D. 57, when he was in the army of Pompeius
Paulinus.[1015] Several allusions attest experiences among peoples near
the northern frontier of the Empire;[1016] no doubt it was personal
knowledge that united with historical instinct to suggest his lost work
on the wars of Germany.
Full detail, however, regarding his life before the accession of
Vespasian is not available. It is true that he gives us a few interesting
reminiscences: he saw for himself the harbour works in progress at Ostia
about the beginning of Claudius’s reign; he could remember Claudius’s
Empress Agrippina wearing a mantle of woven gold at a sham naval fight
exhibited by the Emperor; and he witnessed the building of Nero’s
“golden house” after the fire of 64.[1017] On the other hand, we should
like to be sure whether he had official connexion with the East. Was
he ever procurator of Syria? Did he serve against the Jews as a staff
officer under Titus? and was this the service which he calls _castrense
contubernium_? Could he have been present at the siege of Jerusalem
in 70? These questions might all be answered in the affirmative, if
Mommsen’s hypothesis were accepted that Pliny is alluded to in a Greek
inscription from Arados.[1018] But the balance of authority prefers to
hold that in 70 Pliny was in Gaul, and that this year began for him a
series of procuratorships in Gallia Narbonensis, Africa, Gallia Belgica
and Hispania Citerior.[1019] Administered, according to Suetonius,
with the highest integrity, these offices at the same time widened his
horizon, even though they were all held within the western half of the
Empire.
While at Rome, Pliny kept in close contact with the imperial house. A
well-known letter by his nephew tells us that it was his custom to visit
the palace before daylight to interview Vespasian and then return to
his daily task.[1020] He was on duty as admiral of the fleet at Misenum
on that summer afternoon in 79 which the younger Pliny’s account of the
catastrophe has made memorable. A pine-like cloud of smoky vapour rising
above the neighbouring mountains betrayed alarming volcanic activity,
and the phenomena, pointed out to him by his sister, the younger Pliny’s
mother, were too tempting for an ardent student of nature to miss, even
though he was elderly, stout and busily engaged in reading after his
midday siesta.
“He called for his shoes and climbed some high ground from which that
uncommon sight could best be viewed. Looking at it from this distance,
one felt uncertain from what mountain the cloud was rising, though later
it was known to be Vesuvius.... It was white at one moment, at another
grimy and spotted, as if it had carried up soil or cinders. A man of my
uncle’s learning saw that the phenomenon was significant and deserving of
closer survey. He ordered a light vessel to be got ready and gave me the
chance of going with him, if I wished.”[1021]
Appeals for help reached him: large galleys had to be launched: and
the scientific admiral made for the danger zone from which others were
fleeing. His nephew’s letter pictures him dictating observations, braving
the rain of stones upon the bay, and by his coolness heartening his
friend Pomponianus, in whose house he supped and stayed overnight at
Stabiae (Castellamare). The next day, one of preternatural darkness,
amidst terrific concussions and sulphurous gas-fumes which put his
friends to flight, he was left by the seashore and, troubled as he had
been with his breathing, succumbed to asphyxiation. When, a day later,
light was restored to the land, his body was found uninjured, wearing
the appearance rather of sleep than of death (_quiescenti quam defuncto
similior_).
An insatiable desire for knowledge and indefatigable industry in
amassing it are the outstanding characteristics of Pliny. A hard-working
official, he could never have completed so many volumes on intricate
subjects without marvellous self-denial and an extraordinary faculty
for dispensing with sleep. The small hours after midnight found him
ready to begin study long before the time came for repairing to the
Emperor Vespasian—another early riser. His very meals could be utilized
for listening to a trained reader: during leisure hours, as he basked
in summer sunlight, he would have a book read aloud, and take notes
or extracts. A favourite, but very risky, remark of his was that there
was no book so bad as not to contain something profitable.[1022] In the
country only bathing-time was exempt from study, and immediately after a
bath, while he was being rubbed down, he listened to a reader, or himself
dictated. In winter the close attendance of a secretary, with hands
gloved against the cold and equipped with books and tablets, ensured that
nothing should impede the acquisition and distribution of knowledge. Once
at dinner a book was being read aloud, when one of the guests stopped
the reader for mispronouncing some words and made him repeat them: upon
which Pliny said, “You understood him surely.” “Yes,” replied the friend.
“Then why did you stop him? We have lost more than ten lines by this
interruption of yours.” Such was his parsimony in time.[1023]
On another occasion he remonstrated with his nephew for taking a walk:
“You might,” said he, “have avoided wasting those hours.” The nephew,
in recalling the incident long afterwards, made the comment that his
uncle thought all time lost that was not devoted to study.[1024] By dint
of this intense application he left to the younger Pliny no fewer than
one hundred and sixty volumes of extracts written on both sides and in
an extremely small hand, which, as the embarrassed legatee realized,
“is tantamount to increasing their number.”[1025] It is rare for so
passionate a student to fill so many practical offices, and there is a
legitimate force in the younger Pliny’s question, “Who among the lifelong
devotees of letters must not, when compared with him, blush for yielding
to slumber and sloth?”[1026]
Of the half-dozen lost works by Pliny, of which his nephew gives a
chronological list,[1027] one was a technical military manual, one a
biography, two were on language under oratorical or grammatical aspects,
and two were historical. They mark that all-roundness of interest
which reappears in the _Natural History_. His literary career began
when, as a young officer, he wrote his handbook on the use of javelins
by cavalry, _De iaculatione equestri_.[1028] The two books _De uita
Pomponii Secundi_ were intended for a tribute of affection to the memory
of one who was both a literary friend and Pliny’s commanding officer in
Germany.[1029] The _Bellorum Germaniae XX Libri_ gave an account of the
wars between Rome and the Germans. The idea came to the author on one of
his German campaigns when he dreamt that the ghost of Drusus asked that
his fame should be rescued from oblivion.[1030] Tacitus quotes the work,
which seems to have been in existence as late as the time of Symmachus
in A.D. 396.[1031] _Studiosi III Libri_, “The Student,” or, according
to Gellius, “The Students,”[1032] had each of its three long books
divided into two volumes. Like Quintilian after him, Pliny treated the
education of an orator from infancy (_ab incunabulis_). Choice specimens
from controversial declamations were included. The work impressed
Quintilian on the score of carefulness, and therefore surprised him all
the more by incidentally introducing fantastic views upon the secret
of the long gown which Cicero used to wear and on the advisability of
tidy or untidy hair for a speaker.[1033] It was in the latest years of
Nero’s reign, when even learning had to walk warily, that Pliny turned
to a grammatical subject[1034] in _Dubius Sermo_, “doubtful forms in
language.” He thus made his contribution, as Julius Caesar had done, to
the conflict between anomaly and analogy in linguistic forms, though
Pliny’s love of variety made him a less rigid stickler for analogy than
Caesar had been. Its eight books carried weight with many grammarians
including Charisius.[1035] Next, in the thirty-one books _A Fine Aufidi
Bassi_ Pliny went back to history, continuing the work of Bassus. It is,
however, not clear when that historian stopped: what we do know is that
of three definite citations of Pliny’s history by Tacitus,[1036] the
earliest refers to A.D. 55. The guess has been made—and opposed—that
the thirty-one books treated annalistically the equal number of years
from Caligula’s fall in 41 to the triumph of Vespasian and Titus in A.D.
71.[1037] Fabia, who, like Nissen, sees in the lost work a principal
source for the _Histories_ of Tacitus, suggests that Pliny started
from the later years of Claudius’s reign. Unfortunately, the surviving
fragments[1038] are too scanty to aid a decision; but, touching the
_terminus ad quem_, it should be pointed out that Pliny’s words show
that he certainly treated Nero’s last year, and suggest that he carried
this history of his own times well into the reign of Vespasian.[1039]
Completed in A.D. 77, the work was left for publication by the younger
Pliny, who notes in his uncle’s historical composition the same
scrupulous exactitude[1040] that struck Quintilian in his oratorical
treatise. Care alone, however, does not create literature; and no one can
now say how far Pliny’s methods in political and social history differed
from his methods in natural history. That Tacitus by writing on the same
period eclipsed and superseded him as artist and historian we may be
quite sure. But it is likely enough that, even if he was no historical
genius, we have lost much attractive material in the shape of Pliny’s
first-hand impressions and experiences during a period with which he was
contemporary.
The supreme memorial to his energy is his one extant production, the
_Naturalis Historia_ in thirty-seven books, admirably characterized by
his nephew as “a diffuse work, learned, with a variety equal to nature’s
own.”[1041] The author found a patron, to whom he might address it, in
the prince Titus—himself the composer of a poem on the appearance of a
comet. Although dedicated to Titus in A.D. 77,[1042] it was published,
at least in the main, posthumously. Probably, either the first decade
alone was issued in 77,[1043] or even it may have been subjected to
alterations after being presented to Titus: there is general agreement
that the author during the last two years of his life continued his task,
but did not succeed in giving a final revision to the remaining books.
The arrangement is as follows. Book I, which is preceded by an epistle
dedicatory, forms an introduction consisting of an exhaustive table
of contents book by book (expressly designed to save time and trouble
for busy readers[1044]) with an imposing array of authorities employed
in each: II, the single physical book, giving Pliny’s cosmography in
relation to God, the universe and its elements: III-VI, on the geography
and ethnography of Europe, Africa and Asia, starting in the west at the
Pillars of Hercules and, after two books allotted to countries on the
northern side of the Mediterranean, restarting eastwards from Mauretania
for India and Mesopotamia: VII, his anthropological section, treating
man and human physiology: VIII-XI, four books on zoology—land animals
(with the elephant first, because biggest), sea creatures, birds,
insects receiving each a book: XII-XIX, eight books on botany, under
which come forest trees and fruit trees and (in XVIII) agriculture:
XX-XXVII, eight books devoted to materia medica from botanical sources:
XXVIII-XXXII, five books devoted to materia medica from zoological
sources: XXXIII-XXXVII, mineralogy and metallurgy, embracing a survey of
their application to medicine and the fine arts, so as to bring in the
healing properties of metallic substances, artistic productions in gold,
bronze or other metals, the manufacture of colours and achievements of
great painters, stones and their employment by architects and sculptors,
precious stones and their value.
The arrangement is not illogical in broad outline, though the treatment
of medicaments got from the animal kingdom is, with a curious lack of
symmetry, deferred until both the vegetable kingdom and its medicaments
have been treated at great length. That the plan of division was the
author’s own is manifest from cross references within the text.[1045]
Even a brief summary of the scheme shows how much the subject is related
to human concerns. In addition to thirteen predominantly medical books,
the mineralogical portion contains a large amount bearing on the
healing of man’s ailments: and it was the human factor that fortunately
prompted—what would not have occurred to many writers on mineralogy—a
valuable digression on the history of art.
Pliny calculated that his work was a repertory of twenty thousand facts,
or what he took for facts, compiled from about two thousand volumes and
one hundred selected authors.[1046] This last number, however, does not
cover his obligations to all sources, because the lists or indices of
Roman and foreign authorities, which he appends to his table of contents
for each book, yield totals of 146 Roman and 327 foreign authors, or
something approaching 500 in all. The discrepancy between this total
in the indices and the hundred _exquisiti_ is more apparent than real.
It was a professed point of honour with Pliny, though not with ancient
writers as a rule, frankly to own obligation to all from whom literary
material had been derived: “I hold it for courtesy and ample proof of
an honourable modesty to acknowledge by whom one has profited.”[1047]
Therefore he feels gratitude not only to his hundred special authors,
but to earlier writers whose knowledge they have enabled him to use.
This avoidance, however, of any suspicion of plagiarism has been turned
against him. Attempts have been made to charge him on this score with an
empty parade of learning,[1048] as if, even without his nephew’s explicit
testimony, any reader should fail to see that the author had drawn upon
multitudes of books. He carries out his promise of acknowledgement to
all authorities by recording their names (with subjects sometimes, but
only sometimes, specified) in his indices for each book and to a less
extent by mentioning authorities in the text. Here, however, he considers
himself dispensed from systematic or exhaustive mention of the authors
given in the lists: some are cited on incidental or isolated points,
others can be inferred to be of more importance, and occasionally others
are said to be followed for a considerable portion of the work.[1049]
Usually when an author is cited the information is indirectly reported in
dependence upon such phrases as _Fenestella tradit_ (IX. 123), _scribit
Annaeus Seneca_ (IX. 167), _Varro auctor est_ (XVIII. 307), _L. Piso
prodidit_ (XXXIV. 30); but there are passages where authors are quoted
_verbatim_ for some lines on end, _e.g._, Trebius (IX. 93), Nepos (IX.
137) and Cato (XXIX. 14). One cardinal misfortune is that Pliny did not
decide expressly to distinguish among principal, secondary, and still
more remote authorities, such as those Greek writers who were known
to him solely through intermediary writers, Greek or Roman. If he had
even revealed the names of his hundred _exquisiti_, we should have
possessed a canon for his main authorities, and thereby known which were
subordinate, although the degree of their subordination might still have
been perplexing to determine. Again, if we could have been certain of
the principle underlying the order of names in each author-list, much
would have been clearer about the origin and value of the material.
Brunn’s well-known pamphlet of 1856,[1050] which has had great influence
in Plinian criticism, laid it down that the order of names in each list
broadly corresponded with the order in which the authors were originally
used in the particular book to which the list was applicable. Unluckily,
this principle, as Brunn himself saw, is not so simple as it looks; and
on examination it is burdened with so many exceptions due to Pliny’s
subsequent insertions and to disturbances in the text, intentional or
accidental, that one must reluctantly doubt its validity.[1051] Another
puzzle lies in the figures given after most of the tables of contents to
represent totals of “facts, stories, and observations” (_res et historiae
et obseruationes_). The figures vary considerably (417 for Book II, 2214
for VI), while they are absent for III-V.[1052] They may have been taken
over from the excerpt-books containing Pliny’s raw material.
Such uncertainties engender speculation, and, since Montigny’s tractate
of 1844 examined the relation of Pliny to Aristotle,[1053] a formidable
mass of books or brochures has appeared on the sources of the _Natural
History_. This subject of _Quellenkritik_, though dry, is not barren,
because it bears on the progress of human knowledge in antiquity and
on Pliny’s mode of work. At the same time, a salutary reminder is
given in Teuffel’s _Geschichte der römischen Literatur_ that sure
ground is likeliest where the inquiry deals with authors whose works
still exist in whole or in part—Aristotle, Theophrastus, Cato, Varro,
Virgil, Ovid, Vitruvius, Celsus, Mela and Columella—and that, where
intermediary or original authorities are lost, modern research has had
wide room—and used it freely—for the play of imagination.[1054] This
play of imagination accounts for some arbitrary and extreme positions.
Rose, for example, declared Pliny to be an untrustworthy compiler who
never handled Aristotle in Greek; Birt was confident that Pliny used
Aristotle only through Pompeius Trogus (whereas others have laid much
stress on King Juba, Nigidius Figulus, and Varro as intermediaries);
Koebert uncompromisingly denied to Pliny the slightest intelligence in
art criticism; Rabenhorst scrapped Pliny’s author-lists along with
Brunn’s attempted explanation of their order, to make way for his theory
that Pliny did apparently little else than plunder the encyclopaedia of
Verrius Flaccus.[1055] Some proportion, however, ought to be observed
in theorizing. Common sense refuses to believe that all Pliny’s
authenticated toil could have been spent on summarizing and annotating
scores of authors for his excerpt-rolls, if his _Natural History_ were
merely a compilation from Verrius Flaccus’s _rerum dignarum memoria
libri_. Other reasons, if necessary, could be advanced to demolish
such a contention; but we may rest content with the argument that
the man who filled a series of distinguished offices with absolute
integrity (_procurationes splendidissimas et continuas summa integritate
administrauit_, Sueton.) would scarcely in his writing stoop, under an
assumed cloak of gratitude, to a fraudulent invention of authorities to
whom he in reality owed nothing.
In fact, throughout an investigation which has to a great extent become a
controversy, three schools of criticism are discernible—one, radical in
its attitude to Pliny, which, with Montigny, Rose, Rabenhorst and others,
would dismiss his lists as totally untrustworthy; a second, conservative
in attitude, which with Brunn, Urlichs, Gruppe and Detlefsen, would
champion Pliny against a charge of pedantic or dishonest parade; and a
third, probably now represented by the majority of scholars, moderate in
attitude which would admit that Pliny’s lists of authorities cannot be
taken at their face-value, but require minute sifting so as to discover,
as far as is feasible, the relative importance of the authors named.
Yet amidst a welter of hypotheses, sometimes mutually destructive, real
service has been rendered to learning. Brunn’s rule, already mentioned
about the order in the author-lists, was well worth formulating as
an endeavour to disentangle Pliny’s system of quotation. Aly made
temperately stated contributions to the subject of the zoological
sources, and Münzer has illuminated in particular Pliny’s employment
of Latin authorities like Cato and Varro, and their dependence in turn
upon Greek originals. He has argued that Juba was for Pliny a channel
for much of the older Greek learning, as Varro was for much of the older
Latin learning.[1056] In tracing sources for the fine arts treated in
Pliny’s last books, progress has been made on the lines laid down by
Otto Jahn,[1057] who, after detecting the homogeneous nature of many
of the art-criticisms, indicated their immediate Varronian authorship
and ultimate Greek origin. Since Brieger[1058] made the first attempt
to determine the names of the Greek writers whose opinions Varro had
latinized, a series of scholars have developed or modified the views of
the pioneers in this subject.[1059]
Looking broadly at the whole vexed problem, one cannot find compelling
reasons against believing that Pliny sometimes went back to the Greeks,
and sometimes did not. In detail, if for a moment one considers zoology
alone, there is ground for thinking that Pliny in certain parts of
his work used the Greek _Zoica_[1060] which passed for Aristotle, and
in other parts used intermediary authors either Greek or Latin. It is
a large assumption to make that a learned industrious Roman of the
Flavian age never consulted the original Greek sources. Pliny probably
obtained Aristotelian and Theophrastian material both indirectly through
different intermediaries and directly from the Greek. As regards Latin
authors, we know that he used Cato both directly and indirectly; for we
find that a quotation in Varro refers him to a passage in Cato, whom
he then evidently consults by way of verification, because he quotes
more of Cato’s passage than Varro did.[1061] A presumption is thus
raised in favour of believing that a parallel desire for verification
would at times carry Pliny back from Roman authors to Greek authors
whom they cited. An apposite instance occurs in a passage[1062] where
divergent views of Aristotle and Trogus are contrasted, suggesting
the inference that Pliny had both the Greek and the Latin author
in front of him. Elaborate as have been the pains devoted to the
inquiry,[1063] one cannot hope fully to recreate the working methods
of an omnivorous excerptor and annotator like Pliny;[1064] but one may
picture his closely written notebooks packed with extracts, comments,
and references, under appropriate headings or rubrics.[1065] Beyond
that, to descend into _minutiae_ is guesswork. Pliny’s arrangement
in those overflowing excerpt-rolls[1066] and his way of serving up
material for his _magnum opus_ are alike matters of speculation, not
of dogma. Much of his grouping came from predecessors—categories of
animals, for example, classified, unscientifically enough, according to
their environment as terrestrial, aquatic, aerial, were ready found for
him; but how many tables of interesting points, more or less relevant,
Pliny himself added as fruits of discursive reading can only be faintly
conjectured. We can fancy his notebooks contained countless headings
like “Earthquake, miraculous accidents due to,” “Fortune, examples of
mutability in,” “The Sea, wonderful things observed in,” “Death, signs
of,” “Elephants, remarkable traits in,” “Of Tritons and Nereids,” “Eagle,
a strange case,” “Wood, valuable kinds of,” “Diet—for a man’s health,”
“Headache, remedies for,” “Crabs, what they cure,” “Mining, methods of,”
“Gold, ancient uses of,” “Colours, natural and artificial,” “Precious
stones, tests for”: many such are echoed in the _Natural History_. As
to actual writing, his procedure was probably variable—involving now
concentration upon one author or a very few authors, now dispersion
among many authors or extracts from them. For larger and well-defined
portions of his subject he would rely on one or more authors of highest
importance—his authorities of first rank to be reinforced by others of
inferior weight. Some such kind of hierarchy of sources has been sketched
for the zoological books. Aly[1067] has maintained that, whatever
Pliny’s reliance upon Roman sources by preference, this reliance does
not hold for Books VIII-XI. Here in zoology, according to his argument,
the Aristotelian tradition reigned supreme, and no Latin author could
compete; but Pliny liked patriotically to adduce the authority of his
fellow-countrymen, and he therefore on special subjects turned from
Aristotle—on domestic animals to Varro and Columella, on bees to Hyginus.
Other authorities in this second rank were Nigidius, Trebius Niger, and
Trogus, who themselves had drawn copiously from Aristotle. To ensure a
spice of attractive variety, Pliny resorted to sources of a third rank,
and thus imported anecdotes from the royal dilettante Juba,[1068] or the
travelled consular Licinius Mucianus. Enlivening items could also be
hunted up in Roman annalists, antiquaries, poets, and jurists, or, if
already entered in the notebooks, could be fitted into a suitable place
in the big work. Besides, there was the added personal touch due to
Pliny’s own recollections and comments.
For want, however, of any exact criterion, we are left with a double
difficulty in absolutely pronouncing, firstly, which authorities are
minor, and, secondly, what is the relative importance of different
minor authorities. It is obvious that some writers must have been very
seldom used: thus in the second book, on the universe, we should assume
from the nature of its contents that Livy, Nepos, Sebosus and Caelius
Antipater, though named in the author-list, are not primary authorities
on physics: very likely Nepos and Caelius are included solely in virtue
of the incidental citations from them regarding the circumnavigation of
Africa.[1069] Again, how can we assess Pliny’s debt to Vitruvius and
Valerius Maximus? Both names appear in a few of the author-registers, but
they are never named in the text. Yet Pliny beyond a doubt used both,
and, as they were post-Varronian, used them, not through Varro, but by
direct consultation. In this connexion, it is judicious to observe that
even as to pre-Varronian writers in Latin, though his debt to Varro
is great, the exact amount of his independent research must remain
undetermined. His reading in Roman literature earlier than Varro’s time
may have been considerably wider than some critics of late have given him
credit for. Pliny was not a lazy man.
From this preliminary consideration of problems involved in the study of
Pliny’s sources we pass to a brief mention of his outstanding authorities
for the principal branches of his work. In Physics he took over the
inherited teaching of a large number of Greek thinkers, of whom he names,
in his list for Book II, twenty-six as compared with seventeen Romans.
He shows keen interest in such problems of Greek mathematicians as the
size of the earth or distance of heavenly bodies. Enthusiasm evokes
outbursts of praise for the wonderful scientific attainments of Greeks
like Aristarchus and Hipparchus.[1070] Matter is drawn from Posidonius;
and Varro’s authority acts influentially here, as in most books—it is
rare to find his name absent from the author-lists. One cannot but
think it peculiar that neither the _De Rerum Natura_ of Lucretius
nor the _Quaestiones Naturales_ of Seneca earned for their authors a
mention in this list, though their names appear later in the work. In
Geography[1071] Varro was supplemented by Agrippa’s wall-chart of the
known world which Augustus had completed. Pomponius Mela and Juba were
also used, but not Strabo. An important Greek source was Eratosthenes,
who flourished early in the second century B.C. and drew from Pytheas,
Hanno, and Nearchus. The book on mankind was specially indebted to
Varro, Trogus and Verrius Flaccus. Coming to the twenty-five books
(VIII-XXXII) assigned to Zoology and Botany under various aspects, one
does well to remember, with regard to the Greek sources, that Alexandria
had shown less interest in the “descriptive sciences” than in Physics,
Mathematics and Astronomy. Zoology and Botany had been subordinated
to the art of healing, and it is not without significance that Pliny
devotes so large a space to their medicinal side. The development of
technical applications appealed to the practical Roman temperament,
which preferred empirical concentration upon externals to a Hellenic
quest after universals. Doubtless Pliny often felt spiritually more at
home with Roman writers—with Vitruvius’s applications of mathematics
rather than with Euclid’s theorems, and with actual Roman achievements in
engineering rather than with the problems of Archimedes. Thus in Zoology,
while Aristotle’s influence remains paramount, it acts also through
intermediaries like Nigidius Figulus, Trogus, and Juba. In Botany,
material is borrowed from Theophrastus (who had given close attention to
the healing properties of plants) but also from Varro, Juba, and Sextius
Niger (whose Ὕλη—for he wrote in Greek—was a source common to Pliny and
Dioscorides). Alongside of a clear respect for many Greek writers on
botany, it is noticeable that Pliny shows fondness for Latin works with
botanico-pharmacological contents: phrases like _proximi herbarii nostri_
or _quidam e nostris_ mark his national interest. On bees, Pliny, as we
have noted, used Hyginus; on medicine, Celsus, Pompeius Lenaeus, Pompey’s
freedman, who made available Mithradates’s lore on poisons, and Antony’s
freedman, Antonius Castor, a man of high renown in botany;[1072] on
agriculture, Cato, Varro and Columella. The Carthaginian Mago’s treatise
on husbandry had long been accessible through the Latin translation
authorized by the Senate. Mineralogical material was first collected
in the fourth century by Theophrastus; but Pliny, who used his work on
stones, is our principal surviving authority. In art, Pliny’s chief guide
to Greek authorities was Varro, whom he often cites. Varro had taken
occasion to sketch the history of art in connexion with architecture,
an important branch in his scheme of education (_disciplinae_). The
three ultimate Greek originals were Duris of Samos, born about 340 B.C.,
and his juniors Xenocrates[1073] of Sicyon and Antigonus of Carystus.
From the first of these came biographic and anecdotic matter concerning
artists, from the second a sketch of developments in art with information
about workers in bronze and colour, and from the third miscellaneous
items of aesthetic interest. In more than one index appear the names of
Pasiteles as a writer on wonderful works and of Heliodorus as a writer on
monuments dedicated at Athens. Cornelius Nepos, Fenestella, Vitruvius,
and Seneca are among Latin authors in the art-lists. The contemporary
general and historian Licinius Mucianus supplied the author with facts
bearing on art in Asia Minor.
Among questions affecting this elaborately stratified fabric of ancient
knowledge, the temptation may arise to inquire what is its scientific
worth to-day. Certain drawbacks lie on the surface. One sees that the
author was too bookish to be original, too receptive to be experimental,
too acquisitive to be discriminating. He tended rather to be overpowered
by his enormous material than to marshal it with unerring critical
control. We hear in him no Baconian trumpet-call towards research as a
condition of intellectual advance; but, then, can experiment be demanded
at a stage when, in spite of mechanical discoveries in Alexandria and
Rome, scientific instruments and appliances were as yet imperfectly
developed? It is, in truth, easy, though not over-helpful towards a
just estimate, to criticize Pliny for all his weakness in science when
compared with standards of the present. Modern conceptions have, however,
left much in the thought of less than a hundred years ago hopelessly
antiquated—still more so an encyclopaedist of the first century. The
gap between ancient Rome and ourselves is perceived the moment that we
think of contemporary theories on the constitution of the universe, on
astro-physics, on the properties of matter, on energy, on the meaning of
life, on the origin of species, on disease, and on art. Such terms as
electro-magnetics (_electrum_ is only “amber” for Pliny), ether-waves,
spectrum analysis, radio-activity, relativity, anthropology, evolution,
bacteriology and aesthetics have no place in this old encyclopaedia.
One has only to pick out a dozen names like Galileo, Newton, Laplace,
Faraday, Huxley, Kelvin, Linnaeus, Lamarck, Lyell, Darwin, Mendel and
Pasteur, and associate with them their teaching, to see at once how far
Pliny has been outdistanced in Physics, Natural History and Medicine.
To-day any visitor to Como, the birthplace of the Plinies, might readily
fancy that the city itself bears witness to the advance in scientific
achievement since the _Natural History_ was written. In the façade of
the cathedral are statues of both uncle and nephew, and a piazza not far
away contains a statue in honour of another native of Como, the renowned
Volta, who heralded an era of electricity. Along with electricity
the sciences most conspicuously absent in the _Natural History_ are
Chemistry, Geology and Biology. All this is a reminder that, if defects
are pointed out, many of them were inevitable in Pliny’s time, and to
enter into minute detail would be implicitly to rehearse the history of
scientific thought between then and now.
Pliny’s physics, being pre-Copernican, give, a geocentric plan of the
universe; and no deeper explanation of the constitution of matter is
vouchsafed than the doctrine of the four elements. His geography is
unscientific, in some respects untrustworthy, and too much of a dry
catalogue, in which many chances of winning interest are missed. In
justice, it should be said, that he prepares us for this, and apologizes
indeed for his brevity.[1074] How disappointingly unentertaining he can
be is clear from the bald treatment of such an island as Sicily, or of
such a country as Italy, which ends in his matter-of-fact dismissal of
the subject, _haec est Italia, diis sacra, hae gentes eius, haec oppida
populorum_.[1075] Only at the outset does he let himself go regarding
Italy; but a panegyrical excursus[1076] does not atone for sins of
omission. It is notorious that in his zoology there are many vulgar
errors, and yet there is no dearth of the valuable and attractive. Here
in the main the worth of what had been handed down from his master
Aristotle ensured that much in Pliny must live; for Aristotle was a
first-hand observer and exact recorder of the animal world, at any rate
within the Aegean area which he knew: if he was overtaken by fable and
fantasy, it was usually in the case of distant and semi-romantic regions.
His fame as a naturalist has grown almost in inverse proportion to the
decline of his fame as a physicist; for, whereas Copernicus and Galileo
overturned his physics, the labours of men like Cuvier and Richard Owen
have established his greatness in zoology. Of this Aristotelian tradition
Pliny, though a less acute observer than his predecessor, inherited
enough to win the grateful admiration of Buffon, just as his avowedly
encyclopaedic aim won the sympathetic regard of von Humboldt. Neither
in zoology nor in botany can his classifications be accepted to-day:
nor yet are his descriptions, although many have merit, exhaustive or
accurate. If we find cities confused in geography,[1077] we are prepared
for still worse confusion in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. To treat
the elephant first of land animals or the whale first of sea creatures—at
least after Tritons and Nereids!—is a negation of scientific order.
Unfortunately, too, Pliny revived some of the fabulous element largely
rejected by Aristotle. But here and there gleams betoken conceptions of
the future. For example, had facts been more scientifically grasped, the
assertion of sex in plants and the account of artificial fertilization
among date-palms might have carried the author far further. About his
medicine what can be said? The quite imaginary healing powers ascribed
to a vast assemblage of animals, plants and substances prove a great
deal of his pharmacology to be a farrago of old-world and superstitious
remedies. Still, here again the qualification of a critical sense is not
entirely absent, inasmuch as Pliny realizes that the absurd claims of
wonder-workers[1078] tended to discredit the genuine virtues of herbs.
His credulity has its limits. While Pliny, like many a Stoic, accepts
portents, as is plain from his record of monstrous births in Book VII,
he, on the other hand, rejects the werwolf fable (_homines in lupos uerti
rursusque restitui_, VIII. 80) as only to be believed if all tales are
true! Supposing, then, he ever read the excellently told story of the
werwolf in Petronius, he read it in the same spirit as a modern reader
would.
No number of shortcomings, however, can rob this encyclopaedia of its
historical value. The most comprehensive document on the current science
of imperial Rome, it is at the same time an index to the attainments
of previous epochs in man’s pursuit after knowledge. Tested by its
sources, it represents the intellectual stage reached through the
manipulation and amplification of Greek—especially Aristotelian—knowledge
by Alexandrian and Roman savants. Defects notwithstanding, it therefore
abides an irremovable landmark. Admittedly a great deal of the _Natural
History_ is neither literature nor science: its style, which has yet to
be considered, is often forbidding, and only under serious reservations
can it be credited even with that informative quality which makes the
literature of knowledge. Much of it, as we have seen, would be disowned
by science. Yet its worst mistakes bear a significance in the chronicle
of human thought. On the positive side, we owe an infinite amount of
instruction to it and to it alone. Think as we choose of Pliny—picture
him merely as an intelligent, painstaking, sincere official eager to know
but limited in acumen, and dismiss, as we may by modern standards, his
science as contemptible, we have still to place to his lasting credit
the merit of seeing that the world around teemed with curious things
of fascinating interest which demanded record, though they might elude
explanation. Besides, the human note (quite apart from the book devoted
to man) rings out again and again. Whatever he might, during moments of
despondency, write in disparagement of mankind, Pliny recorded enough
by way of entertaining stories to place man in strange and sometimes
romantic settings. Much that would otherwise have perished was rescued by
him from oblivion. Some of the toilers for human progress in the distant
past would be unknown but for his mention, and important details about
Rome itself and Roman ways can be learned from no other ancient witness.
Dreary tracts of second-hand matter redolent of the lamp rather than of
nature are compensated for by information, often the fruit of Pliny’s
personal experience, concerning such a miscellany of subjects as German
forests and Spanish mining, animals imported for table-delicacies or
public shows in the capital, harbour-works, roads, embankments, bridges,
the sewage system, aqueducts with other great engineering feats of which
he is justifiably proud, and (not always, it must be owned, without
mistakes) the artistic treasures of the author’s day.
While there is a sense, then, in which Pliny remains in part true
knowledge, he also remains literature in part, because a good deal of
him can be read with pleasure. He is not, of course, to be continuously
perused: his own recommendation, if needed, is against any such attempt,
and Roman common sense would have prescribed for a work of reference
exactly what a character in Ennius prescribed for philosophy—sips
in preference to a sousing plunge.[1079] For anyone not too rigidly
concerned with Pliny’s Latin, an excellent way to enjoy him would be
to prop Philemon Holland’s folio translation on a table, and browse,
as one lists, among the big pages that give a feeling of spacious
leisureliness by their size no less than by their generously expanded
allowance of quaint English. An appropriate attitude finds a certain
charm in anachronisms whereby the _ager Gallicus_ has become “the
French pale about Ariminum,” or a Roman emperor in an inscription has
been, as Pontifex Maximus, turned into an “Archbishop.” So _Diuus
Augustus_ is “Augustus Caesar of happie memorie” and Eratosthenes “a
great clerke verily for all kind of literature.” But even in Pliny’s
own Latin there is often the attractive feature of readability. He has
a knack of recounting familiar things with freshness, and so one reads
without boredom about the marvellously indiscriminate digestion of an
ostrich (_concoquendi sine delectu deuorata mira natura_) and its foolish
notion that, its head once hidden, its whole body is out of sight (_cum
colla frutice occultauerint latere sese existimantium_, X. i.). His
passage on the nightingale is, no doubt, in essence incommensurable
with Keats’s _Ode_, but it will be felt that no one has ever described
in prose with more enthusiasm than Pliny the musical variations in the
bird’s minstrelsy, the marvel of sound so loud from so small a throat,
the marvel of notes in rise and fall so true to perfect harmony.[1080]
Judged solely by its information, that is to say its facts and anecdotes,
apart from manner of telling—which is variable—the _Natural History_ is
one of the half-dozen most interesting books in the world. To turn over
its pages almost casually will prove this. Now we read about Nature’s
wonderful equipment of the mosquito (XI. 2-3), now about products of
civilization, whether, like paper,[1081] essential in Pliny’s opinion,
or less so, like citronwood tables (_mensarum insania_, XIII. 91-95), or
oysters brought from Brindisi and refattened in the Lucrine lake (IX.
169). Again, we are told that soap or _sapo_—not, by the way, a Roman
word or invention—was originally produced for reddening the hair in
the form of a Gallic pomade, which was compounded of tallow and ashes,
might be hard or soft, and gained more popularity in Northern Europe
with men than with women (XXVIII. 191). Here we chance upon an account
of the ways to find gold (XXXIII. 66 _sqq._), and there a case of a
military officer being fool enough to take 12,000 lbs. weight of silver
plate with him on a campaign against barbarians (_ib._ 143). One gets to
know what the eyes of five emperors were like (XI. 143-144), how madly
fond Tiberius was of Lysippus’s statue, the “Apoxyomenos,” and how Nero
spoiled Lysippus’s “Alexander” by gilding it (XXXIV. 62-63). Or it may
be only isolated scraps that we note—what ship brought the Egyptian
obelisk to the Vatican, who first served a boar whole, who first served
goose-liver at Rome, when bakers first came to the city, who was the
earliest doctor. Or the subject may be, as it is in Book XIV, famous
vineyards and vintages—what Augustus’s favourite brand was, what was
a good invalid wine, what the wines at Julius Caesar’s banquets, what
the evils of drunkenness or next morning’s feelings after a debauch—“a
cask’s breath from the mouth, oblivion of almost everything, the death
of memory.”[1082] It is all the more entertaining that his individual
impress is left on some at least of his catalogues. Thus his sketch of
the imposing structures of Rome,[1083] interspersed with outbursts of
commendation as well as censures upon luxury, can hardly fail to amuse
the modern reader by its picture of the supposedly dignified Roman people
whirling through the air in two reversible theatres and actually cheering
at the risk it ran (_ad periculum suum plaudens_, XXXVI. 118).
Pliny’s outlook on life was largely determined by his Stoic sympathies.
Epicurean, Academic and Neo-Pythagorean grains had fallen upon his mind,
but had not taken root there as did Stoicism. There was much to draw him
to the system. He knew the most high-souled of its adherents, Paetus
Thrasea, and he had studied Seneca.[1084] A philosophy which pointed
towards the study of nature, and was yet more engrossed in the attainment
of virtue through wise conduct, could not but appeal to a grave,
diligent, self-sacrificing spirit like Pliny’s. It claimed to hold the
solution for the riddle of Providence and the universe; and its ascetic
position of disdain for pleasure so suited his own simple tastes and
laborious days as to confirm him in a heart-felt dislike of luxury and of
fools. His characteristic views, then, those to which he most regularly
adheres, regarding God, the world and nature, man and society, are
traceable to, or at least consistent with, Stoicism. Thus he is inclined
to believe in a providential government of the world, whose soul is a
divine power acting beneficently on earth as among the stars above.[1085]
Only human weakness could seek to associate God with an image made by
human hands:[1086] there is one God and, echoing Xenophanes’s conception
that “He is all eye, all thought, all ear,” Pliny believes Him to be a
mighty principle of Life and Soul, beside whom the manifold deities of
Greece or Rome are simply a jest; for such diversity of gods makes “the
population of heaven outstrip mankind!”[1087] With this pantheistic
creed Pliny sees around him a divine organism at work for human good;
and something noble animates his perception of godhead in the service of
humanity. For mortal to help mortal, he feels, is to rise to the rank of
divinity and to glory everlasting.[1088] A sense of piety, then, must
have lightened his own toil upon the encyclopaedia, since his explicit
aim therein was to help his fellows and posterity.[1089]
The same ultimate belief underlies his attitude to nature and to the
earth, which are not always in his mind absolutely distinguished, and
which logically indeed must be partially identified in respect of the
divine element ascribed to both. Despite a few inconsistencies, there is
no mistaking his general position; but the profundity of a philosopher
is not to be expected from him. An honest simple-minded observer,
Pliny did not arrogate to himself a power of penetration into the
innermost recesses of nature. Perhaps he is chargeable with having been
over-readily content to contemplate merely the outward appearance of
things—their phenomenal existence. Yet this was at least sincerer than
bedimming nature under a misty cloud of unwarrantable hypotheses. On the
whole, he saw life and the world with remarkable clearness: finding in
it matter for wonder, indignation, and pity, he did not stay to analyse
the momentous theories logically implicit in such sentiments. His
criticism is at best on the surface: and he is more fully satisfied with
a rapturous apostrophe or a puritanic tirade or a moralizing reflection
than with any systematic pursuit of a _vera causa_ or any attempt to read
the enigma of the universe. So he is not strictly consistent even with
regard to this mighty “Nature” whom he personifies as a Universal Mother.
In one mood, thinking of man, poor wretch, whom she lays all naked upon
the earth on his very birthday to wail in helplessness,[1090] Pliny
wonders whether after all she may be only a grim Stepdame (_parens melior
homini an tristior nouerca_, VII. 1). But the mood does not last. As a
rule, he is enamoured of Nature rather than of man: she does everything
well, whereas man abuses and degrades her products. This spirit prompts
Pliny’s repeated invectives against the refinements of pleasure. From
his standpoint the herbal dyes of Gaul are more innocent than the purple
got from the _murex_, because the former are ready to hand, while the
latter must be sought in the unfathomed depths of the sea (_intacta etiam
ancoris_, XXII. 3). So then man is at fault. Man’s pride is but folly
after his lowly start at birth: man’s inhumanity to man makes most of
the world’s mourning: man perverts the kindly boons of nature.[1091]
In contrast with his folly, his ingratitude, his extravagances, nature
is the inspired artificer whose perfect workmanship ought never to be
improved upon.[1092] Virtues in herbs are so many proofs that nature
produces nothing without some secret reason—really for the sake of
man.[1093] Her simple remedies far excel his artificial drugs.[1094] Her
infinite and joyous variety is such that painting cannot do justice to
her festive hues.[1095] In keeping with such affectionate enthusiasm,
the author has a characteristic retort for scoffers at his devoted toil
upon the _Natural History_, when he claims the consolation of suffering
neglect in company with Nature the beneficent (XXII. 15, _plerisque ultro
etiam inrisui sumus ista commentantes atque friuoli operis arguimur,
magno quamquam immensi laboris solatio sperni cum rerum natura_).
Finally, if we can take the text as authentic, it is to her that he
addressed a pious farewell as he laid down his pen: “Hail, Nature, parent
of all things, vouchsafe thy blessing on the work of one who alone of
Romans has celebrated thee in thine every phase” (XXXVII. 205).
A parallel attitude is adopted towards Earth, whom with some
forgetfulness of nature’s beneficence he regards at once as part of
nature, and yet as a mother enfolding man when finally cast off by the
rest of nature. The typically Plinian eulogy translated below appears to
ignore nature as parent of all:
“The Earth is the one portion of nature on whom for her singular services
we have conferred a surname expressive of revered motherhood. She is to
man as the heavens to God. She welcomes us at birth, feeds us when born,
and once we have issued into this world supports us continually: at the
last she folds us in her bosom when the rest of nature has abandoned
us, then most our mother as she covers us: in none of her services
more blessed than in that which makes us also blessed—even bearing our
monuments and titles, prolonging our name, and extending our money in
despite of quick-passing time. Her final power we men in our anger pray
should lie heavy on an enemy who is now no more,[1096] as though we
knew not that she is the only one never angry with mankind. The waters
steal into rain-clouds, harden to hail, swell in waves, dash headlong
in torrents: the air thickens in mist and raves in the storm-blast. But
Earth is bountiful, tender, indulgent. Ever the handmaiden of mortal
needs, what does she breed at our compelling, what yield at her own
will—what scents and savours, what juices, what things to touch, what
wealth of colour! How true her honesty to repay with interest a loan
entrusted to her! What plenty she maintains for our sake!”[1097]
When at the beginning of his book on agriculture he renews his praises
of Earth, it is to this passage that he refers, as one in which he
has already championed her cause.[1098] Yet man has repaid her bounty
with gross maltreatment: “with iron, wood, fire, stone, and crops she
is tortured every hour, and much more to serve our pleasures than our
needs.... How many hands are worn to enable a finger-joint to glitter
with a gem! If there were a hell, the excavations of greed and luxury
would have dug it up by now!”[1099]
How empty, he reflects, is all man’s striving. This Earth, the theatre
of our ambitions, is but a speck in the universe (_mundi punctus_). To
those who are avaricious for land he preaches a sermonette on the vanity
of human wishes, anticipates Juvenal’s _sarcophago contentus erit_ on the
close of Alexander’s career.[1100] In a gayer mood, however, he overlooks
the tortures of Mother-earth by crop-raising, and fancifully assigns as
one explanation for the ancient fertility of the soil that it liked being
ploughed by ex-generals of the Cincinnatus type, whereas in later days
it underwent the ignominy of cultivation by slaves instead of retired
dictators.[1101]
Pliny’s exaltation of nature proportionately depresses his views on man,
society and progress. Good men, he thinks, are due to nature’s kindness
in providing the antidote with the poison:
“Some men too are born poisons. Like the black dart of the serpent’s
tongue, their venomous souls blight what they touch. They denounce
everything, and, comparable with unhallowed birds, begrudge their own
darkness, and disturb the quiet of night itself with their howls—the
only utterance they have—so that their mere encounter, as much as that
of ill-omened creatures, paralyses action or kind-heartedness. Universal
hatred is the one known gain from their loathsome breath. But in this
sphere too the majesty of nature has produced good and honest men, just
as she is more fertile in plants that heal and nourish. Rejoicing in the
esteem of the good, we will abandon such human scum to the bitterness
that burns within them, and proceed to make life fairer (_excolere
uitam_): and this with firmer resolution, as our aim is the pleasure, not
of reputation won, but of service rendered” (XVIII. 4-5).
As to the related subject of human society, Pliny is disappointed with
the heedlessness of contemporary Romans, the lack of serious desire for
knowledge, the flippant passion for luxury. This latter theme never
tires him, though it tires his readers. Historically he connects the
inroads of luxury with the conquest of Asia.[1102] Widened maritime
control had endangered the old Roman character: “we are not merely fed
by risks at sea, we are clothed as well:” even shellfish had involved a
devastation of morals (_populatio morum_), and, as regards the parade
of wealth in pearls, “it is not enough to wear them—people must walk on
them!”[1103] Censuring the expenditure of fortunes upon costly incense
for funeral pyres, Pliny claims that the old salted cake of simple
worship used to win more divine grace, and complains that millions on
millions of sesterces are drained out of the Roman Empire annually by
China, India and Arabia in return for Oriental exports like silks, pearls
and scents—“a dear price to pay for our extravagance and women” (_tanti
nobis deliciae et feminae constant_).[1104] Elsewhere, he ranks perfumes
as the most superfluous of luxuries: “pearls pass to an heir: garments
enjoy a respite: but perfumes breathe their last on the spot—they die in
what may be called their own hour: their chief recommendation is that,
as a lady passes by, the scent may draw the attention of those who have
other business on hand.”[1105] Forced fruits and vegetables share his
condemnation with iced water for the full purse.[1106] We have seen that
he prefers natural dyes from Gallic plants to other sorts: Gaul therefore
does not need to ransack the ocean for purples which the vicious use for
seductive purposes. Gravely he adds that these more innocent vegetable
dyes will not wash: and then, avoiding a detailed homily, pulls himself
up with a rhythm that amusingly anticipates the mediaeval student’s
song _Mihi est propositum in taberna mori_.[1107] The same liking for
simplicity comes out in his admiration for the ancient plainness of the
oak wreath (_ciuica corona_) conferred for life-saving in war—a custom
worthy of deathless memory, because rescue of a citizen must not be
matter for gain.[1108] Pliny’s own frugal habits of life and industrious
husbandry of time give point to his protests against the shallowness
of his day: he grieves in particular that the discoveries of the past
are neglected and sound knowledge contemned owing to a pernicious
worship of money (_auaritiae tantum artes coluntur_). In spite of free
intercommunication throughout the Empire and the advantages of peace
for quiet study, ground has been lost: preoccupation with the means of
enrichment has engendered a lethargic attitude to antiquity as well
as a brood of social evils.[1109] Early in his work he had struck a
similar note of regret over the unrewarded toil of ancient investigators
(_sine praemio alio quam posteros iuuandi_), the contemporary failure to
add to learning (_nihil addisci noua inquisitione_), and the cramping
concentration on lucre (_lucri non scientiae gratia_).[1110] The same
revulsion against the carelessness of voluptuaries acts along with his
ever-present desire for knowledge and his humanitarian regard for the
thousand ills that flesh is heir to (_millia morborum singulis mortalium
timenda_) among the motives which underlie Pliny’s enthusiasm for the
healing art.[1111]
Bias in favour of simplicity and belief in nature’s perfection combined
to produce a curious anomaly in Pliny’s attitude towards life. This
appears in a distrust of inventions which, if pressed logically, would
argue actual hostility to human progress. One is prepared to find his
discontent with contemporary society impelling him, like Rousseau, to
conceive an ideal picture of primitive tribes: and so his raptures[1112]
on the charming innocence of unsophisticated man, supposing there were
no mines in a wicked world, will not deceive a modern reader into
fancying a dainty existence among Hottentots or Andaman islanders. When,
however, he denounces the audacious manufacture of _linum_ into sails
(XIX. 4-6), and a Roman admiral has thus declared war on ships, one asks
how far this is merely a conventional pose. It is at least infinitely
ridiculous when contrasted with Sophocles’s famous ode on man as greatest
of wonders, first and foremost because he “fares across the white sea
before the stormy South.”[1113] By degrees we realize that Pliny, in
spite of his passion for knowledge, was not sympathetic towards daring
exploration or scientific discovery. Well aware that nature has her
secrets, he is yet chary about probing too deeply. We have seen that he
has no inkling of the fundamental conceptions of pure science. Nor could
applied science ever have obtained his benediction or thriven on his
cautious methods. He would have been out of touch with an age of rapid
industrial development and mechanical improvements. Upon his reflections
about the evil uses of iron,[1114] Philemon Holland appends a marginal
note: “O Pliny, what wouldest thou say if thou diddest see and hear the
pistols, muskets, culverines and cannons in these daies!” To transpose
the Elizabethan apostrophe to more modern times, what would he have said
of inventions like gas, incandescent mantles, photography, telegraph,
telephone, electric light, electric transmission of force, gramophone,
cinematograph, anaesthetics, bacteriological tests, applications of
Röntgen rays, wireless broadcasting, and, after his objections to
navigation, what would he have said about aeronautics?
His political views may be in a measure divined from his close intimacy
with the Flavian house, the tone of his preface to Titus, and allusions
like that to the _salutaris exortus Vespasiani_ (XXXIII. 41). Accepting
the imperial system as indispensable to Rome, he is grateful for the
security guaranteed by a world-wide order (_immensa Romanae pacis
maiestate_, XXVII. 3). It is in virtue of this system that Italy holds
the principate on earth and rules the nations aright (XXXVII. 201).
Nevertheless his patriotism is wider than a single political system:
he is intensely national and proud of Rome as Rome. He therefore feels
himself free to praise the qualities which constituted the moral
strength of the republic (XVI. 14); and, without Livy’s dominant bias
for the aristocracy, he still venerates the renowned families who made
history. Cincinnatus, Curius Dentatus and the elder Cato are among his
heroes—men who could take a lead in defending the state and its land.
The decline of agriculture was in his eyes the most painful symptom of
the deterioration of Rome (XVIII. 21 and 35). Literary judgements are
not germane to his subject, but his reverence for Homer, Cicero and
Virgil can be observed.[1115] It was part of his patriotism that, as
already noted, he made the fullest possible use of Latin authorities in
collecting the substance of his work. His preference for the writers of
Rome is intensified because of his conviction that foreign influences
had damaged the nation. Great as had been the intellectual services of
Greece to the world, Pliny quotes with gusto the warning from Cato which
ends like the jest about the Scots’ revenge for Flodden: “That country
(Greece) will present us with her literature, and corrupt everything—even
more so, if she sends her physicians here. They have sworn to kill off
every non-Greek with medicine!”[1116]
Pliny’s literary qualities form an extraordinary and somewhat irritant
mixture. If one had to characterize his style, one might call it piebald;
for there is an enormous difference between his lack-lustre catalogues
and his intentional purple passages. Certain ingredients too are drawn
from authors whose words have been worked into his text. In his preface
he avows that he makes no claim to write an elevated style: his theme,
he points out, is a dry one, calling for unadorned treatment, giving
few opportunities for amusing a reader (_neque admittunt ... iucunda
dictu aut legentibus blanda_), and necessitating in some portions the
use of words from country life or from abroad (_rusticis uocabulis aut
externis, immo barbaris_) to suit the subject-matter.[1117] But, in
general, his writing bears unmistakably the imprint of the Silver Age:
alongside of the usual rhetorical paraphernalia such as antitheses,
exclamations, questions and figures of speech, it exhibits the presence
of poetic colouring and a particularly formless structure of sentence.
At the same time there are elements of individuality. Though Pliny can
be insufferably dull, he can also furnish a lively description and
tell a good story. The former gift may be illustrated by his sketch of
a struggle between an eagle and its prey, condensed in jerky jingling
clauses,[1118] or by the account in Book X of the bee-republic, the
spider’s web, and organization among ants. Among many stories which
Pliny, better than his promise in the preface, introduced to secure
variety of interest, one may refer to Cleopatra’s boastful bet that she
could spend ten million sesterces at a banquet and her way of doing it
(IX. 119-121); the schoolboy of Baiae who used to bathe with a tame
dolphin (IX. 25, followed by a similar tale which the younger Pliny
seems to forget having found in his uncle’s work); the cobbler’s pet
raven and why it got a public funeral (X. 121-122); the freedman who
raised far better crops than his neighbours and who, when arraigned for
sorcery, exhibited in court his implements and workmen with the words,
“These be my spells!” (XVIII. 41-43, _ueneficia mea, Quirites, haec
sunt_.) One of the best Roman examples shows appreciation of the sardonic
flavour in Tiberius’s joke about invalid wine from Sorrento: “doctors,”
said the Emperor, “have laid their heads together to give Surrentine
a testimonial—and I must say it’s excellent vinegar!” (XIV. 64). The
anecdotes about Greek artists have the merit of retelling the competition
of Zeuxis’s picture of grapes _versus_ Parrhasios’s picture of a curtain
(XXXV. 65), and the equally famous incident of the cobbler who, as a
conceited art-critic, proved that he ought to have stuck to his last (_ne
supra crepidam sutor_, XXXV. 85).
Seneca’s brevity, acting on a sarcastic vein in Pliny, sent him in
expression half-way on to Tacitus. With less toilsome accumulation to
face and more leisure for reflection, he might have developed a pretty
wit: as things are, the mass of his work is so huge that he does not
always get credit for his ingenuity. This pre-Tacitean irony colours his
implication that some emperors had divinity thrust upon them, when in
reference to “that god Augustus” he gravely adds the aside, “and I can’t
say whether he simply got heavenly honours or deserved them” (VII. 150);
and there must be a spice of mischievous raillery when in Book XXI he
applies the phrase “God’s letters” to Augustus’s epistles complaining
about his daughter Julia’s nocturnal revelries. Sometimes, the jest may
be at the expense of idolatry: “once on a time wood served for images of
the gods, for as yet nobody had discovered the value of beasts’ carcases,
but nowadays by divine concession to luxury, the ivory (of elephants)
makes gods’ heads and table-legs!” (XII. 5). Or it may be at the expense
of civilization: he contrasts the honesty in Arabian forests—where the
trees tapped for liquid incense need no watch set upon them; but in the
perfume establishments of Alexandria “no supervision can sufficiently
guard the workshop and the workman has his pants sealed up” (XII. 59).
Much of his mockery, like Martial’s, is expended on medicine. “A tiny
ulcer must have a drug from the Persian Gulf” (_ulcerique paruo medicina
a Rubro Mari imputatur_, XXIV. 5). “In matters affecting health, people
are less trustful if they understand” (XXIX. 17: that is why a mysterious
Greek practitioner is appreciated). “Physicians learn at our risk and
conduct experiments through deaths” (_ib._ 18). “It’s not modesty but
competition that brings medical fees down” (_neque enim pudor sed aemuli
pretia summittunt_, _ib._ 21): “the hot baths prescribed for digestion so
reduce the strength that the doctor’s most obedient patients are carried
to their graves!” (_ib._ 26). Apropos of the wrangling among physicians
over invalids and the epitaph on the man who “died of a crowd of doctors”
(_turba se medicorum perisse_), Pliny remarks: “It’s an open secret
that the most loquacious among these Greek doctors becomes straightaway
the arbiter of a Roman life or death”: the fact is “Greek talent is the
breeze that drives us Romans” (_ingeniorum Graeciae flatu impellimur_,
XXIX. 11).
Some of the above are general enough in application to approach the
semi-proverbial _sententia_, which gains in force if scathing and
disdainful, like “When all hope is away, it is high time to pray” (_tum
praecipuus uotorum locus est cum spei nullus est_, VIII. 57); “Absolutely
nothing pleases man as it pleases nature” (_nihil utique homini sic
quomodo rerum naturae placet_, XIX. 55); and “It is fitting that even
luxury must be protected against faked gems” (_quando etiam luxuriam
aduersus fraudes muniri deceat_, XXXVII. 198). Pliny displays aptness
of personification in such conceptions as “nature at play” amidst the
variety of her shells (_magna ludentis Naturae uarietas_, IX. 102),
or the Nile-water “filling the rôle of farmer” (_Nilus coloni uice
fungens_, XVIII. 167). He gives also many pithy summaries of a situation.
_Latifundia perdidere Italiam_, on the ruin of agriculture, has been
already quoted: by way of contrast, he lays it down that “cultivation
consists in labour, not outlay” (if the reading is _opera non impensa
cultura constat_)—that is why our ancestors said “The master’s eye is
the most fertilizing thing” (XVIII. 43). Other epigrams touch neatly
on the dangerous pursuit after riches, “We mine for wealth in the
depths of hell” (_in sede manium opes quaerimus_, XXXIII. 2); on the
deterioration caused by luxury, “The life of pleasure began, real life
stopped” (_uoluptas uiuere coepit, uita ipsa desiit_, XIV. 6); and on
the drawbacks entailed by the Empire on Rome in the loss of her ancient
customs, “Our victory has meant moral defeat: we are dependents of the
foreigner” (_uincendo uicti sumus: paremus externis_, XXIV. 5).
Certain longer passages, where he indulges in “fine writing,” exemplify
his fanciful style and hankering after point. Here is an encomium upon
Italy introduced with an apology for his brief treatment of Italian
geography:
“Neither am I ignorant that it might be taken, and that justly, for
a sign of an unthankful and a lazy mind, if one should speak merely
in passing, after this cursory manner, of a land which is at once
foster-child and parent of all lands. Divine grace has chosen Italy to
make heaven itself more glorious, to unite scattered empires, to civilize
manners, to draw together by interchange of speech the discordant and
savage tongues of so many nations, to give to humanity humane culture,
and in a word become for all peoples in the whole world their one and
only country.... The city of Rome that stands alone therein—how worthy a
face upon so charming a neck!—by what means ought she to be set forth?”
He proceeds to praise the climate, fertility and trade of the peninsula,
“An open bosom for the commerce of the world from all parts, herself
as it were eagerly running out into the sea to help mankind. The very
Greeks—a stock most unrestrained in self-laudation—have delivered
judgement on Italy by giving to what is but a small part of her the name
of ‘Great Greece.’”[1119]
A parallel passage near the close of the work comes near to being a sort
of peroration:
“Now that we have fully treated all the works of nature, it is fitting
to draw some distinction among things themselves and among countries.
Over all the globe, then, everywhere beneath the dome of heaven, the
most beautiful land, the one that holds for products the highest rank in
nature is Italy—queen and second mother for the world (_rectrix parensque
mundi altera_),”[1120] and there follows a summary of her pre-eminence
in men and women, soldiers and slaves, arts and talents, position and
healthiness, water-supply and fertility.
His rhetoric may be elaborate, like his apostrophe to Cicero (VII.
116-117) and the passage on the question “What did Dame-Nature mean by
making some honies poisonous?” (XXI. 78); or it may consist in short
swallow-flights of sentiment like his regret over decay in bronze-work
(XXXIV. 5-6), his pleasure over the power of art to draw the eyes of
the Senate (XXXV. 28), and his allusion to the fall of the Carthaginian
Hercules into dishonour (XXXVI. 39). All this betrays artifice designed
to counterbalance the commonplace technicalities forced upon him by
agriculture, medicine and mining. Another side of this desire to
escape from his subject-matter appears in the poetic ingredients of
his vocabulary—forms such as _senecta_ and _iuuenta_ shared with poets
and the later prose-writers, or a word like _gemmans_ employed in the
Ovidian and Manilian sense of “sparkling.” When Pliny wrote _sortis
humanae uolumina_ (VII. 147), meaning “revolutions or reversals of human
fortune,” he gave a metaphorical turn to the poetic use of _uolumen_ in
the sense of “whirl” or “eddy.” A Livian word like _sugillatio_ (VII.
150; XXXII. 74) is also characteristic: it may have come direct from
Livy, who in many respects is a forerunner of Silver Latin, or Pliny may
have got it through Valerius Maximus. Further symptoms are noticeable in
personifications and use of abstract nouns for concrete: _leonum feritas
inter se non dimicat_ (VII. 5, for _leones feri_), _uniuersa mortalitas_
(VII. 147, for _cuncti mortales_, _cf._ _mortalitati_, XXXIV. 141),
_potestatum_ (IX. 29 “of men in power”), _seruitus_ (XIV. 5, “slaves”),
_seruitia_ (XXXIII. 23, “slaves”), _ministeriorum_ (XXXI. 7, for
_ministrorum_).
Pliny’s frequent curtness does not make for limpidity. Too often he
writes as one in a hurry, with the result that both expression and
structure suffer. The ordinary Plinian sentence, in its badly fitted
series of condensed clauses and phrases, forms a great contrast to the
finished Ciceronian period; it loses proportionately in rhythm, logic and
clearness. Any schoolboy will detect the inelegantly loose employment of
the present participle in writing _inde eductum custodia bibere iussit
illico exspirantem_ (XXI. 12) to convey the fact that “She (Cleopatra)
had a prisoner brought from custody, whereupon she ordered him to drink,
and he died on the spot.” Nowhere, however, is Pliny more exasperating
than in his maltreatment of the ablative case. He uses ablatives in a
slack sense, accumulates them cumbrously, introduces contiguous ablatives
in confusingly different meanings, plasters a heap of ablatives absolute
on to a sentence, or awkwardly suspends a gerund to the close (_e.g._
_prodendo_, XII. 17). Thus _tenui gutta ploratu lanis_ (XII. 116) is
intended to mean “after exuding in thin drops on to linen”; and the
lumbering collocation _adhibetur et ars iecori feminarum, sicut anserum,
inuentum M. Apicii, fico arida saginatis a(c) satie(tate) necatis repente
mulsi potu dato_ (VIII. 209) refers to the mode of securing sow-liver
as well as goose-liver—“the sows being stuffed with dry figs, and then,
when fattened, suddenly killed after having honied wine given to them to
drink.” Fortunately the world has not judged Pliny by his style.
Himself a pre-eminent epitomator and excerptor, Pliny in turn fell into
the hands of the epitomators and excerptors of the third and fourth
centuries. Their interest lay chiefly in his geographical and medical
portions.[1121] The _Collectanea rerum memorabilium_ by Solinus in the
third century shows much of his influence acting either directly or
indirectly;[1122] and the so-called _Medicina Plinii_ of the next century
drew copiously on his medical books, as the third-century poem in 1115
hexameters by Serenus Sammonicus had also done. Abridgement brought
upon many ancient originals the fate of disappearance; but this did
not befall the _Natural History_. From Symmachus in the fourth century
we learn that it was widely read; certainly it was used by Martianus
Capella and Isidorus of Seville. In the surviving MSS. we have about a
couple of hundred witnesses to its popularity in the Middle Ages. Bede
in the eighth century possessed a copy,[1123] and an astronomical work
in an Anglo-Saxon monastery drew material from at least two of the
books.[1124] In the next century Alcuin applied to Charlemagne for part
of the text; a poem by Alcuin includes Pliny among the volumes of the
library at York; and the Irish monk Dicuil made extracts from Pliny for
his _Mensura orbis terrae_. In the twelfth century Robert of Cricklade
(in North Wilts), Prior of St. Fridewide at Oxford, dedicated to Henry II
of England his elaborate _Defloratio_ in nine books excerpted from the
_Natural History_.[1125]
Writers of every period, in fact, profited by the diligence of a
compiler who took advantage of all moments to construct a main conduit
whereby the science of the ancient world might pass on to later times.
But it is natural that, while during less enlightened centuries he
was accepted as an authority, the modern spirit of research should
demand a fresh orientation towards his work judged as science. It is
significant that “a large part of Pliny’s work has gradually passed into
folk-keeping, so that through its agency the gipsy fortune-teller of
to-day is still reciting garbled versions of the formulae of Aristotle
and Hippocrates of two and a half millenia ago.”[1126] That, however,
is only one phase of his survival. On the permanence of his historical
value stress has already been laid. It is under this aspect that the
gigantic encyclopaedia best justifies the author’s unremitting pains and
a reader’s interest to-day.
FLAVIAN HISTORY
As Pliny was a historian, it is in place to give here the brief chronicle
of Flavian history. Primarily a business-like emperor, Vespasian himself
wrote memoirs. Cluvius Rufus[1127] connects the Claudian and Flavian
epochs. Of consular rank when Caligula was assassinated in 41, he was
governor of Spain in 69, and in his later years under Vespasian composed
his work on Nero’s reign which Tacitus used. Another recent historian
used by Tacitus was Fabius Rusticus[1128] who seems to have been alive
as late as A.D. 108. Vipstanus Messalla, an orator like Quintilian with a
preference for the old style, was a friend of Tacitus’s youth and author
of historical studies.[1129]
Under Domitian, history could not but suffer blight. The only names
that call for mention are those of Vibius Maximus, destined to become
prefect of Egypt in A.D. 104, and author of a universal history in which
Statius saw qualities recalling Sallust and Livy;[1130] and the two
Stoics Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio, composers of eulogies
upon Paetus Thrasea and Priscus Helvidius respectively, which, with their
philosophical independence, cost them their lives.[1131] These were
days when sentence of death was passed on Hermogenes of Tarsus because
his history offended the Emperor, and on Mettius Pompusianus because he
was interested enough in Livy to keep a volume of speeches by kings and
generals extracted from his pages.[1132]
CHAPTER II
QUINTILIAN: DECLAMATIONS AND ORATORS
Spanish birth and Roman influences—Immediate predecessors,
Africanus, Domitius Afer, Nonianus, Trachalus, Vibius
Crispus and Julius Secundus—A professorial chair—Pathos
of bereavements—Quintilian’s pupils—Lost works—Date of
the _Institutio Oratoria_—Its scheme—Four prominent
books—Importance of the child—Fundamentals—Transition
from Grammar to Rhetoric—On oratory without training—Hard
work essential—Moral and intellectual qualities
involved—Subject-matter and arrangement in a speech—Attitude to
technicalities—Practical application of oratory to law—Virtues
of style—Mechanism of adornment—The best authors—Quintilian as
critic—On delivery—Parallels with painting and sculpture—Attic,
Asian, Rhodian—Latin compared with Greek—Eloquence and everyday
language—_Sententiae_ spoken and written—Another division
of styles in oratory—The complete orator—Sources—Common
sense—Aspects of Quintilian’s achievement—His style—Reputation
through the centuries.
The two sets of declamations under Quintilian’s
name—Characteristics—Persistence of rhetorical
exercises—Rhetoricians and orators of the day.
QUINTILIAN
In M. Fabius Quintilianus[1133] we meet the premier teacher of
imperial rhetoric and the greatest Latin authority upon education. The
epigrammatist justifiably invoked him as
Quintilian, sovran guide of wayward youth,
Quintilian, glory of the Roman gown![1134]
Belonging to Calagurris in Spain,[1135] he spent some part, perhaps
a great part, of his early life in Rome, where his father may have
been a rhetor.[1136] Quintilian recalls the trial of Cossutianus
Capito in A.D. 57 as an event of his youth (_nobis adulescentibus_):
he mentions also his youthful attendance on the aged speaker Domitius
Afer,[1137] who died a year or more later. The conjectural date, then,
for his birth would be about A.D. 35. If we accept the evidence of
the scholiast on Juvenal,[1138] the distinguished grammarian Palaemon
was one of Quintilian’s teachers; and the common impression has been
that his education was mainly in Rome. He had studied observantly the
methods adopted by speakers of the previous generation, and his own
criticisms indicate some of the qualities that acted upon him. Among
these predecessors he ranks Julius Africanus high, no doubt for his force
(_uires Africani_, XII. x. 11), alongside of his old master Domitius
Afer, for whom, although a detestable informer under Tiberius, he
entertained a deep respect. He liked Afer’s _bon mots_ and his ripeness
(_maturitatem_): he recalls his treatise _On Witnesses_ and a speech
that circulated in his boyhood.[1139] Africanus, we learn independently,
indulged in a metaphorical style of which it was remarked “Very fine,
indeed; but what’s the point of it?”[1140] Among others who exerted
influence on Quintilian was Servilius Nonianus, to whose able though
discursive histories he had listened.[1141] Three recent orators he
particularly mentions together.[1142] They are Galerius Trachalus, whose
lofty style and lucidity appeared to more advantage when heard than when
read; for, says Quintilian, “he was blest with a voice such as I never
heard in anyone else and a delivery that would have done credit to the
stage” (_pronuntiatio uel scenis suffectura_);[1143] Vibius Crispus,
the notoriously successful informer whose pleasant style was apparently
better suited to private than to public cases;[1144] and Julius
Secundus, like Marcus Aper, one of the figures in Tacitus’s _Dialogus_,
and prevented only by his premature demise from developing into a great
orator.[1145]
While, however, rhetoric pervaded the atmosphere of Rome, we have no
means of determining how much Quintilian owed in training to his own
cultured home-province of Spain or whether he actually taught there. At
some time or other he had gone back to Spain; for in 68 Galba brought
him to Rome.[1146] He then entered on his career of teaching as a
professor, holding what may be termed an imperially subsidized chair
of rhetoric.[1147] His lectures earned him reputation, honours and
wealth. Pupils surreptitiously pirated his discourses, and he himself
was ultimately paid the compliment of elevation to the consulate.[1148]
After retirement from public teaching, he devoted the evening of life
to his work on the principles of oratory, dedicated to Victorius, or
Vitorius, Marcellus. Domitian entrusted to him the tutorship of his two
grandnephews, as we learn from the proem to his fourth book, where he
combines a perhaps diplomatically unavoidable flattery of the emperor
with the explanation that this mark of confidence in his educational
power had stimulated him to provide more than a manual on rhetoric for
the son of Marcellus and his own son. Before he had gone quite half-way
through his literary task the author suffered the pangs of severe
bereavement.
Striking the most personal note in his work, the proem to the sixth book
turns from technicalities to the broken hopes of a sorrowing father.
Addressed to Marcellus as the real begetter of the treatise, it tells
how the author had counted on bequeathing the work to be the richest of
inheritances for his son, then a promising lad of nine, but death had
intervened. In a fit of human petulance he upbraids the gods for causing
him to outlive all his dear ones. He had already lost his young wife in
her nineteenth year, then one boy of five, and now the surviving boy—a
clever child on whose accomplishments in Greek and Latin, and patience
during illness he dwells tenderly, so that amidst his apostrophes of
grief and Stoic reflections we are drawn nearer to him than anywhere else
in his writings. In spite of a few epigrammatic antitheses, true to the
rhetoric of the age, one cannot but be touched when he begs indulgence
if mourning should make his energy flag, finds his best security in the
thought that fortune has left herself no further chance of afflicting
him, and bespeaks a kind attitude to labours that are not selfish but
altruistic in aim. “This work, alas, like the acquisitions of my fortune,
I shall leave for others than those for whom I designed it.”[1149]
The first ten chapters of the second book enable us to picture the sort
of exercises prescribed by Quintilian in his apparently rather select
academy. These were written themes to be criticized; reading lessons in
historians and orators, with exposition and questioning; choice passages
for committal to memory; courses on the theory of rhetoric—all leading to
the supreme test of the declamation. A rhetorical instructor evidently
led a busy life. Help had to be given to pupils in laying out a scheme
of treatment, or marshalling arguments; the prepared speech had to be
listened to and criticized; models for comparison had to be composed by
the master. In addition, Quintilian took engagements outside school: he
gave public exhibitions of his skill,[1150] and he accepted briefs.[1151]
Many, therefore, who were not formally pupils came under his influence.
The younger Pliny mentions him as his teacher.[1152] On the other hand,
there is no proof that Tacitus or Juvenal attended his school. It is not
impossible that the former, who began his literary career with a flavour
of Ciceronianism had, like his friend Pliny, studied under Quintilian;
and passages in Juvenal,[1153] which look like reminiscences of
Quintilian, may imply acquaintance with the _Institutes of Oratory_ as a
book or with its author as an instructor. But here positive statement is
not defensible. Nor can a date be assigned for his death: it is usually
placed before A.D. 100.
Of his lost works the most valuable would have been his investigation
into decadence in oratory, _De Causis Corruptae Eloquentiae_.[1154] This
was a subject sure to engage the attention of criticism. Petronius, in
his romance, had put his finger on the weak spots in declamations, and
Tacitus handled the question in the _Dialogus_. Quintilian’s attitude,
we can infer, was that of the expert who recognized the evil effects
of unpractical exercises divorced from the concerns of ordinary life
and marred by artificial figures of speech.[1155] To Tacitus’s genius
the same problem presented itself in its historical setting: political
developments at Rome were no longer, he realized, such as to foster the
ancient greatness in oratory. Among Quintilian’s orations there was
only one which he published himself—an early effort defending Naevius
Arpinianus and admittedly issued from ambitious motives.[1156] But there
were others which admirers had taken down imperfectly in shorthand and
circulated under his name with a minimum of the real Quintilian in them
(_minimam partem mei habent_). We cannot tell whether such collections
included the two other cases which he definitely specifies—his speech
for Queen Berenice and that for a widow alleged to have forged a
will.[1157] There was, besides, a pair of unauthorized publications of
his lectures based on notes taken by enthusiastic students—the one on a
two days’ discourse; the other on a longer course.[1158] These appeared
under Quintilian’s name, but, as they are stated to be _libri artis
rhetoricae_, they can hardly be identified with either collection of
_Declamationes_ which used to be ascribed to Quintilian and which fall to
be noticed later.
His single extant work, the _Institutio Oratoria_, in which he gathered
up an educational experience of twenty years, was undertaken only after
prolonged resistance to requests made to him in his newly won leisure:
it took over two years to write, and even then, conscious of Horace’s
precept against hurried workmanship, he delayed publication, as he
explains to his publisher Trypho, from a sense that the two years had
been given more to collection of material than to style.[1159] If, as
is usually thought, the twenty years of teaching mean years spent in
Rome after his return in 68, then his retirement happened in 88, and the
earliest date for the issue of the treatise would be four or five years
afterwards, 92 or 93.[1160] In the other direction, the latest date must
fall before Domitian’s death in 96.
The author’s outline of his scheme in the twelve books is as
follows.[1161] Book I treats preliminary education from infancy; II,
the initial training under a professor of rhetoric. This leads to a
definition of rhetoric in which the essential divisions are _inuentio_
(getting the right subject-matter) and _elocutio_ (use of the right
style). Five books (III-VII) are assigned to _inuentio_ with the allied
subject of _dispositio_ (arrangement), and then four (VIII-XI) to
_elocutio_ with _memoria_ (memorizing of a speech) and _pronuntiatio_
(delivery). XII, as a culmination to the work, draws the picture of the
finished orator.
The books that stand out distinctively are the first, in which
Quintilian’s greatness as an educator is apparent—just where he would
have wished it to appear—at the earlier stages of education; the second,
in which he exhibits his method of teaching rhetoric; the tenth, in which
his list of authors suitable for study is accompanied by brief literary
judgements, many of them since grown familiar and famous; and the
twelfth, which conveys his final conception of the trained speaker. But
all possess value far beyond what might be looked for in a treatise on
oratorical instruction. This is largely due to the width of the author’s
purview. To educate a speaker was to educate a Roman gentleman; and
capable speaking was expected of all in public life. The training too
was in much more than in speaking. It had to build up character, and to
embrace the liberal arts.
Quintilian’s thoroughness impress one from the outset. This is what
gives to the first book its permanent appeal. In education the initial
steps are of vital importance; for early influences leave an indelible
imprint.[1162] No detail, therefore, is overlooked that might count—the
speech of a child’s nurse, parental example, manners of slaves, ways
of learning the letters, attention to syllables, or practice in saying
hard words. The last contributes to clear enunciation—so much neglected
in English education that we are fast becoming a nation of bad readers.
The principle of the Kindergarten is foreshadowed in the dictum that
mental work ought at the start to wear the shape of amusement. Quintilian
offers sound reasons for preferring school to the home as an educational
instrument: he believes in healthy emulation among boys and in the bond
of initiation into common pursuits. “Ambition,” he remarks, “may be a
vice, but it is often the root of virtues” (I. ii. 22). The best teacher
must be secured even for the rudiments, but the standard should never
be beyond the pupil’s capacity—the vessel must not be overfilled. One
section is concerned with testing intelligence and temperament, to which
instruction is to be adapted. Greek is prescribed from the beginning of
the school-course, as well as the use of standard authors, even though
the pupil may not appreciate them fully till later in life. Wider than in
modern times, “Grammar,” we have seen,[1163] embraces both the correct
use of language and the study of literature. Linguistic foundations
cannot be dispensed with: “without them the superstructure will collapse”
(_quidquid superstruxeris corruet_, I. iv. 5). The warning about the
danger of showy haste is as necessary now as in the first century.
“This advice” (to study grammar), he says, “would be superfluous, were
it not that most teachers, in their pretentious hurry (_ambitiosa
festinatione_), begin with what should come later, and, through a
preference for parading their pupils’ attainments in regard to the more
brilliant parts of their subject, actually hinder their progress by the
short cut” (I. iv. 22).
When, after careful grounding in language, the young scholar reaches
literature—where Homer and Virgil make the best reading-books—it will be
found that, as honey is drawn from various blooms, so eloquence needs
many arts for its support. There must be geometry and at least some
philosophy; besides, ancient poetry could not be understood without some
knowledge of music and astronomy. Before the book closes, a fine plea is
made for breadth of training, and for the love of accomplishments for
their own sake. Concurrent teaching of varied subjects is advocated,
because change of study stimulates mental activity, and there is a
tendency to underestimate the power of boys to bear the strain. For
many studies there will never be more free time than in boyhood; we are
apt to forget this and “shield laziness under the excuse of difficulty”
(_difficultatis patrocinia praeteximus segnitiae_, I. xii. 16).
Protesting against mercenary estimates of a subject, Quintilian says, “I
don’t want to have a reader who is going to count up how his training is
to pay him” (I. xii. 17).
The age for beginning the higher study of rhetoric, in contradistinction
to grammar, must depend not on years but on attainment (II. i. 7). As
the type of exercise in vogue has been indicated in the chapter on Roman
education and in the sketch of Quintilian’s academy, it need not detain
us. But attention may be drawn to the sanity of the pronouncements on the
need for ability, character, good temper and patience in a teacher; on
the mischief done to pupils by excessive applause or excessive severity;
on the promise indicated by exuberance of style; on the correction of
written work; on test-questions to make pupils think for themselves; on
the discussion of blemishes and excellences in speeches chosen for study;
on the deleterious influence of the proud parent; on the affection due by
pupils to teachers who are “the parents of the mind” (_parentes mentium_,
II. ix. 1). Regarding declamations it is worth observing that Quintilian,
while he recognizes their weaknesses and suggests improvements (II. x.
9), will not go the length of forbidding the imaginative type of theme.
There is a passage that implicitly states the case for such a work as the
_Institutio Oratoria_, by answering the question why the untrained in
speaking are sometimes thought more effective than the trained:
“An untrained speaker (_ineruditus_) employs abuse too openly and too
often, even to the peril of the party whose case he has taken up, and to
his own peril as well. At the same time, such a line gains a reputation,
for people like very much to hear things said that they would never have
consented to say themselves. A speaker of this sort still less escapes
the other peril that lies in style: he makes frantic efforts (_conatur
perdite_), with the occasional result that, while invariably casting
about for the extravagant (_nimium_), he may chance on a fine effect
(_aliquid grande_); but it is of rare occurrence and does not compensate
for undoubted faults. For this reason, the uninstructed sometimes appear
to have the fuller flow, because they say everything: trained speakers
feel the need of both selection and restraint (_et electio et modus_).
There is the further point that untrained speakers abandon the task
of proving what they have asserted! By this means they avoid what our
decadent law-courts (_corrupta iudicia_) consider dryness of question
and argument; and they seek solely the kind of thing calculated to
gratify the ear of the court with spurious delights. Besides, their very
epigrams (_sententiae_), which they make their one great aim, are the
more striking because the whole context is poor and mean—it is the case
of flashes that show brighter not in shadow, as Cicero has it, but in
downright darkness. So then one may call them geniuses to one’s heart’s
content, provided it remains clear that such praise would be an insult to
a really eloquent man.”[1164]
So much for the justification of his task. Full success, he is convinced,
is the fruit of hard work devoted to a difficult subject of wide
ramifications; and he can only congratulate, he remarks ironically,
those persons who are eloquent without any trouble or system or study
(_sine labore, sine ratione, sine disciplina_). The leisure secured by
his retirement from teaching and pleading while his services were still
in demand (_dum desideraremur_) will enable him to formulate principles
likely to help genuine students.[1165] To be sure, an absolutely
fixed system is impracticable: rhetoric would be a simple matter, if
even a division of it were capable of being summarized in one brief
instruction.[1166] But, subject to certain rights of deviation, rules
there must be:
It is upon great labour, continual study, varied practice,
repeated experiments, profound sagacity and ready resource that
the art of speaking depends. But it is also assisted by these
rules, provided they point out the straight road instead of one
fixed wheel-rut (_orbitam_); for if anyone believes it a sin to
deviate from it, he needs must submit to the slow progress of
a tight-rope walker! So we often quit the main military road,
allured by a short cut.... The orator’s task is of wide extent
and variety, fresh almost every day, and on it the last word
will never have been said.[1167]
So Quintilian addresses himself to the details of his work with a
dignified consciousness of its utility and indeed of its divine
call—for speech, the God-given endowment which distinguishes man
from other beings, undeniably deserves assiduous cultivation.[1168]
Defined as _bene dicendi scientia_, rhetoric, in addition to natural
ability and expert training, demands a moral basis. A good character is
insisted upon over and over again as an essential qualification of the
orator, who is defined in Cato’s familiar words as _uir bonus dicendi
peritus_.[1169] Without sound morality the glib speaker endangers both
the community and his own soul. Equally indispensable to a great orator
is wide knowledge. As shown in the chapter on Roman education, Cicero
actually recommended _omnium rerum magnarum atque artium scientiam_,
while Quintilian’s requirements are more moderate—_sed mihi satis est
eius esse oratorem rei de qua dicet non inscium_,[1170] _i.e._ he must
study the subject on which he is to speak. This explains why during
schooldays, though the pupil’s individual bent is to be taken into
account, yet some breadth of training should be compulsory for all. It
will be observed that this raises the question of the educational profit
of training in subjects which a student may not like. We have seen that
acquaintance with subjects like music, geometry, astronomy, outside
the professional training was recommended at an earlier stage: and the
importance of ethics, physics, dialectic, law and history could not be
overlooked.[1171] Purely vocational specialization for an orator would
defeat itself.
At the outset of the five books allotted to matter and arrangement
(III-VII), Quintilian, conscious that technicalities are unavoidable,
gives warning that there will be much “wormwood and little honey” (_parum
mellis et absinthii multum_). To his credit, he is not so dry as he
promised to be. Certainly we are no longer interested in deciding into
how many divisions the _status_ of a case should fall. On the other
hand, it would be too much to expect him entirely to renounce or even
denounce the _multa in nominibus differentia_ (III. vi. 47) as futile
verbiage; for that would be opposed to the loyal spirit which led him
to record, with merciful reductions, the terminological exactitudes
used by generations of predecessors. We may, then, rest content in the
confidence that he must have writhed under a boredom which he could not
end. Technicalities notwithstanding, there is much of value. We would
not be without his sketch of Greek and Roman writers on rhetoric,[1172]
which marks his interest in the past of his subject and constitutes an
ancient bibliography on it as well as some indication of his sources. It
is good to be told that of the two schools Apollodoreans and Theodoreans,
the former represented an older type of oratory and were specially keen
on _narratio_, the statement of a case; also, that Apollodorus taught
Augustus, whereas Theodorus taught Tiberius. Again, when, after adopting
the ancient tripartite division of oratory into laudatory, deliberative,
and judicial, Quintilian adduces among deliberative exercises a technical
term like _prosopopoeia_,[1173] his remarks have the refreshing merit
of showing his sound educational preference for a difficult thing.
_Prosopopoeia_ was a dramatic exercise in character—a declamation where
the speaker assumed the personality of the supposed deliberator; and
Quintilian holds it to be the most useful of exercises for the excellent
reason that it involves double the amount of work and develops the powers
of future poets and historians.
Another testimony to his concern for the practical application of oratory
is found in the predominance of its judicial aspects. In none of the
parts of a speech, _prooemium_ or _exordium_, _narratio_, _probatio_,
_refutatio_, _peroratio_, do we ever seem far from the law-courts, so
that interesting and sometimes entertaining light is thrown on criminal
and civil procedure. Illustrations are drawn from the handling of
arguments in Cicero’s speeches; and various problems are threshed out,
such as the conciliation of a judge, the countering of an opponent’s
pleas, or the admissibility of more than one answer to a charge. We
are reminded of risks in a digression (_egressio_) which is sandwiched
between the statement of a case and the enumeration of points to be
dealt with (_propositio_). We recognize the virtues of a _narratio_
when told that it must above all be understood, remembered, believed.
Further, we learn the autobiographical fact that Quintilian was an adept
at _narratio_, with the consequence that, in lawsuits where the pleading
was shared among several advocates, he was usually asked to present the
case—a circumstance which he mentions with a justifiable Apollodorean
pride.
This legal atmosphere prevails throughout the fifth book in the treatment
of proof, oaths, witnesses and rebutting arguments; and again through the
sixth on perorations, sway of emotions, and the _altercatio_. Fortunately
other matters are touched on. In one passage[1174] he denounces the
absence of solid reasoning—a want of virility to his mind—which weakened
declamations composed merely to attract notice. They are like foils with
the button on (_praepilatis_), and have no sinews (_neruis carent_).
Among the emotions he examines laughter,—a perennial problem for the
psychologist—and on it is prudent enough to confine himself to a single
chapter, recognizing the merits of the facetious and illustrating
various types of pleasantry more or less funny. The attempted
classification of jokes foreshadows no solution of the origin of laughter
on the basis of psychoanalysis or otherwise: he is frankly puzzled: “a
joke is appreciated not by the reason but by a mental impulse perhaps
inexplicable.”[1175] The seventh book—on arrangement—largely reflects the
management of actual lawsuits. Here the process of thinking out points
in a case recalls to the author several times his own practice. There is
one most instructive example of the different lines on which the same
academic case may be argued.[1176]
With four books to write on style (_elocutio_) and delivery
(_pronuntiatio_), Quintilian declares that difficult portions of
his work are still ahead. Good style is not compassed by taking
thought: as he mischievously remarks, “it has happened that some most
painstaking authors of manuals have themselves been very far away from
eloquence.”[1177] Mere attention to words (_cura uerborum_, VIII.
_pr._ 18) is not enough, for real style is not a matter of showiness.
Solicitude over verbal niceties quenches the ardour of imagination.[1178]
Yet the right sort of labour earns its reward: “no appropriate word
will be lost by the man who first of all has learned the principles
of eloquence, and by prolonged and judicious reading has acquired a
plentiful stock of words, and applied thereto skill in arrangement; and
who, besides, has strengthened all by abundant practice, so as to have
it constantly at hand and before his eyes.... When our words are sound
Latin, significant, elegant and appropriately arranged, why need we
trouble further?”[1179]
One of the positive virtues in style is its due embellishment
(_ornatus_); for the attainment of correctness and perspicuity is but
to have avoided faults.[1180] Such adornment should be virile, noble
and chaste: it must not court an effeminate flightiness or artificial
showiness: it ought to be radiant, as it were, with healthy blood
and vigour. And so _ornatus_ leads him to its mechanism in “tropes”
(including metaphor, metonymy, irony, hyperbole) which he distinguishes
from the “figures” of Book IX. These figures depend either on the
thought (like interrogation, personification, apostrophe) or on language
(climax, paronomasia, antitheton or balance).
The chapter on the cultivation of style (_de compositione_, IX. iv.)
is of vital importance for the student of Latin. It deals with charm
in style, with the compact and the loose type of prose (_uincta_ or
_contexta_, and _soluta_),[1181] order of words, jarring of consonants,
final _-m_, jerkiness produced by a run of monosyllables, and
prose-rhythm. It is an appropriate echo that the book should end with the
Ciceronian _clausula_ “esse uideatur.”
The long opening chapter of Book X contains Quintilian’s list of the
best authors for study, first Greek and then Latin, in the provinces of
poetry, drama, history, oratory and philosophy. When he comes to Roman
writers, he adds satire, and makes the well-known claim, _satura quidem
tota nostra est_, which, though fully defensible in one sense needs in
another as much qualification as Horace’s statement that Lucilius depends
entirely on old Attic comedy. In estimating Quintilian’s judgements, it
should be remembered that they are primarily made from an oratorical
standpoint. The chapter is not a piece of pure literary criticism. There
is in it, as regards the Greeks, a good deal of traditional appreciation
according to Alexandrian and Pergamene canons, and in many of the brief
findings we feel that Quintilian has missed saying the right thing.
Again, his attitude to history shows the limitations of his period. Here
he is not advanced enough to conceive of history as a science as well
as an art. Influenced by the prevailing tendency to compose history on
rhetorical lines with purple patches and poetic descriptions, he holds
it to be _proxima poetis_ and in a sense “poetry free from the shackles
of metre” (_carmen solutum_, X. i. 31). Nor is there any dream of a
philosophy of history; there is no testimony to its power of guidance in
the hands of the greatest masters; and when he avers that, in contrast
with forensic oratory, it has nothing to do with proof, he ignores the
part played in historical investigation by the weighing of documents and
evidence. All the same, on the purely stylistic aspect of history, he
has said memorable things, like _densus et breuis et semper instans sibi
Thucydides, dulcis et candidus et fusus Herodotus_, or his ascription
of _lactea ubertas_ to Livy and of _breuitas_ as well as _immortalis
uelocitas_ to Sallust.[1182]
The traditional element in his criticisms, particularly on Greek
literature, lessens his claim to originality. Broadly similar to
Dionysius of Halicarnassus in order of treatment, he probably used both
his work περὶ μιμήσεως and some of its sources.[1183] Though he does not
name him in Book X, he does so elsewhere more than once. But it should
be remembered that he had open access to an extensive _corpus_ of Greek
criticism with its canonical lists of authors arranged in different
branches of literature. Such literary canonization received the sanction
of renowned authorities like Aristophanes of Byzantium and his follower
Aristarchus; and similar lists issued from Pergamum. The stiffness of
treatment and fixed habit of comparison which are the outcome of this
inheritance leave their mark upon Quintilian: he is too starched in his
grouping and too fond of finding for Greek writers a supposed analogue
among the Romans. In respect of Latin literature, he is freer to employ
his own reading and his own judgement. Though he had at least three
well-known predecessors in the field of Latin criticism—Varro, Cicero
and Horace—who were available, still here he speaks more clearly for
himself.[1184] There is no mistaking either his genuine predilection
for Cicero,[1185] whom he only occasionally criticises and then
apologetically, or his almost consequential dislike of Seneca as master
of a newfangled but unhealthily attractive style in prose.[1186]
Neat though many of the verdicts on Roman writers be, they are, except
in fuller critiques like those on Cicero and Seneca, too perilously
adapted for unintelligent repetition by label-lovers. What purports to
be criticism in a nutshell contains so small a fraction of the whole
truth as to be virtually false or positively useless. It takes us, for
instance, but a little way to find Lucretius put alongside of Macer for
graceful handling of material, with the qualification that the latter is
“tame” (_humilis_) while the former is “hard reading” (_difficilis_);
and, while among elegiac poets Tibullus may properly be singled out for
smooth finish, it is extraordinarily unsatisfying to read the added words
“there are some who prefer Propertius.” Equal disappointment is felt on
realizing that Catullus is regarded as a bitter lampoonist rather than
a lyric poet. Yet within his limits Quintilian has given us much to be
grateful for. It is illuminating to read the comparison of Ennius to
the venerable oaks of the forest; or the opinions that Julius Caesar,
granted more time for forensic oratory, would have rivalled Cicero; that
Ovid was too much in love with his own genius; and that Lucan for all
his fire, impetuosity and epigrams, must be frankly reckoned a model for
orators instead of poets. It is of service also to have testimony to the
excellence of lost plays like Varius’s _Thyestes_ and Ovid’s _Medea_.
Quintilian’s view was that Latin tragedies might rival Greek, but that in
comedy Rome was crippled.[1187]
The treatment of _memoria_ in Book XI gives an opportunity for the record
of some wonderful powers of memory. _Pronuntiatio_ (or delivery), which
follows, is, we are told, termed “action” by most authorities, “but it
appears to derive the one name from the voice, the other from gesture.”
On this appeal to ear and eye, Quintilian lays great stress: “personally,
I should be inclined to declare that language of but moderate quality,
if recommended by forcible delivery, will produce a more powerful effect
than the most excellent language, if deprived of that advantage.” He
contemplates in language a standard of correct, clear, elegant Latin
pronunciation free from anything rustic or foreign,[1188] and in gesture
a convincing fitness to the thought. “If gestures and looks are at odds
with our speech, if we utter melancholy words with a cheerful air, if we
assert anything in a tone of denial, it is not merely impressiveness that
is lacking to our words, but credibility as well.” Besides, there must be
restraint: to prance about while speaking is to “overdo the business”—the
bad habit of the professor who was jocularly asked how many miles he had
declaimed![1189]
It is in the last book that the moral dignity of Quintilian’s conception
is best revealed. In the definition of an orator as “the good man
skilled in speaking,” the indispensable requisite is put first: whatever
academic labour may be involved in gaining the prescribed skill, he must
before everything be good. “This is of moment,” he insists with a Roman
_grauitas_, “because, should the oratorical power furnish the equipment
of wickedness, then nothing would be more ruinous than eloquence alike
to national and to private interests.” He might be expected to share
Hecuba’s contempt for Odysseus as the glib orator, prepared to sacrifice
every consideration to please the majority.[1190] This stress on morality
is so emphatic that his occasional concessions regarding a speaker’s
avowal of the truth almost wear the guise of Macchiavellian lapses.[1191]
The tenth chapter of Book XII is full of value. Brief parallel surveys
of Greek painting and sculpture faintly raise the hope that an attempt
might be made, as in Lessing’s _Laocoon_, to demarcate the provinces of
painting and literature. What in fact they lead up to is an instructive
glance at dominant qualities in different Roman orators, and at the
change in prevalent opinion about Cicero’s speeches. Once upon a
time censured by hostile critics as florid and exuberant, they had
come in Quintilian’s day to be thought meagre and dry. Thereupon we
get the famous division of oratory into three traditional styles—the
restrained Attic, the inflated Asian and the intermediate Rhodian.
With the grammarian Santra’s explanation of Asianism, as due to the
circumlocutions used by imperfect speakers of Greek on the Asiatic coast,
he cannot agree. More plausibly he refers differences in oratory to
national and racial differences in speaker and hearer. “Attic” one may
cheerfully pronounce the best style; but there is Attic and then again
Attic. In an admirable passage he picks out types of Attic orators, among
them Demosthenes and Pericles, to remind us how distinct in quality they
were.
But now, as to what vitally concerns him, Latin eloquence (_Latina
facundia_), he feels it cannot be properly discussed except from a
comparative standpoint. How does the Latin language appear when placed
side by side with Greek? Here two thoughts may present themselves to
the reader, first, that Quintilian possessed the great advantage which
Aristotle as a critic did not possess, and the later author of the Περὶ
ὕψους did not use to any extent, of having the best of both Greek and
Roman literature on which to form a judgement, and, second, that some
authorities have tended to overstate Quintilian’s homage to Greek.
On the latter point it may be said that this passage shows the Roman
critic endeavouring to hold the balance evenly between a well-grounded
traditional reverence for Greek and a patriotic confidence in the
virility of Latin. No modern can hope to estimate either Greek or Latin
sounds exactly with Roman ears, or to appreciate fully the counts on
which he finds Greek more pleasant than Latin. He dislikes, for example,
the letter _f_, particularly in the combination _fr_: he prefers the
ringing final -ν of Greek to the “lowing sound” of the Latin -m. It is,
however, easier to follow his complaint about the _paupertas_ which
involved Latin in repetitions unneeded by Greeks, and he is entitled to
note the rich variety of Greek dialects. Yet he is not dismayed:
He who is to demand from the Latins the acknowledged grace of
Attic speech must give me the same sweetness in utterance and
equal supply of words.... The less help our language gives,
the more we must battle in the production of thought. Sublime
and varied conceptions must be brought forth. All the emotions
should be stirred, and our speech illumined with the gleam of
metaphor. We cannot be so graceful as the Greek: let us be
more vigorous. We are defeated in subtlety: let us prevail in
weight.[1192]
A curious anticipation of the Wordsworthian doctrine of poetic diction
in the preface to the _Lyrical Ballads_ appears in the contention next
examined—that there is no natural eloquence except in the language of
ordinary life.[1193] Quintilian furnishes a sensible answer in his
insistence on the fundamental difference between the common language
and the speech of an eloquent man. If the theory were correct, then the
orator’s sole task would be to apply plain words appropriately, whereas
his duty is the wider one of delighting, touching, influencing hearers,
and for such aims he must employ other aids—aids that are also granted to
man by nature. Exercise is as needful and natural for the orator as for
an athlete; and so in all nations one man is recognized as more eloquent
than another.
Passing to the striking thoughts (_sententiae_) characteristic rather
of Latin than of Greek oratory, Quintilian holds they are admittedly
serviceable within limits—if they bear on the case, are not overdone, and
contribute to a speaker’s success.[1194] They have the merit of being
impressive in a single hit (_uno ictu_), memorable for brevity, and
effective by their charm (_ipsa breuitate magis haerent et delectatione
persuadent_). Now are these ingenious flashes of epigram permissible
in a spoken but not in a written oration? On this question, while he
owns that the spoken speech may have to be somewhat cut to fit it for
permanent book-form, Quintilian yet makes the significant declaration
that ultimately an identical law of criticism must rule: “I consider
it one and the same thing to speak well and to write well.”[1195] The
broad validity of this is not impaired by special circumstances like the
necessity for addressing a popular jury or adapting one’s pronunciation
to suit an illiterate witness.
Thereupon another threefold division of styles is given without any
explicit attempt to relate it to the previous geographical triad. The
three types are the plain (ἰσχνὸν), to instruct; the grand (ἁδρὸν), to
move; and the intermediate or flowery (ἀνθηρὸν), to charm.[1196] We are
quickly assured that the three have many subdivisions and gradations of
shade, and that eloquence cannot be confined rigidly by classification.
All varieties have their uses: besides, an orator is not always equal to
himself. One thing is clear—it is a mistake to believe that a corrupt
and flamboyant type is sure to be popular.[1197] In any case, the true
orator will achieve his supreme effects with the ease that comes to the
successful climber above the zone of difficulty, and he will respect that
sense of due restraint (_modus_) without which nothing is praiseworthy
or beneficial.[1198] Similar judgement (_ratio_) is applicable to all
aspects of oratory, where, as in Aristotelian ethics, virtue lies in the
mean (_utriusque ultimum uitium est_).[1199]
Towards the end, he not unnaturally thinks of the judgements which
his work may encounter. To the best of his ability, he has put his
knowledge at the service of those desirous to learn: “and it is enough
for an honest man to have taught what he knew.”[1200] But he anticipates
criticism on his exacting demand that the same individual shall combine
the highest ethical qualities with the highest intellectual proficiency
based on extensive academic study—a sort of Admirable Crichton in
oratory. If it be objected that his conception is too ideal, that it
implies too much work, and that there is no time for a training so
elaborate, then the answer to each count is ready: “let those who incline
to despair reflect how great is the ability of the human mind, and how
capable of realizing its aims....[1201] Next let them think how noble
is the object, and that no toil should be shirked with such a reward in
view”; then in a Senecan tone he adds, “it is we ourselves that make our
time short; for how little do we devote to study! The empty ceremonial
call filches some hours, leisure squandered on gossip other hours, public
shows and conviviality others still.”[1202] He is conscious of an aim
transcending all this as he continues: “let us pursue wholeheartedly the
true majesty of eloquence, than which the immortal gods have granted
nothing better to mankind, and deprived of which all things remain
dumb, lacking illumination for the present as well as remembrance among
posterity: let us unceasingly strive after the highest, for so doing
we shall either attain the summit or at the least behold many below
ourselves.”[1203]
Quintilian’s eclectic erudition was drawn from wide reading in Greek and
Latin. A full list of its sources would almost amount to a catalogue
of rhetorical literature.[1204] He was conversant with Greek theories,
old and new, on his subject. Both Aristotelianism and Stoicism exerted
influence upon him; Chrysippus[1205] contributed important elements to
his educational doctrine; and there is ground for believing that he
studied the critical works of learned Greeks who had lived in Rome under
Augustus, like Caecilius Calactinus (_i.e._ from Cale Acte in Sicily)
and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Among his Latin authorities on rhetoric
Cornificius (usually identified with the _Auctor ad Herennium_), Cicero
and Celsus were notable; while grammatical material was borrowed from
Verrius Flaccus, Remmius Palaemon, and the elder Pliny. Quintilian
possessed besides, as his quotations, allusions and criticisms show, an
indispensable acquaintance with the best poetry and oratory composed in
Latin.[1206]
Perhaps more than his learning, already glanced at, it is Quintilian’s
prevailing sanity that impresses us. His common sense is apparent in
his refusal to lose himself, despite an intricate subject, amidst a
maze of rules, definitions or subdivisions; in his consequently drastic
reduction of the technicalities infesting the ordinary _artes_ or
handbooks; in his repeated reminders that actual oratory gave birth to
the rules, not the rules to oratory, and therefore that mere adherence
to rules will never make a great speaker; in his admonition that rules
cannot fit all occasions, but that circumstances alter cases; in the
instructive citations of his own practical experience; in his recognition
that weighty responsibility in a law-court is very different from the
fictitious cases of the schools, with the corollary that practice
without learning is better than learning without practice;[1207] and
in the broadminded pronouncements that one’s chief model should not be
one’s sole model,[1208] and that the moderns are not entirely to be
ignored.[1209] With a similar eye for the practical, believer though he
was in ideals, he condemns the foolishness of aiming at an unattainable
perfection, and tells an illustrative anecdote. Julius Secundus, when a
young student, was once found by his uncle in despair over the exordium
of a speech on which he could not make a satisfactory start in spite
of three days’ work: his uncle, an experienced speaker, rallied him
smilingly into a sensible view by the pertinent question: “You don’t
want, do you, to speak better than you can?”[1210] Quintilian would not
have progress in a great subject hindered by fantastic hypercriticism:
_dicendum pro facultate_.
So much common sense and such preoccupation with the making of an orator
may forbid us to expect anything startling in his criticisms. Practical
in retrospect and outlook, he could not fail to value literature mainly
by standards of utility. He does not turn his eye upon sheer beauty of
words as the author of the Περὶ ὕψους does;[1211] nor has he any _flair_
for romance that might have made him appreciative of the tale of _Cupid
and Psyche_ or the _Peruigilium Veneris_, had they appeared in his day.
It is not without significance that the grim wrestlings in Lucretius’s
soul or in Catullus’s heart appear never to have affected him. The frenzy
of despair and the fires of love are not such stuff as sound oratory is
made of; and in any case it may be that he shares Horace’s antagonism
to Catullus and Propertius, who had the temerity to exalt love into an
absorbing passion and who could never have taken the Augustan official
view of marriage as a civic duty. But Quintilian has admirable qualities
which find parallels in our own Age of Reason during the eighteenth
century. In contrast to the manifold affectations of his day, he shows
a noticeable severity of taste. He seeks on all occasions to discern
clearly and think directly, because he has a zest for truth; he uses
learning without flaunting it, while his maturity of judgement is saved
from becoming oppressive by grace of expression and occasional gleams of
humour. The kindliness of his heart, his sympathy with learners, and his
steady resolve to help education forward are winning traits that make the
_Institutio_ something far higher than a manual of rhetoric.
It had been his ambition to produce an up-to-date handbook on an orator’s
training that might be deemed equally classic with the rhetorical works
of Cicero. To this object he devoted the fruits of his reading, teaching,
and thinking, so that on the technique of the past conjoined with his
personal experience he was enabled to rear with admirable discernment a
coherent system from which the aspirant after oratorical triumphs might
realize the extent and pertinacity of effort involved. Within the field
of rhetoric, no ancient writer has rivalled him in varied fullness of
achievement. He not merely gave us an excellent treatment of grammar
in its literary aspects, of rhetorical technicalities, of idiomatic
and euphonious prose, of the contrasted virtues and styles perennial
in speaking and the avenues towards success; he not merely left us an
incidental sketch of select Greek and Latin authors; but even outside
the realm of composition and criticism he proved himself to be one of
the great educators.[1212] Though there may be no inkling of modern
psychological paedagogy or of recently devised intelligence-tests, yet
many of the eternal principles of a sound education are to be found in
him stated for all time with convincing authority. The fact that many of
his pronouncements retain their applicability amidst modern problems of
teaching is, like the constant citation of his critical dicta, among the
proofs of his permanent value.[1213]
Quintilian’s personal preferences in style can be gauged from the two
cautions prescribed for young students, the one against an uncouth
archaism, the other against the allurements of modern affectation
(_ne recentis huius lasciuiae flosculis capti uoluptate praua
deleniantur_).[1214] Admirer though he was of the Latinity of the Golden
Age, and, in particular, a confessed follower of Cicero, abjuring all
such artificial glitter as he associated with Seneca’s compositions,
he was yet sufficiently a product of his own age to betray in his
prose the new literary tendencies.[1215] That was inevitable. The most
potent will could not avail to reimpose on writers a Ciceronian Latin
unchanged after a lapse of nearly a century and a half. Quintilian,
then, while he soberly avoids meretricious tinsel, is himself a proof
of the alteration in the language since the close of the republic. The
examination of single words, idioms, sentence-structure, and of literary
ornament half-shyly used, must definitely place him in the Silver Age.
There are words like _amaritudo_, _consummatus_, _formator_, _profectus_,
professor which he shares with several post-Augustan prose-writers;
some like _insenesco_ and _secessus_ that have come from Augustan poets
into subsequent prose; others of which we do not know in Latin before
him, like _adnotatio_, _circulatorius_, _destructio_.[1216] He has his
own dash of the poetic tinge that now coloured prose—simple verbs for
compounds (_finire_ for _definire_, _solari_ for _consolari_), abstracts
for concretes, and adjectives employed as substantives.[1217] Signs
of Silver Latin are noticeable in the sense he gives to adverbs like
_alioqui_ and _olim_, or to prepositions like _circa_ and _citra_.
Equally symptomatic is the fondness for augmentatives in _prae-_, like
_praedurus_, _praedulcis_, _praetenuis_, and the absence of the intensive
_per-_ compounds familiar in Cicero.[1218] So, too, with syntax, in such
constructions of the infinitive as _opponere uerear_ or _legi dignus_.
The change is, however, more than one in vocabulary and syntax. The
usual ring of the sentence is different from the Ciceronian.[1219] The
old amplitude of period is rarely present: it is replaced by a frequent
looseness of structure whereby causal and adjectival clauses are tacked
on to the sentence in a semi-detached fashion which operates against
the harmony and euphony of the whole. Consequently, in spite of express
preference for the ancient style of oratory,[1220] there is no longer the
same fullness or symmetry in Quintilian’s modified Ciceronianism. It was
Filelfo, in the fifteenth century, who suggested that one might detect
in Quintilian a smack of Spain (_sapit Hispanitatem_) and departure
from good Latin (_barbariem quandam_); but it is as hard to isolate any
characteristic Spanish colour or atmosphere or humour in him as it is to
recognize the Patavinity of Livy. His style is, at least, free from that
smart artificiality which offended him in the oratory of his day; for he
stigmatizes it as a great contemporary fault to court praise by studied
effects under which the artifice lay transparent. “People consider that
the art is lost, unless it is obvious; whereas it ceases to be art, if it
is obvious.”[1221] This is in substance a return to the Horatian maxim
of literary sobriety, _ars est celare artem_. A pervading restraint
recommends him to the confidence of readers, and has contributed to form
a prose which, without Aristotelian profundity or Ciceronian brilliance,
is worthily adapted to the ripeness of experience that everywhere seems
to speak through it. So it comes that after Seneca’s clever restlessness
one has a sense of calm in Quintilian.
* * * * *
What were the vicissitudes of Quintilian’s reputation? Martial’s
apostrophe, already cited, was a proclamation of his educational
supremacy, as, in a left-handed way, was the fathering of spurious
_Declamations_ upon him. The _Dialogus_ of Tacitus owed its inception
probably to Quintilian’s inquiry into decadence in oratory. Published to
meet an express demand, his _Institutio_ must have enjoyed for a time
a vogue which is reflected in the attitude of Juvenal and Suetonius.
From Suetonius descended the information entered in Jerome’s _Chronicle_
of the fourth century: besides, Jerome’s letters imply acquaintance
with Quintilian’s writings. But the Frontonian archaizers of the second
century had checked the pro-Ciceronian authority of Quintilian, and
in fact we have for 300 years no evidence proving direct knowledge
of his work.[1222] In the fourth century Quintilian appears to be
known, except to Jerome and possibly Lactantius, solely through the
_Declamations_. After Jerome, in spite of the fact that Cassiodorus and
Isidorus recognize his rhetorical eminence, there are great intervals
in time during which no mention of Quintilian can be traced. One of
these long silences was broken in the ninth century when Servatus Lupus
wrote to the Abbot of York asking for a copy of the twelve books of the
_Institutio_—a request which he also preferred to the Pope with the
explanation that he possessed only incomplete copies of Quintilian and
of the _De Oratore_.[1223] Silence falls again for a couple of centuries
until, in the twelfth, the testimony of John of Salisbury proves that
some of Quintilian’s methods were in use at the school of Chartres; nor
is that the solitary evidence for monastic acquaintance with his work at
this period.[1224] Next century, the encyclopaedist Vincent of Beauvais
knew his text at first hand; and then Petrarch’s enthusiastic handling
of a manuscript of the _Institutio_, “discerptus et lacer” though it
was,[1225] brings us to the verge of the Renaissance.
A strong reinforcement in the posthumous influence of Quintilian came
with the rediscovery of a complete text by Poggio at St. Gall in 1416.
Five years earlier, in 1411, Guarino had translated into Latin the
treatise of disputed authenticity Περὶ παίδων ἀγωγῆς which is included
among Plutarch’s writings and which is affected by a great deal of
Quintilian’s educational theory.[1226] The two events united to confirm
the hold of Quintilian over humanism at the Revival of Learning.[1227]
In the general purpose of the humanist educator—the production not of a
pedantic recluse but of an all-round man and fully equipped citizen—there
was great similarity to the aims of the _Institutio_. For the attainment
of Quintilian’s ideal no less than for that of the Renaissance, it was
requisite to develop natural gifts by training, to form character by
the lessons of standard literature, and to ensure an attractive dignity
of bearing in social relations. The modern might be expected to find
more ways of employing leisure nobly than a Roman gentleman of the
Empire, to have more freedom of personal grace, and to show, if less
oratorical cleverness, then perhaps more skill in conversation—but the
fundamental basis for both systems was the same, and this explains why
Quintilian was so warmly taken to the hearts of the humanists. His
influence was enormous on educators like Vittorino da Feltre, Aeneas
Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II), Guarino, Agricola, Bebel, Vives and
Melanchthon. Nowhere did it work more clearly than on Erasmus himself.
In England Quintilian’s authority can be traced decidedly as far back
as Elyot’s _Governour_ of 1531. Ascham was much less impressed, whereas
extensive borrowings from Quintilian went to the making of Ben Jonson’s
_Discoveries_. Later, among great figures in our literature, Pope stands
out as the one who had most understanding of “grave Quintilian’s copious
works,” where “the justest rules and clearest methods” are “all ranged in
order and disposed with grace.”[1228] Apart from inevitable references
in the comparatively modern treatises on rhetoric by Blair, Campbell and
Whately, it must be recognized that Quintilian has scarcely attracted
in Britain his due share of attention—but then we are not a rhetorical
nation.
DECLAMATIONS AND ORATORS
Two sets of _Declamationes_[1229] have come down under Quintilian’s
name in separate MSS, the one consisting of nineteen fairly elaborate
productions, the other of 145 shorter and sketchy ones from a collection
originally numbering 388; for time has mercifully spared us the first
243. The ascription to Quintilian does not now convince many scholars of
the authenticity of either collection. There has not, however, always
been equal distrust. The Oxford editors of the longer declamations in
the seventeenth century published them as specimens of his method,
anticipating in the preface gratitude for omitting “the sorry remains
and unsightly ruins” (_miseras reliquias et informia rudera_) of the 388
shorter ones. On the other hand, these same remnants were claimed for
Quintilian by Aerodius in the sixteenth century and by Ritter in recent
times.
In neither collection is the Latin notably irregular. There are in the
nineteen longer declamations no very glaring deviations from classical
diction to make belief in Quintilian’s authorship _prima facie_ absurd
on bare linguistic grounds. Yet features in the form of argument and the
over-frequent recourse to _sententiae_ of doubtful relevance point to a
later date for some of them at least. Ritter thinks four authors[1230]
are represented; and Reitzenstein thinks even more, in which he is
supported by Golz after an examination of the _clausulae_.[1231] Few may
accept in detail the groups arrived at by tests partly subjective and
partly numerical; but it is likely enough that some are nearer in time
to Quintilian than others and may actually represent themes used in his
school. A plausible guess is that we have here a collection made and
perhaps amplified by a contemporary of Gellius or Apuleius.[1232]
As early as the third century A.D., there was current a collection of
declamations referred to Quintilian but recognized as containing spurious
specimens.[1233] Jerome and Servius in the fourth century, and later
Isidorus, quote from the longer declamations; Jerome, indeed, like
Lactantius, quotes other declamations now lost. The belief of antiquity,
therefore, that some of the declamations came down from Quintilian was
unquestioning. But here, where there is so much triviality, so much of
what he himself condemned in oratory, our hardest task is to believe
either collection worthy of the great teacher. Ritter, however, has
championed the authenticity of the shorter pieces, claiming that as legal
speeches by Quintilian were brought out without his permission, so it is
possible that these scholastic speeches were issued in an unauthorized
way. Of two works in the province of rhetoric mentioned by Quintilian
as having been published by enthusiastic pupils from notes, Ritter
identifies the second with the shorter declamations; but, as this second
work is stated to have been taken down in a comparatively few days, it
is not easy to think it the same as the long series of what was once 388
school-themes, or to think it could be appropriately mentioned as an _ars
rhetorica_.[1234]
It remains to glance at the collections themselves. The “learned and
ingenious hand” who made the English version of the nineteen specimens
in 1686 regarded them as an “exercitation or praxis upon Quintilian’s
XII Books,” naïvely pronouncing them to be “the cream and product of
the most promising wits (in the schools) culled out and polished by the
second hand of the master.” Some turn upon immorality or crime: some have
a public bearing: more often, with features akin to the Greek comedy of
manners or a modern novel, their interest is social or domestic. A few
could be served up as romances like _The Philtre of Loathing_ (XIV, XV),
or as spiritualistic cases for investigation by the Psychical Research
Society, like _The Spell-bound Tomb_ (X), in which a mother, hitherto
comforted by visions of her dead son, is aggrieved because a magician,
at her husband’s instigation, has by enchantment cut off communication
with the ghost. A detective story might be made out of _The Wall with
Handprints of Blood_ (I); and then we have the usual quota of pirates. A
half-romantic theme like a wizard’s prophecy may be entangled with two
imaginary laws which create a dilemma for debate. Thus, the fourth case
concerns a brave young soldier whose horoscope, read by an astrologer
long ago, had foretold that he would win distinction in battle but would
one day kill his father. Now, there are supposed to be in this state two
laws; (i) “A warrior who has served his country nobly may choose his
reward;” (ii) “A citizen who meditates suicide must render satisfactory
reasons for his resolve in open senate, under the penalty (so dreadful
to the ancients) of having his body refused burial.” Here is the crux.
The wizard’s prophecy about his valour has come true: he cannot face the
likelihood of committing parricide which has by the power of suggestion
become an obsession. The only way out, therefore, is to kill himself; but
to secure burial he must gain the senate’s approval. This, then, is the
reward which he will ask—leave to put himself to death:
“I, who am willing to die that I may not commit parricide, do
not see but I must commit it, if I continue to live.... As
for my father, who would keep me alive against my will, I do
not wonder at him, because he is still overjoyed at the fresh
acquist of my martial glory (_adhuc recenti gloriae nostrae
gaudio stupet_).... He cannot see the parricide through the
champion.”
The situation is not one which could ever trouble the student in actual
life, but, like many other exercises, it served to evoke ingenuity in
pleading. We seem to see literature in the making, when we chance upon a
miniature study in the workings of fate that might form the basis of a
Greek tragedy:
“My father was so far from being deterred by the prediction
of his own danger that he himself, I say, (alack for the
melancholy force of fate—_proh tristis necessitas!_), girt on
my arms and equipped me for battle with his own hands, as if
assured of the astrologer’s veracity (_tanquam mathematico iam
credidisset_).... And now he will not have me die, though there
is nothing left for me to do but to murder him. O Death, who
art commendable for the valiant, desirable for the wretched,
and not to be rejected even by the happy! How much have I
courted thee in war! (_quanum te quaesiuimus in bello!_)”
He relates how he bore a charmed life amidst the deadliest dangers: as no
foe could slay him, he now must beg permission to kill himself:
“Titles, statues, dignities—reserve them for those who must
live: guarantee me but my father’s safety, my own innocence,
and the respect of history (_temporum pudorem_).... I trust the
House will not consider that my father’s appearing against me
(_contradictione_) debars me of my reward.”
The pleader contends that in any case it is better to die young in the
midst of one’s fame than to endure the decrepitude of old age; but, in
his special case, he is destined by his horoscope to die as a felon, if
the fortune-teller spoke truth. Then comes a fresh turn. His valiancy in
battle after all could only have been downright frenzy:
“I was not myself when I fought so gallantly; and I shall
commit parricide too when I am not myself.... God forbid that
I should tarry till the issue decide the conflict betwixt
the wizard’s response and myself. I had rather defeat the
astrologer than find fault with his predictions (_mathematicum
uincere malo quam reprehendere_).”
This, then, is the paradoxical _impasse_: he can baulk his destiny
only by death. If he is allowed to die now, his father, who admittedly
loves him, will be able to shower affection upon his body, and (in the
peroration)
“when you have had enough of farewell embraces, then and not
till then is it right to lift up your hands towards heaven and
cry out, ‘Wizard, thou art a liar!’ (_mathematice, mentitus
es_).”
It is wonderful with what variety of argument or reflection upon life
and death, astrology and the power of prediction, such a theme can be
elaborated. Similar dexterity, worthy of more solid cases, pervades
most of the orations. It scarcely matters whether we have a lawsuit to
compensate a poor man’s loss of bees through poison sprinkled on his rich
neighbour’s flowers, or a strange malady of sleepy sickness attacking
twins, of whom the doctor undertakes to cure one if he is allowed to put
the other to death and hold a _post-mortem_!
* * * * *
The shorter declamations (and some are fortunately quite short) are more
profitably represented in specimens than in their wearisome total. The
problems are such as arise out of cases of outrage, divorce, adultery,
murder of or by outlaws, tyrannicide, military desertion, shipwreck,
prodigality of sons, harshness of fathers, or (like later Italian
_novelle_) marriage between a son and a daughter of hostile families.
Handling the type of theme already worn threadbare in Augustan days, they
cannot be considered uniformly entertaining. Yet there are exceptions,
and all is not monotony. One may even be grateful for absurd instances
with outlines that might serve for wildly impossible tales; and, dipping
further into the collection, one cannot deny that it has some variety. We
may light upon the Gilbertian situation of a Cynic youth with a professed
contempt for the good things of life objecting to disinheritance by
his father; or a sober question of legacies to relatives or freedmen;
or a semi-economic discussion on a proposed equalization of property,
with such pertinent queries as whether it is to be for once and all, or
whether the equalizing process is to be carried out as often as some
one, for any reason whatever, is found to have less than his fellows.
Favourite themes are dilemmas due to conflict between two laws: _e.g._ If
a man exiled for treason has come so gallantly to the aid of his country
in wartime that she gratefully recalls him, can he have his original
conviction reviewed in spite of a law that the same case must not be
heard twice? Or, again, if an exile has illegally come home before his
time has expired, is he entitled to plead a law permitting an injured
husband to inflict on his wife and her paramour the fate that befell
Paolo and Francesca? A common _motif_ is that of an outraged woman.
There is a refinement of this theme in the case where the unfortunate
lady seems at various crises to jump out of the frying-pan into the
fire. Against her father’s wish, she had exercised her option to marry
the violator rather than have him put to death. For this compassion her
father disowns her. When her father afterwards fell into poverty, filial
affection impelled her to relieve his straits in spite of her husband’s
objection; and for this he divorces her! Many cases, however, are of a
stereotyped character, with little to differentiate them from the elder
Seneca’s examples, except perhaps greater silliness.[1235] In the case
of the imported slave dressed by a dealer as a free citizen to cheat
the Customs, one recognizes a parallel to that given by Suetonius as an
illustration of the _controuersia_.[1236]
It is usual to find imaginary points of law freely and subtly raised,
effective lines of argument being sketched in the _sermo_, and the
rhetorical handling in the _declamatio_. Sometimes we get more than one
_sermo_ and _declamatio_: sometimes a section is devoted to the law
of the case before it is examined in equity: sometimes the _sermo_ is
absent, leaving the _declamatio_, as in the dispute among three sons, an
orator, a physician, and a philosopher, claiming the property of their
deceased father, whose will constituted as his heir the son who should
be proved to have best served the state. The general method may be
exemplified in _The Digging up of the Parricide’s Bones_.[1237] Two laws
are here assumed that may conflict: (i) “Let a parricide’s body be cast
out unburied”; (ii) “Let the violation of a grave be actionable.” The
statement of the case is in brief as follows: a father on his death-bed,
declaring that his two sons have poisoned him, enjoins on his daughter
the duty of vengeance. She accuses them both. Before the trial one
commits suicide and is buried in the family tomb. The other, when tried,
is found guilty, put to death, and his body left to rot. The daughter,
presuming the guilt of the suicide, has his corpse exhumed and cast
forth. She is charged with illegal violation of a grave. In the _sermo_,
among questions suggested for discussion are these: is it illegal to
disinter a buried person in any circumstances? More particularly, is it
legal for one who could have prevented the burial in the first instance?
Does the law, in forbidding burial of a parricide, forbid burial only
of persons duly convicted? From the _declamatio_ a few sentences may
indicate the rhetorical line of defence:
“So then (had he not been exhumed) the dead parricide would
have been buried and laid in lasting rest beside his father
(his victim)!... Is such treatment to be conceded to one whom
the law would cut off from the light of heaven when alive and
from the earth when dead?... Must not a dutiful daughter listen
to the troubled ghost of her father, unable to bear contact
with a guilty son?”
Tediously unreal though the declamations are, they have a genuine
importance in the history of ancient education and eloquence. They link
the exercises of the Golden Age, as recorded by the elder Seneca, with
those of several succeeding centuries. Deserving to die of their own
dullness, they yet had surprising vitality, so that when we turn to the
Greek declamations of the sophist Libanius, whose works help to make the
century of Gregory Nazianzenus, Basil the Great and Julian the Apostate
live again for us, we find the time-honoured themes still under treatment
in the Eastern empire. The gibe of Gibbon that Libanius lived too much
in the times of the Trojan War and in Athenian history might lead one to
overlook other themes of his, of equal artificiality but of more social
interest, in which preternaturally embittered fathers, unscrupulous
stepmothers and disinherited sons play much the same part as they do in
the Latin exercises that passed under Quintilian’s name.[1238]
Quintilian himself passed on what he found valuable in the rhetorical
lore of writers like Rutilius Lupus and Celsus. He mentions
together[1239] the senior rhetorical authors of his own day, Verginius
Flavus, Pliny (the elder), and Tutilius, thus looking back in the case of
the first-named to the Neronian age; for Verginius, as has been noted,
taught Persius. Tutilius is named by Martial,[1240] when he counsels a
parent to avoid for his boy’s instructors all grammarians and rhetors,
and so “leave Tutilius alone in his glory.” It is unfortunate for the
completeness of our record that Quintilian expressly omits mention of
authors alive when he wrote the _Institutio_.[1241] Princeps was a
rhetorician whom Suetonius could remember as giving on alternate days
exhibitions of declamation and disputation. Julius Tiro is mentioned
just after Quintilian himself in Suetonius’s list of rhetoricians, and
Julius Gabinianus, who figures in the same list, won a great name as a
teacher in Gaul during the Flavian period.[1242] M. Aquilius Regulus,
the younger Pliny’s bugbear, wrote books including a biographical lament
on his dead son, but unscrupulously applied his oratorical gifts in
delation, as did the hated Baebius Massa, Mettius Carus and Palfurius
Sura. At the bar there were many able speakers less famous than Tacitus
and Pliny themselves, such as Herennius Senecio, who was with Pliny in
the impeachment of Baebius Massa; Vitorius Marcellus to whom Quintilian
dedicated his _Institutio_; the African Septimius Severus, grandfather
to the emperor of that name, and known to Statius and Martial; Satrius
Rufus whom Pliny characterizes as content with contemporary style without
seeking to rival Cicero (which Pliny himself tried to do); Valerius
Licinianus, a native of Bilbilis, admired as a sort of Cicero by his
fellow-Spaniard Martial, exiled under Domitian, but allowed by Nerva to
settle as a professor of oratory in Sicily; and one of Martial’s patrons,
the Spaniard Licinius Sura, who later composed speeches for Trajan.
CHAPTER III
FRONTINUS AND TECHNICAL WRITERS
Career of Frontinus—A general’s prose anthology of
_Stratagems_—Who wrote the fourth book?—Frontinus’s treatment
of sources—The water-commissioner’s account of _The
Aqueducts_—His scheme—Belief in honest work—Glimpses of his
character—Latinity.
Professional writers of the Flavian age.
FRONTINUS
The works of Sextus Julius Frontinus[1243] originated largely in posts
which he held during his public career. No one could have shown more of
that thorough devotion to the details of official duty with which many
of the best-born Romans ensured the greatness of the Empire. Frontinus
was of good family, and his friend Martial alludes to a poetic vein
discoverable in him during leisure hours at the coast.[1244] Since,
however, his books are practical rather than literary, it looks as if
the energetic general and water-commissioner found scant time for any
play of fancy. On New Year’s Day A.D. 70 we meet him[1245] at a sitting
of the senate, which he had summoned as city praetor, prepared presently
to hand over his office to the young prince Domitian. His birth-date,
then, may be guessed as about 40. In Britain his name is of historic
interest; for as governor (75-78) he proved a worthy successor to the
vigorous Cerealis, whose successes against the Brigantes of the North he
equalled by victories over the Silures in the difficult territories of
South Wales.[1246] It is likely that the Roman road from Bath and beyond
the Bristol Channel westwards by Caerwent and Caerleon was engineered
under his orders, even if it was not yet called the Via Julia. He was
succeeded by Agricola in 78; but presumably saw further military service
with Domitian in Germany against the Chatti in 83, since he makes
specific allusions to the emperor’s tactics.[1247] Some time afterwards,
we know from internal evidence,[1248] he was at work on a collection of
stratagems in continuation of an earlier tactical manual, and at its
outset he claims to be the solitary author to treat military science
systematically.[1249] It was in 97 that Nerva, aware of much slackness
and corruption in the administration of the water-supply for Rome, showed
confidence in the ability and integrity of Frontinus by appointing him
superintendent of the aqueducts (_curator aquarum_).
To the new commissioner’s determination never to rely upon subordinates
for advice but to learn for himself everything of moment affecting his
task[1250] we owe his immediate start upon the historical, topographical
and statistical record which we possess in the _De Aquis_. Consul for
a third time in the year 100, he held the position of augur until
103, the date of a letter by the younger Pliny[1251] acknowledging a
correspondent’s congratulations on his own nomination by the emperor to
the college of augurs in succession to Frontinus. We may therefore infer
that he died in that year.
If all his writings had survived, they would have added still more to
the technical and professional effect of those we have. He composed
a work on land-surveying and land-laws, but of this gromatic treatise
only excerpts have come down.[1252] His theoretical treatise on military
science (_De re militari_) is lost; but in the extant _Strategematon
Libri Tres_ we have a sequel for the use of officers,[1253] illustrating
principles of war by stratagems chosen from Greek and Roman history. They
are grouped as those for use (Book I) before battle, (Book II) during
battle and after; (Book III) at sieges; and are again subdivided into
sections headed “on concealing one’s plans,” “on finding out the enemy’s
plans,” “on escaping from difficult positions,” and so on.
A fourth book, containing anecdotes of another sort, has come down with
_The Stratagems_ and constitutes a problem. The preface acknowledges
that the recorded instances illustrate military management rather than
stratagems (_exempla potius strategicon quam strategemata_). They are
treated in categories such as “discipline,” “restraint,” “justice,”
“determination,” so that the ethical aspect forms a contrast to the three
preceding books. The book has not lacked champions of its authenticity
even in recent times.[1254] Whereas, however, the three books on
stratagems bear marks of common authorship with the _De Aquis_,[1255]
there are considerations that tend to isolate the fourth book. These
include differences in thought between it and the undoubtedly genuine
parts of the prefaces, and, throughout, differences in build of sentence,
in turn of expression and use of words.[1256] Equally tell-tale are
traces of a change of tone in the latest preface; besides there is no
clear explanation of the departure from the author’s express resolve to
write three books.
Yet the Latinity of Book IV does not appear to be demonstrably so much
more post-Augustan than that in Books I-III that critics need put it
as late as the fourth or the fifth century.[1257] Expressions quoted
against it like _de uariis consiliis_ are not decisive. Gundermann[1258]
passed a more discriminating judgement upon its Latin by referring it to
a date close to Frontinus’s own, early in the second century. Schanz’s
hypothesis claims that the author was contemporary with Frontinus, and
that he recorded an actual experience of his own in the surrender of
the Lingones in A.D. 70 to himself.[1259] It is difficult to believe in
this unknown officer, who for this one occasion betrays his personal
experience and in several other places relies upon Frontinus’s instances.
The hypothesis in any case has to assume that a third person combined
this book with the genuine three, and, to effect a plausible deception,
not only wrote a fictitious preface for the later book, but also foisted
a passage, ostensibly by Frontinus, into the original introduction to
the earlier work.[1260] But it is not an unnatural supposition that the
fourth book was written by an imitator impressed with Frontinus’s example
and responsive to Roman interest in military literature, and that he paid
his model the compliment of incorporating material from him.[1261] If
this author pretended to write as Frontinus, the episode of the surrender
of the Lingones may have been an insertion by him to lend verisimilitude
to his forgery; if not, it was due to a subsequent interpolator, who, on
all the theories, seems a necessary postulate to account for certain
intrusions and repetitions in the text. The borrowings are not all made
by the author of Book IV, for some of his work is found interpolated in
the earlier collection.[1262] And what sort of interpolator or editor
must we picture when we find instances repeated even within the space of
the opening book?[1263]
Any collection of anecdotes pure and simple, even in the lightest vein,
is apt to pall: so one tires of the concentrated essence of stratagem in
campaign or siege administered in tabloid doses without comment. While
Macaulay can thrill in relating “how well Horatius kept the bridge,”
Frontinus’s bald account is Livy with all the _lactea ubertas_ squeezed
out.[1264] Here and there, however, points of interest arise. Some of
his examples of Machiavellian diplomacy or astute _ruses de guerre_
prove that everything may be held fair in war. When we read about a
screen of prisoners (_captiuos lateri euntium praetexuit_, I. iv, 1:
_cf._ 2), or about poisoning an enemy’s water-supply (_aquam hellebore
corruptam_, III. vii, 6), we recognize that unchivalrous devilry in
military operations is not a peculiarity of any one period; while an
instance of premeditated disregard of a covenant (III. iv. 6) anticipates
the doctrine that treaty obligations must yield to military necessity.
If such examples are abreast of modern ruthlessness, the author himself
appears hopelessly antiquated in his naïve confession that he sees no
prospect of improving engines of war.[1265]
Frontinus took the majority of his examples from Greek and Roman history
before the Empire. Occasionally we find something later, like an allusion
to the _Variana clades_ of A.D. 9, or to Corbulo’s fighting in Armenia
during Nero’s reign, or to Domitian’s campaigns; but his main sources
are Caesar, Sallust and Livy. No stress need be laid on the two passages
where Livy is cited by name (II. v. 31 and 34); for both are possibly
interpolations. On the whole, Frontinus is free in his rehandling of
originals, as may be seen if one compares passages in Livy with his
adaptations.[1266] If, further, one compares passages in Livy with the
adaptations by both Valerius Maximus and Frontinus,[1267] one will find
that the latter does not show the almost slavish dependence upon Valerius
which characterizes the author of Book IV.[1268] Sometimes indeed
Frontinus is free to the extent of carelessness and inaccuracy. He is
capable of confusing occasions and individuals. Thus he misrepresents
Livy’s Diodorus as Diodotus (III. xvi. 5); turns a device used by
Cincinnatus against the Volscians into one by Capitolinus against the
Falisci (II. viii. 3); alters to Cimbrians Livy’s Celtiberians (II. v.
8), having in the preceding section (II. v. 7) called Viriathus “dux
Celtiberorum,” though he is “dux Lusitanorum” elsewhere (II. xiii.
4). The trick ascribed to Manlius as a means of encouraging his men
against the Etruscans (II. vii. 11) appears, on comparison with Livy and
Dionysius, to involve a mistake between two colleagues. In such cases
Frontinus’s memory may have played him false amidst the multitude of
names with which he had to deal.
The _Strategemata_ belongs to Domitian’s reign. The more famous treatise
_De Aquis Vrbis Romae_, in two books, was begun under Nerva, but not
finished until Trajan had succeeded him.[1269] Only those without
historical sense will dismiss as totally unreadable his description
of aqueducts once vital in their utility and still in ruin imposingly
picturesque. Undertaken in the conscientious spirit of mastering his
business and instructing successors,[1270] the author’s labour was
lightened by belief in the value of his duties; for, in his eyes, the
maintenance of the aqueducts gave “a signal testimony to the greatness
of the Roman Empire” (_cum magnitudinis Romani imperii uel praecipuum sit
indicium_, 119). He had to contemplate a state of things very different
from the old times when for 441 years Rome had been content with water
from the Tiber, wells, or springs. Springs, he allows, may have healing
virtues, and are still the objects of veneration (_fontium memoria
cum sanctitate adhuc exstat et colitur_, 4); but his concern is now a
practical one, directed upon nine or ten majestic conduits bringing water
for miles over stone arches into the city.
His scheme embraced an account of the builders of the aqueducts, dates
of construction, direction, length of channels, elevations, measurements
of pipe-capacity and of volume at intake and delivery, as well as a list
of curators up to his own day. Statistical details of wastage and of the
amounts of water distributed by the several aqueducts in the several
wards are certain—and the author knows it—to be complicated as well as
dull (_non ieiunam tantum sed etiam perplexam_, 77); but he prescribes a
cure in judicious skipping (_licebit transire leuiora_). We soon weary
of the _quinaria_, the official unit of measurement, which Di Fenizio
has recently calculated to have equalled 0.48 litre per second or 41.5
cubic metres per 24 hours. Yet even a cursory perusal yields instructive
items. We read about the limpid drinking water that came from the Marcia;
about unnecessary blending with turbid waters which spoiled the best;
about fraudulent tapping of the supply; about the system of repairs; and
topographical facts which illuminate features of the landscape near Rome
to-day. A good deal is not literature but archaeology or engineering.
All the same, it is a human document presenting an unvarnished picture
of scrupulous and observant fidelity in the control of an essential
public service, where there had been slackness and dishonesty. Through
its unpretentious style shines a personality with a true conception of
civic virtue, determined to aid Nerva and Trajan in undoing the abuses
of the previous reign. For a man of culture it must have entailed
some self-sacrifice to settle down upon the dry _minutiae_ of the
water-supply. Still, he was rewarded by a satisfaction in work well
done which justified his proud reflection that his reforms had, under
imperial auspices, made Rome a salubrious city:
The Queen and Mistress of the globe realizes from day to day
the care bestowed by our devoted emperor Nerva, her ruler;
still more will the health of this same eternal city realize it
in the increase of reservoirs, waterworks, fountains and tanks.
No less benefit is distributed among individual consumers
owing to the increase in the emperor’s private grants: those
also who nervously used to draw an illegal water-supply are
now relieved from anxiety and enjoy it by imperial bounty.
Not even waste-water is lost: the look of the city is clean
and improved: what we breathe is purer: and, as regards the
unwholesome atmosphere, the causes which gave to the air of
Rome its bad name have been removed.[1271]
The old-fashioned practical Roman of limited outlook speaks through the
disdainful self-complacency of his exclamation:
With such a number of indispensable structures for all these
waters you are welcome to compare the idle Pyramids or all the
futile, though renowned, works by Greeks.[1272]
This, however, is a note of national _hauteur_. As an individual he was
the reverse of boastful, and his modesty is illustrated in Pliny’s story
about his forbidding any monument to be erected to himself, because,
as he pithily put it, “Our memory will last if deserved by our life”
(_memoria nostra durabit si uita meruimus_).[1273]
The composition of the _De Aquis_ involved, besides personal observation
and inquiries, research among records and business documents. Part of its
material is based on reports from surveyors and engineers. Senatorial
decrees affecting the aqueducts are recited.[1274] Among Roman writers
quoted are Fenestella, Ateius Capito and Caelius Rufus.[1275] It was
characteristic of the man that his style should be straightforward in its
freedom from artifice. He liked parade in composition as little as he
did in the performance of duty. Dispensing with the attendants decreed
to a water-commissioner on official business outside Rome, he declares:
“for myself, when on my rounds inspecting the conduits, my own honesty
and the authority given by his Majesty will serve for lictors” (101).
So, too, he wisely refrained from pomp or epigram on such a subject as
the water-supply. Very occasionally there is a sly hit, like that at
the honesty required from masons on the wall “in accord with a law more
honoured in the breach than in the observance” (_secundum legem notam
omnibus sed a paucis obseruatam_, 123). But his belief, as we have
learned from Pliny, that a man’s surest memorial is a worthy life makes a
complete _apologia_ for the absence of literary refinements.
His Latinity has been just glanced at in connexion with the problem of a
pseudo-Frontinus. The “Silver” mark is unmistakeable in such usages as
_citra_ meaning “without,” _circa_ meaning “about” or “over,” _quamquam_
with subjunctive or participle, and future participles with a notion
of purpose.[1276] A reader can tell his whereabouts in the history of
the language, when three lines in the preface to Book III give him
_hucusque_, _praelocutione_ and _attentione_ (used absolutely, as in
Quintilian). Many such typically post-Augustan words as _sequelae_ (II.
iv. 8) occur, or at least words, as we should expect remembering the
main source of the _Strategemata_, that are Livian but otherwise mainly
post-Augustan, like _exasperatus_ (II. i. 11), _praeualere_ (II. i. 8)
and _subinde_ (I. iii. 10, iv. 13; II. iii. 23, ix. 1; III. ix. 7). There
are poetic epithets like _inrequietum_ (II. ix. 1) which prose took over
from Ovid, and there are phrases like _bello adfusus_ (I. i. 8) and
_profunda siluarum_ (I. iii. 10) that have a Tacitean ring. _Annuntiare_
(= _nuntiare_, I. ix. 2) is one of the words common to Frontinus with
the elder Pliny and Apuleius which passed through the _sermo cotidianus_
and ecclesiastical Latin into the Italian _annunziare_ and the French
_annoncer_.
We have had occasion to point out resemblances between the _Strategemata_
and the _De Aquis_ in their Latin. The latter is nowhere more obviously
post-Augustan, or non-Ciceronian, than in its employment of the
superlative _piissimus_ (_De Aq._ 88). Used by Mark Antony and condemned
by Cicero as impossible,[1277] it was accepted by Curtius, Seneca,
Tacitus and Florus. Resemblances between Frontinus’s Latin and that of
Book IV are explained away by Wölfflin as conscious imitation on the
part of the spurious author. It is at least arguable that, since words
of his like _adiutorium_, foret as a variant for _esset_, _notabilis_
and _subinde_[1278] belonged to the manner of the period, there was
no need to steal them. Representative words in Book IV bear the same
general post-Augustan stamp, usually with a Livian association, like
_praecessisse_ (IV. ii. 1, “be before others” in getting a bridge
built), _praeoptare_ (IV. ii. 2, v. 22, “prefer”), _acclinauerat_ (IV.
v. 5, “leaned against”), _ampliaretur_ (IV. iii. 12, “be increased,”
an extension from the legal sense of adjournment). As a significant
parallel to _inrequietum_ in the unchallenged part of Frontinus, we
have an Ovidian word in _obmurmurare_ (IV. vi. 2). The whole linguistic
evidence runs counter to any violent separation of the books in time of
composition.
TECHNICAL WRITERS
In the professional writing of the Flavian age, law and grammar may be
included. Under Vespasian, the Sabinian school of jurists was represented
by Caelius Sabinus, and the Proculian by Pegasus. Other legal writers
were Urseius Ferox, Plautius, and Juventius Celsus the elder. The younger
Juventius belongs, with Neratius Priscus, to later Flavian days and still
more to Trajan’s reign. One of the juridical writers of Domitian’s time
was Aufidius Chius, mentioned by Martial. Among refined literary critics
of the day was Apollinaris, also in Martial, whose Claranus, however,
perhaps belonged to an earlier period. Possibly, but not certainly,
we may place here Largius or Larcius Licinus, whose _Ciceromastix_ is
significant of a literary quarrel; and Aemilius Asper, the erudite
grammarian, who left his mark on ancient scholarship by his commentaries
upon Terence, Sallust and Virgil.
CHAPTER IV
VALERIUS FLACCUS
What is known of the life of Valerius Flaccus—Romance in his
theme—Predecessors—The story of the _Argonautica_—Apollonius
of Rhodes and Valerius—How was the epic designed to end?—The
Roman element—Comparative lack of vogue—Features of his
language—Metre—Qualities of style.
C. Valerius Flaccus[1279] belongs, at least in part, to the time of
Vespasian. If we accept “Balbus Setinus” or “Setinus Balbus,” the
additions to his name in _subscriptiones_ of the Vatican MS., then he may
have been a native of Setia, but whether that was the Setia in Campania
or one of two Setias in Spain it is impossible to determine. No special
Spanish qualities are discoverable in him, and he was Roman enough to
serve on the committee of fifteen for sacrifices.[1280] Almost at the
outset of his _Argonautica_, in invoking the emperor, he refers to
Vespasian’s service in British seas, to the recent capture of Jerusalem
by Titus in A.D. 70, and to the supposed likelihood that Vespasian’s
younger “offspring” (_proles_), Domitian, might celebrate his brother’s
exploits:
O thou yet more renowned for opening
The ocean, since the Caledonian wave
(That erst disdained our Trojan-blooded race)
Hath yielded to thy sails, O sire revered,
Raise me above the herd, and cloudy earth.
Show favour to a bard who sings the fame
Of heroes of old days and deathless deeds.
Thine offspring shall unfold (for he hath skill)
Judaea’s fall, and how his brother, smirched
With Salem’s dust, launched firebrands everywhere,
War-maddened all along the towered walls.[1281]
Beginning his epic, therefore, soon after 70, he made slow progress;
for in the third and fourth books[1282] he alludes to the eruption of
Vesuvius in 79, and apparently he never completed the eighth book.
Quintilian, writing in the early nineties of the century, is the only
classical writer who mentions him. His words of regret over his recent
death (_multum in Valerio Flacco nuper amisimus_, X. i. 90) suggest that
Valerius died about A.D. 90.
In the Quest of the Golden Fleece Valerius had a subject which no one
could make entirely dull. The tale of the earliest of ships,[1283]
the Argo, of its hazards by sea and land, of the love between Jason
and the outlandish princess Medea, and of the perilous winning of the
dragon-guarded treasure contains the same inherent romance as that which
colours adventures upon the Spanish Main, so that Heredia’s line in _Les
Conquérants_ might equally well have been written of Jason’s crew,
Ils allaient conquérir le fabuleux métal.
Here too were voyagers for whom, under the perpetual imminence of the
unknown, each night brought hopes and dreams of heroic morrows. This is
the stuff of which epics can be made. Valerius, luckier in choosing such
a theme than Lucan and Silius were in drawing upon history, could hardly
fail, notwithstanding the trammels of his episodes, to catch and convey
some gleams of its pure roseate charm. The story of Statius’s _Thebaid_
stirs in the bosom little perceptible emotion; but it is otherwise with
the fortunes of the Argonauts. A primeval glamour plays round a legend
which may be older than the tale of Troy: and we can be sure that it is
older than the composition of one of the Homeric poems as we have it,
for in the _Odyssey_ Jason’s fabled ship is mentioned as in all men’s
minds.[1284]
In a story so old, Valerius had many predecessors. He was not even the
first Roman poet to handle it. Varro of Atax had based a work on the
_Argonautica_ of Apollonius of Rhodes, and a reference in Probus[1285]
to Varro makes it likely that his poem was accompanied with a commentary
whence Valerius might have derived material. Ancient Greek writers on
the myth, Herodotus, the Attic tragedians, Apollodorus and Diodorus seem
to have furnished Valerius with subject-matter, but whether directly,
or indirectly through _scholia_ on his chief source, Apollonius, it is
hard to say.[1286] Later Greek writers also contributed their portion;
and his geographical learning, as in the catalogue of peoples in Book
VI, came more probably from Eratosthenes than from the elder Pliny. To
his material sources Valerius added inventions of his own, and treated
the whole in a style upon which the influence of Virgil and of Ovid are
unmistakeable.
The hexameters of the eight books reach a total of 5593, and Book I is
the longest (851). Greek though the theme be, the poet’s aspiration
is that his “utterances may fill the cities of Latium” (l. 21). The
narrative opens with the jealousy felt by Pelias, king of Thessaly,
towards Jason, the son of his brother Aeson, and his crafty plan to
despatch his nephew on the dangerous Quest of the Golden Fleece under the
pretext of revenge on Aeetes of Colchis for the murder of Phrixus. Jason
feels the lure of glory, prays for the favour of Juno, and at Minerva’s
command builds, decorates and solemnly launches the Argo. Heroes flock
to man her—Hercules brings the youth Hylas, and Chiron his ward Achilles.
Sunset comes and
Dotted along the crescent bay are lights
That show not lands as yet to mariners,[1287]
because there are no mariners! Orpheus whiles away the hours of night
with a relevant ballad on the drowning of Helle by falling into the
sea from the back of the golden ram, and on the escape of Phrixus, her
brother. When the Dawn-goddess comes, “setting the sea a-shimmer with
the morning sun,”[1288] it is to display the adventurers in readiness
for their start, which takes place after Jason’s parents, Aeson and
Alcimede, have given utterance to their grief at the parting. A catalogue
of the crew is added in about 130 lines (352-483). Their number is fifty,
including Acastus, Pelias’s son, who joins stealthily at the moment of
sailing. It is one of Valerius’s many departures from Apollonius that
he more subtly represents Jason as inducing his cousin to share the
dangerous voyage, whereas Apollonius makes him join voluntarily. Another
difference is his introduction of the catalogue at a considerably later
point than in Apollonius—an improvement, because he has first roused
the human interest in the heroes. To the signal of three trumpet-blasts
the galley sets forth, Telamon stroking on port-side and Hercules on
starboard, with Orpheus to give time to the rowers, Argus in charge of
ship-repairs, and Tiphys as pilot. The sailing has not passed unnoticed
in heaven. The Sun-god, sire of Aeetes, whose domain is threatened,
complains to Jove, Mars supporting the complaint, while Juno and Pallas
oppose it. It is the old celestial machinery conventional in epic. As in
Virgil, Jove replies, unfolding destiny with a Roman note prophetic of
other empires,[1289] and, again as in Virgil, the hero’s ship is menaced
by a storm which Neptune calms. Meanwhile, Pelias’s impotent grief over
the secret departure of his son in the Argo is vigorously described.
He can strike at Jason through his parents, as he declares in Latin
reminiscent of Virgil:
Here too, thou robber, thou canst suffer wounds:
Here there be tears and thy beloved sire.[1290]
But the old folk resolve to forestall the cruelty of the king, and drain
a cup of bull’s blood. The death of Aeson and his consort is the occasion
for a picture of the under-world strongly marked by Virgilian influence.
Both in ideas and language the last twenty lines of the book recall
_Aeneid_ VI: _e.g._ the new adaptation of the Twin Gates; the joys of
light, dance and song in the abodes of bliss; and the type of life on
earth that is a passport to happiness.[1291]
The feeling that the Argonauts were “the first that ever burst” into a
silent sea is skilfully suggested early in Book II by the description of
sundown:
The sunset hour had doubled every fear,
When now they saw heaven’s face revolve, while hills
And plains were wrested from their eyes, and round
Lay darkness heavy. E’en the peace of things—
The great world’s silences—affrighted them,
And stars, and sky begemmed with streaming locks.
Then, as one who in land unknown is lost,
Still wandering on his journey through the night,
Finds ne’er a rest for eye or ear, but all
Around the blackness of the earth, and trees,
That seem to meet him blacker for their shade,
Deepen his dread of night—not otherwise
The heroes felt alarm.[1292]
Guided by the stars, they make Lemnos; whereupon a digression relates
how it came that Vulcan loved and Venus hated the island. Digression
though it be, it is a well-told tale (which in turn influenced Statius)
concerning the murder by the Lemnian women of their husbands returning
from war, and Hypsipyle’s rescue of her royal father in an old ship.
Her love for Jason is a copy in miniature of Dido’s for Aeneas. Jason,
like the Trojan prince, has to be reminded of his mission; and there is
grief in Lemnos when the Argonauts leave. The book contains a further
incident—the rescue by Hercules and Telamon of the daughter of Laomedon
from the sea-monster, and the scheming of the mean-souled Laomedon to
avoid giving the rescuer the promised reward of white horses. Putting to
sea again, they pass the narrows between Europe and Asia and are welcomed
by King Cyzicus in his town.
Most of Book III is occupied with two incidents—the fight against Cyzicus
and the capture of Hylas by a water-nymph. The former is a fatality due
to a mistake pathetic in intention but in essence incredibly grotesque.
The Argonauts have sailed away laden with farewell gifts from Cyzicus.
Now, the goddess Cybele nurses a grudge against the royal house for the
slaughter of one of her sacred lions during a hunt. It is, therefore,
brought about that Tiphys, the steersman, is sunk in deep slumber and
that the Argo drifts back to Cyzicus’s city, where in the dark enemies
are fancied to be at hand. The battle thus begun in error lasts, we are
expected to believe, through much of the night, and the Homeric slaughter
wrought by the Argonauts is told with a realism considerably overdone:
bones and jaws resound beneath the blows, and the land is white with
scattered brains! (_sparsusque cerebro albet ager_, 166). The mighty
boon (_donum ingens_) of being killed by Hercules leads one victim to
the knowledge that a dreadful blunder has been made, and after the king
has fallen by Jason’s spear, Jupiter intervenes. With the dawn Tiphys
realizes that they have been fighting against a friendly state: it is a
tragic recognition, like a frenzied Bacchanal’s return to her senses.
Jason is filled with grief over his host of yesterday and arranges for
elaborate funeral honours. This affords an opening for an exposition of
the philosophy of the soul and of conscience by the soothsayer Mopsus,
who ordains ceremonies of expiation. Artificial scapegoats are employed,
upon which, by a curious ritual magic, the anger of the hell-powers is
to be diverted, and so the Argonauts row away light-hearted. The rebound
from sorrow to happiness is reflected in the jocular rivalry among the
oarsmen and by the humorous description of the “crab” caught by Hercules
which smashes his oar and sends him floundering back on several others.
Fresh trouble, however, comes with another landing: and some pretty
description marks the story of how Hylas in hot pursuit of a stag stoops
to drink at a brook and is drawn into it by a water-nymph. A series of
similes illustrates the restless anxiety of Hercules as he calls in vain
for the missing youth:
“Hylas” again and “Hylas” yet again
He shouts through distant wilds. But naught replies
Save woods and wandering echo’s rivalry.[1293]
The Argonauts become impatient over the prolonged absence of Hercules,
and debate (with traces of the rhetoric in a _controuersia_) whether
they should sail without him. In the end, after Jason, with reluctance,
has loosed the cable, his men grieve to miss the lion’s skin and see the
empty bench:
As the ship goes, all yet shout “Hercules”
And “Hylas” all—names lost amidst the waves.[1294]
In Book IV the chief incidents are the appearance of Hylas in a vision
to announce his fate to Hercules; the arrival of the Argo at the land of
the Bebryces, whose arrogant boxer-king, Amycus, is humbled by Pollux;
Orpheus’s song of Io’s transformation into a heifer, in reference to the
legendary name of the Bosphoros; the freeing of blind old Phineus from
the torment of the Harpies, and his foretelling of the main stages of the
Argonauts’ adventures; the narrow escape of the Argo from the Clashing
Rocks (“how,” reflects Jason, “could they on their return voyage ever
thread their way through again?”—a hint of the poet’s intention to bring
them back by a different route); and the attainment of the Euxine,
where a dull and unpoetic description is inserted. Their welcome from
the prince of the Mariandyni is all the warmer because, like them, he
loathed King Amycus: as Valerius remarks in one of his comparatively few
_sententiae_,
Sure bond it is to face the selfsame foe.[1295]
At the beginning of Book V death has thinned the number of the Argonauts,
and fresh comrades join who relate their exploits in following the arms
of Hercules against the Amazons. By night the noise of the Chalybes can
be heard at work on implements of war—evil inventions which had brought
into activity the Hates, the Angers and the avenging Fury. Caucasus is
next sighted—the scene of Prometheus’s torment, and it so chances that
Hercules has arrived to free the Titan that very day. Next comes the
first sight of the Colchian land, with a fresh invocation to mark a new
portion of the epic. Their hardest task is now before the Argonauts, and
Jason reminds them that nothing must prevent their bringing back the
Fleece:
Necessity should never know a qualm
(_rebus semper pudor absit in artis_).
Medea, King Aeetes’s daughter, after a night of ominous dreams, is early
astir with her handmaidens. She is likened to Proserpine:
As o’er Hymettus’ flowery ridge in spring
Proserpina once led the dance, or ’neath
Sicilian crag, by Pallas stepping close,
Yet linked to loved Diana, and more tall
Than any, with no rival in her train
Till that day when she blenched and at the sight
Of Hell had all her comeliness dispelled.[1296]
Valerius describes her, when she first sees the strangers, as a shy girl
with nothing in her manner to suggest the sorceress. She depends for
reassurance on her old nurse, who recognizes the aliens as Greeks. The
mutual impressions of hero and heroine follow: she, reduced to silence,
draws back a few steps, but has eyes for him alone; he concentrates
attention on her as a princess among the foreign women. Answering his
courteous appeal, Medea declares herself daughter of Aeetes and instructs
him about his way. So Jason proceeds shrouded in a mist of invisibility
to the audience-chamber of the king in the Sun-god’s temple. In all
this there is a contamination of epic sources, and a modelling of
incidents upon earlier poems. The meeting of Jason and Medea is based
partly on Odysseus’s meeting with Nausicaa in Homer, partly on Aeneas’s
meeting with Venus under the guise of a huntress in the _Aeneid_. Jason,
like Aeneas, proceeds in a miraculous cloud of concealment. The first
interview with royalty in the _Argonautica_., as in the _Aeneid_, takes
place in a temple. Just as there were tableaux on the walls from the
Trojan war to interest the hero of the _Aeneid_, so for Jason there are
provided, thanks to the prophetic skill of Vulcan, pictures of the Golden
Fleece and the coming expedition of the Argonauts. This parallelism is
one of the cramping conditions of ancient epic, and when it passes the
bounds of the pleasantly reminiscential the reader feels that the poet
has sacrificed his individuality to standard authority.
Jason’s claim to possess the Fleece angers Aeetes, but he dissembles and
promises it as recompense if the Argonauts will help him against the
menace of his brother Perses. It is a promise which causes commotion
among the gods.
Much of the fighting against Perses and his catalogued allies in Book VI
is wearisome. It is one of the innovations made on the story by Valerius,
but we do not follow Jason on the battle-field with the love-lit gaze
of Medea, when Juno, disguised as Medea’s sister, has led her to the
town walls to watch the conflict. There is a note of pity for this girl
ignorant of coming ill and the victim of a scheming goddess:
So gleams the lily white, pre-eminent
Amid the hues of spring; but short her life:
Her glory hath brief flourishing—e’en now
The dark wings of the South o’ershadow her.[1297]
Jason performs deeds of prowess and Perses is defeated. With nightfall
the din of battle dies away.
If Book VI has dull stretches, the last two books are the most attractive
and possess great human interest. This is notably true of Book VII; for
it traces the growth of Medea’s passion for Jason, the mental conflict
between loyalty to her father and love for a stranger, and the avowal
of their affection by the lovers in the temple of Diana. The speeches,
though coloured inevitably with some rhetoric and some Virgilian echoes,
show real emotion.
Aeetes disdainfully breaks his promise and makes a new proposal—the
fire-breathing bulls must be yoked by Jason, and the crop of warriors
from the dragon’s teeth must be sown. His perfidy meets with a spirited
reply from Jason:
Not this the recompense, Aeetes, nor
The hope you offered to the Argonauts,
When first we donned our armour for your walls.
What means this change of faith? What craft is planned
By your commands? Another Pelias,
Another ocean here I see! Nay, come,
Ye princes all, combine to hunt my life
With hate and hests. But ne’er shall my right hand
Or hope desert me. ’Tis my wont to bow
To orders, not to quail before the hard.
One boon I pray for—whether yonder crop
Whelms me with its own spear-growth, or the fire
To-morrow swallows me with threatening maw—
Send hence to Pelias’ cruel ears the news
That here died _men_, and that, had _you_ kept faith,
Jason could have regained his country safe.[1298]
Alarmed for the hero, the lovesick princess wanders distraught in the
palace; and still more passion is breathed into her soul by Venus under
the form of Circe, daughter of the Sun. Her inward struggle is vividly
represented—which shall she favour, father or alien? She is trapped
(_prensa_). Would that earth could swallow her, and so she might escape
accursed suggestions. Now she will, now she will not betray her father;
but at last, overcoming scruples, she turns to her most potent drugs
to aid Jason. Possessed of these magical charms, she passes out into
the night, and, after a final hesitation, through the city gates. Here
Medea is a dual personality, now a timid maiden with a sense of modesty
and a regard for duty, now an astonishingly powerful enchantress capable
of controlling the passage of Night and the heavenly bodies. In Diana’s
temple they confront each other. Jason breaks silence:
Pray, maiden, act not like thy cursed sire;
Unkindness fits no countenance like thine.[1299]
Protesting against the king’s ingratitude and perfidy, he declares his
unalterable resolution:
Ne’er shall I quit this land without the Fleece:
Thou shalt not first behold me fail my race.[1300]
Scarce lifting her eyes, the Colchian princess half resentfully, half
scornfully, asks Jason why he ever came to her land; why he, a Thessalian
foreigner, should look for aid from her. Her final entreaty is that,
finding help elsewhere, he should let her go back to her father innocent
as yet of treachery. But Jason snatches the proffered charms with
avidity; henceforth irrevocably she is the guilty betrayer of her father.
Round her lover she must put a sevenfold spell, and instruct him how to
face the dread crop of warriors:
Be mindful, pray, of me: Medea’s self
Shall ever in return remember thee.[1301]
She calls him _hospes_ and he calls her _coniunx_, a contrast designed
to recall Dido and Aeneas;[1302] and when Jason imprecates fire and
destruction upon himself if he should forget Medea’s sacrifice of royalty
and home, the tragedy of their broken love (though Valerius never
completed the tale) is foreshadowed. The lists are made ready for his
ordeal against the fire-breathing bulls and the furrow-sprung warriors;
and Jason, with the aid of Medea’s magic and counsel, proves victorious.
Book VIII: Only one course is now open to Medea. In terror at her own
acts and afraid of her father, she bids farewell to the palace and joins
her lover in the forest. There is still the Fleece to win. To enable
Jason to carry it off, she charms the guardian Dragon to sleep, though,
as she bends over the prostrate beast which hitherto she has fed, she
cannot but utter her sorrow for it when it wakes to realize the theft.
But now there is need for despatch; and the supporting tree yields up
the Fleece to the hero, while melancholy gloom gathers in the place; but
elsewhere the land is lit up by the brilliant gold as he bears it away.
Cheers rise from his men: the Argo draws near to meet him; and he hastens
aboard with Medea.
Meanwhile dismay invades the palace on the discovery of her flight. Her
mother, who has hitherto played no part, comes into the story with a
rhetorical apostrophe to her fugitive daughter—she would fain scratch
the face of the robber; she would have Fleece or any other sacred thing
taken, if only Medea were given back; and details (_singula_) now too
late recur to the queen’s mind that should have betrayed Medea’s love
for the Thessalian; that was why she had no appetite (_nullae dapes_)!
The scene changes: the lonely princess is at sea, the one woman among
foreigners, uncertain whether the man for whom she has sacrificed so much
will make her his bride. This anxiety ends, however, with their marriage
in the island of Peuce. But the festivities are disturbed by the arrival
of Medea’s brother Absyrtus with a fleet which Valerius wishes his
readers to believe was very suddenly built. The Argonauts grumble over
the prospect of attack from their Colchian pursuers, and would restore
the girl if they might keep the Fleece. Jason does not hold out boldly
against his men’s advice, but, with groans and qualms about his plighted
troth, meditates treachery to his bride. So, within less than one hundred
lines of the abrupt close, Valerius brings out the worst in Jason’s
character. Divining his cowardice, Medea remonstrates with argument and
question and irony. Is she a captive on the vessel? May she not hear the
plans proposed?
Most faithful husband mine, I know no fear;
Yet pity me and keep thy marriage vows
At least as far as some Thessalian port—
Then cast me off in thine own house! Thou knowest
’Twas thou, and not thy crew, swore faith to me.
Perchance they may have right to give me up;
But thou hast not the same prerogative,
And I must drag thee back with me; for I,
The guilty maid, am not their only quest:
All on this ship alike are fugitives.[1303]
Is he afraid, she asks, of her brother’s ships? Still even against a
greater fleet she deserves to be defended.
Would God my love had not dared all for thee,
But felt a scruple! Nay, bethink thee now
Of fresh commands—Alack, is cruelty
So tongue-tied? Can this shamefast mien of thine
Bode aught but harm? I ask thee, who wert once
Mine own loved Jason—is it right that I,
That I, with suppliant breath, should pray to thee?[1304]
A night of agony over Jason’s pusillanimous ingratitude has wrought a
change on the beautiful girl:
She comes not now the glory of her race
Nor the illustrious grandchild of the Sun,
Nor yet the flower of youthful savagedom,
As once when from the tree Chaonian
She bore the radiant Fleece in joy and ’mid
The mighty names of Greece on Pallas’ prow
Stood forth a Maid that seemed the Goddess’ peer.[1305]
Swayed two ways, Jason tries to say soothing words to Medea, and the epic
breaks off leaving its hero discredited. The poet has, however, enlisted
our sympathies for Medea, as Virgil has done for Dido.
Even the sketch just given serves to show that Valerius was not a slavish
imitator of Apollonius of Rhodes. Certainly he owed him much in episodes,
similes and ideas. But under each of these three heads he also shows
independence. Episodes are amplified, abbreviated, or transferred, and
original episodes are introduced; if some similes are copied, fresh ones
are invented; and, if there is a certain amount of close rendering of the
Greek text, there is, besides, a great proportion of the poem which is
due not merely to borrowings from Homer and the Latin of Virgil, Ovid,
Lucan and Seneca’s tragedies, but to Valerius’s own genius. Thus, while
it is instructive to estimate his debt to Apollonius, it is equally
instructive to remember the contrasts between them, and competent
critics have studied this question.[1306] Broadly, in construction and
probability of narrative he excels his Greek forerunner; but Valerius
is most distinctively himself when he displays his gift of description,
which is, on the whole, free from the flagrant vices of rhetoric and
sometimes reaches a high level of beauty, and when he applies his
psychological ability to the character of Medea. One cannot fail to
see that in his unfolding of her love he is not tied to the Apollonian
account: one notes the influence of Virgil’s Dido: one suspects Ovid’s
influence as well; but there is no reason to deny to an artist like
Valerius his own large share in elaborating his heroine’s passion.
It is, on several grounds, likely that the incompleteness of the
epic was caused by the author’s death rather than by the ravages of
time.[1307] Some of the charges of inconsistency and disconnectedness
brought against Valerius by critics might have been averted, it is
contended, had he lived to revise his epic. All the same, it must be
remembered that Valerius took years over his work and might never have
removed such blemishes. As Professor Summers points out, Statius’s
echoes of Valerius’s language suggest familiarity with his poem; but of
about a score of allusions which Statius makes to the Argonautic legend
none bears on the return voyage of the heroes, and this is just the
portion which is missing in Valerius. An interesting problem turns on
the author’s design for finishing his epic. One may conjecture that he
contemplated four more books to equate the number with Virgil’s twelve;
and it is a plausible guess that he would have, in his closing books,
evinced still more independence of his Greek model. Since he elects to
place Jason’s marriage in Peuce, he presumably would have dropped the
visit to Phaeacia. There is another feature which, while it illustrates
his individuality, at the same time lends colour to the belief that
he meant to bring his heroes into connexion with Italy.[1308] This
feature is the frequency of the allusions to Rome and her customs which
the poet engrafts upon this epic of early Greek mariners. Surprise is
scarcely felt that at the beginning we should find his autobiographic
hint about the Sibyl’s tripod in his house, or his references to recent
Roman history in his invocation to Vespasian, or his desire that his
poem should be famed in Latin-speaking cities.[1309] But the recurrent
Roman note in the course of the narrative is more significant. Jove
is made to foreshadow the coming of empires which must include Rome;
Hypsipyle’s renown is to last as long as Roman chronicles; and allusions
are made to Jupiter of the Alban mount and to the connexion of Rome with
Troy.[1310] In the sixth book there is an anticipation of the military
emblems of Rome; a likening of the battle between Perses and Aeetes to
internecine strife between Roman legions; and illustrations are drawn
from shipwrecks on the Latian coast and from hunting in Umbria.[1311] In
the next book Jason is said to be as much dismayed by Aeetes’s refusal
to keep his promise as a Tuscan pilot looking for the Tiber mouth but
blown upon the quicksands off Africa; and Venus, disguised as daughter of
the Sun, pretends to be consort of the Italian Picus and “queen of the
Tuscan main.”[1312] These and other instances incline one to believe that
Valerius was leading up to a sort of Italianization of his Greek theme in
its later phases, in which case he would have been at once more national
and more Virgilian. For, just as the later half of the _Aeneid_ has its
scenes laid in Italy, so Valerius may have decided to imitate Virgil in
bringing his Argonauts back by a route more familiar to a Roman reader
than that by which they ventured out to Colchis. If the adventurers were
to sail homewards by way of the North Sea past Britain and Gaul, this
would have fittingly accorded with the address to Vespasian in the
opening book; and poetic justice might have been done by prolonging the
epic to include the death of Jason’s enemy Pelias.
The fact that there is only one classical mention of Valerius (that
by Quintilian recognizing his death as a loss to literature) does not
suggest that he had a wide vogue. Yet his influence is traceable in
Statius and Silius;[1313] and Juvenal may be thinking of him in his
gibe at the conveyance of “the gold of the stolen fleecelet.”[1314]
After age-long oblivion, attention was once more directed to his poem
by Poggio’s discovery at St. Gall in 1417 of a manuscript containing
_Argonautica_ I-IV, 317. In spite of considerable poetic quality Valerius
is not a readily quotable author. There is little criticism of life
in him—little even in the way of the _sententia_: so readers have not
found much to lay hold on, and his influence has been lessened. Thus, in
estimating the classical sources of a work like William Morris’s _Life
and Death of Jason_ it is the relation to Apollonius rather than that to
Valerius that one makes prominent.
The language[1315] of Valerius is an interesting complex. As in the
treatment of his epic theme he was both borrower and innovator, so
with his style. Deeply influenced by Virgil and other predecessors, he
yet strikes into fresh paths of expression: he even coins words. Among
the compounds (many of them dactylic) which he loves, he revives old
epithets like _auriger_, _omnituens_; uses rare ones, like _astrifer_,
_gemmifer_, _luctifer_ (in Seneca also); notably shares some with Ovid
like _piniger_, _reparabilis_, _turifer_; and others, like _monstrifer_
and _monstrificus_, with the elder Pliny. The adjectives _astrifer_,
_flammiger_, _undisonus_ recur in Statius; _flammifer_ (which is
Ennian, Lucretian and Ovidian), _auricomus_ (Virgilian), _securiger_,
and others, recur in Silius. But he has adjectives that are entirely
his, _aegisonus_, _arcipotens_, _implorabilis_, _intemerandus_,
_soligena_, just as he has ἅπαξ εἰρημένα among his verbs like _protono_,
_superincendo_, and among his nouns like _a(d)spiramen_, _lustramen,
ouatus_ (“rejoicing”), _memoratrix_, _mugitor_, the last term being used
in one of his references to volcanic activity:
As bellower Vesuvius pants, when he
In wrath awakes the panic-stricken towns.[1316]
There are also forcible applications of words in new connexions, or
extensions of meaning: _e.g._ _Medea adnuitur thalamis_ (V. 258), “Medea
is granted to the marriage-couch”; _inuasit habenis murmur_ (VII. 605),
“attacked the horse’s _neighing_ with the reins,” _i.e._ “set bit and
bridle to its mouth”; _ueteris sub nocte cupressi_ (I. 774), “beneath the
night-like shadow of an old cypress-tree,” resembling the phrase _noctem
implicat_ (VII. 598) of entangling a bull in a _cloud of darkness_, or
Juvenal’s _tenebrae_ for “a dingy hovel.” _Fragor_ expresses vigorously
news that comes in a crash:
A startling rumour spreads it thro’ the town—
“The King is summoning a thousand hands!”
(_regemque fragor per moenia differt_
_mille ciere manus_, I. 753).
The mixture of convention and boldness in Valerius makes him an intensely
interesting linguistic study.
Despite his profound debt to Virgil, and traces of lines with a still
more archaic flavour, the technique of Valerius’s verse is predominantly
Ovidian. He recalls Ovid in dactylic movement, in lack of varied pauses,
and in smooth versification. This smoothness of post-Ovidian poetry,
which was based on a comparative avoidance of elision, missed that subtle
entanglement of word with word which Virgil artistically employed to
counteract some of the heaviness of the Latin language. Valerius has not
the technical skill of Statius in hexameters: he is often monotonous in
rhythm, in repetitions of words within a few lines, and in over-symmetric
arrangement. Yet he is less monotonous than Lucan, although when the test
is intellect, Valerius is unquestionably Lucan’s inferior. It is easy to
illustrate some phases of his monotony: in Book VIII, a short one of 466
lines, one can count at least 35 dactylic verbs (_implicat_, _prosilit_,
etc.) forming the first foot of the line, without counting other dactylic
words like _uellera_ (at least four times), _immemor_ (at least twice).
Some of his endings too are monotonous: _e.g._ _proles_ four times in
less than ninety lines in Book IV,[1317] although we may accept this as
an echo of ancient epic phraseology. It is also convention which prompts
his alliterative effects such as these in his later books:[1318]
_impingit pecorique pauor qualesue profundum_
_per chaos occurrunt caecae sine uocibus umbrae_ (VII. 401-2)
or
_iam magis atque magis mentem super alta ferebat_ (_ib._ 473)
or
_fata domus luctumque ferens fraudemque fugamque_ (VIII. 135)
More subtle is the onomatopoeic effect which he achieves in describing
the gloomy sea-cave
That knows nor daylight’s gifts nor starry flame,
Ill-starred abode that rocks to ocean’s boom
(_infelix domus et sonitu tremibunda profundi_).
To the credit of his common sense, he is less rhetorical than either
Lucan or Statius. He rants less. He indulges in fewer epigrams. In
eight books his _sententiae_ do not exceed a dozen.[1319] Doubtless,
his similes are too numerous,[1320] but they are, as a rule, brief.
Unfortunately, though some have beauty, others are in bad taste, like
the comparison of the love-sick Medea to a dog going mad; and others
are far-fetched, like the comparison of the flight of the Harpies to
the rain of ashes from Vesuvius in eruption.[1321] He has his lapses
into absurdities, hyperbole and artificiality. In the battle of Book
VI there are extravagant details which recall Lucan; and the danger of
mythology can be seen when Jason, instead of the simple question, “Where
is Hercules?” asks, “Where is he who was equal to the monsters sent by
his stepmother?”[1322] Such mythological allusions play their part along
with inverted order of words and compact forms of expression in producing
an effect sometimes far from clear: even though he is relatively free
from laboured conceits, he falls far short of Virgil’s classic lucidity.
There is undoubtedly in Valerius descriptive power, varied incident,
vivid narrative, and the perennial attraction of the way of a man with a
maid. Except for this last psychological interest his merits are mainly
related to the objective and concrete with little to suggest that he had
reflected profoundly on life or had any guidance or solace to offer to
humanity.
CHAPTER V
SILIUS ITALICUS
Life—An ancient Southey—Evidence for date of the
_Punica_—Scheme of the seventeen books—Weaknesses—Certain
merits—Stoic notes—_Sententiae_—Imitations and
innovations—Virgilian echoes.
Few literary figures of the first century are so well known
biographically as Ti. Catius Silius Italicus.[1323] The information
comes mainly from a letter by the younger Pliny (III. vii), who, writing
in A.D. 101 about the recent death of Silius, took the opportunity to
sketch his career. Other facts of his life are learned from Martial and
Tacitus.[1324] He is called Silius Italicus in MSS., in Pliny and in
Tacitus; Martial calls him either Silius or Italicus; his full name we
know from inscriptions.[1325] It is argued that, if “Italicus” implied
birth at Italica in Spain, Martial would have expressly claimed him for
a countryman. Pliny’s evidence that he was over seventy-five when he
died enables us to date his birth as A.D. 25 or 26. Under Nero he had
got an evil name as an informer. He was the last Neronian consul (A.D.
68), and, in the struggle for the succession, a supporter of Vitellius,
whom Cluvius Rufus and he attended at his interview with Flavius Sabinus
in the Capitol. The reputation which he gained as proconsul of Asia
in Vespasian’s time and his subsequent life of literary retirement
did something to wipe out the stain of his ill-employed activity in
Nero’s days. Leisure hours in intervals of writing were devoted to the
reception of a circle of visitors and to learned discussions, presumably
philosophical. His readings from his own works were planned to be
practical tests of his friends’ critical judgement. In the later part
of his life he left Rome for the quiet of Campania, from which not even
the accession of the new emperor, Trajan, in A.D. 98, could lure him
back. A connoisseur (φιλόκαλος, as Pliny says), he could not resist
the temptation to buy fine country houses, in this respect becoming
even more extravagant than his friend Pliny. He surrounded himself with
books, statues and busts, above all venerating the portrait of Virgil,
the anniversary of whose birth he observed more scrupulously than his
own. Virgil’s tomb at Naples was to him a holy place (_adire ut templum
solebat_). Before he attempted an epic, he had made some name in oratory,
especially as a pleader in court.[1326] His death on his Neapolitan
estate was due to voluntary starvation. A tumour from which he was
suffering was pronounced incurable, and he decided to refrain from food.
It was a Stoical resolution; and he had, in fact, relations with the
Stoic philosopher Epictetus.[1327] Of two sons one predeceased him, the
other reached the consulship and survived his father. Among additional
facts derived from Martial we learn that one of his villas had been
Cicero’s, that Virgil’s grave was on one of his properties, and that he
began his _Punica_ after his consulship. The ascription to him of the
epitome known as the _Ilias Latina_ or _Homerus Latinus_ is mentioned
elsewhere.
A diligent but usually uninspired writer, fitly described by Pliny as
having composed with more pains than genius (_maiore cura quam ingenio_),
Silius must have resembled Southey in his methodically calculated
production of verse; and his _Punica_ may be said to occupy in Latin
literature a position not unlike that of _Madoc_ in English. By A.D.
88, the date of Martial’s fourth book, the plan of Silius’s epic was
apparently known and friends were acquainted with parts of it.[1328] By
the end of 92[1329] some at least of the _Punica_, wildly praised by
Martial as immortal, was in book form; but the reference to Domitian’s
war in Silius, Book III, 607, cannot have been written before that same
year, as the Sarmatian campaign was fought in A.D. 92-93. Since XIV. 686
refers to Nerva (96-98), we may assign the latest books to the beginning
of Trajan’s reign. It has been contended that so comparatively early a
part of the work as Book VII must have followed the death of Domitian
(96), on the ground that the introduction of Minerva there as hostile to
Rome would have been unsuitable during the life of an emperor attached to
the cult of that goddess.[1330]
Silius’s narrative of the Second Punic War is told in over 12,200
hexameters distributed among seventeen books. Of the three conflicts
between Rome and Carthage the author realizes, at the outset of his task
(I. 12-14), that this middle one demanded the greatest efforts from
the combatants, and that the victors themselves were imperilled. Book
I relates how in Dido’s city Juno pits against fate the war-loving and
indomitable leader Hannibal, who resolves to strike a blow at Rome from
Spain by besieging Saguntum. The Saguntine danger is laid before Rome;
then in Book II Rome is embroiled with Carthage; and Saguntum, after a
heroic defence, is taken by Hannibal. During the fighting, Queen Asbyte,
the Camilla of the Carthaginian side, falls, and the flight of the
enemy before Hannibal as he seeks to avenge her is likened, in a typical
simile, to the homeward flocking of birds or the swarming of bees to
their hive:
As thro’ the gloaming late the evening star
Drives on light wing the birds from quest of food
Home to their nest, or as on Mount Hymet
By Athens swarms of bees among the flowers
Are summoned at the threat of watery cloud
To their sweet waxen toil, and honey-fraught
Haste to the grotto of their fragrant hive,
And massed in flying throng the threshold fill
With murmur hoarse.[1331]
Early in Book III there are digressions for the sake of descriptive
writing. Neither the labours of Hercules on the portals of the temple
where Hannibal seeks responses, nor the marvels (_mira_) of the inrushing
tide are subjects possessing artistic necessity. The episode of the
parting of Hannibal from his wife and child on the seashore is at once
more natural and more relevant: it portrays her disappointment that she
may not share his dangers; it also portrays his realization, as her ship
waits, that the stirrings of ambition must tear him from her:
How differs unrecorded life from death![1332]
After such human motives it is weak to have intruded Jupiter’s designs
for trying the Romans by peril and his despatch of Mercury to hasten
Hannibal’s plans for the invasion of Italy. The catalogue of the
Carthaginians and the crossing of Pyrenees, Rhone and Alps, with
incidental episodes and risks, occupy the rest of the book. Opening with
alarm in Italy, the next book narrates the fighting at the Ticinus and
the Trebia. Warriors on the field after epic fashion are invoked in the
second person and perform prodigies of valour, while the unreality is
increased by bringing Hannibal on the scene attended by Panic, Terror and
Rage. The disaster caused by the Carthaginian elephants at the Trebia
suggests the reflection:
The test of manhood is adversity,
And up Mount Difficult through jeopardy
Strides Valour undismayed to Fame.[1333]
Amidst the rigours of the Apennines Hannibal has lost an eye, when
senators arrive from Carthage to claim in sacrifice his son. The demand
had been debated at home, supported by Hanno because of an old grudge,
but bitterly opposed by Hannibal’s wife Imilce, whose creed concerning
sacrifice is thus avowed:
What piety is sprinkling shrines with gore?
Chief cause, alas! of guilt in feeble man
Is not to know God’s nature. Go and pray
Aright with holy incense and avert
The barbarous ritual of butchery;
For God is kind and kindred unto man
(_Mite et cognatum est homini Deus_).[1334]
Book V is on Lake Trasimene, opening in legend and the mists of dawn,
and then advancing, through Homeric armings and challenges, to the death
of the consul Flaminius and to Hannibal’s chivalrous admiration for the
bravery of his fallen enemies:
The brows still threaten and their looks are wrath.
I fear a land so pregnant with a brood
Of high-souled heroes may from Destiny
Win power imperial and by very woes
Yet subjugate the world.[1335]
Book VI is largely devoted to the story of Regulus taken from the first
Punic War. His son, Serranus, severely wounded, reaches the door of
Marus, one of his father’s old soldiers, who preaches endurance amidst
the reverses of Rome:
In the ancestral way, most valiant Sir,
Bear present hardship and our fortune’s swerve:
So by Heaven’s law adown life’s sloping path
Headlong thro’ chequered hazards rolls Time’s wheel
(_Per uarios praeceps casus rota uoluitur aeui_).[1336]
The old man’s tale of Regulus is partly legendary, partly historical:
it begins with dragon-fighting, and proceeds, not without rhetoric,
to relate how Regulus kept his _parole_ when the Carthaginian senate
sent him to Rome in the vain hope that he would advocate an exchange
of prisoners. There must always be a moral greatness in this story of
self-abnegation and Stoic austerity:
Squalor and starveling meals and restless couch
And strife with crowding ills he reckoned more
Than vanquishing a foe; nor counted it
So noble to escape adversity
By care as by endurance to prevail.[1337]
And yet Silius’s long-drawn narrative has not the moving force of
Horace’s brief treatment of the same episode in the third book of the
_Odes_. The digression ends at line 552, where Silius returns to his
true subject—panic in the city and Jupiter’s prompting of the Romans to
entrust all to Fabius.
The saving of Rome by Fabius’s delaying tactics is the theme of Book VII.
The digressions include the legend of the 300 Fabii told to Hannibal by
a prisoner, a story of Bacchus occasioned by the Carthaginian inroad on
the Falernian vineyards, and, at the approach of the Carthaginian fleet,
the introduction of Nereids with the Virgilian cave of Proteus. The
delays are not confined to the inaction of Fabius: Proteus is asked to
prophesy, but first he must hark back to the Judgement of Paris. There
is, however, a foil to Fabius’s caution in the impetuous Minucius, who is
magnanimously rescued from the consequences of his foolhardiness by his
colleague.
Book VIII forms a prelude to the battle of Cannae, as related in the two
following books. The unreal device of Juno’s despatch of the nymph Anna
to encourage Hannibal leads us back to the Dido story for a time.[1338]
Then the narrative is resumed. The consuls have been changed, and
Aemilius Paulus dreads the abyss to which the arrogance of his colleague
Varro may lead. His arguments are stated in the debating manner of the
schools,[1339] making brief ironical points one after another—“the
impetuous consul fears that he might leave Rome’s ruin for another man’s
consulate; it might be well to summon a consul from Carthage, for even
a Carthaginian would not be so dangerous!” The catalogue of Italian
warriors, extending to over 260 lines, gives a chance of introducing
famous names. There is, for example, a Tullius, descended from King
Tullus, and destined, as ancestor of Cicero, to give in later days a
noble citizen to Ausonia: next follows a eulogy on the orator:
Beyond the Ganges heard and furthest Ind,
His voice will fill the earth, and frenzied war
Will bow before his lightning tongue, nor can
Descendants hope for equal fame in speech.[1340]
So too there is a Scaevola, a Sulla, Nero the Sabine, a Piso, a Galba, a
Brutus and others. Among the men of North Italy those are not forgotten
who come from Virgil’s birthplace,
The home of Muses, Mantua, upraised
By song Aonian to the stars, and peer
Of Homer’s minstrelsy.[1341]
In the description of the battle of Cannae, Silius’s aim is not
historical accuracy, but epic embellishment. His true model, therefore,
is not such brief narratives as those in Polybius (III. 115-116) or
Livy (XXII. 47-49), but the manner of the _Iliad_ and the _Aeneid_, so
that the account is expanded to fill nearly two books, IX and X; and is
diversified by similes, divine interferences, Homeric slaughter, and
episodes like the unwitting slaying of a father by a son. Though it be
mythological, there is a grim suggestiveness in Charon’s rejoicing in the
expectation of receiving the dead:
Glad on the pallid mere the Ferryman
Now cleared the thwarts for ghosts that were to come;[1342]
and the poet has a conception of Roman greatness in adversity:
Would that hereafter, Roman, thou mayst face
Fair fortune nobly as thou didst defeat.
Be this thy last disaster! May Heaven consent
Never to try if Trojan progeny
Can bear a war so dread! I pray thee, Rome,
That tremblest for thy destiny, to dry
Thy tears and to adore thy wounds that must
Bring thee renown unto eternity.
Greater at no time shalt thou ever be:
For soon the slippery pathway of success
Shall make thee hold misfortune but a name.[1343]
There is nobility in Hannibal’s character as drawn by Silius, when he
decrees funeral honours to the fallen consul, Paulus, and muses over his
body:
How great thou liest in death! For me thou art
More cause of triumph than those thousands slain.
When fate shall call, such death be Hannibal’s,
If Carthage be but safe;[1344]
and, later, in his address of almost envious farewell:
Go, glory of Ausonia, where needs
Must go the souls for valiant action crowned.
Thy fame is won by death illustrious.
For me, my toils are yet in Fortune’s hands:
I may not know the hazards that shall be.[1345]
The sorrow-stricken capital is again saved by Fabius, who wins a nation’s
gratitude because he did not despair of the republic, though Silius
unhappily uses the stilted expression, “he did not despair for the city
of Laomedon’s descendants.”[1346] Indeed some twenty lines towards the
close of the tenth book are full of indirect and far-fetched expressions.
Book XI brings Hannibal to Capua, where luxury begins its demoralizing
work. The banquet has an obvious Virgilian basis. At Carthage the news
of victory and the heap of rings from the fallen Romans fail to induce
Hanno to join in the general plaudits for Hannibal. Instead, he advocates
making terms with Rome, pleads war-weariness, and extols peace:
Peace is the best of blessings given to men
To know: and Peace alone is better than
Uncounted triumphs: Peace hath power to keep
Our safety and make equal citizens.
In Book XII, with the coming of spring, Hannibal stirs forth from Capua,
like a serpent after hibernating. Henceforward his luck wanes, for the
Romans win their first victory in the war. Among those celebrated for
bravery is Ennius, whose poetry is eulogized. Hannibal appears outside
Rome and rides round the walls to reconnoitre; but Jupiter checks his
plans by raising storm after storm. It is a ludicrous see-saw of good and
bad weather.
Book XIII, the longest book (895 lines), contains, besides digressions,
the recapture of Capua, and its rescue by Pan from burning though not
from pillage. Sent to inspire mercy, Pan is minutely described—horned
and horny-hoofed, peak-eared, bearded and tailed, nimble and sportive,
carrying a shepherd’s staff, altogether a strangely incongruous figure
in the midst of historical events. In Spain, the two Scipios—father and
uncle to the younger Scipio, afterwards Africanus—meet their death; and
this leads to a long passage founded on Aeneas’s visit to the Underworld
in _Aeneid_ VI. Scipio, as the ultimate victor, is a kind of hero
for Silius. As in the _Odyssey_, sacrifice and the blood-trench are
indispensable preliminaries to holding converse with departed spirits;
but the interview with the shade of Appius Claudius becomes ridiculous
when Scipio lectures the ghost on different ways of disposing of the
dead. The Sibyl is asked to unfold the mysteries of the Underworld and of
the different souls admitted through the Ten Gates. The infernal rivers,
the personified evils of human life, and the monsters of mythology burden
the description, and thereafter the wraiths of Scipio’s father and mother
appear. Not only do the shades of Aemilius Paulus and of others killed at
Cannae drink of the blood and speak, but Romans of ancient times appear
as well as Hamilcar, Alexander the Great, and the god-like ghost of
Homer. Among souls of the great fancied to be not yet incarnate are those
of Pompey and Julius Caesar. When the Sibyl has foretold the eclipse of
Hannibal’s career, Scipio returns to his men rejoicing.
In Book XIV the Muses are invoked to turn to Sicily, where Marcellus
captures Syracuse after a defence prolonged by the mechanical ingenuity
of the famous Greek mathematician Archimedes (who is referred to,[1347]
but, owing to hexametric exigencies, not named). In Book XV the Roman
Senate anxiously consider the question of finding a general to succeed
the two Scipios killed in Spain: and at this juncture Silius introduces
the young Scipio confronted with the figures of Virtue and Pleasure after
the model of the fabled Choice of Hercules. Gaily attired, Pleasure is
one whose
frolic eyes
With wayward movement darted flame on flame.[1348]
Her alluring promises, coloured with an Epicurean idea of bliss,[1349]
contrast with the appeal directed by Virtue to the celestial element
ennobling man. Virtue’s offer is “not purple or scents but victory over
the enemy”; and, on Scipio’s acceptance, Pleasure retires displeased,
but satirically prophesying that one day her hour will come in Rome.
So Scipio mounts the _rostra_ asking for control of the war. He
afterwards justifies his selection by the capture of Nova Carthago in
Spain. The book is crowded with other incidents such as the alliance of
Philip of Macedon with Carthage, the funeral honours paid by Hannibal
to Marcellus, and the defeat by Claudius Nero of Hannibal’s brother
Hasdrubal at the Metaurus on his way to join Hannibal. Book XVI recounts
Scipio’s operations in Africa and Spain, and his games to honour the
dead—chariot-race, foot-race, sword-fight, javelin competition, in which
traditional epic elements are discernible. His request in Rome to be
allowed to transfer the war to Africa, though hotly opposed by Fabius,
is granted by the Senate: so in Book XVII he crosses to Africa and
is thus the means of forcing Hannibal to quit Italy, to his poignant
sorrow.[1350] After a display of Homeric prowess by Scipio and deceits
practised by Juno on Hannibal, the decisive victory of Zama is won.
Hannibal may be overwhelmed, he reflects, but Jupiter himself can
never blot out the memory of Cannae, nor will the nations pass over
his deeds in silence. He will live still to be a menace to Rome.[1351]
Scipio recrosses the sea to hold his triumph, with Syphax and Hanno as
notable captives, and the work closes with an apostrophe to him as the
unvanquished sire, in merit comparable with Quirinus or Camillus, and
truly claimed in Rome to be an offspring of the gods.
Even a summary betrays many of Silius’s weaknesses. His theme, the
struggle of two peoples for world-supremacy, as derived from Livy,
was a great one; and yet his quest after poetic embroidery divorced
it from reality.[1352] He makes gods interfere where a historian
would investigate causes and motives: he relates battles, not as
matters of strategy, but as conglomerates of individual combats.
Military history is, therefore, not to be demanded from him; but a
more penetrating genius, even though he might in epic spirit, like
Silius, have concentrated largely on occurrences affecting the heroic
figure of Hannibal, would still have placed in true perspective the
evolution of the conflict. As it is, one would never grasp from Silius
the significance of events like the siege of Syracuse and the younger
Scipio’s Spanish campaign; nor would one learn what the defeat of
Carthage meant for the world. Traces there are, it is true, of the
imperial note, but Silius does not convey through his poem a sense of
the greatness of Rome as his master Virgil did. Author and reader are
alike oppressed by the outworn conventions of invocations, apostrophes,
similes,[1353] lineages and colloquies of antagonists who fight in the
Homeric fashion, intervention of mythological deities, unilluminating
geography, and lack-lustre catalogues of names, in using which Silius
has no Virgilian or Miltonic gift of making beautiful music.[1354] All
this goes to constitute the head and front of his offending—he is, taken
altogether, dull and uninspiring. Hardly any of his characters live.
Hannibal may be said to live at times, Scipio scarcely at any time: and
interminable _longueurs_, verging on the dismal, force one in the end to
wonder what imaginable constraint other than editorial necessity should
ever drag one to a second perusal of these seventeen ponderous books.
Yet, even so, Silius has merit. He can be rhetorical, but he is not so
insistently in search of striking points as the other epic-writers of
his century. A curious nemesis overtakes him when he imitates; for some
of his least natural effects arise from his enslavement to the example
of Homer; Virgil and Lucan. It is particularly to the baleful influence
of Lucan that one must ascribe his misdirected attempts at realism. One
wishes that Silius, over his slain warriors, had felt a portion of the
Virgilian pity; but instead he overdoes his descriptions. The last notes
of a bugler, mortally hurt at the Ticinus, pass lingeringly through his
instrument after his lips are already mute in death; the final breath of
a gigantic soldier stirs the dust on the plain; a head is struck off, but
the body runs on from its own impetus; or a victim’s murmured appeals
continue after his head is severed.[1355] Lucanesque reminiscences
overpaint the naval engagement off Syracuse in Book XIV—a man is cut in
two by a prow; oars splash blood; hands grasping an enemy ship are hacked
off and carried away still clinging; open wounds admit the sea.[1356]
In similarly exaggerative manner he makes corpses bridge a river,[1357]
and copies more than once Lucan’s idea of the wounded having no room
to fall.[1358] Yet there are not nearly so many of these excesses as
in Lucan; and there are comparatively few strained conceits, like the
topsy-turvy one, which he approves sufficiently to repeat, of fighters
avenging their deaths in advance by abundant slaughter.[1359] More
often he is straightforward and non-rhetorical, with touches of natural
description, as of the river Ticinus crystal-clear and gliding softly
between shady banks to the notes of birds;[1360] with an occasional eye
for colour, as where he marks the rosy dawn over the blue waters, the
glint of the Roman arms at Cannae, or the Carthaginian priest’s robe of
blue on which precious stones glitter;[1361] or, again, with a gleam of
romance to light up the catalogue of Hannibal’s host, when from the far
eastern gardens of the Hesperides came a leader,
Who in that faëry woodland by the sea
Beheld the golden fruitage mid the leaves.[1362]
Traces of Stoic thought in Silius may be in part prompted by the Stoicism
recurrent in Lucan’s epic, but may conceivably be due to its contemporary
prevalence. Among instances may be cited the unflinching constancy of
the slave tortured by the Carthaginian whose “mind remains untouched,
surmounting pain with smiles”; Decius’s claim that nature has granted no
such boon to man as the open doorway out of life; the rivalry between
Pleasure and Virtue for control over Scipio; and the fortitude with which
Hannibal, when his brother’s head is exhibited on a spear,
checked his tears
And by endurance made disaster less.[1363]
His _sententiae_, because not too numerous to be tedious, are the
more effective. Some of the most telling are “The test of manhood is
adversity” (IV. 603); “Banish delay: short-lived is fortune’s smile”
(IV. 732); “War must have craft: a leader’s stout arm wins less fame”
(V. 100); the cynical observation “in happy days the altars seldom reek”
(VII. 89); “Anger against one’s country is sin” (VII. 555 _succensere
nefas patriae_); “never doth love abandon hope” (VIII. 95 _non unquam
spem ponit amor_); “valour is her own most fair reward” (XIII. 663); and
Alexander’s counsel on celerity in fighting:
Unhonoured is the craft of long-drawn war:
Boldness must end campaigns: faint hardihood
Ne’er raised itself above its jeopardy.[1364]
In spite of his debt to Virgil and Lucan, Silius gives signs of
originality in his language. Occasionally he ventures on bold
expressions: “a draught of Hannibal inflames” his soldiers (I. 345,
_haustusque medullis Hannibal exagitat_); and, in reference to Capuan
demoralization, “the yelps of vice (XI. 426 _uitia adlatrantia_)[1365]
shake a character so far unsmirched by prosperity.” He employs a large
number of compound adjectives, especially in _-fer_ and _-ger_. Some are
Lucretian words transmitted through Virgil like _aestifer_, _saetiger_,
_horrificus_. The adverb _regifice_ he shares with Ennius. Many of his
compounds had been used by Ovid and Lucan. Others cannot easily, if at
all, be discovered elsewhere; _uiticola_, _austrifer_, _nubiuagus_,
_pharetriger_, _criniger_ (possibly in Lucan, unless he wrote
_cirrigeros_ in _Phars._ I. 463). _Diffulminat_ seems to be Silius’s own
invention. It is to be expected that he should share several compounds
with his contemporaries, _e.g._ with Valerius Flaccus, _luctificus_
(also in Cicero and Virgil), _securiger_ (also in Ovid), _gemmifer_
(in Propertius and Pliny), and with Statius _uuifer_, _sceptriger_ and
other words. Whether these last are instances of the influence of Silius
on Statius cannot be determined, but Statius certainly borrowed the
gold-digger of Dalmatia from Silius’s “greedy Asturian.”[1366] Silius’s
use of _sonipes_, _quadrupes_ and _cornipes_ for _equus_ (which he does
not however entirely renounce) becomes wearisome.
Apart from Virgilian influence on incidents like the cave of Proteus
(VII. 419 _sqq._), tree-felling for funeral pyres (X. 527 _sqq._), the
banquet at Capua (XI. 267 _sqq._), the Sibyl’s exposition of the lower
world in Book XIII, and the funeral games of Book XVI (down to the
detail of fouling transferred from the foot-race of the _Aeneid_ to a
chariot-race), there are frequent reminiscences of Virgil’s language in
such phrases as _quaerentia lumina caelum_ (VI. 11) or _ille quidem cruda
mente et uiridissimus irae_ (V. 569). Still more old-fashioned echoes are
his _ac tuba terrificis fregit stridoribus auras_ (V. 189);[1367] _ensis
contunditur ense, pes pede uirque uiro teritur_ (IX. 325);[1368] and the
ancient legal form _capital_ (XIII. 155). Silius did not write in a style
so elaborate as that of Valerius Flaccus or Statius, and he did not try
to be so clever as Lucan; but he is composite enough to be acquitted
of bald simplicity. His hexameters are often highly alliterative, some
lines having alliteration on three different consonants. There is much
also which proves the metrical influence of Ovid, though Silius is less
dactylic and moves less lightly than any of the epic poets of his time.
CHAPTER VI
STATIUS
Statius and his father—Dates of publication—Lost
works—Friends—His times—The _Thebaid_ and its twelve
books—Mythology—Sources—Influence of Antimachus and
Virgil—_Achilleid_—His epic fame—_Siluae_—Qualities of his
occasional poems—Style—Artificiality and conceits—Compounds and
Similes—Metre.
P. Papinius Statius,[1369] a Neapolitan whose miscellaneous poems reflect
many aspects of Rome in the Flavian age, is, even if judged solely by
his posthumous influence, a considerable figure in the annals of epic.
For his life our main source of information lies in his own _Siluae_.
The date of his birth is a matter of inference, and the tendency is now
to place it earlier than once was common. A passage formerly taken to
mean that he was on the threshold of life at his father’s death does not
really bear that sense,[1370] and, while a reference to his own old age
(_senium_)[1371] in the _Siluae_ need not be literally pressed, it is
most likely that these poems were written in mature years. For several
reasons his birth-date cannot be put later than A.D. 45. His native town
was Naples (_mea Parthenope_, _Silv._ I. ii. 260-261), a meeting-place
of Greek and Roman culture, where his father, a man of good family, was
a celebrated teacher. The lament (_epicedion_) on his death (_Silv._ V.
iii.) tells how his father possessed poetic skill, had won victorious
contests in poetry, kept a popular school, turned out pupils successful
in after life, trained his son’s taste, and encouraged the epic on
Thebes. The elder Statius’s affection for his wife, the poet’s mother,
was only one of many endearing qualities which explain the depth of the
younger man’s grief in bereavement. Before his father’s death Statius had
begun to make a mark. He had won the prize for poetry at the Neapolitan
_Augustalia_. At Rome he made money by such a libretto as that on _Agaue_
supplied to the actor Paris,[1372] and his _recitationes_ from his works
attracted good audiences.[1373] Statius senior certainly did not die
till after the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, because a passage in the
_Siluae_ (V. iii. 205) shows that he contemplated a poem on it, as he had
already celebrated the destruction in 69 of the temples on the Capitol.
The passage reads as if he did not long survive the eruption; and yet,
since he encouraged his son’s work on the _Thebaid_ (_Silv._ V. iii.
233), he must have lived an appreciable time beyond its inception in A.D.
80. However that may be, he was no longer alive at the time of Statius’s
memorable triumph in the Alban competition instituted by Domitian, and
the earliest date assignable to this success with a poem on the emperor’s
exploits is 89.
Meanwhile (apart from recitations) none of Statius’s extant work had
been published; but he had long been elaborating his epic on the seven
champions against Thebes. That poem, the _Thebaid_, was issued in
twelve books shortly before[1374] the publication of the first book of
the _Siluae_, which can be dated A.D. 92. Certain passages,[1375] it
is true, in the _Siluae_ refer to the author as still at work on the
_Thebaid_; but they must be assumed to have been written, though not
published, before 92. The poet’s farewell to a task of twelve years
bears interesting testimony to his speculation on its claim to lasting
renown, his complimentary attitude to Domitian, his knowledge that his
own writings were being already studied, and above all his worshipful
reverence for Virgil, the inspirer of his epic style:
Shalt thou, my lay of Thebes, my wakeful toil
For twice six years, shalt thou far off endure,
And, when thy maker is no more, be read?
E’en now, be sure, fame hath made fair the way
For thee, and seeks to show thy novelty
To men unborn. E’en now our noble Prince
Grants thee acquaintance; now Italian youths
Learn thee by heart amain. Live on, I pray!
Yet vie not thou with Virgil’s god-sent strain—
Follow afar: his every step adore.[1376]
Attracted from the subject of Thebes to “the tale of Troy divine,” he was
yet to attempt another epic; but, for an interval, he was free to collect
some of his miscellaneous poems, and the first book of the _Siluae_ was
issued in the same year, as is inferred from its prefatory reference to
the death of Rutilius Gallicus, prefect of Rome, whose recovery from
illness is the theme of the fourth poem. This book, dedicated to the poet
Stella, whose marriage is celebrated in the second poem, was followed
during the poet’s lifetime by II, III and IV, all addressed to different
friends. Book IV can be definitely dated, as its opening piece celebrates
Domitian’s seventeenth consulate: the book is assigned to the summer
of A.D. 95. It is a fair surmise that Book II had been published in 93
and Book III in 94. Book V may have been posthumously issued; for its
preface to Abascantus bears solely on the first poem, and the fifth is
incomplete.
Statius writes as if his attempted epic on Achilles had to yield place to
the idea of an Italian subject—the wars of Domitian.[1377] He had begun
his _Achilleid_ in 95,[1378] and although it had not gone far beyond
a single book, he gave public readings from it.[1379] But the final
interruption came with his death. The presumption is that Statius did not
outlive Domitian, whose assassination occurred in 96.
The lost works of Statius are the pantomime _Agaue_ from the tragic
Theban story of Pentheus; the epic on the German campaign of Domitian,
of which four hexameters survive;[1380] and an epistle concerning the
_Thebaid_ sent to Vibius Maximus, the recipient of Statius’s Sapphics
(_Silv._ IV. vii.), and an epitomator of Livy.[1381] From the ode to him
and the allusion in the preface of _Siluae_, Book IV, we realize that
Statius admired his literary power and felt gratitude for his inspiring
encouragement while the _Thebaid_ was being written.
Statius’s love for his native Naples is obvious in his works. It was
thither that he repaired towards the end of his life, mortified by his
defeat in the Capitoline contest of 94, though sustained by the sympathy
of his wife Claudia. But he had lived much in Rome and at the Alban villa
which he owed to the emperor. His circle of friends was representative of
the age. It included Domitian himself, whom he flattered far more than
was justified by the grant of a special water-supply or by invitations to
dinner. It included also men prominent in public life like the prefect
Rutilius, imperial secretaries like Claudius Etruscus and Abascantus, or
men who combined literary tastes with national service, like the poet
Arruntius Stella who rose to the consulship, and the historian Vibius
Maximus who under Trajan became governor of Egypt. It is plain that
Statius and Martial belonged to the same social grade; for Etruscus,
Stella, and Lucan’s widow Polla appear in the works of both; and among
other friends in common were Atedius Melior and Novius Vindex. But
neither poet names the other, and the silence may be due to dislike.
The age was a tranquil one, favourable to aesthetic refinement rather
than powerful creation; and Statius is its perfect counterpart in his
quiet learning, power of polished expression, appreciation of beautiful
scenes and beautiful works of art. We can discern his warmth of heart in
the love he bears his father and his wife, and in his sorrow over the
death of the little boy whom he adopted; for his marriage to Claudia, a
widow with a daughter, proved childless. Very appropriately he contrasts
a busy man of affairs with himself, a poet idly touching his lyre, but
filled with a scholar’s veneration for Virgil:
Thy talents are alive; thy spirit, girt
For mighty tasks, can face both foul and fair.
But I, a singer whiling easeful hours,
Quest after reputation’s airy joys:
And, lo! I woo the dreamful happy shore,
Where, newly landed in Ausonia,
Parthenope found haven; there I touch
With idle thumb my slender-stringéd lyre,
And seated by the marge of Virgil’s shrine
Take heart to hymn my mighty master’s grave.[1382]
We may rest assured that, while courtier-like he felt compelled to
feign a celestial rapture in being a guest at Domitian’s table[1383]
and to suggest that it outshone the Homeric banquet of King Alcinous
or the Virgilian banquet of Queen Dido, still his secret preference
must have been for some such feast of reason and flow of soul as he was
safe to find when he dined with his poet-friend Vindex.[1384] At the
board of that cultured connoisseur, gifted with unerring judgement of
art-treasures, the menu—unlike that of Trimalchio in Petronius—did not
consist of freakish whets to the appetite (_ludibria uentris_), but was
in keeping with the literary talk and cheery jests which made a midwinter
night fly[1385]—a night to mark with pearls (_nox et Erythraeae Thetidos
signanda lapillis_). In these social surroundings we can best understand
the personality of Statius.
One might feel a temptation to dismiss the _Thebaid_ with a summary as
brief as the twelve bald hexameters in the _Codex Toletanus_; but that
would convey a beggarly impression of a narrative nearly 10,000[1386]
lines long, in which, despite dull tracts, there are vigorous incidents
and great moments. If Statius had studied the construction and
proportions of his story more exactly, if he had condensed some and
rigidly excised others of his episodes, the _Thebaid_ would have gained
in unity and attractiveness, while his readers and his reputation might
have been increased by the reappearance as separate poems of the best
among the banished portions. The following analysis may serve to confirm
this.
Book I. Statius makes a dull start with frigid professions of ignorance
as to where in the Theban story he should begin, and with equally
frigid flattery of Domitian. The requisite note of gloom is struck in
the fiendish prayer of the self-blinded Oedipus to the Fury Tisiphone
that she should estrange his sons Eteocles and Polynices, and ensure
discord through Eteocles’s refusal to keep his promise of letting his
brother reign for a year in his stead at Thebes. Sharing none of Lucan’s
objections to divine interference in epic action, the poet describes a
council of Gods attended by Demigods, Rivers and Winds at which ruinous
war between Thebes and Argos is ordained. Polynices, the prince exiled
from Thebes, reaches Argos and during a terrific storm fights with
another stranger to the land, Tydeus, for shelter by the palace door.
The two combatants are received by King Adrastus, become fast friends,
and are recognized by their host as the Lion (Polynices) and the Boar
(Tydeus), destined to be his sons-in-law. At a royal banquet they see the
two princesses, their future brides:
The face of men was new to them and set
Them blushing; and together red and white
Coursed o’er their glowing cheeks; their modest eyes
Turned to their venerable sire once more.[1387]
The king’s tale of the dealings of Apollo with Argos owing to the death
of the God’s child is a digression.
Book II. The woes of an accursed house work even beyond the grave. The
ghost of Laius, father of Oedipus, escapes—to the envy of the other
dead—from the lower world for the purpose of hardening Eteocles against
his brother. Meanwhile at Argos there are wedding festivities, but also
bad omens, when Argia is married to Polynices and Deipyle to Tydeus.
The story of the fatal necklace of Harmonia worn by Argia is told
incidentally. After twelve days of rejoicing, Polynices turns to his
claims on Thebes:
Grief and mad anger gnawed his mind, and that
Than which no heavier burden vexes men—
Hope long deferred.[1388]
Tydeus undertakes a mission to Thebes to require from Eteocles observance
of his pact; but Eteocles refuses and plots to waylay the envoy on his
way back by ordering an ambush of fifty men to await him. Tydeus’s fight
against his foes in the pass is one of the most spirited and saga-like
passages of the _Thebaid_. His challenge to the lurking assassins is
given in ringing tones:
“Step forth and face me. Out! To open ground!
Why dread to dare? What cowardice is this?
’Tis I alone, alone, that offer fight.”[1389]
At the stone of the Sphinx he baffles their onset, slaying one after
another:
Alarmed they miss their fellows, then they count.
Their murder-lust is changed amid their grief
Over the thinning of so strong a band (_rarescere turbam_).[1390]
One survivor is spared to take back the tidings to the treacherous king.
Book III. At the news there is sorrow in Thebes. To stir up Argos,
Jupiter despatches Mars and overawes the gods into compliance with his
will. The hush produced by his threats is likened to a windless calm in
summer-time:
As when the ocean is becalmed amid
Long surcease of the gales, and every shore
Reposeth in an unresisting sleep,
When drowsy summer fans the woodland leaves
And clouds with scarce a breath; then do the pools
And murmuring meres abate their height, and streams
Are hushed, for burning suns have parched them dry.[1391]
Exultant in his chariot, Mars is met and reproached by Venus in vain.
Tydeus, battle-worn and wounded, presents himself at the council of King
Adrastus in Argos and relates his adventure. The debate is “war or no
war?” The seer Amphiaraus, when consulted, foresees disaster, and, though
reluctant to reveal the worst, opposes the impetuosity of Capaneus. The
seer’s speech when induced to break his silence is a forcible effort.
Argia pleads for hostilities. Her speech has an effective close in human
feeling: she would have her royal father consent to the war which is
the heart’s desire of her husband; but she knows that, when the parting
comes and the bugles sound for the men who march away, she would wish it
otherwise.
Book IV. King Adrastus decides on war in the third spring after Polynices
left Thebes. The leaders are Adrastus, Polynices, Tydeus, Hippomedon,
Capaneus, Amphiaraus and Parthenopaeus. The description of the forces of
these seven warriors against Thebes forms a dull catalogue of blended
geography and mythology. At Thebes the dejected king consults the
prophet Teiresias, who advocates recourse to the oracles of the dead in a
forest of gloom comparable to Lucan’s eerie forest near Massilia. Statius
conveys an appropriate sense of weirdness in his description:
At noontide yet and in the lonely night
Thro’ shadowland the damnéd ground exhales
Appalling battle-fumes: black figures rise—
The Earthborn dead—to urge their ghostly war.
The peasant flees his half-ploughed field unnerved,
And cattle come back to the steading mad.[1392]
From the sadness of the Argolic ghosts whom he evokes Teiresias infers
an ultimate Theban victory. Bacchus, aiding Thebes, hinders the Argives’
march by a miraculous drought:
It was the hour whereat the panting day (_anhela dies_)
Raiseth the sun high as the mid-world peak,
When o’er the gaping fields a sluggard haze (_tardus uapor_)
Broods, and each forest lets the sunlight in.[1393]
And amidst this anguish of the solstice they are guided to the one spring
remaining in the land by Hypsipyle, once of Lemnos and now a nurse to a
king’s child Opheltes or Archemorus. Suspecting no danger, she leaves the
child, in order to show them the water more quickly.
Book V. King Adrastus is desirous of knowing who this benefactress is,
and nearly 500 lines are devoted to the fortunes, past and present, of
Hypsipyle. She relates the crime of the Lemnian women in murdering their
menfolk, the consequences to herself of having surreptitiously saved her
father, and the visit of Jason in the Argo. Statius here trespasses on
the subject of Valerius Flaccus’s _Argonautica_; and it may be noted that
while in the _Thebaid_ Hypsipyle states that she was forced into a union
with Jason, Valerius represents her as attracted into an amour by Jason’s
looks.
The child Archemorus has been all this time left unattended, and another
digression describes the venomous serpent which attacks him. Cries “like
half-completed words in dreams” (_qualia non totas peragunt insomnia
uoces_) are heard, and on her return the errant nurse finds the child
dead. Against the furious anger of its father she is protected by the
grateful Argives.
Book VI. The epic interest is considerably less in a book concerned first
with the building of a funeral pyre and cremation of the child, and
then with an elaborate account of the games in its honour—chariot-race,
foot-race (“running,” remarks the poet, “is a useful accomplishment in
war, if success fails one!”) quoits, boxing and wrestling.
Book VII. Jupiter is vexed that the Argives should delay the war by
holding games—and readers may sympathize with Jupiter’s feeling in
mid-epic. A further intervention is made by Mars and Bacchus. Eteocles
hears of the Argive advance, and there follows a catalogue of the host,
as pointed out by old Phorbas to Antigone, sister of the arch-opponents,
while they look forth from a tower in Thebes. Jocasta, mother of
Polynices, comes forth
In all the mighty majesty of woe
(_egreditur magna cum maiestate malorum_)[1394]
to carry the olive branch (_ramum oleae_) into her son’s camp and make
an appeal for peace. Polynices is touched; but, while he is wavering,
Tydeus intervenes, bitterly recalling the treachery to which he had
been subjected by Eteocles. The overtures fail: the Fury rouses the
old passion for blood: fighting begins. A Theban warrior longs to slay
Amphiaraus, counting other victims trivial in comparison. But another
doom was appointed for him: Apollo diverts the fatal weapon to his
charioteer, and takes the dead driver’s place, spreading death everywhere
as the chariot careers on its dread path among bleeding corpses and dying
men. Then by a solemn intuition Amphiaraus realizes the presence of
Apollo and his own nearness to the brink of the other world:
“Long since, Cirrhaean sire, my quivering car
Told me ’twas thou that by my fated team
Didst sit (why honour human frailty thus?)
How long wilt thou delay th’ approaching ghosts?
I hear e’en now the Stygian torrent’s rush,
Pluto’s black rivers and the triple bark
Of hellish watch-hound. Take my laurel crown,
Take now thine honours girt about my head:
To carry these to hell were sacrilege.
With my last words—if aught of thanks thou ow’st
Unto thy prophet passing hence—to thee,
Phoebus, I trust a home betrayed, and doom
Of wife accurst, and generous wrath of son.”
—Down leaped Apollo sad, but hid his tears.[1395]
Then came the mysterious passing, as the ground opened beneath the doomed
man:
Sheer yawned the earth below with jaws profound.
Dread seized in turn on stars and shadowland.
Him did that cavern measureless drink down,
Engulfing steeds that made as if to cross.
He loosed not grip of weapon or of rein,
But, as he was, drove straight for Tartarus,
And, ever lower fallen, gazed at heaven,
Groaning to see the land close over him,
Until a lighter shock conjoined again
The parted fields and blocked daylight from Hell.[1396]
Book VIII. Excitement reigns in the lower world over the sudden descent
of Amphiaraus; and the querulous utterances of Pluto, almost Lucianesque
in their scoffing spirit, have a wholly different ring from the
consistent solemnity of Virgil in _Aeneid_ VI. The Argives are inwardly
shaken and fall back: so there is joy in Thebes. Adrastus summons a
council to choose a successor to the prophet. The battle is renewed on
the Theban side by a sally, and a narrative of wounds and death ensues.
The daughters of Oedipus, Antigone and Ismene, a pair of contrasting
characters (_par aliud morum_), lament the sorrows of their house with
divided sympathies in the conflict:
Both, ways their fears incline: whom would they wish
The vanquished, whom the victor in the war?
The exile wins their preference unowned.
(_tacite praeponderat exsul_).[1397]
Real pathos marks the end of Ismene’s lover, Atys, the warrior brought
home dying, with her name the only word on his chill lips.[1398] Tydeus
works havoc among the enemy, and sends whirling through the air helmets
with heads inside (_galeasque rotat per nubila plenas_, 699). He and
Melanippus mortally wound each other, and the book closes with the
horrible spectacle of Tydeus gnawing the head of his adversary.
Book IX is mainly concerned with the valiancy of two heroes, Hippomedon
and the young Arcadian Parthenopaeus, whose parting from his mother
Atalanta formed a brief episode in Book IV. Stoutly defending the dead
Tydeus, Hippomedon is tempted away by Tisiphone’s lying message that
Adrastus is taken prisoner, and on returning discovers that the foe
have secured his friend’s body. During Hippomedon’s subsequent deeds
of prowess, he is opposed by the River-god Ismenus and is saved from
drowning only to succumb on the bank under a rain of darts. Parthenopaeus
signalizes himself by feats of archery. He is in the end, at the
instigation of Mars, slain by Dryas, who is in turn slain by an invisible
hand, deemed to be that of Diana herself. The book concludes with the
dying behests of Parthenopaeus.
Book X. Theban troops, inspirited by Eteocles’s harangue, plan to
surround the Argives and prevent a retreat; but are themselves overcome
by a divinely contrived sleep and surprised by the Argives, who break
their lines and do much slaughter. At daybreak a fierce attack is
delivered on Thebes, when Creon’s son Menoeceus devotes himself for his
city, plunging to death from a rampart-tower. Capaneus, defiantly scaling
the town walls, is struck dead by Jupiter’s thunderbolt.
Book XI. Goaded by Tisiphone, Polynices challenges Eteocles to single
combat, and the latter, over-persuaded by Creon to face his brother,
will not listen to the entreaties of his mother Jocasta. Polynices
similarly rejects his sister Antigone’s appeals. Heaven, earth and hell
are revolted by this detestably unnatural duel. The horrified Adrastus
endeavours in vain to part the brothers and retires to Argos. The
agonized intervention of Pietas descending from the skies is foiled by
the malignant Fury.
Thus, at last, half-way through the eleventh book, Statius makes the
two protagonists meet, with the result that the compression of the last
eleven hundred lines produces a much balder effect than that of the
more spacious books which precede. Both combatants die, Polynices being
mortally wounded, as he stoops to strip his rival. Creon, assuming the
crown, decrees that no invader is to be buried. Led by Antigone, Oedipus
laments over the bodies of his sons, and meditates suicide, which his
daughter prevents. Jocasta stabs herself, and is tended by Ismene. Then
Antigone’s intercession obtains a mitigation of Creon’s arrogant sentence
of exile launched at Oedipus. The remnants of the invading army disperse
to Adrastus’s dominions.
Book XII opens with funeral honours for the Theban dead. A report of
Creon’s decree withholding burial from his fallen foes is brought to the
wives of the six slain leaders on their way from Argos to recover the
bodies of their dead. Except Argia, Polynices’s widow, all the women go
to implore aid from Theseus, King of Athens. Argia, arriving outside
Thebes, burns the body of her husband on Eteocles’s pyre, where there are
signs to show that fratricidal hatred had survived death; she is met and
helped by Antigone. The two are detected, haled before Creon, proudly own
their act and are sentenced to death. Athens meanwhile consents to help
the Argive war-widows. Very significantly the altar of mercy in Athens is
described, as a symbolic contrast to the harshness of Creon at Thebes.
The passage is remarkable for the colour it gave to the notion of after
times that the poet was a Christian:
There stood an altar at the city’s heart
Reared to no God of Power: Mercy mild
Made it her shrine, and human misery
Had hallowed it. It never lacked for prayers
Renewed, nor e’er repelled a suppliant.
There whoso asks is heard, and day and night
The way is open, and the offering
The Holy One requireth is a cry.
The worship costs but little: incense-flame
And victim’s blood find no acceptance there.
That altar sweats with tears.[1399]
So the Athenians approach Thebes and win the victory, Creon dying at the
hands of Theseus. The obsequies of the fallen and the _envoi_ (already
translated) complete the work.
To appreciate an allusive epic like the _Thebaid_ the reader needs
equipment in the myths of Thebes: he must know more than the story of
Oedipus, the fated king, his house, and the “Seven Against Thebes”: he
must remember the outlines of legends about Amphion, about Cadmus, son of
Agenor, about Dirce, and he must be expert enough to grasp why Statius
calls Thebes by varying epithets like “Aonian” (I. 34), “Echionian” (I.
169, II. 90), “Ogygian” (I. 173, 328, II. 85), or “Sidonian” (III. 656),
and why Polynices is the “Ismenian hero” (I. 673), and why the Argives
are _Inacha pubes_ (I. 619). The well-springs of all such mythological
lore lay far back in the ancient Greek Cyclic story of Thebes; in the
tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides;[1400] and in Statius’s
main source for material, Antimachus, who, before the days of the
Alexandrian poets, but anticipating their erudition, composed a massive
epic in his _Thebais_. He wrote rather for the leisured and the learned
than for the ordinary reader. Alexandrian critics put him second among
epic authors: and Hadrian is said to have preferred him to Homer. But
he used his spacious limits unrestrained by any canons of unity. Not
content to end the forbidding tale of fratricidal strife on the more
human, more really tragic note of Antigone’s devotion to her slain
brother, he involved himself in two additional sequels, the war with
Athens and the revenge of Argos. Statius showed more wisdom in writing
fewer books on the theme, in condensing the war with Athens, and in
omitting the triumphant return during the next generation of the Argive
avengers, the Epigoni. When he is criticized, as he deserves to be, for
his digressions, it is fair to remember the almost overpowering literary
legacy which he inherited. There are signs that he also consulted
Seneca’s _Phoenissae_ and _Oedipus_; but in Latin his master was Virgil,
although Ovid and Lucan[1401] also went to his making. Nor was Horace
forgotten.[1402] The Virgilian influence is manifest both in his language
and in the construction of his incidents. Sometimes actual phrases are
copied as in _magnanimosque duces_ (_Th._ III. 65); _procumbunt piceae_
(_Th._ VI. 100, to remind readers, as if by a traditional phrase, that
the whole passage is based on the felling of the wood in _Aen._ VI.
179 _sqq._); _pede pes_ (_Th._ VIII. 399, repeating the Ennian words
borrowed by Furius of Antium as well as by Virgil, _Aen._ X. 361, and in
structure going back to Homer himself). The _Siluae_ present the same
features in phrases like _urbis opus_ (_Silv._ II. ii. 31) and _qualis
eras!_ (II. vi. 34). Or, again, a different turn may be given to the
original expression, as Virgil’s _Quis fallere possit amantem?_ becomes
_nil transit amantes_ (_Th._ II. 335), or his _forsan et haec meminisse
iuuabit_ is elaborated into
_forsan et has uenturus amor praemiserit iras_
_ut meminisse iuuet._ (_Th._ I. 472-473).
Elsewhere Statius gives us a blend of verbal and material reminiscence,
as when he implores his father’s spirit to revisit and counsel him in
dreams issuing from “the Gate of Horn” rather than from “The Ivory Gate”
(_Silv._ V. iii. _sub fin._; _Aen._ VI., _sub fin._). His debt to Virgil
for incident is also heavy—too heavy, in truth, for genuine originality.
It was not merely that he took over through Virgil the convention of
supernatural interferences, as also of copious decorative similes, and
outdid all his predecessors in these: he went further and allowed his
imitation to become too obsequious in a parallelism of incidents. Because
Evander told the story of Hercules and Cacus in the _Aeneid_, we must,
before the first book of the _Thebaid_ is completed, have Adrastus’s
digressive tale about Coroebus’s resolve to rid his country of a punitive
monster sent by Apollo; because there were funeral games in Virgil, we
must have almost a whole book devoted to the rites and contests in memory
of the child Archemorus; and because _Aeneid_ IX celebrated the bold
night-raid by Nisus and Euryalus, we must have a corresponding pair,
Hopleus and Dymas, in the tenth book of the _Thebaid_, intercepted during
their quest for the bodies of Tydeus and Parthenopaeus.
The other epic effort by Statius was his _Achilleid_, cut short by death
when little over 1100 lines were written. What dimensions this tale of
Troy might have reached we can only guess: it certainly was to cover
a wider field than a “Wrath of Achilles”; for the author, immediately
after his invocation, declares that his design is to relate more than the
_Iliad_ contains—not to end with the fate of Hector, as Homer did, but to
escort the young hero throughout the Trojan war.[1403] This then, is a
second laurel wreath which he asks Apollo to plait for him, inasmuch as
he announces himself no stranger to the Muses but known for his poem on
Thebes.[1404] True to his more extended view of Achilles’s life, Statius
begins early in it with the fears of the hero’s mother Thetis that danger
threatens her son from the elopement of Helen with Paris. So, with the
purpose of transferring Achilles to a safe hiding-place, she visits the
cave of the Centaur Chiron under Mount Pelion where the youth is being
brought up. Her son is absent: Chiron tells his mother he has remarked a
change in him:
Once he was wont to bear rebuke and hear
Commands with zeal, nor far desert the cave;
Now Ossa holds him not; nor Pelion’s
Towering mass, nor snows of Thessaly.
Just at that moment, radiant after an adventure on which he has killed a
lioness, he returns,
Yet, spite of war and toilsome energy,
Comely to look upon: there floated o’er
Fair lineaments a rosy fire: his hair
Outshone the gleam of yellow gold, and time
Had not yet changed his earliest youthful down.
Eyes with a quiet flash were his, and you
Could see his mother written on his face.
She decides that he must be concealed in the island of Scyros, and
a pleasant picture of mingled nature and fancy is given us of his
half-miraculous transference thither. Achilles, sunk in the profound
sleep that falls on the young (_qui pueris sopor_), is borne by his
goddess-mother down to the quiet seashore (_iussa tacere litora_). The
way lies clear in a moonlit world. Their escort, the Centaur, seeks to
hide his moist eyes (_udaque celat lumina_), when suddenly a dolphin team
hurries mother and son off across the waters, and he can with effort
(_erecto prospectat equo!_) just see them pass from sight where the
white foam lingers behind their course. Then gloom descends on Thessaly;
for the heights of Pholoë lament the youth that will never return, and
cloud-capt Othrys sighs, and the river Spercheos wastes with pining—a
frigid sort of “pathetic fallacy” like the legendary sorrow of nature for
Balder dead. It is a more natural touch to say that the cave where the
old Centaur taught Achilles music is now mute, or even to fancy that the
woodland Fauns miss his boyish melodies, but the grotesque is reached
in the mourning of the nymphs for the lost opportunity of marrying
Achilles! This and the too matter-of-fact reference to the Centaur on his
hind legs (_erecto equo_) are among the not infrequent instances where
mythology betrayed Statius into absurdity. Nearly all the rest of the
existing fragment, which might borrow Mr. Robert Bridges’ title “Achilles
in Scyros,” relates his reception in women’s attire at court there, his
passion for one of the princesses, the detection of his disguise by
Ulysses, and his departure for Troy.
The _Achilleid_ has much the same qualities as the _Thebaid_. There
are still echoes of Virgil, mythological erudition, and ornamental
similes. The subject, however, is a more attractive one than that of
the _Thebaid_, and it is unfortunate that the incompleteness of the
_Achilleid_ makes elaborate comparison between them nugatory.
Probably Statius and his contemporaries felt that his fame would be
founded on his epic work, and it was for his _Thebaid_ that he was valued
in the Middle Ages. In Dante he plays an elevated part, and is often
quoted. Chaucer, who mentions him with enthusiasm several times, calls
him “Stace of Thebes” in _The Knightes Tale_, and in the _Hous of Fame_,
repeating Dante’s confusion[1405] of him with a rhetorician of Toulouse,
The Tholosan that highte Stace,
That bar of Thebes up the fame
Upon his shuldres, and the name
Also of cruel Achilles.
Here, then, as in _Troilus and Criseyde_, where he tells his “litel book”
to go
And kis the steppes, whereas thou seest pace
Virgile, Ovyde, Omer, Lucan and Stace,
it is among the great narrative poets that Chaucer places Statius. His
hold upon the Middle Ages[1406] is not altogether easy to explain. Was it
the tradition that he became a Christian which threw a halo round him in
the eyes of medieval Catholicism, and did that tradition in turn grow out
of his worshipful attitude to Virgil and the tenderness of feeling which
found one of its most remarkable expressions in his description of the
Shrine of Mercy at Athens? Modern criticism, however, is not likely to
forget that he was also the author of the miscellaneous _Siluae_, which
after centuries of oblivion were restored to notice, when Poggio on his
travels in 1417 or 1418 found them in a manuscript along with Manilius
and Silius and had a copy made to be sent back to Italy.[1407]
The thirty-two poems in the five books of the miscellany entitled
the _Siluae_ are mostly in hexameter verse, though there are four in
hendecasyllables[1408] and one set each of Alcaics and Sapphics.[1409]
The number of lines in each book is between 700 and 800. In the fifth
book, the longest poem of all, 293 lines on the poet’s father, is in
juxtaposition to the shortest, the 19 lines to Sleep. The variety of the
poems is the outcome of their origin: they fit some passing event; pay
a compliment to the emperor or a friend; describe a country house or
work of art; frame an elegy on the poet’s father, a slave, a lion or a
parrot; indite an invocation to Sleep; or celebrate the dead poet Lucan’s
birthday. In other words, they are occasional verses, being, the author
tells us in one of his five prefaces,[1410] rapidly composed, so that
they illustrate Quintilian’s description of what is meant by a _silua_ in
literature.[1411] Statius had long hesitated about issuing in collected
form poems which were composed separately, but considered that the author
of the _Thebaid_ might be pardoned for this venture, on the analogy of
great poets who wrote light verses as Virgil did the _Culex_.[1412] All
students of the archaeology and social history of the Flavian age have
reason to applaud the poet’s decision to give them to the world; and
as literature there is nothing quite like them in Latin. They are not
to be judged as claiming high inspiration, but as pieces in which the
recurrent artificiality is time after time illuminated by the play of a
pretty fancy and the grace of clever expression. Nor is the artificiality
wholly inconsistent with sincerity of feeling. A survey of the poems may
illustrate their qualities.
Book I. Statius is not at his best in the opening poem, on the
equestrian statue of Domitian, where he strikes an exaggerated note in
suggesting that the work has come down complete from heaven, that the
rider is a greater than Julius, and that the burden of divinity makes
Earth pant beneath the statue. The long epithalamium which follows, on
Stella’s marriage to Violentilla, who was a Neapolitan like Statius, is
pleasanter, though modern taste wearies of its Venus, Cupids, Apollo
and Bacchus. More concrete and engaging is the third poem, on a visit
to Vopiscus’s cool retreat at Tivoli where the natural beauty of the
scenery makes a genuine impression on the poet,[1413] and compensates for
the attendant artificialities. Then the recovery of Rutilius Gallicus
is celebrated in polished lines, which, however they suited the first
century, read rather frigidly when they introduce a rescue by Apollo and
Aesculapius. Statius holds us more in describing his friend’s considerate
conduct as a judge[1414] and his premature breakdown owing to the strain
of official duty. The lines appear to argue in their author maturity of
years, and bear on the question of his birth-date: to him in this poem
sixty is not old age:
’Twas not the fault of years (for they had scarce
O’ertaken twice six lustres) but the toil
Incessant and the vigorous mind’s control
Over the body, all the watchful care
For his own emperor—a task beloved.
So stole upon the core of that tired frame
Ensnaring ease, slow disregard of life.[1415]
In the fifth poem his sportive theme is the decoration of Claudius
Etruscus’s baths and his task to celebrate not Greek springs but the
Latin waters of the aqueducts Virgo and Marcia. Having struck this Roman
note, however, he returns to Greek mythology: it is our Lady of Cythera,
Venus and her husband, the Fire-God, who with the aid of the Loves’
torches are responsible for heating the bath furnaces! Everything there
is costly (_nil ibi plebeium_); for Statius had aristocratic tastes: the
water is fit to be Cytherea’s birthplace, Narcissus’s mirror, Diana’s
bath! And after these mythological conceits comes the prosaic assurance
that not even a visitor from the seaside would despise those bathing
facilities.[1416] The book closes with the praises of the emperor’s
carnival, memorable for a fair-weather rain of delicacies and fruits,
a lavish bounty surpassing the Golden Age, Domitian’s condescension in
sharing the feast, spectacular features like women combatants and dwarf
warriors, and the cosmopolitan crowd at the theatre—buxom Lydian damsels
clapping their hands, the jingling musicians of Cadiz, noisy Syrians, and
those who barter common sulphur for broken glass.
The consolatory poem sent to Melior on the death of a slave-boy adopted
by him has touches of real feeling, and is less overloaded with
mythology. Closeness of blood, he argues in excuse for the adoptive
father’s frantic grief, does not always make the strongest tie:
Sons we beget perforce—adopt at will.[1417]
But there is comfort in regarding death as freedom from anxiety:
We all must go, must go; and Aeacus
Shaketh the urn amid the boundless shades (_umbris_, v. l. _ulnis_).
Yet he we mourn is happy in th’ escape
From men and gods and hazards unforeseen
And life’s dark instability; for him
Fate may not touch. He never asked nor feared
Nor yet deserved (_meruit_, v.l. _renuit_) to die; but we, a crowd
Distressed and wretched, know not whence may come
Our final day or what shall end our time.[1418]
The poem on the mansion of Pollius and Polla at Sorrento shows how the
effects of nature and of art compete in the poet’s mind. To adjudicate
between the charms of a crescent bay outside and the architectural
amenities of the villa itself is embarrassing.[1419] Characteristically
he divides his praises among aesthetic treasures and the view from
different rooms, with his eye now on Naples in the distance, now on the
variety of marbles around him. He draws from nature in his picture of the
seaside villa in the gloaming,
When day is wearied and the shadow falls
Upon the water from the hill at dusk,
And mirrored mansions float upon the bay;[1420]
or he indulges in a purely fanciful picture:
Oft when the grape is ripe with autumn-down,
A sea-nymph climbs the cliff, who, canopied
’Neath the dark night, with full-grown tendril clears
Of brine her dripping eyes, and from the slopes
Snatches the clusters sweet. The spindrift oft
Splashes the vintage from the neighbouring waves.
The Satyrs seaward dive and ’mid the surf
The Hill-gods long to seize the naked nymph.[1421]
Three short pieces follow, each touching on a possession of Atedius
Melior—his plane-tree by the garden pool concerning which Statius
daintily relates the legend of a nymph’s escape from Pan; his parrot
for whose sudden death a train of mourning birds is invited to chaunt
a dirge; and his tame lion slain in the amphitheatre to the just
indignation of his fellow-lions, but with the consolation of having
roused the emotion of people, senate and emperor! Of the dead slave of
Flavius Ursus, commemorated in the next poem, he affirms that his fine
qualities of soul justify the free display of grief which Statius in
such consolations takes pains to emphasize. The book closes with the
_Genethliacon Lucani_, whose neat hendecasyllabics congratulate Spain,
land of the west, on its gift of Lucan to the world, and extravagantly
claim that Homer and Virgil are outrivalled by him. But we are grateful
for the light thrown by the Muse’s prophecy on the subjects of Lucan’s
writings. Nor are the exclamatory lines on a young life cut short
unnatural:
Ah! Fates too cruel and severe!
Ah! Brief the span of high career!
Why round the peak must perils rage?
Why may not greatness reach old age?[1422]
Book III opens with a record of the dedication of a temple to Hercules by
Pollius Felix at Sorrento on a spot where the old narrow shrine once gave
shelter to a picnic party surprised on a hot summer day by tempest. The
poet thinks the spacious building has improved what was
A barren sandy shore but yesterday,
A hillside which the sea-foam splashed upon,
Cliffs rough with brier, ground that foothold grudged.[1423]
The second piece is a send-off (_propempticon_) to the author’s patron
Maecius Celer about to sail for Egypt, where, the poem reminds us, the
grain ships come from. Echoing Horace, Statius says his patron takes
with him the better half of his soul (_animae partem ... maiorem_), and
he dwells on the pain of parting. The gradually disappearing vessel is
pictured:
The barque speeds o’er the wandering tides in flight,
Faint by degrees, defeating eyes that strain
Afar, and clasps within its slender boards
Legions of fears.[1424]
His self-recrimination over failure to go abroad with his patron scarcely
rings true, especially when supported with mythological instances; but
the imagined reunion on the traveller’s return and the anticipation of
the story of intervening years make a natural conclusion. The third poem
is another consolation: it is addressed to Claudius Etruscus on his
father’s death. The poet too, he says, had mourned a father.[1425] The
dead Etruscus, though of servile origin, was ennobled by service, and
obedience is a law of nature. The sketch of his career is interesting.
Freed by Tiberius, he attended Caligula as a keeper might a wild beast;
he had high responsibilities under Claudius and Nero; and his preferment
in the civil service to the treasury was a tribute to his ability in
dealing with estimates. All this is cleverly told in well-turned verses;
and a pleasant account is given of his married life. Unfortunately,
artificiality is not absent. The conceit of fluttering Cupids dropping
wing-feathers on a funeral pyre or supplying discarded arrow-cases to
make fuel for the cremation is supremely ridiculous; and when the grief
of Etruscus for the loss of his father is compared with the grief of
Theseus in like case, we feel the mythological parallel detracts from the
simplicity befitting a deep sorrow. The fourth poem, one of the least
pleasing, turns on the dedication to Aesculapius of the locks of Earinus,
one of the emperor’s eunuchs. The fifth, on the other hand, has charm
in its playful remonstrance with his wife on her alleged reluctance to
accompany her husband when he has decided to quit Rome for the Bay of
Naples. Could she refuse, after sharing loyally his hours of triumph and
defeat, after full knowledge of his literary toil on the _Thebaid_, after
nursing him back from the point of death? Facetiously he assures her that
her daughter can find suitors elsewhere than in Rome: the district of
his choice has not been completely devastated by the fires of Vesuvius!
This home to which he invites her is “his own, his native land” (_natale
solum_), blest with temperate climate and with peace. He ends this
persiflage with a reminder of the legendary and literary associations of
the Bay of Naples.
The first three poems of Book IV are overburdened with the praises
of Domitian, and celebrate respectively his Majesty’s seventeenth
consulship, his hospitality in the banqueting-hall, and his greatness as
a road-maker. There follows a poetical epistle counselling a busy friend
to take a holiday:
Timely repose incites and nurtures strength,
And manhood after rest grows manlier.[1426]
The one Alcaic lyric of the _Siluae_ is a spring-ode to Septimius
Severus, a native of North Africa. After it stands the hexametric poem
which proves the value attached by Statius to the literary and artistic
accompaniments of a dinner-party. Then Sapphics are addressed to Vibius
Maximus abroad:
When will sweet Latium once more welcome you
From the Dalmatian hills, where, having sought
In hell, the miner comes back pale, in hue
Like gold up-brought.[1427]
But there is a child at home to greet Vibius: let the child learn from
his father the historical skill wherewith he traces the antiquity of
the world, recalling the style of terse Sallust and of “the nurseling
of Timavus” (Livy). The eighth poem conveys congratulations to Julius
Menecrates on the birth of a third child, so that, as the poet is quick
to point out, the emperor’s previous concession of the _ius trium
liberorum_ had merely anticipated Lucina’s actual gift. The final piece,
addressed in a bantering spirit to a friend on his return-present of a
mouldy old book, submits a humorous list of possible cheap things to give
away.
Book V begins with the commemorative poem consoling Abascantus in his
continued grief over the loss of his wife Priscilla, a dear friend of
Statius’s wife. Their loyal union is beautifully drawn and makes one of
several engaging pictures in Statius of married happiness. Priscilla felt
rapturous joy over her husband’s attainment to high office in the state,
but the raptures did not turn her head:
Luck never sapped thy calm: thine honest heart
Swelled not with bliss, but kept the even way.
High fortune left thee modest as before.[1428]
She attended to her careworn husband’s wants with the regularity,
solicitude, and simplicity to be found in a rural home:
As thrifty husbandman’s Apulian wife
Or house-dame sun-browned in the Sabine glare,
Knows, when the stars peep out, the hour has come
That ends his work, and plies her bustling toil
O’er bed and board, and hearkens for the sound
Of the returning plough.[1429]
The doom that assailed this favoured home is the prevailing theme in
the second half of the poem. The succeeding piece is on a youth of
sixteen, Crispinus, going out to face the work of the world, with the
inspiring memory of a father’s distinguished services. The next, a long
“In Memoriam” on Statius’s own father, has been extensively drawn upon in
connexion with his life. Like prose _Consolationes_, such an _epicedion_
shows conventional features in structure and thought. It is followed by
the briefest and most poetic of the _Siluae_. Dr. Mackail says, “one
might almost call it a sonnet,”[1430] and, if certain mythological lines
are dropped, it can be reduced to the requisite proportions:
What crime, O Sleep, thou God of calm confessed
Brings my young heart alone to lack thy boon?
Wild things of earth or air in slumber swoon:
The tree-tops droop the head in mimic rest:
Loud streams are hushed: the rough sea smooths his breast:
Fierce waves find peace upon the strand full soon.
But stars of eve and seventh returning moon
Behold me ever in pale woe depressed.
Dawn passing leaves me in her ruth bedewed:
E’en now some lover, clasping hand in hand
His love by night, repels thee, Sleep, with zeal.
Leave him—not on my eyes full-winged to brood,
As joy might crave. Nay, touch me with thy wand:
Enough if, o’er me poised, thou lightly steal.[1431]
In the final poem of the miscellany is a lament on the death of the
poet’s adopted son which marks the tenderness of his heart. “I,” he says,
“who once could offer balm to the bereaved now crave the healing hand:
and who art thou that censurest my lament?”
Better detain the flood that breaks its bank,
Or counter ravening flame than try to bar
A broken heart from grief.[1432]
There are some books—and shall we not include the _Siluae_ or still more
the _Thebaid_?—of which the reader feels that it were best not too
earnestly to plod through them, but when one chances upon the wearisome
to leave it as one found it, perhaps preferring my Lord of Montaigne’s
method “of running over by divers glances, sodaine glimpses and
reiterated reprisings.” To come from a simple and direct kind of poetry
to Statius is like passing out of the open breeze into a conservatory of
flowers, where many are beautiful but many raise the conviction that they
are forced. He had inherited the Alexandrian and Catullian fondness for
picture-drawing; and it is a natural result that descriptions emanating
from an art-admirer like Statius should be influenced by his recollection
of paintings and statues. At the same time this influence removed
him one degree further from nature and led to that over-elaboration,
which, by leaving little to the reader’s imagination, loses the charm
of vague suggestiveness.[1433] It is a learned and allusive style, apt
to be far-fetched in fancy and excessive in eulogy. The _Siluae_, in
particular, have the elegance of the eighteenth century. They imply a
cultured leisure fertile in refined improvisations. The elegance bears
a resemblance to that of Pope and Thomson, and the scenery to that of
Watteau’s _Fêtes Champêtres_. Some of the missives have a tone that would
have suited the boudoir of a French _marquise_ or the library of a noble
patron of letters in the time of Queen Anne or the early Georges. Nor
is it surprising that the _Thebaid_ should have made an appeal, if only
a transient one, to Gray, whose works contain a fragment of his early
translation into heroic couplets of part of its sixth book.
Statius’s artificiality is largely apparent in his enslavement to an
unreal mythology, but partly also in his liking for literary conceits,
which may or may not be mythological. Modern readers are mildly amused at
the feather-dropping Cupids (_Silv._ III. iii.), or at Leander’s fire of
love fit to warm the sea but not equal to Stella’s love for Violentilla
(I. ii.), or at the descent from the sky of Domitian’s celestial kindred
to embrace his equestrian statue:
Thus one neck shall find room for all the stars! (I. i. 98).
In great part the artificiality was traditional. Thus, when Statius
addresses elegiac poets as “Ye who defraud the renowned verse of its
final stride,” he is intentionally aping Ovid’s conceit of making
Cupid responsible for the change of the heroic hexameter to the
pentameter.[1434] Often the attempt to make a myth realistic merely
succeeds (as with Lucan) in achieving the grotesque: _e.g._ when the
ghost of Laius mortally wounded years before is imagined to drop blood
on the sleeping Eteocles in _Thebaid_ II, or when the deaths of Niobe’s
fourteen children is arithmetically related to the seven gates of Thebes:
Two funerals thronged each massive city-gate.[1435]
Sometimes the artificiality lies more in the phrasing. It is fairly
obvious that “the bridler of fiery footed steeds”[1436] must be the
Sun-god; that, if Hercules is “soaked plentifully with his brother,”
the reference is to the grape juice of Bacchus;[1437] and that, when in
years a boy “equalled the sum of Hercules’s labours,” he ought to be
twelve.[1438] Rather more remote is the epithet “Ledaean” applied to a
swan-plume because of Jove’s amour with Leda, or the author’s mode of
suggesting that a cool mansion is free from the scorching summer sun of
the Olympic games:
The house seethes not with heat of Pisa’s year.[1439]
Again, the artificiality may depend on no allusion, but on a curiously
strained form of expression. “He slants (_obliquat_) his entreaties”
is used of entreaties addressed to bystanders; “they hold exchange
of breasts” means embracing; “she reduced the glades to peace with
her horn” means that Atalanta, when hunting, killed the wild beasts
therein; and “the liquid fodder of eastern mid-winter” is a Statian
expression for rains that feed the Nile.[1440] It is easy to laugh
at such lapses from the straightforward and to complain of Statius’s
artificiality and prolixity: it is easier still, and perhaps commoner,
to decry him without reading him. But neither carping nor neglect is
the right attitude towards a great influence in literature. More profit
is derivable from remembering that he can show, as an epic writer,
vigour in narrative and speech, and, as an occasional poet, a real taste
for landscape and colour,[1441] besides letting his fancy at times go
free. Nor should strained compliments, strained consolations, strained
mythology wholly obliterate that depth of affection which is nowhere more
manifest than in the last book of the _Siluae_.
If he is more Virgilian than Lucan, Statius is less obtrusively
rhetorical. There is less of the _sententia_, less epigram, less
antithesis, and more of a quiet scholarly elaboration of the
traditional epic manner. Thus it is rarer to find in him than in Lucan
semi-proverbial phrases of a quotable cast, like “Panic believes
everything” (_nil falsum trepidis_, _Th._ VII. 131), or “Hope deferred
maketh the heart sick” (_spes anxia mentem extrahit et longo consumit
gaudia uoto_, _Th._ I. 322: _cf._ II. 320-321). His elaboration tends to
war against pithiness, but some phrases and lines are readily recalled:
_e.g._ _Cur oculis sordet uicina uoluptas?_ (_Silv._ I. iii. 98,
virtually “why does distance lend enchantment to the view?”); _calcabam
necopinus opes_ (_Silv._ I. iii. 53, “I trod on wealth and knew it not”)
of a rich mosaic floor; or, from the simile of Pluto’s entrance upon his
sovereignty over the lower world, words that would fit Milton’s Satan,
_palluit amisso ueniens in Tartara caelo_ (_Th._ XI. 446, “blenched as he
came to Hell when Heaven was lost.”).
What we must expect in a style so elaborate is an avoidance of the more
simple and concrete modes of expressing ideas and a preference for
abstractions, personifications, metaphors, as well as erudition. The
lion that, even when mortally wounded, dies fighting to the last is
referred to in these abstract terms: “as he fell, his valour returns
from the midst of death and not at once did all his threats present
their backs,” _i.e._ turn to flight.[1442] Statius makes great use of
compound adjectives (_e.g._ _uuifer_, _oliuifer_, _rorifer_, _laborifer_,
_fumifer_, _flammiger_, _saetiger_, _noctiuagus_, _montiuagus_,
_fluctiuagus_, _anguicomus_), also of one of the traditional decorations
in epic—the simile. There are well over thirty similes in _Thebaid_,
Book VI, in connexion with the games, and well over twenty in many of
the other books. They are elaborated often to the extent of six lines,
sometimes to eight, and show considerable variety. Many that illustrate
violent action introduce such animals as lions, tigresses, wolves, bears,
boars, bulls; others picture birds in flight like cranes, or twittering
like swallows: a snowstorm, a hunter, a passing ship, a ruined nest,
a Spanish gold miner underground, an avalanche (which the old Delphin
edition illustrates from Rhaetia), or a cow grieving for a lost calf (a
passage that recalls a similar situation in Lucretius). King Adrastus is
likened to a victorious bull, and Hippomedon to a Centaur; runners are
compared cumulatively to race-horses, arrows, and stags escaping from a
lion; and a falling quoit to the moon brought down from heaven by magic.
The hexameters of Statius exhibit less monotony than do those of Ovid,
Lucan or Valerius Flaccus. He secures this greater variety by dexterity
in the use of pauses. His metrical movements are composed with skill, and
often are felicitously appropriate to the sense, as in the passage on
Night and Sleep in _Thebaid_ I, where he brings into juxtaposition a line
with five spondees and one with five dactyls, then has a quick line of
four dactyls, returns to a slow movement of five spondees, and closes on
one where the feet are exactly balanced:
Titanis late, mundo subuecta silenti,
Rorifera gelidum tenuauerat aera biga;
Iam pecudes uolucresque tacent, iam Somnus amaris
Inrepsit curis pronusque ex aethere nutat
Grata laboratae referens obliuia uitae.
Computations[1443] have been made which show that, while Statius is
more dactylic than Virgil, he is less so than Ovid and Valerius. He has
fewer elisions than Virgil. Altogether his line falls short of supreme
epic dignity. In the _Siluae_ his hendecasyllabics, unlike Catullus’s
but like Martial’s, regularly begin with a spondee. His two imitations
of Horatian lyric metres display small inspiration. But in the _Siluae_
his hexameters appear to most advantage, attaining a facility suitable
to the lighter and more sportive subjects in the collection. Here, then,
Statius is in matter and form most truly himself. He portrays in the main
the surface of life, and is acquainted with its amenities and even its
pathos; but he does not penetrate into its meaning.
CHAPTER VII
MARTIAL AND MINOR FLAVIAN POETRY
Martial’s career—Poetry and patronage—Order of his
books—Numeration and fresh editions by the author—His
personality—Relation of literary trifles to real life—Distaste
for epic—Varied assortment of Flavian types—Contemporary
Rome envisaged—The humorous and incongruous—Martial’s
friends—The epigram before him—His impress on it—Verse-forms
and sources—Comparative absence of rhetoric—Simplicity,
wit, polish combined—Pointed end in an epigram—Confidence
in popularity and immortality—Sense of wasted time—Double
nemesis of his two great faults—Adulation and coarseness—The
sentimental side—Poems on the dead—On friendship—On natural
scenery—Quotability—His influence.
Minor Flavian poetry—Maternus’s post-Neronian plays—Saleius
Bassus—Poets under Domitian—Lyrics by Spurinna—Epics by
Cerealis and Codrus—Erotic poems by Verginius Rufus, Arruntius
Stella and Sulpicia—Satires by Turnus—Tragedies by Scaeva Memor
and Canius Rufus.
MARTIAL
M. Valerius Martialis[1444] was a native of Bilbilis in Spain. In his
tenth book, which belongs to A.D. 95-98, he celebrates his fifty-seventh
anniversary,[1445] so that his birth fell between 38 and 41. His cognomem
was due to his having been born on the first of March.[1446] While he
claimed descent from Iberians and Celts,[1447] his name indicates Roman
citizenship. His parents, Fronto and Flaccilla,[1448] secured for him a
literary education to which he owed an incalculable debt, although in a
fit of cynical depression in his fifties he says:
My foolish parents taught me poetry,
But what were dominies and dons to me?[1449]
Already intellectually well-equipped when over twenty, he left Spain in
_A.D._ 64 to find a wider scope for his abilities in Rome, which had
grown so cosmopolitan that its population struck his fellow-Spaniard
Seneca as made up more of foreigners than of citizens.[1450] This first
immigrant—a young “compatriot of the Tagus” with bristling Spanish hair,
as he describes himself[1451]—had before him a reasonable prospect of
success as a lawyer or a speaker; but he did not choose to employ his
training in oratory. What attracted him was verse-writing, with the
patronage which verse might win. The common link with Spain explains
why Seneca and Lucan were his earliest patrons; but the introduction to
society in the capital begun under such auspices was followed next year
by the ruinous implication of both patrons in the Pisonian conspiracy
against Nero. The career to which he had turned, or drifted, was sure to
be one of vicissitude and disillusion; and Martial had frequent cause
to recognize that only the few among clever poets or obsequious clients
could scrape a living, while the rest starved (_pallet cetera turba
fame_).[1452]
We read of juvenile productions which an enthusiastic bookseller would
not let die;[1453] but virtually Martial’s life is a blank for the first
sixteen years of his residence in Rome (A.D. 64-80). What his works
make certain is that he gained an intimate acquaintance with all grades
of society, the highest and the lowest. Some honours came his way, of
a kind that indicate his possession of more influence than money. He
became a _tribunus_, perhaps without having seen military service; he was
confirmed in the resultant title of _eques_ without possessing the means
to support the position;[1454] and he had obtained from two emperors the
_ius trium liberorum_[1455] without being a father—in fact, the tone of
his work throughout argues the bachelor.[1456] It is doubtful if his plot
of farmland at Nomentum was in his hands early enough to have been a gift
from Seneca, as has been guessed; but whether it came from him, or from
Lucan’s widow Polla, or from some one else, it must have often afforded
a welcome change after his three pair back-room in the sweltering
city.[1457] Later, he had a small house of his own on the Quirinal.[1458]
Neither from Caesar, however, nor from grandee did Martial ever obtain
as much as he expected and craved. As it was, he survived by adroitness
in courting the favour of well-to-do citizens so as to earn personal
presents or the dole of the _sportula_. If he was temperamentally unfit
to do anything but write verse, it is hard to see what other opening
there was, apart from a way of life indistinguishable from sponging.
For the surmise that he practised at the bar there is no justification
either in the advice he quotes from a person whom he asked for a loan,
“if you want to be rich, plead cases,” or in the similar counsel from
Quintilian.[1459] In spite of the fact that his verses had a sale,
there was no such reading public as could ensure returns adequate for
his maintenance: so pique at times made him argue that, if money-making
is the supreme object, parents ought not to spend on education: much
better make a boy something practical, a musician, an auctioneer, or an
architect.[1460] For himself, he felt obliged to live, whatever scoffers
might say about the necessity; and consequently had to capture patrons to
be the props of his subsistence and, as he believed, the indispensable
conditions of poetic production (_sint Maecenates, non derunt, Flacce,
Marones_).
His first publication known to us was the _Liber Spectaculorum_ of A.D.
80 which commemorated the opening by Titus of the Flavian Amphitheatre
familiar now as the Colosseum. Though anything but inspired, the
surviving thirty-three poems of this group throw interesting light on the
contests of the arena. Some four years later appeared the collections,
almost entirely of couplets, which are usually printed in defiance of
chronology, as Books XIII and XIV of the _Epigrams_. They owed their
occasion to the _Saturnalia_ in December, when gifts might be sent to
guests (_Xenia_) or taken home from the festive board (_Apophoreta_).
The 127 pieces of the one, and 223 of the other were nearly all meant
as suitable mottoes for such presents. Luckily Martial was capable of
cleverer work. Epigrams of his had appeared before 86 when he published,
perhaps together, the first two books of those which made his fame.
Allusions enable us to date his volumes with fair closeness, and, while
there are a few complications due to revised editions and collected
issues, it is broadly true that from 86 until his return to Spain in
98 he brought out a new book about once a year. Taken together, his
poems, few of them other than quite short, constitute one of the most
extraordinary galleries of literary pictures, vignettes, miniatures,
portraits, caricatures, sometimes almost thumbnail sketches that have
ever made a past society live again in the mind’s eye. While grace in the
sight of the emperor commended him to those in high places, including the
worst creatures at court like the notorious Crispinus and Paris, there
were many at the other end of the social scale, needy and seedy outcasts,
to whom Martial’s Bohemian indigence introduced him. He observed all.
He is one of the great spectators in literature. But the vanity of the
whole spectacle recurrently depressed him. Unremunerative attendance at
the receptions of the great as well as disgust at loathsome vices which
he exposes, contributed towards his tedium. Once weariness drove him to
Cisalpine Gaul, whence he issued an edition of Book III.[1461] In the
very next book[1462] he is hankering after Venetia as a retreat for his
old age. Yet years passed before he could tear himself away from Rome,
where, despite its drawbacks, he knew all the literary men of the day.
At last in 98 the sense of monotony told. The ordinary expenses of life
seemed as hard to meet as ever, and the old scenes in Spain, never wholly
forgotten during more than the third of a century, came back now with
alluring insistence to his mind:
While four-and-thirty harvests passed away,
Others gave Ceres rustic cakes at home;
But I, inhabiting fair sovran Rome,
Have turned in Italy from dark to grey.[1463]
Perhaps too some occult warfare in his soul between spirit and sense made
him realize, as never before, the emptiness of the life around. At any
rate the Flavian régime had suited him best; for under Nerva and Trajan
a new age had dawned, when sycophantic blandishments were futile and
_rustica ueritas_ had been restored (X. lxxii). His well-to-do friend,
the younger Pliny, found money for the impecunious poet’s journey to
Spain. There, settled at Bilbilis on land granted to him by a patroness
Marcella, he could indulge to the full that yearning for a quiet retreat
which he revealed in lines addressed to the great satirist of the time:
Mayhap, my Juvenal, your feet
Stray down some noisy Roman street,
While after many years of Rome
I have regained my Spanish home.
Bilbilis, rich in steel and gold,
Makes me a rustic as of old....
Outrageous lengths of sleep I take
And oft refuse at nine to wake.
I pay myself nor more nor less
For thirty years of wakefulness.[1464]
Missing the stimulus of the capital, he let three years elapse before his
twelfth and last book was sent out from Spain in 102. He did not long
survive its publication; for Pliny in a letter belonging to A.D. 104
mentions his death, adding the criticism that he was a man of talent,
subtlety and vigour, whose writing was characterized by abundance of wit
and pungency, but no less good nature.[1465]
The form in which Martial’s works have come down calls for brief remark.
Imperfect though the book of _Spectacula_ is, the missing portions are
perhaps a greater loss to archaeology than to literature. In the _Xenia_
and _Apophoreta_, unlike the later books, short headings (_lemmata_)
are given to which the reader is facetiously told he may, if he likes,
confine himself; and the presents of the _Apophoreta_ are arranged in
pairs, expensive and less expensive. As regards the existing division
into books, the numeration was Martial’s own,[1466] though some books, as
we have them, are not exactly as originally issued. For instance it is
inconceivable that his first book was from the beginning entitled “Liber
Primus,” with the implication that he was certain of success enough to
justify future issues; still less is it conceivable that in the original
issue of his first book he could have been described as _toto notus in
orbe Martialis_. His preface to Book II, which defends the innovation
of an introductory prose epistle, reads as if it were written before
the preface to Book I; and this latter preface, by speaking of “little
books” (_libelli_) in the plural, suggests that it could not have been
added till more than one book of epigrams had appeared—probably when a
collected edition of I-VII was issued. Among the later books, X and XI,
originally belonging to A.D. 95 and 96 respectively, had an Anthology
made from them in 97; and a second edition of X came out in 98.[1467]
Interesting prose prefaces are given to Books I, II, VIII and XII, while
a few lines of prose at the opening of IX introduce verses for the poet’s
bust in Stertinius’s library. The preface to I offers an apology for
the coarse outspokenness in the epigrams, with a significant list of
literary predecessors; that to Book II is, as mentioned, an apology for
an introductory epistle, in answer to the objection _epigrammata curione
non egent_; that to VIII professes that there has been less indulgence
here than elsewhere in the licence of the mime; and the last preface is
an apology for slackness in publishing, since Martial’s retreat to Spain
has deprived him of his stimulating Roman environment.
Martial, in his epigrams, reveals himself, and, even more, the company
he kept. With him we enjoy the luxury of an intimacy unusual among
writers of the Silver Age. Seneca, it may be said, opens his philosophic
heart, yet he does not make—it is hardly imaginable that under Nero he
should make—a complete self-revelation. Juvenal’s outspokenness is that
of indignant censure rather than of personal confession. But Martial
is naked and unashamed: he does not hide his thoughts, and even those
quick flashes in which he divines the thoughts of others still further
illuminate his own. Thus his personality is reflected in his themes,
and is inseparable from the things he described and the men he loved or
hated. A spectator of life, he was yet no detached spectator, but in a
sense a part of his own observations, so that his resolve to reflect his
surroundings leaves him at the same time essentially autobiographic.
We become familiar, then, with his poverty, his mendicancy, his
contempt for shams, his confidence in his literary powers, his pride in
Spain, his determination to pander to readers by spicy attacks on the
uncleanest vices. At times he seems a sort of Villon, never so much of
a gallows-bird as the French poet, nor ever master of so deep a note of
anguish, but yet like him in Bohemian neediness and in direct vigour of
style.
In the last resort, the key to his personality, to his style, to his
reputation, to everything that matters respecting Martial, is to be found
in this attitude towards life. Life afforded the inexhaustible material
whence he recognized it was his special _métier_ to draw. His brief
poems—some of them butterfly flights as brief as Japanese _tankas_—might
be trivialities, but they at least sprang from the actual. There is a
sort of double antinomy in him. On the one hand, he often calls his
verses _nugae_ or _ioci_, as if he made no higher claim for them than the
knack of amusing; yet he is insistent that they are not mere flippancies:
He misses what is meant by epigram
Who thinks it only frivolous flim-flam.[1468]
On the other hand, he explains elsewhere[1469] that he could write
seriously, but prefers to write entertainingly—the secret of his vogue.
At the same time, he cannot make a living out of pleasantries: instead,
he gets praise and starves:[1470] so he jocularly even threatens to turn
lawyer! In fact, however, though he said, and showed, that he could write
seriously, he seldom chose to. The sportive, the flippant, the ludicrous,
and often the indecent appealed to him irresistibly; for the truth is
that he wrote, like all literary artists, because it was his pleasure:
For all their compliments, do verses pay?
They mayn’t, yet these same poems make me gay.[1471]
But he would not have been human, he would certainly not have been
Martial, if he had not expected an adequate return from verses that
entertained or flattered; and occasionally his tone appears to meditate a
sort of literary strike—_pas d’argent, pas de poésie_:
A man on whom my poetry
Pronounced a handsome eulogy
Pretends that he owes naught to me—
I call this downright trickery![1472]
No writer ever more clearly recognized his field. In the third poem of
Book VIII he pretends to hesitate over multiplying epigrams—five books,
six, seven are already out and the whole collection is thumbed everywhere
(_teritur noster ubique liber_), there should be some stint and limit
(_sit pudor et finis_). Here the rebuke from the Comic Muse Thalia is
significant: “Abandon your charming trifles! But what better thing is an
idle singer (_desidiosus_) to do? Not tragic drama surely? Not epic? No,
Martial’s function is to hold the mirror up to the manners of the day”:
Nay, dye your Roman booklets smart with wit
That Life may read and know the portraits fit.[1473]
The claim is also well illustrated in his objection to mythological
twaddle—an objection sufficient to account for a radical lack of sympathy
with Statius, the only prominent poet of the time whom he does not name:
What profit empty myths in sorry lays?
Read this of which Life says “It is my own.”
No Centaurs here, Harpies, or Gorgon face
You’ll find: my pages smack of man alone.[1474]
This confident acceptance of life as his great exemplar explains the
variety and truth of Martial’s pictures. He knew that he could portray
his fellows with a sure hand; and his conviction that his forte lay in
light verse reflecting manners and morals gave him an assurance that
his work had force enough to last. It is essentially Flavian Rome that
he drew; for, though his writing continued under Nerva and the first
few years of Trajan’s reign, nine books of epigrams had come out under
Domitian. The repression of the Reign of Terror, which brought about
the fifteen years of silence to which Tacitus alludes, did not affect
the sort of verse which Martial composed. It was spicy, but not at the
expense of the emperor or the imperial system. All contemporary types
appear in Martial’s pages (_hominem pagina nostra sapit_). They range
from Domitian himself, haloed beyond recognition, down to the vilest of
characters to whom Martial owed no flattery and of whom to tell the truth
was to produce a shudder. Since fun comes easiest at the expense of human
weakness, there is a predominance of types in some way objectionable.
Hence a multitudinous array of spongers, dinner-hunters, fortune-hunters,
bores, coxcombs, charlatans, topers, freaks, stingy hosts, and
incorrigible reprobates. But if there are false friends there are also
firm ones, there are faithful slaves as well as faithless, moral wives
as well as immoral, and genuine poets as well as poetasters. The eye for
detail is remarkable: nothing is too slight for mention: the hawker of
sulphur and the purchaser of broken glass are not overlooked any more
than a wealthy _connoisseur_ of artistic treasures. Such pieces as the
neat summary of how the hours in a Roman day were spent convince one that
Martial saw things as they were, whereas Juvenal, though possessed of an
unchallenged sense of picturesque realism, tended to overlay his subject
with violent exaggeration or with a thesis-like treatment in the manner
of the rhetorical schools.
Thus to turn over Martial’s leaves in the most casual way transports one
to ancient Rome. There we find the Stoic heroine and hero, Arria and
Paetus, face to face with death; and intimates of the author who have to
be admonished about using life aright, or welcomed home, or reminded of
the enjoyable ideals of the unambitious, or urged, on the principle of
Satan reproving sin, to decide on a profession (_dum quid sis dubitas
iam potes esse nihil_). We can enter a private library; we can join in
the despatch of marriage greetings, or condolences under bereavement,
or congratulations to a lucky person on the prospect of a long holiday
which will send him back sun-burnt to the pale dwellers in town. We can
see artistic triumphs in a handsomely enchased wine-bowl, or an antique
bronze statuette. Again, we may listen to the author’s petition for the
_ius trium liberorum_, his request for a supply of domestic water from
the Aqua Marcia, or his many growls over the burdensome duty of calling
on patrons, over paltry presents (some folk, he observes, send less and
less each December!) and over the failure of patrons to maintain him
fittingly; he is, he complains, not so well sheltered as his patron’s
orchard-trees:
I’ve got a room where window-draughts do play—
One where the very North Wind wouldn’t stay![1475]
But it is not solely for town life that he has an eye. We note the almost
Dutch detail in some of his sketches of rustic scenes. Especially out
on Faustinus’s estate with its steading, the corn in heaps, the wine
in casks, the barn-yard fowls, the labourers’ work, the rural fare,
he appears to revel in “the genuine country, uncivilised” (_rure uero
barbaroque_).[1476] He envisages for us a real farm in Spain free from
the formal dress of Rome, and provided with shade against the summer
heat, and against the winter cold with a wood fire surrounded by grubby
youngsters.[1477]
True to the author’s promise, there are many figures that amuse—the
dry-as-dust antiquary spoiling his wine-parties by tedious rigmaroles
about the pedigree of his silver goblets, the prosy pleader in court
who needs hours to make a few legal points, the counsel who sagaciously
blushes in preference to stating his client’s full case, the guest who
arrives too late for breakfast but too early for lunch, and the too
prolific poet who finds no time to revise his hasty compositions:
You write two hundred lines ’twixt each sunrise,
But never read them, silly!—yet how wise![1478]
The element of humour in Martial was largely due to a keen sense of the
incongruous. He could not help chuckling at the notion of keeping about
eight birthdays each year to secure presents, or at the huge Gaul who
sprained his ankle and was glad to be carried home on a pauper’s bier, or
at the nuisance who rummages a shop for _objets d’art_ and gives endless
trouble without buying enough to compensate for it.[1479] Again there is
the decidedly plain lady who takes care to frequent the company of ladies
still plainer so as to appear a beauty by comparison:
Your friends, Fabulla, either are
Old crones or beldames uglier far:
These frumps you trot around with you
To parties, plays, and galleries too:
And so, my dear, such hags among
You look quite pretty and quite young![1480]
Ailments and the medical profession are the subjects of many jests.
There was the rebellious client who pretended to have gout in order
to avoid calling on his patron, but who, after hobbling about swathed
in wrappings, finally got the genuine disease; there was the patient
who died because he dreamt of his medical man overnight; there was the
ex-physician who turned undertaker and therefore had undertaken the same
undertaking for the sick as before; and there was the doctor who on his
clinical rounds gave a sufferer fever:
When I was ill, you came to me,
Doctor, and with great urgency
A hundred students brought with you
A most instructive case to view.
The hundred finger’d me with hands
Chill’d by the blasts of northern lands:
Fever at outset had I none—
I have it, Sir, now you have done.[1481]
Such alert perception of the incongruous made him scoff at shams—the
cupboard love that acts friendship with a view to hospitable invitations,
the lady whose artificial aids to beauty leave her with no face of her
own, the hypocrisy of pretended philosophers who were at heart dissolute
reprobates.[1482]
Ability to see the ludicrous side of things is always an entertaining
social recommendation. With the literary circles of the day Martial was
on familiar terms. He sends lines to Lucan’s widow on an anniversary of
the poet’s birth, he records Caesonius’s fidelity to Seneca in exile,
and shows patriotic pride in mentioning the Spanish birthplace of the
Senecan family.[1483] Quintilian, Arruntius Stella, a writer of polished
verse, and Valerius Flaccus were among his friends. Despatching poetry
to the younger Pliny, he good-humouredly quizzes him on his serious work
at the bar: the judicious moment of festive relaxation “when rose-leaves
reign, when locks are scent-bedew’d” must be chosen for the presentation
of Martial’s trivialities.[1484] With Silius Italicus he was well
acquainted: would that Epic poet, “pride of the Castalian sisterhood,” he
asks, deign to spare some leisure for the sportive trifles which he begs
to forward? Just so, he suggests anachronistically, might Catullus have
sent his _Sparrow_ to Virgil![1485] He also shows interest in Silius’s
activities and expresses sympathy for him in bereavement.[1486] But no
one, he felt, could embroil him with so true a friend as Juvenal, to whom
he wrote after his retirement to Spain and whose distaste for long-winded
epics he plainly shared.[1487] As regards Statius, who often wrote about
the same things and people as Martial did, their mutual silence must have
been due to incompatibility of temperament. Martial’s circle included
also the orator Aquilius Regulus, whom Pliny could not bear; Antonius
Primus from Toulouse, who helped as a commander to secure the Empire for
Vespasian; Julius Martialis, a close intimate; Q. Ovidius, a country
neighbour at Nomentum; wealthy knights like Atedius Melior and Claudius
Etruscus, but also many people less prominent like the centurions Varus
and Pudens. While he gives the real names of friends, it is to his credit
that he uses disguised names for the victims of his satire. Disclaiming
any intention of hurting (_ludimus innocui_), he declares that his
concern is to attack not persons but vice (_parcere personis, dicere
de uitiis_).[1488] Consequently, resentful at having scurrilous verses
fathered on him, he draws a lurid picture of the punishment which ought
to befall a slanderous poet.[1489] The systematic backbiter, he agrees,
may be called malign; but, with a fine touch of human feeling, he adds:
_I_ think he needs our pity who likes none.[1490]
The epigram in Martial is to be distinguished from, even if related to,
the epigrammatic in contemporary rhetoric, whether prose or verse. In
Martial it is a short independent verse composition, not one of a series
of glittering ornaments in a continuous poem, history, or oration; that
is, it constitutes a miniature unity; and there is a notable freedom
from the forced conceit with which the epigrammatic is often allied in
writers like Lucan. The epigram reached Rome from Greece in the form of
a brief poem originally inscriptional in character, as its name implies.
But the Greek ἐπίγραμμα itself had gone through a wide evolution since
Simonides of Ceos employed it for the tomb of the Spartans who fell
at Thermopylae. Beyond its use for epitaph, memorial, dedication, or
gift, the elegiac metre in particular had been devoted, with its Greek
quality of delicate and finished charm, to occasions which in modern
times would be considered essentially lyrical. The impression made by a
passing event or inward experience found utterance in a brief poem: the
poem might convey the feeling produced by a landscape, a book, a storm,
an artistic work, a misfortune, a mental disturbance, a friendship,
an affair of the heart. In contrast therewith, the Roman tendency, on
taking over from the Greeks this ill-defined branch of lyric, was to
sacrifice the poetic flavour to point, and most of all to the point that
stings. Hence, losing much of the lyric charm of the Greek, the epigram
was largely transferred to the service of satiric purposes. Catullus,
though certainly not wanting in true lyric quality, gave to the elegiac
that bent towards invective which was more definitely associated
with the abusive iambic. In this latter field, it is noticeable that
Diomedes,[1491] describing the bitter iambic, names, along with the
Greeks Archilochus and Hipponax, the Latin writers Lucilius, Catullus,
Horace and Bibaculus. Now Martial owns his obligations and traces his
freedom of speech (_lasciuam uerborum ueritatem_)[1492] to Catullus,
Domitius Marsus, Albinovanus Pedo, and Lentulus Gaetulicus of Caligula’s
reign. Roman _dilettanti_ of the Empire liked composing such verses, and
it is among the freaks of time that, though many authors like Marsus,
Pedo, Gaetulicus, Seneca and Petronius wrote epigrams, too little has
survived in this _genre_, outside Martial’s collection, to afford a
criterion of their individual contribution. Clearly, however, the march
of literature had worked changes that could not fail to affect Martial.
By his days, satire and rhetoric had both played a great part. He is but
following the traditions of the epigram in maintaining its essential
elements of concise expression and unity of idea; but he owes a debt to
satire for his width of range (Juvenal’s _farrago libelli_), his dramatic
vigour, his scraps of dialogue, his reflective pieces, his mordant wit
and irony. So too, although he is not enslaved by rhetorical artifice, he
knows how to make use of rhetorical point, as the culmination—usually a
stinging culmination—up to which the rounded whole of a short poem should
lead. His satiric epigrams, then, mark the close of the evolution of
this partly lyric type.[1493] Hence Martial’s individual impress on the
epigram is permanent. With him it reached that fixity of form which it
has retained up to modern times.
In a total of 1561 epigrams in the _Spectacula_ and fourteen other books,
1235 are in elegiac metre, 238 in hendecasyllabic, and 77 in choliambic
or scazon. There are, besides, a few in hexameter and iambic verse. The
elegiac distich is common, and is almost the only form among the 350
pieces of the _Xenia_ and _Apophoreta_. Often, however, his elegiac
poems run to ten or a dozen lines, occasionally to twice that length.
When the delights of Faustinus’s farm tempt him to write 51 scazons,
or when a dinner menu needs 32 hendecasyllabics, one hesitates whether
to call these epigrams at all. Vigorous and correct in versification,
his metres are in felicitous accord with the theme and spirit of his
various pieces. With great skill he can employ the elegiac to express
tender sentiment or weighty compliment, the hendecasyllabic for sportive
and ironic occasions, and the scazon for trenchant invective. But, if
the mood takes him, he can equally adapt the elegiac to satiric, and
both hendecasyllabics and scazons to descriptive purposes. Martial’s
favourite verse-form, the elegiac, is based, though not pedantically so,
on Ovid: lines and phrases are occasionally taken from him, but Martial
does not adhere to the Ovidian ending of the pentameter on a disyllable.
Typical endings such as _hospitibus_, _ingenio_, _undecies_, _amicitiae_
show that here, as elsewhere, he is under the influence of Catullus. It
is upon Catullus principally that his hendecasyllabics and choliambics
are founded, with the notable difference that Martial, departing from
the Catullian freedom in the opening foot of the choliambic, restricts
himself to a spondee. In style and metre we can trace some echoes of
Virgil, Horace and the _Priapea_; and, to a less degree, of Tibullus and
Propertius. Nor was the pointed manner of his early patrons Seneca and
Lucan without effect on him.[1494] Greek authors too have their share in
his sources, but, on the whole, he is remarkably independent of models.
Sometimes he appears to do little more than continue the kind of popular
tradition found in the smarter _graffiti_ at Pompeii. This, for example,
is not unlike his manner:
I wonder, wall, that you have not gone smash—
You’ve had to bear so many scribblers’ trash.[1495]
Low life and the commonest objects came under his survey and saved him
from bookish pedantry. The workaday spoken Latin of the _caballus_ type,
and words which many Romans would have shrunk from uttering (as we know
from Cicero), enter into his pages, alongside of language sanctioned
by exalted literary usage. This range of vocabulary is proportionate to
the width of his outlook, which contemplated, perhaps occasionally with
too heartless an indifference, the ugly as well as the beautiful. His
unabashed persistence in observation and his conscious power of natural
portrayal left him free to use at will, or not to use, the literary
predecessors whom he had studied. On subjects drawn direct from life he
writes with a finished neatness of expression and a freshness that reads
like improvisation. Over and over again, his natural themes appear to
fall into natural phrases. It is a straightforwardness that gives him,
for all his debt to patterns, the unmistakeable ring of originality. In
literature there is only one Martial.
Rhetoric is in the main absent from one who, primarily interested in man,
wrote as a realist. His most representative work is simple, with little
of that Spanish note of excess which one detects or suspects in several
of his compatriots, from the violent Porcius Latro onwards, not excepting
Lucan and at times Seneca himself. Martial feels no attraction to
mythology, though a court-poem might involve a few learned allusions. He
is content that elevated epics should be praised, admired, even adored,
so long as his verses are read. Hence the fundamental contrast, and
therefore presumably the antipathy, to Statius[1496] already mentioned.
Hence too the justification for Martial’s pronouncement: “all turgid
rhetoric (_omnis uesica_) is foreign to my writings: my muse swells not
in wild tragic robe.”[1497] Conformably thereto, he has a genial way of
disarming criticism by making no high claims:
There are excellent bits here, you’ll find,
And bits of a so-and-so kind:
Still more than the latter
Are bad bits—no matter!
A book is of all sorts combin’d.[1498]
In another piece he admits that, while tossing off epigrams may appear
simple, the crux lies in making a book; and, again, the criticism that a
book of his shows marked inequalities is answered by the contention that
this is in its favour, because a bad book is of uniform quality![1499]
No author ever passed a more honest criticism on his work. It is just
this unevenness that makes Martial a successful surprise. Alongside of
plain-speaking—the plainest of the plain—the reader may chance upon poems
which prove in him an exquisite sense of beauty. If the seaside or a
pretty name engages his fancy, he rises to a style in keeping with the
subject. There are no finer scazons in Latin than those he wrote on “the
sweet strand of genial Formiae” to rival the Catullian scazons on Sirmio:
Here Thetis’ face is ruffled by
A gentle wind: the waters lie
Not in dead calm, but o’er the main
A peaceful liveliness doth reign,
Bearing gay yachts before a breeze
Cool as the air that floats with ease
From purple fan of damozel
Who would the summer heat dispel.[1500]
So the liquid consonants of the admired “Springtide Lad” (_Earinos_) seem
to run over into his enthusiastic hendecasyllabics on
A name with violets and roses born,
Name that the loveliest time of year hath worn,
Fragrant of Hybla and of Attic thyme
Or of the nest where dwells the bird sublime,
A name sweet heavenly nectar to outvie,
One that fair Attis would be calléd by,
Or he that blends the cup for Jove on high,
Which, uttered once in the Parrhasian Hall,
Would make the Powers of Love sing madrigal.[1501]
So beauty of idea is combined with neatness when he sends a rose-wreath
to a friend:
Go, happy rose, with thy soft chaplet bind
My own Apollinaris’ locks; and see
One far-off day, when they are white, thou wind
Rose leaves around them: so may Love love thee![1502]
There the pedigree of the opening movement in Waller’s “Go, lovely rose”
and Herrick’s “Go, happy rose” is evident. Much, indeed, that might be
called Herrickian comes from brief pieces like
Polla, why send me wreaths of blooms new-born?
I’d rather handle roses _you_ had worn.[1503]
This neatness in expression underlies the characteristic suspense of
point until the concluding line, phrase, or even word of an epigram—the
typical manner of Martial familiar to us from imitations in neo-Latin
writers, in writers of our own eighteenth century and in Byron, on the
bee-like principle that
The body should always be little and sweet
And the sting should be left to the tail.
Very often, whether the piece is a brief couplet or a more extended
set of elegiac, choliambic, or hendecasyllabic verses, the surprise
and the bite come at the end. The epigram thus constitutes an artistic
“period.” Such is the force of the sharp _tussit_ of I. x.: “What is the
inducement that lures Gemellus to propose marriage to Maronilla? Why
does he long, plead, implore, send presents? Is she pretty? Nay, none so
ugly! What is the bait and charm then? Why, her churchyard cough!”—an
ugly but effective close on the attraction of a consumptive heiress for a
fortune-hunter.[1504] So he retorts on a person whose absence would be a
good riddance:
You ask me, Linus, what my field
Out at Nomentum is to yield:
Well, this it yields to me: the view,
My Linus, has no sign of _you_.[1505]
He makes fun of unwelcome kisses:
With half your lips, my Postumus, you kiss.
Thanks: you may take a half away from this;
But would you give me joy beyond compare?
Then keep the other half of that half-share.[1506]
Again, less briefly than, but to the same effect as, Mr. Punch’s advice
to those about to marry, he writes on a debtor’s going to law to dispute
a claim:
The judge expects a fee from you,
Your lawyer looks for payment too—
Best pay your creditor his due![1507]
From the idea of uniting in wedlock a much widowed widow with an equally
bereaved widower he extracts grim fun:
Fabius buries all his wives:
Chrestilla ends her husbands’ lives.
The torch, which from the marriage-bed
They brandish, soon attends the dead.
O Venus, link this conquering pair!
Their match will meet with issue fair,
Whereby for such a dangerous _two_
A single funeral will do.[1508]
He introduces us smilingly to a Roman hairdresser:
There once was a barber called Smart
Who plied his tonsorial art
Over Wolfaway’s face;
But in spite of his pace
A new beard was ready to start.[1509]
He jeers at the systematic diner-out:
Philo declares he never dines at home,
And that is no exaggeration:
He has no place whereat to dine in Rome,
Unless he hooks an invitation.[1510]
This last is a frequently imitated form in which the apparent
confirmation of the first statement leaves the final state of the
victim worse than the first. A similar effect is got by an apparent
contradiction of the original statement:
’Tis said Acerra reeks of last night’s wine:
’Tis false: he always drinks till morning-shine.[1511]
Just as elsewhere we trace the legacy of Martial in some of the gallantry
of Cavalier poets, and as his “Non amo te, Sabidi” descends to “I do not
like thee, Dr. Fell,” so this corrective form of epigram is the prototype
of such quips as Samuel Rogers’s:
Ward has no heart, they say; but I deny it:
He _has_ a heart—and gets his speeches by it.
An engaging blend of modesty and confidence is an ingredient in the
variety of Martial. At times, by way of pose, he may wish to give the
impression that, like Byron, he “rattles on exactly as he’d talk” and
that his verses are of little consequence:[1512] at other times, he is
both proud of his popularity and confident of his permanent place in
literature. The emperor read him (II. xci.): so did ministers of state
and men of letters (VI. lxiv. 8-10): everybody at Rome did, in fact (VI.
lx.). He was pointed out (_monstramur digito_, IX. xcvii. 4), and people
whispered “There he is!” (V. xiii. 3). Such a vogue had he that it was
possible to find a nuisance of a person who could repeat Martial by heart
and decline to stop! (VII. li.). In mock-heroic strain he declares:
Lo! I the man for trifles unsurpassed:
You mayn’t admire me, but I hold you fast.
Great themes are for great bards: enough to see
You oft re-reading my light poetry.[1513]
His naughty jests (_nequitiae_, VI. lxxxii. 5) were known to everyone
who had not a Dutchman’s ear: no wonder, then, that his circle of readers
should be as wide as the world (I. i. 2; V. xiii. 3; VIII. lxi. 3).
He was flattered to realize that he was a favourite in Vienne (VII.
lxxxviii.): his poems might be despatched to one person, but would be
read by all (_uni mitteris, omnibus legeris_, VII. xcvii. 13). Away
among the Goths a centurion thumbed his Martial (_a rigido teritur
centurione liber_), and Britain learned to repeat his verses (XI. iii.
3-5). His books went through different editions; they were on sale by
Secundus in parchment binding (I. ii. 3, 7-8), suitable for travellers;
or at Atrectus’s shop, smart in purple (I. cxvii. 13-7); or at the
establishment of Tryphon (IV. lxxii.), who was Quintilian’s publisher.
Furthermore, his juvenile verses could be had in collected form (I.
cxiii.), and plagiarists stole from his works. Yet even a “best seller”
in ancient Rome could not ensure handsome returns: Martial significantly
takes satisfaction in the thought that anyone can make money, but not
everyone can be a poet (V. xiii. 9-10); for he has a fine consciousness
that a book, to live, must possess an indwelling spirit (VI. lxi. 10).
No doubt crosses his mind about his own literary survival (X. ii. 7-12),
or about the immortality which mention by him can confer (V. xv. 3-4).
Nobodies, therefore, must not expect to have their names perpetuated in
his verse (V. lx. 6-7).
Alongside of this confidence, however, there rings out a note of
impatient fretfulness. Weariness of the bustle in the Vanity Fair of
Rome brought to this merry companion his intervals of heart-searching.
Surrender day by day to the solicitations of purely trivial circumstance
produced a natural revulsion against such waste of time. Led by a too
facile compliance into insipid society, he awakes upon occasion to a
sense of paltry achievement and lost opportunity. Etiquette, he felt,
wars with poetry:
I walk you out: I see you home:
I listen, sir, to all your chatter.
Your words and deeds I praise through Rome—
D’you think it really doesn’t matter?
Yet all this time I might instead
Have fashioned poems in my head....
Tell me, Labullus, is this right?
Can any call it honour bright
That just to swell _your_ client-crew
The books _I_ write should be too few?
About a month has gone so fleet
I’ve hardly filled a single sheet.
In this the poet is the sinner
If he won’t stay at home, to dinner.[1514]
The same fretful malady of the age troubled him when he wrote to his
namesake Julius Martialis on making the best of time:
Defer not joys thou mayst not win from fate:
Judge only what is past to be thine own.
Cares with a linkéd chain of sorrow wait.
Mirth tarries not; but soon on wing is flown.
With both hands hold it—clasped in full embrace,
Still from thy breast it oft will glide away!
To say “I mean to live” is folly’s place:
To-morrow’s life comes late; live, then, to-day.[1515]
The same friend is reminded that social duties may hamper one in living
one’s own life:
If you and I, dear Martial, might
Enjoy our days in Care’s despite,
And could control each leisure hour,
Both free to cull life’s real flower,
Then we should never know the halls
Of patrons, or law’s wearying calls,
Or troublous court or family pride;
But we should chat or read or ride,
Play games or stroll in porch or shade,
Visit the hot baths or “the Maid.”
Such haunts should lure us constantly:
Such should engage our energy.
_Now_ neither lives his life, but he
Marks precious days that pass and flee.
These days are lost, but their amount
Is surely set to our account.
Knowledge the clue to life can give:
Then wherefore hesitate to live?[1516]
Yet in spite of this discontent over a partially spoiled life, it may
be doubted whether Martial was capable of more than he accomplished. He
could only be himself. While he ought not to be called entirely shallow,
he lacked the profundity which might have made him other than a laureate
of the occasional.
The two glaring faults in Martial, servility and obscenity, brought
each their own nemesis: where he is most flattering he is least simple,
and where he is most indecent he is least witty. Both defects sprang
from his circumstances. Never wealthy, he found in adroit dedications a
more likely source of profit than in book-sales. Subservience towards
patrons, on whose uncertain favours he had to rely, was inevitable.
Hence adulation of the emperor, cringing to exalted personages, and
continual clamour for bounty. He flattered Domitian because there was
no choice. In touch with court, he could not logically keep out of his
verse the official title of “Lord and God” assumed by the emperor:
not belonging to the political opposition, he had no doubt a genuine
belief in the imperial system; and, as the most fulsome compliments were
acceptable, he resorted to mendacious homage. It is not merely that
it appears historically ludicrous in Martial to apply to Domitian the
epithet of chaste (_pudicus_) or to commend one of his own volumes as
fit to be read without a blush by that permanently red-faced prince;
but it is also, as already suggested, noticeable that he pays a literary
penalty for his moral weakness herein by deviating from his usual
straightforwardness of style. In the midst of his extremest sycophancy,
he becomes artificial owing to the intrusion of over-ingenious conceits.
Thus, it is grotesque to assert[1517] that Rome envies the barbarians
with whom Domitian has been warring in person, because they were lucky
enough to see the emperor’s face, whereas the poor capital had to be
content with the laurel-wreathed despatch of victory. And no one can take
seriously the far-fetched absurdity of his congratulations to the enemy
on “seeing Domitian’s face at close quarters and in that countenance
finding material for both terror and rejoicing.” Similar extravagance
marks his welcome on his Majesty’s return from Dacia,
Come, Caesar, e’en by night—let stars delay;
If thou but come, thy folk will find it day.[1518]
His argument, also, in favour of making requests to the divine emperor is
far too clever; “it is not the sculptor of an image who makes a god; it
is the man who prays.”[1519]
Martial’s indecency palls no less than his adulation. We are not amused.
The foulest epigrams force on the reader a resilient disgust as if
from some sickening contagion; and repeated shocks end in boredom.
Conceivably it was a salutary instinct that prompted the quaint idea
of a Delphin editor to remove from their original place in the text
all the unsavoury epigrams into a _musée secret_ at the end of the
volume, in which might be taken one nauseating draught of concentrated
impropriety. They number more than 150 or over ten per cent of the whole.
Many open out vistas down by-lanes of hideous vice. It might be argued
that even the foulest practices of sexual inverts had to be included in
a complete picture of pagan Rome; and that there was much to which an
avowed realist could not shut his eyes. Perhaps just because in their
naked _Romana simplicitas_ the worst epigrams are so repulsive, they
might, though filthier, be considered less pernicious than Ovid, or
than a sex-encumbered modern novel, which often lacks Martial’s truth
to life. Here we have a repellent rather than an erotic obscenity.
The author realizes that some apology is needed for overstepping the
limits of propriety. His poems are not for the prim and prudish, who
are in set terms warned away with the mischievous suggestion that the
warning will only whet their curiosity.[1520] Certain of his books he
can recommend as respectable:[1521] in general, however, he does not
address children but the seasoned onlookers at the Floralia and folk
of easy morality.[1522] So the freedom of Book XI is defended by the
licence of the Saturnalia.[1523] The fundamental excuse offered is one
which not a few Roman writers were at pains to make by way of protest
against any assumption that he who composes foul verses must himself
be foul. Martial’s declaration “our page is wanton but our life is
clean”[1524] is couched in terms similar to those used by Catullus and
Ovid, and practically repeated by Pliny, Apuleius and Ausonius.[1525] The
attitude suggests that the author had no objection to giving readers the
particular spice they wanted: sometimes a fine poem is marred by a gross
jest reserved as a surprise.[1526] Beside so much nauseating coarseness,
the claim of _ludimus innocui_ (VII. xii. 9) may sound ironical; yet
this can be said by way of comment, if not of palliation—he is not a
slanderer, for in general real names are avoided. If victims were foully
satirized, it was left to themselves or others to fit the cap. He resents
the impudent dishonesty of a verse-writer who “vomits viperous venom”
under Martial’s name.[1527]
His character is too complex to be satisfactorily analysed on
psychological principles. Whether one thinks of a super-man as well
as a subter-man within the same self, or thinks of the surprising
contradictions in him as liberated at different crises from the
oubliettes of a chequered experience, the diversity of his genius
remains beyond full explanation. If one side belonged to a realm where
ethics and ideals seemed contraband, he presented another side in
which sentiment under various aspects prevailed. Wrapped up with the
sentiment on this more kindly and genial side there is admittedly some
conventionality: the Greek tradition may act in one place, and the Latin
tradition through poets like Catullus in another. A certain amount of
sentiment may be due to the growth of more humane feelings in his age, as
is traceable in Seneca. Yet a large portion must be ascribed to Martial’s
own disposition. These phases of sentiment are most observable in his
attitude to the dead, his genius for friendship, and his love of nature.
His best known epitaph, that on a little girl Erotion, bespeaks for her
spirit in the land of shades the sheltering protection of Flaccilla and
Fronto, his parents, who had gone before. It ends:
Soft be the turf that shrouds her! Tenderly
Rest on her, earth; for she trod light on thee.[1528]
This conclusion, suggestive of the “sit terra tibi leuis” in sepulchral
inscriptions, was twisted to malicious effect by Martial himself on a
disreputable person:
Light may Earth’s crumbling sand be laid on thee
That dogs may dig thy bones up easily![1529]
Long afterwards it was parodied in reference to the massive buildings of
the architect Vanbrugh:
Lie heavy on him, earth! for he
Laid many heavy loads on thee.
A slave-boy is thus commemorated:
Dear Alcimus, Death robbed thy lord of thee
When young, and lightly now Labican soil
Veils thee in turf: take for thy tomb to be
No tottering mass of Parian stone which toil
Vainly erects to moulder o’er the dead.
Rather let pliant box thy grave entwine;
Let the vine-tendril grateful shadow shed
O’er the green grass bedew’d with tears of mine.
Sweet youth, accept the tokens of my grief:
Here doth my tribute last as long as Time.
When Lachesis _my_ final thread shall weave,
I crave such plants above my bones may climb.[1530]
There is a manifest sense not merely of the poet’s personal loss but of
the blow to the father of a youth from North Italy who has died in Asia
Minor:
My Sixth Book, Rufus, thou canst never greet:
It may not look, friend, to be read by thee.
Thine ill-starred sojourn in the curséd East
Restores but bones and ashes to thy sire.
Widow’d of Rufus, come, Bologna, weep:
Ring out lament thro’ all Aemilia!
How great a love, how young a life is lost!
(_Heu qualis pietas, heu quam breuis occidit aetas!_)
He had but seen a fifth Olympiad.
Ah, Rufus, wont with mindful heart to quote
My trifles and recite my jests in full,
Accept thy sorrowing friend’s brief tear-stained song
And deem this incense offered from afar.
(_Accipe cum fletu maesti breue carmen amici_
_Atque haec absentis thura fuisse puta._)[1531]
Kindly affection towards associates came easily to Martial. Q. Ovidius’s
birthday and his own he considers
Days that all others in the year transcend:
One gave me birth: the other, more—a friend.[1532]
Enthusiasm animates his admiration for Decianus:
If there be one to rank with those few friends
Whom antique faith and age-long fame attends;
If, steeped in Latin or Athenian lore,
There be a good man truthful at the core;
If one who guards the right and loves what’s fair,
Who could not utter an unworthy prayer,
If one whose prop is magnanimity,
I swear, my Decianus, thou art he.[1533]
Again, in a brief review of an intimacy of thirty-four years with Julius
Martialis, he finds it has contributed on the whole to happiness, but
pathetically fights against the notion of making friendship too warm,
lest its loss prove overwhelming:
Good comrades, Julius, have we been
And four-and-thirty harvests seen:
We have had sweetness mix’d with sour,
Yet oftener came the happy hour.
If for each day a pebble stood,
And either black or white were hued,
Then, ranged in masses separate,
The brighter ones would dominate.
If thou wouldst shun some heartaches sore
And ward off gloom that gnaws thy core,
Grapple none closely to thy heart—
If less thy joy, then less thy smart.[1534]
Martial’s appreciation of the country was inspired by something deeper
than the relief felt by a jaded town-dweller. His ideals may not have
been mightily exalted, but he had the poet’s eye for landscape and
colour, and therewith a gift of fancy. Nowhere does he seem more poetic
in his attitude towards external nature than in his lines on Vesuvius
visited some years after the terrible eruption of A.D. 79. The poem has
the interest of treating volcanic soil, which made both a practical and
an imaginative appeal to the Romans.[1535] The poet’s recollection of the
old fertile greenery and cool shadows of the vines (_hic est pampineis
uiridis modo Vesbius umbris_) contrasts with the bare desolation of the
land now buried beneath the mournful ashes of the volcano (_cuncta iacent
flammis et tristi mersa fauilla_). Then an exquisite touch of romantic
imagination pictures the vine-slopes as once haunted by the Wine-god,
near the dancing-places of the Satyrs (moderns might fancy them as gnomes
and elves)—a region where Pompeii enjoyed the patronage of the Queen of
Love and Herculaneum was called after the renowned demi-god:
This is Vesuvius where but late ’mid vines
Green shadows played, and noble clusters filled
The brimming vats. This is the very ridge
More dear to Bacchus e’en than Nysa’s heights.
On this same mount the Satyrs yesteryear
Did foot their frolic dance: here Venus found
A sweeter home than Lacedaemon gave.
A city here bore Hercules’ great name:
Now all lies whelm’d in fire and ashes dread,
And Heaven might well repent such fatal power.[1536]
So the poem ends in a tone of heartfelt sorrow over beauty destroyed,
while other pieces are full of a healthy delight in fresh air and country
scenes. A plane-tree might set his fancy roaming into fairy-land:
Oft ’neath this tree the tipsy fauns have played,
And the late pipe hath scared a silent home.
Fleeing the midnight Pan o’er lonely mead
Oft ’neath its leaves the woodland Dryad lurked.[1537]
Nature could bring him lively sensations of sight and smell, so that he
scents the fragrance from the myrtle, from the vine flowering white in
its first clusters, and from the grass newly nibbled by the sheep.[1538]
Such images for the moment at least shut out the revolting vices of the
city.
His own career in retrospect, when he left Rome for ever, contained
much to dissatisfy him. But though he had fallen short of the noblest
ideals, his experience enabled him to appraise aright the value of a good
conscience in a review of bygone years. To this thought he has given
admirable expression:
Good men make life a twofold span to last:
Twice doth he live who can enjoy his past.[1539]
The pith of style which contributed to Martial’s vogue in his own day has
always kept his poems alive; for quotability favours the preservation
of literary work. Among his memorable sayings, in addition to the
couplet quoted, are “To live is not a life—one must live well” (_non
est uiuere sed ualere uita_, VI. lxx. 15); “To-morrow’s life comes
late—live then to-day” (_sera nimis uita est crastina, uiue hodie_, I.
xv. 12); “Accept the lot thou hast—prefer naught else” (_quod sis esse
uelis nihilque malis_, X. xlvii. 12); “He hath no home whose home is
everywhere” (_quisquis ubique habitat, Maxime, nusquam habitat_, VII.
lxxiii. 6), which suggests his curt apostrophe to the owner of a spacious
but comfortless mansion, “How well you are—not housed!” (_quam bene non
habitas!_ XII. l. 8.) His dislike of shams appears in “There is a gulf
’twixt goodness and pretence” (_refert sis bonus an uelis uideri_, VIII.
xxxviii. 7). Many sundials have repeated his reflection on the flight of
“sunny days that are lost but set to our account” (_soles ... qui nobis
pereunt et imputantur_, V. xx. 12-13); and there is educational wisdom in
the hint “Boys who keep fit in summer learn enough” (_aestate pueri si
ualent satis discunt_, X. lxii. 12). For literary production he values
patronage: “Give us but patrons—Virgils will not fail” (_sint Maecenates,
non derunt, Flacce, Marones_, VIII. lvi. 5); but he goes deeper when he
says “To live, a book must have a soul within” (_uicturus genium debet
habere liber_, VI. lxi. 10), which is in keeping with “’Tis not a reader
your books need but Apollo” (_non lectore tuis opus est sed Apolline
libris_, X. xxi. 3). On the risk of publishing too many books he reminds
himself “The rare delights: so early fruits please best” (_rara iuuant:
primis sic maior gratia pomis_, IV. xxix. 3).
Martial’s influence began to act on Juvenal,[1540] and remained
operative throughout antiquity. Fathers of the Church showed knowledge
of him, and grammarians found illustrative material in his words and
phrases. During the Renaissance he was much studied and edited. His
hendecasyllabics were constantly imitated by the neo-Latin poets of
Italy and France for satiric purposes. None followed more keenly in his
steps than the Hungarian Janus Pannonius (1434-1472), who, besides
modelling his epigrams in freedom of utterance upon Martial’s elegiacs
and hendecasyllabics, enthusiastically praised him as a “father of wit”
(_ludorum pater et pater leporum_)[1541] to be invoked in preference to
Apollo and the Muses. Alongside there also flows (what is present in
Martial himself) the stream of Catullian influence observable in the
easy though occasionally solecistic _Basia_ of the _Pancharis_ by Jean
Bonnefons (Bonefonius) printed at Paris in 1587.
Then the influence passed over from Latin into the epigrammatic writing
of all modern literatures. Even the couplets of the _Xenia_ bore fruit;
for from them sprang the sarcastic _Xenien_ in which Goethe and Schiller
confronted dullness and satirized their literary enemies. Although in
quite recent times the epigram may have been less cultivated, in his own
field Martial remains, as a pattern, supreme.
MINOR FLAVIAN POETS
The minor and lost poetry of the Flavian era reaches a considerable
amount. Vespasian, though an enemy to philosophers, gave financial
encouragement to rhetors and poets. Both his sons, Titus and Domitian,
wrote poems; but the latter, after his accession, did little for poetry,
unless we put to his credit the continuance of Capitoline and Alban
competitions which ministered to his pride by eliciting laudatory verse.
Curiatius Maternus, best known from Tacitus’s _Dialogus_, has been
included among poets of the Neronian age, when his career as dramatist
began. His tragedy of _Thyestes_, however, and his _praetextae_ entitled
_Domitius_ and _Cato_ belong to Vespasian’s reign. The epic poetry of
Saleius Bassus may have been, like that of Valerius Flaccus, based on
mythology. Statius’s father was more attracted by current themes.
Under Domitian, dilettanti might keep the path of safety, if they
confined themselves to such compositions as erotic poems, conventional
epic, eulogies and colourless occasional verse for recitation before
friends or for public competitions or for private exchange with other
literary men. The authors were the kind of persons whom we meet in
Statius, Martial or the younger Pliny. A considerable list could be drawn
up from these three sources; but it may suffice to select, in lyric,
Vestricius Spurinna,[1542] a military commander on Otho’s side; in epic,
Julius Cerealis and the Codrus or Cordus whose _Theseid_ is mentioned
in Juvenal’s second line; in erotic verse, Verginius Rufus, an elderly
friend of Pliny’s; Arruntius Stella, consul in 101, author of passionate
poems on Violentilla, whom he afterwards married; and Calenus’s wife,
Sulpicia, to whom the later so-called satire of Sulpicia in seventy
hexameters should not be ascribed.[1543] Turnus succeeded in writing
satire and yet surviving at the court of Domitian.[1544] His brother
Scaeva or Scaev(i)us Memor, we have seen, wrote tragedies, as did Canius
Rufus, along with others mentioned by Martial and Juvenal. There are also
traces of lost _palliatae_ and _togatae_. Neither these, however, nor
productions like the _Agaue_ by Statius prove that there was any real
renascence of drama. It had fallen on evil days.
LITERATURE UNDER NERVA AND TRAJAN
A.D. 96–A.D. 117
CHAPTER I
PLINY THE YOUNGER AND MINOR CONTEMPORARIES
Early life—Problems in chronology—Later
career—Poems—Orations—The _Panegyricus_—The
amplified speech—Flattering picture of an ideal
prince—_Epistulae_—Roman success in letter-writing—The
essay-like epistle—Contrast with Cicero’s letters—Plinian
parallels in eighteenth century—Correspondence with
Trajan—Pliny’s gentlemanliness—Passion for literary
pursuits—Naïve vanity—Religion and politics—Composite
style—Neologisms—Influence.
Pliny’s literary circle and minor contemporaries—Verse—History
and Oratory—Jurisprudence—Scholarship—Gromatics.
PLINY THE YOUNGER
The Latin name of the younger Pliny after his adoption under his maternal
uncle’s will in A.D. 79 was C. Plinius Caelius Secundus.[1545] Previously
he had been called P. Caecilius Secundus, and was one of the sons of L.
Caecilius Cilo, a man of substance belonging to the old northern family
of the Caecilii at Comum (Como). Pliny thus retained his gentile name
instead of changing it to Caecilianus according to the republican mode.
He was born at Comum,[1546] in either 61 or 62; for he says he was in
his eighteenth year when his famous uncle lost his life in the eruption
of Vesuvius, August 24th, A.D. 79.[1547] His father’s early death left
him under the guardianship of the distinguished general Verginius
Rufus, who twice refused the imperial purple: to him and to his uncle
he owed guidance in his studies. There was no public teacher at Comum
(a disadvantage which Pliny sought to remedy in later years), so that
his education in the north must have been conducted either privately or
at Milan. In time, however, he went to Rome and studied under Nicetes
Sacerdos and Quintilian.[1548] The elder Pliny’s example and precepts
kept his nephew assiduously employed: even a walk was frowned upon, and
on the occasion of the fatal eruption the youth was engaged on a literary
exercise set him by his uncle, and was also working on Livy.[1549] Such
teaching and his own diligence led to his early appearance as a pleader;
for he argued his first case in his nineteenth year.[1550] This was in
Titus’s reign; thereafter, under Domitian, he filled a round of offices
and built up a reputation by speaking, sometimes in the Senate, but
mostly in what he calls his special “arena,” the centumviral court for
the trial of lawsuits about disputed properties or successions.[1551] The
literary works, however, by which he is known belong almost entirely to
the time of Nerva and Trajan, and are therefore post-Flavian.
Except Cicero, no Latin author is so well-known to us. We have a full
self-revelation in his letters, while a few inscriptions record his
_cursus honorum_.[1552] Yet, clearly though his personality stands out,
teasing puzzles remain, affecting his life and works. For these problems
brief mention must suffice. Ever since Mommsen published his elaborate
article _Zur Lebensgeschichte der jüngeren Plinius_ in _Hermes_ in
1869, discussion has continued on the dates when Pliny held certain
of his offices and on the interconnected question of the dates when
the different books of the epistles were written and issued. Though
finality has not been reached, some of Mommsen’s pronouncements have been
controverted, and doubts thrown upon his basic conception that Pliny
is misleading his readers, with a view to produce a false impression
of fine carelessness, when he declares that the letters are not in
chronological order. Mommsen used his findings on the chronology of the
letters as a foundation for his account of Pliny’s life. It is impossible
here to enter into the arguments with which critics have assailed him
or each other.[1553] After all, however important such details are in
the interests of historical accuracy, it does, from the standpoint of
pure literature, make little difference, if, for example, Mommsen was
wrong (led wrong perhaps by implications in his own theory)[1554] as to
Pliny’s tenure of office at the _aerarium Saturni_, or if he was right in
assigning Pliny’s praetorship to 93.[1555]
Nor is there any stagnation in Plinian textual criticism, as the issue
of recent editions proves;[1556] and, though a literary history is not
directly concerned with an author’s MSS., it is difficult to forget that
the sole written copy on which Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan rests
has long since been lost, and that the establishment of the text in the
other books of letters—not an easy matter—depends on a right assessment
of three distinct families of MSS.[1557]
Fortunately, the essential facts of Pliny’s life are beyond dispute. He
went through the two preliminary stages of a civil career by performing
in the “vigintivirate” the duties of assisting the praetor as _decemuir
stlitibus iudicandis_ and by serving in garrison abroad as military
tribune in Syria. After his return to Rome, he received the compliment
of being appointed _seuir_ of the _equites_; he held the quaestorship
89-90, tribunate of the people 91-92, and praetorship in 93. An imperial
dispensation abolished for him the usual interval between tribunate and
praetorship. He was, then, praetor in a year signalized by Domitian’s
determined endeavour to quell what he considered a “Stoic Opposition.”
How far Pliny did or could help his Stoic friends cannot be determined.
He is at some pains at a later date to declare that he supported the
philosopher Artemidorus with money and a personal call of sympathy
outside Rome, and to indicate that he was himself the subject of a secret
information;[1558] but Pliny had a hazardous position to fill, especially
in 93, as a magistrate, as a recipient of the emperor’s favour, and as
a temperamental objector to anything like martyrdom. Further confidence
was shown in 94, when Domitian made him one of the three prefects of the
military treasury. Discretion and the right sort of silence brought him
safely to Nerva’s reign, when his business experience recommended him for
nomination early in A.D. 98 to the prefecture of the military treasury.
Nerva’s death before the end of January involved his induction into that
office by Trajan, who, two years later, in September, 100, promoted Pliny
to the suffect consulship. It was on assuming the chair in the Senate
that Pliny pronounced before the emperor the _Panegyric_ which was the
spoken basis of the over-elaborated oration that survived. A break in
magisterial duties ended a few years later, when Trajan granted him a
seat in the college of augurs in succession to a revered friend, Julius
Frontinus: next came his commission on the Tiber Conservancy Board,
involving superintendence of the banks and channel of the river and the
drainage of the city. When Trajan, therefore, had taken over from the
Senate the badly managed province of Bithynia, he paid a well-deserved
compliment to Pliny’s executive and financial ability by letting his
choice fall upon him as his special and personal representative. The
emperor knew him intimately, and on one occasion summoned him as an
assessor in trials heard by his Majesty at Centum Cellae (Civita
Vecchia), some forty-seven miles distant from Rome.[1559] The evidence on
the whole points to A.D. 111-113 as the period of two years during which
Pliny was governor in Bithynia.[1560] It may have been only in his second
year of office that he found time to extend his movements beyond Bithynia
proper, and to visit the eastern or Pontic part of his province.[1561]
Presumably he died in harness: at least the correspondence comes to an
abrupt close. In the last letter of his which we have, he mentions having
sent his wife back to Italy post-haste on account of her grandfather’s
death, and the emperor’s reply ends the collection.[1562] It is not
wholly unfitting that this mainly official book should conclude with a
domestic touch. Pliny was deeply attached to his third wife, Calpurnia:
what he writes of her shows how much he appreciated her interest in his
work: what he writes to her when they are separated shows that a love
letter was within his capacity.[1563]
Pliny’s marriages brought him no children, but Trajan conferred upon
him the _ius trium liberorum_ in 98. Generous to friends, he showed
munificence to his native town during his lifetime by presenting and
endowing a library, devoting a sum to the support of freeborn boys and
girls, and promising to pay one-third of the salary for a professor of
rhetoric. The longest of the inscriptions[1564] concerning him prove his
bequests for baths, for the maintenance of a hundred freedmen, and on
their death for banqueting the townsfolk.
Of poetry we should scarcely have suspected him, but that he pleads
guilty, and is manifestly anxious to be thought capable of composing
the lightest of light verse. Pliny endeavouring to be naughty or even
frivolous is difficult to conceive. However, he had tried his hand at a
variety of forms; at a Greek tragedy, when he was fourteen, and later at
Latin elegiac, epic and hendecasyllabic verse.[1565] An epigram by Cicero
on Tiro tempted him once to use his midday siesta for poetic composition;
and the thirteen hexameters which resulted show that he had much better
have slept.[1566] The eight elegiacs of versified advice preserved
elsewhere as one of his sportive trifles (_lusus_) are mediocre.[1567]
Yet he is proud to have issued a volume of hendecasyllabic poems, which,
he says, are read, sung to music, and actually lure Greeks to study
Latin. “I simply pray,” is his complacent remark, “that future ages may
endorse the mistake or the appreciation of my contemporaries.”[1568] But
the ages have not spared the book.
Pliny felt still more pride in his oratory as a basis of fame. Much of
his speaking must have been too strictly legal for preservation; but
there were occasions in and outside Rome which made his eloquence in his
own eyes worthy of permanent record. With some speeches he took enormous
pains after delivery: they would be carefully revised, retried upon a
small circle of friends, sent in whole or in part to correspondents
for criticism, delivered afresh before a large invited audience, and,
after final emendation, possibly published.[1569] “I reflect,” he
remarks, “what a serious matter it is to put something into the hands
of the public.”[1570] He was perfectly conscious of the risk that such
a redelivered speech ran of losing its fire, and yet he wonders why he
should be criticized for his practice of serving up speeches at a formal
_recitatio_.[1571] We know of at least seven speeches of his that reached
book-form, though they have not reached us. These include his address
at the dedication of the library at Comum; pleadings in defence of
Julius Bassus and Rufus Varenus on the two occasions when Pliny acted as
counsel against the Bithynians, whom he was one day to govern; a speech
for Attia Viriola to show cause why she should not be disinherited;
and an attack in the Senate, after Domitian’s death, upon Publicius
Certus as responsible for the conviction of the younger Helvidius. This
last oration[1572] gave Pliny a safe opportunity of eulogizing a Stoic
family, and brought him from a friend the compliment, joyfully accepted,
of comparing it to Demosthenes’s speech _Against Meidias_. “In fact,”
replies Pliny, “I had that speech in my hands when I composed mine—not
to rival it (that would be outrageous or almost insane), but still to
imitate and follow as far as difference of genius—a very great and a very
small one—or the dissimilarity of the case would permit.”[1573] Among
other speeches, which may or may not have circulated afterwards, were
those he delivered on the two occasions when, as advocate for the Baetic
provincials, he prosecuted ex-governors of theirs, Baebius Massa and
Caecilius Classicus; his impeachment of the notorious Marius Priscus as
counsel for the Africans along with Tacitus in A.D. 100; and the defence
of a group of legatees charged in the criminal court with poisoning.
Nothing has, however, come down to represent his oratorical activity
except the re-edited form of the _Panegyricus_ on Trajan, pronounced
in the Senate by Pliny on entering with Cornutus Tertullus upon the
consulate in the later part of the year 100. One cannot hope to discern
how much of the original speech is embedded in what we now have. Soon
after its delivery, Pliny sent a copy to Voconius Romanus asking for
criticisms, and his letter[1574] makes it clear that he was scrutinizing
his own performance under various rhetorical heads. His contention
is that the well-known nature of the material (that is, Trajan’s
services and qualities) must concentrate the attention unduly on style
(_elocutio_), whereas there are other points to consider like arrangement
and transitions; also, just as in a picture, one demands high lights and
shade. No more illuminating introduction, however, to the _Panegyric_
can be found than in another letter mentioning an amplified form of the
speech which Pliny has been reading to a gathering of friends on three
successive days.[1575] As they had assembled in spite of bad weather,
their interest was a compliment to literature, which, he says, was just
reviving after being nearly extinguished: “it is not that there is more
style than formerly, but people write with more liking because they
have more liberty (_liberius ideoque etiam libentius_).” Exuberance, he
submits, must be expected in such a composition: in fact, plain unadorned
language might appear out of place in a eulogy, though he hints at hopes
that literary taste will yet come to favour austere in preference to
sugared writing.[1576] One most important point emerges bearing on the
author’s design. Proper as it was that the fuller treatment in book-form
(_eadem illa spatiosius et uberius uolumine amplecti_) should do justice
to the excellence of the emperor, there was the further aim of drawing
the picture of a perfect prince. This is an implicit appeal to posterity.
Yet it only relatively makes the _Panegyric_ more endurable: the praises
remain excessive, the figures strained, the prolixity wearisome. For us
its chief value lies in the historical light shed on the early part of a
reign so scantily documented as Trajan’s is, apart from Pliny’s speech
and his correspondence.[1577]
The complimentary expression of thanks to which senators had listened
with secret chafing in Domitian’s day was expanded by Pliny into a
_laudatio_ in which he incorporated the two rhetorical prescriptions of
detailed fact and psychological study. That is why the speech divides
itself broadly between Trajan’s public acts and Trajan’s personal
character. The exordium acknowledges a sense of the divine favour which
has bestowed upon Rome such an emperor: it disclaims all intention
of flattering; for abject obeisance, as if to a deity, is no longer
necessary—Trajan is no tyrant, but a fellow-citizen. Then the keynote
is struck. One reflects how highly endowed ought that person to be who
controls the Empire by sea and land, in peace and war; but imagination
can yield none worthier of such authority than the prince in whose
presence the orator is speaking. Logically, then, he is the picture of
an ideal for future ages. Trajan’s services before his recent arrival
in Rome imply bravery, wide military experience, power of discipline
and a loyal acceptance of his adoption by Nerva to be a colleague and
successor. His triumphant entry into the city and at the same time his
modest bearing form a fit prelude to a rehearsal of his public acts,
such as liberality to the people, care of poor children, protection
of commerce, solicitude for the corn supply that might well make Rome
independent of “haughty Egypt,” exhibition of manly games, abolition of
espionage, repression of informers, discountenancing of treason-trials,
stabilization of finance, guaranteeing of wills, and a wise policy in
building. The emperor devotes anxious thought to the provinces, and has
a due regard for justice: in fine, he governs as the Creator does—a
vicegerent on earth. His personal qualities are commended with allusions
to the contrasted inhumanity of Domitian. So far is the emperor from
self-assertion that he had long hesitated to accept a third consulship:
so zealous is he that change of work is for him a form of relaxation.
Unconscious humour lurks in the detailed picture of this indefatigable
sportsman and handy seaman, unlike his predecessor (_quantum dissimilis
illi_) whom sea-sickness reduced to the condition of a victim led to
the slaughter (_piaculum_). Next, his private life in the palace with
wife and sister is touched on; then his affability to friends, and,
with a glance at Claudius’s court, his control over the freedmen of
his household: “You know that greatness in freedmen is the chief mark
of littleness in a prince.”[1578] Well does such an emperor deserve to
be called _optimus_. After an apostrophe to his late Majesty, Nerva,
the formal close comes in acknowledgements uttered to Trajan on behalf
of Pliny himself and his colleague, and in deferential remarks to their
fellow-senators.
Regarded under the aspect of an admonitory document for future princes,
the _Panegyric_ is less offensive to modern taste; because its words are
not those of an obsequious toady but of a patriot insistent upon the
services rendered by a wise emperor to his country. Its faults, too,
such as affectation and long-windedness would certainly have been less
present in the spoken form. As it now stands, it wearies the reader by
its length, adulation and artifices. Trajan ceases to be interesting as
a Sun-god or an earthly Jupiter: he is more effective as a hard-working
ruler. The rhetorical element is also overdone: resort is too often had
to antitheses,[1579] _sententiae_,[1580] and a subtlety that degenerates
into bad taste.[1581] The specious “colores” of rhetoric betray
themselves in over-ingenious turns: a mutiny, it is suggested, was the
very thing wanted to prove Trajan a true _corrector emendatorque_; and
his grey hairs were heaven-ordained to enhance his reverend appearance.
What uncomplimentary rhetorical colour would have been given to grey
hairs in Domitian’s case may be imagined. Perhaps Trajan felt such
elaborate praises as trying as he must have found some of the questions
on detail included a dozen years later in Pliny’s letters to him from
Bithynia. Finally, the _Panegyric_ contains much to illustrate the
invasion of prose by the poetic: here the _egressio_ on Egypt will
provide apposite examples. As this epideictic performance, then, is our
sole specimen of the author’s oratory, we must beware of judging the lost
speeches by it. In other speeches Pliny, though never an austere orator,
may have indulged less in the rhetorical faults of his time.
Pliny’s _Letters_, on which he prided himself less than on his poetry and
speeches, constitute his real title to fame. The 247 letters of the nine
books which precede the last book (containing 121 letters of official
correspondence between Trajan and Pliny in A.D. 111-113) were written
in the period from about A.D. 97 to about 109. Their chronology, it has
been indicated, is a debated and still debateable matter; but there is a
growing belief that the letters in the nine books were issued in groups,
which one theory at least arranges symmetrically in triads.[1582] Pliny
did not adhere to strict chronological order; and his own statement to
that effect is confirmed by several instances.[1583] The collection in
nine books may be assumed to have been complete before Pliny left Italy
for his eastern province, and the so-called tenth book to have been
published after Pliny’s death by some friend or possibly by his widow.
To understand Pliny’s significance as letter-writer it is necessary to
observe what an _epistula_ from his hand meant. We have nothing quite
like it earlier: on the other hand, a long series of prose letters in
later times and later literature bear a family resemblance to his.
Classical Greece presents in this field relatively slight remains. There
are no indisputably genuine Greek letters to represent the best period,
partly because inside the small Hellenic communities it was pointless
to write to a man whom one might see in an hour or so, and partly
because external communication was hampered in many ways. As travel
and separation greatly predispose to letter-writing, it is natural to
think that the breadth of interest which furnishes the best epistolary
equipment came more easily to a Roman in the days of a world-empire:
it is therefore natural to feel less surprise that, as the dialogue
had become classic in Greece, so the sort of halved dialogue which
constitutes a good letter became classic at Rome. Something in the
Roman genius favoured this literary form: it is not merely that there
is no Greek analogy to the three kinds of epistles written by Cicero,
Seneca and Pliny, but in later centuries Latin still holds the supremacy;
for Julian the Apostate and Synesios, Bishop of Cyrene, are not in
letter-writing the equals of the Gallic Bishop, Sidonius Apollinaris, or
the statesman Cassiodor(i)us.
The letter, as published by Pliny, goes far beyond the scope of the
simplest private form written to make a request or give information.
This simplest form may be no more literature than an official letter is;
yet many letters, in the original sense, intended only for an individual
receiver may possess the charm of frankness and artlessness united with
just as much design as is needed for clear conveyance of the writer’s
thoughts. One of the fascinations in Cicero’s letters, especially those
to Atticus, is that he speaks to his friend as if to himself, uttering
the first thing that comes (_quidquid in buccam_, _Ad Att._, XII. i.
2); so that this immediate committal of thought or experience to paper
involves a disregard of academic rules and often a free borrowing of tone
and expression from the _sermo cotidianus_. Wherever, in parts of the
_Epistulae ad Familiares_, there may cross Cicero’s mind the possibility
of publication, he becomes at once less unconstrained and more formal.
It makes all the difference whether our letters are to be read by one or
by many. With the notion of a collective audience among contemporaries
or posterity there begins the quest after artistry: then it is always
possible that, on redressing the balance, one may be compensated for
the lost spontaneity with new aesthetic effects. This more literary
type is represented by Pliny. With him the epistle has overstepped the
rigid bounds of a letter: it has become a _causerie_ on paper, and
the addressee is in a position comparable to that of the Pisones in
Horace’s versified epistle on poetry, or Lucilius in Seneca’s _Epistulae
Morales_, or Madame de Sévigné’s daughter in her correspondence. The
recipient really represents the great public, while Pliny ranges at
will anywhere through the width of human life among themes likely to
provide interesting material—a senatorial debate, a trial, an illness,
a death, a murder, a mysterious disappearance, floods on the Tiber, a
volcanic disaster, ghost stories, a book, a speech, a literary celebrity,
questions of style, principles of education, advice about a tutor, social
claims, a day in town, a day in the country, scenery, a residence by the
sea or in Tuscany or on the Lago di Garda, an offer of a loan, a purchase
of property, a mean host, a Corinthian bronze, the duty of forgiveness,
greetings to friends or relatives, congratulations, consolations.
Elsewhere, in a light vein, he rallies a poor correspondent, or an
acquaintance who has forgotten to come to dinner; regrets he has only
got thanks to send for a present of thrushes; acknowledges another
gift with the information that, though his eyes are troubling him, he
can see it is a plump hen; tells another friend that he is busy with
the vintage, but will “draw off” fresh verses for him;[1584] or again,
much as Burns in one of his letters delightfully told three tales about
Alloway Kirk, so Pliny tells three anecdotes about Regulus with the airy
introduction: “down with your copper and get a story worth gold; no,
three stories!”[1585]
Expression must be manifold to keep pace in pliancy with every swift
turn of thought on such a variety of subjects. The general effect is
that of a miscellany of miniature studies or _feuilletons_, in the sense
that Pliny’s letters, essay-like, weigh some incident, experience, or
idea in the scale of the author’s personal mood, or, if “weighing” be
too precise a term, the author may be said to play lightly round his
theme and put his own spirit into it. This personal impress makes the
letters as readable as leaves from a well-written diary, so that they
have, some of them, the incidental, intimate, and literary interest which
marks a work like the _Journal des Goncourt_. Epistolary literature,
even at its most artificial, possesses the attraction of affording a
sure insight into the nature of the author. While it may be too much
to declare, as Johnson did, that “in a man’s letters, you know, madam,
his soul lies naked,” still there must always be in them a biography
of the feelings: there will also often be—and perhaps more interesting
if undesigned—illumination thrown upon the customs of the day. Since
Pliny’s letters do not belong to the kind tossed off in fine careless
freedom, one does not look to find in them the rapid conversational and
staccato notes of some of Cicero’s, or the open impetuosities of Byron;
for Pliny’s letters are more laboriously penned with the thought of
eventual publication and the hope of posthumous fame: their sentiments
and phrases are so cunningly disciplined and marshalled that what they
lose in unsophisticated charm they gain in artistic grace. But with all
this clever artificiality Pliny has much sound matter to convey. Studied
elegance is not necessarily inimical to sincerity, and his letters remain
a true index to his personality and to the life of his times. He realized
the contrast between his own letters and Cicero’s. Their circumstances
were different, and Cicero’s fertile genius could readily find abundance
of material in the stirring times that witnessed the death-throes of
the republic. Apologizing, therefore, to a friend who has demanded full
letters, Pliny pleads lack of thrilling subjects and fears that his
epistles may become too academic (_scholasticae atque umbraticae_).[1586]
We may take it for certain that one reason why Cicero’s letters so far
outnumber Pliny’s is that Pliny must have excluded from publication such
of his letters as in substance could not lay claim to general interest
or in form could not serve as patterns of style. It is noteworthy that
there are no epistles of the literary type belonging to the period of his
governorship, though it is conceivable that, but for his death, the world
would have seen another issue of his open letters, adorned, as before,
with that _bel esprit_ which Europe has found so attractive.
This Plinian type of letter, where the underlying realities are retouched
more or less lightly with literary refinements before publication, is
one of the legacies of Rome to modern literature. Epistolography made no
advance in the Middle Ages, but with the Renaissance the recovery was
well marked among scholars. When we turn to the eighteenth century, the
palmiest age for letter-writing in English literature, it is impossible
to avoid being struck with a similarity of spirit between Pliny’s letters
and those of Horace Walpole, Gray and Cowper. Despite Pliny’s complaints
about inroads on his time, and harder worker though he was than our
chief letter-writers, he yet enjoyed the comfort and the leisure which
seem indispensable to the production of the best literary epistles.
Thoughtful, kindly, communicative, he was the very man to give human
interest to his writing. Neither in Walpole, that caustic and voluminous
man of the world, nor in Gray, largely a recluse with a fund of somewhat
baffling restraint, do we discover the amiability which makes this pagan
gentleman so winning. Perhaps Cowper, if we neglect his shy melancholy
and quiet humour, presents most parallels to Pliny. Scholarly, sensible,
well-mannered, free from ill-nature, artistic in expression, he had
a turn for reflection which make much in his letters read as if the
English would go straight into Plinian Latin. Certainly it is not without
significance that one of the best English renderings of Pliny was that
composed by Melmoth in the eighteenth century: it is too verbose, but
even its generous verbosity suggests the spacious leisure of a period
before the rush of modern life mortally wounded the art of letter-writing.
In contrast to the literary epistles, the correspondence with Trajan
concerns the business of a provincial governor, some of it urgently
demanding for settlement all the haste that the Roman imperial post
by road and sea would allow. Here we find petitions for privileges
on behalf of Pliny himself and others, reports on his struggles with
the impaired finances of municipalities, knotty questions in civil or
religious or criminal law, local difficulties in building a theatre or
temple or aqueduct or baths, and repeated requests for a trained surveyor
or architect from Rome. Most famous of all is the pair consisting of
the letter from Pliny on prosecuting Christians and Trajan’s answer.
Historically the collection is most valuable, because it lifts the veil
from the administration of a province in an abnormal condition; but much
non-literary matter has, of necessity, to be introduced, and there is
just that element of fussiness which good letters lack. One feels that
the special commissioner refers too many minute points to Trajan, and
deserves the reminder that some of his reported quandaries were exactly
of the sort which he had been sent out to solve on the spot. Trajan’s
replies are business-like and brief, the findings of a fair-minded man:
though they are friendly to his “dear Secundus,” their very brevity
sometimes implies that the governor is causing both the emperor and
himself too much worry: once or twice, indeed, they verge on the snappy.
That is one reason why it is incredible that they could have been the
product of the imperial bureau in Rome—the personal touch is present.
Reputations are not likely to be made by propounding theories that these
replies came from an office instead of from the emperor, or by starting
doubts about the authenticity of this correspondence in general or about
the special letters touching the Christians whom Pliny had to judge in
Bithynia.[1587]
A personality so manifold deserves fuller examination than has been
incidentally possible in a survey of his life and letters. If dignity,
self-possession, broad-mindedness, considerateness, courtesy and
generosity are qualities that constitute a gentleman, then Pliny was
one. He knew how to ensure respect for the high magistracies which he
held; he could keep his head in court so as to make the requisite retort
to an unfair opponent; his wide experience of life taught him fairness
in dealing with others; he was considerate to tenants and servants;
treated superiors and inferiors with politeness, and performed notable
acts of munificence. Although he devoted much energy to the preparation
of cases on the court-roll,[1588] his master-passion was literary study.
Enthusiasm forces him to recommend it for others:
Let this be your business, this your idleness; this your toil,
and this your rest; in these pursuits let your vigilance, in
these let your repose too be found.[1589]
Amidst distracting avocations, he pined for retirement away from Rome
where he could read and write:
Shall I never break, if I mayn’t untie, these cramping bonds?
Never, I suppose—for the old tasks have new tasks growing on
them before the earlier ones are finished.[1590]
So he writes from town:
What am I doing, you ask. What you wot of. I’m hard pressed
with official duty; I’ve friends to attend to; sometimes I
study, the thing to do which, not “sometimes” but solely and
continually, would be, I don’t dare to say more virtuous, but
surely more welcome.[1591]
Even if he did get away to the lake-country for fishing and hunting, he
liked to combine literary composition with his sport; and a saving grace
let him see the humour of the situation when he tells Tacitus about
waiting for the wild boar with writing material at hand.[1592] What
might easily have become mere bookishness was counteracted by duties,
official and social, which involved intercourse with his fellow-men. As
it happened, his career enabled him to discharge faithfully public and
professional tasks, and yet in his leisure do good service to literature.
Here his premier attention turned on oratory and poetry. While he
knew and esteemed certain philosophers, he apparently shared some of
Quintilian’s suspicions about others; and while he once penned a handsome
tribute to the divine majesty of history, he disavowed any purpose of
competing in that field.[1593] But, if he restricted his own output, he
was catholic in his zeal for the production of all forms of literature.
This appears in his enthusiasm for _recitationes_: it mattered little
whether the reading were from history, comedy, poetry or oratory—Pliny
was scrupulous in his attendance,[1594] believing that private perusal
was not enough to test a work without the _uiua uox_,[1595] and offering
sound reasons in defence of the practice as an aid to criticism.[1596]
Similar zeal stimulates vigorous correspondence about the emendation
of his speeches and verses, and repeated exhortations urging others to
produce literary work.[1597] His praises of contemporaries, though
too lavish and partial, were in a measure due to the same genuine
interest.[1598] He may be extravagant in declaring that nothing so
perfect had appeared of recent years as Augurinus’s “Poems in Little”
(_Poematia_): here he seems naïvely to disclose the reason for his bias
as personal liking or the poet’s compliments to himself.[1599] He may
also have overstated the case in saying that Fannius’s premature death
robbed the world of an immortal work on Nero’s victims.[1600] Naturally
some whisper reached him in time that exception had been taken to his
excessive commendations: to which his answer, if not wholly valid, is at
least candid:
You tell me that some people have condemned me in your hearing
for praising my friends at every opportunity beyond what is
due. I admit the impeachment (_agnosco crimen_)—welcome it, in
fact. For what is nobler than the fault of kindliness? After
all, who are they who know my friends better than I do? Yet
suppose they do, why grudge me a most delightful deception?
For, supposing my friends are not such as I declare they are,
still I am happy in fancying them so. Well, then, they’d
better turn this maladroit activity of theirs (_sinistram
diligentiam_) upon others: there’s no lack of people who call
it “critical judgement” to pull their friends to pieces:
they’ll never persuade me into thinking that I love my friends
too dearly.[1601]
It is futile to argue that he was not severe enough, and might have
raised the literary standard by indulging, like Boileau, in outspoken
attacks.[1602] What looks more likely is that the example and praise of
a man of Pliny’s ability and reputation stirred contemporaries to do
the utmost of which they were capable. However that may be, the freedom
from envy implied in such praises must be set to his credit, and a good
deal should be forgiven to a benevolence which showed itself in many
other ways—in his charitable use of wealth, his willingness to help in
misfortune, his ready emotion over the death of friend or slave.[1603]
None but a considerate master would have chosen a room for study so as
to avoid any temptation to interfere with the festive rowdiness of his
slaves when celebrating the Saturnalia,[1604] or have taken pains to
arrange that his freedman Zosimus, who had been spitting blood, should
go to the Riviera and benefit by a prescription which medicine neglected
for centuries in the treatment of consumption—excellent fresh air and
properly handled milk.[1605] The tolerance which marked him as a governor
made him companionable for very diverse types of men—a brooder like
Tacitus or an airy mocker like Martial. It was rare for him to loathe
anyone as he did Regulus; for he recognized the inhumanity of being too
fierce a hater, and the virtue of forgiveness.[1606] Temperate though
rich, Pliny followed a rule of life as commendable as the Stoic, yet
without Stoic rigidity; and if at times he appeared a little prim and
priggish, let it be remembered how anxious he was at other times to show
that he could unbend into frivolities.[1607]
His greatest weakness lies so patently on the surface that it amuses
more than it offends. The passion for fame turned into an amiable vanity
when he was convinced that the coveted fame had been attained. With a
perfectly naïve egoism that disarms severe censure, he chronicles his
own good deeds or desires a place in Tacitus’s immortal works.[1608]
Can one wonder that he liked to have his name coupled with that of the
historian?[1609] He writes:
I never experienced greater pleasure than from a talk with
Cornelius Tacitus recently. He told me that he had sitting next
him at last circus-games a Roman knight. After conversation on
a wide range of learning, the latter asked, “Are you from Italy
or the provinces?” “You know me,” was the reply, “and from my
literary works to be sure.” Whereupon the other asked, “Are you
Tacitus or Pliny?”[1610]
The letter proceeds to recount another incident in which a stranger
guessed Pliny’s identity, and concludes: “I’m not afraid to appear too
boastful in quoting not my own but other people’s opinion about me.”
Still, it is his own golden opinion that he quotes about his speech for
Attia Viriola as an inspired performance.[1611] No wonder, then, that he
should mention his delight when the judges in court could not help rising
from their seats to show appreciation of his speaking,[1612] or that he
thought it a “white pebble day” when he heard two young men (_egregium
par_) pleading on opposite sides in the urban prefect’s council, both
exhibiting an excellent style which they had based on Pliny as their
pattern (_exemplar_),[1613] or that he should honestly confess that he
enjoyed reading poetry which praised himself.[1614]
But he was not without traits of modesty: he owned there was something
beyond him in the virtues of a good philosopher, in the eminence of
Cicero, and in the genius of Tacitus.[1615] There is also something fine
in his avowal that the attainment of glory is not all: it is the inner
quality that counts, and to deserve success is no less honourable than to
command it:
Besides I have in mind how much finer a spirit it shows to set
the rewards of honour in one’s conscience rather than in men’s
applause. Glory should follow, not be sought after; and if by
some chance or other it does not follow, a deed is no less
excellent for having failed to win glory.[1616]
A natural piety, flecked with superstition in the matter of omens and
dreams, prompted him to build temples in Italy and to hesitate in the
East over disturbing a consecrated site.[1617] However much he might feel
officially opposed to the non-conformity of Christians in the observance
of such public sacrifices as tested loyalty, against the principles of
the Christian life he found nothing to say.[1618] As to his own religious
beliefs, he accepted a Divine Power as having vouchsafed Trajan to Rome,
and recognized the obligation of prayer to the Providence sustaining the
emperor.[1619] On a bed of sickness, he knows the invalid discovers the
vanity of worldly pursuits, and “in that hour remembers there are gods,
in that hour remembers he is man.”[1620] Sincerity of feeling enabled
him, like Persius, to penetrate the inmost meaning of worship in the
doctrine that “the gods find pleasure not so much in exact petitions by
their votaries as in innocency and holiness, and he who has brought to
their shrines a clean and pure heart is found more acceptable than he who
has brought a premeditated form of words.”[1621]
His views on the Empire were those of acquiescence in the system of
control by one ruler working for the general weal.[1622] He had been
able to keep to the path of prudence under a bad emperor, though even
he claims to have been in danger from Domitian. After the dawn of
better days, there came the raptures of the _Panegyric_, where the
constitutional change is paradoxically summarized in his words to Trajan
_iubes esse liberos: erimus_.[1623] Admirers of the great past of Rome
might take comfort in the fancy that a good _princeps_ was a restorer of
the olden times. Broadly, Pliny’s political attitude is that difficulties
in the state must be left to the higher powers to face: that is what an
emperor is for.[1624] On this principle he certainly acted when Bithynia
was under his charge.
Interrogated on his style, Pliny might have called himself Ciceronian.
For his letters he employs a rhythmic prose of a a light type, decorating
it with poetic quotations and allusions. If he cannot be said to be
periodic in structure, he does largely follow the Ciceronian type of
sentence-endings.[1625] Yet in reality his prose was the resultant
of different forces. It is true that he went back in his orations to
Cicero as a master; but, in addition, he acknowledges his debt to
Demosthenes in Greek and to Calvus in Latin. It is also true that, like
his master Quintilian, he decries the oratory of the day,[1626] and,
like Quintilian again, holds that the best models (_optima quaeque_)
should be imitated:[1627] at the same time, it does not follow that
Pliny was unaffected by the rhetoric of his own era. On the contrary,
the reader soon discovers in the letters that he was an offspring of
the age in his studied use of the paraphernalia of rhetoric such as
antithesis, oxymoron, the emphatic anaphora,[1628] and _sententiae_,
like “many respect gossip, few conscience” (_multi famam, conscientiam
pauci uerentur_), or “The favour of scoundrels is as untrustworthy as
the scoundrels themselves” (_gratia malorum tam infida est quam ipsi_).
The rhetorical ring due to artificial devices may be noted even in the
English dress of a representative letter to an official friend:
Consider that you are sent to the province of Achaia, the true,
the genuine Greece, where civilization, literature, and even
agriculture are believed to have originated. Consider that you
are sent to regulate the affairs of free states; that is to
say, men in the highest degree men, free men in the highest
sense free, who have maintained the right which nature granted
them by courage, by services, by friendliness, finally by
compact and the sanctions of religion. Let your feelings be
those of reverence for their antiquity, their marvellous deeds,
even for their myths.... Keep before your eyes that this is
the land which sent us our legal code; the land which gave us
laws, not after a victory, but at our own request. Remember
it is Athens you approach, it is Lacedaemon you govern. To
snatch from them the shadow that is left, the surviving name
of freedom, would be harsh, cruel, barbarous.... Recollect the
past greatness of each state, but not so as to despise her
for having lost it. Let there be no arrogance, no harshness.
You need not fear contempt: can contempt be shown for the
magistrate invested with power and the insignia of office,
unless he is a low, mean creature who has already a contempt
for himself? Authority makes a poor test of its own force if
it flouts others: it is a poor sort of homage that is won by
terror: affection gives a far stronger guarantee for holding
what you want than fear does. For fear vanishes, if one quits
the scene, while affection remains; and just as the former
turns into hatred, so does the latter turn into respect.[1629]
Yet Pliny was not a mere scholastic rhetorician: he was habitually versed
in business affairs and actual lawsuits: he had, therefore, to be more
practical in offence and defence than an academic professor had need to
be. In fact, he realizes the weakness inherent in the rhetoric of the
schools when he draws a picture of the rhetor Isaeus as a simple-minded
teacher in contrast with the keen practised lawyer who necessarily learns
guile from close contact with the real disputes of men.[1630] As to his
Ciceronianism, it is so modified that his style could not be mistaken
for Cicero’s. If he had been taught by Quintilian to eschew Seneca’s
brevity, he did not keep the rotundity of the Ciceronian manner. Rather
he is a compromise between the two styles. In one of his eleven surviving
letters to Tacitus, he raises an interesting question on the relative
merits of the terse and the profuse.[1631] True, at least, to theory, he
favours the latter; and it may be imagined how illuminating it would have
been to read the answer from the master of the condensed style. Pliny’s
own illustration of brevity has a delightfully vague freedom about it:
Homer, though like Virgil he takes many lines to describe the armour of
his hero, is brief, he maintains, because he accomplishes his literary
design (_quia facit quod instituit_), and so Pliny’s letter on his Tuscan
villa must not be called big—it is the villa that is big! No single label
indeed can fairly denote Pliny’s style: if he could be so labelled, he
would not have made such attractive reading. The great variety of his
subjects met with corresponding variety of treatment from him, so that
he is justified when he claims that in literature, as in life, the ideal
effect is produced by a blend of the grave and the gay.[1632]
In Pliny’s choice of words alone there are characteristics, such as
his liking for frequentative verbs, that mark him off from the Golden
Age.[1633] He is individual enough to invent words, _e.g._ the nouns
_abactus_, _praelusio_, _renutus_, _socialitas_, _sinisteritas_,
_arcessitor_, _reformator_, or to give fresh meanings to old words,
_e.g._ _descensio_, _dispensatio_, _egestio_, _nutatio_, _latitudo_,
_gestator_. Again, he typically shares words with writers of the
Silver Age, _e.g._ _cenatio_, “dining-room” (Sen., Plin. Maj., Col.,
Petr., Mart., Suet.); _computatio_, “account” (Sen., Plin. Maj.,
Quint., Front.); _captiuitas_, “slavery” (Sen., Petr., Tac., Flor.);
_diuersitas_, “difference” (Plin. Maj., Quint., Tac.); _circulator_,
“hawker” (Cels., Sen., Petr.). His locutions and syntax also present
noteworthy features. One may find a Livian and poetic turn in _pietatis
est totus_ or _ne grauare_ or _permitto facere_, and a Virgilian base for
constructions like _certus fugae_ or _liberum discriminis_ or _securus
magnitudinis_. That Pliny based his Latin not strictly on Cicero but on
the Latin of his own century is shown by much in the structure of the
sentence, such as the general relinquishment of the period, and reduction
of relative words; the new sense attached to conjunctions or adverbs
like _alioqui_, _quatenus_, _quoque_; the use of participles in bold
ways; much too in the use of moods,[1634] like _quotiens intrasset_ or
_quocumque me contulissem_ or _quamquam nouerim_.
Fronto’s educational correspondence shows no knowledge of Pliny’s
epistles; but Tertullian’s acquaintance with the two letters on
the Christians is evident from his angry objections to them.[1635]
Macrobius[1636] couples Pliny and Symmachus, the scholarly statesman of
the late fourth century, as examples of the rich and luxuriant (_pingue
et floridum_) style in oratory; but this does not convincingly prove
that Symmachus’s _Epistulae_ were inspired by the Plinian collection.
Cassiodor(i)us mentions Plinius Secundus as _orator et historicus
cuius ingenii plurima opera exstant_. It is natural to suppose that
letter-writers in Latin should have used Pliny as a model, and that, as
Pliny’s books were sold at Lyon during his lifetime, they would still be
remembered when Roman studies flourished in Gaul during the fifth century
A.D. But it is doubtful whether there is absolute proof of his influence
between Sidonius Apollinaris,[1637] who was an admiring follower, and the
tenth century.[1638] In the Middle Ages the Fathers and Seneca eclipsed
Pliny in favour, but from the time of Politian and Erasmus his influence
was re-established, and his literary heirs have been many, especially in
England and France.
MINOR CONTEMPORARIES
Pliny was so completely in touch with the literary movements of his day
that a survey of his circle gives not only a retrospect upon the Flavian
age but an admirable introduction to literature under Trajan, and even,
in the case of a slightly junior friend like Suetonius, carries us into
Hadrian’s reign. Pliny, we have seen, was fond of writing poetry and
fond of poets. It is therefore appropriate here to review his minor
contemporaries in general, whether they wrote verse or prose. Some of the
chief Flavian authors, such as Silius Italicus, Martial and Frontinus, he
knew well; and among his elderly friends was Vestricius Spurinna, already
classed among minor Flavian lyric poets. With him may be named, as
typical of culture at the time, the grandfather of the Emperor Antoninus
Pius, Arrius Antoninus, whose Greek epigrams and mimes caused Pliny
to fancy he was reading Callimachus or Herodas.[1639] The information
yielded by Pliny’s letters about elegiac and lyric writers indicates a
widespread passion for composing short poems; so that the Rome of Trajan
may be pictured as a nest of gentlemen singing or trying to sing, and
what Pliny called “the crop of poets” accounts for his normally roseate
view of the condition of literature. Two at least of his intimates, both
of whom he pressed to publish, seem to have had an epic bent: these were
Octavius Rufus[1640] and Caninius Rufus.[1641] Several significant
letters were addressed to the latter on literary events, such as the
death of Silius Italicus and the composition of a comedy by Vergilius
Romanus. The story of a tame dolphin is communicated to him as material
for a poetic narrative; and Pliny approves of his intention to write a
poem in Greek on Trajan’s Dacian War. Calpurnius Piso took an old Greek
title, καταστερισμοί,[1642] for his elegiac poem, which may have retold
legends about the constellations in the spirit of Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_.
Like several contemporaries, Pompeius Saturninus[1643] was an orator and
historian as well as a poet. His lyrics and epigrams after the manner
of Catullus and Calvus evoke the utmost enthusiasm from Pliny; and to
him Pliny’s speech at the inauguration of the Como library went to be
revised with his customary acumen (_qua soles lima_). A very notable
circumstance was that one day he read to Pliny certain epistles which he
said were by his wife. Pliny’s comment is that he could have believed
he was listening to Plautus or Terence in prose,[1644] though he is not
equally sure that such polished letters could have been written by the
lady. The importance of the incident lies in its testimony to the growing
practice of writing literary epistles of what we may call a Plinian type.
There seems to be here a hint, perhaps not sufficiently grasped, that
such letters were considered to contain, as Pliny’s often do, a poetic
element; and this is confirmed by the instance of Voconius Romanus,
also an orator of ability, who was the author of letters that gave an
impression as if “the Muses were speaking Latin.”[1645] Another imitator
of Catullus and Calvus was Serius Augurinus, the youthful composer of
_Poematia_, which were the best of their sort, we are told, for years.
Pliny cites from him a hendecasyllabic piece, which, though it scarcely
justifies the commendation in the letter, possessed for the critic the
merit of containing the line “Pliny alone is as good as predecessors for
me.”[1646] Passennus Paulus wrote Propertian elegies and Horatian odes:
the latter, says the complimentary Pliny, might well suggest his descent
from Horace, as in blood he was descended from Propertius.[1647] It was
the opening of one of his lines, _Prisce iubes_, that gave Javolenus
Priscus at a _recitatio_ the chance of pouncing upon it disconcertingly
with the rude interruption _Ego uero non iubeo_.[1648] A most fascinating
survival from the period, had fate allowed, would have been the comic
plays, some in Menander’s style and others based on the old Attic comedy,
by Vergilius Romanus.[1649] The nature of the poems by Silius Proculus,
which Pliny in one letter agrees to read, is unknown.[1650]
On turning from poetry to prose (though, it will be remembered, some of
those already mentioned were prose-writers as well as poets), we are
met on the threshold by Pliny’s most famous literary friend, Tacitus,
the subject of a later chapter. The orator C. Fannius made some stir
as a chronicler of Nero’s victims: before his death three books of his
work had appeared and became popular.[1651] Titinius Capito chose for
a historical theme “The Ends of Illustrious Men” (_Exitus Inlustrium
Virorum_), occupying himself also with a poetic treatment of the
lives of the renowned.[1652] He was a shining ornament of the age, a
fosterer of learning, and restorer of what Pliny for the moment regards
as a decadent literature.[1653] Always willing to lend his house for
_recitationes_, he was a regular attender at Pliny’s readings, and a
hero-worshipper who kept busts of the great republican champions at
home. One of the three correspondents called Maximus in Pliny’s letters
directed against a certain Planta a polemic work, which Pliny desired
to see published.[1654] Writings by Sardus[1655] so delighted Pliny by
praising him that he read and reread them; and Atrius[1656] is thanked
for a book of his which he had not so far had time to read—the _liber_
in question was possibly a speech. Julius Avitus is mentioned as having
written much in a short life: since Pliny laments the loss of the whole
by his premature death, the inference is that he never published his
books.[1657] A large number of contemporary orators, besides those just
mentioned, appear in Pliny’s pages; but they are too many to record
here.[1658]
Jurisprudence under Trajan is represented by Neratius Priscus and
Juventius Celsus on the Proculian side, and on the Sabinian side by
Javolenus Priscus and probably Titius Aristo, one of Pliny’s friends.
Grammatical and linguistic learning had several representatives. Urbanus,
who is plausibly referred to this period, has his comments on Virgil
quoted by Servius. Velius Longus was likewise a Virgilian scholar. A
student of Ennius, Lucilius, Accius and other early Latin authors, he
wrote on archaisms and derivations: as was natural, he used and quoted
Varro and Verrius Flaccus. The date of Flavius Caper is not certain,
but he also combined an interest in Virgil with studies of old Latin: a
good deal of his lore passed into the works of Charisius and Priscian.
Caesellius Vindex, who is cited in Aulus Gellius, compiled an alphabetic
dictionary of _Antiquae Lectiones_, which seems to have had the
alternative title of _Stromateus_.
One of several authors named Hyginus in Latin literature appeared at this
period as a gromatic writer in a treatise, now fragmentary, on legal
boundaries, _De Limitibus_. It has been disputed whether another work _De
Limitibus Constituendis_ is his or not. The _De Munitionibus Castrorum_
ascribed to him must, from internal evidence, be placed much later. A
manual of geometry for land-surveyors, which drew upon Euclid among other
sources, was composed by the Balbus whom subsequent gromatics often cite.
This same department of field-measurement is represented slightly later
by Siculus Flaccus and Junius Nipsus.
CHAPTER II
TACITUS
The spice of problems—Facts and inferences concerning
Tacitus—His official career—Tacitus as a speaker—Memory
of “The Terror”—The three minor works—Speculation on
secondary motives—Aspects of the _Dialogue on Oratory_—Vexed
questions—_Agricola_—Its form and purpose—Later style
in the making—_Germania_—Points of interest—Matter and
manner—_Histories_—Plan—Character-drawing—Other dramatic
qualities—_Annals_—Great episodes—Sources—Outlook on human
life, history and politics—Anti-imperial bias—Attitude to
Tiberius—Language and style—Vicissitudes of his fame.
Concerning P. Cornelius Tacitus,[1659] the greatest historian of the
Silver Age, there is no dearth of problems to awake interest, though they
do not affect his unchallenged mastery of one of the most wonderful
prose styles in literature. His very praenomen is uncertain.[1660] We
do not know when or where he was born; we do not know when or where he
died; and, while scholars are now nearly unanimous[1661] in ascribing
the _Dialogus de Oratoribus_ to him, they are not agreed on its date of
composition or on the explanation of its contrast in style with the other
works of Tacitus. Differences of opinion have arisen about the author’s
real aim in his monographs on Agricola and on Germany; rival suggestions
have been made about the number of books which the now mutilated
_Histories_ once contained; and more serious controversies have raged
over the sources from which Tacitus drew, his method of using them, his
credibility in general and his presentation of Tiberius in particular.
Approximately his birth-year may be given as A.D. 55. This is an
inference from two facts: first, that, looking back on the year 75, the
dramatic date of his _Dialogus_, Tacitus referred to himself as then
“quite a young man” (_iuuenis admodum_, _Dial._ i.); and next, that,
while the younger Pliny considered himself and Tacitus “nearly of an
age” (_propemodum aequales_) he has mentioned efforts of his own as an
_adulescentulus_ to imitate Tacitus, who had already made a name.[1662]
We can prove Pliny to have been born in 61 or 62, and from his words we
may guess that Tacitus was some half-dozen years his senior. Possibly
the historian’s father was the _eques_ Cornelius Tacitus mentioned by
the elder Pliny[1663] as a procurator in Belgic Gaul: the surmise at
least would accord with Tacitus’s standing in public and private life.
His official honours under the three Flavians are summarized by himself
as “begun by Vespasian, increased by Titus, and further advanced by
Domitian,”[1664] the interpretation being that under the first of these
emperors he held one of the offices in the vigintivirate and had served
in the army as _tribunus militum laticlauius_; that Titus nominated him
to the quaestorship in 80, when twenty-five; and that under Domitian
he was either edile or tribune, and afterwards, we know, praetor in
88.[1665] In A.D. 77, when still a _iuuenis_, he had been betrothed to
the daughter of the Roman general Agricola, who was consul at the time,
and married her next year shortly before his father-in-law’s appointment
to Britain.[1666]
The keenness with which Tacitus studied rhetoric under eminent masters
appears from his own statement.[1667] Following with closest attention
the court-pleadings of M. Aper and Julius Secundus, he took lessons from
them at their homes on the principles of argument and style. It is not
impossible, although unproved, that he was one of Quintilian’s pupils:
the Ciceronianism of his earliest work rather favours the idea. Certainly
the _Dialogus_ marks deep interest in the prospects of Roman oratory.
A good rhetorical education, turned to practical account, earned him
fame as a speaker; and among his noted appearances in public were, after
being made _consul suffectus_ in 97,[1668] his delivery of a funeral
eulogy over Verginius Rufus, and in A.D. 100, when counsel with Pliny
for the African provincials, his impeachment of Marius Priscus, their
ex-proconsul. Pliny’s explicit compliment to his eloquence on both
occasions was, we may take it, deserved; and it is significant that, in
regard to the second occasion, he singles out as a quality of Tacitus’s
oratory its impressive dignity.[1669]
Duties in an unknown province having kept Tacitus and his wife abroad for
the four years from 90 to 93, they returned to Rome too late to attend
the death-bed of his illustrious father-in-law.[1670] At once he found
himself in the gloom of a reign of terror when senators were cowed by
Domitian into conniving at the emperor’s judicial murders.[1671] The
atmosphere of calculating espionage and of inexorable repression, now
imposing silence, now inviting adulation, coloured all the after-life and
after-writing of Tacitus. However gratefully he recognized that the dark
clouds had lifted with the accession of Nerva in 96, and that at the dawn
of “a most blessed age”[1672] he was at length free to express his views,
we yet feel that the iron had entered into the soul of this man of over
forty before he ever embarked on his career as historian, and that his
outlook upon events must inevitably reflect the sombre hues of fifteen
years of dumb helplessness which could not be forgotten.[1673] Though
after Domitian’s death he accepted a consulship and though an inscription
found in Caria shows he was proconsul of Asia about 112-116, still we may
assume that henceforward his extensive plans for historical composition
occupied most of his time. These plans proved in the event too extensive
for the span of life allotted to him. After the _Histories_ came the
_Annals_, completed, as we shall see, between 115 and 117. But for his
old age he had, he tells us, set aside the reigns of Nerva and Trajan;
and he had also contemplated a work on the times of Augustus.[1674]
These latter projects he never carried out, so that it looks as if he
did not long survive the publication of the _Annals_ about the end of
Trajan’s reign.
The three minor works of Tacitus, the _Dialogus_, _Agricola_, and
_Germania_, written before his prolonged historical labours, are linked
together in several ways. The text of all three descends from the same
lost archetype (_Hersfeldensis_), usually identified with a codex
observed and recorded at Rome in 1455[1675] as containing the _Germania_,
_Agricola_ and _Dialogus_ with the extant portions of Suetonius’s _De
Grammaticis_ and _De Rhetoribus_. All three works are of importance for
the preliminary stages in the evolution of Tacitus’s style. Further, all
three have been made the subjects of much theorizing about secondary
purposes which, it has been alleged, they were written to subserve.
Certain critics are not content with the motive professed in each case
by the author, but have insisted on looking beneath the surface. Thus
the _Dialogus_, ostensibly an inquiry into the decadence of oratory, has
been declared, in keeping with the more than doubtful hypothesis that
it was composed after Domitian’s reign, to be the author’s farewell to
public speaking and an implicit apology for deserting the rhetorical
art in favour of history.[1676] The _Agricola_ has been asserted to
be not only a memorial of piety to an honoured relative,[1677] but a
semi-political monograph meant to explain to Trajan and others the
conduct of both Agricola and Tacitus in the troublous times of Domitian;
while the _Germania_, the contention runs, is no mere sketch of the homes
and habits of northern tribes but a pamphlet with a definite tendency,
either to hold up to luxurious Rome an accusing mirror which should
reflect the healthier simplicity of the Germans, or, with far-sighted
historic sense, to inculcate on the Romans the need for guarding against
danger from the barbarian, or virtually to justify the prolonged absence
of the new emperor Trajan on so vital a frontier as the Rhineland. The
ingenuity, however, displayed in pressing such secondary motives has
tended in some measure to push the real motive into the background and to
distract attention from the literary value of the works.
The _Dialogus de Oratoribus_, in the form of a discussion among eminent
men of the day, supplies an answer to a question put to Tacitus by Fabius
Justus about the reasons for the decline in oratory. The participants are
four—Curiatius Maternus, poet and dramatist, at whose house the scene
is laid; Marcus Aper, an advocate of Gallic origin; Julius Secundus,
a polished historian, and, like Aper, a native of Gaul; and Vipstanus
Messalla, a Roman of high birth. It is part of the author’s dramatic
skill to represent them in debate as speaking in character. Aper,
utilitarian and practical, contrasts his own remunerative profession of
pleader with the uselessness of poetry: Maternus, as poet and idealist,
disdains wealth and influence, preferring the “privacy of woodland and
grove” (_nemora et luci secretum_)[1678] and the “blest camaraderie”
(_felix contubernium_) of the Muses. Secundus is a quiet and refined
speaker, while the true Roman Messalla is the admiring champion of
the past, with a dislike for the faults of contemporary oratory and
education. The earlier part of the _Dialogus_ consists of Aper’s eulogy
on a lawyer’s calling and Maternus’s reply on behalf of poetry. On
Messalla’s entrance, a preliminary exchange of views leads to Aper’s
speech in praise of modern oratory at the expense of the “ancients”;
whereupon he is, at Maternus’s request, followed by Messalla as a critic
of defects in present-day eloquence. Maternus interrupts to recall
Messalla to the real subject—the causes of deterioration in oratory—which
is handled in the last part (xxviii-xli). A lacuna marked in the MS. has
deprived us of the opening of Secundus’s historical review of factors
in politics and in legal procedure which fostered the oratory of the
republican era. In contrast therewith “the emperor’s discipline had
tranquillized eloquence as it did everything else.”[1679] A second lacuna
must be assumed, where we have lost the first part of Maternus’s closing
speech, which proceeds in the extant portion to argue that unsettled
political conditions and party spirit in ancient times had favoured
the rise of great speakers. “Eloquence is the nurseling of licence”
(_eloquentia alumna licentiae_), so that too well organized a government
is fatal to first-rate speaking.
The _Dialogus_ is a piquant combination of the fascinating and the
provoking; for, while it handles an attractive theme with a charm
that justifies its old description as an _aureus libellus_, it yet
raises problems that remain unsolved and are, some of them, perhaps
insoluble.[1680] The Tacitean authorship is now soundly upheld on the
basis of manuscript authority, the general agreement of views with those
in Tacitus’s unquestioned writings, and, despite obvious differences,
the presence of significant similarities in style. With this prevalent
acceptance, the claims made for Quintilian, the younger Pliny, Suetonius
and others (including a hypothetical anonymous author) fall to the
ground. The dramatic date of the conversation is widely accepted as
A.D. 74-75, on the reasonable interpretation of the phrase _sextam
stationem_ as the sixth year of Vespasian’s reign.[1681] The actual time
of composition by Tacitus is a much more vexed question; but Gudeman’s
contention that it must have preceded the reign of Domitian appears still
the most satisfactory. In opposition to this a theory[1682] is maintained
that the _Dialogus_ came after the other minor works in Trajan’s reign
and that the divergence in literary manner presents little difficulty for
the reason that in antiquity style was often not the man himself but a
garb which a clever author could don or doff at will. Yet, when all is
weighed, the _Dialogus_ would have been a literary anachronism at the
end of the first century. It is difficult to discern any occasion for
Tacitus, so late as A.D. 98 or 99, when he ranked as one of the foremost
speakers of the day, to write a dialogue on decay in oratory and to
connect the subject with circumstances over twenty years earlier. Is it
credible that a man of nearly forty-five, who was of recognized literary
power and, according to hypothesis, already the author of both _Agricola_
and _Germania_, would profess himself unable by his own effort to treat
the causes of decadence directly and so feel obliged to employ the device
of dialogue-form? And would a promise to repeat exactly a discussion
almost a quarter of a century old strike readers as a plausible one?
Another consideration is that the contrast between the sunny spirit of
the _Dialogus_ and the oppressive atmosphere of the _Agricola_ makes it
hard to assign them to the same period of their author’s life. Tacitus’s
own reference to his silence under Domitian throws us back on an earlier
date, and, if we fix that date before Domitian’s reign, as A.D. 81, it is
not unnatural that Tacitus looking back from the age of twenty-six should
have thought himself _iuuenis admodum_ at the supposed period of the
dialogue, A.D. 74-75.
For his _Dialogus_ Tacitus drew considerable inspiration from works of
Cicero like the _Hortensius_ and the _De Oratore_. Quintilian’s known
Ciceronianism is likely to have influenced Tacitus, whether he studied
under the great professor or not; and those who place the composition
of the _Dialogus_ after Domitian’s time are entitled, without violating
chronology, to believe that it was written with a bearing on the lost
treatise by Quintilian _De Causis Corruptae Eloquentiae_. Tacitus
mentions as available in libraries the _acta_ and _epistulae_ collected
by Mucianus. He may have used Varro’s _Catus de liberis educandis_, and,
like Quintilian in the _Institutio_ and the pseudo-Plutarch in Περὶ
παίδων ἀγωγῆς he probably went back to their common source, a Stoic work
by Chrysippos, if we may judge by the array of resemblances set out by
Gudeman.[1683]
In the _Agricola_ Tacitus feels that he has a great man for the subject
of his monograph: sincerity of admiration, therefore, lifts him above the
rhetoric with which he was conversant. His epigrams here, as in his later
works, are effective because they show grip of the eternal realities
of human nature. So there is no small amount of the universal—of that
which is true for all time—in the little book. It has besides the great
interest of reflecting truthfully important aspects of the Roman imperial
administration.
The introduction (i.-iii.) gives reasons for issuing a biography in an
age when satire enjoyed more vogue. Personal memoirs—a class of writing
with ancient traditions—must from their nature contend against prejudice,
and in the recent reign of terror had been impossible; “for every
good art had been exiled so that nothing honourable could cross one’s
path anywhere.” But in the changed times of Nerva and Trajan[1684] an
enforced silence may at length be broken, though, after past methods of
repression, the harm still visible renders it hard to revive literature:
Nevertheless it will not be an uncongenial task to compose,
even in a rugged and unpolished style, the record of previous
servitude (under Domitian) and a testimony to present
blessings. Meantime I issue this book designed to honour my
father-in-law, Agricola, and in virtue of its expression
of loyal affection it will be, if not commended, at least
excused.[1685]
After this preface the author, turning to his theme, relates in six
chapters (iv.-ix.) the life of Agricola up to his appointment as
legate of Britain, describing his parentage, education, civil offices,
and periods of service in Britain before his consulship. Into this
earlier narrative Tacitus skilfully weaves characteristic qualities
of a hero whose greatness is to culminate in his British victories.
The all-important central portion of the work is therefore preceded by
two excursuses, a brief description of Britain with its inhabitants
(x.-xii.), and a sketch of the past conquests of Rome in the island
(xiii.-xvii.). Twenty-one chapters (xviii.-xxxviii.) are then devoted
to the main subject of Agricola’s British campaigns during the seven
years of his command, from the defeat of the Ordovices and surrender
of Mona to the victory over the Caledonians near Mons Graupius and
the circumnavigation of the northern coast. Throughout he is depicted
as not only a successful commander skilled in strategy but an able
administrator, a discerner of men, and himself fair-minded, loyal and
modest. The final portion (xxxix.-xlvi.), on Agricola’s recall and last
years of retirement in Rome, begins with the ominous note of Domitian’s
jealousy (_fronte laetus, pectore anxius_), and indicates that the
ex-general by his unostentatious conduct was fulfilling the part of a
good citizen in evil times. The shadow of an emperor’s enmity falls
darkly over the later pages; and suspicions of poison are not absent from
the fatal illness of A.D. 93. The work closes in a rhetorical apostrophe
to the dead man and an epilogue on immortality:[1686]
“Thou wert blest indeed, Agricola, not only in the brilliance of thy
life, but also in the timeliness of thy death! They who were present
to hear thy last words recount thine unflinching and cheerful welcome
of thy fate, as though thou wert doing a man’s best to make a gift of
‘not guilty’ to the emperor. But for me and for thy daughter, beyond the
bitterness of having a parent torn away, there is an added sorrow. It was
not ours to sit by thy sick-bed, to support thine ebbing strength, and
take our fill of looks and embraces. Assuredly we should have received
instructions and utterances to imprint in the depths of memory. Here lies
our grief, our wound. By the circumstance of so long an absence abroad,
he was lost to us four years before. Doubtless, best of parents, with a
most loving wife sitting by thee, everything was done abundantly to show
respect. Still it was with too few tears that thou wert lamented; in that
last day of life there was something for which thine eyes yearned in
vain.”
“If there is a land for the spirits of the just, if philosophers
are right in holding that great souls are not extinguished with the
body, then mayst thou rest in peace! Summon us, thy household, from a
paralysing sense of loss and from womanish moanings to the contemplation
of thy good qualities. To weep or beat the breast for such were sin. It
is by admiration rather than by transient praise, it is by rivalling
thine example if nature allows, that we must pay thee respect. That is
genuine honour. That is the dutiful regard of one’s nearest kindred. This
too I should enjoin on his daughter and his wife so to revere the memory
of a father and husband, as to meditate inwardly on his every act and
word, and cherish the mould and fashion of his soul rather than of his
body. It is not that I think a veto should be set on images fashioned
of marble or bronze; but, as with the face of man, so the likeness of
the face is but frail and perishable, while the mould of the mind is
everlasting—you can preserve and reproduce it, not through a foreign
substance and by art, but in your very character. Whatever we loved,
whatever we admired in Agricola, abides and will abide in the memories of
men, in the eternity of the ages, through the reputation of his deeds.
Many an ancient will oblivion overwhelm, as if inglorious and ignoble:
Agricola, whose story is thus recorded for posterity, will survive.”
On the literary form and aim of the _Agricola_ a surprising amount has
been written.[1687] Biography, an established form of literature among
the Romans, was akin to the _laudationes funebres_ pronounced over
the dead. Such encomia went back for their artistic pedigree to Greek
models like the _Agesilaos_ of Xenophon and the _Evagoras_ of Isocrates,
while formal rules for their construction were laid down in rhetorical
handbooks. It does not, however, follow that Tacitus—though Gudeman[1688]
would have it so—scrupulously conformed to these regulations; for
his was not a genius to imprison itself within mechanical bounds.
His growing interest in history was little likely to be content with
laudation, but prompted him to introduce narrative freely, even to the
extent of an enlivening digression such as the adventurous voyage of
the Usipian cohort, or an excursus such as that on the geography and
tribes of Britain, where the doubtful relevance from the standpoint of
biography may be excused on the ground of irresistible didactic impulse.
This very blend of narrative with eulogy has tempted some to regard
the central portion of the _Agricola_ as one of Tacitus’s preliminary
studies destined for incorporation in his contemplated account of
Domitian’s reign. But an examination of the sections dealing with Roman
governors in Britain will show that in order to suit them for insertion
in the _Histories_ radical alterations in the scale of treatment would
have been inevitable, especially in recording the services not only of
Agricola but of Cerialis and Frontinus. Besides, certain domestic details
appropriate in a biographical study would have been out of place in a
chapter of imperial history. Both recasting and omissions therefore would
have been necessitated. As it stands, the author’s illustration of his
father-in-law’s eminence by the story of concrete achievement constitutes
a more effective, if more subtle, form of praise than a direct panegyric
like Pliny’s upon Trajan. The purely personal element was presumably
strong in the lost Republican autobiographies of Scaurus, Rutilius Rufus,
Catulus and Sulla, and under the Empire in the _Lives_ of Pomponius
Secundus by Pliny the Elder and of Julius Asiaticus by Julius Secundus,
as well as in the kindred eulogies upon Paetus Thrasea and Helvidius
Priscus. It was the example of Sallust’s _Jugurtha_ and _Catilina_ that
served to recommend to Tacitus a more impersonal mode of treatment
through an increased admixture of history; and the result is a composite
work where both structure and style are, throughout the narrative,
affected by Sallustian precedent. Livy’s influence also operates in the
delivery of speeches by the Caledonian chief and by his Roman antagonist,
while Cicero’s appears particularly in the apostrophe near the close.
As to the purpose of the _Agricola_, some scholars insist that it is no
simple tribute of _pietas_, as Tacitus’s words suggest, but a political
manifesto in favour of moderation under tyranny, and thus a reply to
critics of Agricola’s and his own past subservience.[1689] Now, it is
true that Tacitus dislikes extremists and commends moderate men, but he
does so in all his writings; and no evidence exists to show that he,
any more than contemporaries like Pliny, stood after Domitian’s death
in special danger of virulent attack for years of non-resistance. The
sorrowful admission which he makes[1690] of the shame incurred by forced
acquiescence in Domitian’s outrages is very far from the tone, which
Gantrelle professes to hear in the _Agricola_, of “an angry advocate
defending a client.” Surely, after all, his attitude had not been
different from that of Nerva and Trajan[1691] themselves or the majority
of the senatorial class, so that hostility to Tacitus on the ground
alleged would logically have been an unreasonable position for all but a
few irreconcileables, and even in their case would have logically implied
a censure upon two emperors as well.
The _Agricola_ is a book to which one can always return with pleasure. In
a venture through its pages one gets, within marvellously brief compass,
a memorable revelation of a period in history and a noble personality.
The rapid strokes of its prose, though not yet, as a rule, in Tacitus’s
most condensed manner, are still sufficient to mark out the author as a
great stylist and at the same time a student of humanity. No intelligent
reader of the opening three chapters is likely to forget their lurid
picture of the despotic villainy from which Rome was just recovering. In
this setting begins a tale which holds a world of meaning in its pregnant
statements. Take a few as one meets them. With a withering glance at
Caligula, Tacitus says of Agricola’s father that “his very virtues won
the resentment of Gaius Caesar.” A personal touch lends interest to the
reminiscence concerning Agricola himself: “I recollect he used to say
that in early youth he might have imbibed the tenets of philosophy too
eagerly for a Roman and a senator (_quam concessum Romano ac senatori_),
had not his wise mother curbed his burning and ardent enthusiasm.” Later,
the first stirrings of military ambition felt by the young officer in
Britain are ominously pronounced to be “unwelcome at an era when sinister
misconstruction encountered eminence and a great name was as risky as
a bad one” (_nec minus periculum ex magna fama quam ex mala_). Deep
significance underlies the words “for his quaestorship the lot assigned
him Asia as province and Salvius Titianus as chief: neither corrupted
him” (_neutro corruptus est_.) Success as a subordinate could not be more
pointedly summarized than in the balanced terms: “so by valour in obeying
orders, and modesty in his reports, he avoided jealousy without avoiding
distinction” (_extra inuidiam nec extra gloriam erat_). A pretty irony
characterizes the reflection on the popular belief that one day Agricola
would come back to Britain as governor: “rumour is not always astray:
sometimes it actually picks the man” (_haud semper errat fama, aliquando
et elegit_), and no less ironical is the comment on the British adoption
of Roman dress, baths and banquets: “with the unsuspecting it all passed
for civilization, though it was but a piece of their slavery” (_humanitas
uocabatur, cum pars seruitutis esset_).
We may put his _sententiae_ down to rhetoric, but it is a human rhetoric,
based proverb-like on the experience of ages. “Successes everybody
claims, failures are laid at one man’s door” (_prospera omnes sibi
uindicant, aduersa uni imputantur_) is an adage that applies to more than
soldiering. “Everything unknown passes for the marvellous” (_omne ignotum
pro magnifico_) is a safe declaration for others than the Caledonian
chief to make. “It is the way with human nature to hate the man you have
wronged” (_proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris_) makes a
cynical reminder of man’s unfairness to man. With the _Agricola_, in
short, Tacitus has reached his Sallustian period, but already a greater
than Sallust is here: in both _Agricola_ and _Germania_ the unique style
of the later works can be seen, as it were, in the making.
The _Germania_, naturally of vital importance for early Teutonic history,
belongs to the same year as the _Agricola_. The northern tribes of Europe
had been powerful enemies of Rome for 210 years, Tacitus reckons, from
the Cimbrian invasion of 113 B.C. to Trajan’s second consulate[1692] in
A.D. 98; “so long has the conquest of Germany been going on” (_tam diu
Germania uincitur_). The title, originally perhaps _De Situ Germaniae_,
has received in the MSS. such expansions as _De origine et situ
Germanorum_ or _De origine, situ, moribus ac populis Germanorum_. There
is no parallel in antiquity to this separate study of a people, viewed
first generally (i.-xxvii.) in respect of geography, climate, warfare,
government, religion, divination, meetings, punishments, chieftains,
dwellings, dress, morality, food, drink, tillage, funeral as well as
other customs; and then specially (xxviii.-xlvi.), in respect of the
various tribes. In this second part Tacitus, starting with western and
northern tribes, passes to the Suebi in central Germany and thereafter
from the tribes along the Danube and on the east to island folk and folk
near the Baltic, ending with Wends (Veneti) and Finns (Fenni) bordering
on Sarmatia. One does not need to be an anthropologist to appreciate the
attraction of a little treatise so neat in its description and sometimes
so biting in its swift comments. All sorts of curiously instructive
and diverting details are given about those tall men with fierce blue
eyes and red hair (_truces et caerulei oculi, rutilae comae_). Was it,
Tacitus asks, the kindness or anger of the gods that denied them silver
and gold, so that, though frontier tribes adopted money, barter remained
the trade-custom of the interior? We learn how German women were held in
respect and how their near presence was felt to be a stimulus by warriors
in battle. We read of the tribesmen’s fixed times for meetings at the new
or the full moon, and we recognize the origin of our English “fortnight”
and obsolete “sennight” in their non-Roman mode of computing time (_nec
dierum numerum, ut nos, sed noctium computant_). Their observance of the
marriage tie, their payment of blood-money to end a feud, their open
hospitality, their primitive love of a gift, and reckless dicing up to
the final stake of personal freedom, all go to fill the picture. Their
liquor fermented from barley or other grain was evidently responsible for
much insobriety. “To spend a whole day and night in drinking disgraces
no one. Their quarrels, frequent as usual among the intoxicated,
are seldom settled with abusive words, but commonly with wounds and
bloodshed.”[1693] One of their curious habits was to take counsel at
a feast, when the true feelings are disclosed amidst the freedom of
the carousal, but to make a decision next day by a sort of appeal from
Germans drunk to Germans sober: “they deliberate when they are unable to
dissemble, they resolve when they cannot make a mistake” (_deliberant dum
fingere nesciunt, constituunt dum errare non possunt_, xxii.).
Too much ink has been wasted on speculations whether the treatise is
fundamentally an ethnographic essay, or a moral lesson for voluptuous
Rome, or a political brochure to commend plans of aggression against
the Germans.[1694] If we could be sure that the province which Tacitus
once governed was in the north, we might then divine the origin of his
interest in the tribes across the frontier. Though there is nothing in
the treatise that proves personal contact, there is much that might very
well have been conveyed by oral inquiry apart from reading. Supposing
that his father was the procurator of Belgica named Cornelius Tacitus,
the author clearly had opportunities for questioning a useful witness on
many points. His own purpose of writing a history of Domitian’s reign
during which there had been German campaigns, and Trajan’s absence
for the first year of his reign on the German frontier, were enough
to attract Tacitus to the subject. But it is most unlikely that these
forty-six chapters were designed as part of his future _Histories_: it
is a different thing, however, to view an independent monograph as a
preliminary survey of ground some of which he would one day have to cover
historically. The only previous authority whom he names is Caesar; but
that he drew from more than one source is indicated by his vague plurals,
_quidam affirmant, quidam uocant_. Fragments of Sallust prove that he
dealt with German customs; Tacitus may or may not have used him; and
the same possibility holds with regard to Livy (the _periocha_ of whose
hundred and fourth book gives part of its contents as _situm Germaniae
moresque_), and with regard to Paterculus, Pomponius Mela, and the twenty
books on German wars by the elder Pliny.
The best reason assignable for the genesis of the book is that Tacitus
found the subject interesting. Had he intended to secure a political
effect, such as the advocacy of a forward policy on the frontier, it
is unimaginable that he should have left his object a secret to be
penetrated by a very few critics with whom all others disagree. His one
conceivable thought in representing the Germans as dangerous enemies from
the days of the Cimbrian menace must have been approval for the policy of
caution such as Trajan favoured.
And if he took up the subject because it interested him, he wrote about
it in a way meant to interest the reader. Of course he points out
differences between Germans and Romans, and of course he passes caustic
remarks, because they are likely to capture the attention. People enjoy
them, because they are excellent literature. Even Roman _grauitas_ might
permit a smile now and again over a clever gibe at obvious national
failings. But this is not to say that Tacitus constructed his essay to
be either a monitory or a minatory mirror for Rome. The Germans are not
idealized in it. Though Tacitus admires their bravery, loyalty, purity,
hospitality and simplicity of life, he does not overlook their faults
like idleness, drunkenness, gaming, and unpunctuality in attending
popular assemblies. He is entitled, then, with an investigator’s
impartiality, to redress the balance by implied or express censure on
blemishes in Roman civilization—its absurd deification of women belonging
to the imperial family; its demoralizing spectacles; its over-costly
banquets and funerals; its ineffectual enactments against exorbitant
interest. The widespread laxity of social life at Rome is no doubt
before his eyes when he writes “no one in Germany smiles at vice: to
corrupt and to be corrupted is not styled up-to-date” (_nec corrumpere
et corrumpi saeculum uocatur_). He has in mind Rome’s carelessness of
her offspring when, after recording that infanticide is an infamy in
Germany, he adds, “good morals have more force there than good laws
elsewhere” (_plusque ibi boni mores ualent quam alibi bonae leges_,
xix.). The social influence of the childless rich is what, like any
satirist, he inwardly stigmatizes in the remark that among the Germans
there are no advantages in childlessness (_nec ulla orbitatis pretia_);
and it is of the notorious predominance of freedmen at certain epochs
that he is thinking when he points out that they are of no importance in
German states except in those ruled by kings: “elsewhere the inferiority
of the freedman is the proof of freedom” (_impares libertini libertatis
argumentum sunt_). Pronouncements so pithily sarcastic illustrate
the same general characteristics of style in the _Germania_ as those
noticeable in its immediate predecessor.
In the _Historiae_ Tacitus treated a period of some twenty-eight years
(A.D. 69-96) which he had himself lived through.[1695] The work, when
complete, embraced six principates, those of Galba, Otho, Vitellius,
Vespasian, Titus and Domitian; in others words, its main theme was the
Flavian imperial house with the preceding struggle during which three
nominees of different sections of the army rose in turn and quickly
fell. Beginning with 1st January, 69, it may have been originally
meant to continue a history written by Fabius Rusticus. The title is
guaranteed by Pliny’s prophecy “I augur (and in augury I am expert) that
your _Histories_ are to last,” and by Tertullian’s reference to the
Jewish wars related in the fifth book.[1696] What we have left breaks
off before the middle of Book V in the second Medicean MS., the sole
authority for the text of the _Histories_, as it is also for that of
_Annals_ XI-XVI (a run of books which begin and end in a gap). Since
that MS. numbers _Histories_, Book I as the seventeenth of the combined
work from the death of Augustus, there is, _prima facie_, a presumption
that the _Annals_ ended with Book XVI, which, when unmutilated, must
have treated about three years and a half (middle of A.D. 65 to end of
68). That, however, was about the length of time covered in Books III,
and XIV, and XV. From Jerome we learn that Tacitus’s complete narrative
of the Caesars, beginning with Tiberius and ending with Domitian,
consisted of 30 volumes.[1697] If, then, the _Annals_ were in 16 books,
the _Histories_ had 14. Some assign 18 to the former and 12 to the
latter.[1698] This would imply a symmetrical hexadic division, so that
six books of the _Annals_ would in that case have treated Tiberius, six
Caligula and Claudius, and six Nero.
The composition of the _Histories_ preceded that of the _Annals_, where
Tacitus alludes to having already dealt with Domitian’s times.[1699]
Pliny had portions of the _Histories_ sent to him for revision, and
occasionally supplied Tacitus with material like the account of the
eruption of Vesuvius. References in his letters—we have eleven addressed
to Tacitus—enable us to fix the period of publication for the _Histories_
as the years from A.D. 104 to 109.[1700]
One cannot read the first twenty chapters without recognizing that
they come from a historian of grasp, who realizes the momentous issues
involved in the troublous times which formed his theme. His plan is
clearly stated, the dark character of the period foreshadowed, the state
of the Empire and feeling in Rome sketched, before he brings on his
stage most of the leading personages in the sanguinary contests which
followed the death of Nero. Vitellius for the moment receives only
passing mention; but one cannot fail, even within the earlier chapters,
to be interested in the figures of Galba, Piso, Otho, and Mucianus, who
is the champion of the two coming Flavians, already, says Tacitus, marked
out for imperial power. Much of the interest, when one pauses to analyse
it, is awaked by Tacitus’s never-failing psychological skill. We have
almost at once brought home to us old Galba’s obstinate parsimony. “He
was undone by his old-fashioned strictness and an excessive severity to
which nowadays we are not equal” (I. xviii.). His murder is followed
by a fuller estimate, in which his seventy-three years prompt the
reflection that, having lived under five emperors, “he had been luckier
in the reign of others than in his own.” The estimate then describes his
character as one “rather free from vices than distinguished by virtues,”
and ends in the well-known terms, “by general consent he would have
been declared equal to empire, had he never been emperor” (I. xlix.).
Piso’s behaviour at his adoption by Galba is excellently depicted: “not
the least change did he show in look or manner: it was as if he had the
power rather than the wish to rule” (I. xvii.). Of Otho we are told
that “he had spent a slack boyhood and unruly youth; Nero liked him
for rivalling his own profligacy” (I. xiii.). In Mucianus we see one
better fitted for emperor-maker than for emperor: “he was a blend of
dissipation and energy, courtesy and arrogance, good and bad qualities.
His self-indulgence was excessive in leisure hours: whenever he was on
service, he displayed great qualities.... He was a man who would find it
easier to confer imperial power than to hold it” (I. x.).
The summary of the times is impressive in its melancholy force:
The period I am entering upon was rich in disasters, appalling
in its battles, and rent asunder by mutinies—even in peace a
cruel time. Four emperors were cut off by the sword. There were
three civil wars, still more against the alien, and often wars
with both characters combined.
After a review of troubles in the Roman world at large, he concentrates
on Rome:
The city was wasted by conflagrations, its oldest sanctuaries
consumed, and the Capitol itself fired by the hands of
citizens. Holy rites were profaned; there was immorality in
high places; the sea was full of exiles and its rocks dyed
with butcheries. The savagery in the city was more outrageous.
Nobility, possessions, magistracies declined or filled, invited
accusation: merit meant surest destruction.... Slaves were
bribed to betray masters, freedmen to betray patrons: those
without enemies were ruined by friends. Yet the age was not
so barren in good qualities as not to exhibit fine examples
as well. Mothers accompanied sons in flight: wives followed
husbands into exile: there were brave kinsfolk and faithful
sons-in-law: the fidelity of slaves bade defiance even to
torture: there were distinguished men driven to the last
necessity, when compulsory death was faced with gallantry,
and the last scenes of all rivalled the renowned deaths of
antiquity. At no time did more terrible disasters to the Roman
people or plainer evidence prove that what the gods care for
is not our peace of mind but our chastisement (_non esse curae
deis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem_, I. iii.).
Such was the far from roseate aspect which, on a general survey, the
period wore in the eyes of its historian. One tragedy follows another
in this historical drama with the inevitability of fate. The prominent
characters being as Tacitus depicted them, no other _dénouements_ seem
possible. Galba’s meanness was sure to undo him with the praetorians;
Otho’s faintheartedness to drive him on suicide; Vitellius’s gluttony
to prevent a successful stand against the Flavianists. The secret of
the imperial system had now, as Tacitus says, been revealed: emperors
could be made elsewhere than in Rome, and the Empire, despite the veil
drawn by the plausible fictions of Augustus and his successors, was
demonstrated to be essentially a military, not a civil, institution.
The pretence of hereditary right to the succession vanished before the
decrees of contending armies. If only, then, as documentary evidence for
a new epoch of vital significance the _Histories_ must be of lasting
value. Book I leaves Otho momentarily in power. Much skill is shown in
the employment of speeches to serve historical purposes; for example,
Galba’s address to Piso at his adoption is an essay on the duties of
an emperor (xv.-xvi.), and the speech put into Otho’s mouth after
praetorians and marines have sworn allegiance to him is intended, through
an indictment of Galba’s rule, to explain the reasons for its collapse
(xxxvii.-xxxviii.). Among many impressive moments in what makes a most
readable book is that which immediately precedes the murder of Galba and
Piso. Like dramatists ancient and modern, Tacitus divined the power of
silence: in the third book it is through the deserted halls of the palace
that the doomed Vitellius wanders alone (_terret solitudo et tacentes
loci_, III. lxxxiv.), and in the fourth book there is a memorable picture
of a disgraced legion on its gloomy march like a dumb funeral procession
(_silens agmen et uelut longae exsequiae_, IV. lxii.). So here, in the
opening book, as Galba with his adopted successor reach the forum, the
stage is set for tragedy:
Not an accent came from people or crowd; but looks were those
of dismay, and ears turned to meet any sound. There was no
uproar, no repose: it was a hush like that of a mighty terror
and mighty wrath (I. xl.).
Danger to the new ruler declares itself at once from the legionaries in
Germany, who proclaim Vitellius emperor. Otho is therefore compelled to
face hostile armies pouring into Italy from the north. This struggle is
the main subject of Book II, which, owing to the historian’s constant
dramatic sense, begins by directing attention to Vespasian and his son
Titus, who are on the alert to challenge the victor in the latest duel.
The description of the battle of Betriacum, which left the Vitellianists
in possession of the field, is clearly not the work of an expert military
historian; but Otho’s speech to his men choosing self-inflicted death as
the only honourable course is a fine performance which throws into the
light unsuspected traits of nobility in one who had misspent his life.
Next comes the turn of the victorious gourmand. Vitellius, in betraying
his indecent joy when nearly six weeks after the battle he rode over the
field among heaps of putrefying dead, appears with unconscious dramatic
irony to be provoking nemesis. Meanwhile that nemesis is drawing near
in the shape of the generals who invade Italy on behalf of Vespasian,
the nominee of the eastern troops. This fresh struggle for the throne is
the subject of the third book—a powerful one, containing such thrilling
episodes as the terrible sack of Cremona, the burning of the Capitol at
Rome, and the last miserable hours of Vitellius. The fourth book brings
the acknowledgement of Vespasian as emperor, and is largely concerned
with the bold scheme of the Batavian Civilis to establish a northern
empire free from the yoke of Rome. The narrative of his operations
continued in part of the next book is, like most of the military history
in Tacitus, hard to follow—“more remarkable,” says Gibbon, “for its
elegance than perspicuity.”[1701] But the most interesting portions of
the fifth book are those in which Tacitus turns to the war with the
Jews at the outset of Vespasian’s reign. Unluckily, the account of the
siege of Jerusalem is lost, but there is a curious fascination in the
ludicrously distorted version of the Israelitish exodus from Egypt and of
the mode whereby Moses put an end to the sufferings of his people in the
wilderness. In many matters touching Jewish religion Tacitus betrays an
amount of Roman prejudice and ignorance more tolerable in a satirist like
Juvenal than in an investigator of history. One cannot but think it a
pity that, if Josephus was not yet accessible, Tacitus failed to consult
the Septuagint.[1702]
Concluding his _Histories_ with the year A.D. 96, Tacitus turned back to
deal with a period of over half a century from the death of Augustus in
A.D. 14. The title of this narrative of the Julian dynasty through the
reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, is given in the sole
MS. authority for Books I-VI (the first Medicean or Laurentian) as _Ab
excessu diui Augusti_. Since Tacitus, however, several times[1703] refers
to his work as _Annales_, we are justified in using the traditional
title. It is at least appropriate to his plan of following the yearly
succession of events, although Tacitus, being too great an artist to
enslave himself to such bare monotony as is found in the _Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_, deviates from chronological order, should his subject
appear to demand it.[1704] Thus he relates in sequence two summer
campaigns as a relief from miseries in Rome, and elsewhere combines the
inter-connected transactions of several years so that they may be more
easily remembered.[1705]
A clue to the date of composition is got from a reference to the Persian
Gulf as a contemporary limit of the Empire. This held good only between
Trajan’s conquest of A.D. 115 and Hadrian’s order for withdrawal on his
accession in 117.[1706] That the division into books was the author’s
own is plain from allusions like “in prioribus libris.”[1707] The
conclusion of a book was often arranged to synchronize effectively with
some striking event: thus II ends with the death of Arminius, (_liberator
haud dubie Germaniae_), XI with the fall of the empress Messalina, XII
with the poisoning and deification of Claudius, XIV with the cruel fate
of Octavia, XV with the crushing of the Pisonian conspiracy. We may guess
that the now imperfect Book V culminated in the overthrow of Sejanus.
Out of what once amounted to at least sixteen books, there have survived
the first four, a fraction of the fifth with more of the sixth, and,
although defective at beginning and end, the series from the eleventh
to the sixteenth. Interpreted in terms of history, the losses are parts
of Tiberius’s reign, the whole reign of the imperial madman Caligula,
the reign of Claudius up to A.D. 47, and over two years at the close of
Nero’s reign.
Regrettable though these losses are, we possess in the remainder one
of the greatest monuments of historical genius—the ripest work of a
penetrating critic of affairs who expressed his thoughts in accents that
are absolutely unique. Whatever its gloom or its bias, lack of interest
cannot be alleged against the broken story of fifty years. In Tiberius’s
reign we have placed before us the enigmatic character of the emperor,
his varying attitude to Senate and senators, his ultimate withdrawal
from Rome, the sinister growth of sycophancy and delation, mutinies
theatrically engineered and as theatrically suppressed, the exploits of
Germanicus in the North and his untimely death in the East, the fortunes
and misfortunes of the elder Agrippina and of the children whom she
bore to Germanicus, the ambitious projects of the dangerous minister
Sejanus, and the smothering of the third Caesar in his seventy-eighth
year. Even so, the record cannot always be thrilling, and we find the
historian regretting the necessity for inserting details which may
look trivial in spite of their significance and for using matter that
may appear monotonous. This is why he breaks off his depressing tale
of judicial murders to relate the legendary account of the marvellous
phoenix in view of the rumour that it had reappeared in Egypt, and
why he suggests that even Eastern troubles with Parthia—not the most
attractive theme in his narrative—might afford a welcome change from
affairs in Rome. But in fact the variety of topics touched upon within
the compass of this single reign is amazing, and much is due to social
or economic bearing—extravagance in living, scarcity of corn, financial
crises, fires in the city, inundations from the river, increase of slave
establishments, Oriental worships, the seductions of astrology, relief
from taxation for Asiatic cities ruined by earthquake, the questionable
right of sanctuary for criminals and so forth.
A break of about a decade after Tiberius’s death takes us six years
into the reign of Claudius, when Messalina was empress and Suillius
conducted his dastardly prosecutions. Interested in completing a
magnificent aqueduct from Subiaco to the capital, in adding new letters
to the alphabet, and in supporting the claims of leading provincials for
admission into the Senate, the emperor, himself a puppet in the hands of
his freedmen officials, is the last to realize the public scandal caused
by Messalina’s misbehaviour. When, thanks to energetic steps taken by
the _libertus_ Narcissus, she is despatched, the marriage of Claudius
to his niece the younger Agrippina, Germanicus’s daughter, who had
previously married Domitius, ushers in a period of intrigue which brings
about the poisoning of Claudius and, with the elevation of Agrippina’s
son Nero to the throne, the exclusion of Claudius’s own son Britannicus.
Nero’s reign begins at Book XIII and is full of incident. His earlier
years of high promise are followed by the growth in him of depravity,
megalomania and cruelty. At times unpleasant, the chronicle is scarcely
ever uninteresting and is often exciting. Among episodes which enchain
the attention are Nero’s plots against his imperious mother, his callous
repudiation of Octavia to marry his mistress Poppaea, heavy fighting in
Armenia, a fresh revolt in Britain, the execution of a whole household
of slaves for a murder committed by one, a treasure-hunt in North Africa
on a false scent, the emperor’s roystering in the streets by night,
his public display of his musical talents, his conduct after the great
conflagration in Rome, the ramifications of the ill-starred Pisonian
conspiracy, the dramatic deaths of men so different as Seneca and
Petronius, and the fate of the daringly independent Stoic senator Paetus
Thrasea. By a coincidence, time has cut short the _Annals_ in the midst
of the account of Thrasea’s enforced death just after he had severed his
arteries and let the blood flow with words which virtually repeat those
of the dying Seneca and which Tacitus in a freer reign must have rejoiced
to write—“we pour out a libation to Jupiter the Deliverer” (_libamus Ioui
liberatori_).[1708]
To do full justice to the debated subject of the historical sources of
Tacitus would require a separate chapter, if not a book. Here it must be
lightly touched upon. Let us first note what obligations he specifies,
remembering that such acknowledgements were never _de rigueur_ in
antiquity. In the _Histories_ he names three authors, Vipstanus Messalla
(twice), C. Plinius and Sisenna.[1709] In the _Annals_ he mentions more
sources: C. Plinius three times, once as a writer on wars with the
Germans, Fabius Rusticus also three times, Cluvius twice, Corbulo[1710]
once, Tiberius’s orations, a letter from Tiberius to the Senate (quoted
in part, perhaps from a previous historian rather than from the _acta
senatus_), the _commentarii Agrippinae filiae_, _acta diurna_, and
_commentarii_ (or _acta_) _senatus_.[1711] But he is often content with
vaguer references, implying a plurality, and sometimes a conflict, of
authorities: _e.g._ _inuenio apud quosdam auctores_ or _celeberrimos
auctores habeo_ or _tradunt plerique_.[1712] Clearly there was a large
amount of potential material—literary works, public or private records,
oral tradition, and, for the period of the _Histories_, the author’s own
observation. It could not all, however, be either equally available or
equally valuable for the historian. Among different sorts of records, the
_commentarii principales_ were probably not accessible to him, the _acta
senatus_ could not always be trusted, and the _acta diurna_ contained too
much petty detail. In one passage[1713] he mentions the circulation of
fictitious speeches and decrees purporting to be genuine _acta senatus_;
he was, then, on his guard against forgeries, and we may imagine that in
some cases his account of proceedings in the Senate was a combination of
the “Hansard” of the day with oral tradition.[1714] In another passage,
relating to Nero’s amphitheatre, he disdainfully relegates to the “Daily
Register,” or _acta diurna_, all details of foundations and timber-work
as beneath the dignity of history.[1715] Fortunately, although here he
seems to imply that the concern of history is with “illustrious events,”
he at once proceeds to record the strengthening of two colonies by drafts
of veterans, a money dole to the people, a payment into the exchequer,
and the remission of a 4 per cent tax on slaves for sale—most of these
being facts of social or economic import rather than _res illustres_.
Over and above authors whom he actually mentions, we know of several who
might have provided material. For the period of the _Histories_ there
were Cluvius, Vespasian in his memoirs, and Antonius Julianus; and for
the _Annals_ the elder Seneca, Paterculus, Tiberius in his autobiography,
Aufidius Bassus, Servilius Nonianus, Suetonius Paulinus, and Claudius.
But in all this there are no more than possibilities. Indeed, throughout
the whole question of Tacitus’s sources, one is always brought back
to a baffling uncertainty due to the loss of even such sources as he
specifies.[1716] One avenue which at first sight promised to lead to
something definite was the investigation into the striking coincidences
between Tacitus’s Latin and Plutarch’s Greek in their handling of Galba
and Otho.[1717] There have been upholders of the theory that in this case
Plutarch used Tacitus; but the general conviction is that both used the
same authority, and apparently with considerable closeness.[1718] Beyond
that, in spite of much ingenuity in argument, nothing tangible has been
attained. A wide diversity of opinion prevails on the identification
of this particular source. No less uncertainty has resulted from the
attempts at assessing Tacitus’s debt to his authorities in general and
his method of employing them. Nissen, and after him Fabia, would have us
believe that Tacitus’s method was to follow closely the subject-matter
of a single author for large tracts of his work, neglecting secondary
sources (especially in composing the _Histories_), and devoting his
attention to the embellishment of his borrowed material so as to produce
a composition highly effective from the standpoint of style. It is
as difficult now, as it was when Boissier first criticised Nissen’s
hypothesis, to accept an attitude which would imply a slavish lack of
independence in Tacitus, and a dishonest pretence of consulting several
authors at a time. The idea does not agree with Tacitus’s known desire to
get first-hand knowledge, as proved by the letters in which he secured
from the younger Pliny information about the eruption of Vesuvius. In the
entire absence of the original sources, there is the utmost difficulty
in comprehending how one can comfortably assert that Tacitus drew from
a single main source for large tracts of his work, or how one can claim
to identify the source as the elder Pliny for the _Histories_, Aufidius
Bassus for earlier parts of the _Annals_, and Cluvius Rufus for the reign
of Nero.
Modern historical research demands methods of rigorous investigation
which it is futile to expect in Tacitus. He will leave a matter of
debate unsettled, and the uninitiated might wonder whether this is
due to impartiality or natural hesitancy or an academic suspension
of judgement. His criterion for decision in face of a conflict of
evidence was usually what he deemed probable in the circumstances. The
subjectivity of such a test, while it removes him from the category of
strictly scientific historians, at the same time makes it important to
note that personal outlook on the world, on politics and on history,
which was certain to colour his interpretation of facts. Broadly his
leanings are Stoic, though he wavers between freewill and predestination.
At one time his language postulates an overmastering fate; at another it
ascribes an event to the combined operation of a transcendental fate and
human agency;[1719] at yet another it betrays a doubt whether “mortal
affairs proceed by the unchangeable necessity of fate or by chance” (_in
incerto iudicium est fatone res mortalium et necessitate immutabili
an forte uoluantur_, _Ann._ VI. xxii.). If his views of the world are
chaotic,[1720] he is not the only great writer who has found its mystery
indefinable. He well realised how the adversity of the good and the
prosperity of the wicked lent plausibility to the Epicurean creed that
the gods take no interest in mankind (_non denique homines dis curae_,
VI. xxii.); for himself, his melancholy observation of life made him
not an atheist but a believer in the frequent wrath of heaven.[1721]
Yet even this was a matter of the prevailing mood, for he was ready to
think it a kindly intervention of providence that vouchsafed a brilliant
starlit night with the calm of a tranquil sea, as it were to unmask the
crime of Nero’s attempt to drown his mother.[1722] With all this is mixed
up a share of superstitious credulity towards prodigies and divination;
but the essential point for us is that Tacitus, on the whole, believed in
some law or principle which holds good among historical occurrences and
so gives meaning to the quest after a cause. Early in the _Histories_ he
says:
Before composing my purposed work, I intend to survey the
condition of the capital, the temper of the armies, the
attitude of the provinces, and what made for strength or
weakness anywhere in the world, so that one may recognize not
merely the incidents and issues of events, which are mainly
affairs of chance, but also their meaning and causes.[1723]
With such expectations Tacitus could feel confidence in the dignity of
history[1724] and in its power to instruct the future:
My design is not to set forth all motions made in the Senate,
but only those which were remarkable for nobility or by reason
of notorious infamy. This I consider the outstanding function
of history to save excellence from oblivion and to confront
evil words and evil deeds with the menace of reprobation from
posterity (_ne uirtutes sileantur utque prauis dictis factisque
ex posteritate et infamia metus sit_, _Ann._ III. lxv.).
Towards this aim at teaching by example, character is of vital
importance; and among the causes of events which most engage Tacitus’s
attention are human temperament and motives; so that, whatever the
defects which made him in Mommsen’s eyes the most unmilitary of
historians, he is at the same time one of the most psychological.
In theory Tacitus was republican, and in his writings a _laudator
temporis acti_, whether he had to contemplate the pre-imperial state
or its eloquence, its education, its historians. Yet he admitted that
circumstances had rendered inevitable the concentration of power in the
hands of a single individual.[1725] The old free republic, to him ideally
preferable,[1726] could never come again.[1727] The duty of the citizen
was therefore to pray for good emperors, but put up with such as one
had,[1728] and to choose the safe path between brusque insolence and
unseemly toadying (_inter abruptam contumaciam et deforme obsequium_,
_Ann._ IV. xx.). We have noted in the _Agricola_ his admiration for
moderate aristocrats and his disapproval for intransigent members of
the opposition who concluded a defiant parade of independence with a
theatrically ostentatious death (_ambitiosa morte_, _Agr._ xlii.). Some
consolation was obtainable from the fact that emperors like Nerva or
Trajan could, he points out, square the principate with freedom. But,
after all, the Empire remained for him a _pis aller_. With some emperors
he could not but associate despotic cruelty, and with the period which
he himself had to treat “barbarous edicts, perpetual prosecutions,
treacherous friendships, the ruin of the innocent, the same causes
producing the same consequences while one meets only a surfeit of
sameness (_obuia rerum similitudine et satietate_).”[1729] It is nothing
short of a triumph of intellect and art that, insisting as he does upon
his depressingly sombre theme, Tacitus should still be able to captivate
his reader. The reader must, however, be content to be thus held while
he is subtly indoctrinated;[1730] for dispassionate history is not to be
expected from a hostile judge.
The ineradicable prepossession in Tacitus is his conviction that Rome
had fallen on evil days. No less than in the _Histories_, the opening
chapters in the _Annals_ have a sombre tone as of one looking back upon
a long period of national woe. The rapid conspectus, in a sentence or
two, of the evolution of Roman history towards one-man-rule closes in a
glimpse at a world outworn with civil strife and subject to an emperor.
Immediately one breathes an asphyxiating atmosphere of oppression and
adulation which Tacitus feels must have impaired history. The deeds of
the old Roman people, he remarks with pride, were recorded by famous
historians, and even under the newly established Empire the Augustan
age produced fine intellects capable of assessing and transmitting
its achievements, had not court influence militated against the
free utterance of opinion. But with later reigns came a blighting
terrorism, so that, for the times of Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius and Nero,
contemporary evidence was vitiated by dishonest flattery, and subsequent
criticism vitiated by the reaction of loathing. From such extremes of
feeling—from partiality as from bitterness—Tacitus at least claims to
be exempt.[1731] He proceeds to note the concentration of supreme power
in the person of Augustus and the acquiescence of the provinces in an
imperial control which guaranteed them protection against the worst
rapacity of arbitrary officialdom. If this latter fact be viewed as a
bright spot in the new system, the dynastic plans of Augustus to support
his disguised despotism by recognized heirs are described as clouded by
a series of misfortunes. The death of the young Marcellus, the untimely
ends of the “princes of the youth,” Gaius and Lucius Caesar, “cut off
by destiny or by their stepmother Livia’s treachery,” and the unfair
banishment of the aged emperor’s only grandson, Agrippa Postumus, served
in turn, through a tragically entangled network of intrigue, to open for
Livia’s son Tiberius the path to the succession.
Such is the way in which the stage is cleared for the entrance of the
figure around which the battle concerning Tacitus’s credibility has been
most fiercely fought.[1732] It is noticeable that in several points this
introduction anticipates the summary in which he takes leave of the life
and character of Tiberius at the close of the sixth book. That summary
divides his life into phases, and implies that a signal deterioration
took place in his final years of seclusion on the island of Capri,
when, throwing off the habitual mask of hypocrisy, he came out in his
true colours (_remoto pudore et metu suo tantum ingenio utebatur_).
During a first perusal of the _Annals_ one is so far overmastered by
the accumulated effect attained by reprobation and innuendo as to take
Tiberius for an execrable though accomplished tyrant. The author’s skill
whereby he first disarms suspicion with a profession of impartiality,
and thereafter loses few opportunities of imputing sinister motives
to the emperor, bears its intended fruit in the reader’s willingness
to accept the historian’s hostility for independence. By a train of
devices one is almost unconsciously enrolled as a sympathizer with the
aristocratic opposition to empire. But in time, upon reflection, there
arise questionings. On a broad survey of facts, how came it that the
Roman Empire of the first century was on the whole so well managed and
so contented, if it was cursed with such monsters for its governors as
Tiberius, Caligula, Nero and Domitian were traditionally represented to
have been? And as to Tiberius in particular—whose portrayal is the great
test for the veracity of Tacitus—how came it that his competence as ruler
and his advanced years could stand the strain of the prolonged debauchery
which is alleged to have disgraced his retirement at Capri?
The rehabilitation of an over-maligned Tiberius, however, runs a risk
of going so far as to do injustice to Tacitus in turn. Tacitus can
scarcely be charged with having invented libels upon the emperor: for
everything he most likely had some authority, and he believed in his
own impartiality. What can be pressed against him is the indictment
that his own imperfectly realized prejudice debarred him from weighing
judicially his information, drawn, as much of it was, from authorities
with strong senatorial sympathies. Tacitus had no canon of the credible
and incredible where his partisan passions were concerned. It is not,
therefore, surprising that great inconsistencies can be pointed out in
Books I-VI of the _Annals_. Reports of contemporary comments do not
necessarily make historical evidence; and whether Tacitus did or did
not set them down in malice, it was in malice that many of them were
conceived. The suspicion is not an unreasonable one that he drew from
tainted sources, like the memoirs of the younger Agrippina, which would
be decidedly anti-Tiberian in tone. If we consider the alleged orgy
of sensuality by Tiberius on Capri, the story may have originated in
gossip provoked by the ruler’s impenetrable seclusion on the island, or,
according to another guess, it may have been a legacy from scurrilous
writings designed to damage his moral character during his previous
retirement in Rhodes, and then, if submitted confidentially to Augustus,
possibly retained among state-papers to which a century later both
Tacitus and Suetonius had access. Whatever the genesis of such tales,
Tacitus’s fault lay not in creating slanders but in failing to reject
them critically. It is true that Suetonius, in ascribing loathsome
profligacy to Tiberius, descends into details which Tacitus would pass
over in lofty disdain;[1733] but Tacitus ought to have noted the inherent
unlikelihood of this particular scandal, which is not substantiated
by anything in writers like Philo and Josephus. The view that Tacitus
of set purpose draws Tiberius with the conventional qualities of the
tyrant in rhetoric (such as cruelty, injustice, suspicion, craft, lust,
and anguish of soul) seems too mechanical a conception. What one can
admit is that Tacitus is not above visiting upon Tiberius the faults of
some of his worst successors, and that just as Velleius, an admiring
rhapsodist, overstresses his hero’s merits, so Tacitus, although he
records examples of the emperor’s ability, wisdom, fairness, and even
generosity, allows prejudice so to blind him to many commendable traits
in Tiberius that he paints him too black. Tacitus had no more unfortunate
limitation than the inability to think imperially: he never grasped the
stupendous achievement involved in Augustus’s reorganization of the
Empire, and he betrays a cardinal weakness when he misjudges Tiberius for
his statesman-like adherence to the Augustan policy of consolidation in
preference to aggrandisement.
The Latin of Tacitus, considered from the standpoint of vocabulary,
grammar and syntax, bears the impress of his age; but no mere analysis
of language can estimate the qualities of his style.[1734] Words were
for him instruments handled with an individual touch of genius which
makes his Latin different from that of all other writers. Careful
investigators have examined his language and recorded their results in
books or pamphlets written in Latin and various modern languages: here a
few leading aspects may be noted. It has become almost traditional, and
it remains sensible, to approach the subject under Bötticher’s headings
of brevity, variety, and poetic colour. Brevity is so inseparable from
Tacitus that the schoolboy recognizes it as a difficulty to be overcome.
Verbs and connectives are freely dropped, and puzzlingly elliptical bits
of syntax occur.[1735] It was a condensation reached by a long process of
experiment in thought and expression—an abrupt terseness pushed sometimes
to the verge or over the verge of obscurity. The developed manner of the
_Annals_, which is in strong contrast to what some might call the cloying
amplitude of Ciceronian prose, indicates that Tacitus has travelled far
from the comparative fullness of his own earliest work. Though he can
at times employ the period with fine effect, his sentence-structure in
general represents a reaction from the Ciceronian. In Tacitus, as in
Virgil, thought or feeling is compressed into chosen expressions of a
brevity so profoundly significant that they capture the imagination. The
soul which he breathed into prose makes his words live: almost unbidden,
they revisit the memory, haunting it with their ironic, melancholy, often
tragic power. One does not easily forget sayings like “Heaven’s wrongs
are heaven’s concern” (_deorum iniurias dis curae_, _Ann._ I. lxxiii.),
or “shortlived and ill-starred are the darlings of the Roman people”
(_breues et infaustos populi Romani amores_, II. xli.). His terseness is
at its most effective pitch in his epigrams and summaries of character.
Again and again the finished neatness of the Latin seems to elude
rendering. Take the picture of the inscrutability of Tiberius:
His words were always halting and mysterious, but, now that his
aim was the thorough concealment of his feelings, they became
more than ever a tangled maze of uncertainty (_suspensa semper
et obscura uerba: tunc uero nitenti ut sensus suos penitus
abderet, in incertum et ambiguum magis implicabantur_, _Ann._
I. xi.).
A deep glance into a warped nature is conveyed in the thumbnail sketch of
a martinet’s cruelty—“an old hand at hard military tasks and the crueller
for having suffered” (_uetus operis ac laboris et eo immitior quia
tolerauerat_, I. xx.). The policy of taking no notice of personal insults
is inimitably expressed—“calumnies wither up, if ignored: resentment
gives them seeming recognition” (_spreta exolescunt: si irascare, agnita
uidentur_).
Variety is a phase of his independence. He gives changed meanings to
words,[1736] indulges in novel extensions of idiom (_e.g._ _pudet dictu_,
_Agr._ xxxii.); and, with a passion for the irregular, departs from the
normal symmetry of expression where there is a balance in thought.[1737]
It is not surprising that a long list is available of words which
occur only, or for the first time, in Tacitus, such as _adcumulator_,
_adulatorius_, _concertator_, _eiectamentum_, _imitamentum_,
_inlacessitus_, _instigator_, _instigatrix_, _peramoenus, regnatrix_. In
keeping with this goes a preference for the less usual form of a word,
_claritudo_ and _firmitudo_ rather than _claritas_ and _firmitas_;[1738]
the form in _-men_ like _fragmen_, _medicamen_, _tegumen_, where
the commoner prose forms end in _-mentum_; and conversely, those in
_-mentum_, like _cognomentum_ and _leuamentum_ rather than _cognomen_
and _leuamen_. The so-called Graecisms are to be set down to the same
pursuit of variety, although linguistically they are mainly not so much
direct borrowings from the Greek as inheritances from native Latin idiom
developed under Greek influence,[1739] or actual imitations of previous
Roman writers: thus what is termed the Greek attracted dative (_quibus
bellum uolentibus erat_, _Agr._ xviii.) had already appeared in Sallust
and Livy, both of whom exerted influence upon Tacitus.
The poetic colouring is ubiquitous. It is noticeable in poetic, and
especially Virgilian, words, which he often shares with prose-writers
of the Silver Age as a result of the predominance of poetry in academic
education. Examples are _adolere_ (also in Columella), _breuia_
(“shallows,” Virgil and Lucan), _crebrescere_ (Quintil. and younger
Pliny), _densere_ (Lucret. and Virg.), _exspes_ (Hor.), _gestamen_ (elder
Pliny), _meatus_ (Lucr., Virg., younger Pliny), _regnator_ (Plaut.,
Virg.). It is noticeable also in turns of phrase which recall Virgil,
in frequent metaphors, and in personifications such as “the informers’
eloquence dripping with blood” (_sanguinantis eloquentiae_, _Dial._
xii.); “nowhere is the sea more widely a queen” (_nusquam latius dominari
mare_, _Agr._ x.); “a night that threatens and will break forth into
crime” (_noctem minacem et in scelus erupturam_, _Ann._ I. xxviii.).[1740]
Partly poetic association, partly a desire for variety sent Tacitus back
sometimes to old-fashioned words, though, in spite of his liking for
Sallust, he is more of an innovator than an archaizer. He occasionally
employs Plautine words like _mercimonium_ or _truculentia_, and by a
kindred impulse substitutes the simple verb for the compound, _e.g._
_cernere_ for _decernere_ and _firmare_ for _affirmare_. But he does not
resort to the antique in the manner of Apuleius and Gellius later in his
century. Like one of the interlocutors in his _Dialogus_, he recognized
the current demand for novel smartness and poetic turns “unstained by
the rust (_ueterno_) of Accius and Pacuvius, but taken from the sacred
treasury of Horace, Virgil or Lucan.”[1741] It is an unwarrantable
assumption to regard his hexametric opening in the _Annals_ (_urbem Romam
a principio reges habuere_) as a citation from Ennius.[1742]
Yet to scrutinize his language is only to note the mechanism of his
style. What most matters is the use to which he could put his words,
and his achievement of imperishable effects through his mastery over
vividness, irony and an elevation of style too dignified to tolerate
lapses into the petty or the repulsive. Many of his qualities, like his
epigrams, sprang from rhetoric: it would be idle to pretend that he is
free from affectation, but it is an affectation tempered with sound
sense that never allows him to be carried into exuberance. Brilliant
in his brevity, Tacitus does not depend for his fame solely on his
bright flashes. His style is one of sustained power which does not admit
triviality or dullness. “Le plus grand peintre de l’antiquité,” as Racine
called him, showed himself a master of portraiture and description when
his theme was a character, a conflict, a mutiny, a disaster, a plot,
a trial, a debate. All is rapidity and the interest never flags. His
originality is a phase of his intense subjectivity. He leaves his imprint
on his writings because, as we have seen, he abandons the normal for a
surprising terseness and for daring novelties, and because his vigour of
expression reflects his realistic conception of the men and events which
made his material.
Strange vicissitudes mark the history of Tacitus’s posthumous
fame.[1743] Notwithstanding Pliny’s confidence in his friend’s literary
immortality, the immediately succeeding generations showed faint interest
in his writings. He was not spicy enough in detail for admirers of
the Suetonian type of biography, not quaint enough in style for the
archaizing school later in the century, not appreciative enough of
either Christians or Jews to please the Fathers of the Church. Even his
monograph on Agricola seems to have been little read, and grammarians do
not quote him. In the final quarter of the third century, the emperor
Tacitus claimed relationship with the historian, and, in alarm lest
his works should be lost _lectorum incuria_, issued orders for the
multiplication of copies, making it compulsory for libraries to possess
them.[1744] In the fourth century it was the fond ambition of Ammianus
Marcellinus, the last considerable historian in antiquity, to prove
himself another Tacitus by continuing his works in thirty-one books (of
which the last eighteen survive) on the Empire from the reign of Nerva
to that of Valens. We can prove that Tacitus was known to the Aquitanian
presbyter Sulpicius Severus, to Augustine’s Spanish friend Orosius, and
to Sidonius Apollinaris; but when Cassiodorus in the sixth century,
on the subject of amber, refers to “a certain Cornelius” as having
mentioned it, we realize how misty his reputation had grown.[1745] That
the Carolingian period had access to the _Germania_ and the earlier
books of the _Annals_ can be demonstrated from the works of Robert of
Fulda in the second half of the ninth century. Thereafter silence falls
for some centuries until we find Boccaccio possessed of a manuscript,
perhaps identical with our “Second Medicean,” containing the later books
of the _Annals_ with the _Histories_. The facts concerning the arrival
at Rome from Germany in 1455 of the sole source for the minor works
and the discovery at Corbey in 1509 of the “First Medicean,” the sole
source for the earlier part of the _Annals_, are thrilling reminders how
near the world came to losing Tacitus. All that we possess of him has
been available in print since 1515, and has interested generations of
politicians, historians, and essayists from Macchiavelli, Guicciardini
and Montaigne onwards. When one reads of French revolutionaries relying
upon Tacitean doctrine, one is amused to think that Milton had to rebut
Salmasius’s misreading of him as an upholder of autocratic rule.
His influence upon early English drama should not be forgotten. It may be
illustrated by Ben Jonson’s _Sejanus His Fall_, first acted in 1603 (when
Shakespeare played a part), but not published till 1605. The playwright’s
address “To the Readers” acknowledges his debt to Tacitus, Dio and
Suetonius; and the same three sources were drawn upon some years later
for the anonymous play of _Nero_. Abroad, Tacitus’s stimulus towards
dramatic production is visible under Louis XIV in Corneille’s _Otho_
and Racine’s _Britannicus_; towards the end of the eighteenth century
in Alfieri’s _Ottavia_; and about the beginning of the nineteenth in
Marie-Joseph Chénier’s _Tibère_ and Arnault’s _Germanicus_.
His style militated against popularity with humanists so strictly trained
on the norm of Ciceronianism as to be unable to see the merits of a
different type of prose; but one most interesting phase of his influence
is traceable in Justus Lipsius, whose edition of Tacitus in 1574 was a
masterpiece of scholarship. Lipsius’s editorial labours transformed his
Latin from Ciceronian into Tacitean and, in establishing his claim to
breadth of literary taste, at the same time bore witness to the vital
power transmitted by the great historian of the early empire.
CHAPTER III
JUVENAL
Perplexities of biography—Medieval _uitae_—Contradictory
and incredible elements—Tradition of Juvenal’s exile—Was
he in Egypt?—Was he in Britain?—The lost inscription from
Aquinum—Martial and Juvenal—Publication of the Satires in
books—A few dates obtainable—Survey of the Satires—Motives
for writing—Pretence of satirizing a previous generation—Men
of evil life—A gallery of detestable women—An honest Roman’s
farewell to Rome—Dramatic elements—Hosts and clients—Prospects
of literature—Vanity of human wishes—Plain living and
extravagance—Legacy-hunters—Revenge a weakness—Parental
example—Egyptian villages at feud—A soldier’s advantages—Change
of spirit in later Satires—Lucilius, Horace, Juvenal—Power
of vivid delineation—Dark colours—Grimness of humour—Control
of rhetorical artifice—Familiar quotations—Debt to
predecessors—Juvenal’s hexameter—Words from the common
speech—Influence on later writers.
The life of D. Junius Juvenalis[1746] is full of perplexities which
investigation has not disentangled. Outside the scanty data obtainable
from his works and certain scholia, there is little on which to rely
with absolute security: yet there is a considerable amount of apparent
evidence consisting of some thirteen biographies, mostly medieval,
attached to many of the interpolated MSS., an inscription of possible
relevance from Aquinum, three poems addressed by Martial to a Juvenal
whom we can hardly suppose to have been other than the satirist, mention
by a few later authors,[1747] and an allusion in a hendecasyllabic poem
by Sidonius Apollinaris[1748] to one who had the misfortune, like Ovid,
to be banished and who was the “exiled victim of an actor’s wrath”
(_irati fuit histrionis exul_). Since the banishment of Juvenal is a
tradition among the _uitae_, though its alleged time and place vary,
this last allusion is not unnaturally taken to apply to him. Juvenal
was too much of a contemporary to figure in Suetonius’s book _De Viris
Illustribus_,[1749] so that even the best written of the _Lives_—namely,
that added to the Codex Montepessulanus or Pithoeanus in a later
hand—cannot be surmised to rest on so good a foundation as Suetonius, or
indeed to be of earlier date than the fourth century. Twelve _uitae_ seem
to be variations of the earliest one, independent variations being almost
certainly attempts to add conjectures based upon passages in the satires.
Thus, the prevailing tradition of a banishment to Egypt is varied in two
_uitae_ to “_contra Scotos_”—a change presumably suggested by Juvenal’s
references to Britain. How little intelligence might underlie a _uita_
can be gauged from the absurd explanation, given by one in a Harleian
MS., that Juvenal’s last satire, an attack on the unfair advantages
of soldiers, was meant to encourage recruiting. This looks as if the
innocent fabricator had confined himself to the opening sentence—_Quis
numerare queat felicis praemia, Galli, militiae?_
The chief statements in the most highly commended _uita_ are that Juvenal
was either a son or foster-son of a rich freedman (a closely allied
_uita_ adds Aquinum as his birthplace); that he practised declamation
until middle life more for the sake of amusement (_animi magis causa_)
than for academic or forensic use; that he composed lines directed
against Domitian’s pantomime-actor Paris; that later, when he had
become famous, he inserted those lines into what we know as the seventh
satire;[1750] that there happened then to be at court a favourite actor
who took the lines as directed against himself; that Juvenal’s supposed
allusion was resented in the highest quarters; and that, under pretext
of giving him a military command but in reality by way of punishment,
the authorities gazetted him at the age of eighty to the prefecture of a
cohort in a distant part of Egypt, where he very soon (_intra breuissimum
tempus_) died of grief and weariness.
Difficulties arise at once. If Juvenal was either son or foster-son of a
rich _libertinus_, how comes it that he is so obviously acquainted with
poverty at first hand, and why does he assail the class of freedmen, if
he owed it either birth or up-bringing? His tone convinces us that, for
at least one part of his life, far from being wealthy, he had experienced
the indignities put upon clients, hated the pampered lackeys of arrogant
patrons, and felt deep sympathy with the poor.[1751] Horace could attack
an individual freedman, as he did in the fourth epode, but Juvenal
detests the whole category: not only does he despise the purse-proud
upstart who had once been his barber, but he writes in general with so
Roman a prejudice against the foreigner that one cannot but distrust the
allegation of an alien strain in him.[1752] The more one examines the
_uitae_, the more do they appear to be manufactured: here the suspicion
arises that Juvenal, being a satirist, has been by some wrong-headed
parallel-hunter credited with a _libertinus_ for a father simply because
Horace had one before him. If it is just conceivable that the lines
cited as offensive enough to get him banished might have been twisted
against the author in the way alleged, at any rate the appointment of
an octogenarian to a military post in an important province appears too
incredible a prank for the Roman Empire: and, in any case, this statement
in three _Lives_ is contradicted by that in another group, which
indicates it was Domitian, not Trajan, who punished Juvenal. According to
that, the exile would have occurred earlier in Juvenal’s career.
Confusion increases as we look through the _uitae_. One declares
Juvenal to have come back to Rome from his command, and to have died
of melancholy because he did not see his friend Martial (who had left
the city for Spain in A.D. 98): another declares he died worn out with
old age as late as the reign of Antoninus Pius, having been exiled by
Domitian but not recalled by his immediate successors. In this latter
_uita_ he is said to have “amplified his satires in exile and made many
changes in them,” a statement which bore fruit in part of Ribbeck’s
theory about two Juvenals. An additional _uita_ found by Dürr in a MS.
in the Palazzo Barberini at Rome agrees with twelve of the _uitae_ that
Juvenal belonged to Aquinum: it also provides him with a mother and
sister named alike Septumuleia, which betrays medieval ignorance of
the classic usage whereby any daughter of Junius Juvenalis would have
been called Junia. The inconsistencies in these biographies cannot but
throw doubt even on any consistent residuum, unless it be independently
supported. Though a majority of the _uitae_ mention a military command
in Egypt, one has the uncomfortable suspicion that this may have come
from an impression that Juvenal’s treatment of an Egyptian subject in
Satire XV necessarily implied residence near its scene:[1753] and,
again, though in a majority of the _uitae_ he is said to have practised
declamation till middle life, this may have been an invention from the
rhetorical manner characteristically persisting in satires which were
manifestly composed long after he had been an academic pupil.[1754]
The all but unanimous record of a banishment appears to receive some
confirmation in the allusion already cited from Sidonius Apollinaris; but
one realizes that there is no certainty about the emperor who pronounced
the sentence, nor any means of deciding whether the command in Egypt is
or is not a confusion with previous military service in Britain. The
almost complete consensus about Aquinum as Juvenal’s birthplace agrees
with, and indeed may be ultimately due to, the passage in the third
satire where Umbricius, who is supposed to be saying good-bye to the
poet, employs the phrase “tuo Aquino.”[1755] That there was a Juvenal
at Aquinum is clear from the inscription discovered there and long
since lost.[1756] It recorded a dedication to Ceres (the very goddess
mentioned towards the close of the third satire) by Junius Juvenalis
(the _praenomen_ had disappeared), who was an officer in a cohort of
Dalmatians, and who, in respect of being a _duumuir quinquennalis_ and
_flamen_ of the deified Vespasian, was evidently the holder of two local
offices of importance. The reference to Vespasian-worship places the
inscription late in the first century, and, as more than one Dalmatian
cohort served, we know, in Britain about this period, it is tempting
to think that here we have an explanation of the satirist’s repeated
references to so far-off an island—his mention of the captured Orkneys
and the short night of the North, the chariot-fighting of Britons, the
oysters of Rutupiae (Richborough in Kent), the British whale, the forts
of the Brigantes in Yorkshire, the spread of Latin eloquence to Thule
(a designed exaggeration), and his use of the rather official form
_Brittones_.[1757] But here again questions arise. If Juvenal had seen
war-service, did it leave him inimical to a military life, as he appears
to be in his last satire? And, in addition to his undoubtedly close
acquaintance with Roman city life, was he long enough resident at Aquinum
to hold important magistracies there?
If Martial’s Juvenal is, as seems most likely, our Juvenal, then we
have the evidence of two epigrams in the seventh book belonging to A.D.
92, and one in the twelfth book issued in 101 or 102, after Martial had
returned to Spain.[1758] By 92 Juvenal is regarded by his friend as
_facundus_, which may refer either to style in writing or to eloquence
in speech. The eloquence has in this case generally been associated with
rhetorical powers, but it may have a forensic reference. Juvenal is
possibly speaking of his own practice at the bar when, after stigmatising
the high fee paid to a nobleman as advocate, he adds “and yet _we_
pleaded better.”[1759] Besides, it is worth noting that Martial applies
the epithet _facundus_ to his lawyer friend Pliny, and that Juvenal too
uses it of lawyers.[1760] Granted that banishment ever befell Juvenal,
there was time for it to have occurred between 92 and 101 or 102, when
Martial again addressed Juvenal; and whether Juvenal was an advocate or
not, he was then pictured as a struggling citizen wearing his sweaty gown
(_sudatrix toga_) at receptions in the mansions of the great. Between the
two poets a great sympathy of outlook is discernible[1761]. They not only
touch often upon the same subjects and persons, but adopt a very similar
attitude towards literature and patronage; they unveil alike the vices
of their day; and they exhibit considerable resemblance in words and
expressions.
Fortunately a few unquestioned dates can be extracted from his works.
The sixteen satires were issued in five sets or books at different
times.[1762] Internal evidence as to date discoverable from any one
satire has therefore significance for the whole volume to which it
belongs. The first book contained satires I-V, and the bitter tone
regarding Domitian in the second and fourth satires would alone prove
that their composition was later than his assassination in 96.[1763] But
we do not need to rely on inference; for a definite reference is made in
the fourth satire to his murder.[1764] The opening satire, which, being
prefatory, may have been written last, alludes to the sentence on Marius
Priscus for misgovernment in Africa;[1765] and, as we can date this
trial, in which Pliny held a prosecuting brief, at A.D. 100, we see that
Juvenal’s earliest published work belongs to the beginning of the second
century. It seems natural to think that Domitian’s reign was not yet
far in the past, and that Juvenal writes with a fierce, because recent,
recollection of the repression which had been removed to the equal relief
of writers like Pliny and Tacitus. This spirit makes it difficult to
believe that Friedländer is right in dating the first book so late as
the years between 112 and 116 in order to bring it nearer in time to the
succeeding book.
The long sixth satire formed the second book. The comet and the
earthquake[1766] there mentioned have been convincingly assigned to the
year 115, so that the volume can be dated about A.D. 116.
The third book consisted of satires VII, VIII and IX. The first of
these three opens with the declaration that the future of literature
depends on the emperor entirely—_et spes et ratio studiorum in Caesare
tantum_. Which Caesar? Some have said Trajan; Nettleship argued for
Domitian,[1767] without winning much support for a theory which would
badly break the chronological sequence of the volumes. A more fitting
emperor and period can be found in Hadrian, soon after his accession. He
had poetic tastes, and Juvenal’s words were a not unbecoming compliment
to the new ruler who reached Rome from the East in 118. Satire VIII was
probably written earlier: its allusion to Marius Priscus suggests a date
not long after A.D. 100.[1768]
The date of the fourth book, containing X, XI and XII, is undiscoverable.
The remaining four satires constituted the fifth book. Two passages in
it give clues to a date, and fix the thirteenth satire to 127 and the
fifteenth to 128 A.D.[1769]
This brief summary indicates a literary activity of some thirty years.
If, as we may infer, Juvenal had reached middle life when the first
volume was published, a date about A.D. 60 might be conjectured for his
birth. By the time of the eleventh satire he writes as an old man.[1770]
Unlike Lucilius and Horace, his acknowledged masters in satire, Juvenal
reveals little about himself. His rhetorical education was the one
customary for Romans of standing.[1771] For the philosophy professed
by exalted minds he felt a respect proportionate to his contempt for
philosophical hypocrites; but the philosophy which appealed to him was
not so much that of the Greek schools[1772] as that of life:
Great is Philosophy, whose holy writ
Ordains commandments and who conquers Chance.
We deem those happy too whom life hath taught
To bear life’s ills nor fret against the yoke.[1773]
He himself had been schooled by hardship, though later in his career we
know he owned a small farm at Tibur, and was able to offer hospitality to
friends in his own house at Rome.[1774]
The sixteen Satires consist of nearly 3900 hexameters, and range in
length from the 661 lines (or, including the Bodleian[1775] fragment,
695 lines) of the devastatingly horrible sixth satire to the 60 lines of
the incomplete sixteenth. In particular, the first, third and tenth—each
making a different appeal—can be read again and again without losing
their freshness: they stand the true test of the classical. It is
impossible to miss either the nobility of spirit pervading the thirteenth
or the terrific, if overdriven, power of the indictment against women in
the sixth.
The first satire is a characteristic prelude—the poet’s _apologia_,
to explain why he should write satire, and what his manner and matter
should be. A careful examination of it, therefore, reveals the underlying
aim. Deafened with recitations from authors, and, like Martial, sick of
hackneyed mythology, must not Juvenal too have his say?
Shall I just listen always? ne’er repay
Hoarse Cordus bawling his heroic lay?
Shall one recite his comedies at me,
Another elegiacs, and go free?...
I too learned rhetoric beneath the cane:
My essays counselled Sulla sleep to gain
In private life. ’Tis clemency misplaced,
When everywhere with swarms of bards you’re faced,
To spare the paper someone sure will waste.
So much to justify writing. But why satire? Why should Juvenal follow
the career of Lucilius? The answer comes pat: the difficulty is _not_
to write satire (_difficile est saturam non scribere_). The prominence
of offensive and vicious persons goads one into invective. One loathes
the spectacle of the impotent who dares to marry, or the masculine woman
aping a man, or the fabulously wealthy ex-slave and ex-barber flaunting
his riches. Annoying beyond endurance are the over-smart lawyers, the
treacherous informer and the unabashed will-hunter. How one’s anger
blazes to think of an innocent ward driven to evil courses by the knavery
of an unscrupulous guardian, or of a guilty proconsul receiving so
light a sentence that he can enjoy exile on his ill-gotten gains! Such
abuses need the Venusian lamp of Horace, and, somewhat in Martial’s
spirit, Juvenal claims that he has no taste for legendary themes, when,
from lust of filthy lucre, a cuckold encourages his wife’s lover, or
when horse-racing spendthrifts expect commissions in the army. In fact,
the temptation is rather to compose a whole volume in the open street,
when an imposing _lectica_ brings along a forger lolling at ease, or a
wealthy widow who poisoned her husband. If you would cut a figure, dare
some black deed that ought to earn transportation or jail: honesty gets
praise but is left in the cold (_probitas laudatur et alget_):
To crime men owe their table, park, estate,
Goblets in high relief or antique plate.
Say, who could find the calm repose they need
When a son’s wife is bribed to sin for greed,
When brides prove frail and boys turn paramours?
Though nature jibs, yet wrath my verse ensures.
(_si natura negat, facit indignatio uersum_).
So, like Martial again, but in an angrier tone, Juvenal proclaims his
subject to be human life—a gallimaufry of everything from the days of the
Flood:
Whate’er men do, their vows, fears, pleasure, rage,
Joys, hustle, make the hotchpotch of my page.[1776]
And when was there ever a heavier crop of villainy and avarice?
Picture the gamester attended by his steward, armed squire-like with
a money-chest for the battle of the gaming-table, ready to stake a
fortune but refusing raiment to a shivering slave. Think of the many
country-seats one rich individual may possess; think of his dining off
seven courses in solitary state; think of the miserable dole of the
_sportula_ given at his door to poor dependents, and the care taken to
confer this charity upon as few as possible. The scramble for the dole,
and the degrading tricks by which it is sought, are inimitably narrated
with all Juvenal’s power of realistic detail. “Wealth,” he remarks
bitingly, “is our most revered divinity: how singular that we Romans
have raised no temple to Money—no altars to the coinage to match our
worship of Pax, Fides, Victoria, Virtus and Concordia!” The gluttony
of the rich, however, brings its penalty in sudden death: and no one
feels sorry. Nowadays vice has reached its zenith—“so then, my satire,
hoist sail, crowd on full canvas!” (_utere uelis, totos pande sinus_).
Yet one caution must be observed. If, following Lucilius, you attack
those in high station, you may be sentenced to a cruel death. Therefore
count the cost before the trumpet sounds. It is safer to satirise a
past generation—those who lie buried beside the Great North Road (the
_Flaminia_), or the South-Eastern Road (the _Latina_). Dead men do not
retaliate.
Juvenal’s claim here to occupy himself with the past is noteworthy. The
profession is less an attempted blind for his own safety, than simply
another way of disavowing, as Martial explicitly did, the intention of
attacking individuals of his own times. Some critics have emphasised the
unreality of Juvenal’s working himself into a fury against dead men and
bygone abuses; but it may be urged that conceivably part of his material
was secretly written up (it was certainly noted in the mind) under
Domitian, and that anyhow, as society does not radically change within
a few years, there obviously remained, even under the better rule of
Trajan, abundance of human types inviting satiric attack. Contemporary
observation would then reinforce memory. The theory that represents
Juvenal’s eye as mainly upon the past fails to account for his vigour of
style, which is not adequately explained as artificial rhetoric.
Satires II, VI and IX may be considered together. Their plainspokenness
on sexual excess or perversion has excluded them from many editions.
Satire II denounces the atrocious profligacy of hypocritical philosophers
“who pose as Puritans, but live in vice” (_qui Curios simulant at
Bacchanalia uiuunt_). After a Zolaesque glance at diseases caused by evil
living, it is conceded that an open offender is less obnoxious than a
counterfeit moralist: “who’d stand a Gracchus railing at revolt?” (_quis
tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?_). In contrast with the sixth
satire, a woman is here introduced as a critic of the unnatural depravity
of some of the male sex. She protests that not women, but men deserve the
rigours of the law. Yet “censure acquits the crow but damns the dove”
(_dat ueniam coruis uexat censura columbas_). Men begin with effeminate
luxury and end as such monstrosities that the other world would have to
be disinfected after receiving them! One great lesson is driven home—the
steps in degradation must be jealously watched; “No man becomes a
blackguard in a trice” (_nemo repente fuit turpissimus_).
Satire VI is a long gallery of women to be avoided. Some are incurably
bad and deserve all they get: others, whom we might call merely
objectionable, like the loud-voiced virago or ostentatious she-pedant,
incur equal castigation from the angry author. About his brilliant
vehemence there can be no doubt. One must, however, not expect a strictly
logical summary; for careful planning is not Juvenal’s forte. He will
not limit his energy to a fixed programme. Thus in VI he harks back to
its opening jeremiad on the disappearance of primitive chastity from a
degenerate world; and more than once he introduces the capricious cruelty
of mistresses to slaves, or the passion for public spectacles. It is
inevitable, then, that, in satires like the first, critics should note
signs of imperfect construction. What, however, is lost in methodical
arrangement is often gained in free vigour.
His immediate keynote is the insanity of a man’s contemplating marriage
so long as ropes are available to hang himself with! With characteristic
exaggeration he declares there are few pure women left in Rome—few that
do not behave as dangerous temptresses. Can one imagine a woman content
with one husband? Scarcely could one discover an honest girl in the
country. Roman ladies are spectators of indecent pantomimes, they fall in
love with players or gladiators—they will desert home and children for a
pet “Sergy”—and they prove exacting in the costliest fancies.
Should you chance on that astounding rarity (_rara auis in terris
nigroque simillima cygno_)—a good woman—she is likely to exhibit
intolerable pride (_grande supercilium_): and the boastfulness that
ruined Niobe spoils all other feminine merits. Then there is the
annoying affectation of using Greek words (like the wanton ζωή and ψυχή)
which turned an Italian girl into “a maid of Athens” with Hellenic
blandishments. Even true love for your bride constitutes a danger;
you become her thrall and _Madame_ rules the house, prescribing your
affections, settling your will, sentencing a slave to death, and in the
end leaving you if it suits her. Figure to yourself the wife of eight
husbands in five autumns—an elegant epitaph! (here again Martial might
be speaking). Besides, there is your mother-in-law, schooling the young
mistress in rapacity and duplicity. If there is a law-suit, _cherchez la
femme_ (_nulla fere causa est in qua non femina litem mouerit_). Another
bugbear is the unsexed woman who takes up fencing, or the guilty consort
whose hypocritical tears conceal her offence, who brazens out the charge
if detected in an amour, and is eloquent where a trained rhetorician
would be hard put to it for an excuse. Riches, drunkenness, foreign ways,
strange rituals have all contributed to Rome’s deterioration. The advice
may be offered to set a guard on one’s wife—“but who shall guard the
guards themselves?” (_quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_)
The unpleasant series of portraits continues:—the housewife whose
ruinous extravagance knows no bounds and takes no lesson; she who dotes
on eunuchs or musicians; the gossip who retails the latest news with
additions; the bad-tempered woman, imperious in demands on her slaves and
coolly keeping guests waiting for dinner if she chooses to have a bath.
There is also the victim of disgusting intemperance; but Juvenal’s grim
humour represents as worse still[1777] the lady who will talk literature
at table—Madam Oracle, beside whom not even another woman (to say nothing
of an attorney or town-crier) could get a word in:[1778] and, with a
suggestive alliteration, he adds:
The wave of words, you’d swear, that from her wells
Sounds like so many basins banged with bells.[1779]
Therefore do not let the Roman matron go in too much for logic, history,
grammar, or rhetoric, for she will then quote verses you don’t know,
and pedantically correct her friend’s slip in grammar. He returns to
the maltreatment of slaves—a displaced curl may cost a lashing: he
then pillories the devotees of Eastern superstition, and those who
avoid motherhood, smuggle supposititious children into a home to delude
a husband, and resort to magic charms or philtres or even to poisons.
But—and here Juvenal anticipates the criticism that he paints too dark a
picture—you will say, this is all tragic rant.[1780] No, it is too true:
Roman women are guilty of the enormities described. Alcestis died for her
husband; the modern woman would have a husband die for a pet dog. There
are Clytemnestras everywhere.
It is a lurid ending, all the more effective after the clever protest
that he has only been telling the truth. In this satire we seem far away
from the respectable society of the satirist’s contemporary, Pliny the
younger. Yet if the picture is too much overdrawn to be sound history,
the genius of the author makes it great literature.
The ninth satire need not occupy us fully. In treating the unpleasant
theme of a reprobate’s sorrows, Juvenal introduces just enough of the
element of dialogue to remind one of the manner of Persius. Answering
the interlocutor’s request that he should withhold his revelation of
depravity in high circles, the poet asks in turn whether rich offenders
can ever successfully hide their infamy—the very talk of one’s slaves
should set a check on evil living. The other, mourning over years
misused, replies in one of the most notable passages in Juvenal:
What cure for my lost time and hopes deceived?
The little span of our poor narrow life
Hastes like a fading blossom to a close.
We drink; we call for garlands, perfumes, girls;
But Age creeps on us ere we understand.[1781]
Satire III, paraphrased by Johnson under the title of “London,” as he
paraphrased Satire X under the title of “The Vanity of Human Wishes,”
is deservedly among the most admired of Juvenal’s poems. The picture of
Rome as a good place to be out of lends itself to so much realistic and
even dramatic treatment that it forms an unforgettable social document.
The attack is put in the mouth of one of the poet’s friends, Umbricius,
who unburdens his mind just outside the Porta Capena, as he and a
cartful of household belongings are about to quit the city and take
the road for Cumae on the Bay of Naples. The capital is no place, he
asserts, for honourable men or honest work; he cannot be a useful
accomplice in crime; he cannot lie and flatter like smooth-tongued
versatile jacks-of-all-work from Greece or yet further East. Bitter
invective is directed against the _Graeculus esuriens_ who belongs to
a nation of consummate actors, cringing sycophants, and dangerous spies;
but there is also much stinging criticism upon the Rome and Romans of
the day. Where money, not worth, is the test of character, poverty
meets with the unkindest cut of all—it is jeered at.[1782] How hard
it is to rise in straitened circumstances! Rural simplicity is in sharp
contrast to the showiness of the town, where everything has its price,
where one must bribe a pampered valet for an interview with his master,
where life is threatened by tumble-down tenements or conflagrations or
street accidents.
The sudden collapse of a waggon loaded with marble is made the subject of
a miniature drama worthy of the ancient traditions of _satura_. Within
fourteen lines[1783] we have three vivid scenes:
I. A street in Rome; heavy traffic; cart upset; fatal accident
to a passer-by.
II. (The scene is changed, _domus interea_). The victim’s home;
busy slaves, in unconscious dramatic irony, preparing the bath
for their master who will never return alive.
III. (Another change of scene). Hades, whither master has
already gone (_at ille iam sedet in ripa_), a shuddering novice
waiting for the dread ferryman across the gloomy stream.
Nor are the perils less by night. Make your will before you venture to
sup from home! A strikingly picturesque sketch is given of the dark
streets where the drunken swashbuckler bullies those he can waylay. Here
again Juvenal shows mastery of his effective semi-dramatic method in a
series of brief scenes:
I. Night: restless _apache_ of ancient Rome tossing sleepless
on his couch; he has killed nobody that day; hence his
insomnia!—murdering is an indispensable soporific.
II. Dark street; _apache_ eluding the patrol.
III. Moonlight; lonely wayfarer returning from a supper-party;
enter _apache_ (_stat contra_):
He calls a halt: and you must needs obey:
What else? he’s wild, and brawn can force its way.
Swift angry dialogue follows, if dialogue it can be called, where the
surprised citizen scarcely gets time to reply. “And where may you come
from?” he bawls: “whose sour wine and beans have blown you out? Who’s the
cobbler you’ve been with gorging chopped leeks or boiled sheep’s head?
Eh? no answer? Speak or take a sound kicking! Out with it! Where do you
hold forth? In what praying-shanty am I to look for you?” It is the poor
man’s privilege to get mauled and implore leave to go home with just a
few teeth left! After a final complaint about shopbreakers, footpads
and highwaymen, Umbricius, in Juvenal’s hyperbolical manner, affects to
fear a shortage of iron owing to the quantity of chains needed for the
criminal population.
Satire IV is a half-playful account of an enormous turbot which a
fisherman decided must be presented to Domitian, who summons his privy
council to deliberate on the proper treatment of the fish. We are made
vividly to realize the perilous friendship of an imperial tyrant,
his distrust of his counsellors, and their pallid nervousness in his
proximity. The brief strokes of portraiture which recreate the figures at
court show great power.
The fifth satire is a scathing exposure of the shabby entertainment of
clients by mean hosts. “If,” says the poet to the client, “you can tamely
suffer the indignities put upon you at a rich patron’s table, you must be
absolutely worthless. Better be a beggar out and out. The height of your
aspiration (_uotorum summa_) is to get even the worst place at the great
man’s board, where one is not allowed to drink the same wine, or eat the
same bread or fish as he. A blackamoor rascal attends to you whom you
wouldn’t like to meet on a dark night (_cui per mediam nolis occurrere
noctem_) on the Latin Way, while a handsome slave stands by your patron,
who regales himself upon _foie gras_, capon and boar with truffles in
season. The best dainties you are permitted to watch without tasting.
Don’t suppose all this is entirely mean economy on your host’s part: he
does it maliciously to wound: it is such fun to watch a client’s angry
disappointment. To endure such insults proves you deserve them (_omnia
ferre si potes, et debes_).”
Satire VII anticipates the dawn of better days for literature and
learning under the patronage of a new ruler (_et spes et ratio studiorum
in Caesare tantum_). In contrast with these brighter prospects, the poem
is a growl of discontent over the present condition of literature, which
does not pay. Patrons are mean and poverty chills authorship. Only the
pantomime actor thrives and wields influence (_quod non dant proceres
dabit histrio_): so the most promising thing poets can do is to sell a
libretto for a _fabula saltica_ on the stage: otherwise a Statius might
starve in spite of popular readings from his _Thebaid_. Take the literary
professions: they are all miserably rewarded. The historian gets no
adequate return for his exacting toil: the advocate is not recompensed
in proportion to real skill—a jockey of the red colour can eclipse in
fortune a hundred lawyers. Nowadays a Cicero would not be prized unless
he wore a fine ring: a poor man has no chance, however eloquent (_rara in
tenui facundia panno_), and would do well to retire to Gaul or Africa—a
sagacious testimony by Juvenal to the intellectual force of these
provinces. The teachers of declamation are no better off: they are killed
by the deadly monotony of repeated exercises (_occidit miseros crambe
repetita magistros_). They are expected to post students up in useful
points without receiving proper fees (_scire uolunt omnes, mercedem
soluere nemo_), and they are blamed for a pupil’s want of proficiency.
Compute the fees earned by a teacher of singing and music, and you will
tear up your manual of rhetoric. If a great professor like Quintilian
made a good income, that was an exceptional freak of fortune. And,
with a touch of poetry, Juvenal calls for heaven’s blessing on former
generations who knew how to respect the instructor of the mind:
Grant that the earth, ye gods, above the shades
Of our forefathers may lie soft and light:
Sweet-breathing crocus, spring that never fades,
Grant to the tombs of those who held it right
To honour teachers as one would a sire.[1784]
In the eighth satire the uselessness of pedigrees is exposed (_stemmata
quid faciunt?_) as Juvenal laughs at the claims of long descent on the
part of those who live unworthy lives:
Though decked with olden busts great halls may be,
Virtue remains the sole nobility.[1785]
Good character is the true patent of high rank:[1786] there should be a
rapturous welcome for real goodness to match that of votaries greeting
Osiris. In breeds of dumb animals we expect the old qualities to be
maintained: otherwise, the degenerate is rejected: so a man must be
capable of winning distinction by his own conduct instead of relying on
his ancestors’ renown (_miserum est aliorum incumbere famae_). Juvenal
nowhere strikes a loftier ethical note than in his admonitions here that
the truth must be spoken were it even at the risk of torture, that a
governor of a province must rule his own desires, that the triumphs of
peace outnumber those of war (_plures de pace triumphos_), and—in two of
his most memorable lines—that death is preferable to disgrace.
Hold it black sin ’fore honour breath to choose—
For living’s sake the grounds of life to lose.[1787]
With the famous tenth satire we encounter Juvenal’s later and more
reflective manner. In length it comes next to the sixth, though about 300
lines shorter. The main thesis is that a survey of mankind over the globe
from the Pillars of Hercules to the Ganges, or, as Johnson has it, “from
China to Peru,” shows the blind foolishness of human desires. Ignorant
of what is really beneficial, man everywhere craves for what may prove
his ruin. Such a world of idiocy may move equally well a Democritus to
laughter or a Heraclitus to tears. The theme is vigorously illustrated
by instances exhibiting the perils of political ambition (Sejanus,
Crassus, Pompey, Caesar); eloquence (Demosthenes and Cicero); military
glory (Hannibal, Alexander the Great); long life (Nestor, Priam, Croesus,
Marius, and others who outlived their best days); beauty (Lucretia,
Virginia, Hippolytus, and Messalina’s ill-starred favourite Silius). More
abstract in subject, the satire retains much of Juvenal’s old vivid and
dramatic manner. In one compact line an admirably complete picture can
be conveyed: a traveller, nervous over the risk of robbery on a lonely
road (like the Appian), passes through a marshy district (such as the
Pomptine), and in the moonlight fancies each stirring of the bulrushes
may mean a lurking highwayman.[1788] Nothing could exceed the vigour
shown in describing the outburst of popular fury against the statues of
the fallen idol, Sejanus, and in the dramatic comments by those whom we
might introduce as “first citizen” and “second citizen.”[1789] Much else
remains familiar in the satire—the gibe at Cicero’s poetry, the nauseous
realism in recounting drawbacks of old age, and the sketch of Hannibal’s
career leading up to the contemptuous dismissal:
Go, madman, o’er the cruel Alps make speed
To please young spouters of a college screed![1790]
Juvenal’s cynicism is not entirely negative. After denouncing all
ordinary human aims, he still leaves something to pray for. The
concluding passage owes much of its nobility to the Stoicism which
inspires it; and though there is no need to question the author’s
sincerity, he comes in one flippant line very near spoiling the whole
effect. Half ashamed of his own seriousness, he seems unable to resist
the temptation to have his jest at one of the religious rituals of the
day (_exta et candiduli diuina tomacula porci_):
Shall men then pray for naught? If ’tis advice
You crave, then let the deities themselves
Apportion us our due and helpful lot.
The gods will grant not joys but all that’s meet.
They love man more than man loves self. Impelled
By yearning heart, by might of blind desire,
We seek a bride and offspring; but the gods
Alone know what the child or wife will be.
Still, that you may ask something, paying vows
At shrines with victims’ entrails, offering
Prophetic mincemeat of a piglet white,
Pray for a sound mind in a body sound.
Ask for the valiant soul that fears not death,
But counts the final lap of life a gift
From nature, and can suffer any toil,
Stranger to wrath and lust, preferring all
The cruel toils and woes of Hercules
To banquets, love, or cushions from the East.
Behold—I show what you may give yourself—
Through goodness lies the only path of peace.
O Chance, thy power is foiled if men be wise:
We men make thee a goddess in the skies.[1791]
The interest of the eleventh satire, which contrasts plain living with
sumptuous junketing, is in part autobiographic; for after its prelude
of 55 lines on the folly of extravagant gourmands who neglect the
heaven-sent and ever-valuable maxim “Know thyself,” it consists of an
invitation from the poet to a simple meal which shall draw produce from
his own Tiburtine farm. Only Homer and Virgil are to be read at table,
while the roar of the holiday-makers in the circus can be heard afar off.
The author’s old age is suggested in his declaration that it is for the
young to attend the games and shout and bet with a smart damsel seated
by their side: “but let my shrivelled skin bask in the spring sunshine
free from the formal gown.”[1792]
Though the twelfth is the shortest of the satires except the fragmentary
sixteenth, it hardly makes an artistic unity. The safe arrival of
Juvenal’s friend Catullus at Ostia after imminent danger of shipwreck
gives occasion for a pious sacrifice in token of thanksgiving by
the poet. His motives however must not be misconstrued. He is no
legacy-hunter seeking to curry favour. An awkward transition leads to
a gibe at such legacy-hunters as would purchase a place in a will by
offering the costliest victims, an elephant (and here the satire becomes
doubly elephantine), or a slave, or a child devoted like Iphigeneia. The
closing note is the forcible imprecation on a fortune-seeker:
Long may Pacuvius live, as Nestor old,
Possess as much, as Nero snatched, pile gold
In mountains, loving none, by none beloved.[1793]
The elevated moral teaching of Satire XIII must win our admiration.
Calvinus has been cheated of 10,000 sesterces by a fraudulent friend.
The solace which the poet has to offer is that genuine punishment is
inflicted by a guilty conscience: no wrong-doer can elude that court.
After all, we live no longer in the Golden Age, but in corrupt times,
when money exerts its lure and perjury is rampant. “The wrath of gods
is great, yet worketh slow” (_ut sit magna tamen certe lenta ira deorum
est_). The offender, then, must be left in the hands of heaven; and
Juvenal feels for vindictive passions only a biting, and, at the same
time, misogynistic contempt:
Vengeance is the delight of petty minds,
Paltry and weak. Infer this truth, because
None like a woman dotes upon revenge.[1794]
The influence of parental example is the theme of Satire XIV—the third
longest of the collection. There are many faults which children learn
from their parents, such as gambling, gluttony, cruelty, intrigue.
Therefore all that is unseemly to hear or see must be excluded from the
home: the utmost respect is due to the child (_maxima debetur puero
reuerentia_). You take pains to make your house clean to receive a guest:
should you not, for your son’s sake, keep it free from evil? The later
part of the poem deals with avarice, a fault which the young practise
reluctantly and which wears a spurious resemblance to virtue. Hence too
often a father inculcates the passion for gain upon a son by precept and
example; and hence the modern quest for wealth at the cost of crime and
risk of death. The final counsel is to get enough for the support of
life; and, with a glance at the Stoic ideal of living _secundum naturam_,
he declares:
Nature ne’er contradicts Philosophy.[1795]
If you need more, adopt the equestrian income as a standard, or even
twice that amount; beyond that, the treasures of Croesus are little
likely to satisfy your desires.
The fifteenth satire tells of a feud between two Egyptian townships,
Ombi and Tentyra. The Tentyrites having attacked their neighbours in the
midst of a festival were put to flight. In the retreat one fugitive who
slipped was hacked to pieces by the victors and devoured. This revolting
cannibalism gives Juvenal occasion for the reflection that tenderness of
heart as shown by tears is the noblest attribute of man.[1796]
Only partially finished, the last satire complains of unfair advantages
possessed by a soldier over a civilian. When it is cited as evidence
throwing doubt upon the records of Juvenal’s military service, one ought
in fairness to remember that not every soldier leaves the army as its
panegyrist.
In spirit there are signal differences between the earlier and the
later satires. If Satires X and XII-XV be compared with the rest, an
increase in prolix bookishness will be noted alongside of a decrease
in concrete force. Ribbeck’s theory of two Juvenals, a genuine satirist
and a spurious declaimer, is long since dead; but it possessed the merit
of resting upon a close examination into points of difference in the
satires. The hypothesis viewed the traditional Juvenal as a Janus-head
(_Janus-kopf_) looking on one side at the full fresh life of Rome and the
present, but on the other side at the dead past and the dusk of academic
tradition. The contrast was likened to passing from one of Schiller’s
dramas to a drowsy afternoon sermon (_eine sanft einschläfernde
Nachmittagspredigt_). Unfortunately the theory overestimated the
differences, failed to see that there was no fundamental incompatibility
in style, and interpreted the actual differences with a perverse
misconception of the true explanation. Above all its other absurdities,
the theory would ask us to believe that the tenth satire was the work of
some unknown forger and was merely one of the alleged “drowsy afternoon
sermons.” The solution lies not in positing a duality of authorship, but
in recognizing that the real Juvenal had grown older, and in his later
manner let his satire down from the old level of full-blooded vitality
and devil-may-care invective. The figment of the true and the false
Juvenal could be maintained only in cheerful oblivion of the evolution,
and sometimes deterioration, in style characteristic of many other
authors. There is no greater unlikeness between the early and the late
Juvenal than between the Horace of the earliest _Satires_ and the Horace
of the _Epistles_; or, to cite a prose-writer, between the first and
last works of Tacitus. In modern English, Carlyle and Browning are apt
parallels.
Juvenal, we have seen, proclaims his literary ancestry in his first
satire, legitimately affiliating his _genre_ to that of both Lucilius and
Horace. His insistence on indignation as the mainspring of his censorious
utterances definitely connects him with the fierce invective of the
former. Though the influence of Horace is manifest in his language, one
finds no imitation of Horatian geniality. To turn from Juvenal to the
fourth satire in Horace’s first book is to breathe an entirely different
atmosphere. We are there in the company of an apologist for the satiric
attitude who does not wish to be feared or hated or to write dangerously,
who guarantees that ill-natured rancour shall be absent from his
sketches, and who pleads for an indulgent attitude towards any outspoken
jest.[1797] Aware of his own faults, Horace can take himself, as well as
others, gently to task, with a sort of Chaucerian smile for pardonable
human weaknesses. His very habit of jotting things down on paper (_inludo
chartis_) is one of those venial peccadilloes (_mediocribus illis ex
uitiis unum_). This is the reason why his sportive verses win the
reader’s heart, as Persius felt—_circum praecordia ludit_. Juvenal’s
strength lies elsewhere: the genial smile has gone: he cannot laugh at
himself as Horace does. There is no self-revelation; for Juvenal takes
himself as seriously as he takes the world. If there is humour, it is
grim; since the times are out of joint, the lash must be plied to put
them right again. Some elements of Persius’s earnest spirit, especially
some Stoic traits, enter into him, though his method of censure is not
so much homily as fiery attack. Both alike, however, are fighters,
waging a warfare to improve the diseased society against which they find
themselves in reaction.
For Juvenal’s purpose he had at his command the gift of extraordinarily
vivid and succinct presentation of men and things. This gift renders
him the most powerful delineator of Roman society at the beginning of
the second century, so that he recreates for his readers the life that
was led then and the human figures who moved in the street, house, or
palace. This constitutes what, for want of a better term, we call his
realism. The secret of it he had learned, not in any rhetorical academy,
but in the severe school of life:[1798] he had undergone the privations
of poverty, and almost certainly of war and exile: he possessed the
observant eye, the retentive memory, the faculty of direct expression
needed to make an experience live again in literature. A few essential
and picturesque details, recorded with the utmost parsimony, place
a whole scene before us. Thus, we cannot fail to see the scramble
for the dole, with such subterfuges as the curtained, though empty,
_lectica_ supposed to contain a lady caller.[1799] Again, we seem to
be uncomfortably present among Domitian’s counsellors—one, an unwieldy
mountain of flesh (_uenter adest abdomine tardus_); another, an informer
whose gentle whisper could slit a victim’s throat (_tenui iugulos aperire
susurro_); yet another, a repulsive blind flatterer, pouring out words
of admiration for the emperor’s great turbot, and at the same time
“turning to the left, though in fact the fish was lying on his right!”
In the same passage[1800] the allusion to “the beggar at the carriage
wheels, who throws wheedling kisses as it drives down hill” is as true
to Italy to-day as it ever was. Certain dramatic aspects of this realism
have been illustrated in the survey of the Satires. Not unnaturally it
is a realism concentrated mainly on what will favour satiric treatment.
A satirist never achieves, or even aims at, a universal or impartial
view of life. Juvenal’s professed subject may be the _farrago_ of
all mankind’s doings during postdiluvian ages; but actually a great
proportion of human affairs can offer no challenge to a mordant critic.
Goodness, for instance, even at its most humdrum, is little likely to
stir the _indignatio_ which is Juvenal’s driving force. That he should
be darkly pessimistic is involved in the nature of the case and in his
temperament. He tends to look only at the gloomy side, and therefore to
obscure the fact that not everything around him was a cesspool of vice,
but that on the contrary much in contemporary Roman and Italian life was
sound, healthy, and beautiful. Undeniably, we could have spared some of
the coarseness with which he made wickedness revolting.
What humour exists in Juvenal is of a kind to match his serious
disposition. It tends to be grim and ironical: and the want of kindly
sunshine in it has led some to doubt its existence.[1801] His roundabout
allusive manner sometimes produces quaintly humorous effects through
its smack of flippancy: thus he substitutes “Ceres’ son-in-law” for
Pluto; and “the youth preferred to jealous Iarbas” for Aeneas. But his
grim irony is best seen in passages like those in which he treats the
unexpected fate of the citizen killed in the street accident of the third
satire, or when he sums up the aim of all ambition as nothing but the
laudatory inscription on a sepulchre which is itself so far from immortal
that even a tree may burst it asunder—“the very tombs have their allotted
span” (_data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulcris_, X, 146). Here he has
taken one impressive step beyond the idea in Gray’s line, “The paths of
glory lead but to the grave.”
Occasionally there is a feeling for beauty, doubly welcome because
not much may be expected in a satirist. A transient gleam of romance
illumines the grotto of the inspired Egeria when he prefers nature’s
loveliness to artificial improvements:
Down to Egeria’s vale we fared, to caves
From Nature’s work transformed. How much more near
Would be the fountain nymph, if simple grass
Enclosed the waters with its margent green,
Nor marble kerb profaned the native stone.[1802]
Allusion has already been made to the beauty of idea and language in his
prayer that the last resting-place of those who revered the teachers of
the young shall be brightened by “fragrant crocus and unfailing spring”
(_spirantisque crocus et in urna perpetuum uer_, VII, 208).
It is not however in the realm of pure poetry but in his free mastery
of rhetoric and his skill in adapting it to his literary aims, that
Juvenal’s true eminence lies. This is not to suggest that he could ever
be dismissed as a rhetorician. He is not controlled by, but controls,
his instrument. It is very easy to accumulate copious examples of his
recourse to rhetorical artifices—interrogation, apostrophe, antithesis
and the rest. Scores of _sententiae_ could be reckoned up, like
Travellers with naught sing in the robber’s face.[1803]
or
“There’s many a thing which they
Whose coats are tattered never dare to say.”[1804]
Attention could also be called to his fondness for hyperbole, like “men
at sea outnumber those ashore!” or “pillars split by the everlasting
reciter,” or the jest that, if asked to enumerate the legion ailments
of old age, one could more readily tell “how many patients Dr. Themison
killed off in one autumn season.”[1805]
Akin to this penchant for overstatement is his diverting use of an
anticlimax where a series of objectionable things or persons ends
intentionally in a surprise. Thus, nothing worse, he says, could be
conceived than to stay in Rome dreading conflagrations, the constant fall
of houses, the thousand dangers of a cruel town, and—to cap all—poets
giving readings from their works in the hot August days![1806] But the
truth is that, tricks notwithstanding, his style in its complexity and
individuality is much more than merely rhetorical. The statement of the
_uitae_ that he practised declamation till middle life has produced a
misleading effect on some critics who have impeached his sincerity. His
place, however, in literary history is secure: he is one of the great
satirists—to some the greatest—and one refuses to believe that greatness
of style can be based on rhetorical knack alone. Admittedly declamatory,
he yet drew his real strength from a passion for serious morality,
which, without, perhaps, very deep religious feeling[1807] or convinced
attachment to philosophy,[1808] still gave him the right to cherish his
_saeua indignatio_ against abuses constituting social dangers.
Genuine feeling, then, forced him to raise an original voice in
utterances which the world has not allowed to die. Lines or phrases that
readily recur to the memory (some of them already quoted) are so many
reminders of his permanent contribution to literature: _e.g. probitas
laudatur et alget; quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes? nemo
repente fuit turpissimus; omnia nouit Graeculus esuriens; haud facile
emergunt, quorum uirtutibus obstat res angusta domi; nemo malus felix;
rara auis in terris; hoc uolo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione uoluntas; sed
quis custodiet ipsos custodes? soloecismum liceat fecisse marito; facies
dicetur an ulcus? occidit miseros crambe repetita magistros; stemmata
quid faciunt? propter uitam uiuendi perdere causas; panem et circenses;
mens sana in corpore sano; pictores quis nescit ab Iside pasci? prima est
haec ultio, quod se iudice nemo nocens absoluitur?; maxima debetur puero
reverentia; lucri bonus est odor ex re qualibet_.
Allusions and verbal reminiscences prove Juvenal’s memory for previous
literature. His reader is expected to understand an ordinary reference to
Greek poetry or history and to recognize now a Horatian, now a Virgilian
tag, as, for example, we find _rusticus expectas_ and _parcendum est
teneris_ in the same satire.[1809] As regards his versification, he makes
a noticeable departure from his fellow-satirists, Horace and Persius, in
favour of Virgil. His control, and it is masterly, over the hexameter
is in the main Virgilian rather than Ovidian, though it has some
Lucretian quality. One finds, then, in him an epic ring, which appears to
suggest that at least in his longer passages Juvenal may be represented
in English by the traditional blank verse of narrative poetry more
appropriately than by what too easily becomes the ding-dong of the rhymed
heroic couplet.
In those satires which Dryden selected for rendering, his neat distich is
at its best among the terse sententious parts; and the experiment whereby
the great English satirist set himself to translate his Roman prototype
must always remain of extraordinary interest, although one may feel that
Gifford’s heroic couplets achieve in some respects a more successful
version. Briefly, however, Juvenal’s variety of line-structure, his
freedom in pause and _enjambement_, cannot be conveyed within the
rigid limits of the couplet. This ease of movement accounts for his
range—occasional beauty, occasional harshness, but prevailing rapidity.
Cleverly interwined alliterations may be made not merely emphatic and
decorative as in _dat ueniam coruis, uexat censura columbas_, but
realistic in their unmistakable echo of the sense, as in the likening
of a woman’s torrential talk to the banging of tin basins and tinkling
bells—_tot pariter pelues et tintinnabula dicas pulsari_. Or, again, the
excited bustle of a house on fire is suggested by the final and initial
dentals which recur, like the rat-tat of a kettle-drum in
“iam poscit aquam, iam friuola transfert
Ucalegon, tabulata tibi iam tertia fumant.”
Totally different effects are produced by the slow melancholy movement at
the close of a line to express the fate of a poor wretch who has found
favour with the dangerous Messalina:
“rapitur miser extinguendus
Messalinae oculis.”
Like all the satirists, Juvenal draws a modicum of words from the common
speech of town and country—_caballus_, _olla_, _scrofa_, _potestas_ (like
the Italian _podestà_, a magistrate). He delights in such diminutives as
the _sermo cotidianus_ preserved all through the history of Latin and
handed down to modern Italian. One may specify as examples, _candidulus_,
_cuticula_, _flammeolum_, _foculus_, _fraterculus_, _Graeculus_,
_hortulus_, _igniculus_, _improbulus_, _liuidulus_, _nutricula_,
_ofella_, _pallidulus_, _palliolum_, _paruulus_, _pellicula_,
_rancidulus_, _sarcinula_, _seruulus_, _sordidulus_, _virguncula_.
The influence of the Satires is not traceable before the fourth century,
when Ammianus Marcellinus proves they had admirers. Both pagans and
Christians felt their spell: they were imitated by Ausonius, Claudian,
and Prudentius, and quoted by Lactantius and Servius. Medieval interest
in Juvenal’s ethical value was well marked—Chaucer apostrophizes him; and
from Elizabethan times onwards the satirists of England and France have
studied his poems. Readers of Boileau, Dryden, Pope, Johnson and Byron
know that they all in varying degrees were indebted to the works of the
Roman satirist.
LITERATURE IN THE REIGN OF HADRIAN
A.D. 117–A.D. 138
SUETONIUS AND FLORUS
Hadrian’s reign a literary diminuendo—The emperor himself—His
tastes—Archaism and Greek—Suetonius—An imperial secretary
in disgrace—Encyclopaedic fruits of his leisure—Works
extant and lost—Date of _De Viris Illustribus_ and _De Vita
Caesarum_—Sources—_De Grammaticis_—_De Rhetoribus_—_De
Poetis_—The doubtful _Life of Virgil_—Characteristics of
_Lives of the Caesars_—Suetonius and Tacitus—Suetonius
and Pepys—Portraits of emperors—Entertaining
realism—Style—Influence.
Three Flori in one—Florus the rhetor—Florus the poet—Doubtful
ascription of _Peruigilium Veneris_ to him—Florus the
historian—The Roman people his hero—Eulogy and rhetoric.
THE REIGN OF HADRIAN
Tempting though it is to make a study of the Silver Age culminate
crescendo-wise in the unique artistry of Tacitean prose, there are
difficulties in leaving out the diminuendo of Hadrian’s reign[1810]
(A.D. 117-138). One must acknowledge that literary history has but a
faint interest in the jurists of the period like Salvius Julianus and
Pomponius; or in the rhetoricians and philosophers, who mostly wrote
in Greek; or again in versifiers, skilful rather than inspired, like
Annianus, Septimius Serenus, Alfius Avitus, and the restless emperor
himself, although his dying farewell to his soul is at least a perpetual
bait for translators.[1811] One notes, too, little of significance among
the grammarians, except perhaps the commentaries, now in fragments,
written by Terentius Scaurus on Plautus, Virgil and Horace, and his
linguistically important _De Orthographia_, of which we possess two
abstracts. It is also true that the greatness of Tacitus eclipses the
work of Suetonius and Florus, the only two Hadrianic historians who are
noteworthy, if, as is most likely, the abridgement of Trogus’s Macedonian
history by Justinus is rather Antonine than contemporary.[1812] But
chronologically there is no natural break just before Suetonius, who was
one of Pliny’s junior friends; nor should the fall-off from Tacitean
brilliance blind one either to Suetonius’s merits in a different kind of
biography from the _Agricola_ or to the debt which literary history owes
him for preserving, with an almost Varronian interest in the past, much
that could not otherwise have been known about the poets and the teachers
of Rome.
Before studying Suetonius and Florus, a glance at the reign seems
appropriate. Its total literary achievement makes a somewhat ironic
comment on Juvenal’s hope _et spes et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantum_,
and shows that patronage does not of necessity beget literature.
Patronage, indeed, while clearly it never can create genius, is not
always even good for such genius as may emerge. The prince himself was
a lover of learning and architecture. He established a library at his
spacious villa whose ruins still impress us under the slopes of Tivoli:
he had another at Antium, and a third was attached to his famous academy
at Rome, the Athenaeum. “The little Greek” (_Graeculus_), as some dared
to call him, was a student of eloquence and drama. He published some of
his speeches: he patronized but also quizzed scholars and philosophers.
Pieces of mediocre verse by his Majesty have survived, and we know
the ugly title of his lost miscellany, _Catachannae_. Only once did
inspiration visit him: as he lay under the shadow of death, there came to
him a few simple lines immortal in their suggestion of the mysterious
parting between body and soul:
_Animula, uagula, blandula,_
_Hospes comesque corporis,_
_Quae nunc abibis in loca,_
_Pallidula, rigida, nudula,_
_Nec ut soles dabis iocos?_
The tender diminutives add to the difficulty of translation, but one more
attempt may be made:
Ah! little fondling soul and fleeting,
My body’s guest and travel-friend,
To what far land art thou retreating,
Poor little wan, stark, naked sweeting—
Thy wonted frolic at an end?[1813]
In several ways the example set by imperial taste contributed to give
to literature the particular turn which it now took. Hadrian had a
preference for the archaic—a feature of Roman criticism accentuated
later in the century. That he was a pronounced phil-Hellene and a great
traveller were both facts which influenced others. Suetonius, we shall
find, furnishes a good instance of the extent to which authors were now
composing in Greek as well as in Latin; and no long time elapses before a
Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, chooses Greek as the proper language for
his _Meditations_. Apollodorus composed his treatise on siege-operations
expressly for Hadrian, and military writing was continued by Aelian in
his work on Greek tactics. Many Greek volumes of the time on history
have perished; for example those of Crito, a Macedonian who accompanied
Hadrian on his journeys, and treated Syracuse, Macedonia, Persia in
addition to Trajan’s Dacian war. The best work of Arrian, from Bithynia,
belongs to Hadrian’s time. If he is chiefly remembered as a second
Xenophon who produced a new set of _Memorabilia_ in handling the Stoic
philosophy of his master Epictetus, and a new _Anabasis_ in narrating
the Asiatic expedition of Alexander, it should likewise be borne in mind
that he became a Roman citizen and a consul. Though he was still alive
in the days of Marcus Aurelius, it was for Hadrian that Arrian wrote
the _Periplus_ of the Black Sea. Geography, one feels, ought to have
flourished under so indefatigable a traveller: certainly mathematical
geography was, thanks to the genius of Ptolemaeus, to make a notable
advance under the Antonines.
SUETONIUS
No one in antiquity appears to have thought of writing the biography
of one of its most famous biographers, C. Suetonius Tranquillus.[1814]
For information about him, we are in consequence dependent upon a
few allusions of his own,[1815] sundry letters of the younger Pliny,
and a statement in the _Life of Hadrian_ which Spartianus wrote in
or after Diocletian’s reign. His father, Suetonius Laetus, fought at
Betriacum as a _tribunus angusticlauius_ of the thirteenth legion in
A.D. 69, and about that year Suetonius Tranquillus must have been
born.[1816] This conclusion hangs largely on the meaning attached
to the term _adulescentia_; for he looked back on himself as having
been _adulescens_ in A.D. 88 (when a pretended Nero appeared twenty
years after the real Nero’s death), and as still _adulescens_ late in
Domitian’s reign.[1817] He may have been born in Rome; but this is no
more certain of him than it is of Lucretius or Julius Caesar.
The external evidence about his life consists of references in Pliny’s
letters within the period from 96 to 112.[1818] These references show
that he practised in the law-courts; that he was allowed to transfer to
a kinsman a military tribunate for which he had himself been nominated;
that he was appreciated as a writer, but slow to issue works; and
that Pliny valued his advice on such a question as reading verse in
public. Pliny’s request submitted on Suetonius’s behalf to Trajan for
the concession of the _ius trium liberorum_ proves that, though he
was married, he had either no children or fewer than the statutory
requirement. The letter is a warm testimony to the integrity and learning
of a man who had been for a time an inmate of Pliny’s house, and for
whom, he assures the emperor, he felt a stronger affection the closer his
acquaintance became.[1819] In the next reign Suetonius held an imperial
secretaryship,[1820] when access to the archives gave him presumably the
first impulse, and certainly considerable material, towards his _Lives
of the Caesars_. Hadrian, however, in A.D. 121 dismissed him along with
others, including Septicius Clarus, prefect of the Praetorian guard,
for some offence against court-etiquette in relation to the empress
Sabina.[1821] Never a public man, Suetonius thenceforward devoted his
leisure to what most attracted him—historical, academic and antiquarian
studies. The list of his works proves that his productivity was great;
but we know from Pliny that he produced slowly.[1822] It may, therefore,
easily be credited that Suetonius lived till he was an old man under the
emperor Antoninus Pius.
Time has spared only the _Lives of the Caesars_, and from the _De Viris
Illustribus_, on men eminent in literature, the greater part of the
sections _De Grammaticis_ and _De Rhetoribus_, as well as the _Life_ of
the elder Pliny among the historians, that of Passienus Crispus among
the orators, and the _Lives_ of Terence, Horace and Lucan.[1823] These
last three are all (except such morsels as Jerome preserved in his
amplification of Eusebius’s chronicle) that can safely be counted genuine
portions of the _De Poetis_, the loss of which has left lamentable blanks
in our knowledge.
A catalogue given in Greek by Suidas under the heading Τράγκυλλος
includes the _De Vita Caesarum_ and _De Viris Illustribus_ and adds
nine titles: _On Games among the Greeks_ (in Greek); _On Spectacles and
Games among the Romans_; _On the Roman Year_; _On (critical) Signs in
Writings_; _On Cicero’s Republic_ (a book in answer to six books by the
grammarian Didymus against Cicero); _On Proper Names, Dress and Shoes_
(probably a history rather than a philosophy of clothes); _On Abusive
Terms and their Origin_ (in Greek, and grouped by their application
to the vicious, to busybodies, fools, slaves, etc.); _On the Manners
and Customs of Rome_ (two books which we can imagine to have been
full of interest); and the enigmatic Συγγενικόν.[1824] Some of these
are also vouched for by Latin writers like Aulus Gellius, Tertullian,
Censorinus, and Servius; while some may be not independent works but
sections of a larger treatise. Traces of yet other books are found in
Orosius, Servius, Lydus, Priscian and Isidore: namely, an account of
Julius Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul;[1825] _On Physical Blemishes_ (_De
Vitiis Corporalibus_, conceivably treated in connexion with his work
on dress); _On Eminent Courtesans_; _On Organization of Public Duties_
(_De Institutione Officiorum_); _On Kings_ (_De Regibus_); _On Various
Matters_ (_De Rebus Variis_), possibly identical with the miscellaneous
_Pratum_ or _Prata_, which, as can be inferred from later references, was
divided into books on different subjects, antiquarian and scientific
(_e.g._ Rome and Roman customs, the Roman year, the universe, nature of
animals, etc.), probably including some of those in Suidas’s list.[1826]
When it is remembered that Suetonius wrote both in Greek and in Latin,
and handled a vast range of themes, one can realize his long years
of laborious industry and understand his influence upon historians,
grammarians, antiquaries and encyclopaedists for several centuries.
If the work whose appearance in whole or part Pliny in one of his
letters expected from Suetonius was the _De Viris Illustribus_, then its
publication may be put about A.D. 113.[1827] One is on fairly sure ground
in dating the _De Vita Caesarum_ about 121, _i.e._ before the disgrace
of Septicius Clarus to whom the imperial biographies were dedicated.
There is, however, hardly justification for attempting to give, even
with reserve, as Macé does, an approximate date for the _De Institutione
Officiorum_ and the _De Rebus Variis_.
Much of his antiquarian lore Suetonius drew from Varro; for facts about
illustrious men he could lay under contribution Fenestella, Santra,
Nepos, Hyginus, Seneca the elder, and Asconius; and for poets the
commentators upon them. The citations and references to authorities in
the _Life of Terence_ indicate that he was well read. His main reliance
upon books and documents may be one reason (apart from an instinctively
historical interest in Julius and Augustus) why the _Lives_ grow shorter
as they approach his own period, when oral evidence was more abundant
than written histories. But he did not ignore verbal witnesses: on the
contrary, much in him was due to popular opinion and gossip. Thus,
stories about Claudius on the bench are recorded from the recollections
of elderly persons (_a maioribus natu audiebam_, _Cl._ xv.). The
painstaking inquiries (_quamuis satis curiose inquirerem_, _Vesp._ i.)
about Vespasian’s ancestors were presumably conducted in districts
likely to know the family. Quite definitely he made use of matters
which he heard mentioned by his grandfather (_auum meum narrantem puer
audiebam_, _Cal._ xix.), by his father (_Oth._ x.), or by others (_ex
nonnullis comperi_, _Ner._ xxix.). Similarly, he had several informants
(_e pluribus comperi_, _Tit._ iii.) to vouch for Titus’s expertness in
shorthand and that adroitness in imitating signatures which might in
other circumstances have turned the prince into an arch-forger. Yet the
bulk of Suetonius’s material came from his reading, which could be more
exactly estimated, had it been part of his method to name his sources
regularly instead of frequently contenting himself with a colourless
_quidam ... nonnulli tradunt_ (_Vesp._ i.). Though he may characterize
authorities as trustworthy (_nec incertis_, _Ner._ xxxiv.), this only
leaves one curious as to their identity. When Suetonius was in Hadrian’s
service _ab epistulis_, the archives under charge of the associated
department _a studiis_ were easily accessible to him; while his intimacy
with Pliny’s circle had not only given a patrician colour to his outlook,
but probably directed him by preference to writers of a corresponding
hue. At court he had opportunities for examining collections of
imperial letters and speeches, state-papers, edicts and ceremonial
eulogies, and, among public documents, the _acta diurna_, _senatus
consulta_ and _senatus acta_.[1828] It is interesting to remember that
Suetonius mentions his possession of verses by Nero in the emperor’s own
handwriting;[1829] nor is his reading without literary acumen when he
remarks of Claudius’s autobiography in eight books that it was lacking
not so much in style as in common sense (_composuit ... magis inepte quam
ineleganter_).[1830] Among historians whom he does name are well-known
figures like Nepos, Hirtius, Asinius Pollio, Cremutius Cordus and a few
others unfamiliar to us.[1831] Diligent though he was, he cannot be
called critical of his material: he was too well satisfied with amassing
it. A conflict of evidence he prefers to leave undecided (_quod discrepat
sit in medio_, _Vitell._ ii.). It is the more surprising that upon
occasion he can weigh his authorities. The most memorable instance is
the chapter discussing the birthplace of Caligula,[1832] where a brief
investigation into his sources decides him to follow the official _acta_
or _publici instrumenti auctoritas_ in preference to the authors Lentulus
Gaetulicus and the elder Pliny. In another passage he reasons critically
about the variation between complimentary and uncomplimentary accounts of
Vitellius’s ancestry: it was not, he observes, simply due to prejudice
for or against the emperor himself, since older accounts presented the
same conflict of evidence; and, in this connexion, he cites as one
of his first-hand authorities a memoir by Q. Elogius in the Augustan
period.[1833]
The _De Grammaticis_ contains in brief space much of interest in the
chronicle of literary teachers at Rome, throwing incidental light on
such points as the demarcation of grammar from rhetoric, the effect
of literary teaching on poetry, the fees earned, and the taste for
old-fashioned writers which lingered in the provinces after it had
vanished in Rome. Here and there we find amusing touches, like the
request made by a pleader for adjournment of a case to enable a litigant
to take lessons in grammar, or Asinius Gallus’s epigram on the ex-boxer
who had turned to teaching:
The Don who gives us glosses in a list
Once learned to dodge his head:
His mouth’s no good—but he has got a fist!
Why doesn’t he box instead?[1834]
In the still shorter _De Rhetoribus_ we are told incidentally about
enactments against professors of rhetoric, dangerous innovations in the
educational system, instances of long-continued practice of declamation
by famous men, varying methods and standard exercises. The work
unfortunately ends in an interrupted list of prominent teachers.
Among the _Lives of the Poets_ we face the double misfortune that few
have survived, and that the _Life of Virgil_ cannot with confidence
be pronounced Suetonian. It strikes in its very first chapter a note
different from the other literary biographies. There is something
appropriately mysterious in the record of Virgil’s lowly birth by the
wayside, the mild-eyed tearless babe, his mother’s symbolic dream, and
the poplar branch which was planted where he was born and which grew
with miraculous speed into a tree hallowed by prayers and veneration.
All this is indicative of a reverential attitude towards the personality
of Virgil already enshrined in educational tradition and honoured by
worshipping poets like Statius, in preparation, as it were, for the
medieval belief in his wizardry. The tone has led many critics to ascribe
it to Donatus; but it is only right to quote Nettleship’s defence of the
Suetonian authorship.[1835] “The style,” he says, “is in the main the
peculiar style of Suetonius; the Latin is the quiet, sober, terse and
yet distinguished Latin which characterizes him among other writers of
his period, and separates him from the later writers of the _Historia
Augusta_.” Of the accepted _Lives_ the _Terence_ has among its verse
quotations interesting criticisms by Cicero and Caesar (_o dimidiate
Menander!_) while the _Horace_ gives illuminating glimpses into Horace’s
affectionate intimacy with Maecenas and Augustus.
On the _Lives of the Caesars_ the reputation of Suetonius rests. Yet
it is easy to pick faults in the work. A great deal of it partakes of
the nature of a _chronique scandaleuse_ based upon tittle-tattle about
the emperors and compiled by a literary man with the muck-rake, too
keen upon petty and prurient detail to produce a scientific account
of his subjects. The author is neglectful of dates and over-rigid in
his scheme of biography. A measure of monotony is inevitable in his
typical arrangement of ancestry, birth, years before accession to power,
then public life and private life grouped under different aspects,
portents presaging death, personal appearance and so on.[1836] The
stiffness of plan is, however, considerably softened by a wealth of
illustrative anecdote. But there is no grasp like that of a Tacitus, no
deep penetration of motive, no appreciation of historical movements.
One reads the biographies of Galba, Otho and Vitellius without getting
any connected view of their struggle for sovereignty as presented in
the _Histories_ of Tacitus. On the other hand, the truth remains that
Suetonius is readable and continues to be read. In strong contrast to
Tacitus he hardly ever indulges in a general reflection; but he succeeds
in drawing attention to significant facts and outward characteristics.
The names of Suetonius and of Pepys have been mentioned together;[1837]
and some analogy indeed exists between their matter-of-fact, concrete,
gossiping styles, and their official relationship to the most elevated
personages of their day. There, however, the likeness, such as it is,
ends; for the English diarist is pre-eminent for naïve honesty in setting
down his own personality with his pen. The self-revelation made with his
intimacy of detail belongs to a different world from the record of the
Caesars which Suetonius compiled from documents and hearsay. Pepys is
internal, subjective and autobiographic: Suetonius is external, objective
and biographic.
If, again, one thinks of Tacitus’s vividness, Suetonius is vivid in a
different way. Compared with Tacitus, he is as a photograph to a picture
or a finished engraving. He is plain-spoken, and it may at least be
urged that, after the lunacy of certain high-flown writers, Suetonius
comes like a whiff of plebeian common sense. To him nothing is common
or unclean. He descends, if need be, into the coarse without qualms
or condemnation. He is a recorder, not a moralist: so, in regard to
Tiberius, as Heredia has it,
Égratignant la cire impitoyable, il a
Décrit les noirs loisirs du veillard de Caprée.[1838]
The great thing is that his personages live. His method is brevity of
fact, story and description. Attracted by details such as Tacitus would
have considered beneath the dignity of history, many may wish to know
what the early emperors looked like. Here are some vignettes with which
Suetonius can oblige them—Julius Caesar, a tall, clear-complexioned,
well-formed man with keen black eyes, close-shaven and rather sensitive
about his baldness; Augustus, handsome though not tall, with striking
eyes, curly yellowish locks, a nose prominent at the top, and complexion
between dark and fair; Tiberius, of robust build and stature above
the average, left-handed, wearing his hair pretty long at the back,
with particularly large eyes capable of seeing even in the dark, a
stern person with hardly anything to say; Caligula, pale-complexioned,
hollow-eyed and ugly; Claudius, not without dignity while he sat or
stood, but shaky on his legs when he walked, and ridiculous by reason
of his unseemly guffaw, his stammering utterance, and his perpetually
nodding head; Nero, of about medium height, with features handsome rather
than winning, light hair arranged in tiers of curls, weak bluish-grey
eyes, thick-set neck, projecting paunch and slender legs; Galba, bald
in front, blue-eyed, hook-nosed, his hands and feet twisted with
arthritis.[1839] We need not go through the whole realistic gallery,
which suggests the Dutch School of portraiture.
Similar vividness marks the facts and incidents with which Suetonius
entertains us. So full is he of his facts that as a rule he gives them in
the briefest possible compass. Just occasionally does he allow himself
to expand into longer passages which impress the memory. Among such
memorable ones is the narrative of Caesar’s arrival at the Rubicon after
missing his way in the darkness, the pause to weigh the question whether
to cross or not to cross, and the strangely gracious figure that appeared
to him piping by the river-side.[1840] Here a slight gleam of romance
has lit up a prevailingly matter-of-fact style. Other passages somewhat
more sustained than his customary terse strokes are the engrossing
description of Caesar’s murder, the account of Tiberius at Rhodes, the
graphic chapter on Caligula’s mad cruelty, where one almost seems to hear
the eerie laugh of the insane tyrant tickled at the thought that on a nod
from him his two unsuspecting consular guests could have their throats
cut; and the complete tale of the closing days in Nero’s life when he was
at bay, a series of ten chapters forming a unity unusually elaborate for
Suetonius and thrilling in its culminating three chapters.[1841]
Much, however, is on a smaller and less connected scale. As with a
diarist like Pepys, one can dip anywhere into Suetonius at haphazard
and chance upon incidents that may be isolated but are certainly
entertaining. It holds one to read about Caligula’s megalomaniac jealousy
of great writers like Homer, Virgil and Livy, whose works he wished
to destroy; his lunatic pranks in treating Castor and Pollux as his
_concierges_ so that from their temple Romans might enter the imperial
palace; his flirtations with the Moon-goddess and confidential talks with
brother Jove; his scathing disrespect for relatives in characterizing
his grandmother Livia as “a Ulysses in petticoats” and in regarding his
uncle Claudius as merely a butt. In the next _Life_, the ridiculous side
in Claudius is illustrated repeatedly from the emperor’s feeble jokes,
his silly remarks, and an absentmindedness so supreme as to sanction
the despatch of invitations to the dead. The reader is not expected to
honour an emperor who, while he could declaim marvellously, talked, as
Goldsmith did, like poor Poll.[1842] The _Life of Nero_ has many good
things. It tells of the way in which his ancestors the Aenobarbi got
their red beards; and of the young ruler’s exclamation over signing
his first death-warrant, “How I wish I did not know letters!” (_quam
uellem litteras nescire!_) It reveals the system of _claqueurs_ whom
Nero had trained in different sorts of applause (“bombi,” “rain-patter,”
“dish-clash”), and acquaints us with his touchy conceit, his hooliganism
in the streets at night, his ominous interest in fires, and his childish
conduct in exhibiting water-organs after the news of the revolt of Vindex
had reached him.
The sketches of the three Flavians contain metal just as attractive. The
_Life of Vespasian_ is masterly in its own way, from the entertainingly
superstitious portents heralding the great future of the destined prince
from the East (_e.g._ the sign of the three oak branches, the sign of
the street-mud, and the sign of the dog that brought in a man’s hand
one day when Vespasian was at lunch) up to the dying emperor’s grim jest
“Alack! I’m growing into a god, I suppose” (_Vae, puto, deus fio_).
The short _Life of Titus_ gives a mere glance at his notorious passion
(_insignem amorem_) for Queen Berenice; and a little later what might
have been handled as a romance closes in the curt statement about the
parted sweethearts; _Berenicem statim ab urbe dimisit inuitus inuitam_.
Like Gibbon, Titus presumably sighed as a lover but obeyed as a son.
To Suetonius we owe the record of the prince’s deservedly commended
utterance that a day in which he had done good to nobody was a lost
day—“_perdidi diem_,” _memorabilem illam meritoque laudatam uocem_. In
the _Life_ of his brother we are doubtless intended to catch the sinister
bearing of Domitian’s morbid pleasure in fly-catching at the beginning of
his reign, and his incessant reading of little beyond the memoirs written
at Capri by Tiberius—_son digne émule_, remarks Cucheval.[1843]
The free-and-easy style of Suetonius makes a sort of businesslike match
for his systematic marshalling of material. He is too much absorbed in
what he has drawn from his documents to trouble about rhetorical display.
His facts are left to speak for themselves, and sometimes they speak
badly. Inelegantly used participles or ablatives, jerky and unpolished
clauses, and an inartistic structure of sentence are frequent results
of this carelessness. One feels as if something has gone wrong with
sentences like _sed ea quoque paulatim repleta assidua equi uectatione
post cibum_ (_Cal._ iii.); or, again, one finds an important remark
tacked loosely on to a sentence, _e.g._ in telling how the doubtful
reputation of Titus as a possible second Nero “changed into rapturous
praise when no fault was discovered in him, but the noblest virtues
instead”—_at illi ea fama pro bono cessit conuersaque est in maximas
laudes neque uitio ullo reperto et contra uirtutibus summis_ (_Tit._
vii.). There is something modern in this escape from the conventional
order of words and this absence of decoration. Hence it comes that the
Elizabethan pomp and quaintness of Philemon Holland’s version are too
opulently distracting to convey the simple matter-of-fact tone of the
greater part of Suetonius, so that there is critical point in the old
epigram:
Philemon with’s Translations doeth so fille us,
He will not let Suetonius be Tranquillus.
Yet it has been noted that Suetonius is not without a rhythm in his
prose. De Groot’s statistics for the sentence-endings examined by him
suggest that the frequency of the double trochee in Suetonius is much
the same as in Quintilian, of cretic followed by trochee less than in
Quintilian, and of double cretic much the same as in Quintilian, though
less than in the younger Seneca.[1844] Macé has considered, on M. Havet’s
method, the rhythm of Suetonius’s _clausulae_ in relation to both
quantity and accent.[1845]
Preferring a neat simplicity[1846] in the statement of facts, Suetonius
has yet an individuality of style which, in spite of Silver Age
constructions and vocabulary, marks him off from writers like Velleius
and Florus as much as from Caesar and Cicero. We owe it to his dislike of
affectation that he often quotes documents verbatim without any attempt
at rewriting in his own manner. To the same dislike of affectation we
owe the comparative infrequency of archaisms and neologisms in his
works. It is noticeable that while Suetonius, as a scholar, had literary
and antiquarian interests in common with Hadrian, his critical tastes
were different. Unlike the emperor, he did not prefer Ennius to Virgil,
Cato to Cicero and Caelius to Sallust:[1847] on the contrary, he was an
admirer of Cicero, and,[1848] if he found blemishes in Sallust, must have
seen more in Caelius. In his vocabulary, as might be expected, there are
many words, or meanings of words, not to be found in Caesar or Cicero;
but, as in most other Silver Age writers, these are, to a large extent,
words taken over in first-century prose from the poetry of Virgil and
Horace, or words already occurring in the prose of Livy and post-Augustan
authors. Thus the Virgilian _austrinus_ (“southern”) had been used by
Columella and the elder Pliny before Suetonius; and _adapertus_ (“open”)
descended to him from Livy and Ovid through both prose and poetry of the
first century. Occasionally Suetonius harked back to the old-fashioned:
_cerritus_ (“crazed”) is a Plautine word transmitted through Horace,
and _aquilus_ (“swarthy”) is a rare adjective borrowed from Plautus.
Sometimes there are comparative novelties. _Extemporalis_ (“on the spur
of the moment”) represents the sort of term which Suetonius naturally
shares with writers like Quintilian, Tacitus, the younger Pliny and
Martial, who have occasion to mention rhetorical fluency. Much the same
holds of the non-Ciceronian, but ultimately most useful, words _prosa_
(sc. _oratio_) for “prose,” and _breuiarium_ for “an abstract.”
* * * * *
The Suetonian tradition is traceable in the biographical character of
histories for generations. It ousted the Tacitean type until Ammianus
Marcellinus (330-400) modelled his work on Tacitus. Suetonius’s formal
arrangement was imitated in the lost writings of Marius Maximus
(165-230), and it is evidently followed in the _Augustan History_, once
ascribed in part to Diocletian’s reign.[1849] Christian authors also
copied his structure, as did Paulinus in his biography of Ambrosius,
and after the same pattern Einhard, or Eginhard, composed his life of
Charlemagne. As regards language, writers like Eutropius, Aurelius
Victor, and Orosius show traces of having read Suetonius. The influence
of his _Lives_ of literary celebrities upon Jerome is a familiar fact.
His Greek writings appealed to some of the Byzantines, while his
miscellaneous range secured him notice from many different writers in
Latin. Thus, Tertullian used his work on games for the _De Spectaculis_;
Censorinus, Solinus and Macrobius found antiquarian lore in him; and
other borrowers were the Virgilian commentator Servius, the scholiasts
on Horace, on Germanicus, on Lucan and on Juvenal; as well as the
encyclopaedist Isidorus of Seville.
FLORUS
Great probability attaches to the arguments that Florus[1850] the
historian, Florus the rhetor, and Florus the poet, who all lived at this
period, were one and the same person. Accepting this identification, we
must take the correct name to have been P. Annius Florus, as the rhetor
was called, and explain as confusions the “Julius Florus” and “L. Annaeus
Florus” in MSS. of the historian. The academic dialogue by the rhetor on
the question whether Virgil was more of an orator or a poet (_Vergilius
Orator an Poeta_) is lost, but from a Brussels MS., containing an
introduction[1851] to this lost theme, important details about the
author’s life have been recovered. He was African. While at Rome in his
youth under Domitian, he took part in the Capitoline competition, but
was unfairly denied the prize and in chagrin took to wanderings which
eventually brought him to Tarraco. Settled in Spain, he was one day in
Trajan’s reign taxed by a friend with his long absence from the capital,
where his verses, the friend reminded him, found appreciative readers. By
Hadrian’s time he was in Rome again, and intimate enough with the emperor
to banter him in miserable trochaics upon his travelling propensities:
To be Caesar I’ve no notion,
Or to roam the British Ocean
Or in Scythian fog be frozen.
The imperial retort was:
To be Florus I’d be sorry,
Round the city inns to hurry,
Or thro’ every cookshop scurry,
Where the plump mosquitoes worry.[1852]
Better verses by Florus[1853] have come down in five hexameters on
spring-roses and twenty-six, on the whole pleasing, trochaic tetrameters
_De Qualitate Vitae_, which include reflections on womankind, bad
companionship, and foreign morality. In one quatrain a lover, who has cut
his sweetheart’s name on the bark of a tree, declares with an agreeable
assonance:
As the tree grows, so my zeal glows: passion fills the graven words.
(_Crescit arbor, gliscit ardor: animus implet literas._)
Another quatrain plays with a fancy concerning the Sun-god and the
Wine-god:
As Apollo, so is Bacchus, bearer of a fiery load:
Both the gods were flame-created: both the gods were born in fire:
Both have heat to give as guerdon in the sunlight or the vine:
One dispels the dark of night-time, one the darkness of the mind.
(_Sic Apollo deinde Liber sic uidetur ignifer:_
_Ambo sunt flammis creati prosatique ex ignibus:_
_Ambo de donis calorem, uite et radio, conferunt:_
_Noctis hic rumpit tenebras, hic tenebras pectoris._)
His work in trochaics gives colour to the guess that Florus composed the
_Peruigilium Veneris_,[1854] nearly one hundred trochaic tetrameters
celebrating the eve of a joyous festival devoted to the Lady of the
Springtime and of Love. Though now sadly disarranged, the poem was
originally perhaps in twenty-two quatrains,[1855] marked off by the
chanted refrain:
Let the lover love to-morrow; let the loveless learn to love.
(_Cras amet qui nunquam amauit, quique amauit cras amet._)
If one could be confident in the ascription to Florus, the reign of
Hadrian would be credited with one of the sweetest and most romantic
poems in all Latin literature, a hymn of ecstasy over the coming of a new
season of brightness and fertility upon the earth:
’Tis the fresh and tuneful Springtide—Spring first brought the world
to light,
In the Spring fond hearts draw closer: in the Springtime birds unite:
(_Ver nouum, uer iam canorum; uere natus orbis est;_
_Vere concordant amores; uere nubunt alites._)
In contrast to the prevailing glee comes the personal note of melancholy
at the end:
She is singing: we are silent: when doth Spring for me awake?
When shall I grow like the swallow? When may I my silence break?
I have lost the Muse by silence, and Apollo heeds me not.
(_Illa cantat, nos tacemus; quando uer uenit meum?_
_Quando fiam uti chelidon, ut tacere desinam?_
_Perdidi musam tacendo, nec me Apollo respicit._)
On the whole one must doubt whether the poem is not too good to be by
Florus. In style it might be called Apuleian, and if it is not Hadrianic
there is little to prevent one from believing that it at least belongs
to some part of the second century, unless its almost entire avoidance
of quadrisyllabic endings is considered too suggestive of the manner of
Tiberianus in the fourth century.[1856]
With Florus as historian, or rather epitomizer, we are on surer ground.
The best MS., the _Bambergensis_, gives the title of his work as _Epitoma
... de T. Liuio bellorum omnium annorum DCC_ and the correct number of
books as two. The _Nazarianus_ follows a division into four books. In
the title Florus’s dependence on Livy is recognized; but, besides this
main source, he used Sallust, Caesar, and possibly the elder Seneca’s
_Histories_. He is no geographer, but he alludes in his preface to
geographical charts, and may have consulted Mela and Pliny. The _Natural
History_ would give him authority for his reference to the richness of
Spain in gold, _chrysocolla_ and _minium_.[1857] Perhaps Lucan also
was a source.[1858] The work was probably written early in Hadrian’s
reign.[1859]
His preface shows his attitude. It is an attitude of praise rather than
of studied narration.[1860] The seven hundred years which he counts
from Romulus to Augustus had been, he feels, so full of the greatness
of the Roman people that one might suppose the history had been longer.
To study it is to study the destiny not of one people but of the human
race. Valour and Fortune had combined to establish a world-wide dominion.
On the analogy of geographers, Florus submits at the outset a kind of
plan (_breui quasi tabella_) to illustrate the evolution of the Roman
people. For him it was an organism, and had passed through four ages:
infancy, 250 years of regal government; youth, 250 years of warfare in
Italy; robust maturity, 200 years of world-conquest up to Augustus; old
age and decline, 200 years from Augustus until the writer’s own day—with,
however, he is careful to add, a renewal of youth under Trajan. His
figures, it should be noted, need correction; for chronology is not his
strong point. A recapitulation (_anacephalaeosis_) is given with each of
the first three ages; but the decadence is not treated. There is at the
end of Book I an anticipatory review of growing luxury in the third age
suggestive of the cause of the decline: the attack, as so often in the
Silver Era, is couched in rhetorical terms.[1861]
Genuine historical thought is impossible in an author whose criterion of
value was the extent to which events redounded to the glory of Rome, and
whose criterion of credibility was an entry in the annals (_quae nisi
in annalibus forent, hodie fabulae uiderentur_). His mode of treatment
scarcely admits a touch of romance. Egeria’s mysterious prompting of
Numa’s policy is merely a useful state-figment (_quo magis barbari
acciperent_). Occasionally we find a story, but it is in general told
with almost grudging curtness, like that of Navius and the whetstone.
Occasionally, too, a great exploit rouses Florus to something approaching
enthusiasm, like the recovery of Spain by Scipio; though it is a blemish
that the enthusiasm is not always worked into the narrative but confined
to parenthetic outbursts. Inevitably, however, much of the fascination
of Roman history vanishes in the dry condensation of a summary. Its very
neatness becomes tiresome, for the brevity tends to pass into abruptness.
But in fairness it must be judged with regard to the author’s intention
of writing a eulogistic sketch, where the Populus Romanus shall be the
single hero throughout.
Because the aim was eulogistic instead of unimpassioned history, there
is too frequent indulgence in exclamatory asides—“quae superbia!” “mira
res dictu!” “quis credat?” “immane dictu!” “mirum et incredibile dictu!”
“fidem numinum!” “o nefas!” Some of his comments have a naïve banality
in their search for antithetic point. Of Julius Caesar’s assassination
he says, “so he who had drenched the world with citizens’ blood at last
drenched the senate-house with his own” (_sic ille qui terrarum orbem
ciuili sanguine impleuerat tandem ipse sanguine suo curiam impleuit_);
and, when the murdered Cicero’s head was fixed on the _rostra_, he
states, “there was as great a rush to see him as there usually was
to hear” (_nec aliter ad uidendum eum quam solebat ad audiendum
concurreretur_). It is not surprising that the poetic element in him
overloads his expression with metaphor, while the rhetorical element
tempts him to exaggerate, as when Antony’s high turreted ships, “forts
and cities in appearance, sailed not without the groaning of the sea and
the toil of the winds” (_castellorum et urbium specie, non sine gemitu
maris, et labore uentorum ferebantur_). It is unsafe for a prose-writer
to expand the idea of Virgil’s _urbis opus_. On the other hand, he is
happy in certain of his comparisons: there is force in likening the
final resistance of Carthage to the dangerous bite of a dying beast; or
the diminution in the Gauls’ resistance, after a first effort, to the
melting of the snow upon their mountains. It may not be entirely fanciful
to impute to African Latinity the more bizarre and brusque turns in
him.[1862] In any case, though some of his rhetoric is absurd, it redeems
his work from being a totally dry abstract. His sentences are, as a rule,
well written, and not unpleasing in their _clausulae_. His language
is characteristic in the use of post-Augustan words like _captiuitas_
and _diuersitas_, and in the position of _igitur_ at the start of a
sentence.[1863] _Receptator_ seems to be a word of his own, outside
legal phraseology. The way in which he overworks _quasi_ and _quippe_ is
ludicrous.[1864]
The popularity of Florus was assured in the third and fourth centuries,
when the demand for epitomes rose to its height. It is no longer a
current belief, as it once was, that the Livian _periochae_ (which
should not be mistaken for epitomes) were the work of Florus. But Lucius
Ampelius borrowed from him for his short manual of general knowledge, the
_Liber Memorialis_, compiled perhaps early in the third century.[1865]
Ammianus, Orosius, Festus and Jordanes used him, as did the Byzantine
historian Malalas; and the multiplication of manuscripts of his text
testifies to the favour in which he stood with the Middle Ages.
CONCLUSION
AN EPILOGUE—THE SECOND CENTURY AND AFTER
The passing of the Silver Age—Factors hampering literary
creation—_Elocutio nouella_—Fronto, Gellius, Apuleius—Anarchy
of third century—Energy diverted towards law, scholarship,
epitomes—Vigour of Christian apologists—Prose of Minucius,
Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius—Poetry of
Commodianus, Ambrose, Prudentius—A Greek renascence—Echoes
of Silver Age in Gallic _Panegyrici_, in _Historia Augusta_,
and in Ammianus—Poetic revival in fourth century—Nemesianus,
Ausonius, Claudian—End of national Roman literature—The
European Latin of the Middle Ages—Vitality of literary
influence of Rome at Renaissance and later periods.
Beyond the time of Suetonius the Silver Age does not extend.[1866] We
are not, therefore, strictly concerned with the Roman literature which
followed, or with its phases of decadence, barrenness and revival. Yet
it is instructive to consider what took the place of Silver Latin, and
why changes set in. Obviously, Latin continued to be written, though
for a time not in the same quantity; but such Latin as continued was
written with a difference in quality. Several factors, indeed, during
the immediately succeeding period militated against the production of
what had been the prevalent type of literature. In the first place, there
arose that natural desire for change which ensures periodic reaction in
all literary history. What one might call the Silver spirit had spent
itself. Pointed epigram palled: neither interest nor dexterity in it any
longer existed. The chief sign of the altered tendency was the appearance
of the archaizing school of Cornelius Fronto, which, by turning back to
Ennius, Cato and the Gracchi as models of style, implicitly undervalued
the Silver Age and revolted against its conventions. Born in Numidia
about the beginning of the second century, Fronto had studied at
Alexandria, had been a successful pleader at Rome in Hadrian’s time,
and was, under Antoninus Pius, made tutor to the future emperor Marcus
Aurelius, his correspondence with whom has in part survived. Fronto never
was in any deep sense a thinker. His primary concern being eloquence,
he manifestly did not sympathize with his imperial pupil’s devotion
to philosophy. Touching canons of style, no less than the supremacy
of wisdom, he was poles asunder from Seneca. A zealous champion of
archaism in composition, Fronto maintained that old-fashioned Latin
writers were preferable to the Greeks and to the later Romans, and
that a virile _elocutio nouella_ (the phrase is his own) would spring
from a union between the ancient and the spoken Latin. The direct
plainness of the older writers and speakers he felt, with some justice,
to be more in touch with life; but his fundamental misconception lay
in failing to realize that to copy them, as if Roman literature had
not run a distinguished course during some centuries since their day,
was to fly in the face of evolution, and that to reintroduce obsolete
words, however natural they had been at one time, was merely to displace
one system of artificiality in favour of another. Yet for a space the
movement was novel enough to live. Fronto’s unbounded enthusiasm for the
antiquated won the admiration of Aulus Gellius, who about the middle of
the century began his miscellany of the _Noctes Atticae_ during a winter
spent at Athens. He used to buy old volumes in order to dig in them
for contributions towards those brief essay-like studies of his which
constitute an ancient museum of curiosities in literature, learning,
language, philosophy and custom. As Gellius occupied himself particularly
with the correct use of Latin words and idioms, his illustrations are
often of great value. Not only did he transcribe passages from old
authors like Ennius, Plautus, Caecilius or Afranius, and discuss points
of Virgilian or Ciceronian expression and text, but he recorded critical
views held by contemporary rhetoricians like Fronto, Herodes Atticus
and Favorinus. In the _Attic Nights_ one never knows on what odd piece
of information one may chance. When, for instance, he writes about the
perversity of Laberius in inventing bits of doubtful Latinity or in
borrowing words from the common speech, Gellius tells us that _botulus_,
a rare name for a sausage which we associate with the modern medical term
_botulism_ for certain sorts of food-poisoning, was a vulgar word used
instead of the more proper _farcimen_ in one of Laberius’s mimes. All
such philological preoccupation was symptomatic of a period of literary
decadence, when critics could not see what a miserable substitute for
good Latin style was offered by the obscure, ill-sounding and strained
language which they were now manufacturing.
The culmination of the _elocutio nouella_ which marked the collapse of
the Silver Latin is to be found in the work of the African Platonist
and rhetorician Lucius Apuleius, and especially in his _Metamorphoses_,
the fantastic tale relating, not without some prurience, the adventures
of his namesake Lucius in Thessaly, the home of witchcraft and the
supernatural. The main account of the consequences following the hero’s
magical transformation into an ass came from a Greek source; and so did
the incidental tales, such as the charming fairy-story of Cupid and
Psyche, which the author dovetailed into his narrative. Based thus as its
matter was on Greek, the romance is not unaffected by Hellenisms, but its
prevailing exuberance follows the new Latin fashion. The short runs of
words in a clause seem partly to recall a primitive, partly to anticipate
a modern type of prose. The phrasing is unusual, often bizarre: it is a
fantastic blend of elaborate archaism and bold innovation—now poetic,
now colloquial. The diminutives of the vulgar tongue jostle far-fetched
artifices. Such is the general effect that the reader accustomed to
normal Latin feels as if he had adventured into a strange land with a
strange speech.
There were other contemporary factors which tended to reduce the output
of Latin literature. Tranquillity under the good government of the
Antonines appeared to be as unpropitious for letters as was the anarchy
of the third century. It is significant that there were no fewer than
twenty-five Roman emperors between Commodus (180-192) and Diocletian
(284-305). Besides, intellect was being diverted into other than purely
literary channels. In law, the reigns of Septimius and Alexander Severus
are famous for the eminent jurists Papinian and Ulpian. Attention was
also devoted to scholarship and criticism. Authorities on metre like
Terentianus Maurus, and grammarians or commentators of the third century,
had in the fourth many renowned successors like Donatus, Charisius,
Diomedes, Servius and Macrobius. Very symptomatic too was the demand
in these centuries for epitomes of the more voluminous writers of the
past. There is evidence of a definite distaste—from which emperors were
not free—for the trouble of reading older and fuller authors; so that
epitomators, on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread,
could at least claim to be ministering to culture by their condensed
products. How much the epitomes contributed to the disappearance of their
originals is a question easier to raise than to settle. Sometimes both
original and epitome have come down together, as holds good of Vitruvius.
Two abridgements did not kill Valerius Maximus, nor did epitomators
and excerptors cause Pliny’s _Natural History_ to be lost. Half of the
elder Seneca’s _Controuersiae_ and nearly three and a half decades of
Livy survived in spite of being summarized, although sometimes, on the
other hand, the abridgement alone has descended to posterity. Justinus,
for example, remains, while his foundation Trogus has perished. Here,
however, we may be content to conclude that the period was not only as a
whole uncreative but that it felt itself unequal to the task of digesting
the creations of more fertile times.
The truth is that the most virile thought which now found expression
in Latin for some generations was the thought connected with the new
faith in Christ, so that henceforth a history of Latin literature must
take into account theological and patristic authors. Minucius Felix,
a Roman lawyer, about the end of the second century, composed in his
dialogue _Octauius_, which opens prettily on the sands at Ostia, a
defence of certain aspects, though not the most significant aspects,
of the Christian religion. This work was based on older models; but a
new manner is coupled unmistakably with new matter in the works which
the African Tertullian wrote after his conversion to Christianity. His
previous training had been that of an advocate in the law-courts of
Carthage; and he now consecrated a fiery eloquence to a fresh cause. The
fervid indictment of paganism, in his _Apologeticum_ especially, sounds
like a break with classical tradition, because he unsparingly denounces
the poetry and philosophy of the Greeks and Romans as a perversion of
Holy Writ. His uncompromising Puritanism could spare no admiration for
ancient culture. Yet, in spite of this, the break is not absolute. Even
among Christian writers two lines of literary influence are discernible.
On the one hand Tertullian’s Latin is akin to the African Latinity of
Apuleius, and may, with some qualifications, be classed beside the better
style of Cyprian, who was bishop of Carthage in the middle of the third
century. On the other hand, a more classic tradition is seen not only in
the above-mentioned _Octauius_ by Minucius who continued the literary
preference of Quintilian for Ciceronian standards, but also in _The
Institutes of Divinity_ (_Diuinae Institutiones_) by Lactantius, who,
though a pupil of Arnobius, the author of _Aduersus Nationes_, departed
from his master’s unpolished style in favour of that elegant diction
which he cultivated as a professor of rhetoric at Nicomedia late in the
third century, and which won him the title of “the Christian Cicero.”
His Ciceronianism was merely one of many links between him and the past:
he was in reality widely read in classical verse as well as prose, and a
poem on the _Phoenix_ in finished elegiacs may well be his. The poetry
which Commodianus wrote after his conversion is a deviation from the
classical manner, and in its mixture of quantitative with accentual
principles marks a step towards medieval versification; but in general
the attempts at Christian verse-writing bore little fruit until, about
the end of the fourth century, St. Ambrose and Prudentius composed their
hymns.
The contemporary prominence of Greek was another indication and
contributory cause of the decadence of Latin. The fashion among Romans
of composing in Greek and the genius of the actual Greek writers at this
epoch, like Plutarch, Arrian and Lucian, helped to throw Latin into
the shade as something outworn. Once more history tended to pass into
Hellenic hands. Appian, in the time of Antoninus Pius, set himself to
compose a Roman history, of which we possess a considerable portion;
and later Dion Cassius, a grandson of the rhetorician Dion Chrysostom
esteemed by Trajan, conceived the scheme of relating in eighty books
the development of Rome from Aeneas’s time to A.D. 229, the year of
the author’s return to his native Nicaea. The extant parts form an
important, though not infallible, historical document. Greek writers in
contact with Rome were never more admired than they were from Flavian to
Antonine days. Hadrian’s reign, we have seen, inaugurated what may be
fairly called a Hellenic revival; for little of the highest importance
had appeared in secular Greek literature from Strabo and Diodorus in
Augustan times to Dion Chrysostom and Plutarch. There was now, however, a
sort of sophistic renascence of Greek prose, brilliant enough to dazzle
contemporaries, which is transmitted from Dion Chrysostom, Lucian and
Aristides, the rhetorician who studied under Herodes Atticus, down to
Libanius who was Julian’s teacher in the fourth century. It is a movement
which had points of contact with Latin writers such as Apuleius; but it
laid no firm hold upon the world.
Latin, however, never so lost its vitality as to be wholly supplanted by
Greek in the late Silver Age of Hellenism.[1867] Though it may be argued
that classical Latin in a sense ended with Suetonius, and though the
literary ages which followed the Silver might be named after inferior
metal, there were various resuscitations, if only spasmodic, of the
classical manner. Mention has already been made of Ciceronian elements
in Minucius and Lactantius. Although inferior in execution, some writers
at least looked to the old exemplars. The rhetorical panegyrists of
the Gallic school in the third century had Pliny’s _Panegyricus_ in
their eye; the six authors who composed, professedly under Diocletian
and Constantine, the _Historia Augusta_[1868] were, however feebly,
continuing Suetonius’s studies of the Caesars; and the Asiatic Ammianus
Marcellinus, though he never attained to mastery over Latin, intended
his history of nearly three centuries from the beginning of Nerva’s
reign until the death of Valens (96-378) to be a sequel to Tacitus. The
last eighteen of his thirty-one books survive to enable us to judge of
his obscurity and inflation in manner. Among poets under Diocletian
and his successors, the revival of style became more evident; for the
lethargy which had fallen on the third century was being thrown off. Even
then the Virgilian tradition was plainly at work in the _Cynegetica_,
a didactic poem on hunting by the Carthaginian Nemesianus, and in his
bucolic pieces it combined pleasantly with the influence of Calpurnius
Siculus. Still more varied classical influences unite in the works of
Ausonius of Bordeaux. Whether one looks at his miscellaneous light verse,
often amusingly egotistic, or at his renowned description of the river
_Mosella_, written about 370, one finds a great deal that marks him
as standing between the two worlds of classicism and romance. Towards
the turn of the same century Claudian had come from Alexandria to the
imperial court at Milan. In contrast to Ammianus, his use of Greek in
early life did not prevent him from gaining wonderful control over the
Latin manner. His historical epics revive the Virgilian tradition dear
to the poets of the Silver Age; his _Rape of Proserpine_ is reminiscent
of Ovid; and his laudatory pieces are under obligations to Statius.
Claudian’s patriotism, no less than his style, is only one among many
recurrent illustrations of Rome’s power of attracting and remaking the
alien. The beneficence of the Roman Empire is the idea underlying his
lines:
Rome only takes the vanquished to her breast,
Fostering mankind beneath one common name,
Like mother, not like mistress: citizens
She calls them, bound by ties no distance breaks.[1869]
With him or with the Gaul Rutilius Namatianus the national poetry
might be said to close. Namatianus wrote in half-classical diction and
half-classical metre at the time when the Empire was splitting up into
new kingdoms; and there is a fitting note in his farewell apostrophe to
Rome:
Thou mad’st a city what was erst a world.
(_Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat_.)
Yet, in another sense, Latin literature does not end either with Claudian
or with Namatian: nor does it make much difference whether, with some
authorities,[1870] we take Boethius for the last of the ancients, or,
with others,[1871] take him for the first medieval Latin writer. Both
positions are defensible and instructive. Two events, in particular, may
serve to illustrate the continuity of influence, apart from questions of
classic quality in style. First, Jerome’s translation into Latin of the
Scriptures from Genesis to Acts, which came to be known as _The Vulgate_,
was published in 405. Its Latinity, very different from the Ciceronian,
must be recognized as one of the great formative influences on expression
during medieval times. Secondly, the sack of Rome in 410 by a host of
Goths and Huns under Alaric stimulated Augustine to undertake his work
_De Ciuitate Dei_. No better link between antiquity and the Middle Ages
could be discovered. The ideal claim to citizenship in a more abiding
state than an earthly one had received a telling confirmation in the
barbarians’ triumphant challenge to the power of Rome; and Rome herself
was now to become “the Eternal City” rather through the greatness of the
universal Church than through that of the Roman Empire.
Latin literature, then, did not close in the fourth or the fifth century;
but thenceforward it was no longer national, no longer Roman. Latin
became in the Middle Ages European, whether employed by the Venerable
Bede, by Isidore of Seville, or by Carolingian scholars like Alcuin and
Einhard. Even the birth of modern languages from their parent did not
supplant Latin as an international medium for conveying ecclesiastical,
legal, historical and philosophical learning: so, following Dante,
it came that Petrarca and Boccaccio made use of Latin and Italian
indifferently; and not till after the end of the seventeenth century
was Latin really shaken in its supremacy as the general language for
philosophy and science. That century had seen issued Bacon’s _Nouum
Organum_ and _De Augmentis Scientiarum_ in its first quarter and Newton’s
_Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica_ in its last quarter.
There can be no more interesting pendant to a literary history of Rome
than a glance at later periods when the influence of the best writers
acted strongly enough to inspire an artistic use of the Latin language.
It must never be forgotten how much the humanism of the Renaissance,
vitalized as it was by the rediscovery of Greek culture, included also
a revival of Latin studies and of the power to write good Latin. In
prose many names rise easily to the mind—among them, Valla and Ficino in
Italy, Budaeus and Langolius in France, Erasmus and Grotius in the Low
Countries, Sir Thomas More in England and George Buchanan in Scotland.
In verse, the various collections of _Deliciae_ drawn from the poets of
Italy, France, Holland, Germany, England and Scotland, contain excellent
examples of supreme ability to recapture, in fresh circumstances, the
manner of the greatest authors of Rome. Other countries may not have had
a galaxy of modern Latin poets to compare with the Italians Baptista
Mantuan, Poliziano, Bembo, Pontano, Sannazaro, Vida, Fracastoro, Navagero
and Flaminio, but there is no mistaking the literary merit of such Latin
poems as were written by the Dutch scholars Grotius and Daniel Heinsius
or by the Scottish scholars Buchanan and Arthur Johnston. Of England it
may be said that, even if Latin poems like those of Milton and Cowley
be taken into account, her finest work in Latin verse was yet to come
from scholars of the nineteenth century, when in this field she had no
equals abroad. While it is true that much of this modern skill consisted
in translation or light _jeux d’esprit_, the elegance and taste shown in
composition has borne eloquent testimony to the living literary influence
of the best poets of the Gold and Silver Ages of Rome.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Heitland’s contentions in _The Roman Fate_ and _Iterum_ seem,
however, unduly to emphasize the want of power in the central government
to remedy weaknesses throughout the empire. His views regarding the
stagnation resultant upon “the inability of the passive parts to vitalize
the whole” are not wholly applicable to the first two centuries from
Augustus: see H. M. Last, _J.R.S._, XV., 1925, Pt. I.
[2] Frank, “Race Mixture in Rom. Emp.,” _Amer. Hist. Rev._, July, 1916,
pp. 689-708. Prof. Frank thinks “perhaps 90 per cent had Oriental blood
in their veins.”
[3] _E.g._ Merivale, _Hist. of Romans under the Emp._; Mommsen, _Röm.
Staatsrecht_, and _Röm. Gesch._, vol. v. (_The Provinces_, Eng.
ed.); Schiller, _Gesch. der röm. Kaiserzeit_; Peter, _Geschichtliche
Litteratur üb. d. röm. Kaiserzeit_ (ch. ii. treats influence of rhetoric
on history); Ferrero, _Greatness and Decline of Rome_ (from vol. v.);
Frank, _Rom. Imperialism_; Nilsson, _Imperial Rome_ (tr. Richards),
1926; Dessau, _Gesch. d. röm. Kaiserzeit_, II. i., 1926 (Tiberius to
Vitellius); Rostovzeff, _Social and Econ. Hist. of Rom. Emp._, 1926;
Friedländer, _Sittengesch. Roms_ (Eng. tr., Magnus); Dill, _Rom. Society,
Nero to M. Aurelius_, 1905; Tucker, _Life in Rom. World of Nero and St.
Paul_, 1910; Toutain, _Les cultes païens dans l’empire romain_; Wickhoff,
_Rom. Art_; Mrs. Strong, _Rom. Sculpture; Apotheosis and After Life_.
[4] For fuller treatment see Butler, _Post-Augustan Poetry_, 1909, pp.
1-6, 166-170.
[5] Suet., _Cal._, liii.
[6] This is more fully discussed in a separate chapter.
[7] IV. ii. 29: “declamatio forensium actionum meditatio” (μελετή). F.
H. Colson, _C.R._, 1922, pp. 116-117, suggests that _declamatio_, “loud
shouting,” may have originally been a translation of κατήχησις, “dinning
into the ears.”
[8] Diog. Laert., VII. 121: εἶναι γὰρ τὸν κυνισμὸν σύντομον ἐπ’ ἀρετὴν
ὁδόν.
[9] Epictet., _Diss._, III. x. 6: τὸ δὲ φιλοσοφῆσαι τί ἔστιν; οὐχὶ
παρασκευάσασθαι πρὸς τὰ συμβαίνοντα.
[10] Sen., _Epist. Mor._, xli. 2.
[11] Tac., _Ann._, IV. xxxiv.; Juv., V. 36-37:
“Quale coronati Thrasea Heluidiusque bibebant
Brutorum et Cassi natalibus.”
[12] Dion Cass., lxvi. 12, says of Helvidius: βασιλείας τε ἀεὶ κατηγόρει
καὶ δημοκρατίαν ἐπῄνει.
[13] For prominent figures in opposition throughout the first century,
see E. V. Arnold’s _Roman Stoicism_.
[14] The Stoic test of a man’s worth was character: “we all have the same
source: no man is nobler than another, save he who has a more upright
character,” Sen., _De Ben._, iii. 28.
[15] _E.g._ _notare_ in sense of _animaduertere_; _subinde_, “repeatedly”
(Fr. _souvent_); _frequenter_, “repeatedly”; _numerosus_, “numerous.”
[16] _E.g._ Cicero declared the superlative of _pius_ to be un-Latin
when used by Mark Antony, _Phil._ xiii. 43; but Sen. _ad Polyb._,
vii. 4, has _piissimis_: _cf._ xv. 4, _piissime_. _Itaque_ in Cic. is
regularly at the beginning of a clause, in Sen. often after one or two
words. _Proinde_, once associated with imperative or subjunctive, comes
to be used more and more, without any idea of command or exhortation,
as an ordinary inferential word meaning “therefore.” Among noticeable
grammatical usages are the new Silver senses given to the fut. part. in
_-urus_.
[17] For useful summaries of representative Silver features, see
Furneaux’s Introd. to ed. of Tac., _Ann._, and Summers’s Introductions to
_Select Letters of Seneca_, 1910, and to Tac. _Hist._, Bk. III., 1904.
_Cf._ Dräger, _Ueb. Syntax u. Stil des Tacitus_. For typical features
of vocabulary, Paucker, _Vorarbeiten zur latein. Sprachgesch._, Berl.,
1884, zweite Abt.: “Uebersicht des der sogenannten silbernen Latinität
eigenthümichen Wörterschatzes.”
[18] _E.g._ frequent omission of parts of _esse_; omission of _eo_,
_tanto_, _potius_ in comparisons, and of _utrum_ or _-ne_ before _an_.
[19] _E.g._ _ingenia_, “men of talent,” “geniuses” (Sen., _Ad Helv._,
xix. 5; Tac., _Agric._, ii.). The post-Augustan sense of _custodiae_
as “persons under guard,” “prisoners,” in Plin., _Ep._, X. xix., and
Suet., _Tib._, lxi., _Ner._, xxxi., Sen., _Ep._, v. 7, shows a complete
change round from a previous extension of its meaning found in Cic.,
viz. “persons serving as guards,” “sentinels.” _Cf._ _inquisitio_,
“investigators,” Plin., _Ep._, X. xxx.; _matrimonia_, “wives,” Tac.,
_Ann._, II. xiii.; _amicitia_, “friends,” II. xxvii.; _consilia_,
“advisers,” IV. xl.; _affinitatibus et amicitiis_, “kindred and friends,”
_Agr._, 44; _lectiones_, “works to be read,” Quint., _I.O._, X. i. 45.
[20] _E.g._ “umido paludum,” Tac., _Ann._, I. lxi.; “lubrico paludum,”
_ib._, lxv: _cf._ “occulta saltuum,” _ib._, lxi.; “subiecta uallium,”
_ib._, lxv.
[21] _Ad Helv._, ii. 4: “nulli tamen non magno constitit etiam bona
nouerca.”
[22] Bibliography: Cramer, _Gesch. d. Erziehung u. d. Unterrichts im
Altertum_, 2 vols., Elberf., 1832-1838; Egger, _Étude sur l’education
... chez les Romains_, Par., 1833; Grasberger, _Erziehung u. Unterricht
im klass. Altert._, 3 vols., Würzb., 1864-1881; Ussing, _Darstellung
d. Erziehungs- u. Unterrichtswesens bei d. Griechen u. Römern_ (Germ.
tr. from Dan.), Altona, 1870; G. Boissier, art. “Declamatio” in
Daremberg-Saglio; _L’Instruction publique dans l’emp. rom._, in _Rev.
d. deux Mondes_, 1884; _Les écoles de déclamation à Rome_, _ib._, Oct.,
1902; Monroe, _Source-Bk. of Hist. of Educ. for Grk. and Rom. Period_,
Lond., 1902; Wilkins, _Rom. Educ._, Camb., 1905; Gwynn, _Rom. Educ._
(Cic. to Quintilian), Oxf. 1926; Fuller bibliog. in Wight Duff’s art.
“Rom. Educ.” in _Encyclop. of Religion and Ethics_, vol. v., Edinb., 1912.
[23] Plut., _Cat. Maj._, xx.: αὐτὸς μὲν ἦν γραμματιστής, αὐτὸς δὲ
νομοδιδάκτης, αὐτὸς δὲ γυμναστής.
[24] _De Ben._, III. 11.
[25] _Ep._, VIII. xiv. 6: “suus cuique parens pro magistro.”
[26] Some of its details are considered in “The Invasion of Hellenism” in
Wight Duff’s _Lit. Hist. of Rome to Close of Golden Age_, pp. 92-117.
[27] Apul., _Flor._, IV. xx.: “prima cratera litteratoris ruditatem
eximit, secunda grammatici doctrina instruit, tertia rhetoris eloquentia
armat.”
[28] For instruction in reading, see L. Grasberger, _Erziehung u.
Unterricht im klass. Altert._, II., pp. 256-300; writing _op. cit._, II.
300 _sqq._
[29] Marquardt, _Das Privatleben der Römer_, ed. 2, pp. 97-104; or Fr.
tr., _La vie privée des Romains_, 1892, I. 115-123.
[30] Early in the _De Educatione Liberorum_, perhaps rightly ascribed to
Plutarch, it is laid down δεῖ δὲ (ὡς ἐγὼ ἂν φαίην) αὐτὰς τὰς μητέρας τὰ
τέκνα τρέφειν καὶ τούτοις ὑπέχειν τοὺς μαστούς.
[31] Cic., _Brut._, lviii.: “magni interest quos quisque audiat cotidie
domi, quibuscum loquatur a puero, quemadmodum patres, paedagogi, matres
etiam loquantur. Legimus epistulas Corneliae, matris Gracchorum; apparet
filios non tam in gremio educatos, quam in sermone, matris”; _cf._ Tac.,
_Agric._, iv.: “in huius (_i.e._ matris) sinu indulgentiaque educatus per
omnem honestarum artium cultum pueritiam adulescentiamque transegit.”
[32] Consult “monumenta columbariorum” in _C.I.L._, VI. 4352, 4457,
6323, 6324, 8941-8943; and the occurrences of “nutrix” and similar words
in the Indices to volumes ix. and x. of _C.I.L._ under “parentelae et
necessitudines.”
[33] _Inst. Or._, I. i. 12.
[34] Suet., _De Gram._, xv., xvi., xix., xx.
[35] _Op. cit._, ii.
[36] _Op. cit._, ix.; xviii.; xxii.
[37] _Op. cit._, iii.
[38] _Op. cit._, x.
[39] _Op. cit._, vii.
[40] E.g. “Grammaticus Graecus,” _C.I.L._, II. 2236 (Corduba); VI. 9453,
9454; X. 3961 (Capua); “Grammaticus Latinus,” II. 2892 (Tricio in Spain);
III. 406 (Thyatira in Asia Minor, ΡΩΜΑΙΚΩ); V. 3433 (Verona), 5278
(Comum); VI. 9455 (Rome); IX. 5545.
[41] Quint., _Inst. Or._, I. iv.-ix.
[42] _Inst. Or._, I. iv. 4; I. x.
[43] Cic., _De Leg._, I. ii.
[44] _Inst. Or._, I. ix. 6.
[45] _Inst. Or._, I. viii. 2; VIII. i. 3; XI. iii. 30.
[46] _Inst. Or._, II. i.
[47] Suet., _De Gram._, iv.: “ueteres grammatici et rhetoricam docebant.”
[48] Suet., _De Gram._, iv.: “ne scilicet sicci omnino atque aridi pueri
rhetoribus traderentur.”
[49] Declamations were introduced at Rome perhaps by Molon of Rhodes
about 84 B.C., as Bornecque thinks (_Les Déclamations et Déclamateurs_,
etc., p. 42).
[50] Juv., X. 114-117; Quint., _Inst. Or._, II. vii. i.
[51] _Inst. Or._, II. iv.
[52] _Inst. Or._, II. iv. 26; _cf._ Propert., II. xii. (III. iii.).
[53] _Inst. Or._, II. vii. 1; Juv., vii. 154.
[54] The Roman term given to Greek rhetorical methods is marked by the
change of terminology, which indicates a change in practice. The main
exercises at first had been called _theses_, the Greek term (θέσεις)
applied to general questions for debate, such as “Ought a man to marry
or remain single?” “Is it better to take a share in public life or to
mind one’s own affairs?” Then came a business-like development or Roman
condescension from general to particular whereby an approach to facts
and reality was made in treating “cases” such as those tried before a
court; and, appropriately, these exercises were called by a Latin name,
_causae_. Both terms were in use during Cicero’s days, but early in
his career there emerged the fashion of _declamatio_, the scholastic
exercise in rhetoric based on but not identical with Greek models; and
in course of time we read no longer of _theses_ and _causae_, but of
_controuersiae_ and _suasoriae_—both, it will be noted, Latin, not Greek
terms.
[55] Sen., _Suas._, i., iii. and vii.; _cf._ Quint., _Inst. Or._, III.
viii. 16-19, _e.g._ “Deliberat C. Caesar an perseueret in Germaniam ire,”
etc.
[56] Sen., _Suas._, ii.; _Inst. Or._, _loc. cit._
[57] Juv., I., 15-17.
[58] Juv., VII. 158-164; _cf._ X. 166-167:
“I demens et saeuas curre per Alpes,
Vt pueris placeas et declamatio fias.”
[59] _Contr._, II. ii. 8-12.
[60] _Op. cit._: “libentius dicebat suasorias: molesta illi erat omnis
argumentatio.”
[61] _De Rhet._, i.
[62] This case is similar to CCCXL. in the Quintilianean _Declamationes_,
ed. Ritter, 1884.
[63] _Contr._, I. i.
[64] Juv., VII. 154.
[65] _E.g._: τῶν δὲ πανηγυρικῶν λήρων ὡς ποῤῥωτάτω τοὺς υἱεῖς ἀπάγειν,
and later οἱ δ’ αὐτοσχέδιοι τῶν λόγων πολλῆς εὐχερείας καὶ ῥᾳδιουργίας
εἰσὶ πλήρεις, and again, σοφὸν γὰρ εὔκαιρος σιγὴ καὶ παντός λόγου
κρείττων.
[66] _Inst. Or._, XII. i. 1. Quintilian insists on the moral excellence
essential to great oratory in I. _prooem._ 9-10; II. ii. (whole section);
II. xv. 1.
[67] _Inst. Or._, II. xxi. 14.
[68] _Op. cit._, I. _prooem._ 16; XII. ii. 10; iii.; iv.
[69] Dill, _Rom. Soc. from Nero_, etc., 1905, p. 372; Mommsen, _Provinces
of Rom. Emp._, Eng. tr., 1886, I., pp. 362-367; _cf._ Philostr., _Apoll.
Tyan._, i. 7; _Vit. Soph._, i. 220.
[70] Tac., _Agric._, iv. 4.; xxi. 2.
[71] Juv., XV. 111-112.
[72] Capitol., _M. Ant. Phil._, ii.-iii.
[73] Lamprid., _Alex. Sev._, iii.
[74] Dill, _Rom. Soc. in last Cent. of W. Empire_, pp. 385-451.
[75] _Confess._, I. xiii.-xiv.; VII. ix.; VIII. ii.
[76] Suet., _Iul._, xlii.
[77] Suet., _Aug._, xlii.; _De Gram._, xvii.
[78] Euseb., _Chron. ad ann. 2104_: “Quintilianus ex Hispania
Calagurritanus primus Romae publicam scholam et salarium e fisco accepit
et claruit.”
[79] Plin., _Paneg._, xxvi.-xxviii.
[80] Spart., _Hadr._, xvi.
[81] Capitol., _Ant. Pius_, xi.: “rhetoribus et philosophis per omnes
prouincias et honores et salaria detulit.”
[82] _Digest._, XXVII. i. 6.
[83] Dio Cass., lxxi. 31, 3 (ed. Bekker); Lucian, _Eun._, iii.
[84] For a fuller account see Boissier: _L’instruction publique dans
l’empire romain_ in _Rev. d. deux Mondes_, 1884.
[85] Lamprid., _Alex. Sev._, xliv.
[86] Bibliography: Early editions of elder Seneca were combined with his
son’s works: sep. edns., by Faber, Par., 1587; Gronov., Leid., 1649;
Bursian, Leipz., 1857; Kiessling, Leipz., 1872 and 1913; H. J. Müller,
Vienna, 1887; Bornecque (text with Fr. tr.), 2 vols., Par., 1902.
On Seneca and rhetoric (_cf._ bibliogr. note on Roman educ.): Chassang,
_De compta post Ciceronem a declamatoribus eloquentia_, diss., Par.,
1852; Koerber, _Ueber d. Rhetor Sen. u. d. röm. Rhetorik seiner
Zeit_, diss., Marb., 1864; Tivier, _De arte declamandi et de Romanis
declamatoribus ..._ diss., Par., 1868; Sander, _Der Sprachgebrauch d.
Rhet. Ann. Sen._, Berl., 1877; Karsten, _De elocutione rhetorica qualis
invenitur in Ann. Senecae suas. et contr._, Rotterd., 1881; Jullien,
_Les professeurs d. litter. dans l’anc. Rome ..._ Par., 1885; Cucheval,
_L’éloquence rom. depuis la mort de Cicéron ..._ 2 vols., Par., 1893;
Simonds, _Themes treated by elder Seneca_, diss., Baltim., 1896;
Boissier, _Les écoles de déclamation à Rome_ in _Rev. d. deux Mondes_,
Oct., 1902, pp. 481-508 (“Schools of Declam. at Rome” in _Tacitus and
other Studies_, 1906); Bornecque, _Les déclamations et les déclamateurs
d’après Sénèque le père_, Lille, 1902.
[87] The MSS. give L., which may account for the confusion of his works
with those of his more famous son. The argument for M. is not convincing.
[88] Mart., I. lxi. 7-8; Cic., _pro Arch._, x. 26. In _Suas._, vi. 27,
Seneca calls the Spaniard Sextilius Ena from Corduba “municipem nostrum.”
[89] Tac., _Ann._, XIV. liii.
[90] _Contr._, I. _praef._ 11.
[91] _Contr._, I. _praef._ 22.
[92] _Acts_, xviii.; _cf._ imaginary portrait of Gallio in Anatole
France’s _Sur la Pierre Blanche_.
[93] _Contr._, II. ii. 8.
[94] II. iv. 12-13.
[95] IV. _praef._ 3: “audiui illum et uiridem et postea iam senem.”
[96] Suet., _Tib._, lxxiii.
[97] Sen., _Consol. ad Helv._, ii. 4.
[98] Sen., _Consol. ad Helv._, xvii. 3: “patris mei antiquus rigor.”
[99] _Contr._, II. iv.; _cf._ iv. _praef._ 5: “illi clementissimo uiro”
(referring to Augustus).
[100] Contrast X. _praef._ 5-7 with II. iv. 13: “horum non possum
misereri qui tanti putant caput potius quam dictum perdere.”
[101] I. _praef._ 6: “insolenti Graeciae.”
[102] I. vi. 12: “Glyconis ualde leuis e Graecis (_v.l._ ‘et Graeca’ uel
‘ut Graeca’) sententia est.” There are commendations of Greeks in I. iv.
11-12, but then Albucius is said to surpass them.
[103] _E.g._ X. iv. 18 and 23. For Seneca’s Roman preferences _cf._
praise of a Greek speaker of Roman type, Agroitas from Marseilles
(_Contr._, II. vi. 12); glances at Greek unsavoury realism (I. ii.
22-23); record of Arellius Fuscus’s views about Roman borrowers who
improved on Greek originals (IX. i. 13); and Cestius’s views on Cicero’s
surpassing “arrogant Greece,” _Suas._, vii. 10, repeating Seneca’s phrase
in _Contr._, I. _praef._ 6.
[104] Galdi, _L’Epitome nella letteratura latina_, 1922, p. 148.
[105] I do not think Schanz has proved his conclusion, _Gesch. d. röm.
Lit._, II. i. § 334: “Die Abfassungszeit der Schrift fällt daher in die
ersten Regierungsjahre des Caligula.”
[106] _Contr._, II. iv. 8: “cum ad suasorias uenero.”
[107] I. _praef._ 10: “populo dedicabo.”
[108] I. _praef._ 1: “exigitis rem magis iucundam mihi quam facilem.”
[109] _Contr._, III. _praef._ 12-14.
[110] VII. _praef._ 7: “schema dixi.”
[111] IX. _praef._ 3.
[112] _E.g._ _Contr._, II. i. 34; III. _praef._ 16; IV. _praef._ 10 and
11; VII. _praef._ 4 and 5; VII. iv. 10; IX. v. 15; X. _praef._ 8.
[113] _Contr._, III. _praef._ 16-17.
[114] _Satyr._, _ad init._; _Dial. de Or._, 35.
[115] _Contr._, I. vii.
[116] For parallels between subjects in Seneca, the pseudo-Quintilian and
Calpurnius Flaccus, see Simonds, _Themes Treated by Elder Seneca_, pp.
71-81.
[117] _Contr._, VII. ii. 14, iii. 8; IX. iv. 22.
[118] VII. v. 10.
[119] _Suas._, ii. 14: ποῖ φεύξεσθε, ὁπλῖται, τείχη;
[120] _Contr._, X. iv. 2.
[121] _Suas._, i. 9.
[122] _Contr._, VI. vii. 2; VII. i. 9, i. 10; _Suas._, ii. 2.
[123] _Suas._, i. 2; _Contr._, VII. i. 26 (in Greek); _Suas._, ii. 8
(Thermopylae).
[124] _Contr._, VIII. vi. 3.
[125] _Suas._, ii. 4.
[126] _Contr._, X. _praef._ 13.
[127] Suet., _Tib._, lxvii.; lxx. (“artes liberales utriusque generis
studiosissime coluit”); _ib._, lxxi.; _Dom._ xx.; Sen., _Suas._, iii. 7.
[128] _Ann._, IV. xxxi.; XIII. iii.
[129] Suet., _Cal._, xxxiv. and liii.
[130] Suet., _Claud._, xli.; Tac., _Ann._, XI. xiv.; Quint., _I. Or._, I.
vii. 26.
[131] Plin., _N.H._, VII. 8 (46); Tac., _Ann._, IV. liii.
[132] Sen., _Contr._, X. _praef._ 12.
[133] Sen., _Contr._, I. iii. 11; II. i. 33.
[134] Tac., _Ann._, IV. lxi.; Sen., _Contr._, IV. _praef._ 7:
“sufflaminandus est.”
[135] _I. Or._, X. i. 24: “nobis pueris insignes _Pro Voluseno Catulo_
Domitii Afri, Crispi Passieni, D. Laelii orationes ferebantur.”
[136] Suet., _Cal._, xvi.: “Titi Labieni, Cordi Cremuti, Cassi Seueri
scripta SCsultis abolita requiri et esse in manibus lectitarique
permisit.”
[137] Sen., _Contr._, X. _praef._ 4-5 and 7.
[138] Tac., _Ann._, I. lxxii.; IV. xxi.; Sen., _Contr._, III. _praef._
[139] Tac., _Dial._, xiii.; _Ann._, IV. lii. and lxvi.; Plin., _Ep._, II.
xiv. 10; Quint., _I. Or._, V. vii. 7; VIII. v. 16; IX. ii. 20, iii. 66,
iv. 31; X. i. 24 and 118.
[140] Text: Aldus Manutius, Ven., 1534; Pighius, Antw., 1567; Thysius,
Leyd., 1655; Torrenius, _c. nott. variorum_ (good index), Leyd., 1726;
Kempf, Berl., 1854, Lpz., 1888 (_Nouae Quaest. Val._, Berl., 1866). The
2-vol. ed. published Argent., 1806, gives list of edns. and of trans.
(several in French and German; one in English, by Speed, 1678) up to
beginning of 19th cent.
[141] _De Historicis Latinis_, prefixed to many editions of Valerius.
[142] Gell., _N.A._, XII. vii.; “Scripta haec historia est in libro
Valerii Maximi _Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium_ octauo” (_i.e._ Val.
Max., VIII. i., _sub fin._).
[143] Val. Max., II. vi. 8: “Asiam cum Sex. Pompeio petens Iulida oppidum
intraui.” _Cf._ IV. vii. _ext._ 2: “Pompeium meum ... a quo omnium
incrementa commodorum ultro oblata cepi ... qui studia nostra ductu et
auspiciis suis lucidiora et alacriora reddidit.”
[144] _Ex Ponto_, IV. i. and v. For Pompeius as speaker, _cf._ _Ex
Pont._, IV. iv. 37 (“facundo ore”); Val. Max., II. vi. 8 (“facundissimo
sermone”); Tac., _Ann._, III. xi.
[145] I. v. 7, viii. 8; VI. iv. 5; _cf._ proceedings taken by creatures
of Sejanus in A.D. 25 against Cremutius Cordus for having praised Brutus
and Cassius, Tac., _Ann._, IV. xxxiv.
[146] VI. i. _praef._; IX. xi. _ext._ 4.
[147] I. _praef._: “Te igitur huic coepto, penes quem hominum deorumque
consensus maris ac terrae regimen esse uoluit, certissima salus patriae,
Caesar, inuoco: cuius caelesti prouidentia uirtutes, de quibus dicturus
sum, benignissime fouentur, uitia seuerissime uindicantur.” H. Peter,
_Die Geschichtliche Lit. über d. röm. Kaiserzeit_, 1897, I. p. 15, gives
the date “zwischen den Jahren 29 und 32 n. Chr.”
[148] I. _praef._ “... ab illustribus electa auctoribus digerere
constitui, ut documenta sumere uolentibus longae inquisitionis labor
absit.”
[149] Some subjects are especially Roman, _e.g._ II. i., _De
Matrimoniorum Ritu_, or VII. v., _De Repulsis_. It is inaccurate to
say that “each chapter” has the section on _externa_, as is alleged in
Teuffel, _Gesch. Röm. Lit._, § 279, 2.
[150] IV. i. 12; _cf._ VI. iv., _ad init._: “ex abundanti copia nec parca
nimis nec rursus auida manu.”
[151] III. viii. _ext._ 1.
[152] III. vii. 11: “ut ab eo decentius ad externa transeamus, producatur
in medium”; _cf._ transition from “bona fiducia” to “constantia,” III.
viii., _ad init._; and from praises of poverty to “uerecundia,” IV. v.
_ad init._
[153] IV. i. 15.
[154] II. ii. 2.
[155] II. ii. 3.
[156] II. ii. 1: “Fidum erat et altum reipublicae pectus Curia,
silentiique salubritate munitum et uallatum undique: cuius limen
intrantes, abiecta priuata caritate, publicam induebant.”
[157] II. vii., _ad init._
[158] II. vii. 6.
[159] II. viii., _ad init._
[160] IV. viii. 4.
[161] V. i. 1.
[162] VI. v., _ad init._
[163] I. viii. _ext._ 19. For sources see Krieger, _Quibus fontibus Val.
Max. usus sit ..._ Berl., 1888; Traube in _Sitzungsberichte d. kais.
bayerisch. Akad. d. Wissenschaften_, Münch., 1891. Klotz., _Herm._,
XLIV. 2, gives 41 anecdotes as common to Val. Max. and Seneca, which he
believes came from a book of “Exempla” derived (possibly by Hyginus) from
Livy, Antipater, Cato, etc.
[164] In Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 279, 3, it is erroneously said that Cicero
is “likewise mentioned only once” (_i.e._ VIII. xiii. _ext._ 1); but see
VIII. x. 3 and other passages.
[165] III. ii. 24: “Nisi ea certi auctores, inter quos M. Varro,
monimentis suis testata esse uoluissent”; _cf._ II. ii. 6, which may
be based on Varro’s information “de senaculis” in his _De Vita Populi
Romani_; _cf._ Varro, _Ling. Lat._, V. § 156 (Müll.).
[166] For Trogus as utilized by Val. Max., see R. B. Steele, _Amer. Jrnl.
Philol._, xxxviii. 1, 1917.
[167] II. iv. 4.; III. vii. 11; I. vii. 6; IV. iv., _ad init._; IV. iv.
11.
[168] VIII. i. 2.
[169] III. iv. 6.
[170] Galdi, _L’Epitome nella lett. lat._, 1922, pp. 128-140.
[171] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 279, 10; _cf._ Galdi, _op. cit._, pp. 141-144.
[172] Niebuhr, _Lects. on Hist. of Rome_, ed. Schmitz, 1849, vol. ii., p.
93.
[173] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 279, 5.
[174] Val. Max., I. vi. 12.
[175] I. viii. 7: “nostrum sit inclutis literarum monimentis consecrata
perinde ac uana non refugisse.”
[176] III. viii. 3: “furialis fax tribunicia.”
[177] IV. i. 8; IV. vii. 1.
[178] VIII. x. 1.
[179] II. ix. 6.
[180] _E.g._ II. i., _ad init._; _cf._ V. v. 3.
[181] II. i. 10.
[182] I. vi. 13.
[183] VI. ix. 15: “C. Caesar cuius uirtutes aditum sibi in caelum
struxerunt.... Parua igitur summa clarissimum mundi sidus in piratico
myoparone rependi Fortuna uoluit”; and, on Julius’s care to fall with
decency before his assassins, IV. v. 6: “in hunc modum non homines
exspirant, sed dii immortales sedes suas repetunt”; _cf._ VIII. ix. 3;
IX. xv. 2.
[184] _E.g._ IX. xv. 6: “a Sullana uiolentia Caesariana aequitas reduxit
gubernacula Romani imperii.”
[185] I. vii. 2.
[186] I. vii. 1: “diui Augusti sacratissima memoria”; IV. vii. 7; IX. xv.
3.
[187] VIII. xv., _ad init._ In II. viii. 7: “qua postes Augustae
domus sempiterna gloria triumphant,” the allusion is to the old oak
near Julius’s house which furnished the wreath conferred for saving a
citizen’s life.
[188] VI. i., _ad init._: “Tu (_sc._ Pudicitia) palatii columen, augustos
penates sanctissimumque Iuliae genialem torum assidua statione celebras”:
the reading “Iuliae gentis” does not greatly mend matters.
[189] H. Peter, _op. cit._, I. pp. 15-16: “indem er die effektvollere
Überlieferung auswählt, selbst dann, wenn sein Gewährsmann (Livius)
schon Zweifel an ihrer Glaubwürdigkeit angedeutet hatte, ferner
selbstständig die Pointe möglichst zuspitzt und dabei sich nicht scheut,
wissentlich von der Wahrheit abzuweichen, die obendrein noch durch
seine Oberflächlichkeit, seinen Leichtsinn und seine Gewissenlosigkeit
schwer geschädigt wird; zahllose Anachronismen und Fehler hat er in die
Erzählung hineingetragen.” _Cf._ Kempf, _Prolegg._, pp. 26-34; Köhler,
_Qua ratione Liuii annal. usi sint historici_, pp. 13, 21, _sqq._
[190] II. ix., _ad init._
[191] II. ix. 4.
[192] IV. iv. 7.
[193] IX. i. 3.
[194] IX. i. 5.
[195] IV, iv., _ad init._; IX. i. 2.
[196] II. vii. 10 and 15.
[197] III. ii. _ext._ 6.
[198] IX. iii., _ad init._
[199] III. iii. 1; the “militia” is illustrated by examples of
“patientia” which follow, III. iii, 2-4.
[200] V. vi., _ad init._
[201] VI. ix. _ext._ 7: “Caduca nimium et fragilia, puerilibusque
consentanea crepundiis sunt ista quae uires atque opes humanae uocantur.
Affluunt subito, repente dilabuntur: nullo in loco, nulla in persona
stabilibus nixa radicibus consistunt; sed incertissimo flatu fortunae huc
atque illuc acta, quos sublime extulerunt, improuiso recursu destitutos,
profundo cladium miserabiliter immergunt. Itaque neque existimari neque
dici debent bona, quae inflictorum malorum amaritudinem desiderio sui
duplicant.”
[202] II. vii. 5: “non digna exempla quae tam breuiter, nisi maioribus
urgerer, referrentur.”
[203] _Cf._ Val. Max., VII. iii. 1, with Livy, I. xlv.
[204] I. vi. _ext._ 2.
[205] II. vii. 6; _ib._, 8.
[206] II. x. 3: “Bis enim te, Paulle, Macedonia urbi nostrae illustrem
ostendit: incolumem, spoliis suis; fato functum, humeris!”
[207] IV. iv. 11.
[208] III. vii. _ext._ 1; _cf._ II. vii., _ad init._: “militaris
disciplinae tenacissimum _uinculum_ in _cuius sinu ac tutela_ serenus
tranquillusque beatae pacis status _acquiescat_.”
[209] III. v. 1. Other typical metaphors are: IV. vii. _ext._ 2, “infulis
misericordiae permulseris”; VIII. v. 4, “quae decora civitatis umbone
iudiciali repulsa sunt”; IX. ii. 1, “Sulla ... omnes Italiae partes
sanguinis fluminibus inundauit”; IX. iii., _ad init._, “Ira quoque et
odium in pectoribus humanis magnos fluctus excitant.”
[210] VI. ix. _ext._ 5.
[211] III. ii. _ext._ 6 and 9.
[212] III. vii. 11; VI. i. 2.
[213] _Cf._ VIII. i. 7: “uictoriam in ipsa uictoria perdidit”; IX. i.
6: “eodem tempore et in iisdem penatibus diuersa saecula habitarunt,
frugalissimum alterum, alterum nequissimum.”
[214] II. vii. 9.
[215] III. ii. 14; _cf._ V. iii. 2, VII. vii. 1 (“togatam militiam”).
[216] _Prolog._ to Bk. I.
[217] II. iii. 1.
[218] VI. vi. 1.
[219] IX. i. 3: “uiros in hoc priscae continentiae ignotum deuerticulum
prolapsos.” _Cf._ IV. iii. 14: “quae quidem tam misericors continentia
plebis tacitum crudelium conuitium fuit”; IV. vii. 6: “fideli mendacio
obscuritate ipsa suffragante, Brutum se esse simulauit.”
[220] _Sugillare_ (“beat black and blue,” hence “insult”), III. ii.
_ext._ 1; VII. v. 5 and viii. 9; Liv., IV. xxxv.; _Sugillatio_, II. iii.
1; VI. ix. 12; IX. ii., _ad init._; Liv., XLIII. xiv.
[221] Wight Duff, _A Lit. Hist. of Rome to Golden Age_, 1909, pp. 659-662.
[222] III. ii. 24: “numerosa donorum pompa”; II. ix. 1: “posteritati
numerosae.”
[223] III. viii. 1: “persuasam”; V. ix. 4: “persuasus.”
[224] _E.g._ V. x. 3: “orationi meae uagari permittam”; VII. i., _ad
init._: “malignitatis obliuisci sibi imperauit”; IX. i. 3: “uehi
permittebat.” _Cf._ IX. i. 4, “quas imbecillitas ... studium ad cultum
hortatur conferre.” Usages like Quintilian’s familiar “fere solus legi
dignus” (_Inst. Or._, X. i. 96) are already in vogue: _e.g._ II. ix. 1:
“puniri dignos.”
[225] Tac., _Ann._, IV. xxxiv.-v.; see also chapter on “Elder Seneca,” p.
63.
[226] Sen., _Suas._, vi. 18 and 23; Younger Sen., _Ep._, XXX. 1; Quint.,
_I. Or._, X. i. 103; Plin., _N.H._, _praef._ 20; VI. (10) 27.
[227] Teuffel, _Gesch. d. röm. Lit._, § 291, 1.
[228] The praenomen “Gaius” of the _editio princeps_ is supported (in
preference to P. or M.) by the identification of the historian with the
individual named on a milestone in North Africa, “C. Velleio Paterculo
leg(ato) Aug(usti) leg(ionis) III Aug(ustae),” _C.I.L._, VIII. 10311. See
Teuffel, _Hist. Rom. Lit._, § 278, n. 1.
[229] Text: ed. princeps, Bâle, 1520; Orelli, 1835; Kritz (rec., annot.
et indd. instruxit), 1840; Halm (app. crit. adiecto), 1876; Ellis (ex
Amerbachii praecipue apographo ed. et emend.), 1898 (rev. by Warde
Fowler, _C.R._, XIII. pp. 316 _sqq._). Rockwood, ed. Bk. II. xli.-cxxxi.,
1900 (Civil War and reigns of Augustus and Tiberius w. introd.; noticed
_C.R._, X. 58). On style: Oestling, _De elocutione Vell._, 1874; Fritsch,
_Über d. Sprachgebr. des Vell._, 1876; Georges, _De elocutione Vell._,
1877; Lange, _Zum Sprachgebr. des Vell._, 1878. On historical value:
Morgenstern, _De fide historica V.P., imprimis de adulatione ei obiecta_,
1798; Speckert, _De la sincérité de V.P._, 1848; Pernice, _De V. fide
historica_, 1862; Stanger, _De V. fide_, 1863; Windheuser, _De V. fide
ad Tiberii mores_, 1867; De Oppen, _De M. Vell._, 1875; Goeke, _De Vell.
Tiberii imagine_, 1876.
[230] Vell., II. cxi. 3.
[231] II. cxxiv. 4.
[232] Vell., II. xvi. 2; Liv., XXIII. vii.-x.
[233] II. lxxvi.: “Quod alieno testimonium redderem, eo non fraudabo auum
meum.”
[234] II. civ. 3.
[235] II. lxix. 5.
[236] II. cxv. 1; cxxi. 3; cxxiv. 4.
[237] I. v., vii.; II. ix., xxxvi., lxvi.
[238] II. ci. 3.
[239] II. ci. 2: “quod spectaculum stantis ex diuerso, hinc Romani,
illinc Parthorum exercitus, cum duo inter se eminentissima imperiorum
et hominum coirent capita, perquam clarum et memorabile sub initia
stipendiorum meorum tribuno militum mihi uisere contigit.”
[240] II. ci. 3: “... haud iniucunda tot rerum, locorum, gentium, urbium
recordatione perfruor.”
[241] II. lxxxii. 4, _sub fin._
[242] II. lxxxiii. 2: “caeruleatus et nudus caputque redimitus arundine
et caudam trahens, genibus innixus.”
[243] II. civ. 3: “Hoc tempus (_i.e._ A.D. 4) me, functum ante tribunatu,
castrorum Ti. Caesaris militem fecit; quippe protinus ab adoptione missus
cum eo praefectus equitum in Germaniam, successor officii patris mei,
caelestissimorum eius operum per annos continuos †VIII praefectus aut
legatus spectator, tum pro captu mediocritatis meae adiutor fui.”
[244] II. civ. 3; II. cxi. 3.
[245] II. cxi. 4: “Quas non primo anno acies hostium uidimus!” It was
Burman who inserted “non” for _nos_. Heinsius’s conjecture of “fudimus”
is rejected by Kritz, who thinks it was approved “sine iusta caussa” by
Krause, Orelli and others.
[246] II. cxiv.-cxv.
[247] II. cxx. 5: “perpetuus patronus Romani imperi adsuetam sibi causam
suscipit.”
[248] II. cxxx. 5: “cuius temporis aegritudinem auxit amissa mater,
eminentissima et per omnia deis quam hominibus similior femina.”
[249] II. cxxvii.-cxxviii.
[250] I. xiv.
[251] I. xvi. 1: “intellego mihi in hac tam praecipiti festinatione, quae
me rotae proniue gurgitis (ac uerticis) modo nusquam patitur consistere,
paene magis necessaria praetereunda quam superuacua amplectenda.”
[252] II. xxix. 2.
[253] II. xli. 1.
[254] II. xlviii. 5.
[255] II. lv.; “admonet promissae breuitatis fides quanto omnia
transcursu dicenda sint.”
[256] II. lxxxvi.: “in hoc transcursu tam artati operis.”
[257] II. lxxxix.: “ne in operis quidem iusti materia, nedum huius tam
recisi digne exprimi potest.”
[258] II. xcvi.: “alio loco explicabimus, hoc opus seruet formam suam.”
[259] II. xcix. ... “iusto seruemus operi ... in hoc transcursu dicendum
est.”
[260] II. ciii. 4, _cf._ cxiv., cxix. 1.
[261] II. cxxiv.: “neque mihi tam festinanti exprimere uacat neque cui
uacat potest.”
[262] _E.g._ fondness for the epithet _caelestis_, II. lx.: “spreuit
itaque caelestis animus humana consilia”; II. lxiv.: “fulgentissimo et
caelesti ore” (of Cicero); lxvi.: “caelestissimi oris” (of Cicero again);
civ.: “caelestissimorum eius operum” (of Tiberius); cxxiii.: “animam
caelestem deo reddidit” (of Augustus); or such recurrences as “mihi
contigit” in II. ci. 2, cxxi. 2, cxxiv. 4.
[263] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 278, _n._ 1.
[264] I. vii.: “pace diligentiae Catonis dixerim.”
[265] II. xvi. 3, xxv. 4, xlviii. 5, lix. 1 (reading _praeuenit_).
[266] Wight Duff, _op. cit._, pp. 86, 423-426, 636-637.
[267] I. xiv.-xv., xvii.; II. ix., xxxvi., xxxviii., lxxxix.
[268] Gracchi, II. iii., vi.-vii.; Marius, II. xi.; Manilius, II. xxxiii.
[269] Cato, II. xxxv.; Octavius’s birth, II. xxxvi.; Julius Caesar, II.
xxxix.; Tiberius as soldier, II. xciv.-xcvii., civ.-cxv., cxx.-cxxii.
(for his praises, esp. xciv., xcix., cxi., cxiii.-cxv., cxx., cxxii.,
cxxiv., cxxix.-cxxx.); Sejanus, II. cxxvii.
[270] Wight Duff, _Lit. Hist. of Rome to Golden Age_, pp. 661-662.
[271] II. xli. 1-2; _cf._ the clumsiness of structure in I. xii. 4-5,
“bellum ... clementiae” with a characteristically awkward parenthesis;
II. ii. 1-3, “quippe ... iuuenem”; and elsewhere _passim_.
[272] II. lxvi. 3: “nihil tamen egisti, M. Antoni (cogit enim excedere
propositi formam operis erumpens animo ac pectore indignatio), nihil,
inquam, egisti mercedem caelestissimi oris et clarissimi capitis abscisi
numerando auctoramentoque funebri ad conseruatoris quondam rei publicae
tantique consulis inritando necem. rapuisti tum Ciceroni lucem sollicitam
et aetatem senilem et uitam miseriorem te principe quam sub te triumuiro
mortem, famam uero gloriamque factorum atque dictorum adeo non abstulisti
ut auxeris. uiuit uiuetque per omnem saeculorum memoriam dumque hoc uel
forte uel prouidentia uel utcumque constitutum rerum naturae corpus, quod
ille paene solus Romanorum animo uidit, ingenio complexus est, eloquentia
inluminauit, manebit incolume, comitem aeui sui laudem Ciceronis trahet
omnisque posteritas illius in te scripta mirabitur, tuum in eum factum
exsecrabitur.” For rhetorical interrogations, see II. liii. 2.
[273] _E.g._ II. xxiii. 1 (of Marius): “uir in bello hostibus, in otio
ciuibus infestissimus quietisque impatientissimus.” The usual plethora of
superlatives is well exemplified in II. xxix (character of Pompey).
[274] For the palpable “desire of Velleius Paterculus to write for the
sake of fine writing and to improve upon the diction of the Ciceronian
era,” see art. by Sihler, _Transactions Amer. Philol. Assoc._, 1894, vol.
xxv.
[275] II. iv.
[276] II. xxvi.
[277] II. xlix.
[278] Luc., _Phars._, I. 129-157.
[279] II. lxxii., lxxxv.
[280] II. xix., _ad fin._
[281] II. xxii.
[282] II. xxxv., _ad fin._
[283] II. lxxiii., lxxxviii.
[284] Wight Duff, _op. cit._, pp. 413-414.
[285] I. xvii. 5; _ib._, 6; _ib._, 7; II. iii. 4, xxx. 3, lxxii. 5,
lxxviii. 2, cxxvii. 2.
[286] II. lvii.: “Sed profecto ineluctabilis fatorum uis, cuiuscumque
fortunam mutare constituit, consilia corrumpit”; _cf._ II. cxviii.: “ita
se res habet, ut plerumque cui fortunam mutaturus est deus, consilia
corrumpat.” It is the spirit of the later proverb, _quem Iuppiter uult
perdere prius dementat_.
[287] I. xi., Metellus, who built the first marble temple at Rome,
“uel magnificentiae uel luxuriae princeps fuit.” In I. xv. Velleius
sympathizes with the opposition of “Puritans” like the consul Scipio to
the completion of a theatre by Cassius, the censor, at Rome.
[288] II. xxx., xliv.
[289] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 278: “Für den inneren Zusammenhang der Dinge
hat er kein Verstandnis, seine Teilnahme gilt den Personen.”
[290] I. xiv. 1: “cum facilius cuiusque rei in unum contracta species
quam diuisa temporibus oculis animisque inhaereat....”
[291] II. cxvi. 3: “utinam non maioribus experimentis testatum esset,
quantum in omni re fortuna posset!”
[292] II. cxvi. 5: “neque enim iustus sine mendacio candor apud bonos
crimini est.”
[293] See remarks on Drusus, II. xcvii., and rapturous exclamations on
Tiberius, II. cxi.
[294] I. xi., xiii.
[295] I. xiii. 4 ... “iuberet praedici conducentibus, si eas
perdidissent, nouas eos reddituros.”
[296] II. xxviii., xciv., _sub fin._: “semper magnae fortunae comes adest
adulatio.”
[297] II. xxxix.
[298] II. lxxv.
[299] II. xciv.: “Ti. Claudius Nero ... innutritus caelestium
praeceptorum disciplinis, iuuenis genere, forma, celsitudine corporis,
optimis studiis maximoque ingenio instructissimus, qui protinus, quantus
est, sperari potuerat uisuque praetulerat principem.”
[300] II. xciv.-xcviii., civ.-cxv., cxx.-cxxii.
[301] II. civ. 4: “At uero militum conspectu eius elicitae gaudio
lacrimae alacritasque et salutationis noua quaedam exultatio et
contingendi manum cupiditas non continentium protinus quin adicerent,
‘uidemus te, imperator? Saluum recipimus?’ ac deinde ‘ego tecum,
imperator, in Armenia, ego in Raetia fui, ego a te in Vindelicis, ego in
Pannonia, ego in Germania donatus sum,’ neque uerbis exprimi et fortasse
uix mereri fidem potest.”
[302] II. cvii.
[303] II. cxiv., cxv.
[304] II. xcix., c., ciii., cxxiv.
[305] II. cxxvi. The passage has genuine interest for the claims made on
behalf of imperial government.
[306] II. cxxix. 2–cxxx. 2.
[307] II. xxxvi. (on Augustus), lxxxix. (on Augustan _régime_).
[308] II. cxxxi.
[309] _Bibliography._ Edns.: Erasmus, 1518; Freinsheim, Strasb., 1648; c.
not. varior. (Elzev.) Amst., 1664; Mützell (mit krit. u. exeget. Anm.),
Berl., 1841; Zumpt (recens. et comment. instr.), Brunsv., 1849; Hedicke,
Berl., 1867; Vogel (Teub.), Leipz., 1904.
First Eng. trans, by Brende, Lond., 1553, followed by those of
Codrington, 1652; Digby, 1714; Pratt, 1809 and 1821. French trans, by
Vaugelas in Firmin Didot edn. (Nisard, 1847), with Du Ryer’s Fr. version
of Freinsheim’s supplements for the missing bks., I. and II. _Cf._
Dosson, _Étude sur Quinte Curce_, 1887.
[310] Furneaux, on Tac., _Ann._, xi. 20, thinks it probable Curtius Rufus
was father of the historian.
[311] Tac., _Ann._, XI. 21; Plin., _Ep._, VII. xxvii. 2-3.
[312] Curt. VIII. v. 6: “adulatio, perpetuum malum regum, quorum opes
saepius adsentatio quam hostis euertit.”
[313] IV. iv. 21: “longa pace cuncta refouente ...”; X. ix. 3-4: “nouum
sidus inluxit: huius, hercule, non solis ortus lucem _caliganti_ reddidit
mundo.”
[314] Hosius, _Rh. Mus._ xlviii. p. 303 _sqq._, on _Lucan u. seine
Quellen_ endeavours to suggest, on ground of analogies in description
and resemblances in expression, that Lucan used Curtius. If proved, this
would clearly bear on his date. But Hosius’s theory is examined and
rejected, I think convincingly, by R. Pichon in _Les Sources de Lucain_,
1912, pp. 254-261.
[315] Liv., IX. xvii.-xix.
[316] Sen., _Suas._, i.
[317] IX. v. 21: “Ptolemaeum qui postea regnauit, huic pugnae adfuisse
auctor est Clitarchus et Timegenes: sed ipse ... afuisse se ... memoriae
tradidit.” IX. viii. 15, on number of Indians slain: “Clitarchus est
auctor.”
[318] Diod. Sic., II. vii. (96): ὡς δὲ Κλείταρχος, καὶ τῶν ὕστερον μετ’
Ἀλεξάνδρου διαβάντων εἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν τινὲς ἀνέγραψαν: _cf._ Strab., XI. v.
4, where Clitarchus’s statement regarding the Amazon queen who visited
Alexander and his record of a geographical distance in stades from the
Caspian do not prove his participation in the expedition.
[319] Cic., _de Leg._, I. ii. 7: “quem (Clitarchum) si assequi posset
aliquantum tamen ab optimo abesset.” _Cf._ Quint., _I. Or._, X. i. 75:
“Clitarchi probatur ingenium, fides infamatur.”
[320] F. Reuss, in _Rh. Mus._, xxvii. 4 (1902), maintains that Clitarchus
lived about 260 B.C. and must have used Aristobulus; objects to the
hypothesis of a history of Alexander by Timagenes; and ascribes the
agreement in the account of the campaigns by Strabo, Plutarch and Arrian
to a common source in the writings of Eratosthenes.
[321] IX. i. 34: “equidem plura transcribo quam credo: nam nec adfirmare
sustineo de quibus dubito, nec subducere quae accepi.”
[322] VII. viii.
[323] X. ix. 3.
[324] III. vi. 17-20: “Namque haud facile dictu est, praeter ingenitam
illi genti erga reges suos venerationem, quantum huius utique regis uel
admirationi dediti fuerint uel caritate flagrauerint. Iam primum nihil
sine diuina ope aggredi uidebatur: nam cum praesto esset ubique fortuna,
temeritas in gloriam cesserat. Aetas quoque uix tantis matura rebus, sed
abunde sufficiens, omnia eius opera honestabat et, quae leuiora haberi
solent, plerumque militari gratiora uolgo sunt: exercitatio corporis
inter ipsos, cultus habitusque paulum a priuato abhorrens, militaris
uigor: quibus ille uel ingeni dotibus uel animi artibus ut pariter carus
ac uenerandus esset effecerat.”
[325] The conception deserves comparison with Florus’s view of the Roman
Empire as the outcome of a struggle between fortune and virtue.
[326] V. xi. 10: “eludant me licet quibus forte temere humana negotia
uolui agique persuasum est: equidem fato crediderim nexuque causarum
latentium et multo ante destinatarum suum quemque ordinem immutabili lege
percurrere.”
[327] For these four types of _clausulae_ De Groot, _Der Antike
Prosarhythmus_, 1921, gives, over a number of observed instances, the
following percentages—31, 15, 12 and 8.
[328] Text: Almeloveen (not. varr.), 1687; Targa (Patav.), 1769, (Veron.)
1810; Milligan (index), ed. 2, 1831; Daremberg, Lpz., 1859 (ed. 2, 1891).
Translations: Lee (Lat. and Eng.), 2 vols., 1831-1836; Nisard (Lat. and
French), 1877. See also Ilberg, _A. Corn. Celsus u. die Medizin in Rom_
(aus dem XIX. Bande der _Neuen Jahrbücher für d. Klass. Altert._), Lpz.,
1907.
[329] _E.g._ Col., I. i. 14.; III. xvii. 4; Plin., _N.H._, XIV. ii. (v.),
xxxiii.: “Graecinus qui alioqui Cornelium Celsum transcripsit.” The
praenomen has the authority of MS. headings of the _De Medicina_.
[330] Col., III. xvii. 4: “Iulius Atticus et Cornelius Celsus, aetatis
nostrae celeberrimi auctores, patrem atque filium Sasernam secuti.”
[331] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 280, 4; 283, 4. Cichorius, _Röm. Studien_,
1922, pp. 411-417, examines Pliny’s citations and argues that the
agricultural portion of Celsus was written A.D. 25-26, and the medical
portion soon after.
[332] IV. iv. 1: “quamuis in monumentis medicorum non legerim”; _cf._
Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 294, 2.
[333] Wight Duff, _A Literary Hist. of Rome_, ed. 2, 1910, pp. 262 _sqq._
and 332 _sqq._
[334] There were five books on agriculture, Col., I. i. 14; and, if he is
the Celsus mentioned by the scholiast to Juv., vi. 245, there were seven
books on rhetoric (“Celso: oratori illius temporis qui septem libros
_Institutionum_ scriptos reliquit”). His work on philosophy was in six
books, Augustin., _De haeresibus_ (Migne, _Patrolog._, tom. xlii., 1861,
p. 23), “opiniones omnium philosophorum ... sex non paruis uoluminibus
quidam Celsus absoluit.”
[335] Veget., _De re mil._, i. 8; Lyd., _De mag._, i. 47; iii. 33: καὶ
συγγραφὴν περὶ τούτου μονήρη Κέλσος, ὁ Ῥωμαῖος τακτικὸς, ἀπολέλοιπε, and
34.
[336] Aug., _loc. cit._ “nec redarguit aliquem, sed tantum quid sentirent
(_v.l._, sentiret) aperuit”; contrast Quint., _Inst. Or._, X. i. 124:
“scripsit non parum multa Cornelius Celsus, Sextios secutus, non sine
cultu ac nitore.”
[337] _I. Or._, XII. xi. 24: “Cum etiam Cornelius Celsus, mediocri uir
ingenio, non solum de his omnibus conscripserit artibus sed amplius rei
militaris et rusticae et medicinae praecepta reliquerit”; _cf._ II. xv.
22 and 32; VIII. iii. 35: “neque enim accedo Celso qui ab oratore uerba
fingi uetat.”
[338] In Cels., V. xxviii. 16, the mention of a prescription, “as
already recommended in case of cattle,” proves the agricultural portion
preceded. The opening of the preface to what is now Bk. I. suggests that
“Agriculture” _immediately_ preceded, “ut alimenta sanis corporibus
agricultura, sic sanitatem aegris medicina promittit.” This is confirmed
by headings in many MSS., “Celsi artium liber VI., idem medicinae I.”;
_cf._ Col., I. i., xiv.
[339] II. _praef._, _ad init._: “non dubitabo auctoritate antiquorum
uirorum uti, maximeque Hippocratis”; _cf._ II. xiv., VIII. iv. Rhodius,
in a rambling _Vita_ prefixed to Almeloveen’s ed., records the nickname
“Hippocratis simiam.”
[340] IV. iv.: “Asclepiades ... auctor bonus”; _ibid. infra_ for
Asclepiades and Erasistratus on hemorrhage; I. iii.: “in eo uolumine quod
de _tuenda sanitate_ composuit”; II. xiv., _ad init._: “in eo uolumine
quod _communium auxiliorum_ inscripsit”; _Cf._ III. xiv. and V. _praef._
[341] _E.g._ III. iv.: “Commodeque Erasistratus dixit ....”; IV. xxiv.,
_sub fin._; V. _praef._, etc.
[342] V. xviii. is a good example.
[343] _E.g._ II. i. (consumption): “labes quam Graeci φθίσιν nominant”
_ib._ (paralysis): “resolutio neruorum, παράλυσιν Graeci nominant.”
[344] _I. Or._, IX. i. 18: “Cornelius tamen Celsus adicit ... figuras
colorum, nimia profecto nouitatis cupiditate ductus.”
[345] _E.g._ I. _praef._: “Themison _nuper_ ipse quoque quaedam in
senectute deflexit”; III. iv. (on food in fevers): “At Themison _nuper_,
non quando coepisset febris, sed quando desisset ... considerabat”;
_ib._: “Neque tamen uerum est quod Themisoni uidebatur”; _cf._ IV. xv.
(cure for dysentery).
[346] I. _praef._: “ingeniosissimus saeculi nostri medicus, quem nuper
uidimus, Cassius”; IV. xiv.: “Est etiam medicamentum eius rei causa
comparatum, quod κωλικὸν nominatur: id se repperisse Cassius gloriabatur.”
[347] _E.g._ II. xii., decreased use of injections; II. x., _ad init._,
increased use of blood-letting.
[348] II. xvii.: “quarumdam naturalium sudationum ubi terra profusus
calidus uapor aedificio includitur sicut super Baias in myrtetis habemus.”
[349] III. xi., _sub fin._: “_Ego_ tum hoc puto tentandum”; III. xxiv.:
“_Ego_ utique,” after citing Asclepiades and others on jaundice; III.
xxi., a treatment of dropsy introduced by Tharrias is “still observed
by many, I see” (“seruatum esse a pluribus, uideo”). In VII. xii. 4 he
cites a case known to him of an ineffective operation upon a tongue-tied
patient (“Ego autem cognoui qui, succisa lingua,” etc.), and in VII. vii.
6 he says of a certain eye-operation that he remembers no successful case
(“ego sic restitutum esse neminem memini”).
[350] II. x.: “quod si uehemens febris urget, in ipso impetu eius
sanguinem mittere, hominem iugulare est.”
[351] I. _praef._: “siquidem haec duo (desidia et luxuria) corpora, prius
in Graecia, deinde apud nos afflixerunt.”
[352] II. i. (autumn); I. x. (“meridianus somnus”); VII. v. 2 (surgical
treatment of arrow-wounds); I. ii., iv., vii., viii. (“clara lectio,”
“clare legere,” “uoce contendere”).
[353] I. _praef._: “Verique simile est ... non ideo quidem medicos
fuisse, uerum ideo quoque maiores medicos exstitisse.”
[354] His language (_loc. cit._) pointedly suggests the parallel between
the “ruffian” vivisectionist and the “ruffian” robber with violence:
“ita mortui demum praecordia et uiscus omne in conspectum _latrocinantis
medici_ dari,” and “interdum enim gladiatorem in arena uel militem in
acie uel uiatorem _a latronibus exceptum_ sic uolnerari ut eius interior
aliqua pars aperiatur, et in alio alia.”
[355] I. _praef._: “Incidere autem uiuorum corpora et crudele et
superuacuum est: mortuorum, discentibus necessarium.”
[356] I. ii. and iii.
[357] I. ii.: “Sin lucubrandum est, non post cibum id facere, sed post
concoctionem.”
[358] II. i.: “Pessimum aegro caelum est quod aegrum fecit”; IV. iv.
4: “Utilis etiam in omni tussi est peregrinatio, nauigatio longa, loca
maritima, natationes.”
[359] II. vi.: “Non itaque, si quid uix in millesimo corpore aliquando
decipit, fidem non habet.”
[360] II. viii.: “Scire licet, inter ea quoque quae ars adhibet, naturam
plurimum posse.”
[361] III. iv.: “Optimum uero medicamentum est opportune cibus datus.”
[362] III. vi. (pulse); x. _sub fin._ (a quack’s temerity); iv. (critical
days).
[363] III. iv., _ad init._
[364] IV. i.
[365] VII. _praef._: “Non ut clamore eius motus uel magis quam res
desiderat properet, uel minus quam necesse est secet.”
[366] VII. vii. 14.
[367] IV. iv.
[368] I. iv., _ad init._
[369] II. xviii.
[370] IV. iv. 1.
[371] _Ibid._
[372] V. v.; viii.; _cf._ V. xxii. 4.
[373] As a rule, he has too keen a feeling for exactitude to indulge
often in a pleonasm like “causa quae ante praecesserat” (I. _praef._).
[374] III. xviii.: “Quidam imaginibus non mente falluntur; quales
insanientem Aiacem uel Orestem percepisse poetae ferunt.”
[375] IV. xxi.: “uitare autem oportet _cruditates_,” in sense of
“indigestible fare.”
[376] I. _praef._, _ad init._, quoted _supra_; _cf._ later in _praef._:
“Nec post rationem medicinam esse inuentam sed post inuentam medicinam
rationem esse quaesitam,” where the antithetic order aims at clear
emphasis, not rhetorical effect.
[377] Cic., _Ad Fam._, IX. xxii. (discussion by E. W. Fay in _Cl. Q._, I.
i., April, 1907); Cic., _Or._, XLV., 154; Quint., _I. Or._, VIII. iii.
44-47 (on κακέμφατον), IX. iv. 33; _cf._ _Rh. Mus._, Vol. III. p. 576
(1835); Ritter, _Uebertriebene Scheu der Römer vor gewissen Ausdrücken
und Wortverbindungen_.
[378] VI. xviii. 1: “Proxima sunt ea quae ad partes obscaenas pertinent:
quarum apud Graecos uocabula et tolerabilius se habent et accepta iam usu
sunt, cum in omni fere medicorum uolumine atque sermone iactentur.”
[379] _Loc. cit._: “ut difficilis haec explanatio sit simul et pudorem et
artis praecepta seruantibus.”
[380] V. xxvi. 1: “In his autem ante omnia scire medicus debet, quae
insanabilia sint, quae difficilem curationem habeant, quae promptiorem.
Est enim prudentis hominis, primum eum qui seruari non potest, non
attingere, nec subire speciem eius, ut occisi, quem sors ipsius
interemit: deinde, ubi grauis metus, sine tamen desperatione, est,
indicare necessariis periclitantis, in difficili rem esse; ne, si uicta
ars malo fuerit, uel ignorasse uel fefellisse uideatur. Sed ut haec
prudenti uiro conueniunt, sic rursus histrionis est paruam rem attollere
quo plus praestitisse uideatur.”
[381] Ed. Gronov., Leyd., 1696; cum not. var., _ib._, 1722; Parthey,
Berl., 1867; Frick, Leipz., 1880. Nisard (with Macrobius and Varro and
Fr. trans.), Firmin-Didot, Par., 1883.
_Cf._ Tozer, _Hist. of Anct. Geog._, 1897; Klotz, _Quaest. Plin. Geogr._,
Berl., 1906.
[382] Strabo, III. iv. 19: οἱ δὲ τῶν Ῥωμαίων συγγραφεῖς μιμοῦνται μὲν
τοὺς Ἕλληνας, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐπὶ πολύ· καὶ γὰρ ἃ λέγουσι παρὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων
μεταφέρουσι, ἐξ ἑαυτῶν δ’ οὐ πολὺ μὲν προσφέρονται τὸ φιλείδημον, κ.τ.λ.
[383] Plin., _N.H._, V. i. 12.
[384] Mela, II. vi. (96): “unde nos sumus, Tingentera.”
[385] Teuffel, _Gesch. d. röm. Lit._, § 296 _n._ 1.
[386] Norden, _Kunstprosa_, 305, imagines that in the Latin text, III.
vi. (49), “tamdiu _clausam_ (sc. Britanniam) aperit ecce principum
maximus,” there is a play on the name of Claudius.
[387] Current literary histories (Teuffel, 296, 1; Schanz, 443) combine
this passage (III. 49) with Mela’s alleged mention of Thia (II. 111),
an island which first appeared in A.D. 46, to prove a later date. But
Wissowa, _Herm._, li. (1916), p. 89 _sqq._, distrusts the reading in
II. 111, and argues that the future in _triumpho declaraturus_ makes it
imperative to take the triumph as a _terminus ante quem_. He rejects 46
and believes the beginning of 44 to be the date of composition.
[388] Bunbury, _Hist. of Anct. Geog._, I. p. 404; Tozer, _Hist. of Anct.
Geog._, p. 119.
[389] III. v. (45) and III. ix. (90).
[390] _Handb. d. klass. Altertumswissenschaft_, vol. iii. (_Geographie
u. politische Geschichte_), p. 514: “Von römischer Seite ist zuerst
Varro (116-127 v. Chr.) als geographischer Schriftsteller über Hispanien
aufgetreten, das er als Legat des Pompejus persönlich kennen gelernt hat.”
[391] Notes on Juv. II. 159-160; Virg., _Aen._, IX. 31.
[392] I., _prooem._: “quod si non ope ingenii orantis at ipsa sui
contemplatione pretium operae attendentium absoluat.”
[393] I. xiii. (72).
[394] _Eg._ Egypt, I. ix.; Pontus, I. xix.; Scythians, II. i.; Druids,
III. ii.
[395] III. i., _ad init._
[396] I. vii., _ad fin._
[397] See tables of statistics in De Groot’s _Der Antike Prosarhythmus_,
Haag, 1921, pp. 108-109.
[398] Ed. pr., Ruellius, Par., 1528; Rhodius, Patav., 1655; Bernhold,
Strasb., 1786; Helmreich, Leipz., 1887. Language, etc.: Lattritz, _De
Scrib. Largi genere dicendi_, Bonn, 1913; Jourdan, _Notes de critique
verbale sur Scrib. Larg._ (introd., bibliog.), Par., 1919.
[399] Teuffel, _op. cit._, 281, 1 and 2.
[400] Suet., _Gr._, 22: “sermonis latini exactor molestissimus.”
[401] Sen., _Ad Helv._, X. 8; Schol. Juv., IV. 23.
[402] Ed. pr., Mil., 1498; Lister, Lond., 1705; Schuch, Heidelb., 1867,
2nd ed., 1874; Giarratano and Vollmer, Leipz., 1922. Vollmer has argued
that the “Caelius,” sometimes added to Apicius’s name, should be dropped
as an erroneous expansion by Renaissance scholars of what they found on
the title-page of the archetype MS.
[403] Sen., _De Tranq. An._, xiv. 4; _cf._ 9.
[404] Text: Ed. pr., Pithoeus, 1596; Burman, 1698 (_varior. not._,
1718); Bentley (w. Terence), 1726; Orelli, 1831; emend., adnot., suppl.
L. Müller, 1877; Robert (w. facsim. of _Cod. Pithoeanus_), 1894; Havet,
_Phaedri Aug. lib. fab. Aesop._, 1895 (noticed by Ellis, _C.R._, X.
159-163), and _Phèdre_ (texte, notes), 1896, ed. 14, 1923; Gow, _Corp.
Poet. Lat._, II., 1905; Ramorino, ed. 5, Turin, 1915; Postgate, _Fabulae
Aesopiae_ (cum Perotti prologo et X. nouis fabulis), 1920; Brenot,
_Phèdre_ (Budé), texte et trad., 1924.
Other works: Nisard, _Études ... sur les poètes latins de la décadence_,
ed. 3, 1867, I. pp. 3-57; L. Müller, _De Phaedri et Aviani fabulis_,
1875; J. J. Hartman, _De Ph. fabulis commentatio_, 1890, an able work,
noticed _C.R._, V. 29-32; Hervieux, _Les fabulistes latins_, vols. i.-v.
ed. 2, 1893-1894; Ellis, _The Fables of Ph._ (Inaug. Lect.), 1894;
Jacobs, _The Fables of Aesop_, 2 vols., 1889 (for history of Aesopic
fable, see vol. i.); Vandaele, _Qua mente Phaeder fabellas scripserit_,
1897; Zander, _Phaedrus solutus uel Phaedri fab. nouae_, XXX., Lund, 1921
(noticed _J. R. S._ by Wight Duff, 1923).
[405] III. _prol._ 17 _sqq._; Schwabe, Rh. _Mus._, xxxix. p. 476, proves
against Wölfflin that the lines are meant literally.
[406] III. _epil._ 33-34: “Palam muttire plebeio piaculumst” is from the
_Telephus_ of Ennius.
[407] III. _prol._ 27-28; IV. vii. 6 _sqq._; IV. xxii. (xxiii.) and xxv.
(xxvi.).
[408] _Epist. ad. Theodos._: “Phaedrus etiam partem aliquam quinque in
libellos resoluit.”
[409] Plessis, _La poésie lat._, p. 484. Ellis (_Fables of Ph._, p. 3)
thinks the rare by-form “Phaeder” less likely.
[410] The emperor seems to be referred to as alive in II. v. 7, where he
is “Caesar Tiberius”; contrast “a diuo Augusto” of Augustus, III. x. 39.
[411] Ellis, _op. cit._, p. 2. Bk. I. is more strictly “Aesopian” or
Hellenic; Bk. II. obviously introduces Roman matter.
[412] III. _epil._ 15-19; III. i. 7.
[413] Havet favours later dates for his birth and for chronology of the
works. According to his arguments—which present difficulties—Book III.
was written under Claudius, IV. under Nero, and V. as late as Vespasian’s
time. Havet’s hypothesis depends primarily upon his transposition from
Book III. of the second part of the prologue (ll. 33-63) to the epilogue
of Book II.
[414] III. _epil._ 1; IV. _prol._ 1-10.
[415] V. x. 9-10. That Phaedrus here alluded to his own advanced years
was the view of Ribbeck, _Gesch. der röm. Dichtung_, iii. p. 27.
[416] _E.g._ II. _prol._ 11. Havet claims that prol. and epil. of Bk.
III. were addressed to an unknown Illius at a date not earlier than A.D.
43.
[417] Bücheler, _Rh. Mus._, xxxvii. pp. 333 _sqq._
[418] IV. _epil._ 4: “uir sanctissime”; _prol._ 17-19:
“Mihi parta laus est, quod tu, quod similes tui
Vestras in chartas uerba transfertis mea
Dignumque longa iudicatis memoria.”
[419] V. x. 9-10:
“Quod fuimus, lauda, si iam damnas quod sumus:
Hoc cur, Philete, scripserim, pulchre vides,”
where the reading of P is _fili te_, and of R _filiᵉ de_.
[420] L. Müller’s ed. 1877, Introd., pp. xiii.-xxxvii.; Plessis, _op.
cit._, pp. 488-491.
[421] Ellis (_op. cit._) gives a useful account of MSS. and early history
of the text. Janelli, the editor of the “Perottine” fables in 1811, has
been supported by Cardinal Mai, Orelli, Lachmann, L. Müller, Hervieux and
Ribbeck in accepting their descent from Phaedrus. Ellis (_op. cit._, pp.
25-28) gives reasons against crediting this, and compares the impression
left by these fables to that left by various imitations of Ovid, the
_Nux_ or the _Epicedion Drusi_ or the spurious poems among the _Heroides_.
[422] For Müller’s opinion of Dressler’s iambic composition see his ed.
of 1877, pp. xxxviii.-xxxix.
[423] I. _prol._ 6.
[424] The account of trees favoured by different deities in III. xvii. is
not an example; but in _Fab. Nouae_ (Müller’s ed., No. xiii.), the oak
admits to the ash that they were justly cut down because they had ordered
the wild olive to supply a man with an axe-handle.
[425] Otto Crusius, _Rh. Mus._, xxxix. p. 603; Ellis, _op. cit._, p. 4;
_cf._ Rutherford, _Babrius, Introd._, p. xi.
[426] Aul. Gell., II. xxix.; Hor. _Epist._ I. i. 73 _sqq._ (the sick
lion, previously in Lucilius, _vid._ Non. 303); I. vii. 29 (the
_uolpecula_ that raided the bin); I. x. 34 (horse securing man’s help
against stag); Sat., II. vi. 79 (town mouse and country mouse).
[427] I. _prol._ 1-7:
“Aesopus auctor quam materiam repperit,
Hanc ego poliui uersibus senariis.
Duplex libelli dos est: quod risum mouet
Et quod prudenti uitam consilio monet.
Calumniari siquis autem uoluerit,
Quod arbores loquantur, non tantum ferae,
Fictis iocari nos meminerit fabulis.”
[428] II. _epil._ 1-2:
“Aesopi ingentem (_v.l._ ingenio) statuam posuere Attici
Seruomque aeterna collocarunt in basi.”
_Ingenio_ is most likely. This is one of a few cases in which N and V
preserve by their reading (“Aesopi ingenio”) the right tradition against
the older manuscript P and the record of R. P gives “Aesopo ingentem (_m.
pr._ Aesopi ingento)....”
[429] II. _epil._ 8-9:
“Quod si labori fauerit Latium meo,
Plures habebit quos opponat Graeciae.”
[430] III. _prol._ 52-55.
[431] IV. vii. 5: “Et in cothurnis prodit Aesopus nouis.”
[432] IV. xxi. (xxii.)
[433] IV. _prol._ 11: “Quas Aesopias non Aesopi nomino.”
[434] Ed. 1877, p. 98.
[435] IV. _prol._ 7-8:
“Sua cuique cum sit animi cogitatio
Colorque proprius.”
[436] II. _prol._ 8-11:
“Equidem omni cura morem seruabo senis;
Sed si libuerit aliquid interponere,
Dictorum sensus ut delectet uarietas,
Bonas in partes, lector, accipias uelim.”
[437] Bücheler, _Rh. Mus._, xxxvii. p. 332.
[438] For these instances, see III. x.; V. vii.; V. v.
[439] IV. vi. 2: “Historia quorum et in tabernis pingitur.”
[440] _Ardalio_, _ardelio_, _ardulio_ are spellings found in glossaries.
Nettleship inclined to favour _ardalio_, _Contribns. to Lat.
Lexicography_, p. 267.
[441] II. v.
[442] III. _prol._ 33-37:
“Nunc fabularum cur sit inuentum genus
Breui docebo. Seruitus obnoxia,
Quia quae uolebat non audebat dicere,
Adfectus proprios in fabellas transtulit
Calumniamque fictis elusit iocis.”
[443] I. xv. 1-2:
“In principatu commutando ciuium
Nil praeter domini nomen mutant pauperes.”
[444] I. i. 14-15:
“Haec propter illos scriptast homines fabula,
Qui fictis causis innocentes opprimunt.”
[445] I. xvii.
[446] I. ii.
[447] I. vi. 9: “Quidnam futurumst si crearit liberos?”
[448] III. _prol._ 38-43:
“Ego porro illius (_sc._ Aesopi) semita[m?] feci uiam,
Et cogitaui plura quam reliquerat,
In calamitatem deligens quaedam meam.
Quodsi accusator alius Seiano foret,
Si testis alius, iudex alius denique,
Dignum faterer esse me tantis malis.”
[449] III. _epil._ 29-35.
[450] IV. ii. 1-4:
“Ioculare tibi uidetur, et sane leui,
Dum nil habemus maius, calamo ludimus.
Sed diligenter intuere has nenias:
Quantam sub illis utilitatem reperies!”
[451] I. xv. 2.
[452] I. xxx.
[453] I. ii. 31: “Hoc sustinete, maius ne ueniat, malum.”
[454] III. _prol._ 49-51:
“Neque enim notare singulos mens est mihi,
Verum ipsam uitam et mores hominum ostendere.
Rem me professum dicet forsan quis grauem.”
[455] IV. x.:
“Peras imposuit Iuppiter nobis duas:
Propriis repletam uitiis post tergum dedit,
Alienis ante pectus suspendit grauem.
Hac re uidere nostra mala non possumus;
Alii simul delinquunt, censores sumus.”
_Cf._ Catull., xxii. 21: “Sed non uidemus manticae quod in tergo est.”
[456] IV. xxi. 16-26.
[457] IV. xviii. 9-10:
“Parce gaudere oportet et sensim queri:
Totam aeque uitam miscet dolor et gaudium.”
[458] III. ix.: “Vulgare amici nomen, sed rarast fides....”
[459] I. xi., xiv., xxv.; III. i.
[460] I. vii.
[461] IV. xxiv.: “Mons parturibat, gemitus immanes ciens,” etc. _Cf._
Hor., _A.P._ 139.
[462] I. x. 9-10.
[463] S. Reinach, _Orpheus_, Eng. ed., 1909, p. 16.
[464] III. vii. Havet’s theory (_Rev. des études anciennes_, 1921) that
this fable represents an actual dialogue in A.D. 16 between Arminius,
the Cheruscan warrior, and his Romanized brother Flavus cannot be either
proved or disproved.
[465] The most famous line in Phaedrus is probably V. iii. 5:
“Iniuriae qui addideris contumeliam.”
[466] I. iv.; II. iv. Lessing in the one case and Ellis in the other
criticized adversely Phaedrus’s accuracy. For similar mistakes, see J. J.
Hartman, _op. cit._
[467] I. xix., xxi., xxiii., xxix.
[468] _E.g._ II. _epil._ 10-14; III. ix. 4; IV. _prol._ 15; IV. vii.; IV.
xxii.
[469] _E.g._ II. _prol._ 12; IV. _epil._ 7. III. x. closes with
explanation that the story has been fully told because his brevity has
offended some.
[470] II. _epil._ 1-9.
[471] III. _prol._ 32; IV. _epil._ 5-6:
“Particulo, chartis nomen uicturum meis,
Latinis dum manebit pretium litteris.”
[472] IV. xxiii. and xxvi.
[473] III. _prol._ 17: “Ego, quem Pierio mater enixast iugo,” etc.
[474] III. xii.
[475] Sen., _Cons. ad Polyb._, viii. 3 ... “fabellas quoque et Aesopeos
logos, intemtatum Romanis ingeniis opus.” Most scholars take this to
imply either an ignorance or an ignoring of Phaedrus on Seneca’s part.
But Seneca was writing to a Greek freedman, and remembering that Phaedrus
was Greek too, he compliments his correspondent by remarking that
fable-writing was a sort of literary work which _Romans_ had not tried. I
have argued in _C.R._, XXIX. (1915), pp. 252-253, that there is no need
to implicate Seneca in a wilful falsehood.
[476] _Inst. Or._, I. ix. 2.
[477] Mart., III. xx. 5. This is Friedländer’s suggestion _ad loc._
Teuffel, _Gesch. d. röm. Lit._, § 284, 3, dismisses it summarily as
against probability (“ohne Wahrscheinlichkeit”). But Plessis, _La poés.
lat._, p. 487, agrees with Friedländer. Ellis (_op. cit._, p. 8) takes
Martial to mean the fabulist, and _improbi_ to allude to fables such as
I. xxix.; III. i.; III. iii.; IV. xv. (xvi.); IV. xviii. (xix.). Thiele,
in _Philologus_, LXX., 1911, pp. 539-548, proposes to read in Martial “an
aemulatur improbi _logos_ Phaedri,” taking _logos_ = _apologos_ (_cf._
Sen., _Cons. ad. Polyb._, viii. 3) and _improbi_ = “audacious” applied to
political allusions in the fables.
[478] The process of abridgement, mutilation and transformation of
Phaedrus took place between the time when Avianus must have read the
fables in verse-form (_i.e._ with intervals marked between lines), and
the ninth or tenth century, when the _Pithoeanus_ has them without any
mark to distinguish them from prose. Ellis (_op. cit._, pp. 9-10) argues
that the abridgement “may have been executed in the 5th or 6th cent., and
that the gradually declining knowledge of ancient language and metre,
which the unsettled state of Europe produced, caused the iambics of
Phaedrus to be written in prose. As prose they were probably read by the
Carlovingian scholars.”
[479] “Ex libris bonae memoriae Ademari grammatici” is part of a note in
the MS., which was written in the Abbey of St. Martial de Limoges.
[480] The influence of Phaedrus, and especially the strong influence
of the Romulus collection, upon the MS. of Ademar, are discussed in
_Der illustrierte lateinische Aesop_, Thiele, 1905; _cf._ Zander,
_De generibus et libris paraphrasium Phaedrianarum_, 1897; _Phaedrus
Solutus_, 1921.
[481] IV. vii.
[482] IV. vii. 21-22. Cato is, of course, the type of the austere
literary judge, _e.g._ in the Petronian epigram, 132:
“Quid me constricta spectatis fronte, Catones?”
[483] _E.g._ I. xiii. 12: “Tum demum ingemuit corui deceptus stupor”;
II. v. 23: “Tum sic iocata est tanti maiestas ducis”;
III. v. 9: “Sed spes fefellit inpudentem audaciam”;
_cf._ the personification in I. xxvii. 6:
“Poenas ut sanctae Religioni penderet”;
and in IV. xi. 4:
“Repente uocem sancta misit Religio.”
[484] _E.g._ I. xxiv. 8: “quis maior esset,” where “uter” would be
correct (_cf._ Lucan, I. 126, “quis iustius induit arma” of Caesar and
Pompey); III. v. 8: “persuasus” (_cf._ I. viii. 7). Ellis (_op. cit._,
21) quotes in defence of the latter _Ad Herenn._, I. vi. 9, and Ovid,
_A.A._, iii. 679.
[485] I. xi. 6; IV. ii. 16; I. xii. 5; I. xxi. 5. The epithet _fulmineus_
is shared with Ovid and Statius.
[486] III. xviii. 6-8:
“Sed forma uincis, uincis magnitudine;
Nitor smaragdi collo praefulget tuo
Pictisque plumis gemmeam caudam explicas.”
[487] IV. ii. 4. A case in point is the threefold lesson, each, as it
were, numbered and labelled, from the story of the thief who stole an
altar-lamp, IV. xi. 16-21.
[488] I. xxxi. 13: “merito plectimur.”
[489] Butler, _Post-Augustan Poetry_, 1909, pp. 70-71.
[490] His usage with regard to various feet is discussed in Müller’s ed.,
1877, pp. ix.-xiii. Consult also the careful essay on metre and prosody
in Havet, _Phaedri ... Fabulae Aesopiae_, 1895.
[491] _Lat. Lit._, 1899, p. 160.
[492] Suet., _Tib._, lxx.
[493] Wight Duff, _A Lit. Hist. of Rome to Golden Age_, 1909, pp. 619-623.
[494] Text: _In Astron. Veterum Scripta Isagogica Gr. et Lat._ (w.
Proclus, etc.) _Ciceronis, Festi Avieni, Germanici Aratea_, in off.
Sanctandreana, 1589; _Caesaris Germanici Aratea_ (with Phaedrus, etc.),
Orelli, Zur., 1831; with Aratus, Koechly (Firmin-Didot), Par., 1851;
Breysig, ed. 1, Berl., 1867; ed. 2, Lpz., 1899; Baehrens, _P.L.M._, i.
pp. 148-200. _Cf._ Frey, _Epist. Crit. de Germanico Arati Interprete_,
Culm, 1861; Sieg, _De Cicerone, Germanico Avieno Arati interpretibus_,
Halle, 1886.
[495] Suet., _Cal._, iii.; Tac., _Ann._, II. 83; Plin., _N.H._, VIII.
155: “fecit et diuus Augustus equo tumulum, de quo Germanici Caesaris
carmen est.”
[496] Lact., _Div. Inst._, V. v. 4: “ut Germanicus Caesar in Arateo
loquitur carmine:
‘Nec consanguineis fuerat discordia nota.’”
[497] 205-206:
“Sed poenae facies remanet districtaque pandit
Bracchia ceu duri teneantur robore saxi.”
[498] _De Germanico Arati Interprete_, 1861.
[499] Ll. 31, 165, 264: “ueterist si gratia famae,” “si uere Iuppiter
infans ...” etc.
[500] _Suas._, i. 15.
[501] _Elegiae III. et frag._ (cum interpret. et notis Jos. Scaligeri,
etc.), Amst., 1715; Latin w. Eng. version, Kidderminster and London,
1807. The name Albinovanus Pedo suggests a possible relationship with
Albinovanus Celsus mentioned by Horace, _Epist._, I. viii. 1. He
accompanied Tiberius to Armenia in 20 B.C.
[502] Ll. 20-22:
“Di reuocant rerumque uetant cognoscere finem
Mortales oculos: aliena quid aequora remis
Et sacras uiolamus aquas?”
[503] The chief authors of comedy traceable during the Silver Age are the
Pomponius Bassulus recorded in an inscription at Aeclanum (_C.I.L._, IX.,
1165) as a translator of Menander as well as a writer of original plays,
and the Vergilius Romanus of Pliny’s letters who composed comic dramas
after the old fashion. These, it may be guessed, were not intended to be
acted.
[504] Sen., _Ep._, viii. 8.
[505] Suet., _Aug._, xcix.
[506] Juv., VIII. 185-187; Suet., _Cal._, lvii.; Joseph., _Ant._, XIX. i.
13: μῖμος εἰσάγεται καθ’ ὃν σταυροῦται λῃστῶν ἡγεμών.
[507] Suet., _Tib._, xlv.; _Galb._, xiii. See later part of chap. on
“Senecan Poetry.”
[508] Lucian, _De Saltatione_; Friedländer, _Sittengesch._, II. iii. 3;
Butler, _Post-Augustan Poetry_, pp. 26-28.
[509] Dio, lviii. 24: ἑάλω διὰ τραγῳδίαν.... Ἀτρεὺς μὲν τὸ ποίημα ἦν,
κ.τ.λ.
[510] Suet., _Cal._, xxvii.
[511] Tac., _Ann._, V. viii., XI. xiii.; _Dial._, 13;, Plin., _N.H._,
VII. 80, XIII. 83, XIV. 56; Plin., _Ep._, VII. xvii. 11; Quint., X. i.
98. Interesting light is thrown on his life and qualities by Cichorius,
_Röm. Studien_, 1922, pp. 423-432, where it is shown that Pomponius lived
till late in Nero’s reign.
[512] Attraction to the Troy-saga may explain the tragic songs which
Paetus Thrasea rendered at the _cetaria_, or festival, in honour of the
Trojan Antenor at Padua, where Thrasea came from; _cf._ Charisius, p. 125
K. (based on Pliny, _i.e._ presumably the lost _Dubius Sermo_); Tac.,
_Ann._, XVI. 21.
[513] Text: In _Scriptores Rei Rusticae Veteres Latini_, ed. Gesner,
Lpz., 1735; Bipont. ed., 1787; sep. ed., Ress, Flensburg, 1795. Book X.,
Lundström, Ups., 1902 (fasc. vi. of edn., of which fasc. i., 1897, was
_De Arboribus_); ed. Postgate, _Corp. Poet. Lat._, 1905.
Transln., _Columella: Of Husbandry in Twelve Bks. and His Bk. concerning
Trees_, Lond., 1745; _Le Poème des Jardins de L. J. M. Columella_, trad.
en vers français avec le texte, Bonafous, Par., 1859; Barberet, _De C.
vita et scriptis_, Nancy, 1887; _cf._ _Agricola_, Heitland, Camb., 1921
(esp. pp. 250-269).
[514] VIII. xvi. 9: “in nostro Gadium municipio”; X. 185: “et mea (_sc._
lactuca) quam generant Tartesi litore Gades.”
[515] II. xvi. 4; V. v. 15: “uir illustribus disciplinis eruditus ac
diligentissimus agricola Baeticae prouinciae”; VII. ii. 4; XII. xxi. 4:
“patruus meus, illustris agricola.”
[516] III. ix. 2.
[517] _C.I.L._, IX. 235 (= Dessau 2923): “L. Iunio L. f. Gal. Moderato
Columellae, trib. mil. leg. VI. ferratae.”
[518] II. x. 18: “hoc quidem semen Ciliciae Syriaeque regionibus ipse
uidi mense Iunio Iulioque conseri et per auctumnum ... tolli.”
[519] II. xxii. 5-6.
[520] III. iii. 3: “Nomentana regio ... quam possidet Seneca uir
excellentis ingenii atque doctrinae.” See discussion hereon in relation
to Plin., _N.H._, XIV. (5), 49-51, by Barberet, _De Columellae Vita et
Scriptis_, 1887, pp. 23-25. Cichorius, _Röm. Studien_, 1922, pp. 417-422,
makes it probable that Columella served on the expedition to Cilicia
Trachea in A.D. 36 (II. x. 18), and was at Rome in 41 (III. viii. 2).
[521] I. i. 12-14.
[522] XII. lvii. 6: “Clausulam peracti operis mei, P. Siluine, non
alienum puto indicem lecturis (si modo fuerint qui dignentur ista
cognoscere), nihil dubitasse me paene infinita esse, quae potuerint huic
inseri materiae: uerum ea quae maxime uidebantur necessaria, memoriae
tradenda censuisse. Nec tamen canis natura dedit cunctarum rerum
prudentiam. Nam etiam quicunque sunt habiti mortalium sapientissimi,
multa scisse dicuntur, non omnia.”
[523] See Wight Duff’s _Lit. Hist. of Rome to Close of Golden Age_, for
Cato, pp. 262-264; for Varro, pp. 342-343.
[524] III. xvii. 4.
[525] IX. ii. 1.
[526] Other examples are given by Prof. Summers, _Silver Age of Latin
Lit._, p. 286.
[527] III. xxi. 3-4.
[528] X. 96-102:
“Pingite tunc uarios, terrestria sidera, flores,
Candida leucoia et flauentia lumina caltae
Narcissique comas et hiantis saeua leonis
Ora feri calathisque uirentia lilia canis,
Nec non uel niueos uel caeruleos hyacinthos.
Tum quae pallet humi, quae frondens purpurat auro,
Ponatur uiola et nimium rosa plena pudoris.”
[529] _Nubigenae_, _uersicoloribus_, _pestifer_ are Virgilian:
_frugifero_ and _nubifugo_ are not, though the former was used by Ennius.
[530] X. 80: “Veris et aduentum nidis cantabit hirundo.”
[531] X. 159-160:
“Inuigilate, uiri: tacito nam tempora gressu
Diffugiunt nulloque sono conuertitur annus.”
[532] X. 209-214.
[533] X. 227-229:
“Et secum gracili conectere carmina filo
Quae canat inter opus Musa modulante putator
Pendulus arbustis, holitor uiridantibus hortis.”
[534] X. 255-262.
[535] X. 436 (the closing line): “Ascraeum cecinit Romana per oppida
carmen,” echoing Virg., _Georg._ II. 176: “Ascraeumque cano Romana per
oppida carmen.”
[536] Text: ed. pr. (before recovery of _Cena Trimalchionis_), _Petronii
arbitri satyrici fragmenta_, w. _Scriptores Panegyrici Lat._, etc.,
Milan, circ. 1482; _Fragmentum Traguriense_ (= _Cena Trim._), Frambotti,
Padua, 1664; Burman, _Petr. Satyr. Quae Supersunt_ (copiously annotated),
Utr., 1709, and Amster., 1743; Bücheler, ed. maior, Berl., 1862; ed.
min., 4th ed., 1904, 6th revised by Heraeus, Berl., 1922; Latin w.
earliest Eng. trans. of 1694; Gaselee (illustns.), Lond., 1910; Latin w.
Eng. tr., Heseltine (Loeb), Lond., 1913; Mitchell, Lond., 1922; w. French
tr., Ernout, Par., 1922; _Cena Trim._ (Germ. tr. and notes), Friedländer,
Leipzig, 1891; w. Eng. tr. and notes, Lowe, Camb., 1905; Ryan, Lond.,
1905; w. Seneca’s _Apocol._ and Pompeian inscrns., Sedgwick, Oxf., 1925;
_Bellum Ciuile_ (from _Satyr._) w. Eng. tr. and notes, Baldwin, New York,
1911. For Poems ascribed to Petronius, see Bährens’s _P.L.M._, vol. iv.,
and Bücheler’s ed. minor. The 1708 Eng. trans. was privately reprinted,
Lond., 1899.
Other wks.: Beck, _The Age of Petronius_, Camb., U.S.A., 1856; and _The
MSS. of the Satyricon ... described and collated_, Camb., U.S.A., 1863;
Pétrequin, _Nouvelles Recherches hist. et crit. sur Pétrone_, Paris and
Lyon, 1869; Boissier, _Un roman de moeurs sous Néron_ in “L’opposition
sous les Césars,” Par., 1875; Émile Thomas, _L’Envers de la société
romaine d’après Pétrone_, Par., 1892; Collignon, _Étude sur Pétrone_,
Par., 1892; and _Pétrone au moyen âge_, etc., 1893; Paul Thomas, _L’âge
et l’auteur du Satyricon_, Gand, 1905; F. F. Abbott, _Origin of Realistic
Romance among Romans_ in “The Common People of Anct. Rome” (orig. in
_Class. Phil._), Lond., 1912, and _Petronius: A Study in Ancient Realism_
in “Society and Politics in Anct. Rome,” Lond., 1914; Mendell, _P. and
the Greek Romance_ in _Class. Phil._, XII. 2, 1917.
On Language: Ludwig, _De Petronii sermone plebeio_, Marb., 1869;
Guericke, _De linguae vulgaris reliquiis apud Petron. et in inscript.
parietariis Pompeianis_, Gumbinn., 1875; Cesareo, _De Petronii sermone_,
Rome, 1887 (esp. on Neapolitan elements); Heraeus, _Die Sprache des
Petron. u. die Glossen_, Leipz., 1899; and _Cena Trim. nebst ausgewählt.
Pompeian. Wandinschriften_ (“Sammlung vulgärlateinischer Texte”),
Heidelb., 1909; _cf._ Schuchardt, _Der Vocalismus des Vulgärlateins_,
1866-1868; Cooper, _Word-Formation in Roman Sermo Plebeius_, 1895.
[537] See Studer, “Ueber das Zeitalter des Petr. Arb.,” _Rh. Mus._, ii.,
1843, p. 50, p. 202, and others.
[538] He founded on Plin., _N.H._, XXXVII. 20; Plut., _De discr. am. et
adul._, 19, p. 60 e.
[539] Tac., _Ann._, XVI. 18-19.
[540] J. Wight Duff, _Lit. Hist. of Rome to Golden Age_, pp. 334-337.
[541] §§ 61-62, 63 and 111-112.
[542] This was Mommsen’s view, _Herm._, XIII. 114 (_cf._ “Trimalchios
Heimat u. Grabschrift” in his _Ges. Schr._, 7, 1909, Berl.), which some
think incompatible with Trimalchio’s reference to seeing the Sibyl in
a cage at Cumae (_Satyr._, 48). For other views see Schanz, _Gesch. d.
röm. Lit._, 1913, p. 126. After the sea-voyage, from § 116 to the end,
the scene is definitely at Crotona. Some missing incidents may have
occurred at Massilia; for Servius (ad Verg., _Aen._, III. 57) ascribes to
Petronius the story of a human scapegoat there in time of plague (_cf._
Sid. Apoll., XXIII. 155-156: “te Massiliensium per hortos sacri stipitis
Arbiter colonum....” But it is too impetuous to infer therefrom, as some
have done, a Gallic origin for Petronius, or to regard his _Satyricon_ as
the beginning of the French novel!)
[543] _Sat._, 34:
“Eheu nos miseros, quam totus homuncio nil est!
Sic erimus cuncti, postquam nos auferet Orcus.
Ergo uiuamus, dum licet esse bene.”
[544] § 59.
[545] § 68.
[546] § 48.
[547] § 50.
[548] § 52: “et pueri mortui iacent sic ut uiuere putes.” Squire Western
is equally confused in his recollections of the metamorphosis of Actaeon
into a stag: “I’d rather be run by one of my own dogs as one Acton was
that the story-book says was turned into a hare and his own dogs killed
un and eat un.” Fielding, _Tom Jones_, XVII. ch. 3.
[549] § 53.
[550] § 71.
[551] § 37.
[552] § 41.
[553] § 42.
[554] § 45.
[555] § 46: “Videris mihi, Agamemnon, dicere ‘Quid iste argutat
molestus.’ Quia tu, qui potes loquere, non loquis. Non es nostrae
fasciae, et ideo pauperorum uerba derides. Scimus te prae litteras fatuum
esse.”
[556] § 88.
[557] § 118.
[558] § 119-124.
[559] § 126.
[560] _E.g._ Giton concealed under the bed is compared to Ulysses under
the ram; one of Encolpius’s enchantresses is Circe, etc.
[561] Klebs: “Zur Composition von Petr. Satirae,” _Philol._, 47 (1889),
p. 623, considers this wrath as the _Leitmotiv_ of the whole romance.
[562] § 139:
“Me quoque per terras per cani Nereos aequor
Hellespontiaci sequitur grauis ira Priapi.”
[563] The type is seen in the Widow of Ephesus (_Satyr._, § 111-112).
On Milesian tales see Norden, _Die Antike Kunstprosa_, II., 602, 604
_n._; Rohde, _Der Griech. Roman_ (1900), 586; _Kl. Schr._ (1901), II. 25
_sqq._; Lucas, “Zu den Milesiaca des Aristides,” _Philologus_, 61 (1907),
16 _sqq._
[564] Schanz, _Gesch. d. röm. Lit._ (1913), p. 125; Abbott, _Common
People of Anct. Rome_, pp. 128-133.
[565] Chauvin, _Les romanciers grecs et latins_, 1864.
[566] For traditional features from banquets in Greek lit. see Geffcken,
_Studien zur griech. Satire_ in _Neue Jahrb. f. d. klass. Alt._,
XXVII. (1911), 395 and 484; and, in general, Ullrich, _Entstehung u.
Entwickelung d. Litteraturgattung des Symposion_, Würzb., 1908.
[567] Collignon, _Étude sur Pétrone_, pp. 254 _sqq._; Revay, “Horaz u.
Petron,” _Class. Phil._, XVII. (1922), pp. 202 _sqq._; Shero, “The _Cena_
in Roman satire,” _Class. Phil._, XVIII. (1923), esp. pp. 134-139.
[568] Hor., _Sat._ II. viii. 77-78:
“Et soleas poscit: tum in lecto quoque uideres
Stridere secreta diuisos aure susurros,”
Petr., _Sat._, 41, 9: “ab hoc ferculo Trimalchio ad lasanum surrexit. Nos
libertatem sine tyranno nacti coepimus inuitare conuiuarum sermones.”
[569] Among the manuscript titles is _Petronii arbitri affranii
Satirici lib. incip._, where the at first puzzling appearance of the
name of Afranius indicates Petronius’ resemblance to that writer of
togata-comedies _in puerorum foedis amoribus_ (Teuffel, _Gesch. d. röm.
Lit._, § 305, 1).
[570] _Satyr._, § 132: “damnatisque nouae simplicitatis opus.”
[571] Apul., _Met._, iv. 28–vi. 24.
[572] Even the grammar is intentionally varied; _e.g._ the correct
accusative, _Nicerotem_ 61, contrasted with Trimalchio’s _Niceronem_, 63.
[573] _Sat._, 117, 12; 134, 2.
[574] _E.g._ _athlum_, 57; _phantasia_, 38; _philologia_, 39;
_polymitus_, 40; _synoccio_, 93); _apoculare_, 62 and 67 (= ἀποκυλίω),
and hybrids like _bilychnis_, 30 (= bis + λύχνος; _percolopare_, 44 (=
_per_ + κόλαφος); _lupatria_, 37; _excatarissasti_, 67.
[575] _E.g._ _amasiunculus_, 45; _amasiuncula_, 75; _lamellula_, 57;
_cor(i)cillum_, 75; _manuciolum_, 63. The loss of force in popular
diminutives is plain from “hominem ... ualde audaculum,” 63 = “a mighty
bold fellow.”
[576] § 71: “amici,” inquit, “et serui homines sunt et aeque unum
_lactem_ biberunt, etiam si illos malus _fatus_ oppressit.”
[577] Guericke, _op. cit._, p. 34.
[578] The neuter form, instead of the usual _margarita_, was used by
Varro, Tacitus (_Agr._, 12) and Tertullian.
[579] It is an easy development from the physical sense of _notare_, “to
note” or “mark down,” and the transition is found in Cicero.
[580] _Sat._, 123, ll. 209-232: _tantum fugit_ (221) is echoed by the
corresponding metrical position of _tantum trahit_ (231); _maerentia
tecta relinquunt_ (225) by _maerentia pectora iungant_ (229);
_relinquunt_ ends 225 and _relinquit_ 227.
[581] _Sat._, 127:
“Emicuere rosae uiolaeque et molle cyperon,
Albaque de uiridi riserunt lilia prato:
Talis humus Venerem molles clamauit in herbas,
Candidiorque dies secreto fauit amori.”
[582] _P.L.M._, iv. 74-108, 120-121.
[583] _Ib._, 74:
“Inueniat (? inuenias) quod quisque uelit: non omnibus unum est
Quod placet: hic spinas colligit, ille rosas.”
[584] _Ib._, 75, l. 5: “Ante oculos stabat quidquid promiserat annus.”
[585] _Ib._, 81:
“Paruula securo tegitur mihi culmine sedes
Vuaque plena mero fecunda pendet ab ulmo,” etc.
[586] _Ib._, 84:
O litus uita mihi dulcius, a mare! felix
Cui licet ad terras ire subinde tuas, etc.
[587] _Ib._, 99: The English verse is from J. Wight Duff’s “Sonnets from
the Antique” in Quatercentenary number of _Alma Mater_, Aberdeen Univ.
Mag., 1906.
The elegiacs show Petronius’s departure from the rigorous Ovidian
disyllabic ending in the pentameter:
“Lecto compositus uix prima silentia noctis
Carpebam et somno lumina uicta dabam:
Cum me saeuus Amor prensat sursumque capillis
Excitat et lacerum peruigilare iubet.
‘Tu famulus meus,’ inquit, ‘ames cum mille puellas,
Solus io solus, dure, iacere potes?’
Exsilio et pedibus nudis tunicaque soluta
Omne iter incipio, nullum iter expedio.
Nunc propero, nunc ire piget, rursumque redire
Poenitet et pudor est stare uia media.
Ecce tacent uoces hominum strepitusque uiarum
Et uolucrum cantus turbaque fida canum.
Solus ego ex cunctis paueo somnumque torumque
Et sequor imperium, magne Cupido, tuum.”
[588] Text: Prose wks., ed. pr., Nap., 1475; Erasmus, Bas., 1515, 1529;
Lipsius, Antw., 1605, 1615; Ruhkopf, Lpz., 1797-1811; Haase, Lpz., 1852
_sq._; later Teubner ed., Vol. I. 1, _Dialog._, Hermes, 1905; I. 2, _De
Ben._, _De Clem._, Hosius, 1900; II., _Nat. Quaest._, Gercke, 1907; III.,
_Epist._, Hense, 1898, 1914; IV., _Frag._, Bickel. Sep. edns., _De Ben._,
Gertz., Berl., 1876; _Dial._, Gertz, Copenh., 1886; _Dial._, X., XI.,
XII., J. D. Duff, Camb., 1915; _De Otio_, Waltz, Par., 1909; _Ad Helu._,
Favez, Laus., 1918; _Select Letters_, Summers, Lond., 1910; _Ep. Mor._,
Beltrami, Brescia, 1916; Loeb. ed. (w. trans.), Gummere, Lond. and New
Yk., 1917-1920; _De Clem._, Préchac, Par., 1921.
Tragedies and satire: see next chapter.
Transns.: _Prose Wks._, Lodge, Lond., 1614. _On Benefits_; also _Minor
Dial. and Clem._, Stewart, Lond., 1889; _Quaest. Nat._ (_Physical Science
in Time of Nero_), Clarke and Geikie, Lond., 1910.
Chronology of Wks.: Jonas, _De Ordine librorum Sen._, Berl., 1870;
Schanz, _op. cit._; Gercke, _Seneca-Studien_, Lpz., 1895.
Life: Waltz, _La Vie politique de S._, Par., 1909.
Philosophy: (General) Zeller, _Die Philos. d. Griechen_; Martha, _Les
moralistes sous l’empire romain_; Boissier, _La religion romaine
d’Auguste aux Antonins_; Schiller, _op. cit._; Arnold, _Roman Stoicism_,
Camb., 1911; (Special) Corsi, _Lo stoicismo romano ... particolarmente in
Sen._, Prato, 1884; Levy-Bruhl, _Quid de deo Sen. senserit_, Par., 1884;
Weissenfels, _De Sen. Epicureo_, Berl., 1886; Rubin, _Die Ethik Sen.
in ihr Verhält. z. älter. u. mittler. Stoa_, Berl., 1892; Burnier, _La
Morale de S. et le Néo-stoïcisme_, Laus., 1908; Gummere, _S. the Philosr.
and his modern Message_, Bost., Mass., 1922.
Literary Qualities: Hoppe, _Ueber d. Sprache des Philos. Sen._
(syntactical), Lauban, 1873; Weber, _De Sen. philos. dicendi
genere Bioneo_, Marb., 1895; Kunz, _Sentenzen in S.’s Tragoedien
zusammengestellt_, Wienerneust., 1897; Nottola, _La prosa di S._,
Bergamo, 1904; Merchant, _S., his theory of style_, _Amer. Jrnl.
Philol._, 26 (1905); Norden, _Kunstprosa_, etc., p. 311; Bourgery,
_Sénèque Prosateur_, Par., 1922; Albertini, _La Composition dans les
ouvrages philosophiques de S._, Par., 1923.
For recent lit. on Seneca, Münscher in _Bursian’s Jahresb._, Lpz., 1923,
pp. 109-214.
[589] The conjectural date is based on _De Tranq._, xvii. 7; _Ep._,
cviii. 17 and 22; _Nat. Q._, I. i. 3. Lehmann, _Claudius u. Nero_, I.
152, prefers 8 B.C. Favez, in ed. of _Ad Helu._, supports the earlier
date because of Seneca’s recollection of Asinius Pollio recorded _De
Tranq._, xvii. 7; Pollio died in A.D. 5.
[590] He gives his full name, _De Ben._, IV. viii. 3. For his b.p. see
Mart., I. lxi. 7-8.
[591] Acts xviii. 11-17. M. Anatole France gives a lively account of
Gallio in _Sur la Pierre Blanche_, as already mentioned, p. 44 _n._
[592] _Contr._, II. _praef._ 4.
[593] _Ad Helu._, xix. 2.
[594] _Ep._, lviii. 5, lxxxviii. 3 _sqq._ and 37, cviii. 24; _De Br.
Vit._, xiii. 2.
[595] _Contr._, X. _praef._ 2, 8, 9, 12.
[596] _Ep._, xx. 2: “facere docet philosophia, non dicere”; cxv. 1-2:
“quaere quid scribas non quemadmodum.”
[597] _Contr._, I. _praef._ 22; IV. _praef._ 1; VII. _praef._ 9.
[598] _Ep._, xvi. 3.
[599] _Ep._, xix. 1, xxii. 1 _sqq._, xcviii. 13.
[600] _Ep._, iv. 10-11, xvii. 3-4, xxxi. 10.
[601] _De Ira_, III. xxxvi.
[602] _Ep._, VI. 1 (sign of grace to see one’s faults); VIII. 3.
[603] _Ep._, vi. 4 (“gaudeo discere ut doceam”), viii. 3 (“rectum iter
... lassus errando aliis monstro”), xxxiii. 1 (“adsero te mihi: meum opus
es”), xlviii. 7-8.
[604] _Ep._, xviii. 5-9, cviii. 13 _sqq._
[605] _Ep._, xxxi. 11, xli. 2, xcv. 50.
[606] _Ep._, liv. 1, lxxvii. 9, lxxviii. 1, civ. 1.
[607] _Ad Helu._, xix. 2 and 4-6.
[608] Suet., _Cal._, liii.: “commissiones meras ... harenam esse sine
calce.”
[609] _Dio_, LIX. xix. 7 ... πιστεύσας ὅτι φθόης τε ἔχοι κακῶς καὶ οὐκ ἐς
μακρὰν τελευτήσοι.
[610] _Ep._, xlix. 2.
[611] _De Ira_, I. xx. 8-9; II. xxxiii. 3 _sqq._; III. xviii. 3-4 and xix.
[612] _De Tranq._, xvii. 3: “miscenda tamen ista et alternanda sunt,
solitudo et frequentia: illa nobis faciet hominum desiderium, haec
nostri; et erit altera alterius remedium; odium turbae sanabit solitudo,
taedium solitudinis turba.”
[613] Dio, LX. viii. 5-6; schol. ad Juv., V. 109.
[614] Tac., _Ann._, XII. viii.
[615] Suet., _Ner._, lii.
[616] The _quinquennium_ is here used in its customary sense, and not the
less likely one in which Mr. J. G. C. Anderson applied it to the last
five years of Nero’s reign on the ground that the Golden House scheme
and rebuilding after the Great Fire were the achievements which aroused
Trajan’s admiration. (_Jrnl. Rom. Stud._, I. pt. 3 (1912), pp. 173 _sqq._)
[617] Tac., _Ann._, XIII. ii., vi., xi.
[618] Tac., _Ann._, XIII. v. and xiii.
[619] _Ib._, XIII. xiv.
[620] Dio, LXI. iv. 1.
[621] Tac., _Ann._, XIII. xvii.; XIV. vii. and xi.
[622] _Ib._, XIV. lii.: “exueret magistrum.”
[623] _Ib._, XIV. liii.-liv.
[624] Seneca had been attacked by Suillius in A.D. 58, _Ann._, XIII.
xlii.; for attacks in 62 see _ib._, XIV. lii. and lxv.
[625] _Ib._, XIV. lv.-lvi.
[626] _Ib._, XV. xlv.; Dio, LXII. xxv. 3.
[627] Tac., _Ann._, XV. lxv.
[628] _Ib._, XV. lx.-lxiv.
[629] I. vi.
[630] _De Vit. Beat._, xvii. 3: “Non sum sapiens”; 4: “ego in alto
uitiorum omnium sum”; xviii. 1: “cum uitiis conuicium facio, in primis
meis facio”; _Ep._, lvii. 3: “multum ab homine tolerabili, nedum a
perfecto absum.”
[631] _Ep._, lxi. 2.
[632] _Ep._, xxvi. 5-6: “non timide itaque conponor....”
[633] _Journal des Savants_, Par., 1912: “Les travaux récents sur la
chronol. des œuvres de Sén.,” p. 213.
[634] See Mr. J. D. Duff’s notice of M. Albertini’s _La Composn. dans les
ouvrages philos. de Sén._, _C. R._, May-June, 1924.
[635] Albertini states with admirable clearness the difficulties of the
problem and indicates the variety of answers given. His conclusions are
often in agreement with Gercke’s.
[636] _Aduersaria Critica_, Vol. II. 344, Copenhagen, 1873.
[637] The logical sequence and arrangement of topics in the treatises
(other than _N.Q._) and letters are examined by Albertini, _op. cit._,
pp. 51-146.
[638] Only one, the _De Tranq._, has a form suggestive of “dialogue” in
the true sense.
[639] Favez, _Ad Helu._, pp. xxxviii. _sqq._
[640] _Ad Pol._, xiii. 3, xviii. 9.
[641] Müller, _De Sen. librorum de ira compositione_, Lpz., 1912; Rabbow,
_Antik Schriften üb. Seelenheilung u. Seelenleitung_, Lpz., 1914.
[642] Albertini, _op. cit._, pp. 61-63.
[643] _De Ira_, III. ii.
[644] _Ib._, III. ix. 1-2.
[645] _Ib._, I. i. 3-4.
[646] _Ib._, II. xxv. 2: “questus est quod foliis rosae duplicatis
incubuisset.” A longer anecdote, admirably told, is that of Augustus
twitting Asinius Pollio with keeping in his house “the wild beast”
Timagenes, _ib._, III. xxxiii.
[647] _De Vit. Beat._, iii. 2: “quod inter omnis Stoicos conuenit, rerum
naturae adsentior”; viii. 2: “idem est ergo beate uiuere et secundum
naturam.”
[648] _Ib._, iii. 4.
[649] _Ib._, xvii. 1: “Quare ergo tu fortius loqueris quam uiuis?” xviii.
1: “aliter (inquis) loqueris, aliter uiuis”; xx. 1: “non praestant
philosophi quae loquuntur.”
[650] Ed. _De Otio_. According to Marchesi, _Seneca_, 1920, all three
were written about 62. Dessau’s view, _Herm._, liii., 1918, pp. 192
_sqq._, is that they were composed after Serenus’s death, late in
Seneca’s career, as a memorial recreating three stages in a dead friend’s
advance towards and in Stoicism. Waltz stands not alone, as Dessau
said, but has Münscher’s support, for dating the _De Const._ early in
Claudius’s reign, about 42. Most concur in putting all three somewhere in
Nero’s reign; _e.g._ _De Const._, 54-56; _De Tranq._, 59; _De Otio_, 62.
[651] _De Const._, ii. 1: “Nuper cum incidisset mentio M. Catonis....”
[652] Dessau, _op. cit._, finds difficulties in the usually accepted
date, and considers the _De Breu._ was composed about A.D. 62. This view
is criticized by Albertini.
[653] _N.Q._, IV. _praef._ 1 and 12. Seneca quotes from a poem of his,
_N.Q._, III. 1; a hexameter, _Ep. Mor._, xxiv. 21; iambics, viii. 10.
[654] Schanz, _op. cit._, p. 381, does not think so. On the other hand,
Albertini, _op. cit._, p. 102, says; “Je suis de ceux qui croient que la
fin du _De Prouid._ est mutilée.”
[655] _De Clem._, II. i.: “Vellem nescire literas!”
[656] _De Ben._, I. xv. 6.
[657] _Ib._, V. i. 1.
[658] M. Bourgery concludes that Bks. VI. and VII., as exhibiting an
increase of regular _clausulae_, were written after the other books. M.
Pichon asks why, if that metrical criterion holds for VI. and VII., one
should not apply it to Bk. V. Bk. V. is credited with only 41% of regular
clausulae, and so by M. Bourgery’s test should be earlier than I. and
II., which have about 50%.
[659] M. Paul Thomas, _Morceaux choisis de Sénèque_, ed. 8, 1918, p. 145,
says: “il serait aussi difficile que peu utile d’en donner une analyse.”
[660] _E.g._ _De Ben._, I. vii. 2: “ut dixi.”
[661] _Ib._, I. xiv. 1: “ad propositum nunc reuertamur”; I. x. 1: “sed
longius nos impetus euehit prouocante materia.”
[662] _Cf._ _argumentum_ to Bk. I. in the Strasbourg ed. of 1809: “libri
boni sunt sed mehercule in ordine et tractatu confusi, quem uix est uel
adnitentem expedire.”
[663] _Ad Helu._, xx.
[664] A table of varying rearrangements is given by Schanz, _op. cit._,
p. 400. The last book (VII.) is put first by Gundermann, and the first
last by Schultess and Gercke. Diels, Müller and Gercke begin with III.,
which Bourgery would put at the end according to his metrical tests.
[665] _E.g._ _Ep. Mor._, xlviii. 1, lxxi. 1, lxxv. 1.
[666] _E.g._ Hilgenfeld, Gercke, Schanz, Bourgery. Albertini thinks the
letters real, and discusses the problem, _op. cit._, pp. 132-146. I
accept his views.
[667] Various attempts have been made: _e.g._ Bourgery, _Rev. de
Philol._, xxxv., 1911, pp. 40-55; Albertini, _op. cit._
[668] _Ib._, cxviii. 1-2.
[669] _Ib._, xxi. 5.
[670] _Ib._, cxviii. 1-3.
[671] _Inst. Or._, X. i. 125-131.
[672] Tac., _Ann._, XIII. iii.: “ingenium amoenum et temporis eius
auribus accommodatum.”
[673] _Ep._, lxxv. 1: “qualis sermo meus esset si una sederemus aut
ambularemus, inlaboratus et facilis, talis esse epistulas meas uolo quae
nihil habent accersitum nec fictum.”
[674] _Ep._, lxxvii. 4, 6 and 20, xxxvi. 1 and 4, cviii. 29.
[675] _Ep._, xxiii. 11, ii. 3, xiii. 10, xviii. 6.
[676] Summers, _Select Letters of S._, pp. xlii. _sqq._, gives a careful
study; _cf._ Bourgery, _Sénèque Prosateur_, pp. 206-305.
[677] _E.g._ Lact., _Div. Inst._, I. v.: “Annaeus quoque Seneca, qui ex
Romanis uel acerrimus Stoicus fuit, quam saepe summum Deum merita laude
prosequitur!”
[678] _Ep._, xxxvii. 1.
[679] _Ep._, lxxxix. 8: “ad uirtutem uenitur per ipsam.”
[680] _Ep._, cviii., lvi., lxxviii. 23 and 25.
[681] _Ep._, cxvi. 5.
[682] xlviii., cvi.
[683] cxiii.
[684] liii.
[685] lxxxvii.
[686] Ed. pr. Ven., 1477; Baiter in Orelli’s Cicero; Kiessling and
Schöll, Berl., 1875; Clark, Oxf., 1907.
[687] Teuffel, _op. cit._, §§ 300-301. For Probus’s notes on Virgil, see
Keil, Halle, 1848.
[688] Mart., III. ii. 12; _cf._ Gell., I. xv. 18. He is to be
distinguished from the grammarian Probus of the 4th cent.
[689] Suet., _Gr._, 24.
[690] X. i. 118.
[691] Tac., _Hist._, I. xc.
[692] Tac., _Ann._, XV. lxxi.: “Verginius studia iuuenum eloquentia
fouebat.” He is mentioned or cited by Quintilian as “Verginius,” _I.
Or._, III. i. 21; III. vi. 45; IV. i. 23; VII. iv. 24; as “Flavus,” VII.
iv. 40; as “Flavus Verginius,” XI. iii. 126.
[693] Text: ed. pr. (_In morte Claudii Ludus_), Rome, 1513; Schusler,
Utr., 1844; Bücheler, _Symb. philol. Bonn._, Leipz., 1864-1867 (Einl. u.
Comment.); ed. min. (w. Petronius), 1871; 6th ed. (Heraeus), Berl., 1922;
Ball, (tr. and comm.), New Yk., 1902; Rouse (Loeb ed. w. Petron.), Lond.
and New Yk., 1913; Weinreich, Berl., 1923.
[694] Birt, _De Sen. Apoc. et Apoth. lucubratio_, Marb., 1888,
thinks Sen. wrote not only the existing political satire, but a
lost philosophical _Apocolocyntosis_. Stahr, _Agrippina_, append.,
Berl., 1867, also refuses to identify the _Apotheosis_ with the
_Apocolocyntosis_, but further denies S.’s authorship of the extant skit.
Hartman, _Mnemos._, N.S., xliv. (1916) holds that the pumpkinification
was contained “in aliquo colloquio” distinct from the extant “Ludus.”
[695] The Greek title ἀποκολοκύντωσις is from κολοκύντη = Lat.
_cucurbita_. For the satiric use of _cucurbita_ _cf._ Petron., 39;
Juv., XIV. 58; Apul., _Met._, I. xv. The title _Ludus de morte Claudii
Caesaris_ is in inferior MSS., and involves an un-Latin use of _ludus_.
[696] lx. 35: συνέθηκε μὲν γὰρ καὶ ὁ Σενέκας σύγγραμμα ἀποκολοκύντωσιν
αὐτὸ ὥσπερ τινὰ ἀπαθανάτισιν ὀνομάσας.
[697] Bickel in “Der Schluss d. Apoc.,” _Philol._, lxxvii. (1921) defends
the ending as it stands.
[698] _Apoc._, 7: “putares omnes illius esse libertos: adeo illum nemo
curabat.”
[699] _E.g._ _Apoc._, 7: “ante templum, ius dicebam”; 10: “antequam
audires, damnasti”; 12: “discere causas una tantum parte audita, saepe ne
utra”; 14: “illum altera tantum parte audita condemnat.”
[700] Diderot argued that either Seneca’s adulation was sarcastic or
that the _Consol. ad Polyb._ was written by some one to damage Seneca’s
character.
[701] Tac., _Ann._, XIII. iii.
[702] Tac., _Ann._, XIII. iii.: “postquam ad prouidentiam sapientiamque
flexit, nemo risui temperare.”
[703] Dio, lx. 35: τοὺς γὰρ μύκητας θεῶν βρῶμα ἔλεγεν εἶναι: Suet.,
_Ner._, xxxiii.
[704] Tac., _Ann._, XII. viii.: “infensus Claudio dolore iniuriae
credebatur.”
[705] Bücheler dates the _Apoc._ immediately after Claudius’s death.
Hirschfeld (_Kl. Schriften_, 1913) connects the composition with Nero’s
annulment of Claudius’s consecration (Suet., _Claud._, xlv). Bickel (_op.
cit._) accepts Hirschfeld’s date.
[706] For examination of Seneca’s relationship to Menippean Satire, see
Weinreich, _Senecas Apocol. ... Einführung, Analyse, Untersuchung_,
Berl., 1923.
[707] Helm, _Lukian u. Menipp_, 1906.
[708] _E.g._ (proverbs) 1: _aut regem aut fatuum nasci oportere_; 7:
_manus manum lauat_; (colloquialisms) 1: _dicam quod mihi in buccam
uenerit_; 3: _in semen relinqui_; (slang) 4: _animam ebulliit_; 9:
_mapalia_ (Punic = “shanties”); (parataxis) 2: _si dixero, mensis
erat October_; 10: _dic mihi ... quare damnasti_. The diminutives
_nummulariolus_, _ciuitatulas_, _auriculam_, and a few more, occur.
[709] Weinreich, _op. cit._, pp. 65-66, considers that he travesties his
own _Herc. Fur._
[710] Five out of fourteen lines have an anapaest in the fifth foot.
[711] Baehrens, _P.L.M._, iv. (1882) pp. 55-73; Riese, _Anth. Lat._,
Leipz., I. (1894); II. (1906).
[712] Plin., _Ep._, V. iii. 5.
[713] li. 4-5:
“Sic dulci Marcus qui nunc sermone fritinnit,
facundo patruos prouocet ore duos.”
[714] ii. 5:
“Corsica terribilis cum primum incanduit aestas.”
[715] xxxvi. 5-6:
“qua frigida semper
praefulget stellis Arctos inocciduis.”
[716] Tragedies: ed. pr., Ferrara, _c._ 1481; Lipsius, Leid., 1588;
Gruter, Heidelb., 1604; Gronov, Leid., 1661; Pierrot, Par., 1829-1832;
Peiper and Richter, Leipz., 1867 (influenced by erroneous belief in
strophic arrangement); improved ed., Richter, Leipz., 1902; Leo, Berl.,
1878-1879 (vol. i., _Obseruationes criticae_, pp. 232, vol. ii.,
_Tragoediae_); Miller (Loeb ed. w. prose trans.), 2 vols., 1916-1917.
Trans.: Heywood and others, Lond., 1581; Harris (verse), Lond., 1904;
Miller (blank verse and lyric metres), Chicago, 1907.
Dramatic influence: Cunliffe, _Influence of S. on Elizab. Tragedy_,
Manch., 1893; Vaughan, _Types of Tragic Drama_, Lond., 1908; Spearing,
_Eliz. Transns. of S.’s Tragedies_, Camb., 1912; Godley, _Senecan Tragedy
in Eng. Lit. and Classics_, Oxf., 1912; Kastner and Charlton, _Growth
of Senecan Tradition in Renaiss. Trag._, introd. to _Poet. Works of Sir
W. Alexander_, Lond., 1921; Lucas, _S. and Eliz. Tragedy_, Camb., 1922;
Jourdain, _Drama in Europe_, Lond., 1924.
[717] Quintil., X. i. 128: “tractauit etiam omnem fere studiorum
materiam: nam et orationes eius et poemata et epistulae et dialogi
feruntur”; _cf._ VIII. iii. 31; Tac., _Ann._, XIV. lii.; Plin., _Ep._, V.
iii. 5.
[718] Examples may be found in Schäfer’s _De Philosophiae Anneanae in
Senecae tragoediis vestigiis_, Jena, 1909.
[719] Birt (_Neue Jahrb. f. d. klass. Altert._, 1911). Jonas, _De ordine
librorum Sen._, 1870, aimed at a closer determination of dates, _e.g._
_Med._ and _Tro._ soon after Seneca’s return from exile in 49, _Herc.
Fur._ after 57, _Oed._ after the Parthian war of 58, _Thyest._ after
Seneca’s retirement in 62. Weinreich (_Apoc._, _Einführung_, etc.,
1923, p. 65), founding on Münscher’s metrical analyses, remarks with
airy confidence, “Daran denkt man heute nicht mehr dass die Tragödien,
ganz oder zum Teil, in der Jugendheit oder während des Exils entstanden
seien.” Weinreich maintains that Seneca wrote _Thyest._, _Herc. Fur._ and
_Tro._ before he composed the anapaests of the _Apoc._ in 54. He gives
Münscher’s dates for the remaining plays: _Phaed._ and _Med._, 54 or 55;
_Agam._, a year or two later; _Oed._, 57; _Herc. Oet._ and _Phoen._, 64
or 65.
[720] Cichorius, _Röm. Studien_, 1922, pp. 426-429; Quintil., VIII. iii.
31.
[721] Tac., _Ann._, XI. xiii.
[722] Differences in plot or structure between the Latin and
corresponding Greek plays are exhibited in the comparative analyses
appended to Miller’s edition (Loeb). The chief differences are summarized
by Schanz, _Gesch. d. röm. Lit._
[723] Strauss, _De ratione inter Sen. et antiquas fabulas Romanas
intercedente_, Rost., 1887 (combats Ribbeck’s views on ancient Roman
tragedy); Liedloff, _Die Nachbildung griech. u. röm. Muster in
Senecas Troades u. Agamemnon_, Grimma, 1902; Schreiner, _Sen. als
Tragödiendichter in seinen Beziehungen zu den griech. Originalen_
(contains bibliography), Münch., 1909; Tachau, _Die Arbeiten üb. d.
Tragödien des Sen. in d. letzten Jahrzehnten, Philol._, 48 (1889) p. 340.
[724] Sen., _Ep._, lxxxiv. 5 “... in unum saporem uaria illa libamenta
confundere, ut etiam si apparuerit unde sumptum sit, aliud tamen esse
quam unde sumptum est, appareat.”
[725] _Phoen._, 383-386.
[726] _Phoen._, 654.
[727] Schanz, _op. cit._, II. 2 pp. 56-57.
[728] _Med._ 549-550:
“Sic natos amat?
Bene est—tenetur. Vulneri patuit locus.”
[729] So too Ovid in _Her._, iv. (Phaedra’s epistle to Hippolytus) seems
to follow the earlier rather than either the later Euripidean version or
Sophocles’s lost _Phaedra_.
[730] Leo, _De Sen. tragoediis obseruationes criticae_, 1878, p. 133.
[731] Strauss, _op. cit._, esp. pp. 44-57.
[732] _Inst. Or._, X. i. 98.
[733] Leo considers it in part spurious, _Obseruationes_, vol. i. of
his edn., p. 74; _cf._ Summers, _C.R._, XIX. (1905), p. 40. Ackermann
maintains the genuineness of the whole, _De Senecae Hercule Oetaeo_,
Marb., 1905; _cf._ his _Der leidende Hercules des S._, _Rh. Mus._, lxvii.
(1912), pp. 425-471.
[734] _Herc. Oet._, 237-253.
[735] Schreiner, _op. cit._, p. 9.
[736] _Med._, 408-410.
[737] _Med._, 82 sqq.
[738] _Med._, 607-669.
[739] _Med._, 744-747; _H.F._, 750-756; _Phaed._, 1230-1237; _Agam._,
15-21; _Thyest._ 1-12; _Oct._, 619-623.
[740] _Phaed._, 1256 _sqq._
[741] _Agam._, 26-27.
[742] _Phaed._, 350-351:
“amat insani
Belua ponti Lucaeque boues.”
[743] _H.F._, 1259-1261.
[744] _E.g._ _Phoen._, 313-319.
[745] _E.g._ _Phaed._, 132-135. There are many _sententiae_ in her speech
of remonstrance 129-177.
[746]
_Phaed._, 211: “cur sancta paruis habitat in tectis Venus?”
215: “quod non potest uult posse qui nimium potest.”
[747] _E.g._ conception of a tranquil sea, expressed three times over in
_Tro._, 199-203; or notion of the abasement of the proud repeated again
and again, _Agam._, 79-107.
[748] _Tro._, 255 _sqq._:
“Quid caede dira nobiles clari ducis
Aspergis umbras? noscere hoc primum decet,
Quid facere uictor debeat, uictus pati.
Violenta nemo imperia continuit diu,
Moderata durant; quoque Fortuna altius
Euexit ac leuauit humanas opes,
Hoc se magis supprimere felicem decet
Variosque casus tremere metuentem deos
Nimium fauentes. magna momento obrui
Vincendo didici. Troia nos tumidos facit
Nimium ac feroces? stamus hoc Danai loco
Vnde illa cecidit. fateor, aliquando impotens
Regno ac superbus altius memet tuli;
Sed fregit illos spiritus haec quae dare
Potuisset aliis causa, Fortunae fauor.
Tu me superbum, Priame, tu timidum facis!...
Equidem fatebor (pace dixisse hoc tua,
Argiua tellus, liceat) affligi Phrygas
Vincique uolui: ruere et aequari solo
Vtinam arcuissem ... exactum satis
Poenarum et ultra est. regia ut uirgo occidat
Tumuloque donum detur et cineres riget
Et facinus atrox caedis ut thalamos uocent
Non patiar. in me culpa cunctorum redit:
Qui non uetat peccare, cum possit, iubet.”
[749] _Tro._, 510-512:
“Fata si miseros iuuant,
Habes salutem; fata si uitam negant,
Habes sepulchrum.”
[750] _Tro._, 869: “Optanda mors est sine metu mortis mori.”
[751] _Tro._, 917-922.
[752] _Tro._, 792.
[753] _Tro._, 489:
“Haec causa multos una ab interitu arcuit,
Credi perisse.”
[754] _Med._, 159 _sqq._
[755]
_Agam._, 115: “Per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter.”
130: “Quod ratio non quit saepe sanauit mora.”
144: “Vbi animus errat, optimum est casum sequi.”
259: “Nec regna socium ferre nec taedae sciunt.”
_Thy._, 487: “Serum est cauendi tempus in mediis malis.”
_Phaed._, 249: “Pars sanitatis uelle sanari fuit.”
598: “Honesta quaedam scelera successus facit.”
607: “Curae leues locuntur, ingentes stupent.”
[756]
_Med._, 55: “Quae scelere parta est, scelere linquenda est domus”
503: “Tibi innocens sit quisquis est pro te nocens.”
[757] _H.F._, 135-138:
“Aspersa die dumeta rubent
Phoebique fugit reditura soror.
Labor exoritur durus et omnes
Agitat curas aperitque domos.”
[758] _Med._, 375-379:
“Venient annis saecula seris
Quibus Oceanus uincula rerum
Laxet et ingens pateat tellus
Tethysque nouos detegat orbes
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.”
[759] _Tro._, 378-381, 397-398, 402-408:
“... Post mortem nihil est ipsaque mors nihil
Velocis spatii meta nouissima....
Rumores uacui uerbaque inania
Et par sollicito fabula somnio....
Quaeris quo iaceas post obitum loco?
Quo non nata iacent.”
[760] _Thy._, 344 _sqq._
[761] _Agam._, 605-611:
“Perrumpet omne seruitium
Contemptor leuium deorum,
Qui uoltus Acherontis atri,
Qui Styga tristem non tristis uidet
Audetque uitae ponere finem.
Par ille regi, par superis erit.
O quam miserum est nescire mori!”
[762] _E.g._ _Phoen._, 89-103, 146, 151-153.
[763] _Phaed._, 878: “mori uolenti desse mors numquam potest.”
[764] _E.g._ _Epist. Mor._, xii. 10, where “patent undique ad libertatem
uiae multae, breues, faciles” significantly resembles _Phoen._, 153,
“mille ad hanc (_sc._ mortem) aditus patent”; xiii. 14, lviii. 36. Seneca
disapproved of a merely capricious suicide, _Epist. Mor._, xxiv. 25, xxx.
15.
[765] _Phaed._, 972-988.
[766] _Thy._, 396-400 (“Quiritibus ... plebeius”); _H.F._, 164, 839;
_Phoen._, 103 (“ius uitae ac necis”).
[767]
_Med._, 109: “rara est in dominos iusta licentia,”
and 113: “festa dicax fundat conuicia fescenninus.”
[768] _H.F._, 650-829.
[769] _Tro._, 442-491.
[770] They are all cases of words of four syllables, like _nepotibus_,
_Med._, 512. Hardie, _Res Metrica_, 1920, p. 83, adds from _H.F._, 20,
_nuribus impiis_, if that is the right reading.
[771] _Med._, 740-751; _Oed._, 223-232; _Phaed._, 1201-1212.
[772] Butler, _Post-Augustan Poetry_, pp. 41-42, 71.
[773] Ellis, _Catullus in XIVth. Cent._, Oxf., 1905, pp. 10-11.
[774] _E.g._ _Seneca: His Tenne Tragedies_, Lond., 1581. (The _Octauia_
is included, wrongly).
[775] _E.g._ 152, Nero is called “iuuenis infandi ingeni.”
[776] Hardie, _Res Metr._, p. 67; _cf._ p. 84 _n._
[777] Nordmeyer, _De Oct. Fab._, Leipz., 1892. For views on this
over-discussed question, see Schanz, _op. cit._, pp. 75-76.
[778] Since I wrote this I have noted with satisfaction P. J. Enk’s
recent conclusions, in _Mnem._ liv., “De Octauia Praetexta,” that the
play was written not long after Nero’s death and by an author well
acquainted with Seneca’s tragedies.
[779] _Oct._, 310-375.
[780] _Oct._, 174 _sqq._
[781] _Oct._, 915-916, and she uses the Greek word ἀηδών.
[782] Plin., _Ep._, VI. xxi. 2.
[783] Sen., _Ep. Mor._, viii. 8.
[784] Suet., _Nero_, xi.
[785] Suet., _Nero_, xxxix.
[786] _Ib._, x.: “declamauit saepius publice; recitauit et carmina non
modo domi sed et in theatro.”
[787] _Ib._, xxi.
[788] _Ib._, xlvi.
[789] Tac., _Ann._, XI. xiii.
[790] Tac., _Dial._, 2, 3 and 11.
[791] Juv., VII. 12 and 72-73; Mart., XI. ix. and x., with vet. schol. ad
Juv., I. 20; Ribbeck, _Trag. Rom. Fr._, p. 269. It has been previously
indicated that Martial connects Ligurinus and Bassus with a _Thyestes_,
p. 257 _supra_.
[792] MSS. give the Etrurian form _Aules_.
[793] Text: P. Pithoeus, Par., 1585; Casaubon, Par., 1605, etc.; cum
schol., Jahn, Leipz., 1843; ed. ii., Bücheler, 1886; ed. iv., Leo, 1910;
w. tr. and comm., Conington, ed. Nettleship, Oxf., 1872, 1874 and 1893;
Gildersleeve, N.Y., 1875; étude et trad. fr., Rousse, Par., 1884; w.
Juvenal, Owen, Oxf., 1902; Némethy, Budapest, 1903; in _Corp. P.L._, II.,
Summers, Lond., 1905; Santi Consoli, Rome, 1911; w. Juvenal, Eng. tr. G.
G. Ramsay (Loeb), Lond., 1918; Cartault, tr. fr., Par., 1920.
To consult: Nisard, _Études sur les poètes lat. de la décadence_,
Par., 1834, 1849, 1867, etc.; Martha, “Un Poète Stoïcien” in _Les
Moralistes sous l’emp. rom._, 1865, etc.; Wilcke, _Quid elocutio
Juvenalis a Persiana differat_, Stendal, 1869; Werther, _De Persio
Horatii imitatore_, Halle, 1883; Sorn, _Die Sprache d. Satirikers_ P.,
Laibach, 1890; Morgan, _A Bibliography of P._, Camb., U.S.A., 1893;
Gérard, _Le latin vulgaire et le langage familier dans les satires de
P._ in _Le Musée belge_, 1897; Burnier, _Le rôle des satires de P. dans
le développement du neo-Stoïcisme_, Chaux-de-fonds, 1909 (bibliog.);
Schönbach, _De Persii in saturis sermone et arte_, Leipz., 1910;
Villeneuve, _Essai sur Perse_, Par., 1918 (bibliog.).
_Transns._: Batten Holyday, ed. 3, 1635; Dryden, 1693; Thos. Sheridan
(prose), 1728; Wm. Drummond, 1797; and in Conington’s and G. G. Ramsay’s
edns.
[794] Lehmann, “Zur erklär. d. _Sat. des P._,” _Philol._, vi. (1851) p.
432.
[795] _Sat._, III. 44-51.
[796] Plin., _Ep._, I. xiii. 3: Tac., _Ann._, XIV. 19; _Dial. Or._, 23.
[797] Suet., _Ner._, xxxvii.
[798] _Vita Persii_: “Cognouit et Senecam sed non ut caperetur eius
ingenio.”
[799] Cornutus: _Theol. Graecae Compendium_, Lang, Lpz., 1881; Rappe, _De
L. Annaeo Cornuto_, Lpz., 1906; Villeneuve, _Essai sur Perse_, pp. 47-102.
[800] V. 22 _sqq._, reading in 34-35:
“Cumque iter ambiguum est et uitae nescius error
Diducit trepidas ramosa in compita mentes.”
[801] V. 41-46:
“Tecum etenim longos memini consumere soles,
Et tecum primas epulis decerpere noctes....”
[802] These may have been sketches of the nature of Lucilius’s _Journey
to the Sicilian Straits_ or Horace’s _Journey to Brundisium_.
[803] _Inst. Or._, X. i. 94: “Multum et uerae gloriae, quamuis uno libro,
Persius meruit.”
[804] Pretor, _C.R._, xxi. (1907) pp. 72 _sqq._, argues that the
choliambics are a prologue, and, being intended as a blind to safeguard
the author against Nero’s vengeance for alleged allusions to the
emperor, contain deliberate untruths, _e.g._ that the writer has no
capacity for authorship and is only half-educated or at least provincial
(_semi-paganus_).
[805] I. 76-78.
[806] I. 99-102: “Torua Mimalloneis inplerunt cornua bombis,” etc. The
lines have been ascribed to Nero, but more probably are Persius’s own
parodies on the Catullian and pre-Augustan type of poetry favoured by
many contemporaries who were court-favourites.
[807] I. 114-118.
[808] II. 61 _sqq._
[809] III. 33-34:
“caret culpa, nescit quid perdat, et alto
Demersus summa rursum non bullit in unda.”
[810] III. 38: “Virtutem uideant intabescantque relicta.”
[811] III. 66-67:
“Discite, o miseri, et causas cognoscite rerum;
Quid sumus et quidnam uicturi gignimur.”
[812] IV. 23-24.
[813] IV. 52: “Tecum habita: noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.”
[814] V. 52: “Mille hominum species, et rerum discolor usus.”
[815] V. 93-95.
[816] V. 119 _sqq._
[817] Macleane’s is a plausible theory that “uende animam lucro” (l.
75) begins a new branch of the subject which is left unfinished. Pretor
(introd. xix.-xxii.) argues that the gap comes earlier in Sat. vi. Jahn,
who considered Sat. vi. to be among the first composed and our Sat. i. to
have been among the last, believes that the sixth is complete as we have
it and that the incompleteness is in Sat. i.
[818] Fiske regards Lucilius as a source for Persius second in importance
only to Horace. _Transns. Amer. Philol. Assoc._, vol. 40, pp. 121-150.
[819] Hor., _A.P._, 102:
“Si uis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi”;
Pers. I. 91:
“Verum nec nocte paratum
Plorabit qui me uolet incuruasse querela.”
Other phrases in Persius’s first satire which may be instructively
compared with their Horatian bases are l. 43: “scombros metuentia
carmina”; l. 64: “ut per leue seueros effundat iunctura ungues”; l. 106:
“pluteum caedit nec demorsos sapit ungues.”
[820] Villeneuve, _op. cit._, p. 179 _sqq._
[821] Villeneuve, _op. cit._, p. 165.
[822] Hor., _Sat._ II. ii. 60: “Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro.” The
varied linguistic elements and polemic artifices of the lost moral
disquisitions of Bion are partially discernible in the remains of Teles,
an obscure Cynic of the 3rd cent. B.C. For Bion, see Villeneuve, _op.
cit._, pp. 130-135.
[823] Pers., I. 44: “Quisquis es, o, modo quem ex aduerso dicere feci”;
_cf._ _1 Corinthians_ xv. 35-37.
[824] Lyd., _De Mag._, I. 41: Πέρσιος δὲ τὸν ποιητὴν Σώφρονα μιμήσασθαι
θέλων τὸ Λυκόφρονος παρῆλθεν ἀμαυρόν.
[825] “Obuoluisti ipse te caeca nocte.... Nolebas intellegi, forte et tu
non intellegebas!... Latebas intra te, ne te curiosa et erudita inueniret
sagacitas. Eras ipse inuolucrum tibi.”
[826] V. 92: “Dum ueteres auias tibi de pulmone reuello.”
[827] I. 58:
“O Jane, a tergo quem nulla ciconia pinsit,
Nec manus auriculas imitari mobilis albas,
Nec linguae quantum sitiat canis Apula tantae.”
[828] _E.g._ I. 9: “istud uiuere triste”; I. 27: “scire tuum”; I. 122:
“hoc ridere meum”; _cf._ Hor., _Epist._ I. vii. 27: “reddes dulce loqui:
reddes ridere decorum.”
[829] I. 15-21.
[830] III. 1-6.
[831] III. 10-14.
[832] III. 43-51.
[833] III. 78-85.
[834] VI. 43-49.
[835] VI. 29-31.
[836] III. 105-106.
[837] I. 108-109.
[838] II. 50-51.
[839] V. 5-18.
[840] V. 13: “nec _scloppo_ (? stloppo) tumidas intendis rumpere buccas.”
The loan-words from vulgar Latin in Persius (e.g. diminutives and
obscenities) are such as occur in comedy and satirists like Lucilius
and Horace. He also shares colloquialisms (_ebullire_, etc.) with
contemporaries like Petronius in the _Satyricon_ and Seneca in the
_Apocolocyntosis_.
[841] Specified in the Latin of the _Vita_ as _Neronem principem illius
temporis_.
[842] Pichon, _Hist. d. l. litt. lat._, p. 553: “Sans nommer Néron en
toutes lettres (la chose eût été impossible) Perse le met en scène sous
le nom d’Alcibiade.” Waltz, _Vie de Sénèque_, “_L’Alcibiade est Néron,
comme l’a pensé Casaubon_.” Kukula’s _Persius und Nero_ (Graz, 1923)
treats the first satire as containing a definite attack on Nero.
[843] _Vita_: “Editum librum continuo mirari homines et diripere
coeperunt”; _cf._ Quint., _I. Or._, X. i. 94; Mart., IV. xxix. 7.
[844] Rousse, _Perse_, p. 135.
[845] Schanz, _Gesch. d. röm. Litt._, II. 2, p. 85.
[846] Sorn, _Die Sprache des Persius_, p. 31: “es ist ein Meer von
Dunkelheit.”
[847] G. G. Ramsay, _Juv. and Pers._, Loeb, 1918, Introd., pp. xxx.-xxxii.
[848] Vacca, _Vit. Luc._, mentions his “studium uitae quietioris.”
[849] Hieron., _Chron. Euseb._, ad. ann. Abr. 2079: “M. Annaeus Lucanus
Cordubensis poeta in Pisoniana coniuratione deprehensus brachium ad
secandas uenas medico praebuit”; _cf._ Suet., _Vit. Luc._: “brachia ad
secandas uenas praebuit medico.”
[850] Stat., _Sil._, II. vii.; Mart., I. lxi.; VII. xxi., xxii., xxiii.;
X. lxiv.; XIV. cxciv.
[851] Tac., _Ann._, XV. xlix., lvi., lvii., lxx.; _Dial._ xx.
[852] Text: Ed. pr., Rome, 1469; Grotius, Antw., 1614, 1625, 1639;
Farnaby, Eng. ed., 1618; Amst., 1715; Korrte (= Cortius), 1726; Oudendorp
(index), Leyd., 1728; Burman, Leyd., 1740; c. notis Grotii et Bentleii,
Strawb. Hill, 1760; Glasg., 1816; Weber, 3 vols., Lpz., 1821-1831
(scholia and Korrte’s comment.); Lemaire, 2 vols., 1830-1832; Weise,
1835; Haskins (introd. by Heitland), Lond., 1887; Hosius, Lpz., 1892
and 1905; ed. 3, 1913; Francken, 2 vols., Leyd., 1896-1897 (bibliog.);
Heitland in Postgate’s _C.P.L._, 1905; Housman, Oxf., 1926. Bk. I.,
Lejay, Par., 1894 (important introd.); VII., Postgate, Camb., 1896;
VIII., do., 1917. Fragments: Bährens’s _Frag. P. Rom._, 1886, pp.
365-368. Transns. into verse: Gorges, 1614 [rare]; May, 1627, ed. 2, 1631
(heroic couplets); Rowe, 1719 (heroic couplets); Ridley, 1896 (blank).
Studies, etc.: Weber, _Vitae Lucani collectae_, progr., Marb., 1856-1858.
Genthe, _De Luc. uita et scriptis_, diss., Berl., 1859; _Scholia uet.
e codice Montepessulano_, 1868; Usener, _Commenta Bernensia_, 1869;
Nisard, _Études ... sur les poètes latins de la décadence_, ed. 3, 1867,
ii. pp. 85-454, ed. 4, 1878. On hist. sources: Baier, _De Liuio Lucani
... auctore_, diss., Bresl., 1874; Singels, _De L. fontibus et fide_,
diss., Leyd., 1884; Westerburg, _Luc. Florus und Pseudo-Victor_, _Rh.
Mus._, xxxviii. pp. 34-39; Giani, _La Farsaglia_, etc., Turin, 1888;
Ziehen, _Luc., als Historiker_ in _Berichte d. freien Hochstiftes_,
Frankft.-a-M., 1890; Vitelli, _Sulla composizione e publicazione della
Fars._ in _Studi italiani di fil. class._, VIII. pp. 33-72, 1900; _Studi
sulle storiche fonti della Fars._, _op. cit._ X. pp. 359-429; Ussani,
_Sul valore storico del poema Lucaneo_ in _Atti del congresso internaz.
di scienze storiche_, II. iv., Rome, 1903; Jullian, _Lucain historien_
in _Rev. des Études anciennes_, Bord., I. 4, 1900. On philos. sources:
Souriau, _De deorum ministeriis in Phars._, thèse, Par., 1885; Oettl,
_Lucans philosophische Weltanschauung_, prog., Brixen, 1888; Millard,
_Lucani sententia de deis et fato_, diss., Utr., 1891. On lit. sources:
Diels, _Seneca und L., Abhandl. der Berl. Akad._, 1886; Hosius, _L.
u. seine Quellen_, _Rh. Mus._, XLVIII. pp. 380-397, 1893; Heitland’s
introd., Haskins’s ed., pp. cviii.-cxxxi. On the whole question of
sources: Pichon, _Les Sources de L._, Par., 1912; on Stoicism in general:
E. V. Arnold, _Roman Stoicism_, Camb., 1911.
[853] _Ad Helu._, xviii. 4, 5.
[854] Bährens, _P.L. Min._, 1879-1883, IV. p. 77: _cf._ p. 247 _supra_.
[855] Probus took Persius and Lucan to be of the same time of life; but
Persius was Lucan’s senior by about five years. Prob., _Vit. Persii_:
“Cognouit per Cornutum etiam Annaeum Lucanum, aequauum auditorem Cornuti.
Lucanus adeo mirabatur scripta (Persii) Flacci ut uix retineret se
recitante eo cum clamore quin illa esse uera poemata diceret, sua ipse
ludos faceret.” (_v.l._ “recitante eo de more.”)
[856] Suet., _Vit. Luc._: “ut praefatione quadam aetatem, et initia
sua cum Vergilio comparans ausus sit dicere ‘et quantum mihi restat ad
Culicem?’”
[857] Vacca, _Vit. Luc._: “puerili mutato in senatorium cultum et in
notitiam Caesaris Neronis facile peruenit.”
[858] Suet., _Vit. Luc._: “ad extremum signifer Pisonianae coniurationis
exstitit.”
[859] _Ib._, “matrem quoque innoxiam inter socios nominauit”; _cf._ Tac.,
_Ann._, XV. lvi. Vacca mentions no such incident.
[860] _Ann._, XV. lxx.: “recordatus carmen a se compositum, quo
uolneratum militem per eiusmodi mortis imaginem obisse tradiderat, uersus
ipsos rettulit, eaque illi suprema uox fuit.”
[861] _Phars._, III. 638-641; VII. 608-615; IX. 811-814.
[862] _E.g._ by May in the _Life_ prefixed to his translation.
[863] Stat., _Sil._, II. vii. 92: “Cur saeua uice magna non senescunt?”
[864] _Sil._, II. vii. 54-63.
[865] _Vit. Luc._, _ad fin._: “non fastidiendi quidem omnes, tales tamen
ut _Belli Ciuilis_ uideatur accessio.”
[866] Genthe, _De L. uita et scriptis_, p. 61, plausibly refers to the
_Saturnalia_ the coarse line quoted by Martial, X. lxiv. 6.
[867] What Schanz (_Gesch. d. röm. Lit._) calls “Tanzstücke,” citing
Jahn’s description “in usum pantomimorum scriptae,” _Proleg. in Pers._,
p. xxxiv.
[868] That is a possible correction of _appāmata_ in the best MSS.
[869] Tac., _Ann._, XIII. xliv. Sagitta in presence of a freedman killed
a woman who would not marry him: the freedman sought to take the guilt on
himself, but a maid revealed the truth, and Sagitta was brought to trial.
[870] Pichon, _Les Sources de Lucain_, p. 53, footnote: “ces deux poèmes
n’en forment peut-être qu’un seul.” In noticing Pichon’s valuable work
(_C.R._, xxvii. 1, 1913, pp. 25-28), I mentioned what appeared to me the
incredibility of this hypothesis.
[871] Bährens, _F.P.R._, pp. 365-368.
[872] “Pharsalia” is borrowed from IX. 985; the title in MSS. is _De
Bello Ciuili_.
[873] I. 125-126:
“Nec quemquam iam ferre potest Caesarue priorem
Pompeiusue parem.”
[874] I. 129-130.
[875] I. 135: “stat magni nominis umbra.”
[876] I. 144 _sqq._; “sed nescia uirtus stare loco ... gaudensque uiam
fecisse ruina.”
[877] I. 185 _sqq._
[878] II. 1415:
“Sit subitum quodcumque paras: sit caeca futuri
Mens hominum fati: liceat sperare timenti.”
[879] II. 52-63.
[880] II. 258-259.
[881] II. 381 _sqq._
[882] III. 1-7.
[883] III. 399-421. Possibly the miraculous fire in the forest was
suggested to Lucan by Sen., _Thyest._, 674: “excelsae trabes ardent sine
igne.”
[884] IV. 373 _sqq._
[885] IV. 575-581.
[886] IV. 702-710.
[887] V. 476: “Caesaris adtonitam miscenda ad proelia mentem.”
[888] V. 731 _sqq._
[889] VI. 67-68.
[890] VI. 191-192, 198-199, 205, 208, 219.
[891] VII. 207 _sqq._
[892] VII. 24 _sqq._
[893] VII. 61.
[894] VII. 129-130.
[895] VII. 252: “Nil opus est uotis: iam fatum accersite ferro.”
[896] VII. 278: “Et primo ferri motu prosternite mundum.”
[897] VII. 349: “Causa iubet melior superos sperare secundos.”
[898] VII. 440-445.
[899] VII. 457-459.
[900] VII. 695.
[901] VIII. 5-6.
[902] VIII. 76-78.
[903] VIII. 491 _sqq._
[904] VIII. 673.
[905] VIII. 798-799.
[906] Cato, as hero of the desert, receives an epithet found nowhere
else—_hareniuagus_, IX. 941.
[907] IX. 556 _sqq._
[908] IX. 566 _sqq._
[909] IX. 980 _sqq._
[910] X. 444-446.
[911] X. 528-529.
[912] VI. 813-814.
[913] _Op. cit._, p. 270. The late Canon Cruickshank, Professor of Greek
in Durham, saw a possible limit in the reference to Munda (45 B.C.) as
the last battle of the civil wars, I. 40. But some take _ultima_ there
as “most distant,” and Lucan, in spite of _ultima_, goes on to refer to
Mutina (43) and Perusia (41 B.C.).
[914] _Cf._ the language regarding portentous constellations in _Phars._,
I. 527-529, with Sen., _N.Q._, VI. iii. 3 and VII. xx. 3.
[915] For summary of evidence, see Schanz, _op. cit._, pp. 104-105.
[916] _Satyr._, 118.
[917] Livy’s books from outbreak of the civil war till Caesar’s death
were cix.-cxvi.
[918] Baier, _De Liuio ... Lucani auctore_, 1874; Pichon, _op. cit._,
1912.
[919] Sen., _Contr._, X. _praef._ 2; _Suas._, vi. 22.
[920] Sen., _Ep._, c. 9.
[921] See Heitland’s _Introd._
[922] Pichon’s explanation of the _picta arma_ of the Lingones as “une
allusion aux boucliers ornés d’émail que l’on fabriquait à Bibracte” must
interest anyone who has seen the Aeduan antiquities from Mont Beuvray at
Autun.
[923] Pichon believes this “sans doute,” _op. cit._, p. 145.
[924] Lucan’s influence on Appian, Dio Cassius and Orosius, asserted by
Ussani, is denied on good grounds by Pichon (_op. cit._, pp. 81 _sqq._).
Westerburg (_Rh. M._, xxxviii. pp. 34 _sqq._) maintains that Florus
drew from Lucan, and so did not simply summarize Livy. Against this
theory powerful arguments are arrayed by Pichon (_op. cit._, pp. 69-81).
Postgate (ed. Bk. VIII., postscript to introd.) remarks that much of the
difficulty would be removed by the assumption that the epitomator of Livy
used Lucan as well as Livy and that Florus used the epitome.
[925] Pichon, _op. cit._, p. 226; Heitland’s _Introd._, p. cviii. _sqq._
[926] Fronto, 157 n.: “is initio carminis sui septem primis uersibus
nihil aliud quam _bella plus quam ciuilia_ interpretatus est.”
[927] Heitland, _Introd._, p. cxxviii.
[928] _Rh. Mus._, XLVIII. p. 393 _sqq._; Pichon, _op. cit._, p. 235 _sqq._
[929] References are given in Heitland’s _Introd._
[930] VIII. 161-184; X. 172 _sqq._
[931] VII. 144 _sqq._; _ib._, 777 _sqq._
[932] II. 93; III. 306. So it involves a little mythological lore to
understand why, among omens of trouble, the flame announcing the close
of the Latin festival is said to be parted into two, “copying the Theban
pyres” (I. 550-552).
[933] VIII. 458 _sqq._
[934] IV. 589 _sqq._; IX. 359 _sqq._
[935] II. 173 _sqq._; IV. 566 _sqq._; VI. 529-569; VIII. 667-691; VIII.
777-778; IX. 766-781.
[936] II. 201 _sqq._
[937] II. 172.
[938] III. 567 _sqq._
[939] III. 723-751.
[940] VIII. 851 _sqq._
[941] V. 593 _sqq._
[942] VI. 45-46.
[943] VII. 851-852.
[944] He carries condensation too far, e.g. II. 35, _diuisere deos_=“they
divided the gods,” _i.e._ Roman ladies took their prayers to different
temples; or he uses an over-fanciful conceit, _e.g._ II. 72, _depositum_
applied to Marius, the exile, as “the deposit” entrusted by Fortune to
the marshes. But such phrases have at least the intended quality of being
striking.
[945] V. 455.
[946] Quint., X. i. 90: “ardens et concitatus.”
[947] Text: Wernsdorf, _Poet. Lat. Min._, 1780, vol. ii.; Gläser, Gött.,
1842; Bährens’s _Poet. Lat. Min._, vol. iii.; _Calp. et Nemesian._,
Schenkl, Prag., 1885, and by same editor in Postgate’s _C.P.L._, ii.;
Keene, Lond., 1887. In Eng. verse (octosyll.), E. J. L. Scott, Lond.,
1890.
Other wks.: Haupt, _De carm. bucol. Calp. et Nemes._, Leipz., 1854;
Append. _On Later Bucolic Poets of Rome_ in Conington’s Virgil, vol. i.,
with summary of Haupt’s arguments.
[948] iv. 84:
“At mihi qui nostras praesenti numine terras
Perpetuamque regit iuuenili robore pacem,
Laetus et Augusto felix arrideat ore....”
vii. 6: “Quae patula iuuenis deus edit harena.”
[949] vii. 83-84:
“... Ac nisi me uisus decepit, in uno
Et Martis uultus et Apollinis esse putaui.”
[950] i. 42:
“Aurea secura cum pace renascitur aetas,
Et redit ad terras tandem squalore situque
Alma Themis posito, iuuenemque beata secuntur
Saecula, maternis causam qui uicit _Iulis_” (_v.l._ in ulnis!).
[951] _Ecl._ i. 77-83; Pliny, _N.H._, II. 25, 92; Suet., _Claud._, xlvi.;
Dio., lx. 35.
[952] _Ecl._ vii. 23-24:
“Vidimus in caelum _trabibus spectacula textis_
Surgere, Tarpeium prope despectantia culmen”;
Tac., _Ann._, XIII. xxxi. (A.D. 57): “nisi cui libeat laudandis
fundamentis et _trabibus_ quis molem amphitheatri apud campum Martis
Caesar extruxerat”; Suet., _Nero_, xii.: “munere quod _in amphitheatro
ligneo_ regione Martii campi intra anni spatium fabricato dedit....” The
games instituted by Nero are mentioned in Suet., _Nero_, xi.
[953] iv. 36-42.
[954] Sarpe, _Quaest. philol._, Rostock, 1819. Keene, in introd. to his
edn., agrees, p. 12. Summers, _Silver Age of Latin Lit._, p. 91, thinks
that to identify the patron with Seneca or Calpurnius Piso is sheer
caprice.
[955] iv. 53 _sqq._
[956] iv. 158-159.
[957] iv. 64-66:
“Magna petis, Corydon, si Tityrus esse laboras:
Ille fuit uates sacer et qui posset auena
Praesonuisse chelyn.”
[958] i. 11-12:
“Bullantes ubi fagus aquas radice sub ipsa
Protegit et ramis errantibus implicat umbras.”
[959] ii. 68-75.
[960] iv. 152-159.
[961] vii. 83-84.
[962] The influence of Calpurnius is illustrated in Prof. Mustard’s
notes to his edns. of _The Eclogues of Baptista Mantuanus_, 1911; _The
Piscatory Eclogues of Sannazaro_, 1914; _The Eclogues of Andrelinus and
Arnolletus_, 1918.
[963] Text: ed. pr. in Sichard’s ed. of Ovid, Bas., 1527; (with Lucan)
Corte, Leipz., 1726; Held, Bresl., 1831; Weber, cum proleg., Marb., 1859;
Bährens’s _P.L.M._, 1879, vol. i.
[964] Haupt, _Opusc._, I. p. 391; _cf._ Lachmann’s comment on Lucretius,
ed. 3, 1866, p. 326, “laudator Pisonis Calpurnius.”
[965] There are three instances, two in the first foot (_atque illos_,
24; _quare age_, 81) and one in the third (_et te credibile est_, 168),
among the 261 lines; there are eight elisions, all in the first foot
(eleven, if three doubtful cases be admitted) among the 759 lines of
Calp. Siculus.
[966] _De Laude Pis._, 248: “Tu mihi Maecenas tereti cantabere uersu.”
Calp. Sic., iv. 152: “tereti decurrent carmine uersus.”
[967] For such resemblances, see _Laus Pisonis_ by Gladys Martin, Cornell
Univ. diss., 1917.
[968] _Ann._, XV. xlviii.
[969] l. 29: “Mitia legitimo sub iudice bella mouere.”
[970] l. 47: “Flet si flere iubes, gaudet gaudere coactus.”
[971] l. 132: “Obsequiumque doces et amorem quaeris amando.”
[972] _De Laude Pis._, 166, 171, 242. _Chelys_ is, except for Ovid’s use,
post-Augustan; _e.g._ Calp. Sic., iv. 66, and in Statius often.
[973] Bährens, _P.L.M._, iii. 60-64.
[974] Schanz, _op. cit._, VIII. ii. 2, p. 98.
[975] Groag, art., “Calpurnius Piso” in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencycl._,
III. 1379; Bücheler, _Rh. Mus._, xxvi., p. 235.
[976] Text: (first published with Virgil), Scaliger, Lyon, 1572; Gorallus
(_i.e._ Leclerc), Amst., 1703, 1715 (“P. Cornelii Seueri _Aetna_ et
fragm....”); Wernsdorf’s _P.L.M._, iv., 1785; Munro, Camb., 1867;
Bährens’s _P.L.M._, ii. 88, 1880 (in _App. Verg._); Sudhaus, Leipz.,
1898; Ellis, 1901, and by same editor in Postgate’s _C.P.L._, vol. ii.,
1905; Lenchantin de Gubernatis, Turin, 1911; _L’Etna_ (texte et trad.),
Vessereau, Par., 1923 (defends Virgilian authorship).
[977] Wight Duff, _A Lit. Hist. of Rome to Close of Golden Age_, 1909,
pp. 492-495, for previous discussion of _Aetna_.
[978] _Poema de Aetna monte Vergilio auctori praecipue tribuendum_,
diss., Krak., 1882. Brakman, _Mnem._, li. 2 (1923), holding that the
treatment is based on Posidonius and that style and metre are Lucretian,
marshals internal evidence to support a date about 30 B.C.
[979] _Studia in Aetn. collata_, Erlang., 1896.
[980] _Rh. Mus._, liv. 7.
[981] Gross, _De metonymiis lat. a deorum nominibus petitis_ (diss.,
Hal., 19 (1911), p. 296), seeks on ground of resemblances between
_Octauia_ and _Aetna_ to suggest that the poet of the _Aetna_ was the
borrower, and wrote between A.D. 69 and 79.
[982] Sen., _Ep. Mor._, lxxix. 4-7.
[983] _Gesch. d. röm. Lit._, 1910, § 307: “ein inhaltlich sehr
anziehendes kleines Lehrgedicht.”
[984] 616-617:
“Defectum raptis illum sua carmina tardant:
Hic uelox minimo properat sub pondere pauper.”
I should like to give the poet the credit of sarcastically regarding
poems as heavy enough to be a hindrance; but the _carmina_ are possibly
charms or spells to which recourse might be had in terror.
[985] 628-629:
“Parcite, auara manus, dulces attollere praedas:
Illis diuitiae solae materque paterque.”
[986] Text: Bährens, _P.L.M._, iii., pp. 7-59: _Italici Ilias Lat._
(praef., app. crit.), Plessis, Paris, 1885; _cf._ Tolkiehn, _Homer u. die
röm. Poesie_, 1900, pp. 96-119.
[987] Wight Duff, _Lit. Hist. of Rome_, 119 _sqq._; Bährens, _Fragm.
P.L._, p. 37 _sqq._
[988] Bährens, _Fragm. P.L._, p. 281 and p. 283; Wight Duff, _op. cit._,
p. 123 and p. 245.
[989] Pers., i. 50; _cf._ i. 4 and Schol. The surviving line—
crudum manduces Priamum Priamique pisinnos,
was intended to translate _Il._, iv. 35—
ὠμὸν βεβρώθοις Πρίαμον Πριάμοιό τε παῖδας.
[990] Sen., _ad Polyb._, viii. 2, xi. 5.
[991] ll. 899-902:
“Quem nisi seruasset magnarum rector aquarum,
Vt profugus laetis Troiam repararet in aruis
Augustumque genus claris submitteret astris,
Non carae gentis nobis mansisset origo.”
[992] _La Poésie latine_, Par., 1909, pp. 528 _sqq._
[993] For a record of the discussions on the acrostics see Schanz, _op.
cit._, pp. 121-122.
[994] Tolkiehn, _op. cit._, p. 101, quotes treatises by Paul Verres
(1881) and by Altenburg (1890) to suggest that the metre of _Ilias Lat._
is better than that of Silius’s _Punica_. The contention is that Silius
would not have written his _magnum opus_ in less careful style than an
epitome of the _Iliad_. Galdi, _L’epitome nella letteratura latina_,
1922, p. 244, takes the view of Schanz that _Il. Lat._ is a free and
brief rehandling of the Homeric _Iliad_ by a dilettante fond of Virgil
and Ovid (“innamorato di Virgilio e di Ovidio”). A real epitome would
have had more Homeric colour.
[995] _Rh. Mus._, xxiv. (1870), 492 _sqq._
[996] Hor., _Od._, IV. ix. 5-6; _cf._ Petron., _Sat._, ii.
[997] For reminiscences of Virgil and Ovid, see Plessis, _op. cit._, p.
532.
[998] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 286, 7-11; Schanz, II. ii. § 360; fragments,
Bährens, _F.P. Rom._, 1886, p. 368.
[999] Suet., _Ner._, lii.
[1000] Tac., _Ann._, XIII. iii.
[1001] _N.Q._, I. v. 6.
[1002] Mart., IX. xxvi. 9; Suet., _Dom._, i.; _Ner._, xxi., xxiv.,
xxxviii.; Tac., _Ann._, XV. xxxix.
[1003] _Vit. Pers._; schol. ad Pers., vi. 1.; Quint., X. i. 96.
[1004] Teuffel. _op. cit._, 304, 1.
[1005] Sen., _N.Q._, VI. ii. 7.
[1006] _Ann._, XIV. xlviii. (A.D. 62), XVI. xxviii. (A.D. 66).
[1007] Quint., X. i. 89; Juv., VII. 79-81.
[1008] Plin., _Ep._, III. v., account of his uncle’s works; V. viii.,
history compared with oratory; VI. xvi., his uncle’s death; VI. xx.,
continued account of eruption of Vesuvius.
[1009] Text: Barbarus, Rome, 1492; Dalecampius, Lyons, 1587; Gronov, c.
not. varior., Leyd., 1669; Harduinus, Par., 1685 (1723); Franz, c. not.
Harduini et varior., 10 vols., Leipz., 1778-1791; Sillig, 8 vols., Gotha,
1851-1858; Jan, Lpz., 1854-1865; ed. 3, Mayhoff, 1906 _sqq._; Detlefsen,
Berl., 1866-1882, and crit. ed. of geog. bks. (II. 242–VI.), Berl., 1905;
_Morceaux extraits de Pline_, trad. en fr., Guéroult, ed. augm., Par.,
1845; _Chrestomathia Pliniana_, Urlichs, Berl., 1857; Chapters on Hist.
of Art (from XXXIV.-XXXVI.), text and tr., Jex-Blake, introd. and comm.,
Sellers, Lond., 1896.
Trans.: Philemon Holland, Lond., 1601; ed. 2, 1634; Bostock and Riley,
Lond., 6 vols., 1898, etc.
On his science: _Plinius u. seine Naturgesch. in ihrer Bedeutung für d.
Gegenwart_, Dannemann, Jena, 1921.
On sources see bibliogr. in Teuffel, _op. cit._, Schanz, _op. cit._, and
footnotes in this chapter.
On style: _Der Stil des ält. Plin._, Joh. Müller, Innsbr., 1883.
[1010] _Ep._, III. v. 7, states that he died in his fifty-sixth year;
this was in August, A.D. 79.
[1011] _N.H._, _praef._ 1, _i.e._ like Catullus, a native of Gallia
Cisalpina, though not, as some have argued, a fellow-townsman from Verona.
[1012] _N.H._, XXXVII. 81.
[1013] _N.H._, VII. 80; XIII. 83. Pliny calls Pomponius “consularis
poeta” and “uatis ciuisque clarissimus.”
[1014] _N.H._, _praef._ 3.
[1015] _N.H._, XXXIII. 143.
[1016] XII. 98 (“... qua Rhenus adluit uidi”); XVI. 2; XXII. 8.
[1017] IX. 14-15; XXXIII. 63; XXXVI. 111.
[1018] _C.I.G._, III. 4536; _Herm._, XIX. (1884), p. 644. Since
Hirschfeld, in 1887 (Röm. Mitt. d. deutsch. archäol. Inst., 2, p. 152),
opposed Mommsen, several scholars, including Münzer, have also attacked
the identification. Fabia and Detlefsen support it.
[1019] _N.H._, II. 150: “ego uidi in Vocontiorum agro”; VII. 36: “ipse in
Africa uidi”; XVIII. 183: “in Treuerico agro ...”; Plin., _Ep._, III. v.
17: “cum procuraret in Hispania.”
[1020] _Ep._, III. v. 9.
[1021] _Ep._, VI. xvi.
[1022] _Ep._, III. v. 10.
[1023] _Ib._, 12.
[1024] _Ib._, 16.
[1025] _Ib._, 17.
[1026] _Ib._, 19.
[1027] _Ib._, 1-6.
[1028] _N.H._, VIII. 162.
[1029] _Ib._, XIV. 56.
[1030] Plin., _Ep._, III. v. 4.
[1031] _Ann._, I. lxix.; Symm., _Epist._, IV. 18, 16. Lehnerdt, _Herm._,
xlviii., 1913, pp. 274-282, discusses the possible survival of a copy in
Germany in the fifteenth century.
[1032] Gell., _N.A._, IX. xvi. 1.
[1033] _I. Or._, III. i. 21; XI. iii. 143, 148.
[1034] _N.H._, _praef._ 28.
[1035] For Pliny’s influence on Nonius Marcellus, Nettleship, _Jrl. of
Philol._, XV. 189, “Study of Lat. Gram. in 1st Cent., A.D.”; on Gellius
and others, Beck, _Studia Gelliana et Pliniana_, Lpz., 1892.
[1036] _Ann._, XIII. xx. (early in Nero’s reign, A.D. 55); XV. liii.
(Piso’s conspiracy, A.D. 65); Hist., III. xxviii. (sack of Cremona, A.D.
69).
[1037] For the theories see Schanz, _op. cit._, pp. 495-496.
[1038] Peter, _Hist. Rom. Frag._, p. 310.
[1039] _N.H._, II. 199: “anno Neronis principis supremo, sicut in rebus
eius exposuimus”; _praef._ 20 (of Vespasian and his sons): “Vos omnes,
patrem te fratremque, diximus opere iusto, temporum nostrorum orsi a fine
Aufidi Bassi.”
[1040] _Ep._, V. viii. 5: “historias et quidem religiosissime scripsit.”
[1041] _Ep._, III. v. 6.
[1042] _Praef._ 2 addresses Titus as “sexies consul.” His poem on the
comet belonged to his fifth consulate, _N.H._, II. 89.
[1043] This is Urlichs’s view (_Chrestom._, Einl., p. xiv.): “Vermutlich
gab er deshalb vor der Reise (von Rom) nur die erste Dekade vollständig
heraus.” Bks. XI. and XII. in Riccard. MS. and the last six bks. in
the Bamberg. MS. bear the words “editus post mortem.” _Cf._ Detlefsen,
_Untersuch. üb. d. Zusammensetzung der Naturgesch._, 1899, p. 18; Klotz,
_Herm._, xlii., 1907, pp. 324-325.
[1044] _Praef._ 33.
[1045] _E.g._ XXXIII. 22, he makes a reference forward to his book on
precious stones (viz. XXXVII.): “sicut dicemus in gemmarum uolumine.”
[1046] _Praef._ 17: “ex exquisitis auctoribus C.”
[1047] _Praef._ 21: “est enim benignum, ut arbitror, et plenum ingenui
pudoris fateri per quos profeceris.”
[1048] Montigny, _Quaestiones in Plin. nat. historiae de animalibus
libros_, Bonn, 1848, p. 7: “uana eruditionis ostentatio.” Rabenhorst,
_Die Indices auctorum u. die wirklichen Quellen der N.H._, in _Philol._,
65 (1906), sees in Pliny’s desire to acknowledge literary obligations
merely a rhetorical trick.
[1049] VIII. 43-44: “Aristoteles ... uir quem in his magna secuturus
ex parte praefandum reor,” i.e. Aristotle is for zoology his great
authority, and Pliny proceeds to mention his summary of 50 volumes of
Aristotle (“collecta in artum”). Klotz points out that the words in VI.
49, “Demodamas ... quem maxime sequimur,” only mean that Pliny’s material
at this point goes back in the last resort to Demodamas (“in letzter
Linie zum grössten Teil auf D. zurückgehen,” _Herm._, xlii., p. 327).
[1050] Brunn, _De auctorum indicibus Plinianis disputatio isagogica_,
Bonn, 1856.
[1051] On the relation between the order of authors’ names in the special
indices and the order followed in a general index common to Pliny’s books
on closely allied subjects, see Klotz, _Herm._, xlii., p. 323 (1907), and
his _Quaestiones Plinianae Geographicae_, 1906, p. 4 _sqq._
[1052] Numbers often constituted a difficulty in the MSS., and
uncertainty led to gaps. Klotz, _loc. cit._, p. 325, cites Dicuil,
_De mens. orb. terr._, as aware of imperfections in Pliny MSS. On the
figures, _cf._ Birt, _Das antike Buchwesen_, Berl., 1882, p. 333.
[1053] Montigny, _op. cit._, showed that Pliny often named in his indices
authors whom he had not directly consulted.
[1054] Teuffel, _op. cit._, 313, 3: “Im übrigen hat die Phantasie des
modernen Quellenforschers hier, bei dem Verlust der meisten Quellen,
weiten (auch reichlich benutzten) Spielraum.”
[1055] Rose, _Aristoteles Pseudepigraphus_, Lpz., 1863 (“ipsius nunquam
Aristotelis Graecos libros adhibuit”); Birt, _De Halieuticis Ouidio falso
adscriptis_, Bonn, 1878 (criticized by Aly, _Zur Quellenkritik_, 1885,
pp. 17-18); Koebert, _Das Kunstverständnis des Plinius_, pp. 134-146,
in _Abhandlungen ... W. v. Christ dargebracht_, 1891; Rabenhorst, _Der
ältere Plinius als Epitomator des Verrius Flaccus_, Berl., 1903, and _Die
indices auctorum u. die wirklichen Quellen der N.H._, _Philol._, 65,
1906 (examined by Klotz, _Herm._, xlii., p. 324 _sqq._, who declines to
regard Pliny as a miserable humbug, “elender Windbeutel” and swaggerer,
“Aufschneider.”) For brief account of Verrius Flaccus, see Wight Duff,
_Lit. Hist. of Rome to Golden Age_, pp. 629-631; Trogus, _ib._, pp. 631,
636-637; Figulus, _ib._, p. 346; Juba, _ib._, p. 667.
[1056] Aly, _Zur Quellenkritik des älteren Pl._, Marb., 1885; Münzer,
_Beiträge zur Quellenkritik der Naturgesch._, Berl., 1897.
[1057] Jahn, _Ueber die Kunsturteile des P._ (in _Berichte d. Sächs.
Gesellschaft d. Wissenschaften_, 1850, pp. 105-142.)
[1058] Brieger, _De Fontibus Librorum XXXIII.-XXXVI._ _Nat. Hist. Plin.
quatenus ad artem plasticam pertinent_, diss., Greifsw., 1856.
[1059] This is well summarized in E. Sellers’s introd. to _The Elder
Pliny’s Chaps. on Hist. of Art_, 1896, where attention is directed to
relevant works by Schreiber, Furtwängler, Oehmichen, Robert, L. Urlichs,
his son H. L. Urlichs, and others. Münzer, _Zur Kunstgesch. des Pl._,
examined the Greek bases for Pliny’s history of art in _Herm._, xxx.
(1895), pp. 499-547. To this list may be added Kalkmann’s _Die Quellen
der Kunstgesch. des Pl._, Berl., 1898. He denies Pliny’s indebtedness to
Pasiteles of Naples included in the indices, and maintains that Pliny
here relied instead on a chronological compilation by Apollodorus as well
as a current catalogue of artists.
[1060] Aly makes this probable, _op. cit._, pp. 18-19.
[1061] _N.H._, XIV. 44-47. Münzer, _Beitr. zur Quellenkrit._, pp. 12-13.
[1062] _N.H._, XI. 273-276.
[1063] _E.g._ on Pliny’s “Arbeitsweise,” Aly, _op. cit._, pp. 19-21;
Münzer, _op. cit._, pp. 3-133; Klotz, _Herm._, xlii. 323-329.
[1064] Plin., _Ep._, III. v. 10: “adnotabat excerpebatque.”
[1065] Furtwängler, _Pl. u. seine Quellen üb. die bildenden Künste_, in
_Jahrb. für klass. Phil._, Supplbd. ix., Lpz., 1877, p. 4 _sqq._, regards
Pliny’s mode of compilation as having been “nach einer unter Rubriken
geordneten Excerptensammlung.”
[1066] _Cf._ his nephew’s description, _Ep._, III. v. 17: “electorum
commentarios ... opisthographos quidem et minutissimis scriptos.”
[1067] _Op. cit._, pp. 20-21.
[1068] Since Aly wrote in 1885, the claims of Juba as a source have been
pitched higher: Münzer, _op. cit._, 411-422.
[1069] II. 167-170.
[1070] _N.H._, II. 54: “macti ingenio este, caeli interpretes, rerumque
naturae capaces ...”; 95: “Hipparchus nunquam satis laudatus”; 117: “ista
plures sine praemio alio quam posteros iuuandi eruerunt.”
[1071] See list of works on the subject by Oehmichen, Gruppe, Detlefsen,
Cuntz, Klotz and others in Schanz, _op. cit._, § 492.
[1072] _N.H._, XXV. 9: “cui summa auctoritas erat in ea arte nostro
acuo.” Wellmann, “Beiträge zur Quellenanalyse des älteren Plinius,”
_Herm._, lix. (1924), p. 129 _sqq._, has endeavoured to awake fresh
interest in Castor as a Latin source and in Solon of Smyrna as a Greek
source for Pliny’s medical botany.
[1073] This Xenocrates, the statuary who wrote _de toreutice_, is to be
distinguished from Xenocrates, a physician of Aphrodisias in Cilicia,
whose name appears in many previous author-lists, and from whose recent
compilation Pliny borrowed remedies of a superstitious character.
[1074] _N.H._, III. 2: “locorum nuda nomina et quanta dabitur breuitate
ponentur”; III. 39: “nec ignoro ingrati ac segnis animi existimari posse
merito, si obiter atque in transcursu ad hunc modum dicatur terra.”
[1075] III. 138.
[1076] III. 39-42.
[1077] West, “Multiplication of Cities in Anct. Geog.,” _Class. Philol._
XVIII. 1, Jan., 1923.
[1078] XXVI. 18: “magicae uanitates.”
[1079] _N.H._, _praef._ 33: “Tu per hoc et aliis praestabis ne perlegant,
sed ut quisque desiderabit aliquid id tantum quaerat”; Gell., _N.A._, V.
xvi.: “degustandum ex philosophia censet, non in eam ingurgitandum.”
[1080] _N.H._, X. 81-82: “tanta uox tam paruo in corpusculo ... in una
perfecta musica scientia modulatus editur sonus.” The lavish measure of
Holland’s paraphrase is apparent here: three Latin words, _infuscatur
ex inopinato_, become “anon all of a sudden, before a man would think
it, she drowneth her words that one can scarce hear her.” His “descant
between the plain song” and “crotchets, quavers, semiquavers and double
semiquavers” add to the general effect of rich freedom in his tribute to
the bird.
[1081] The chapters on _papyrus_ are specially treated by Dziatzko,
_Untersuch. üb. ausgew. Kapitel d. antiken Buchwesens_, mit Text übers.
u. erkl. von _N.H._, XIII. 68-69, 1900.
[1082] XIV. 142: “ex ore halitus cadi, ac fere rerum omnium obliuio,
morsque memoriae.”
[1083] XXXVI. 101-125.
[1084] I think it not unlikely that “mola tantum salsa litant qui non
habent tura,” _praef._ 11, is an echo of Persius, II. 75, “farre litabo.”
[1085] _N.H._, II. 13: “hunc esse mundi totius animum....”
[1086] _Ib._, 14.
[1087] _Ib._, 15-16: “maior caelitum populus etiam quam hominum intellegi
potest.”
[1088] II. 18: “Deus est mortali iuuare mortalem, est haec ad aeternam
gloriam uia.”
[1089] _Praef._ 16: “qui ... utilitatem iuuandi praetulerunt gratiae
placendi, idque iam et in aliis operibus ipse feci.”
[1090] VII. 2: “hominem tantum nudum et in nuda humo natali die abicit ad
uagitus statim et ploratum.” _Cf._ Lucret., V. 222-227.
[1091] VII. 3: “Heu, dementiam ab his initiis existimantium ad superbiam
se genitos!” 5: “At, hercules, homini plurima ex homine sunt mala”;
XVIII. 2-3: “ferro ipsi nocentius aliquid damus, nos et flumina
inficimus, et rerum naturae elementa ipsumque quo uiuitur aerem in
perniciem uertimus.”
[1092] XXII. 117-118: “parens illa ac diuina rerum artifex.... Naturae
quidem opera absoluta atque perfecta gignuntur.... Scrupulatim quidem
colligere ac miscere uires, non coniecturae humanae opus, sed impudentiae
est.”
[1093] XXII. 1 ... “nihil ab rerum natura sine aliqua occultiore causa
gigni”; XVIII. 1: “si quis aestimet uarietatem, numerum, flores, odores
coloresque et sucos ac uires earum (herbarum) quas salutis aut uoluptatis
hominum gratia gignit.”
[1094] XXIV. 1: “sacra illa parente rerum omnium nusquam non remedia
disponente homini”; 4: “Naturae placuerat esse remedia parata uolgo,” etc.
[1095] XXI. 1-2 ... “inenarrabili florum maxime subtilitate, quando
nulli potest facilius esse loqui quam rerum naturae pingere lasciuienti
praesertim et in magno gaudio fertilitatis tam uariae ludenti ... ne
pictura quidem sufficiente imagini colorum reddendae.”
[1096] The imprecation would be “sit tibi terra grauis.”
[1097] II. 154-155.
[1098] XVIII. 1: “Patrocinari terrae et adesse cunctorum parenti iuuat,
quamquam inter initia operis defensae.”
[1099] II. 157-158.
[1100] II. 174-175 ... “cum ad mensuram auaritiae suae propagauerit, quam
tandem portionem eius defunctus obtineat.”
[1101] XVIII. 19-21.
[1102] XXXIII. 148: “Asia primum deuicta luxuriam misit in Italiam”;
XXXIV. 34: “usque ad deuictam Asiam, unde luxuria.”
[1103] IX. 104-105, 114.
[1104] XII. 82-4.
[1105] XIII. 20.
[1106] XIX. 52-55.
[1107] XXII. 4: “Non est nunc propositum ista consectari.”
[1108] XVI. 14: “O mores aeternos qui tanta opera honore solo
donauerint....”
[1109] XIV. 2-6.
[1110] II. 117-118.
[1111] XXV. 22-23: “fortassis aliquibus curam nostram friuolam
existimaturis: adeo deliciis sordent quae ad salutem pertinent ...
misereri sortis humanae subit.”
[1112] XXXIII. 3: “Quam innocens, quam beata, immo uero et delicata esset
uita, si nihil aliunde quam supra terras concupisceret.”
[1113] _Antig._, 332 _sqq._: πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ, κοὐδὲν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον
πέλει, κ.τ.λ.
[1114] _N.H._, XXXIV. 138 (= Chap. xiv.).
[1115] Homer, VII. 108: “pretiosissimum humani animi opus”; XVII. 37:
“fons ingeniorum Homerus”; eulogy on Cicero, VII. 116-117, XVII. 38:
“Cicero, lux doctrinarum altera”; Virgil, VII. 114.
[1116] XXIX. 14.
[1117] _Praef._ 6: “uolgo scripta sunt”; 12-13: “(hi libelli) nec ingenii
sunt capaces, ... neque admittunt excessus aut orationes sermonesue ...
sterilis materia rerum natura, hoc est uita narratur....”
[1118] X. 9: “tendente ... abigente ... cadente ... ostendente ...
emergente.”
[1119] III. 39 _sqq._
[1120] XXXVII. 201.
[1121] Galdi, _L’Epitome nella letteratura lat._, 1922, pp. 157-174.
[1122] The dispute concerning the relation of Solinus to Pliny as a
source is discussed by Galdi, _op. cit._, pp. 159-166.
[1123] Welzhofer, _Bedas Citate aus der N.H._, in _Abhandln. W. v. Christ
dargebracht_, pp. 25-41, Münch., 1891.
[1124] Rück, _Auszüge aus d. Naturg. des P. in einem
astronomisch-komputist. Sammelwerke des 8-ten Jahrhts._, Münch., 1888.
[1125] Rück, _Das Excerpt der N.H. des P. von Robt. v. Cricklade_,
Münch., 1902; _Die Geographie u. Ethnographie der N.H. des P. im
Auszüge des R. v. Cricklade_, Münch., 1903 (with conspectus of Pliny’s
“Fortleben” prefixed).
[1126] Singer, _Greek Biology and Gk. Medicine_, Oxf., 1922, p. 63.
[1127] Tac., _H._, I. viii., IV. xliii.; _Ann._, XIII. xx., XIV. ii.;
Suet., _Ner._, xxi.; Dio, lxiii. 14.
[1128] Tac., _Agr._, x.; _Ann._, XIII. xx., XIV. ii., XV. lxi.
[1129] Tac., _Dial._, xv. 1, xxviii. 1-6, xxxii.; _H._, III. ix, xxv,
xxviii; IV. xlii.
[1130] Stat., _Sil._, IV. vii. 53 _sqq._
[1131] Tac., _Agr._, ii.; Suet., _Dom._, x.; Dio, lxvii. 13.
[1132] Suet., _Dom._, x.
[1133] Ed. pr., Campanus, Rome, 1470; Badius, Par., 1516; Gronov, Leyd.,
1665; Burman (with declamns.), Leyd., 1720; Caperonnier, Par., 1725;
Gesner, Gött., 1738 (Eng. ed., Oxf., 1806); Spalding, rec. et annot., 4
vols., Lpz., 1798-1816; vol. 5, indices, Zumpt, 1829; vol. 6, lexicon,
Bonnell, 1834; Bonnell (Teubn.), Lpz., 1854 _sqq._; Halm, Lpz., 1868
_sqq._; Meister, krit. Anm., Prag, 1886-1887; Radermacher, I.-VI., Lpz.,
1907.
Sep. bks.: I., Fierville, Par., 1890; Colson, Camb., 1924; X., J. E.
B. Mayor, Camb., 1872; Hild, Par., 1885; Bonnell, Berl., ed. 6, 1912;
Peterson, Oxf., 1891 (Introd. treats Q.’s life, lit. criticism, style,
MSS.); Dosson, Par., 1904.
Trans.: Guthrie, Lond., 1805; Watson (Bohn), Lond., 1856; Butler (Loeb),
Lond., 1920 _sqq._
Saintsbury, _Hist. of Criticism_, I., 1900, pp. 289-321, gives a readable
conspectus of the _Institutio_; _cf._ extracts in his _Loci Critici_,
1903. For comprehensive reports of modern studies on Q., Bursian’s
_Jahresberichte üb. d. Fortschritte d. class. Altertumswissenschaft_,
1887, 1901 and 1922.
[1134] Martial, II. xc. 1-2:
“Quintiliane, uagae moderator summe iuuentae,
Gloria Romanae, Quintiliane, togae.”
[1135] Hieron., _ann. Abr._, 2104 = A.D. 88, “Quintilianus ex Hispania
Calagurritanus”; Auson., _Prof. Burdig._, I. 7.
[1136] _I. Or._, IX. iii. 73. It is doubtful whether this is the
Quintilianus of Seneca’s _Contr._, X. _praef._ 2; _ib._, iv. 19.
[1137] _I. Or._, VI. i. 14 (_cf._ Tac., _Ann._, XIII. xxxiii.), V. vii.
7, XII. xi. 3.
[1138] Juv., VI. 452. Colson, _Quint._, I., _Introd._, p. x., suspects
the scholiast.
[1139] X. i. 24 and 118, VI. iii. 27 and 42, V. vii. 7, XII. x. 11.
[1140] Plin., _Ep._, VII. vi. 11.
[1141] _I. Or._, X. i. 102.
[1142] X. i. 119-120.
[1143] X. i. 119, XII. v. 5 and x. 11.
[1144] _I. Or._, X. i. 119, XII. x. 11; Tac., _Ann._, XIV. xxviii.,
_Hist._, II. x., IV. xli. and xliii.; _Dial._, viii. and xiii.
[1145] _I. Or._, X. i. 120, iii. 12.
[1146] Hieron., _ann. Abr._, 2084 = A.D. 68.
[1147] Hieron., _ann. Abr._, 2014 = A.D. 88: “Quintilianus ... primus
Romae publicam scholam et salarium e fisco accepit et claruit.” Jerome’s
date is too late; for Suet. _Vesp._, 18, shows that Vespasian, who died
A.D. 79, first gave the annual grant to _rhetores_.
[1148] Auson., _Grat. Act._, 7. Possibly Juvenal is thinking of the same
thing in VII. 197: “fies de rhetore consul.”
[1149] VI., _pr._ 16.
[1150] XI., ii. 39.
[1151] IV. i. 19 (“pro regina Berenice”), IV. ii. 86, VII. ii. 5 and 24,
IX. ii. 74 (where a ticklish case is cited from his own experience).
[1152] _Ep._, II. xiv. 9: “ita certe ex Quintiliano praeceptore meo
audisse memini.”
[1153] _Cf._ _I. Or._, I. ii. 4 _sqq._ with _Sat._, XIV. 31 _sqq._ In
X. 122 Juvenal cites as his example of Cicero’s bad verse one of the
well-known lines quoted in _I. Or._, XI. i. 24. When, however, Juvenal
was caned at school (I. 15), his master was presumably not Quintilian,
who did not believe in corporal punishment (_I. Or._, I. iii. 13).
[1154] Reuter, _De Qi. libro qui fuit de causis corrupt. eloq._, Bresl.
1887.
[1155] _I. Or._, VI. _pro._ 3, VIII. iii. 76, II. iv. 42 (“alio quoque
libro”), II. x. 3-5, V. xii. 17-23, VIII. iii. 57-58 (“corrupta oratio”).
[1156] VII. ii. 24.
[1157] IV. i. 19, IX. ii. 73-74.
[1158] I. _pro._ 7.
[1159] See introd. epistle to Trypho, 1-3, I. _pr._ 1.
[1160] Colson, _op. cit._, p. xvi., suggests an earlier date, A.D. 86, as
a possibility, on the ground that twenty years of teaching might include
an unknown period in Spain.
[1161] I. _pr._ 21-22.
[1162] J. Overbeck, in an art., “Die Entdeckung d. Kindes im I.
Jahrht. n. Chr.” (_Neue Jahrbr. für d. klass. Altertum_, liii.-liv.,
1924), establishes, from literary and medical sources, the intelligent
interest taken at this period in children and their upbringing. Stoicism
contributed to it.
[1163] See chap. on “Roman Education under the Empire,” esp. pp. 27-29.
[1164] II. xii. 4-7: “maledicit ... laudari disertum.”
[1165] II. xii. 12.
[1166] II. xiii. 2.
[1167] II. xiii. 15-17.
[1168] II. xvi. 12-19: “deus ille, parens rerum fabricatorque mundi nullo
magis hominem separauit ... quam dicendi facultate.”
[1169] I. _pr._ 9-10, II. ii. (whole section), II. xv. 1, XII. i. 1.
[1170] II. xxi. 14.
[1171] I. _pr._ 16, XII. ii. 10, XII. iii. and iv.
[1172] III. i. 8-21.
[1173] III. viii. 49.
[1174] V. xii. 17-23.
[1175] VI. iii. 6.
[1176] VII. i. 42-62.
[1177] VIII. _pr._ 3.
[1178] VIII. _pr._ 27.
[1179] _Ib._, 28 and 31.
[1180] VIII. iii. 1.
[1181] From another standpoint oratorical prose may be “simple” or
“grand” or “intermediate,” X. i. 44: _Cf._ XII. x. 58-61 and 63.
[1182] X. i. 73, 32 (_cf._ 101 for Livy); 32 and 102 (for Sallust).
[1183] Claussen, _Quaest. Quintilianeae_ (Fleckeisen, Jahrb. Suppl., 6),
Lpz., 1873; Dionys. Halic., _lib. de imitatione rel._, ed. Usener, Bonn,
1889. Usener denies Q.’s dependence on Dionys., but see Peterson, ed. Bk.
X., Intr., pp. xxx. _sqq._; Heydenreich, _De Quintiliani Inst. Or. libro
X., de Dionysii de imitatione libro_, II., etc., Erl., 1900.
[1184] Nettleship, _Lity. Criticism in Lat. Antiquity_ in _Jrnl.
Philol._, XVIII., pp. 225 _sqq._; Cole, _Q.’s Quotatns. fr. Lat. poets_,
C.R., XX. (1906), p. 47.
[1185] X. i. 105-112. The test of real progress, he says, lies in the
student’s enjoyment of Cicero: “ille se profecisse sciat cui Cicero ualde
placebit.”
[1186] X. i. 125-131. Rocheblave, _De Q. Senecae iudice_, Par., 1890,
defends Seneca against Q.’s antagonism.
[1187] X. i. 98-99.
[1188] XI. iii. 30: “in quo nulla neque rusticitas neque peregrinitas
resonat.”
[1189] XI. iii. 126: “quot milia passuum declamasset.”
[1190] Eurip. _Hec._, ll. 254 _sqq._
[1191] _E.g._ II. xvii. 19 (false argument comparable to a military
ruse); _ib._, 36 (strict veracity may be postponed to public utility).
[1192] XII. x. 35-36.
[1193] _Ib._, 40.
[1194] _Ib._, 48.
[1195] _Ib._, 51.
[1196] _Ib._, 58-61.
[1197] _Ib._, 73.
[1198] _Ib._, 79.
[1199] _Ib._, 80.
[1200] XII. xi. 8: “id uiro bono satis est docuisse quod sciret.”
[1201] XII. xi. 10.
[1202] XII. xi. 17.
[1203] XII. xi. 30.
[1204] His _prooemium de scriptoribus artis rhetoricae_ (III. i.), as
indicated, is a kind of ancient bibliography for rhetoric. For modern
works on his sources, see Schanz, _op. cit._
[1205] I. i. 4 and 16, etc.
[1206] It has been calculated that he refers to over 450 passages of
Cicero and nearly a third as many Virgilian passages.
[1207] XII. vi. 4: “plusque, si separes, usus sine doctrina quam citra
usum doctrina ualet.”
[1208] X. ii. 24: “non qui maxime imitandus et solus imitandus est.”
[1209] XII. x. 45.
[1210] X. iii. 13-14.
[1211] _E.g._, XXX.: φῶς γὰρ τῷ ὄντι ἴδιον τοῦ νοῦ τὰ καλὰ ὀνόματα.
[1212] See Laurie, _Hist. Survey of Pre-Christian Educn._, Lond.,
1895. Colson, _op. cit._, Introd., gives an account of Q.’s relation
to the education of his times, his own educational principles, his
scheme for teaching the mother-tongue and a brief comparison with
(pseudo-)Plutarch’s _De Liberorum Educatione_ and Tacitus’s _Dial._
[1213] Froment, _Quid e Qi. orat. institutione ad liberos ingenue nunc
educandos excerpi possit_, thes., Par., 1874; H. A. Strong, _Q. the Roman
Schoolmaster_ (_Some of his probable views on mod. educn._), Univ. Press,
Liverp., 1908.
[1214] II. v. 21-22.
[1215] On Q.’s style, Peterson, Bk. X., _Intr._, pp. xxxix. _sqq._;
Bonnell’s _Lexicon_ (_Proleg._); Dosson, Bk. X. (_Remarques sur la
langue de Q._); Marty, _De Quintilianeo usu et copia verborum cum Cic.
comparatis_, 1886.
[1216] Fuller lists are given by Peterson, _op. cit._, xli. _sqq._
[1217] Hirt, _Ueber d. Substantivierung des Adject. bei Q._, Berl., 1890.
[1218] “Pas un seul augmentatif en _per-_,” Laurand, _Manuel des études
gr. et lat._, Par., 1918, p. 606.
[1219] Q.’s _clausulae_ have been examined by Gladisch, _De Clausulis
Quintilianeis_, Bresl., 1909, and De Groot, _Der antike Prosarhythmus_,
Gron., 1921. Their statistics are arrived at by different methods, but
both indicate considerable contrast (though apparently not the same
amount of contrast) between Cic. and Q.
[1220] _E.g._ IV. ii. 122.
[1221] IV. ii. 127: “perire artem putamus nisi apparet, cum desinat ars
esse si apparet.”
[1222] Colson, Bk. I., _Intr._, traces through the centuries the evidence
for knowledge of either the _Institutio_ or its author.
[1223] To this century belongs the “Liber Glossarum,” that portentous
medieval collection of glosses, which was perhaps compiled by Adelhard,
abbot of Corbie. Three scraps from Q.’s ninth book are quoted in the
medieval glossaries to exemplify the use of _pugnaciter_, _caesim_ and
_austera_, but there is no proof whether these come direct from the text
or through some intermediary. See Mountford, _Quotations fr. class.
authors in medieval glossaries_ (Cornell publn.), New Yk. and Lond.,
1925, pp. 85-86.
[1224] Colson, _op. cit._, li.
[1225] It survives as Parasinus, 7720.
[1226] _C.R._ xxi. (1907), pp. 33 _sqq._
[1227] For Q.’s influence on humanism, see Colson, _op. cit._, pp.
lxiv. _sqq._, and Messer, _Q. als Didaktiker u. sein Einfluss auf die
didaktisch-pädagogische Theorie des Humanismus_ in _Neue Jahrb._, 1897.
[1228] _Essay on Criticism_, ll. 669-694; _cf._ Pope’s own notes.
[1229] _The longer declns._, Merula, Ven., 1481; with Tac., _Dial._,
Oxf., 1675, 1692; _Inst. Or. et Declam. XIX. et Calpurn. Flacci Declam._,
c. not.... Burm., 3 vols., Leyd., 1720; Lehnert, Lpz., 1905 (to some
extent based on Dessauer’s _Handschriftliche Grundlage_, 1898). _Cf._
Reitzenstein, _Studien zu Q.’s grösser. Declam._, Strassb., 1909. Trans.:
Warr, “from the Oxford Ed.,” Lond., 1686. _The Tenth Declam._, Robinson
Ellis, Lond. and Oxf., 1911.
_The shorter_: ed. pr. Ugoletus, Parma, 1494; Aerodius, Par., 1563
(136 pieces), Pithoeus, Par., 1580 (all the 145 extant); Ritter, Lpz.,
1884 (_cf._ Ritter’s _Die Quintilianische Decl., Untersuchung üb. Art
u. Herkunft_, Freib. u. Tüb., 1881.) Against Ritter’s belief in their
authenticity may be put Trabandt, _De minoribus ... declam._, Greifsw.,
1883; Fleiber, _De minoribus_, etc., Münst., 1890.
[1230] Ritter, _Quintilianische Declam._, 1881; groups (1) I.; (2) X.;
(3) II., IV., V., VII., VIII., XI., XIV.-XIX.; (4), a group which may
show the influence of Quintilian or a pupil, III., VI., IX., XII., XIII.
[1231] Reitzenstein, _op. cit._; Golz, _Der rhythmische Satzschluss in d.
gröss. pseudo-Quintilianischen Decl._, Bresl., 1913; esp. pp. 61 _sqq._
[1232] Hammer, _Beitr. zu den 19 gröss_ ... Münch., 1893, p. 44. Ellis,
_Notes on the 19 Larger Decl._, in _Hermathena_, 1909, pp. 328 _sqq._,
alludes to these almost forgotten exercises as “dating perhaps from the
second, perhaps from the fourth century A.D.” The latter alternative
seems too late.
[1233] Trebell. Poll., _Trig. Tyr._, iv. 2; Auson., _Prof. Burdig._, i.
15-16.
[1234] _I. Or._, I. _pro._ 7.
[1235] _E.g._ The charge of attempted parricide brought against a son
found mixing poison in No. ccclxxvii. may be compared with Sen., _Cont._,
VII. iii., and No. xvii. of the longer declamations.
[1236] cccxl.; _cf._ Suet., _De Rhet._, i. The case is stated in the
chapter on Roman education, p. 34 _supra_.
[1237] _Ossa eruta parricidae_, ccxcix.; Ritter, p. 180.
[1238] _Cf._ Liban., _Decl._, xlix., with the first of the xix. longer
declamations.
[1239] _I. Or._, III. i. 21.
[1240] Mart., V. lvi. 6: “famae Tutilium suae relinquat.”
[1241] _I. Or._, III. i. 21: “parco nominibus uiuentium.”
[1242] Hieron., _Ann. Abr._, 2092 = A.D. 76; _cf._ Tac., _Dial._, xxvi.
II.
[1243] Text: _Strategem._, ed. pr. (with Aelian, Vegetius, Modestus),
Rome, 1487; Modius, Leid., 1607; Oudendorp, Leid., 1731, 1779;
Gundermann, Lpz., 1888; Eng. trans., Scott, Lond., 1816. _De Aquis_,
ed. pr. (with Vitruvius), Pompon. Laetus, 1484-1492; Polenus (_Proleg.
vita_, etc.), Pad., 1722; Dederich (with Germ. tr.), Wesel, 1841; Nisard
(with Fr. tr.), Par., 1846; Bücheler, Lpz., 1858; Herschel (with facsim.
of MS., and Eng. tr.), Bost., 1899; Krohn, Lpz., 1922. Complete Wks.:
Keuchen, Amst., 1661; Bipont ed., 1788; Dederich, Lpz., 1855; McElwain
(Eng. tr.), Loeb ed., Lond. and N. Yk., 1925. To consult: Lanciani,
_Topografia di Roma antica, i commentarii di Frontino intorno le acque_
(_Memorie ... della Accad. dei Lincei_, bol. 4), Rome, 1881; Ashby,
_Die antiken Wasserleitungen d. Stadt Rom_ (_Neue Jahrb. f. d. klass.
Altert._, 1909) (with his maps in _Builder_, Jan. 11, 1908, in _Papers
of Brit. School at Rome_, and, in part, in “Livellazione degli antichi
acquedotti romani,” _Memorie della società italiana delle scienze_, etc.
ser. 3, vol. XX., 1917, by Reina, Corbellini and Ducci).
[1244] _Epig._ X. lviii. 5-6: “Doctas tecum celebrare uacabat Pieridas.”
[1245] Tac., _H._, IV. xxxix.
[1246] Tac., _Agr._, xvii: “sustinuit molem Iulius Frontinus.”
[1247] _Strat._, I. i. 8, I. iii. 10, II. iii. 23, II. xi. 7.
[1248] Domitian’s cognomen “Germanicus” is mentioned, _Strat._, II. xi.
7; he got it in A.D. 84.
[1249] _Strat._, I., _ad init._: “cum ad instruendam rei militaris
scientiam unus ex numero studiosorum eius accesserim....”
[1250] _De Aq._, _praef._ 1: “nosse quod suscepi”; 2: “indecorum ...
delegatum officium ex adiutorum agere praeceptis.”
[1251] _Ep._, IV. viii.
[1252] See Lachmann’s _Gromatici Veteres_, 1848.
[1253] _Strat._, I. _praef._: “cum hoc opus, sicut cetera, usus potius
aliorum quam meae commendationis causa aggressus sim.”
[1254] Fritze, _De F. Strat. libro IV._, diss., Halle, 1888; Esternaux,
_Die Komposition von Frontins Strat._, progr., Berl., 1889; Kortz,
_Quaest. grammat. de F. operibus institutae_, diss., Münst., 1893.
[1255] Wölfflin, _Frontins Kriegslisten_, in _Herm._, IX. (1875), points
out resemblances in thought despite the difference of subject; and the
occurrence of significant similarities like _conuolnerare_, _Strat._, II.
v. 31, _Aq._ 27 and 115; _depressus_ = _humilis_, _Str._, I. v. 24, _Aq._
65; _adiutorium_ = _auxilium_, _Str._ II. v. 11, _Aq._ 14 and 67.
[1256] Wölfflin, _Herm._, IX., instances _ad_ with geographical names
used differently from F.’s usage; _traditur_ used impersonally; total
absence in Bk. IV. of certain phrases recurrent in F. like _ob hoc_,
_ob id_, _et ideo_, _ideoque_, _eoque_; and unnecessary use of _suus_
with _frater_, _filius_, etc. There seems very little in the last point.
In IV. i. 32 _suum_ is properly added to _fratrem_ for emphasis; but
_filium_ in 40 and _fratrem_ in 41 have no _suum_.
[1257] This was Wachsmuth’s view, _Rh. Mus._, XV. (1860), pp. 574-583.
Wölfflin agreed, _Herm._, IX. (1875), p. 91: “wir haben aber keinen
Grund Wachsmuth zu widersprechen, wenn er die Entstehung des Buches (=
_Strat._, IV.) in das vierte, oder auch fünfte, Jahrh. setzt.”
[1258] _Quaest. de ... strat. libris_ in _Fleckeis. Jahr. Suppl._, 1888.
[1259] Schanz, _Philol._, xlviii. (1889), p. 647; _Gesch. d. röm. Lit._,
II. ii., p. 512. See _Str._ IV. iii. 14: “Lingonum opulentissima ciuitas
... septuaginta milia armatorum tradidit mihi.”
[1260] _Praef._, par. 4, reads like an addition designed to account for
the existence of a fourth book on a commander’s strategics as a pendant
to the special stratagems of I.-III.
[1261] _Str._, IV. v. 8, is the same as I. v. 12 except for _perrupit_
changed to _erupit_; IV. v. 9 shows a few slight changes on I. v. 14; and
IV. v. 10 and 11 = I. v. 15 and I. xi. 3.
[1262] II. iv. 15 and 16 come from IV. vii. 4. and 41.
[1263] I. i. 11 is repeated as I. v. 13.
[1264] _Cf._ Livy, II. x., with _Strat._, II. xiii. 5.
[1265] _Strat._, III. _praef._: “machinamentis quorum expleta iampridem
inuentione nullam uideo ultra artium materiam.”
[1266] Perhaps one of his closest copies is _Str._, I. v. 16, based on
Liv., XXXV. xi. Here, Livy’s “Caudinae cladis memoria ... obuersabatur”
becomes “obuersaretur Caudinae cladis exemplum”; “per ludibrium
spectaculo esse” is repeated word for word; and “subditis calcaribus
inter medias stationes hostium erupere” becomes “additis calcaribus per
intermissas hostium stationes eruperunt.”
[1267] _E.g._ Liv., I. xxvii.; Val. Max., VII. iv. 1; _Str._, II. vii.
1. Here Frontinus seems independent of Val. Max., though, like him, he
happens to introduce the word _fiducia_.
[1268] In _Str._, IV. i. 31 a dozen consecutive words (but for a change
of an adjective to a noun) are identical with Val. Max., II. vii. 4.
[1269] _De Aq._, _praef._ 1: “Nerua Augusto”; 93: “Traianum Augustum”;
118: “diuus Nerua.” Krohn (Teubner ed., 1922) defends in his preface the
title _De Aquaeductu Vrbis Romae_.
[1270] _Praef._ 2.
[1271] _De Aq._, 88: “Sentit hanc curam imperatoris piissimi Neruae
principis sui regina et domina orbis in dies, et magis sentiet salubritas
eiusdem aucto castellorum, operum, munerum et lacuum numero. Nec minus
ad priuatos commodum ex incremento beneficiorum eius diffunditur; illi
quoque qui timidi inlicitam aquam ducebant, securi nunc ex beneficiis
fruuntur. Ne pereuntes quidem aquae otiosae sunt: alia munditiarum
facies, purior spiritus, et causae grauioris caeli quibus apud ueteres
urbis infamis aer fuit, sunt remotae.”
[1272] _De Aq._, 16: “Tot aquarum tam multis necessariis molibus
pyramidas uidelicet otiosas compares aut cetera inertia sed fama
celebrata opera Graecorum.”
[1273] Plin., _Ep._, IX. xix. 6.
[1274] _De Aq._, 100-101, 104, 106, 108.
[1275] _De Aq._, 7, 76, 97. Vitruvius, the architect, is mentioned twice
in 25.
[1276] _Eg._ “Citra uexationem,” _Str._, I. viii. 9; “circa praedam
occupatos,” I. vi. 3; “circa gratulationem morantis,” II. ix. 8;
“quamquam dissimularent,” I. ii. 9; “instructuris,” II. _praef._ 1;
“traditurus,” III. _praef._
[1277] _Philipp._, XIII. xix. 43: “uerbum omnino nullum in lingua Latina.”
[1278] “adiutorium,” IV. vii. 31; _cf._ II. v. 11; “foret,” IV. vi.
3, vii. 9; _cf._ “forent,” III. xvi. 3; “notabilis,” IV. iii. 13
(“notabiliter,” IV. i. 1); _cf._ III. viii. 2; “subinde,” IV. i. 1, vii.
13; and often in the earlier books.
[1279] Text: ed. pr., Ruger, et Bertoch., Bolog., 1474; Badius, Par.,
1517; Ald., Ven., 1523; Carrio, Antw., 1565; Heinsius, Amst., 1680;
Burman, c. not. varior., Utr., 1702, Leyd., 1724; Harles, Altenb.,
1781; Wagner, c. comm. perpet., Gött., 1805; Lemaire, Par., 1825; Thilo
(proleg.), Halle, 1863; Schenkl, Berl., 1871; E. Bährens, Lpz., 1875;
Langen, Berl., 1897; Giarratano, Mil., 1904; Bury in _Corp. P. Lat._,
Lond., 1905; Kramer, Lpz., 1913.
Trans.: Book I. (Eng. verse), T. Noble, 1808; (text w. Fr. verse) Dureau
de Lamalle, 3 vols., Par., 1811; Fr. prose w. Lemaire text in Didot ed.,
1864.
Studies: Greiff, _De ... Argonauticis cum ... Aeneide comparatis_,
Trient, 1869; Schenkl, _Studien zu d. Argon. des V. Fl._ in _Sitzungsber.
d. Wien Akad._, p. 271, 1871; Gebbing, _De V. Fl. tropis et figuris_,
Marb., 1878; _De V. Fl. dicendi genere_, Cobl., 1888; Peters, _De V. Fl.
vita et carmine_, Königsb., 1890; Moltzer, _De Ap. Rhodii et V. Flacci
Argon._, Utr., 1891; Summers, _A Study of the Arg. of V. Fl._, Camb.,
1894; Harmand, _De V. Flacco Ap. Rhodii imitatore_ (bibliog.), Nancy,
1898; Heeren, _De Chorographia a V. Fl. adhibita_, Gött., 1899; Renkema,
_Observ. crit. et exeget. ad Argon._, Utr., 1906.
[1280] _Arg._, I. 5 _sqq._; _cf._ III. 417 _sqq._, VIII. 239 _sqq._
[1281] I. 7 _sqq._
[1282] III. 207, IV. 507.
[1283] Valerius is not consistent about the Argo as first of ships.
However strange its building may be considered in the Thessaly of Bk. I.,
the Lemnians of Bk. II. are supposed to have sailed back in ships from
Thrace (II. 108-111), and Hypsipyle sent her father off secretly in an
old ship (II. 285-287).
[1284] _Odys._, xii. 70: Ἀργώ πᾶσι μέλουσα.
[1285] Prob. ad _Georg._, II. 126: “Media ... a Medo, filio Medeae et
Aegei, ut existimat Varro qui iv. libros de Argonautis edidit.”
[1286] Summers, _A Study of the Argonautica_, pp. 15 _sqq._
[1287] I. 275:
“... Sparguntur litore curuo
Lumina nondum ullis terras monstrantia nautis.”
[1288] I. 311: “Alma nouo crispans pelagus Tithonia Phoebo.”
[1289] I. 558-560.
[1290] I. 723-724:
“Sunt hic etiam tua uulnera, praedo,
Sunt lacrimae carusque parens.”
[1291] _Cf._ _Arg._, I. 833-851 with _Aen._, VI. 638-641 and 660-664.
Many words are intentional echoes, _amoena_, _deueniant_, _campos_, _sol_.
[1292] II. 38-47:
“Auxerat hora metus, iam se uertentis Olympi
Vt faciem raptosque simul montesque locosque
Ex oculis circumque graues uidere tenebras.
Ipsa quies rerum mundique silentia terrent
Astraque et effusis stellatus crinibus aether.
Ac uelut ignota captus regione uiarum
Noctiuagum qui carpit iter non aure quiescit,
Non oculis, noctisque metus niger auget utrimque
Campus et occurrens umbris maioribus arbor,
Haud aliter trepidare uiri.”
[1293] III. 596-597:
“Rursus Hylan et rursus Hylan per longa reclamat
Auia: responsant siluae et uaga certat imago.”
[1294] III. 724-725.
[1295] IV. 744: “Certa fides animis idem quibus incidit hostis.”
[1296] V. 343-347.
[1297] VI. 493-495.
[1298] VII. ll. 89 _sqq._
[1299] VII. 415-416.
[1300] VII. 429-430.
[1301] VII. 477, a highly alliterative line:
“Sis memor, oro, mei, contra memor ipsa manebo.”
[1302] _Aen._, IV. 323-324.
[1303] VIII. 419 _sqq._
[1304] VIII. 439 _sqq._
[1305] VIII. 458 _sqq._
[1306] Summers, _A Study_, etc., pp. 18-26; Butler, _Post-Augustan
Poetry_, pp. 182-188.
[1307] Schenkl, _Studien_, pp. 279 _sqq._; Summers, _op. cit._, pp. 2-3;
_cf._ p. 6.
[1308] Summers, _op. cit._, p. 7.
[1309] I. 5-6, 7-17, 20-21.
[1310] I. 559; II. 245, 304, 574.
[1311] VI. 53-56, 402 _sqq._; 410, 420.
[1312] VII. 83-86, 232-234.
[1313] Summers, _op. cit._, pp. 8-12.
[1314] Juv., I. 10-11.
[1315] See Gebbing’s pamphlets in bibliog.; and Summers, _op. cit._, esp.
pp. 42-49.
[1316] III. 208-209:
“ut mugitor anhelat
Vesuius, attonitas acer cum suscitat urbes.”
[1317] IV., 462, 501, 542, 549.
[1318] Summers, _op. cit._, p. 54, gives a list of alliterations from the
first four books.
[1319] Summers, _op. cit._, p. 62, gives references to ten; _e.g._ IV.
158: “melior uulgi nam saepe uoluntas” (“a people’s heart is often better
than their king’s”).
[1320] _Eg._ Similes become especially frequent in the description of
the fighting in Bk. III., and in Hercules’s alarm over the absence of
Hylas (III. 577, 581, 587). Among natural and pathetic similes is that on
children praying that their father seriously ill may be spared (V. 22-24).
[1321] VII. 124 _sqq._; IV. 507.
[1322] V. 43: “ubi monstriferae par ille nouercae?”
[1323] Ed. pr., Sweynheym et Pannartz, Rome, 1471; Parm., 1481; Mil.,
1481; c. Marsi schol., Ven., 1483, 1492, 1493, and Par., 1512; Benessa,
Lugd., 1514; Nicander (wilful interpolations), Flor., 1515; F. Asulanus,
(Aldine) Ven., 1523; D. Heinsius, Leyd., 1600; Drakenborch, Utr., 1717;
Ernesti, Lpz., 1791; Ruperti, Gött., 1795-1798; Nisard, ed. Didot (Fr.
prose tr.), Par., 1878; Bauer, Lpz., 1890-1892; Summers, _C.P.L._, Lond.,
1905.
Eng. trans.: Thos. Ross, _Second Punick War_ (_w. continuation to Death
of Hannibal_) Lond., 1661.
On Sources, etc.: Wezel, _De Sil. Ital. cum fontibus tum exemplis_,
diss., Lpz., 1873; Heynacher, _Die Quellen des Sil._, Ilfeld, 1874; _Die
Stellung des Sil. unter d. Quellen des 2ᵗᵉⁿ pun. Kriegs_, Ilf., 1877
(attempt to displace Livy as Silius’s source in favour of some early
annalist like Fabius Pictor); Kerer, _Ueber d. Abhängigkeit des S.I. von
Livius_, Bozen, 1881; Schlichteisen, _De fide historica Silii_, Königeb.,
1881; Bauer, _Das Verhältn. der Pun. des S.I. zur 3. Dekade des Livius_,
Erlang., 1884.
On Date of Composn., etc.: Schinkel, _Quaest. Silianae_, diss., Halle,
1883; Buchwald, _Quaest. Sil._, diss., Bresl., 1886.
On Language: Zingerle, _Zu späteren lat. Dichtern_, Heft II., pp. 12
_sqq._; “Zu Lucan, Silius, Martial,” Innsb., 1879; Brandstäter, _De Pun.
... argumento, stilo, ornatu poetico_, Witten, 1877; Occioni, _L’arte in
S. Ital._, etc., in _Scritti di lett. latina_, Rome, 1891; Lindblom, _In
S. Ital. Punica Quaestiones_, Upsal., 1906.
[1324] Tac., _Hist._, III. lxv.; Mart. VII. lxiii., VIII. lxvi., IX.
lxxxvi., XI. xlviii. and l., XII. lxvii. 5.
[1325] From the _fasti sodalium Augustalium Claudialium_ (_C.I.L._, VI.,
1984; Dessau, 5025).
[1326] Mart., VII. lxiii. 5-8; _cf._ IX. lxxxvi. 2: “Ausonio non semel
ore potens.”
[1327] Epict., _Diss._, III. 8, 7.
[1328] Mart., IV. xiv. 1-5.
[1329] Mart., VII. lxiii. 1-2:
“Perpetui numquam moritura uolumina Sili
Qui legis.”
Martial’s seventh book belongs to the end of 92.
[1330] Bickels, _Rh. M._, 66 (1911), p. 505.
[1331] _Pun._, II. 215:
“Sicut agit leuibus per sera crepuscula pennis
E pastu uolucres ad nota cubilia Vesper;
Aut, ubi Cecropius formidine nubis aquosae
Sparsa super flores examina tollit Hymettos,
Ad dulces ceras et odori corticis antra
Mellis apes grauidae properant, densoque uolatu,
Raucum connexae glomerant ad limina murmur.”
[1332] III. 145: “Quantum etenim distant a morte silentia uitae!”
[1333] IV. 603-604.
[1334] IV. 791-795.
[1335] V. 673-676:
“Fronte minae durant, et stant in uultibus irae.
Et uereor no quae tanta creat indole tellus
Magnanimos fecunda uiros, huic fata dicarint
Imperium, atque ipsis deuincat cladibus orbem.”
[1336] VI. 118 _sqq._
[1337] VI. 373 _sqq._
[1338] VIII. 144-223 belong to this digression, and first appeared in the
Aldine ed., 1523, supplying a lacuna in earlier edns. Their genuineness
is effectively defended by Heitland, _Jrl. Phil._, XXIV., 1896.
[1339] VIII. 327-348.
[1340] VIII. 408-411.
[1341] VIII. 593 _sqq._
[1342] IX. 250-251.
[1343] IX. 346-353.
[1344] X. 521 _sqq._
[1345] X. 572 _sqq._
[1346] X. 629.
[1347] XIV. 341 _sqq._
[1348] XV. 26-27:
“lasciuaque crebras
Ancipiti motu iaciebant lumina flammas.”
[1349] _Eg._ esp. XV. 53-67.
[1350] XVII. 213-217, an imitation of Lucan’s description of Pompey’s
farewell to Italy, _Phars._, III. 3-5.
[1351] XVII. 608-612.
[1352] On the oratorical side also Silius departs from Livy’s themes
without any intention of making his speeches historical in effect. See R.
B. Steele, “The Method of Silius Italicus,” _Class. Philol._, XVII., 1922.
[1353] The conventionality of the similes is emphasized by their
frequency, and their effectiveness proportionally lessened. At least
15 occur in Bk. VII., 13 in Bk. X., 11 in Bk. XVII. They are sometimes
elaborated to 6 or 7 lines, sometimes restricted to a few words, _e.g._
“ut torrens,” XV. 712, the first of 5 similes in 3 lines.
[1354] It was unfortunate for Silius that his employment of proper names
and the position assigned to them in his metrical structure followed
Lucan’s manner rather than Virgil’s.
[1355] IV. 173-174, V. 455-456, XIII. 246-248, XV. 470 (“absciso durabant
murmura collo”).
[1356] XIV. 550.
[1357] XV. 767-768.
[1358] _Phars._, II. 203; _Pun._, IV. 553, IX. 321.
[1359] V. 210 _sqq._, VI. 300 (“praesumta piacula”).
[1360] IV. 82-87.
[1361] IV. 481, XI. 513-515, XV. 676-677.
[1362] III. 285-286:
“qui sacratas in littore siluas
Atque inter frondes reuirescere uiderat aurum.”
[1363] I. 179; XI. 186-188; XV. 20-120, 819-820.
[1364] XIII. 772-734.
[1365] _Cf._ VIII. 290-291: “nigro adlatrauerat ore uictorem inuidia.”
[1366] _Pun._, I. 231-233:
“Astur auarus
Visceribus lacerae telluris mergitur imis,
Et redit infelix effosso concolor auro”;
_Silu._, IV. vii. 14-16:
“Dalmatae montes, ubi Dite uiso
Pallidus fossor redit erutoque
Concolor auro.”
[1367] _Cf._ Ennius’s “At tuba terribili sonitu taratantara dixit,” and
Virgil, _Aen._, IX. 503:
“At tuba terribilem sonitum procul aere canoro
Increpuit.”
[1368] _Cf._ _Iliad_, XVI. 215: ἀσπὶς ἄρ’ ἀσπίδ’ ἔρειδε, κόρυς κόρυν,
ἀνέρα δ’ ἀνήρ: Ennius, “premitur pede pes atque armis arma teruntur”;
Furius Antias (_c._ 100 B.C.) ap. Macrob., _Sat._, VI. iii. 5: “pressatur
pede pes, mucro mucrone, uiro uir”; Virg., _Aen._, X. 361: “haeret pede
pes densusque uiro uir”; and Statius, perhaps reminded by Silius, takes
over this conventional line, _Theb._, VIII. 399: “ense minax ensis,
pede pes, et cuspide cuspis.” The half-dozen lines in Silius (IX. 321
_sqq._) make a good example of a mosaic of archaisms; Lucan is imitated
in “nec ... artatis cecidisse licet”; the rare _flictu_ is Pacuvian and
Virgilian; _fatiscit_ echoes Virgil; and the alliteration introduced is
designedly quaint.
[1369] Text: ed. pr., Rome,(?) 1475; c. comm., Ven., 1483, 1494; Aldus,
Ven., 1502 and 1519; Tiliobroga (= Lindenbrog), Par., 1600; Gronov.,
Amst., 1653; Veenhusen (varior. not.), Leyd., 1671; _Theb._, i.-vi., O.
Müller, Lpz., 1870; Opera, 3 vols., Lpz., 1884-1902 (_Silv._, _Achill._,
Klotz.; _Theb._, Kohlmann; commentarios rec. Jahnke); _Theb._, _Achill._,
Wilkins in _C.P.L._, Lond., 1905; Garrod, Oxf., 1906; _Siluae_: Markland,
Lond., 1728; Vollmer (Germ. comment.), Lpz., 1898; Davies in _C.P.L._,
Lond., 1905; Phillimore, Oxf., 1905; ed. 2, 1917; Sänger, Petrogr., 1909;
Klotz, ed. 2, Lpz., 1911.
Comment.: Gronovii, _In Silv. ... Diatribe_, Hag., 1637 (also in
Veenhusen’s ed., 1671); Nohl, _Quaest. Stat._, Berl., 1871; Lehanneur,
_De P. P. Statii Vita et Operibus Quaest._, thèse, La Rochelle, 1878;
Vollmer, Introd. to ed. of _Silv._, 1898; Legras, _Les légendes Théb.
dans l’epopée et la tragéd. grecq._, Par., 1905; _Étude sur la Théb.
de Stace_, Par., 1905; _Les Puniques et la Thébaïde_ (_Rev. d. étud.
anciennes_), 1906; Giri, in _Riv. di filol. ... classica_, vol. 35, 3,
1907 (biogr. points).
Eng. Trans.: _Theb._, 5 Bks. (verse), Stephens, 1648; _Achill._ (verse),
Howard, 1660; _Theb._, Bk. I., Pope (heroic couplets), transd. 1703,
pubd. 1712 (also in Chalmers’s _Wks. of Eng. Poets_, Vol. XX., 1810);
_Theb._, Lewis (couplets), ed. 2, 1773; _Silv._, II. vii. (“Lucan’s
Birthday,” octosyll.); _C.R._, XXI. (1907), p. 92; _Silv._, Slater
(prose), Oxf., 1908.
[1370] _Silv._, V. iii. 72-73: “mihi limine primo ... ceu raptus,” etc.,
implies that Statius regarded his father, although a man of 65, as having
been snatched away from vigorous manhood by an untimely death.
[1371] _Silv._, IV. iv. 69-70: “nos facta aliena canendo vergimur in
senium.”
[1372] Juv., VII. 86. This must have been before Paris’s loss of
Domitian’s favour in 83.
[1373] Juv., VII. 82.
[1374] _Silv._, I. _praef._: “adhuc pro Thebaide mea, quamuis me
reliquerit, timeo.” The words in _Silv._, IV. iv. 89, “Thebais optato
collegit carbasa portu” (published in A.D. 95), apparently refer to the
attainment of fame by the _Thebaid_ some time after publication.
[1375] _Silv._, I. v. 8, III. ii. 40 and 142, III. v. 35-36.
[1376] _Theb._, XII. 810 _sqq._:
“Durabisne procul dominoque legere superstes,
O mihi bissenos multum uigilata per annos,
Thebaï....”
_Cf._ _Silv._, IV. vii. 26: “Thebais multa cruciata lima.”
[1377] _Silv._, IV. iv. 94-96.
[1378] _Ib._, IV. vii. 23-24: “primis ecce metis haeret Achilles”; V. v.
36-37: “pudeat Thebasque nouumque Aeaciden.”
[1379] V. ii. 162-163.
[1380] Postgate’s _C.P.L._, p. 430.
[1381] As a Livian epitomator he is discussed by Galdi, _L’Epitome nella
letteratura latina_, 1922, pp. 40-43.
[1382] _Silv._, IV. iv. 48-55:
“sed uiget ingenium et magnos accinctus in usus
fert animus quascumque uices....”
[1383] _Silv._, IV. ii.
[1384] _Silv._, IV. vi.
[1385] _Silv._, IV. vi. 12-14:
“nobis uerus amor medioque Helicone petitus
sermo hilaresque ioci brumalem absumere noctem
suaserunt.”
[1386] The exact total is 9741 hexameters.
[1387] _Theb._, I. 536 _sqq._:
“Noua deinde pudori
Visa uirum facies: pariter pallorque ruborque
Purpureas hausere genas oculique uerentis
Ad sanctum rediere patrem.”
[1388] II. 319 _sqq._:
“Exedere animum dolor iraque demens
Et qua non grauior mortalibus addita curis,
Spes ubi longa uenit.”
[1389] II. 547 _sqq._
[1390] II. 611-612.
[1391] III. 255 _sqq._
[1392] IV. 438 _sqq._
[1393] IV. 680 _sqq._
[1394] VII. 478.
[1395] VII. 779 _sqq._
[1396] VII. 816 _sqq._
[1397] VIII. 614 _sqq._
[1398] VIII. 643.
[1399] _Th._, XII. 481 _sqq._:
Vrbe fuit media nulli concessa potentum,
Ara deum: mitis posuit Clementia sedem,
Et miseri fecere sacram; sine supplice numquam
Illa nouo, nulla damnauit uota repulsa.
Auditi quicumque rogant, noctesque diesque
Ire datum et solis numen placare querellis.
Parca superstitio: non turea flamma, nec altus
Accipitur sanguis: lacrimis altaria sudant.
[1400] His use of Euripides has been recently considered by Reussner,
diss., Halle, 1921.
[1401] One finds chains of phraseology like Ovid, _Met._, XV. 529:
“unumque erat omnia uolnus,” Luc., _Phars._, IX. 814: “totum est pro
uolnere corpus,” Stat., _Theb._, V. 598: “totumque in uolnere corpus.”
[1402] _E.g._ “Scire nefas,” _Theb._, III. 563.
[1403] _Ach._, 7: “tota iuuenem deducere Troia.”
[1404] _Ach._, 8-13.
[1405] _Purgat._, xxi. 89: “Tolosano.”
[1406] See Graf, _Roma nella memoria e nelle immagionazioni del medio
evo_, cap. xvii., Tur., 1882.
[1407] A. C. Clark, “The Literary Discoveries of Poggio,” _C.R._, xiii.
(1899), pp. 119-130; Phillimore, _Siluae_, ed. 2, 1921, _praef._
[1408] I. vi.; II. vii.; IV. iii. and ix.
[1409] IV. v. and vii.
[1410] _Silv._, I., _praef._ Statius says none of these pieces occupied
over a couple of days, “nullum enim ex illis biduo longius tractum”;
_cf._ his references to “gratiam celeritatis” and in II., _praef._:
“stili facilitatem”; III., _praef._: “libellorum istorum temeritatem” and
“audaciam stili nostri.”
[1411] _Inst. Or._, X. iii. 17: “primo decurrere per materiam stilo quam
uelocissimo et sequentes calorem atque impetum ex tempore scribunt: hanc
_siluam_ uocant.”
[1412] _Silv._, I. _praef._
[1413] _Silv._, I. iii. 13-23.
[1414] _Ib._, I. iv. 43-49.
[1415] _Silv._, I. iv. 52:
“Non illud culpa senectae
(Quippe ea bisenis uixdum orsa excedere lustris),
Sed labor intendens animique in membra uigentis
Imperium uigilesque suo pro Caesare curae,
Dulce opus. Hinc fessos penitus subrepsit in artus
Insidiosa quies et pigra obliuio uitae.”
[1416] _Ib._, v. 60-62.
[1417] II. i. 87-88.
[1418] _Ib._, 218-225: “ibimus omnes,” etc.
[1419] II. ii. 44 _sqq._
[1420] _Ib._ 48-49:
“Cum iam fessa dies et in aequora montis opaci
Vmbra cadit uitreoque natat praetoria ponto.”
[1421] _Ib._, 100-106: “Saepe per autumnum iam pubescente Lyaeo,” etc.
[1422] _Ib._, II. vii. 89 _sqq._:
“O saeuae nimium grauesque Parcae!
O numquam data longa fata summis!
Cur plus, ardua, casibus patetis?
Cur saeua uice magna non senescunt?”
[1423] III. i. 12-14.
[1424] _Ib._, ii. 78-80:
“Fugit ecce uagas ratis acta per undas
Paulatim minor et longe seruantia uincit
Lumina tot gracili ligno complexa timores.”
[1425] _Ib._, iii. 39-40.
[1426] IV. iv. 33-34:
“Vires instigat alitque
Tempestiua quies, maior post otia uirtus.”
[1427] _Ib._, vii. 13-16.
[1428] V. i. 117-119.
[1429] _Ib._, 122-126:
“Velut Apula coniunx
Agricolae parci uel sole infecta Sabino,
Quae uidet emeriti iam prospectantibus astris
Tempus adesse uiri, propere mensasque torosque
Instruit expectatque sonum redeuntis aratri.”
[1430] _Latin Lit._, p. 189.
[1431] From “Sonnets from the Antique,” by J. Wight Duff in
Quatercentenary number of _Alma Mater_ (Aberdeen Univ. Mag.), Sept., 1906.
[1432] V. v. 62-64:
“Potius fugientia ripas
Flumina detineas rapidis aut ignibus obstes
Quam miseros lugere uetes.”
[1433] See J. S. Duncan, _Influence of Art on Description in Poetry of
S._, diss., Baltim., 1914.
[1434] _Silv._, I. ii. 250: “qui nobile gressu extremo fraudatis
opus”; _cf._ Ov., _Am._ I. i. 3-4: “risisse Cupido dicitur atque unum
surripuisse pedem.”
[1435] _Th._, III. 198: “Bina per ingentes stipabant funera portas.”
[1436] _Th._, I. 27: “ignipedum frenator equorum.”
[1437] _Silv._, III. i. 41: “multo fratre madentem.”
[1438] _Silv._, II. i. 124.
[1439] _Silv._, I. iii. 8: “Pisaeumque domus non aestuat annum.”
[1440] _Th._, III. 382: “obliquatque preces”; _Th._, V. 722: “alternaque
pectora mutant”; _Th._, IV. 248 _sqq._: “saltus ... pacabat cornu”;
_Th._, IV. 706: “Eoae liquentia pabula brumae.”
[1441] He has an eye for colour in marble, woods, a parrot, a peacock,
etc., and an evident liking for _uiridis_ in its literal and metaphorical
sense.
[1442] _Silv._, II. v. 17-19:
“Virtusque cadenti
A media iam morte redit nec protinus omnes
Terga dedere minae.”
[1443] Butler, _Post-Aug. Poetry_, p. 123, cites statistics from
Drobisch, _Versuch üb. die Formen des lat. Hex._, 140.
[1444] Ed. pr. (without _Spectacula_), Spira, Ven., 1470; Ferrara,
1471; Aldus, Ven., 1501; Gruter, Frankf., 1602; Rader, Ingolst., 1602;
Scriverius (not. var.), Leid., 1619, 1621; Schrevelius (c. not. Gronov.),
Amst., 1661, 1670; Collesso (Delphin., index verb.), Par., 1660; Pomba
press, 2 vols., Turin, 1833 (based on Rader, Farnaby, etc.); Schneidewin
(krit. apparat.), Grimma, 1842, Leipz., 1853; Gilbert, Leipz., 1886,
1912; Friedländer (Introd., Germ. comment.), 2 vols., Leipz., 1886 (_cf._
for background his _Sittengesch. Roms_); Lindsay, Oxf., 1902; J. D. Duff
in Postgate’s _C.P.L._, Lond., 1905; Heraeus, Leipz., 1925.
Selectns.: Paley and Stone, Lond., 1868, 1881; Sellar and Ramsay, Edinb.,
1884; Stephenson, Lond., ed. 4, 1899; Bridge and Lake, Oxf., 1908.
Trans.: Vol. in Bohn’s Class. Lib. contains specimens of verse
translators of 17th and 18th cents.; Eng. prose (w. Lat.), Ker, Loeb ed.,
2 vols., Lond. and New York, 1919-1920.
Translns. and Imitations (select): Francis and Tatum, Camb., 1924.
Other Wks.: Nisard, in _Les poètes lat. de la décadence_, ed. 3, 1867,
I., pp. 381-471; Boissier, “Le poète Martial” in _Tacite_, ed. 4, Par.,
1908, pp. 281-335; Eng. tr., Hutchison, Lond., 1906; Pisani, _Marziale_,
Mil., 1904; Butler, _Post-Aug. Poetry_, Oxf., 1909, pp. 251-286; Plessis,
_La poés. lat._, Par., 1909, p. 578; Giarratano, _De M. re metrica_,
Naples, 1908; K. Flower Smith, _M. the Epigrammatist and other Essays_,
Balt., U.S.A., 1920.
On Martial’s models: Paukstadt, _De M. Catulli imitatore_, diss., Halle,
1876; Zingerle, _Mart. Ovidstudien_, Innsbr., 1877; and “Zu Lucan Silius
Martial” in _Zu Spät. lat. Dichtern_, Hft. 2, Innsbr., 1879; Schulze,
_Mart. Catullstudien, Fleck. Jahrb._, 137, 1887; Wagner, _De Martiale
poet. Augusteae aet. imitatore_, diss., Königsb. 1880 (by the same,
resemblances w. earlier and later authors in Friedl.’s ed.).
[1445] X. xxiv.
[1446] IV. lii. 3. Why the surname _Coquus_ was added in the Middle Ages
remains a mystery.
[1447] X. lxv. 3-4.
[1448] V. xxxiv.
[1449] IX. lxxiii. 7-8:
“At me litterulas stulti docuere parentes:
Quid cum grammaticis rhetoribusque mihi?”
[1450] _In Helv._, vi.
[1451] X. lxv. 4-7: “Tagique ciuis.... Hispanis ego contumax capillis.”
[1452] III. xxxviii. 12.
[1453] I. cxiii.
[1454] Tribune, III. xcv. 9; _eques_, V. xiii. 1-2.
[1455] II. xci., xcii.; III. xcv. 5, where “Caesar uterque” may imply
conferment of the _ius_ by Titus on the recommendation of his brother
Domitian, or Domitian’s confirmation of a concession promised by Titus.
Schanz mentions Lieben’s view that the “two emperors” were Vespasian and
Titus.
[1456] “Valebis uxor,” II. xcii. 3, means “farewell to you, the wife of
my imagination” or “farewell to the idea of a wife.” The wife addressed
in an indecent manner in another epigram could not conceivably have been
his own.
[1457] For Nomentum, II. xxxviii.; XII. lvii.; XIII. xlii., cxix.;
“scalis habito tribus sed altis,” I. cxvii. 7.
[1458] IX. xviii. 2, xcvii. 7-8.
[1459] II. xxx. 5; II. xc.
[1460] V. lvi.
[1461] The “liber prior” of III. i. 3 was either a previous edition of
III. or a combined edition of epigrams afterwards separated into Books I.
and II., as Friedländer thought.
[1462] IV. xxv.
[1463] X. ciii. 7-10.
[1464] XII. xviii. 1-2, 7-9, 13-16.
[1465] Plin., _Ep._, III. xxi.: “erat homo ingeniosus acutus acer, et qui
plurimum in scribendo et salis haberet et fellis nec candoris minus.”
[1466] II. xciii. refers to Books I. and II. The author in V. ii. calls
the book his fifth, and refers to the preceding four. The arrangement in
seven books is mentioned VII. xvii. 6.
[1467] Friedländer’s chronology is generally accepted with slight
modifications. It is not seriously upset by Dau, _De Mart. libellorum
ratione temporibusque_, Rost., 1887. _Cf._ Schanz, _op. cit._, pp. 181,
184.
[1468] IV. xlix. 1-2:
“Nescit, crede mihi, quid sint epigrammata, Flacce,
Qui tantum lusus illa iocosque uocat.”
[1469] V. xvi. 1.
[1470] V. xvi. 13-14.
[1471] V. xv. 5-6.
[1472] V. xxxvi.:
“Laudatus nostro quidam, Faustine, libello,
Dissimulat quasi nil debeat: inposuit.”
[1473] VIII. iii. 19-20:
“At tu Romanos lepido sale tingue libellos:
Adgnoscat mores uita legatque suos.”
[1474] X. iv. 7-10:
“Quid te uana iuuant miserae ludibria chartae?
Hoc lege, quod possit dicere uita ‘meum est.’
Non hic Centauros, non Gorgonas Harpyiasque
Inuenies: hominem pagina nostra sapit.”
[1475] VIII. xiv. 5-6.
[1476] III. lviii.
[1477] I. xlix. 27-28: “focum infante cinctum sordido”; _cf._ II. xc.
7-8; XII. xviii. 19-21.
[1478] VIII. xx.
[1479] IX. lix. 22: “asse duos calices emit et ipse tulit.”
[1480] VIII. lxxix.
[1481] V. ix.
[1482] IX. xiv., xxvii., xxxvii.
[1483] VII. xxi., xxii., xxiii., xliv., xlv.; I. lxi. 7-8.
[1484] X. xix.
[1485] IV. xiv.
[1486] VII. lxiii.; IX. lxxxvi.; XI. xlviii.
[1487] VII. xxiv., xci.; XII. xviii.; _cf._ Juv., I. 7-14 with Mart., X.
iv. 7-10.
[1488] VII. xii. 9; X. xxxiii. 10.
[1489] X. iii., v.
[1490] V. xxviii. 9: “ego esse miserum credo cui placet nemo.”
[1491] Keil, i., p. 485.
[1492] Pref. to _Epigr._, Bk. I.
[1493] _Cf._ C. W. Mendell, “M. and the Satiric Epigram,” _Cl. Philol._,
Jan., 1922.
[1494] _Cf._ Friedrich, “Zu Seneca und M.,” _Herm._, xlv. 583-594.
[1495]
“Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis,
Qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.”
[1496] While Statius is never mentioned, it is likely that there are
indirect glances at him; _e.g._ IV. xlix.; VIII. iii.; IX. l.; X. iv.;
XIV. i. 11.
[1497] IV. xlix. 7-8.
[1498] I. xvi.
[1499] VII. lxxxv., xc.
[1500] X. xxx. 11-15:
“Hic summa leni stringitur Thetis uento;
Nec languet aequor: uiua sed quies ponti
Pictam phaselon adiuuante fert aura;
Sicut puellae non amantis aestatem,
Mota salubre purpura uenit frigus.”
[1501] IX. xii. 1-9:
“Nomen cum uiolis rosisque natum,
Quo pars optima nuncupatur anni ...
Respondent Veneres Cupidinesque.”
[1502] VII. lxxxix.:
“I felix rosa, mollibusque sertis
Nostri cinge comas Apollinaris:
Quas tu nectere candidas, sed olim,
Sic te semper amet Venus, memento.”
[1503] XI. lxxxix.
[1504] _Cf._ with I. x. 4 such endings as II. xi. 10: “domi cenat”; II.
xxix. 10: “splenia tolle, leges.”
[1505] II. xxxviii.
[1506] II. x.
[1507] II. xiii.:
“Et iudex petit, et petit patronus:
Soluas, censeo, Sexte, creditori.”
[1508] VIII. xliii.
[1509] VII. lxxxiii.:
“Eutrapelus tonsor dum circuit ora Luperci
Expingitque genas, altera barba subit.”
[1510] V. xlvii.
[1511] I. xxviii.
[1512] I. xvi.; VII. lxxxi.
[1513] IX. _praef._, _ad fin._: “Ille ego sum....”
[1514] XI. xxiv.
[1515] I. xv. 5-12:
“Non bene distuleris, uideas quae posse negari,
Et solum hoc ducas, quod fuit, esse tuum.
Exspectant curaeque catenatique labores;
Gaudia non remanent, sed fugitiua uolant,
Haec utraque manu complexuque adsere toto:
Saepe fluunt imo sic quoque lapsa sinu.
Non est, crede mihi, sapientis dicere ‘Viuam’;
Sera nimis uita est crastina: uiue hodie.”
[1516] V. xx.
“Si tecum mihi, care Martialis,
Securis liceat frui diebus,
Si disponere tempus otiosum
Et uerae pariter uacare uitae,
Nec nos atria nec domos potentum
Nec litis tetricas forumque triste
Nossemus nec imagines superbas;
Sed gustatio, fabulae, libelli,
Campus, porticus, umbra, Virgo, thermae,
Haec essent loca semper, hi labores.
Nunc uiuit necuter sibi, bonosque
Soles effugere atque abire sentit,
Qui nobis pereunt et imputantur.
Quisquam, uiuere cum sciat, moratur?”
[1517] VII. v.
[1518] VIII. xxi. 11-12.
[1519] VIII. xxiv. 5-6.
[1520] III. lxviii. 4, “exuimur”; _cf._ 11-12.
[1521] V. ii.; VIII. i.
[1522] I. _praef._; III. lxix.
[1523] XI. ii.
[1524] I. iv. 8: “lasciua est nobis pagina, uita proba.”
[1525] Cat. xvi. 5; Ovid, _Tr._, ii. 354; Plin., _Ep._, VII. ix.; Apul.,
_Apol._, 11; Auson., _Eidyll._, 360.
[1526] _E.g._ VII. xiv.
[1527] VII. xii. 7. _Cf._ his desire to have it known that poems steeped
in black poison are not his, VII. lxxii. 13-16.
[1528] V. xxiv. 9-10:
“Mollia non rigidus caespes tegat ossa nec illi,
Terra, grauis fueris: non fuit illa tibi.”
[1529] IX. xxix. 11-12:
“Sit tibi terra leuis mollique tegaris harena
Ne tua non possint eruere ossa canes.”
[1530] I. lxxxviii.
[1531] VI. lxxxv.
[1532] IX. lii.
[1533] I. xxxix.
[1534] XII. xxxiv.
[1535] Dr. Warde Fowler, _Presidential Address to Class. Assoc._,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1920, pointed out that, while volcanic soil
influenced drainage schemes, it also set the Romans adventuring on the
search for portents.
[1536] IV. xliv.:
“Licuisse” in the closing couplet,
“Cuncta iacent flammis et tristi mersa fauilla:
Nec superi uellent hoc licuisse sibi”
is surprisingly taken to refer to auction-bidding by Prof. Courthope,
_Selectns. fr. Martial Translated_, 1914:
“Now for the place ’neath these sad ashes hid,
If up for sale, what single god would bid?”
[1537] IX. lxi. 11-14.
[1538] III. lxv. 3-5.
[1539] X. xxiii. 7-8:
“Ampliat aetatis spatium sibi uir bonus: hoc est
Viuere bis, uita posse priore frui.”
[1540] _Cf._ Mart., I. xx. 4; Juv., V. 147.
[1541] _Poemata_, Utr., 1784., p. 563.
[1542] Plin., _Ep._, II. vii. 1; III. 1. Four mutilated choriambic odes,
ascribed by some to Spurinna, are convincingly rejected as forgeries: for
text, Wernsdorf, _P.L.M._; Held, _Ueber d. Werth d. Briefsammlung des
jüng. Plinius in Bezug auf Gesch. d. röm. Lit._, 1833.
[1543] _Sulpiciae Fabella_, ed. Unger, Hal. Sax., 1887.
[1544] Valla’s schol. on Juv., I. 20; Mart., XI. x.
[1545] Text: _Paneg._ in _Panegyrici Lat._, Cuspinianus, 1513; Rhenanus,
Bas., 1520; Livineius, Antv., 1599; E. Bährens, Lpz., 1874; 2nd ed. W. A.
Bährens, 1911; Sep. edns., Ed. pr. (?) 1476; Lipsius, Antv., 1600; Utr.,
1652, etc.; Arntzen (not. var.), Amst., 1738; Gierig, Lpz., 1796; Dübner,
Par., 1843. Trans.: Stapylton, Oxf., 1644; [White Kennet], Lond., 1686;
G. Smith, Lond., 1702; in French, De Sacy, Par., 1722. _Epist._: Ed. pr.,
Ven., 1471 (8 bks., I.-VII. and IX.); 1st compl. ed. Aldus, Ven., 1508;
Gruter, 1611; Veenhusen (not. var.), Leid., 1669; Cortius and Longolius
(indices), Amst., 1734; E. T. Merrill, Lpz., 1922.
Sep. edns.: I., II., Cowan, Lond., 1889; III., J. E. B. Mayor, Lond.,
1880, 1889; VI., J. D. Duff, Camb., 1906; X., E. G. Hardy, Lond., 1889.
Selectns.: Church and Brodribb, Lond., 1870, 1872; Prichard and Bernard,
Oxf., 3rd ed., 1896; Merrill, Lond., 1903; Allen, Oxf., 1915.
Trans.: _Epistles_ (w. _Paneg._), Henley, Lond., 1724; _Letters_,
Melmoth, Lond., 1746-47-48-57-70-86-1810; Earl of Orrery, Lond., 1751;
Lewis, Lond., 1879; Melmoth’s revised, Bosanquet, Lond., 1878, 1892; and
Hutchinson (Loeb ed.), Lond. and N. Yk., 1915.
Collected edns.: Boxhorn, Leid., 1653; Gierig, Leipz., 1806; Keil (ed.
maior, rerum enarr. Mommseni, etc.), Lpz., 1870; C. F. W. Müller, _ib._,
1903; Kukula, _ib._, 1908, 1912.
Life and character: Tanzmann, _De C. Pl. Secundi uita ingenio moribus
quaestio_, Bresl., 1865; Mommsen, _Zur Lebensgesch. d. jüng. Pl., Herm._,
III. 31, 1869 (= _Gesam. Schr._, IV. 366, 1906); in French, trans. Morel,
w. Mommsen’s addns., Par., 1873; Bender, _Der jüngere Pl. nach seinen
Briefe_, Tüb., 1873; Moy, _Qualem apud aetatis suae studiosos personam
egerit C. Pl. Sec._, Par., 1876.
Literary Significance: Held, _Ueb. d. Werth d. Briefsammlung d. jüng.
Pl. in Bezug auf Geschichte d. röm. Lit._, Bresl., 1833; De la Berge,
_Essai sur le regne de Trajan_, esp. ch. xvi., Par., 1877; _Allain, Pline
le jeune et ses héritiers_, 4 vols., Par., 1901-1902. Style: Lagergren,
_De uita et elocutione C. Pl. Sec._, Ups., 1872; Morillot, _De Pl.
minoris eloquentia_, Gren., 1888; Consoli, _Il neologismo negli scritti
di Pl._, Palermo, 1900; Kukula, _Briefe d. jüng. Pl._ (Intr. includes
“Entwickelung d. Epistolographie,” “Sprache u. Stil des Briefes,” etc.),
Lpz., 1904; Smiley, _Latinitas and_ Ἑλληνισμός (Influence of Stoic theory
on writings of Quintilian, Pliny the Yr., Tacitus, etc.), Wisconsin, 1906.
[1546] “patria mea,” _Ep._, IV. xxx. 1.
[1547] VI. xx. 5.
[1548] VI. vi. 3; II. xiv. 9-10.
[1549] III. v. 16; VI. xvi. 7, xx. 5.
[1550] V. viii. 8.
[1551] VI. xii. 2: “in harena mea, hoc est apud centumuiros.”
[1552] _C.I.L._, V. 5262, 5263, 5264, 5667. V. 5279 records appointment
of three trustees (one of them the younger Pliny) to administer a fund
left by his father Cilo to provide oil at the Neptunalia for athletes and
bathers at Como.
[1553] Merrill’s complete ed. of the _Epistulae_, 1922, gives a list of
the principal _Abhandlungen_ on the subject by Stobbe, Gemoll, C. Peter,
Asbach, Schultz and H. Peter. Schanz, _op. cit._, p. 360, gives a useful
summary of their conclusions; and the reports on Plinian literature in
Bursian’s _Jahresbericht_ reveal still more extensive activity. _Cf._
Merrill, _Sel. Lett._, 1903, pp. xxxvii. _sqq._
[1554] Prof. E. T. Merrill, whose authority on Plinian matters is
deservedly great, undermines Mommsen’s position here: “On Date of Pliny’s
Prefecture of Treasury of Saturn,” _Am. Jrl. Phil._, xxiii. 4.
[1555] W. A. Bährens, “Prätur des jüng. Pl.,” _Herm._, lviii. (1923),
p. 109 _sqq._, agrees that Otto’s instructive paper on Pliny’s
_Lebengeschichte_ in _Sitzungsber. d. Bayer. Ak. d. Wiss._, 1919,
corrected several of Mommsen’s results, but rejects Otto’s date of A.D.
95: “Plinius war, wie schon Mommsen meinte, in Jahre 93 Praetor.” Otto
replied in _Bayer. Sitz._, 1923. Allain, _Pline le jeune_, gives 94.
[1556] Kukula, ed. 1912, noticed J. Wight Duff, _C.R._, XXVIII. (1914),
pp. 134-137; E. T. Merrill, 1922, noticed J. P. Postgate, _C.R._, XXXVII.
(1923), pp. 35-36.
[1557] Prof. E. K. Rand, who with E. A. Lowe published the facsimile of
the uncial remains of the _Letters_ now in the Pierpont Morgan Library,
N. Yk. (Washington, 1922), has indicated a new method of approach through
the Aldine edition, in the belief that these fragments form part of
the lost Codex Parisinus which Aldus used for his ed. of 1508 (_Harv.
Stud. in Cl. Phil._, XXXIV., 1923). Prof. Merrill has not accepted this
identification or the 6th cent. date suggested for the uncials (_Class.
Philol._, Chicago, April, 1923).
[1558] III. xi.; VII. xxvii. 14.
[1559] VI. xxxi.
[1560] E. G. Hardy, ed. of _Epist. ad Traian._, Introd., p. xxiv. _sqq._,
and footnote to Lett., xv., pp. 105-106.
[1561] Such is Wilcken’s view, _Herm._, xlix. (1914), in opposition to
Mommsen, who placed Pliny’s visit to the eastern parts of the province in
the latter half of his first year. Wilcken thinks that in late autumn of
112 Pliny took ship to Sinope, and that after this he wrote from Amisus
the famous letter touching the trial of Christians.
[1562] X. cxx. and cxxi.
[1563] IV. xix.; VI. iv., vii.; VII. v.
[1564] _C.I.L._, V. 5262 = Dessau, _Inscr. Lat. Sel._, I. 2927.
[1565] VII. iv. 2-3.
[1566] _Ib._, 4-6.
[1567] VII. ix. 10-14.
[1568] VII. iv. 10: “unum precor ut posteri quoque aut errent similiter
aut iudicent.” His “libelli,” which were on sale at Lyon, may have
contained poetry, IX. xi.
[1569] VII. xvii. 7.
[1570] _Ib._, 15. For Pliny’s public speaking see Cucheval, _Hist. de
l’éloquence romaine_, etc., II., chaps. xxiii. and xxiv.
[1571] II. xix. 2: “neque me praeterit actiones quae recitantur impetum
omnem ... perdere”; VII. xvii. 2.
[1572] IV. xxi. 3; IX. xiii.
[1573] VII. xxx. 5.
[1574] III. xiii.
[1575] III. xviii.
[1576] _Ib._, 10.
[1577] Allain, _Pline le jeune_, says Pliny is cited 293 times by De la
Berge, and is “le véritable historien de Trajan.”
[1578] _Pan._, lxxxviii. 2: “Scis enim praecipuum esse indicium non magni
principis magnos libertos.”
[1579] _Pan._, vii. 4: “dignus alter eligi, alter eligere”; x. 6:
“(Nerua) tibi terras, te terris reliquit”; xvii. 4: “non ideo uicisse
uidearis ut triumphares, sed triumphare quia uiceris.”
[1580] _Pan._, vii. 6: “imperaturus omnibus eligi debet ex omnibus”;
lxvi. 5: “neque umquam deceptus est princeps nisi qui prius ipse
decepit”; and paradoxes, xlix. 3: “hoc inexpugnabile munimentum munimento
non egere.”
[1581] _Pan._, xxiv. 5: “te ad sidera tollit humus ista communis et
confusa principis uestigia.” (_i.e._ the use of his feet on common earth
exalts the emperor to the sky!)
[1582] H. Peter, _Der Brief in d. röm. Lit._, Lpz., 1901, p. 107 _sqq._,
divides as follows: I.-III., published A.D. 104; IV.-VI., A.D. 108;
VII.-IX., a supplement, containing at least some letters of a date
earlier than 108.
[1583] I. i. 1: “Collegi non seruato temporis ordine, neque enim
historiam componebam.” _E.g._ II. xx. is perhaps earliest of all. II.
xi., on Priscus’s trial, belongs to A.D. 100, but III. iv. to 98. IX.
xxxiv. mentions Pliny’s idea of employing a reader; in VIII. i. the idea
has been acted on.
[1584] I. xi., xv.; V. ii.; VII. xxi; IX. xvi.
[1585] II. xx. 1: “assem para et accipe auream fabulam, fabulas immo.”
[1586] IX. ii. 2-3.
[1587] Schanz, _op. cit._, p. 364.
[1588] Mart., _Epig._, X. xx. 14-17, cited by Pliny, III. xxi. 5.
[1589] I. iii. 3: “Hoc sit negotium tuum, hoc otium....”
[1590] II. viii. 2: “Numquamne hos artissimos laqueos ... abrumpam?...”
[1591] VII. xv. 1: “Requiris quid agam. Quae nosti. Distringor officio,
amicis deseruio, studeo interdum, quod non interdum sed solum semperque
facere, non audeo dicere rectius, certe beatius erat.”
[1592] I. vi. 1: “Ridebis et licet rideas”; _cf._ IX. x.
[1593] IX. xxvii.; V. viii.
[1594] I. xiii. 5: “equidem prope nemini defui.”
[1595] II. iii. 9.
[1596] V. iii. 8; VII. xvii.
[1597] I. iii. 4: “effinge aliquid et excude quod sit perpetuo tuum”; V.
x. (to Suetonius); VIII. iv.
[1598] IV. xx., xxvii.; V. v., xvii.; VII. xxviii.; IX. xxii.
[1599] IV. xxvii. 2.
[1600] V. v. 4: “immortale aliquid.”
[1601] VII. xxviii.
[1602] Moy, _op. cit._ (in bibliog.), p. 107: “illi prosunt saeculo
suo qui, sicut Bolaeus noster, publicam quasi censuram agentes, parce
laudant, uehementer reprehendunt.”
[1603] _E.g._ I. xii.; II. i. 10; III. xxi.; V. v. (“nuntius me graui
dolore confudit”); V. xvi. (“tristissimus haec tibi scribo”); and, for
slaves, VIII. xvi., xix.
[1604] II. xvii. 24.
[1605] V. xix. 7: “aera salubrem et lac eiusmodi curationibus
accommodatissimum.”
[1606] VIII. xxii. 2-3: “ego optimum et emendatissimum existimo qui
ceteris ita ignoscet, tamquam ipse cotidie peccet....”; IX. xvii. 4:
“demus igitur alienis oblectationibus ueniam ut nostris impetremus.”
[1607] IV. xiv.; V. iii.; VII. iv.
[1608] VII. xxxiii.
[1609] VII. xx. 5-7.
[1610] IX. xxiii. 2-3.
[1611] VI. xxxiii. 1: “accipe orationem meam, ut illa arma, diuinam (num
superbius potui?), reuera ut inter meas pulchram.” According to Sid.
Apoll., viii. 10, it eclipsed the _Panegyric_.
[1612] IX. xxiii. 1-2: “... omnes repente quasi uicti coactique
consurgerent laudarentque.”
[1613] VI. xi.
[1614] IX. viii. 1: “omnia scripta tua pulcherrima existimo, maxime tamen
quae de nobis”; _cf._ IX. xxxi.
[1615] I. x. 3; IV. viii. 4-5; VIII. vii. 2: “ne discipulus quidem debeam
dici.”
[1616] I. viii. 14.
[1617] IV. i. 4-6; IX. xxxix.; X. xlix. and lxviii.
[1618] X. xcvi. 7-8.
[1619] _Pan._, i. 1 and 3; _Ep._, X. i., ii., xiii., xiv., xxxv., lii.
[1620] VII. xxvi. 2: “tunc deos, tunc hominem esse se meminit.”
[1621] _Pan._, iii. 5; Pers., ii. 73-75.
[1622] III. xx. 12.
[1623] _Pan._, lxvi. 4.
[1624] IV. xxv. 5: ἀλλὰ ταῦτα τῷ ὑπὲρ ἡμᾶς μελήσει.
[1625] Hofacker, _De Clausulis C. Caec. Pl. Sec._, Bonn, 1903; Spatzek,
_De Claus. Plinianis_, in _praef._ to Kukula’s ed., 1912.
[1626] I. v. 12.
[1627] I. v. 13.
[1628] II. i. 12: “Verginium cogito, Verginium uideo, Verginium iam uanis
imaginibus ... audio, adloquor, teneo.”
[1629] VIII. xxiv. 2-6.
[1630] II. iii. 5: “nos qui in foro uerisque litibus terimur, multum
malitiae, quamuis nolimus, addiscimus.”
[1631] I. xx.
[1632] VIII. xxi. 1: “pulcherrimum et humanissimum existimo seueritatem
comitatemque miscere.”
[1633] Lagergren, _De uita et elocutione C. Pl._, Ups., 1872, enters more
exhaustively into Pliny’s style than Oestling or Holstein did in their
_opuscula_.
[1634] For collected examples, Remy, _De Subjunct. et Infinitiuo ap. Pl.
minorem_, Louv., 1884.
[1635] _Apol._, ii.
[1636] _Saturn._, V. i.
[1637] Sid. Ap., iv. 22: “ego Plinio ut discipulus adsurgo”; _cf._ i. 1,
iv. 3, viii. 10.
[1638] Merrill, ed. 1922, _praef._, half allows the possibility (“nisi
fortasse”) that Einhart’s “mortalitatem magis quam uitam uidebam esse
finitam” is based on Plin., II. i. 10, as Manitius thinks, _Gesch. d.
lat. Lit. des Mittelalters_, 1911, p. 644.
[1639] IV. iii. 3-4.
[1640] I. vii., esp. § 5; II. x.
[1641] I. iii.; II. viii.; III. vii.; VI. xxi.; VIII. iv.
[1642] V. xvii.
[1643] I. viii.; I. xvi.
[1644] I. xvi. 6: “Plautum uel Terentium metro solutum legi credidi.”
[1645] II. xiii. 7: “epistulas quidem scribit ut Musas ipsas Latine loqui
credas.”
[1646] IV. xxvii.: “unus Plinius est mihi priores.” Kukula had no right
to alter the traditional reading to “his mihi prior sit” in his edition.
[1647] VI. xv.; IX. xxii.
[1648] VI. xv. 2.
[1649] VI. xxi.
[1650] III. xv.
[1651] V. v.
[1652] VIII. xii. 4; I. xvii. 3: “clarissimi cuiusque uitam egregiis
carminibus exornat.”
[1653] VIII. xii. 1.
[1654] IX. i.
[1655] IX. xxxi.
[1656] IX. xxxv.
[1657] V. xxi. 3-6.
[1658] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 341, 4.
[1659] Text: ed. pr. (without _Ann._, I.-VI. and _Agric._), de Spira,
Ven., 1470; do. w. _Agric._, Puteolanus, Mil., 1476; Op. omn., Beroaldus,
Rom., 1515; Beatus Rhenanus, Bas., 1533; Lipsius, Antw., 1574, etc.; J.
F. Gronov, Amst., 1672, 1685; Jac. Gronov, Utr. (not. varior.), 1721;
Ernesti, Leipz., 1752; Brotier, ed. 2, Par., 1776, Lond., 1812; Ritter,
Bonn, 1834, Camb., 1848; Orelli, Zür., 1846, 1848 (re-ed. _Ann._, Baiter,
Zür., 1859; _Germ._, Schweizer-Sidler, Berl., 1877; _Dial._, _Agr._,
Andresen, Berl., 1877, 1880; _Hist._, Meiser, Berl., 1895); Haase,
Leipz., 1855; Halm, Lpz., ed. 4, 1884-1889; Nipperdey, Berl., 1871-1876;
ed. 10, 1904-1908; Fisher, Oxf., 1906-1911.
Selected sep. edns.: I., _Dial._, Benzelius, Ups., 1706; Michaelis,
Leipz., 1868; Peter, Jena, 1877; Valmaggi, Torino, 1890; Peterson
(introd., etc.), Oxf., 1893; Bennett, Boston, 1894; Gudeman, Bost.
(proleg., Eng. notes), 1894; Germ. ed., Leipz., 1914; John, Berl., 1899;
Wick, Torino, 1917.
II., _Agric._, Bosius, Jena, 1664; Wex, Brunsw., 1852; Kritz, Berl., ed.
3, 1874; Urlichs, Würzb., 1875; Gantrelle, Par., 1875; Peter, Jena, 1876;
Church and Brodribb, Lond., 1869; ed. 2, 1881 (w. _Germ._); Cornelissen,
Leid., 1881; Davis, Lond., 1892; Stephenson, 1894, 1899, Camb. (w.
_Germ._); Furneaux, Oxf., 1898; revised, J. G. C. Anderson, Oxf., 1922;
Annibaldi, Torino, 1917.
III., _Germ._, Fabricius, Augsb., 1580; Kritz, ed. 4 by Hirschfelder,
Berl., 1878; Prammer, Vienna, 1878, 1889; Baumstark (comm.), Lpz.,
1875-1880; Allen, Bost., 1885; Zernial, Berl., 1890, 1897; Furneaux,
Oxf., 1894; Annibaldi, Torino, 1916; Schweizer-Sidler, ed. 8, Halle,
1923; Schmaus, Bamberg, 1924.
IV., _Hist._, Kiessling, Lpz., 1840; Heraeus, Lpz., ed. 4, 1885; Simcox,
Lond., I., II., 1875; III.-V., 1876; Godley, Lond., I, II., 1887;
III.-V., 1890; Spooner, Lond., 1891; Fisher, Oxf., 1910.
V., _Ann._, Ruperti, Gött., 1805; Kiessling, Lpz., 1829; Nipperdey (_vide
supra_); Holbrooke, Lond., 1882; Furneaux, Oxf., 1891-1896; Fisher, Oxf.,
1906; Goelzer (Budé), Par., 1923 _sqq._ (Facsimile: Codex Laurent. 68, I.
and II., Rostagno, Leyd., 1902.)
Trans.: Wks. (w. Discourses): Gordon, 2 vols., fol., Lond., 1728-1731
(pedantic); (w. Essays), Murphy, Lond., 1793; 1830 (diffuse). Church and
Brodribb, Lond., _Agric._, _Germ._, _Dial._, 1877; _Hist._, new ed.,
1882; _Ann._, 1882; Townsend, _Agric._, _Germ._, Lond., 1894; G. G.
Ramsay, Lond., _Ann._, 1904-1909; _Hist._, 1915; _Hist._, Fyfe, Oxf.,
1912; _Agric._, _Germ._, Hutton, w. _Dial._, Peterson (Loeb), Lond.,
1914; _Hist._, Moore (Loeb), 1925.
General Wks.: Bötticher, Proleg. to _Lexicon Taciteum_, Berl., 1830,
and _De uita scriptis ac stilo Taciti_, Berl., 1834; Dubois-Guchan,
_Tacite et son siècle ou la société romaine impériale_, etc., 2 vols.,
Par., 1861; Urlichs, _De uita et honoribus Taciti_, Würzb., 1879;
Schiller, _Gesch. d. röm. Kaiserz._, Gotha, 1883; Asbach, _Röm. Kaisert.
u. Verfass. bis auf Traian_ (a hist. introd. to Tacitus); Peter, _Die
geschichtl. Litt. üb. d. röm. Kaiserzeit_; Boissier, _Tacite_, Par.,
1903; ed. 3, 1908; Eng. tr., Lond., 1906; Schwabe, _Pauly-Wissowa’s
Realencycl._, IV., 1566.
Special Wks.: in notes _infra_.
[1660] Other writers call him “Tacitus” or “Cornelius Tacitus”; _e.g._
Plin., _Epist._, IX. xxiii. 2. _Codex Med._, I, gives his praenomen as
“Publius”: Sidonius Apollinaris twice calls him “Gaius” (_Epist._, IV.
xiv. 1, xxii. 2), with which the later MSS. agree.
[1661] Novák once more claimed it for Quintilian in his ed. of _opera
minora_, Prag., 1889.
[1662] Plin., _Ep._, VII. xx. 3.
[1663] _N.H._, VII. 76.
[1664] _Hist._, I. i.: “dignitatem nostram a Vespasiano incohatam, a Tito
auctam, a Domitiano longius prouectam non abnuerim.”
[1665] _Ann._, XI. xi.
[1666] _Agr._, ix.: “consul egregiae tum spei filiam iuueni mihi
despondit....”
[1667] _Dial._, ii.
[1668] This date for his consulship is now usually accepted instead of
A.D. 98.
[1669] Plin., _Ep._, II. i. 6: “laudator eloquentissimus”; II. xi. 17:
“respondit Cornelius Tacitus eloquentissime et, quod eximium orationi
eius inest, σεμνῶς.”
[1670] _Agr._, xlv.: “nobis tam longae absentiae condicione ante
quadriennium amissus est.”
[1671] _Agr._, xlv.: “mox nostrae duxere Heluidium in carcerem manus ...
nos innocenti sanguine Senecio perfudit.”
[1672] _Agr._, iii.: “nunc demum redit animus; et quamquam primo statim
beatissimi saeculi ortu Nerua Caesar res olim dissociabiles miscuerit,
principatum ac libertatem, augeatque cotidie felicitatem temporum Nerua
Traianus....”
[1673] _Agr._, ii. 3: “dedimus profecto grande patientiae documentum
... memoriam quoque ipsam cum uoce perdidissemus, si tam in nostra
potestate esset obliuisci quam tacere”; iii. 3: “quid? si per quindecim
annos, grande mortalis aeui spatium ... pauci ... nostri superstites ...
iuuenes ad senectutem, senes prope ad ipsos exactae aetatis terminos per
silentium uenimus.”
[1674] _Hist._, I. i.: “quod si uita suppeditet, principatum diui Neruae
et imperium Traiani ... senectuti seposui”; _Ann._, III. xxiv.: “cetera
illius aetatis (_sc._ Augusti) memorabo, si, effectis in quae tetendi,
plures ad curas uitam produxero.”
[1675] Sabbadini in 1901 intimated Decembrio’s note to that effect.
Romance seemed to have entered into palaeography when the announcement
was made in 1903 of the discovery at Iesi, near Ancona, of a 15th-century
MS. in which is incorporated, it is claimed, one quaternion of the
_Agricola_ from the veritable parent codex.
[1676] Schanz, _Gesch. d. röm. Litt._, II., p. 293: “wir gewinnen den
Eindruck, als wollte der Verfasser des Dialogs einem Gegenstand alter
Liebe das letzte Lebenwohl zurufen,” u.s.w.
[1677] _Agr._, iii. 4: “hic interim liber, honori Agricolae soceri mei
destinatus, professione pietatis aut laudatus erit aut excusatus.”
[1678] It is not impossible that in Pliny, _Ep._, IX. x. 2, addressed
to Tacitus (though some think written by Tacitus), there is a direct
reference to this.
[1679] _Dial._, xxxviii. 4: “principis disciplina ipsam quoque
eloquentiam sicut omnia depacauerat.”
[1680] They are adequately and convincingly treated by Gudeman in 138
pages of prolegomena (ed. 1914). From his exhaustive bibliography may
be selected: Weinkauff, _De Tac. dialogi ... auctore_, Köln, 1859, and
_Untersuchungen u.s.w._, 1881; Steiner, _Ueber den Dial. de Or._, Progr.,
Kreuznach, 1863; Jansen, _De Tac. dial. auctore_, Gron., 1878; Resl,
_Utrum dial. ... Tacito adscribi possit_, etc., Czernowitz, 1881; Nolte,
_De ... dial. de or._, Gleiwitz, 1903.
[1681] _Dial._, xvii. 3. The figures given there of succeeding reigns as
amounting to the sum of 120 years from Cicero’s death in 43 B.C. to the
time of the dialogue need slight adjustment, because that total would
bring out the date at A.D. 77.
[1682] Schanz, _op. cit._, II., pp. 293-296. Gudeman (_op. cit._,
proleg.) successfully controverts Leo’s hypothesis of a date after
_Agric._ and _Germ._, and refutes the support lent to that hypothesis in
the theory of style propounded by Norden and Wilamowitz. Vogt’s pamphlet,
_Tac. als Politiker_, Stuttg., 1924, ends with a brief defence of the
early date.
[1683] Ed., 1914, pp. 92-96.
[1684] A comparison of the references to the emperors in chaps. iii.
and xliv. indicates that the _Agricola_ was published soon after
Trajan’s accession in A.D. 98. He is called _princeps_ in xliv. From the
introduction it is plain that the _Agricola_ preceded the _Germania_.
[1685] _Agr._, iii., _ad fin._
[1686] xlv. 3–xlvi.
[1687] Most editions handle the questions involved; _e.g._ Furneaux,
1898; Gudeman, 1902; Anderson, 1922. _Cf._ Hirzel, _Ueb. d. Tendenz des
Agr._, Tüb., 1871; Andresen, “Entstehung u. Tendenz des Tac. _Agr._” in
_Festschr. d. Gymn. z. grau. Kloster_, Berl., 1874; Leo., _Die griech.
röm. Biographie_, Lpz., 1901.
[1688] Germ. ed., Berl., 1902; similarly, Hendrickson, “Proconsulate of
Agric. in relation to hist. and encomium” in Univ. publns., Chicago, 1902.
[1689] Among those who see a political aim in the _Agric._ are Hoffmann,
_Zeitschr. f. d. österr. Gymn._, 1870; Gantrelle, _Rev. de l’instr.
belg._, xxi., p. 217; Furneaux, _Agr._, Intr., pp. 7-15; Boissier,
_Tacite_, 1903, pp. 161-166; _cf._ _L’Opposition sous les Césars_, pp.
317 _sqq._ On the other side, Hirzel, _op. cit._; Anderson, _Agr._,
Introd., and others.
[1690] _Agr._, xlv.: “nostrae duxere Heluidium in carcerem manus,” etc.
[1691] Pliny, addressing Trajan, _Pan._, xliv. 1, said, “Vixisti
nobiscum, periclitatus es, timuisti, quae tum erat innocentium uita.”
[1692] _Germ._, xxxvii.
[1693] _Ib._, xxiii.: “potui humor ex hordeo ...”; xxii.: “crebrae ut
inter uinolentos rixae,” etc.
[1694] Weinberger, _Die Frage nach Entstehung u. Tendenz der tacit.
Ger._, progr., Olmütz, 1890 (convenient summary); Müllenhoff, _Deutsche
Altertumskunde_, IV.
[1695] For historical background, see Henderson, _Civil War and Rebellion
in Rom. Emp._, Lond., 1908; for literary aspects, Courbaud, _Les procédés
d’art de T. dans les Hist._, Par., 1918.
[1696] Plin., _Ep._, VII. xxxiii.: “auguror ... historias tuas immortales
futuras”; Tert., _Apol._, 16: “Cornelius Tacitus ... in quinta
historiarum suarum.”
[1697] Hieron., _comm. Zach._, III. 14.
[1698] Ritter, ed. Camb., I, p. xxii.; _cf._ Goelzer, ed., Par., 1923.
[1699] _Ann._, XI. xi.
[1700] Schanz, _op. cit._, II. 311. Pliny, _Ep._, VI. xvi. 1, shows that
shortly before 106 Tacitus had not completed his collection of material
for the year 79.
[1701] _Decline and Fall_, etc., ed. Bury, 1896, ch. ix., p. 232 _n._
[1702] Morr, “Die Landeskunde von Palästina bei Strabon u. Josephos,”
_Philol._, lxxxi. 3 (1926), considers Posidonius a source for Strabo and
Josephus as well as for Tacitus’s _Hist._ and Justinus.
[1703] _Ann._, III. lxv.; IV. xxxii.; XIII. xxxi.
[1704] _Ann._, IV. lxxi.: “ni mihi destinatum foret suum quaeque in annum
referre, auebat animus antire....” On the annalistic principle he defers
treating certain events: “in tempore memorabo,” I. lviii.; “in loco
reddemus,” II. iv.
[1705] VI. xxxviii.: “duabus aestatibus gesta coniunxi”; XII. xl.:
“plures per annos gesta.”
[1706] _Ann._, II. lxi ... “Romani imperii quod nunc ad mare rubrum
patescit”; Spart., _Hadr._, v. 1-4.
[1707] _Ann._, VI. xxvii. He applies the term _libri_ to his previous
_Histories_ in _Ann._, XI, xi.
[1708] _Cf._ _Ann._, XV. lxiv.; XVI. xxxv.
[1709] _Hist._, III. xxv., xxviii., li.
[1710] Schur has recently in _Klio_, xix. (“Untersuchungen zur Gesch. d.
Kriege Corbulos”) argued that Tacitus used Corbulos’s military reports,
while Cluvius was the main authority for A.D. 60-63.
[1711] _Ann._, I. lxix., lxxxi.; III. iii.; IV. liii.; VI. vi.; XIII.
xx.; XIV. ii.; XV. xvi., liii., lxi., lxxiv. (_cf._ II. lxxxviii.).
[1712] _Hist._, II. xxxvii.; III. li.; _Ann._, I. xxix.
[1713] _Ann._, V. iv. 4.
[1714] _E.g._ _Hist._, IV. xxxix. _sqq._, where _decretae_, _censuit_,
etc., are official echoes.
[1715] _Ann._, XIII. xxxi. 1.
[1716] For a sketch of the problem, Schanz, _op. cit._; _cf._ R.
Weidemann, _Die Quellen d. ersten sechs Bücher v. Tac. Ann._, Cleve, 1868
(emphasising _Senatus acta_), H. Nissen, _Rh. M._, xxvi. (1871), pp. 497
_sqq._ (“Einquellenprinzip”); Fabia, _Les sources de T. dans les hist.
et les ann._, Par., 1893; Groag, _Zur Kritik von T. Quellen in d. Hist._
(Fleck. Jahrb. Suppl., 23 (1897), p. 711). The discussion is endless; see
Marx in _Herm._, lx. 74 _sqq._
[1717] The resemblances are arrayed by E. G. Hardy, Plut., _Galba and
Otho_ (Introd.), Lond., 1890.
[1718] The view that Plutarch used Tac. is supported by Clason, _Plut.
u. Tac._, Berl., 1870; Nipperdey, ed. _Ann._, 1874; Lange, _De Tacito
Plutarchi auctore_, Halle, 1880, and others. Most, however, guess at a
common source, either the (inadequate) _acta diurna_ (Hirzel), or Cluvius
(H. Peter and Mommsen), or the elder Pliny (Nissen, Hardy, Fabia). Th.
Wiedemann, in a Latin diss. of 1857, conjectured that Tac. used Pliny,
and Plutarch both Pliny and Cluvius. Borenius (diss. Helsings., 1902)
argued that Plutarch used both Tacitus and the common source. For other
variations, see Schanz, _op. cit._
[1719] _Hist._, I. x.: “occulta fati”; xviii.: “quae fato manent”;
_Ann._, V. iv.: “fatali quodam motu ... seu praua sollertia”; _Ann._, I.
lv.: “Varus fato et ui Arminii cecidit.” Contrast _Ann._, III. xviii.:
“ludibria rerum mortalium”; IV. xx.: “dubitare cogor fato et sorte
nascendi ... an sit aliquid in nostris consiliis.”
[1720] Pöhlmann, _Die Weltanschauung des T._, ed. 2, Münch., 1913, calls
his views “ein Chaos von unabgeklärten u. unausgereiften Meinungen.”
Fabia’s notice of Pöhlmann appeared in _Jrnl. des Savants_, 1914, pp. 250
_sqq._, in art. entitled “L’irréligion de Tacite.”
[1721] _Hist._, IV. xxvi.: “quod in pace fors seu natura, tunc fatum et
ira diuom uocabatur”; _Ann._, IV. i.: “non tam sollertia ... quam, deum
ira....”; XVI. xvi.: “ira illa numinum in res Romanas”; _Hist._, I. iii.:
“adprobatum est non esse curae deis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem.”
[1722] _Ann._, XIV. v. i.
[1723] _Hist._, I. iv. ... “non modo casus euentusque rerum ... sed ratio
etiam causaeque.”
[1724] _Ann._, XIII. xxxi.: “cum ex dignitate populi Romani repertum sit
res inlustres annalibus, talia diurnis urbis actis mandare.”
[1725] _Hist._, I. i.: “omnem potentiam ad unum conferri pacis interfuit.”
[1726] _Ann._, VI. xiii.: “populi imperium iuxta libertatem....”
[1727] _Hist._, II. xxxvii.-xxxviii.
[1728] _Hist._, IV. viii.
[1729] _Ann._, IV. xxxiii.
[1730] _Ib._, “plures aliorum euentis docentur: ceterum ut profutura, ita
minimum oblectationis adferunt.”
[1731] _Ann._, I. i. ... “sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo.”
[1732] The question of Tiberius’s character is older than the histories
of Ihne and Duruy, and goes back to the 17th cent., when a justification
of Tiberius was attempted by De la Houssaye, _Tibère_, Amst., 1686. For
some modern views, see Stahr, _Tiberius_, Berl., 1863; Freytag, _Tib.
und Tac._, Berl., 1870 (indicates inconsistencies in Tac.); Beesly,
_Catiline, Clodius and Tib._, Lond., 1878 (a rehabilitation); Furneaux,
ed. _Ann._, I.-VI., 1884, on “Char. and Govt. of Tib.” (moderate
view); Gentile, _Il imp. Tiberio secondo la moderna critica storica_,
Mil., 1887 (summarizes points at issue); Faust, _De Vellei Pat. fide,
Giessen_, 1891; Tarver, _Tib. the Tyrant_, Westm., 1902 (a defence of
Tib.); Jerome, _Roman Memories_, Lond., 1914, pp. 220-248 (refutation of
“Orgy in Capri”); J. S. Reid, “Tac. as a Historian,” _J.R.S._, XI. 2,
1921 (protest against too high an estimate). Bacha, _Le génie de T., la
création des annales_, Par., 1906, takes the extreme line that the work
is a mendacious and poetic romance.
[1733] Voltaire’s article, “Pyrrhonisme” in his _Dictionnaire
Historique_, stated doubts regarding Suetonius’s account of the
foulnesses alleged to have disgraced the old age of Tiberius.
[1734] Language and style: Bötticher, _Lexicon Taciteum_, Berl., 1830;
Dräger, _Üb. Syntax u. Stil des T._, Lpg., ed. 2, 1874; ed. 3, 1882;
Wölfflin, _Philol._, xxiv.-xxvii. (on evolution of T.’s style); Furneaux,
_Ann._, Intr., ch. v.; _Clemm_, _De Breuiloq. T._, Lpg., 1881; Valmaggi,
_L’arcaismo in T._, Tur., 1891; Vianey, _Quomodo dici possit T. fuisse
summum pingendi artificem_, Par., 1896; G. G. Ramsay, _Ann._, trans.,
Intr., Lond., 1904; Lundström, _Tacitus’s poetiska källor_, Göteborg,
1923.
[1735] _E.g._ of the type met with in later bks. of _Annals_, such as XV.
v.: “Vologesi uetus et penitus infixum erat arma Romana uitandi.”
[1736] See Dräger, _op. cit._
[1737] _Germ._, xlvi.: “uictui herba, uestitui pelles, cubile humus”;
_Hist._, I. liii.: “corpore ingens, animi immodicus”; _Ann._, III. lxv.:
“insignes per honestum aut notabili dedecore”; XII. xxix.: “subsidio
uictis et terrorem aduersus uictores.”
[1738] Cicero never uses _claritudo_; Sallust uses _claritudo_, not
_claritas_; in Tacitus _claritudo_ is frequent, _claritas_ rare.
[1739] Brugmann, _Indogerm. Forsch._, V., p. 100; Schmalz, _Latein.
Gramm._, ed. 3 p. 474.
[1740] _Cf._ _Agr._, xxii.: “intrepida hiems”; _Germ._, xxvii.:
“sepulcrum caespes erigit”; _Ann._, I. lxxiv.: “uestigia morientis
libertatis.”
[1741] _Dial._, xx. 6.
[1742] In reviewing De Groot’s _Antike Prosarbythmus_, _J.R.S._, XI.
(1921), pp. 116-117, I pointed out that the identity of the possibly
un-Tacitean title _Annales_ with that of Ennius’s poem makes a shaky
foundation for the guess that Tacitus is citing Ennius, and a shakier one
for the dogmatic statement (_op. cit._, p. 27), “die Annalen fängt er
aber so gar mit einem ganzen Hexameter des Ennius an.”
[1743] Ramorino, _Cornelio Tacito nella storia della coltura_, Mil.,
1898; “T. during late Roman period,” J.R.S., VI. (1916), pp. 196 _sqq._
[1744] Vopisc., _Tac._, x.
[1745] Cassiod., _Var._, v. 2: “quodam (_quondam_, Müllenhoff) Cornelio
scribente.”
[1746] Text: Ed. pr. (Ven.), 1470; Calderinus, Ven., 1475; G. Valla,
Ven., 1486; comment. Mancinelli, Lyon, 1498; Britannicus, Bresc., 1501;
Pulmannus, Antw., 1565; in usum Delphini, Par., 1684; Pithoeus, Par.,
1585; Rigaltius, Par., 1613; Henninius, Utr., 1685, and Glasg., 1750; c.
comm. eruditorum (with the Casaubons’ Persius), Leid., 1695; Ruperti,
Lpz., 1801, 1819; Heinrich, Bonn, 1839; Stocker (w. Pers.), ed. 3, Lond.,
1845; Jahn, Berl., 1851 (w. Pers. and Sulpicia, 1858; ed. 2 and 3 by
Bücheler, 1886 and 1893; ed. 4, Leo, 1910); Hermann, Lpz., 1854, 1873,
1897 (w. Sulp.); Ribbeck, Lpz., 1859; Simcox (XIII. Sats.), ed. 2, Lond.,
1873; Lewis (w. Eng. tr.), ed. 2, Lond., 1882; J. E. B. Mayor (XIII.
Sats.), Lond., 1853, 1869, 1880-1881; E. G. Hardy (XIII. Sats.), Lond.,
1883; ed. 2, 1891; Pearson and Strong, Oxf., 1887; Friedländer, 2 vols.,
Lpz., 1895; J. D. Duff (without II. and IX.), Camb., 1898, 1900, 1914;
Housman, Lond., 1905, and in _C. P. Lat._, Lond., 1905; Owen (w. Pers.),
ed. 2, Oxf., 1907.
Winstedt, _Ad Sat. VI. in cod. Bodl. additi versus xxxvi._ (facs.), Oxf.,
1899; Ellis, _The new fragments of J._, Lond. and Oxf., 1901; Cope, _On a
recently discovered fragmt. of J._, Oxf., 1905.
Trans.: In verse, Stapylton, Lond., 1647; Dryden and others (w. Pers.),
Lond., 1693; Gifford, Lond., 1802, 1805; In prose, Strong and Leeper
(XIII. Sats.), Lond., 1882; Owen, Lond., 1903; G. G. Ramsay (w. Pers.,
Loeb ed.), Lond., 1918.
Life: See various edns. and Friedländer, _De Juv. uitae temporibus_,
Köningsb., 1875, and _Sittensgesch. Roms_; Strack, _De Juv. exilio_,
Laub., 1880; Naguiewski, _De Juv. uita observ._, Riga, 1883; Hild,
_Juvénal, notes biog._, Par., 1884; Dürr, _Das Leben Juv._, Ulm, 1888;
Dompierre de Chaufepié, _De titulo I.R.N._ 4312 _ad Juv. poetam perperam
relato_, Hag., 1889; Nettleship, “Life and Poems of J.,” in _Lects. and
Essays_, ser. 2, Oxf., 1895; Merchant, “The parentage of Juv.,” _A.J.P._,
22 (1901).
On Satires: Ribbeck, _Der echte u. d. unechte Juv._, Berl., 1865; Martha,
_Les moralistes sous l’emp. rom._, Par., 1866; ed. 8, 1907; Widal, _Juv.
et ses satires_, Par., 1869; Tyrrell, _Lat. Poetry_, N. Yk., 1895;
Plessis, _La poésie lat._, Par., 1909.
Style: Wilcke, _Disp. quid elocutio Juvenalis a Persiana differat_,
Stendal, 1869; Schwartz, _De J. Horatii imitatore_, Halle, 1882; Gehlen,
_De J. Vergili imitatore_, Gött., 1886; Eskuche, _Juvenals Versbau_,
offprint fr. Friedländer’s ed., Lpz., 1895 (contention that J. is
designedly careless in metre was opposed by L. Müller, _Berl. phil.
Wochenschr._, 1896); Wilson, _Lity. influence of Martial upon J._, in
_A.J.P._, 19 (1898).
[1747] Ioannes Malalas, _Chron._, X., p. 341, Chilm., says Juvenal was
banished to Pentapolis in Libya for attacking Domitian’s favourite Paris.
Suidas has an entry regarding Ἰουβενάλιος to like effect. Juvenal is
coupled with Marius Maximus in Amm. Marcell., XXVIII. iv. 14, and with
Turnus in Rut. Namat., _Itin._, I. 604, and in Ioannes Lydus, _De Mag._,
l. 41.
[1748] IX. 269.
[1749] Published probably before A.D. 114. Juvenal was alive after A.D.
127.
[1750] VII. 90-92.
[1751] _E.g._ on the dole, I. 95 _sqq._; lackeys, III. 188-189; poverty,
III. 152-153, 163-165.
[1752] I. 24-30; III. 58-125; X. 226.
[1753] “Quantum ipse notaui,” XV. 45, is not absolutely convincing proof
of his having been in Egypt. His topographical mistake about the two
villages Ombi and Tentyra does not add to one’s confidence.
[1754] _E.g._ _cf._ I. 15-17 with 25.
[1755] III. 318-321.
[1756] _C.I.L._, X. 5382 = Dessau, _Inscr. Lat. Sel._, I. 2926.
[1757] II. 159-161; IV. 126, 141; X. 14; XIV. 196; XV. 111-112, 124.
[1758] Mart., VII. xxiv. and xci.; XII. xviii.
[1759] Juv., VII. 124-125, “et melius nos egimus.” See Merchant,
_A.J.P._, 22 (1901), PP. 51 _sqq._
[1760] Mart., X. xx. 3; Juv., VIII. 48; _cf._ VII. 145.
[1761] Nettleship, _Lects. and Essays_, II., pp. 124-131; Pearson and
Strong’s ed., pp. 41-43.
[1762] Leo, “Doppelfassungen bei Juv.,” _Herm._, xliv. 4, argued for
two complete editions, one published by the poet himself, the second
(containing alterations) after his death; and attempted to reconstruct
double versions in Juvenal (_cf._ the Bodleian fragment). If copies
of both editions were known to commentators for centuries, then the
posthumous text might in places be interpolated from the earlier.
[1763] II. 29-33; IV. 37, 73, 84-88.
[1764] IV. 153.
[1765] I. 49-50.
[1766] VI. 407, 411.
[1767] _Jrnl. of Phil._, XVI., pp. 55 _sqq._
[1768] VIII. 120: “nuper Marius discinxerit Afros.”
[1769] XIII. 17; XV. 27: “nuper consule Iunco.”
[1770] XI. 203.
[1771] I. 15-17.
[1772] XIII. 121-123.
[1773] XIII. 19-22:
“Magna quidem, sacris quae dat praecepta libellis,
Victrix Fortunae Sapientia: ducimus autem
Hos quoque felices, qui ferre incommoda uitae,
Nec iactare iugum, uita didicere magistra.”
[1774] XI. 65, 190.
[1775] This piece, 34 lines long, was discovered in 1899 by Mr. Winstedt.
The sceptical attacks of a few Continental critics have only served to
establish its authenticity; but Dralle, in a Marburg dissertation, 1922,
renews the ineffectual attempt.
[1776] I. 85-86:
“Quidquid agunt homines, uotum, timor, ira, uoluptas,
Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli.”
[1777] VI. 433:
“Illa tamen grauior, quae cum discumbere coepit,
Laudat Vergilium, periturae ignoscit Elissae.”
[1778] VI. 438-440.
[1779] VI. 440-442:
“Verborum tanta cadit uis,
Tot pariter pelues et tintinnabula dicas
Pulsari.”
[1780] VI. 634 _sqq._: “Fingimus haec....”
[1781] IX. 125-129:
“Nunc mihi quid suades post damnum temporis et spes
Deceptas? festinat enim decurrere, uelox
Flosculus, angustae miseraeque breuissima uitae
Portio; dum bibimus, dum serta unguenta puellas
Poscimus, obrepit non intellecta senectus.”
[1782] III. 152-153.
[1783] III. 254-267.
[1784] VII. 207-210:
“Di, maiorum umbris tenuem et sine pondere terram
Spirantisque crocos et in urna perpetuum uer,
Qui praeceptorem sancti uoluere parentis
Esse loco.”
[1785] VIII. 19-20.
[1786] VIII. 24-28: “... Agnosco procerem....”
[1787] VIII. 83-84:
“Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori
Et propter uitam uiuendi perdere causas.”
[1788] X. 21: “et motae ad lunam trepidabis arundinis umbram.”
[1789] X. 56-89.
[1790] X. 166-167.
[1791] X. 346-366.
[1792] XI. 203:
“Nostra bibat uernum contracta cuticula solem
Effugiatque togam.”
[1793] XII. 128-130.
[1794] XIII. 189-192:
“quippe minuti
Semper et infirmi est animi exiguique uoluptas
Vitio. Continuo sic collige, quod uindicta
Nemo magis gaudet quam femina.”
[1795] XIV. 321: “Nunquam aliud Natura, aliud Sapientia dicit.”
[1796] XV. 131-133: “Mollissima corda”; _cf._ 142 _sqq._: “Separat hoc
nos a grege mutorum.”
[1797] Hor., _Sat._, I. iv. 33-38, 78-85, 100-106, 129-139.
[1798] XIII. 20-22.
[1799] I. 120-126: “... ‘Profer, Galla, caput!’—‘noli uexare: quiescet.’”
[1800] IV. 117-118.
[1801] The laughable at any rate is present. Some of its aspects were
made the subject of a “program” by Neissner, _Ueber das komische Element
in d. Sat. des J._, Dresd., 1876.
[1802] III. 17-20:
“In uallem Egeriae descendimus et speluncas
Dissimiles ueris. Quanto praesentius esset
Numen aquis, uiridi si margine clauderet undas
Herba, nec ingenuum uiolarent marmora tofum.”
[1803] X. 22: “cantabit uacuus coram latrone uiator.”
[1804] V. 130-131:
“plurima sunt quae
non audent homines pertusa dicere laena.”
[1805] XIV. 276; I. 13; X. 221.
[1806] III. 6-9.
[1807] Nisard was too sweeping when he wrote: “Quant à la religion, ce
qu’il en a dit en se moquant ôte toute autorité aux endroits où il parle
sur le ton sérieux,” _Études_, etc., ed. 3, 1867, II., p. 59.
[1808] XIII. 121-122.
[1809] XIV. 25 and 215; _cf._ Hor., _Epist._, I. ii. 42; Virg., _G._, II.
363.
[1810] For historical background, Gregorovius, _Der Kaiser Hadrian_,
ed. 2, Stuttg., 1884; Eng. tr., Robinson, Lond., 1898; Henderson, _Life
and Principate of H._, Lond., 1923 (“H.’s Literary Activities,” pp. 240
_sqq._).
[1811] _Translations ... of Dying Hadrian’s Address to his Soul_,
collected by D. Johnston, Bath, 1876 (in several languages).
[1812] This was my view in _Lit. Hist. of Rome_, 1909, p. 636. Galdi’s
examination of the style and _clausulae_ of Justinus tends to show “che è
assai verosimile ch’egli visse sotto gli Antonini, e propriamente tra il
130-180,” _L’epitome nella lett. lat._, 1922, p. 108.
[1813] Or, Scoticé:
Wee flutterin’ dawtit saul an’ bonnie,
Ma body’s verra guest an’ crony,
For whatna land maun ye awa’,
Sae pale, sae cauldrife, stripp’d o’ a’,
Wi’ fient a joke tae play on ony?
[1814] Ed. pr. (pref. by Campanus), Rome, 1470; (pref. by Bishop of
Aleria) also Rome, 1470; (printed by Jenson) Ven., 1471; Beroaldus,
Bologna, 1493, 1506; Erasmus, Bâle, 1518; Casaubon, Geneva, 1595, Par.,
1610; Pitiscus (comm. varior.), Utr., 1690, Louvain, 1714; P. Burman,
Amst., 1736; Baumgarten-Crusius (comm., ind.), Lpz., 1816; Roth, Lpz.,
1858, 1890, 1904; Preud’homme, Gron., 1906; Ihm, Lpz., 1907. _Suet.
praeter Caesarum libros reliquiae_, Reifferscheid, Lpz., 1860. Sep.
_Vitae: Jul., Aug._, Peck, N. Yk., ed. 2, 1893; _Aug._, Shuckburgh,
Camb., 1896; _Claud._, Smilda, Gron., 1896; _Galb., Oth., Vit._, Hofstee,
Gron., 1898; _Tib., Cal., Claud., Nero_, Pike, Bost., 1903. Trans.: (1)
_Caesars._, Philemon Holland, Lond., 1606 (and reissues); “By several
hands,” Lond., 1688; (2) _extant wks._, Bohn Lib., Lond., 1893 and other
yrs. (Forester’s revision of Thomson’s trans., Lond., 1796); Loeb Lib.,
Rolfe, Lond. and N. Yk., 1914.
On style, etc.: Thimm, _De usu atque elocutione C. Suet._, Königsb.,
1867; Bagge, _De eloc. C. Suet._, Ups., 1875; Macé, _Essai sur Suét._,
Par., 1900; Leo, _Die griech-röm. Biographie_, Lpz., 1901; Freund, _De
Suet. usu ... dicendi_, Bresl., 1901; Howard and Jackson, _Index Verborum
C. Suet. Tranq. stilique eius proprietatum nonnullarum_, Camb., Mass.,
1922.
[1815] There are seven: _Aug._, vii.; _Cal._, xix.; _Ner._, lvii.;
_Oth._, x.; _Dom._, xii.; _De Gramm._, iv. (recollection of hearing
instances of students going straight from _grammatici_ to the bar); _Vit.
Luc._ (recollection of Lucan being lectured on).
[1816] This is Macé’s view, _Essai sur Suét._, pp. 35 _sqq._ Mommsen’s
date, a.d. 77 (_Herm._, III. p. 43), seems too late. Shuckburgh, _Aug._,
p. xxviii., prefers 75, which Teuffel thinks the latest possible year.
[1817] _Ner._, lvii.; _Dom._, xii. 2.
[1818] _Ep._, I. xviii.; III. viii.; V. x.; IX. xxxiv.; X. xciv.
[1819] _Ep._, X. xciv. ... “in contubernium adsumpsi tantoque magis
diligere coepi quanto hunc (? nunc, ? tunc) propius inspexi.”
[1820] “Ab epistulis”; or, acc. to the later title used by Spartian, Vit.
Hadr., xi. “epistularum magister.”
[1821] Spart., _Hadr._, xi.
[1822] _Ep._, V. x. 2: “Sum et ipse in edendo haesitator: tu tamen meam
quoque cunctationem tarditatemque uicisti.”
[1823] The _Lives_ of Virgil and Persius have had defenders, but are not
usually accepted as by Suetonius.
[1824] Possibly it should be connected with Καισάρων ιβʹ, “The Twelve
Caesars,” which it immediately precedes in Suidas.
[1825] This would make up for their dismissal with scarcely more than a
chapter in _Vit. Iul._, xxv.-vi.
[1826] The theories of Reifferscheid and Schanz are summarized by Schanz,
_op. cit._, VIII. iii. (1922), pp. 63-64.
[1827] Plin., _Ep._, V. x.; Macé, _op. cit._ Roth gives A.D. 106-113.
[1828] Macé, _op. cit._, has discussed the imperial documents available
for consultation by Suetonius.
[1829] _Ner._, lii.
[1830] _Cl._, xli.
[1831] Prof. Monroe Deutsch has contended that the author who recorded
the story of Caesar’s extravagant gifts to his reputed mistress Queen
Eunoe of Mauretania was not (M. Actorius) Naso, but (P. Attius) Varus,
one of Pompey’s officers, and therefore hostile to Caesar. The argument
is that in Suet., _Iul._, lii., the true reading is “ut Varus scripsit,”
_Class. Jrnl._, Dec., 1921.
[1832] _Cal._, viii.
[1833] _Vit._, i.
[1834] _De Gramm._, xxii.
[1835] _Anct._ _Lives of Virgil_, pp. 28 _sqq._
[1836] _Cf._ _Iul._, xliv., his mapping out of _forma_, _habitus_,
_cultus_, _mores_, _ciuilia studia_, _bellica studia_, as themes to
precede the omens of death.
[1837] Philarète Chasles, _Études sur le seizième siècle_, Par., 1876:
“Brantôme, Pepys et Suétone,” pp. 339-352.
[1838] _Les Trophées_, sonnet on “Tranquillus.”
[1839] _Iul._, xlv.; _Aug._, lxxix.; _Tib._, lxviii.; _Cal._, l.; _Cl._,
xxx.; _Ner._, li.; _Galb._, xxi.
[1840] _Iul._, xxxi.-xxxii. (where the well-known “iacta alea est”
occurs). _Cf._ Lucan’s account, translated p. 303 _supra_.
[1841] _Iul._, lxxxii.; _Tib._, xi.; _Cal._, xxxii.; _Ner._, xl.-xlix.
[1842] Extract from Augustus’s letter, _Claud._, iv.: “Nam qui tam ἀσαφῶς
loquatur, qui possit cum declamat σαφῶς dicere ... non uideo.”
[1843] _Hist. de l’éloq. rom._, I. 311.
[1844] De Groot, _Prosarhythmus_, pp. 108-109.
[1845] Macé, _op. cit._, pp. 379-398. Shuckburgh, _Aug._, pref. ix.,
declares “For rhythmical prose he has either no ear or no patience.”
[1846] Vopisc., _Firm._, i.: “Suetonius Tranquillus, emendatissimus et
candidissimus scriptor ... cui familiare fuit amare breuitatem.”
[1847] Spart., _Hadr._, xvi.
[1848] _De Gram._, x.
[1849] See footnote on _Historia Augusta_, p. 655 _infra_.
[1850] Ed. pr., Par., _c._ 1470; Camers, Vienn., 1518; Gruter, Heidel.,
1597; Salmasius, Heidel., 1609; Tanaquil Faber, Saumur, 1672 (illustr.
Anna, T. Fabri filia, in usum Delph., Lond., 1692); Graevius, Utr., 1680;
Duker, Leyd., 1722; Fischer, Lpz., 1760; Titze, Prag., 1819; Jahn, Lpz.,
1852; Halm, Lpz., 1854, 1872; Rossbach, Lpz., 1896.
Trans.: M. Casaubon, Lond., 1658; Watson (w. Sall. and Paterc.), Lond.,
1876, 1889.
Other Wks.: Monceaux, _Les Africains_, Par., 1894 (pp. 193-209);
Sabbadini, “Del numerus in Floro,” _Riv. fil. cl._, xxv. 1897; Galdi,
_L’epitome nella lett. rom._, Nap., 1922 (pp. 44-62).
[1851] Printed in Halm’s ed., pp. 106-109.
[1852] Spart. _Hadr._, xvi.; Bährens, _Frag. P.R._, p. 373.
Florus: “Ego nolo Caesar esse,
Ambulare per Britannos,
Scythicas pati pruinas.”
Hadr.: “Ego nolo Florus esse,
Ambulare per tabernas,
Latitare per popinas,
Culices pati rotundos.”
One of Florus’s lines may have dropped out.
[1853] Bährens, _P.L.M._, iv., p. 279 and 346.
[1854] Ed. pr., Pithoeus, Par., 1577; (w. Catull., Tib., Prop.) Utr.,
1680 (notes by Lipsius and Dousa); (w. Catull.) Owen, Lond., 1893;
_Peruig. Ven._, Mackail, Lond., 1910; Clementi, Oxf., 1911 (w. trans.);
Fort (in quatrains), Oxf., 1922; Postgate (Lat. and Eng.), Lond., 1924.
[1855] Mackail pointed out the quaternary arrangement and printed a
reconstruction in _Jrl. Philol._, vol. xvii., 1888.
[1856] See Appendix to Fort’s ed. of _Peruig. Ven._
[1857] Flor., II. xxxiii.; Plin., _N.H._, XXXIII. 4 (21); 5 (26, 27); 6
(40).
[1858] His “plus quam bellum,” II. xi., in reference to civil strife,
seems an echo of Lucan’s opening line. But see footnote on p. 321 _supra_.
[1859] _Prooem._, 8: “A Caesare Augusto in saeculum nostrum haud
multo minus anni ducenti ... sub Traiano principe mouit (mouet,
_Naz._) lacertos et praeter spem omnium senectus imperii ... reuiruit
(reuirescit, _Naz._).” I. v. 5, “hactenus pro libertate ... Euphrates,”
could not have been written before A.D. 115.
[1860] Augustine must have had Florus in his eye when he wrote the words
“non tam narrare bella Romana quam Romanum imperium laudare,” _Ciu. Dei_,
iii. 19.
[1861] _E.g._ the anaphora “unde ... nisi ...” three times, I. xlvii.
[1862] Monceaux, _Les Africains_, p. 209, thinks that Florus, “prépare
les voies aux grands rhéteurs d’Afrique ... et s’il tombe fréquemment
dans la déclamation, l’afféterie et le mauvais goût, ce seront là
justement des défauts familiers à la prose africaine.”
[1863] Not, however, invariably: _e.g._ “reuersus igitur” (III. x. = I.
xlv.).
[1864] Teuffel records 125 occurrences of _quasi_ and 75 of _quippe_
in the 81 chapters. The single chapter cited in the previous note
illustrates several inartistic repetitions of both words.
[1865] Ed. by Wölfflin, Lpz., 1873; _cf._ Galdi, _op. cit._, pp. 80-89.
[1866] Professor Summers in his _Silver Age of Lat. Lit._ omits even
Suetonius.
[1867] Certain aspects of this later Hellenic literature are sketched in
Mahaffy’s _Silver Age of the Gk. World_, Chicago, 1906.
[1868] Dessau, _Herm._ XXIV. (1889), assigned it to the days of
Theodosius the Great, _i.e._ late in 4th cent. But N. Baynes, _Hist.
Aug., Its Date and Purpose_, Oxf., 1926, argues for A.D. 362-363, under
Julian.
[1869] _De Consulatu Stilichonis_, III. 150:
“Haec est in gremium uictos quae sola recepit,
Humanumque genus communi nomine fouit,
Matris non dominae ritu: ciuesque uocauit,
Quos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua reuinxit.”
[1870] _E.g._ Simcox, _A Hist. of Lat. Lit. from Ennius to Boethius_,
1883. Teuffel extends his _Geschichte_ beyond Cassiodorus and Gregory of
Tours so as to include some writers of the seventh and eighth cents.
[1871] Manitius begins his _Gesch. der lat. Lit. des Mittelalters_,
1911-1923, with Boethius. Pichon, _Hist. de la litt. lat._, regards
Sidonius, Boethius and Cassiodorus as “tout à fait confins du moyen âge.”
INDEX
The letter _n._ after a number means a footnote on the page indicated.
For the main subjects treated under leading authors, consultants are
referred to the summary prefixed to each chapter, and for other points
to the bibliographies given in the footnotes. The index includes the
names of modern scholars cited in the notes, where their views illustrate
literary history or criticism.
A
_Ab_: for titles so beginning _see_ under leading word
=Abbott=, Prof. F. F., 170 _n._, 185 _n._
_Abusive Terms and their Origin_ (in Greek by Suetonius, lost), 633
=Academic Thought=, 36, 370
=Accius=, 30, 68, 70, 79, 153, 252, 254, 256, 257, 269, 273, 283,
558, 596
_Achilleid_, 470, 482-483
_Achilles in Scyros_, 483
=Ackermann=, 257 _n._
=Acrostic=, 343-344
_Acta diurna_, 584, 585, 586 _n._, 635
_Acta senatus_, 584, 585, 586 _n._, 635
_Ad_: for titles so beginning _see_ under leading word
=Addison=, 33
=Ademar=, 150, 151 _n._
_Adlocutio ad Pollam_ (Lucan, lost), 300
_Aduersus Astrologos_ (lost), 161
_Aduersus Nationes_ (Arnobius), 654
_Aegisthus_ (Andronicus, lost), 256
_Aeglogues_ (in _Shepheards Calender_), 335
=Aelian= (on Greek tactics), 630
_Aeneas_ (drama by Pomponius Secundus, lost), 159, 273
_Aeneid_, 166, 178, 182, 268, 316, 437, 441, 447, 458, 460, 466, 477,
481, 482
=Aerodius=, 414
=Aeschylean depth=, 251, 255
=Aeschylus=, 250, 253;
(in relation to Seneca), 255-256; 270, 480
=Aeserninus= (speaker), 62
=Aesop=, 29, 135-139, 146, 150, 153
_Aethiopica_, 189
_Aetna_, 217, 323, 338-341
=Afer=; _see_ “Domitius”
=Afranius=, 30, 186 _n._, 277, 651
=Africa, schools in=, 37, 38, 615
=African Latin=; _see_ “Latin”
_Agamemnon_ (Aeschylus), 251, 256
_Agamemnon_ (Seneca), 248, 255-256, 267, 270, 272, 274
=Agathurnus=, Claudius, 281
_Agaue_ (Statius, lost), 158, 468, 470, 530
_Agesilaos_ (Xenophon), 569
=Agricola= (governor in Britain), 423, 560, 561, 562, 563, 567-572,
597
=Agricola= (humanist), 413
_Agricola_ (by Tacitus), 560, 563, 566, 567-573, 629
_Agricultura, De_ (Celsus, lost), 115
=Agriculture=, 18, 36, 114, 115, 160-168, 231, 334, 354, 374, 378, 383
=Agrippina the elder=, 583
=Agrippina the younger=, 201, 202, 204, 213, 244, 274, 277, 345, 349,
583, 592
=Agrippina’s= _Memoirs_, 62, 234, 584, 592
=Aietius Pastor= (rhetor), 61
=Alban poetic contests=, 6, 468, 529
=Albertini=, 196 _n._, 207, 208, 209 _n._, 211, 216 _n._, 217 _n._,
223 _n._
=Albinovanus Pedo=, 57, 156, 157, 512
=Albucius Silus= (rhetor), 48, 50, 60
_Alcithoe_ (lost drama), 278
=Alcuin=, 385, 657
=Alexander=, William, Earl of Stirling (dramatist), 273
=Alexander Severus= (emperor), 38, 40, 150, 653
=Alexander the Great=: (Curtius’s hero), 101-113; 125, 214, 315, 374,
461, 465, 617
_Alexandri Magni Historiae_, 101-113, 323
=Alexandria=, 125, 137, 150, 225, 363, 364, 367, 380, 651, 656
=Alexandrian literary canons=, 400, 401, 480
=Alexandrinism=, 287, 480, 493
=Alfieri=, 598
=Alfius Avitus= (Hadrianic poet), 628
=Alfius Flavus= (rhetor), 62
_Alice in Wonderland_, 239
=Allain=, 532 _n._, 533 _n._, 538 _n._
=Alliteration=, 263, 311, 328, 450, 466, 611, 626-627
_Aloisia_ (Chorier), 289
=Aly=, 358 _n._, 359, 360 _n._, 361
=Alzinger=, 338
_Ambracia_ (Ennius, lost), 273
=Ambrosius=, 643, 654
=Ammianus Marcellinus=, 597, 627, 643, 649, 655, 656
=Ampelius=, 649
_Anabasis_ (Arrian), 631
_Anabasis_ (Xenophon), 631
=Analogy and Anomaly= (linguistic), 352
=Anatole France=, 44 _n._, 188, 197 _n._
=Anderson=, J. G. C., 202 _n._, 559 _n._, 569 _n._, 571 _n._
=Andrelinus=, 335
=Andresen=, 569 _n._
=Andronicus=, Livius, 27, 29, 70, 256, 342
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 581
=Annaeus Mela=, 44, 198, 296, 298
=Annaeus Novatus=, “Gallio,” 44, 197, 211, 212, 296
=Annaeus Seneca=, L.: _see_ “Seneca the elder”
=Annaeus Seneca=, L.: _see_ “Seneca the younger”
=Annaeus Serenus=, 213, 214
_Annales_ (Hortensius, lost), 89
_Annals_ of Tacitus, or _Ab Excessu Diui Augusti_, 97, 156, 562, 563,
576, 577, 581-596, 597
=Annianus= (poet), 628
=Ante-Augustan poetry=, 30:
_see also_ “Archaizing”
_Anthologia Latina_, 246
=Anthropology= (barely touched in Pliny), 354, 363, 365, 368, 573-574
=Anti-Caesarian spirit=, 1, 7, 84;
(in drama), 277;
(alleged in Persius), 293-294; 297;
(in Lucan), 311, 316-318;
_see also_ “Stoic Opposition”
=Antigonus of Carystus=, 364
=Antimachus=, 480
_Antiquae Lectiones_ or _Stromateus_ (lost dictionary), 558
=Antistius Sosianus= (satirist), 346
=Antistius Vetus=, L., 234
=Antoninus Pius= (emperor), 39, 602, 632, 651, 654
=Antonius Castor= (botanist), 131, 363
=Antonius Julianus= (historian), 585
=Antonius Liberalis= (rhetor), 236
=Aper=, Marcus (in Tacitus’s _Dialogus_), 257, 389, 561, 564
=Apicius=, 131
_Apicius De Re Coquinaria_, 132
_Apocolocyntosis_, 173, 227, 237-246, 292 _n._
=Apollinaris= (critic), 431
=Apollinaris Sidonius=; _see_ “Sidonius”
=Apollodoreans=, 61, 397, 398
=Apollodorus= (on siege-craft), 630
=Apollodorus of Pergamum=, 61, 397
=Apollonius of Rhodes=, 435, 436, 445, 446, 448
_Apologeticum_ (Tertullian), 231, 654
_Apophoreta_ (Martial), 501, 503, 512
=Apotheosis=, 3, 242, 313:
_see also_ “Deification” and satiric treatment in _Apocolocyntosis_
_Appendix Vergiliana_, 338
=Appian=, 321 _n._, 654
_Apuleius_, 38, 189, 415, 430, 523, 596, 646, 652, 654, 655
=Aqueducts=, 18, 368, 423, 427-430, 486;
(_Marcia_), 508;
(_Virgo_), 521 _n._; 583
_Aquis, De_, 423, 424, 427-431
_Aratea_ (Cicero), 156
_Aratea_ (Germanicus), 156, 344
=Aratus=, 155
_Arboribus, De_ (Columella), 161
=Archaisms=, 191, 231, 236, 283, 410, 466 _n._, 558, 593 _n._,
595-596, 630, 642, 651, 652
=Archaizing=, 2, 30, 61, 228, 412, 596, 597, 650-652
=Archilochus= (iambic satirist), 512
=Archimedes=, 363, 461
=Architecture=, 36, 364, 629
_Ardaliones_, 16, 140, 216
=Arellius Fuscus= (rhetor), 44, 45 _n._, 48, 51, 52, 57, 60
=Argentarius= (rhetor), 61
_Argonautica_ (Apollonius), 435
_Argonautica_ (Valerius Flaccus), 433-451, 475
_Argumentatio_, 61
=Aristarchus= (literary critic), 401
=Aristarchus= (scientific source for Pliny), 362
=Aristides= (rhetorician), 655
=Aristobulus=, 105
=Aristocrates=, Petronius, 281
=Aristophanes=, comic dramatist, 244, 284
=Aristophanes of Byzantium=, 401
=Aristotelianism=, 13, 407
=Aristotle=, 222, 356 _n._, 357, 359, 360, 361, 363, 366, 367, 385,
404
=Arithmetic=, 24, 26, 36
=Arnault=, 598
=Arnobius=, 654
=Arnolletus=, 335
=Arrian=, 102, 105, 231, 630, 631, 654
=Arrius Antoninus= (writer of Greek mimes), 555
=Arruntius= (orator), 62
_Ars_ (Palaemon’s rhetoric), 131
_Ars Poetica_ (_Ad Pisones_, Horace), 542
=Art= (painting, sculpture, etc.), 4, 95-96, 176, 179, 181, 348 _n._,
354, 355, 359, 364, 368, 403, 471, 487, 493, 508, 569
=Artificiality=; _see_ “Rhetorical Style”
=Arulenus Rusticus= (Stoic), 386
=Asbach=, 560 _n._
=Ascham=, 413
=Asclepiades=, 116, 120
=Asconius Pedianus=, 235, 634
=Ashby=, Dr. Thomas, 422 _n._
=Asian style=, 403
=Asinius Gallus=, 62, 636
=Asinius Pollio=, 28, 44, 48, 50, 58, 62, 70, 319, 635
=Asper=, Aemilius (grammarian), 432
=Asprenas=, (rhetor), 62
_Astronomica_ (Manilius), 154, 323
=Astronomy=, 28, 36, 125, 155-156, 163, 177, 221, 312, 324, 363, 384,
394, 397
_Astyanax_ (Accius, lost), 252
=Ateius Philologus=, 28
=Atellan farce=, 157-158, 178, 276, 277
=Athenaeum= (Hadrian’s), 39, 629
=Athenian drama=; _see_ “Greek drama”
_Atreus_ (Accius, lost), 257
_Atreus_ (Mamercus Scaurus, lost), 62, 158
_Atreus_ (Rubrenus Lappa, lost), 278
=Atrius=, 557
=Attalus= (philosopher), 199
_Attia Viriola, Pro_ (lost speech by Pliny), 537, 550
=Attic style=, 403-404
=Atticus=, Julius, 131, 164
=Atticus=, Pomponius (Cicero’s friend), 30, 89, 226, 542
_Aufidi Bassi, A Fine_ (lost history), 352
=Aufidius Bassus=, 82, 352, 585, 587
=Aufidius Chius= (jurist), 431
=Augurinus= (author of _poematia_), 548, 556
=Augustan Age=, 1, 10, 21, 84, 89, 100, 252, 418, 590, 636, 655
_Augustan History_: _see_ “_Historia Augusta_”
=Augustans=, 60, 287, 332, 410:
_see also_ “Horace,” “Livy,” “Virgil,” etc.
=Augustine=, St., 38, 115, 597, 647 _n._, 657
=Augustus=, Octavian Caesar, 2, 3, 39, 44, 45, 63, 65, 73, 83, 84,
88, 89, 90, 96, 98, 134, 150, 154, 155, 156, 170, 176, 183, 240,
244, 296, 363, 369, 370, 380, 397, 407, 563, 577, 581, 590, 592,
593, 634, 637, 639, 647
=Aurelius=, Marcus, 37, 38, 40, 150, 231, 630, 631, 651
=Aurelius Victor=, 643
=Ausonius=, 38, 40, 523, 627, 656
=Autobiographies=, 570, 585:
_see_ “_Memoirs_”
=Avianus= (fabulist), 134, 149, 150
=Avienus= (descriptive poet), 156
B
=Babrius=, 150
=Bacha=, 591 _n._
=Bacon=, 166, 203, 204, 230, 364, 658
=Baebius Massa= (_delator_), 421
=Bährens, E.=, 193, 246 _n._, 301 _n._, 342 _n._
=Bährens, W. A.=, 533 _n._
=Bagge=, 631 _n._
=Baier=, 297 _n._, 319
=Bailey’s= _Festus_ quoted, 120
=Balbus= (geometrician), 558
=Barberet=, 161 _n._
=Barclay=, Alex., 335
=Barea Soranus=, 235
=Basil the Great=, 420
=Bassus= (dramatist), 257, 278 _n._
=Bassus=, Aufidius: _see_ “Aufidius”
=Bassus=, Caesius (metrist and lyric poet), 235, 280, 282, 287, 346
=Bassus=, Julius (rhetor), 48, 198
=Bassus=, Saleius (epic poet), 336, 346, 529
=Baynes=, 655 _n._
=Bebel=, 413
=Beck=, 169 _n._, 170, 352 _n._
=Bede=, 384, 657
=Beesly=, 590 _n._
_Bellum Ciuile_ (poem in _Satyricon_), 182, 192
=Bembo=, 658
=Bender=, 532 _n._
_Beneficiis, De_, 206, 218-221, 234
=Berge=, De la, 532 _n._, 538 _n._
=Bernhardy=, 331
=Bibaculus=, 153, 512
=Bickel=, 243 _n._, 245 _n._
=Binet=, 193
=Biography=, 158, 200, 206, 279, 364, 421, 557, 567-573, 597;
(medieval _Vitae_), 599-604; 629;
(in Suetonius), 631-643;
_see_ “_Memoirs_”
=Bion=, 289
=Bionaean satire=, 227, 289
=Birt=, 242 _n._, 249 _n._, 357, 358 _n._
=Blair= (rhetorician), 413
=Boccaccio=, 597, 658
=Bocchus=, 83
=Boethius=, 657
=Bötticher=, 560 _n._, 593
=Boileau=, 294, 548, 627
=Boissier=, 40 _n._, 42 _n._, 498 _n._, 560 _n._, 571 _n._, 586
=Bonnefons= (author of _Basia_), 529
=Book production and sales=, 282, 391, 392, 499, 519, 536 _n._, 537,
555, 644
=Borenius=, 586 _n._
=Bornecque=, 31 _n._, 42 _n._
=Borrow=, 190
=Boswellian qualities=, 55
=Botany=, 131;
(in _Columella_), 165-168;
(in Pliny), 354, 363, 366;
_see also_ “Agriculture”
=Botticelli=, 325
=Bourgery=, 196 _n._, 207, 218 _n._, 221 _n._, 223 _n._, 230 _n._
=Brakman=, 338 _n._
=Brassicanus=, 334
_Breuitate Vitae, De (Ad Paulinum)_, 207, 208, 215-217
=Bridges=, Robert, 483
=Brieger=, 359
=Britain=, schools in, 37, 603
=Britannicus=, 202, 204, 274, 583
_Britannicus_ (Racine), 598
=Browning=, 292, 621
=Brugmann=, 595 _n._
=Brunn=, 356, 358
=Bruttedius= (rhetor), 62
_Brutus_ (Accius, lost), 273
=Buchanan=, George, 271, 658
=Budaeus=, 658
=Bücheler=, 135 _n._, 169 _n._, 245 _n._, 338
=Buffon=, 366
=Bunbury=, 126 _n._
=Burman=, 86 _n._, 133 _n._, 169 _n._, 433 _n._
=Burns=, Robert, 144, 543
=Burrus=, 202
=Bursian’s= _Jahresber._, 387 _n._, 533 _n._
=Butler=, Prof. H. E., 270 _n._, 446 _n._, 496 _n._, 498 _n._
=Byron=, 296, 516, 518, 544, 627
=Byzantines=, 643, 649
C
=Caecilius= (dramatist), 30, 651
=Caecilius Calactinus=, 407
=Caecilius Epirota=, 30
=Caelius Antipater=, 70, 362, 642
=Caelius Rufus=, 430
=Caepio= (botanist), 131
=Caesar=: _see_ “Julius”
=Caesar=, continuators of, 93
=Caesars=, flattery of, 69, 72-73, 78, 81, 85-90, 96-100, 201,
210-211, 218, 243, 244, 302, 331, 333, 335, 343, 389, 469, 470,
472, 485, 486-487, 521-522, 529, 538-540, 623
=Caesars=, opposition to, 14, 63, 89, 235, 293, 299, 311, 316-318:
_see_ “Anti-Caesarian,” “Stoic opposition”
_Caesars, Lives of the_ (Suetonius), 2, 632, 634-636, 637-643
=Caesar-worship=, 3, 14, 73, 98, 99, 102;
(Augustal priesthood), 175, 179;
(jested at), 240; 302, 334, 521-522, 539, 551, 603;
_see_ “Deification”
=Caesellius Vindex= (scholar), 558
=Caesius Bassus=; _see_ “Bassus”
=Calderon=, 272
=Caligula=, Gaius Caesar, 5, 6, 13, 46, 61, 63, 82, 83, 102, 114,
126, 132, 134, 135, 157, 158, 200, 211, 243, 263, 353, 385, 489,
571, 577, 581, 582, 590, 591, 636, 639;
(_Life_), 640
=Callimachus=, 555
=Calpurnius Flaccus=, 32, 56
=Calpurnius Piso= (elegiac writer in younger Pliny’s time), 556
=Calpurnius Piso=, C. (Neronian conspirator), 203, 299, 332, 335-336,
338
=Calpurnius Piso=, L. (Tiberian orator), 63
=Calpurnius Siculus=, 17, 194, 293, 330-338, 339, 656
=Calvus= (orator and poet), 552, 556
=Cammelli=, 270
=Campbell= (rhetorician), 413
=Caninius Rufus= (epic writer), 556
=Canius Rufus= (tragic writer), 530
=Capito=, Ateius (rhetor), 48, 62, 131, 430
=Capitoline poetic contests=, 6, 470, 529, 644
_Captive Women_ (lost play by Sophocles), 252
=Carlyle=, 205, 621
=Carthaginian writers=, 160, 364, 654; _see also_ “Apuleius,”
“Augustine,” “Hanno,” “Mago”
=Carus= (emperor), 331
=Casaubon=, 293, 294
=Cassiodor(i)us=, 412, 542, 554, 597, 657 _n._
=Cassius= (physician), 117
=Cassius Longinus= (jurist), 235
=Cassius Severus= (orator), 48, 49, 63
_Catachannae_ (Hadrian’s, lost), 629
_Catachthonion_ (Lucan’s, lost), 300, 301
_Catilina_ (Sallust), 570
_Catiline_ (Ben Jonson), 273
=Cato the elder=, “Censor,” 24, 35, 36, 45, 71, 89, 115, 151, 163,
164, 165, 334, 356, 357, 359, 360, 363, 378, 396, 642, 650
=Cato Uticensis=, 79, 90, 92, 96, 214, 235, 246;
(as Lucan’s hero), 305, 314-315, 318, 328, 329
_Cato, Life of_ (by Thrasea), 235, 280
_Cato_ (_praetexta_ by Curiatius Maternus, lost), 273, 278, 529
=Catullian influence=; (on Statius), 493;
(on Martial), 512, 513, 515, 523;
(at Renaissance), 529;
(in Pliny’s time), 556
=Catullus=, 1, 144, 153, 348, 402, 408, 497, 510, 511, 512, 513, 523,
524, 556
=Catullus= (mime-writer), 157
=Catulus= (Republican autobiography), 570
_Catus De Liberis Educandis_ (Varro), 566
_Causae_ (Ciceronian), 32 _n._, 47
=Cavalier poets=, 518
=Celsus=, Cornelius, 16, 18, 36, 114-124, 130, 131, 132, 161, 164,
235, 357, 363, 407, 420, 554
_Cena Trimalchionis_, 174-185
=Censorinus=, 633, 643
=Cestius Pius= (rhetor), 45 _n._, 49, 50, 58, 61
=Character-drawing=, 94-97, 107-110, 179, 187, 259, 302, 444-446;
(weak in Silius), 463;
(in Tacitus), 564, 572, 577-578, 580, 590-592, 594;
(in Juvenal), 610-612, 614
=Charisius=, 352, 558, 653
=Charlemagne=, 385, 643
=Chasles=, 638 _n._
=Chaucer=, 104, 175, 484, 622, 627
=Chauvin=, 185 _n._
=Chénier=, 598
=Chorier=, 289
_Chorographia_ or _De Situ Orbis_, 126-131
_Chriae_, 29
=Christian affinities=; (in Seneca), 231;
(in Persius), 294;
(in Statius), 479, 484
=Christian apologetics=, 2, 653-654
=Christian literary studies=, 38, 528, 627, 643, 654: _see_ “Fathers
of the Church”
=Christianity and Christians=, 3, 545, 546, 550, 551, 554, 597,
653-654
=Chrysippus=, 282, 407, 566
=Cicero=, 1, 18, 19, 28, 30, 32, 35, 36, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 56,
58, 61, 62, 70, 81, 84, 91, 105, 123, 155, 156, 165, 190, 223,
226, 227, 228, 229, 233, 235, 252, 269, 310, 320, 352, 378, 383,
395, 396, 398, 401, 402, 407, 409, 410, 421, 431, 453, 458, 465,
533, 536, 542, 544, 550, 552, 553, 554, 566, 570, 615, 617, 633,
637, 642, 648
_Ciceromastix_, 432
=Ciceronian age=, 84, 92 _n._
=Ciceronian influence=, 47, 58, 400, 410, 566, 570
=Ciceronian style=, contrasts with, 78, 90, 383, 401, 431, 593, 657
=Ciceronianism=, 18, 19, 20, 228, 390, 401, 411;
(in younger Pliny), 551-554; 561, 566, 598, 633, 651, 654, 655
=Cicero’s= _Letters_, 542, 544
_Cicero’s Republic, On_ (Suetonius, lost), 633
=Cichorius=, 158 _n._, 161 _n._, 249 _n._
_Ciuitate Dei, De_, 657
=Claranus=, 432
=Clark=, Prof. A. C., 235 _n._, 484 _n._
=Clason=, 586 _n._
=Classic=, 22, 606-607
_Clastidium_ (Naevius, lost), 273
=Claudian=, 627, 656, 657
=Claudius= (emperor), 3, 4, 5, 6, 17, 29, 39, 61-62, 63, 64, 82, 83,
102, 114, 126, 131, 183, 201, 204, 211, 215, 218;
(satirized), 237-246; 247, 274, 277, 280, 331, 342, 349, 353, 489,
539, 577, 581, 582, 583, 585, 590, 634, 635, 639;
(_Life_), 640
=Claudius Balbillus=, 234
=Claussen=, 401 _n._
_Clausulae_ (sentence-endings), 113, 124, 130-131, 165, 207, 218
_n._, 400, 411 _n._, 414, 551, 629 _n._, 642, 649
_Clementia, De_, 202, 206, 208, 217-218
=Clemm=, 593 _n._
=Cleopatra=, 315, 379, 384
=Cleophantus=, 116
=Clitarchus=, 105
=Clodius Quirinalis= (rhetorician), 236
_Clutemestra_ (Accius, lost), 256
=Cluvius Rufus=, 385, 453, 584, 585, 586 _n._, 587
=Coarseness=, 123-124, 149, 172, 184, 186-188, 189, 247, 292 _n._,
504, 505, 514, 518, 521-524, 536, 609-612, 623, 637-638
=Codrus= or =Cordus= (epic writer), 530
=Cole=, 401 _n._
=Coleridge=, 156
_Collecta_ (Pomponius Rufus, lost), 70
_Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium_ (Solinus), 384
=Colloquialisms=: _see_ “Latin, spoken”
_Colores_ (manual), 62
_Colores_ (rhetorical), 34, 51-53, 57, 62, 540
=Colson=, F. H., 9, 388 _n._, 392 _n._, 409 _n._, 412 _n._, 413 _n._
=Columella=, 16, 18, 114, 131, 160-168, 231, 334, 357, 361, 364, 554,
595, 643
=Comedy=, Latin, 157, 184, 190, 276-277, 292 _n._, 402, 506, 547,
556, 557
_Commentarii Agrippinae_: _see_ “Agrippina’s _Memoirs_”
_Commentarii Principales_, 585
=Commodianus=, 654
=Commodus= (emperor), 652
_Communes loci_ (“common places”), 31, 59, 209, 280, 288, 327
_Confessiones_, 38
_Coniecturales causae_, 31
=Conrad=, 190
_Consolatio ad Heluiam_, 197, 201, 207, 208, 210, 298
_Consolatio ad Marciam_, 200, 207, 208, 209-210
_Consolatio ad Polybium_, 201, 207, 208, 210-211, 243, 342
“=Consolations=” (in prose or verse), 156, 209-211, 487, 489, 491, 492
=Consoli=, 532 _n._
_Constantia Sapientis, De_, 207, 208, 213, 234
=Constantine=, 655
=Constantius Chlorus=, 40
_Controuersia_ (as exercise), 9, 11, 32-35, 326, 419
_Controuersiae_ (elder Seneca), 44, 45-57, 60, 63, 653
_Controuersiae et Suasoriae_ (elder Seneca), 23, 32, 33, 43
=Copernicus=, 365, 366
=Corbulo=: _see_ “Domitius”
=Corduba=, 43, 197, 298, 318
=Corneille=, 271, 598
=Cornelius Balbus= (dramatist), 273
=Cornelius Nepos= (biographer), 89, 128, 356, 362, 364, 634, 635
=Cornelius Severus= (poet), 58, 339
=Cornificius=, 407
=Cornutus=, 235, 281, 282, 286, 288, 292, 298
_Corruptae Eloquentiae, De Causis_ (Quintilian, lost), 391, 566
=Cosmology and Cosmography= (in younger Seneca), 221-222;
(in elder Pliny), 354
=Cosmopolitanism=, 4, 13, 60, 202, 232
=Courbaud=, 576 _n._
_Courtesans, Eminent_ (Suetonius, lost), 633
=Courthope=, 527 _n._
=Cowley=, 658
=Cowper=, 545
=Crates=, 27
=Cratinus=, 284
=Cremutius Cordus=, 63, 82, 209, 319, 635
=Criticism on speakers=, 5, 47-52, 55, 199-200, 388, 395, 403-405,
408, 536-538, 561-562, 564-566; _see also_ “Literary Criticism,”
“Oratory,” “Rhetoric”
=Crito= (Hadrianic Greek historian, lost), 630
=Cruickshank=, Prof., 316 _n._
=Crusius=, 137 _n._
=Cucheval=, 42 _n._, 537 _n._, 641
_Culex_, 485
=Cunaeus=, 245
_Cupid and Psyche_, 189, 408
=Curiatius Maternus=, 254, 257, 273, 274, 277-278, 529, 564-565
=Curtius Montanus= (satirist, lost), 346
=Curtius Rufus=, Q., 18, 82, 101-113, 130, 323, 431
=Cuvier=, 366
_Cynegetica_, 330, 656
=Cynicism=, 12, 14, 173, 245, 288, 289, 418
=Cynico-Stoical thought=, 288, 289
=Cyprian=, 654
D
=Dante=, 484, 658
=Darwin=, 365
_De_: for titles _see_ under leading word
=Decadence in oratory=, 11, 46-47, 49, 51, 59, 229, 391, 394, 552,
563, 564-567
=Decadence in style=, 227, 652
=Decadent literature=, 22, 283, 557, 650
_Decius_ (Accius, lost), 273
=Declamation=, 9-12, 30-36, 38, 39, 42 _n._, 43, 44, 47-48, 49, 50,
56, 60, 61, 75-79, 81, 118, 198, 209, 298, 324, 352, 390, 391,
394-395, 398, 414-420, 601, 603, 615, 617, 625, 636, 640
_Declamationes_ (pseudo-Quintilianean), 391, 411, 412, 414-420
_Defloratio_ (excerpted from elder Pliny), 385
=Deification=, 13, 17, 98, 239;
(of Hercules), 258;
(of Nero), 302; 575, 603:
_see also_ “Apotheosis” and for satiric treatment
“_Apocolocyntosis_”
_Delatores_, 10, 63-64, 142, 236
_Deliciae Poetarum_, 658
=Demetrius= (Cynic), 288
=Demetrius of Phaleron=, 137, 150
=Democritus=, 617
=Demosthenes=, 174, 404, 537, 552, 617
=Dessau=, Prof., 4 _n._, 161 _n._, 213 _n._, 216 _n._, 536 _n._, 603
_n._, 655 _n._
=Detlefsen=, 349 _n._, 354 _n._, 358
=Deutsch=, Prof. Monroe, 635 _n._
=Dialectic= (Logic), 36, 397, 611
_Dialogi_ (Seneca), 206-217
_Dialogus de Oratoribus_, 23, 257, 278, 297, 389, 391, 409 _n._, 529,
560, 561, 563, 564-567, 596
=Dickens=, 188
=Dicuil=, 385
=Didactic=, 45-47, 66-68, 87-88, 115, 125, 137, 143, 155, 163, 192,
246;
(in Seneca’s dramas), 266;
(in Persius), 283 _sqq._;
(in Lucan), 324;
(in Silius), 461;
(prominent in Juvenal’s later manner), 618, 620-621; 656
=Diderot=, 211, 243 _n._
=Didymus= (grammarian), 633
=Dill=, 4 _n._, 37 _n._, 38 _n._
=Diminutives=, 152, 191, 231, 292 _n._, 627, 630, 652
=Diocletian=, 631, 643, 652, 655, 656
=Diodorus Siculus=, 105, 655
=Diomedes= (grammarian), 170, 512, 653
=Dio(n) Cassius=, 202, 204, 242, 321 _n._, 331, 598, 655
=Dion Chrysostom=, 6, 655
=Dionysius of Halicarnassus=, 401, 407
=Dioscorides=, 363
Διοσημεῖα (Aratus), 155
_Diuinae Institutiones_ (Lactantius), 654
=Divination=, 222, 303-304, 309-310, 314: _see_ “Superstition”
=Domitian=, 3, 6, 7, 13, 14, 39, 155, 236, 274, 278, 386, 389, 421,
422, 423, 426, 427, 431, 433, 454, 468, 469, 470, 472, 485, 487,
490, 493, 507, 521, 522, 529, 530, 532, 534, 539, 540, 561, 562,
563, 565, 566, 567, 570, 571, 574, 576, 577, 591, 601, 602, 605,
609, 614, 632;
(_Life_), 641; 644
=Domitius Afer=, 63, 236, 388
=Domitius Corbulo=, 234, 348, 426, 584
=Domitius Marsus=, 512
_Domitius_ (_praetexta_ by Curiatius Maternus, lost), 273, 278, 529
=Donatus= (grammarian), 637, 653
=Dräger=, 19 _n._, 593 _n._, 594 _n._
=Dralle=, 606 _n._
=Drama=, 6, 17, 137, 151, 157-159, 234, 245;
(Seneca), 247-270;
(Seneca’s influence on later drama), 270-273; 273-278, 289, 296,
400, 506, 529;
(element of, in Juvenal), 613-614, 617; 629
=Dramatic metre=, 153-154, 269-270, 274
=Dressler=, 136
=Drobisch=, 496 _n._
=Dryden=, 79, 599 _n._, 626, 627
_Dubius Sermo_ (lost), 159 _n._, 352
=Dubois-Guchan=, 560 _n._
_Duchess of Malfi_, 272
=Dürr=, 600 _n._, 602
=Duff=, J. D., 196 _n._, 207 _n._, 599 _n._
=Duff=, Prof. J. Wight, 24 _n._, 80 _n._, 89 _n._, 93 _n._, 115 _n._,
133 _n._, 149 _n._, 154 _n._, 164 _n._, 173 _n._, 195 _n._, 301
_n._, 338 _n._, 341 _n._, 342 _n._, 358 _n._, 370 _n._, 492 _n._,
534 _n._, 596 _n._, 629 _n._
=Dumas=, 187, 188
=Duncan=, J. S., 493 _n._
=Duris of Samos=, 364
=Duruy=, 590 _n._
=Dziatzko=, 369 _n._
E
_Ecerinis_ (Mussato), 270
=Eclogues=, 17, 293, 330-338: _see_ “_Aeglogues_,” “_Egloges_”
_Eclogues_ (Virgil), 166, 334
=Education=, 8-12, 23-41, 43, 45-60, 91, 115, 118, 134, 173, 189,
191, 201, 236, 287, 295, 296, 298, 324, 342, 345, 348, 352, 364;
(of an orator), 387-421; 468, 499, 501, 532, 536, 561, 564, 589,
606, 611, 616, 636
=Education=, bibliography, 23-24 _n._
_Educatione Liberorum, De_ (Περὶ Παίδων Ἀγωγῆς, perhaps Plutarch’s),
26 _n._, 27, 35, 409 _n._, 412-413, 566
_Egloges_ (Barclay), 335
=Einhard= or =Einhart=, 555 _n._, 643, 657
=Einsiedeln eclogues=, 293, 337-338
=Elegiac epigram=, 155, 246, 511-513
=Elegiac poetry=, 402, 494, 529, 536, 555, 556
=Elegy=, 137, 156, 485, 525
=Ellis=, Prof. Robinson, 83 _n._, 98, 133 _n._, 134, 135 _n._, 149
_n._, 150 _n._, 270 _n._, 415 _n._
_Elocutio nouella_, 651-652
=Elogius= (author of _Memoirs_), 636
=Elyot’s= _Governour_, 413
_Emendatio_, 29
_Enarratio_, 29
=Emperors=, attitude to education and rhetoric, 38-41, 61-62, 389,
615, 629
=Emperors=, in relation to literature, 5-6, 45, 61-62, 63, 82, 299,
345-346, 348, 605, 629-630: _see also_ “Imperial repression” and
under individual emperors’ names
=Encyclopaedic learning=, 16, 18, 36, 115, 122, 189, 324;
(in Pliny), 350-385;
(in Suetonius), 633-634, 643; 649, 651
=Enk=, P. J., 274 _n._
=Ennian words=, 448, 481
=Ennius=, 28, 30, 134, 137, 153, 185, 228, 254, 257, 269, 273, 323,
368, 402, 460, 465, 466 _n._, 558, 596, 642, 650, 651
=Epic=, 7, 12, 17, 137, 157, 182, 184, 192-193, 245;
(Lucan), 296-329; 342, 345;
(Val. Flacc.), 433-451;
(Silius), 452-466;
(Statius), 467-497; 506, 529, 530, 536, 555-556, 656
_Epicedion_ (lament), 468, 492
=Epictetus=, 105, 231, 453
=Epicureanism=, 13, 36, 192, 213, 215, 222, 223, 239, 267, 295, 304,
370, 461, 587
=Epicurus=, 223
=Epigram= (feature of style), 10, 11, 18, 20, 57, 59, 76, 79, 92,
194, 230, 261, 264-265, 324, 381-382, 390, 395, 495, 511, 567,
576, 594, 596, 650
=Epigram= (Greek form), 511
=Epigram= (poem), 7, 8, 17, 155, 193-194, 246, 298;
(Martial), 501-529; 536, 555, 556, 636
_Epigrammata_, (Lucan, lost), 301
_Epistles_ (Horace), 621
_Epistulae_ (Lucan, lost), 301
_Epistulae_ (Pliny), 233, 533, 541-555
_Epistulae_ (Symmachus), 554
_Epistulae Ad Familiares_ (Cicero), 542
_Epistulae Morales, Ad Lucilium_ (Seneca), 203, 206, 208, 212, 217,
223-234, 243
=Epitaph=, 179, 524-525
=Epithalamium=, 485
=Epitomes=, 45, 46, 71, 321 _n._, 384-385, 454, 470, 629, 646, 649,
653
=Eprius Marcellus= (_delator_), 236
=Erasistratus=, 116
=Erasmus=, 413, 555, 658
=Eratosthenes=, 369, 435
=Erotic verse=, 29, 246-247, 345, 523, 529, 530
=Essay-like writing=, 229-230, 542-545, 651-652
=Esternaux=, 424 _n._
=Ethics=, 5, 13, 36, 60, 67, 206, 222;
(_Epist. Mor._), 223-234; 305, 396, 397, 403, 406, 524;
(in Juvenal), 608-623:
_see also_ “Stoicism”
=Ethnology=, 125, 129, 354, 573-574; _see_ “Anthropology”
_Ethologiae_, 29
=Euclid=, 558
=Eugenius Vulgarius=, 170
=Eulogy= (formal): _see_ “Panegyric”
=Eumenius of Autun=, 40
=Euphorion=, 61
=Eupolis=, 284
=Euripides=, 78, 107, 134, 244;
(in relation to Seneca), 250-255; 257, 258, 259, 270, 480
=Eusebius=, 633
=Eutropius=, 643
_Evagoras_ (Isocrates), 569
_Excessu Diui Augusti, Ab_: _see_ “_Annals_”
_Exitus Inlustrium Virorum_ (lost), 557
F
=Fabia=, 349 _n._, 353, 586, 587 _n._
=Fabianus=, Papirius (philosopher), 48, 52, 60, 132, 199, 227, 235
=Fabius Rusticus= (historian), 386, 576, 584
=Fables=, 17, 123, 133-154
_Fabula_, in sense of “fable,” 123: _see_ “Phaedrus”
_Fabula_, in sense of “play”: _see_ “_(Fabulae) Palliatae_,”
“_Praetextae_,” “_Togatae_”
_Fabula saltica_, 158, 276, 301, 615
=Fannius= (historian), 548, 557
=Faraday=, 365
=Fathers of the Church=, 294, 528, 555, 597, 654
=Faust=, 591 _n._
=Faustus= (dramatist), 278
=Favez=, 197 _n._, 209 _n._
=Favorinus=, 651
=Fenestella=, 356, 364, 429, 634
=Fenizio=, Di, 428
=Ferrero=, 4 _n._
=Fescennine spirit=, 268
=Festus= (lexicographer), 649
_Festus_, Bailey’s, quoted, 120
=Ficino=, 658
=Fielding=, 187
=Figulus=; _see_ “Nigidius”
=Filelfo=, 411
_Filostrato e Panfila_ (Cammelli), 271
=Fiske=, 287 _n._
=Flaminio=, 658
=Flavian dynasty in relation to literature=, 378: _see also_
“Vespasian,” “Titus,” “Domitian”
=Flavius Caper= (Virgilian scholar), 558
=Florus=, 7, 18, 89, 110 _n._, 321 _n._, 431, 554, 629, 642, 644-649
=Flower Smith=, Prof. K., 498 _n._
_Forma Mundi, De_ (lost), 207
=Fracastoro=, 658
=Frank=, Prof., 4 _n._
=Freedmen=, 6, 27, 28, 30, 131, 134, 174-180, 190, 210, 227, 241,
242, 243, 245, 286, 342, 363, 380, 418, 489, 536, 539-540, 549,
576, 579, 583, 601, 602, 607
=Freinsheim=, 101 _n._, 102
=Freund=, 631 _n._
=Frey=, 156
=Freytag=, 590 _n._
=Friedländer=, 4 _n._, 149 _n._, 183, 498 _n._, 605
=Fritze=, 424 _n._
=Froment=, 409 _n._
=Frontinus=, 18, 423-431, 535, 554, 555, 570
=Fronto=, 37, 228, 323, 554, 651-652
_Frontoniani_, 412: _see_ “Archaizing”
=Fulgentius=, 170, 193
=Furius Antias=, 466 _n._, 481
=Furtwängler=, 359 _n._, 360 _n._
=Furneaux=, 19 _n._, 101 _n._, 559 _n._, 560 _n._, 569 _n._, 571
_n._, 590 _n._, 593 _n._
G
=Gaetulicus, Lentulus=, 83, 512, 636
=Galba= (emperor), 3, 235, 389, 576, 577, 578, 579, 580, 586;
(_Life_), 637-638; 639
=Galdi=, 71 _n._, 344 _n._, 384 _n._, 470 _n._, 629 _n._, 644 _n._,
649 _n._
=Galerius Trachalus= (orator), 236, 388
=Galileo=, 365, 366
=Gallic rhetoric=, 16, 37, 236, 421, 564, 655
=Gallio, Junius= (rhetor), 58, 60, 198
“=Gallio=”: _see_ “Annaeus Novatus”
_Games among the Greeks_ (in Greek by Suetonius, lost), 633
=Gantrelle=, 571
=Gaul=, schools in, 31, 37, 38;
(Autun), 40;
(Arles), 236; 421, 555, 615
=Gavius Silo= (rhetor), 48
=Gellius=, Aulus, 65, 228, 236, 342, 352, 415, 558, 596, 633, 651-652
_Genethliacon Lucani_, 297, 488
=Genthe=, 301 _n._
=Gentile=, 590 _n._
=Geography=, 18, 105, 125-131, 206, 221, 260, 309, 314, 319, 324,
354, 362-363, 365-366, 382, 384, 435, 463, 474, 568, 570, 573,
631, 646, 647
=Geometry=, 28, 36, 394, 397, 558
_Georgics_ (Virgil), 21, 164, 166, 167
=Gercke=, 196 _n._, 207, 208, 218, 221 _n._
_Germania_ (Tacitus), 560, 563, 566, 573-576, 597
_Germaniae Bellorum XX Libri_ (lost), 352, 575, 584
=Germanicus=, 57, 66, 99, 100, 155-156, 200, 344, 583, 643
_Germanicus_ (Arnault), 598
=Giarratano=, 498 _n._
=Gibbon=, 2, 331, 420, 581, 641
=Gifford=, 600 _n._, 626
_Gil Blas_, 187
=Gladiators=, 101, 181, 205, 232, 610
=Gladisch=, 411 _n._
=Gnipho=, 28
=Goethe=, 529
=Golden Age= (of Latin Literature), 1, 2, 7, 19, 47, 81, 410, 420,
554, 658
_Golden Ass_ or _Metamorphoses_ (Apuleius), 189, 652
=Goldsmith=, 640
=Golz=, 414
_Gorboduc_, 271
=Gorgias= (on figures of speech), 62
=Gracchan age=, 84, 89
=Gracchi=, 90, 276, 348, 609, 626, 650
=Gracchus=, Gaius, 72
=Gracchus=, Tiberius, 72, 87
=Graecinus=, Julius, 114, 131, 161, 164
=Graecisms=: _see_ “Hellenisms”
=Graf=, 484 _n._
=Grammar=, 26-31, 36, 37, 131, 235, 298, 352, 393-394, 558, 593, 611,
636
=Grammarians=, 131, 235-236, 248, 421, 432, 528, 597, 629, 633, 634,
636, 653: _see also_ “_Grammaticus_”
_Grammaticis, De_ (Suetonius), 23, 563, 633, 636
_Grammaticus_, 25, 27-30, 39, 40, 198
=Grasberger=, 26 _n._
=Gratian=, 40
=Gray=, 493, 544, 545, 624
=Greece and Greeks=, varying Roman attitude to, 17, 27, 31, 36, 38;
(Gallio in Achaea), 44; 45, 50, 58, 61, 116, 125, 138, 231-232,
250, 378-379, 382, 401, 429, 536, 552, 606, 613, 630, 651
=Greek=, 5, 14, 27, 37, 38, 50, 58, 61, 105, 124, 157, 178, 190, 191,
231, 235, 239, 277, 342, 343, 345, 363, 390, 393, 400, 401, 402,
403;
(Quintilian’s contrast with Latin), 404; 407, 420, 541, 542, 555,
556, 595, 606, 610, 628, 629, 630-631, 633, 634, 643, 654-655, 656
=Greek culture=, 104, 125, 468, 552, 630, 654, 658
=Greek drama=, 6, 17, 29, 55, 155, 249;
(re-handled by Seneca), 250-270; 284, 400, 402, 415, 480, 557
=Greek history=, 55, 68-69, 75, 84, 86, 89, 102-113, 424, 426, 626
=Greek influence=, 16, 17, 25, 55, 61, 62, 135, 154, 155, 160,
184-185, 209, 250, 254, 264, 289;
(stigmatized by elder Pliny), 378-379;
(in epigram), 511, 524; 536, 557, 626, 630-631;
_see also_ “Hellenism,” “Rhetoric”
=Greek sources=, 16-17, 25, 55, 71, 116-117, 137-139, 160, 163, 164,
218, 250-263, 271;
(Pliny’s), 355-364; 397, 407, 424, 435, 445-446, 513, 552, 586, 652
=Gregorovius=, 628 _n._
=Gregory Nazianzenus=, 420
=Gregory of Tours=, 136, 657 _n._
=Groag=, 338 _n._, 586 _n._
=Gromatics=, 424, 558
=Groot=, De, 113 _n._, 131 _n._, 411 _n._, 596 _n._, 642
=Gross=, 339 _n._
=Grotius=, 658
=Gruppe=, 358
=Guarino=, 412, 413
=Gudeman=, 559 _n._, 565, 567, 569
=Guicciardini=, 598
=Gundermann=, 425
H
=Hadrian=, 2, 5, 6, 7, 15, 16, 17, 39, 480, 555, 582, 605, 628-631,
632, 635, 642, 644, 645, 646, 647, 651, 655
_Hadrian, Life of_ (Spartianus), 631
=Hallam=, 317
_Hamlet_, 272
=Hammer=, 415 _n._
=Hannibal= (Silius’s hero), 454-463;
(in Juvenal), 617
=Hanno=, 128, 363
=Hardie=, W. R., 269 _n._
=Hardy=, E. G., 535 _n._, 586 _n._
=Hardy=, Thomas (novelist), 188
=Hartman=, 133 _n._, 147 _n._, 242 _n._
=Haterius= (orator), 48, 50, 62
=Haupt=, 332, 335 _n._
=Havet=, 134 _n._, 135 _n._, 136, 147 _n._, 154 _n._, 642
=Hecaton= (Stoic), 218
_Hecuba_ (Euripides), 251
_Hecuba_ or _Troades_ (lost play by Scaeva Memor), 278
=Heinsius=, Daniel (Latin poems), 658
=Heinsius=, Niklaas (editor of Paterculus), 86 _n._
=Heitland=, 3 _n._, 297 _n._, 305, 322, 323 _n._, 328
=Held=, 530 _n._, 532 _n._
=Heliodorus= (romance-writer), 189
=Heliodorus= (source for Pliny), 364
=Hellenism=, 6, 7, 17, 25 _n._, 270, 610, 629-631: _see_ “Greek
Influence”
=Hellenisms= or =Graecisms=, 231, 595, 652
_Heluiam, Ad_: _see_ “_Consolatio_”
=Helvia= (younger Seneca’s mother), 44, 45, 197, 210
=Helvidius Priscus=, 14, 235, 236, 386, 570
=Henderson=, 576 _n._, 628 _n._
=Hendrickson=, 569 _n._
=Hense=, 196 _n._, 213
=Heraclitus=, 617
_Hercules_ (lost play by Scaeva Memor), 278
_Hercules Furens_ (Seneca), 248, 250, 251, 268, 272
_Hercules Oetaeus_ (Seneca), 248, 250, 257-258, 274
=Heredia=, 434, 638
_Herennium, Ad_, 55, 407
=Herennius Senecio= (Stoic), 386, 421
=Hermogenes of Tarsus= (historian), 386
=Hero(n)das= (mime-writer), 555
=Herodes Atticus=, 37, 651, 655
=Herodotus=, 401, 435
_Heroides_, 33, 254, 258
=Herrick=, 516
=Hervieux=, 133 _n._, 135 _n._
=Hesiod=, 29, 84, 168
=Heydenreich=, 401 _n._
=Heynacher=, 452 _n._
=Heywood=, 271
=Hipparchus= (source for Pliny), 362
=Hippocrates=, 116, 385
_Hippolytus_ (Euripides), 254
_Hippolytus_ (variant title for Seneca’s _Phaedra_), 248
=Hipponax= (iambic satirist), 512
=Hirschfeld=, 245 _n._, 349 _n._
=Hirtius=, 635
=Hirzel=, 569 _n._, 571 _n._, 586 _n._
_Histoire Comique_, 188
_Historia Augusta_, 637, 655
=Historical criteria=, 72, 94-96, 106, 238, 353, 360-362, 585-587,
591-593, 634-636, 647
=Historical play= (_praetexta_), 17, 159, 273-276, 278, 282, 529
=Historical poetry=, 182, 192-193;
(Lucan), 296-329;
(Silius), 452-466; 556, 656
_Histories_ (elder Seneca, lost), 44, 646
_Histories_ (Tacitus), 353, 560, 562, 574, 576-581, 584, 585, 586,
588, 589, 597, 638
=History=, 6, 7, 18, 29, 31, 36, 56, 61, 63, 72, 82-113, 125, 137,
158, 179;
(quizzed by Seneca), 237-238;
(in Lucan’s epic), 296-329; 352-353;
(Flavian), 385-386; 397, 400;
(in Silius’s epic), 462; 547, 557;
(Tacitus), 559-598; 611, 615;
(Suetonius), 632-643;
(Florus), 646-649; 654-656
_Hodoeporicon_ (lost), 282
=Hofacker=, 551 _n._
=Hoffmann=, 571 _n._
=Holland=, Philemon, 348 _n._, 368-369, 377, 641-642
=Homer=, 29, 61, 84, 178, 239;
(in Latin), 341-345; 378, 394, 435, 446, 461, 463, 480, 481, 484,
488, 553, 618, 640
=Homeric burlesque=, 184
=Homeric imitation=, 438, 456, 458, 462, 463, 466 _n._, 471, 482
=Homeric question=, 137
=Homeric quotations=, 54, 239
=Homeric reciters=, 178
_Homerus Latinus_: _see_ “_Ilias Latina_”
=Horace=, 1, 5, 17, 21, 29, 30, 36, 137, 153, 182, 185, 190, 236,
241, 257, 276, 280, 284, 286, 287, 288, 289, 291, 292, 293, 294,
297, 323, 344, 400, 401, 408, 411, 457, 489, 512, 513, 542, 557,
595, 596, 601, 602, 606, 607, 621, 622, 626, 629, 637, 642, 643
_Horace, Life of_ (Suetonius), 633, 637
=Horatian influence=, 17, 21, 241, 287-288, 294, 295, 323, 489, 497,
513, 557, 595, 606, 621, 626, 642
=Hortensius=, 89
_Hortensius_ (Cicero), 566
=Hosius=, 102 _n._
_Hous of Fame_ (Chaucer), 484
=Houssaye=, De La, 590 _n._
=Howard=, Prof. Albert A., 631 _n._
=Humboldt, Von=, 366
=Humour=, 49-50, 57, 139-146, 173-183, 186, 188, 233-234, 237-245;
(unconscious), 260-261; 398-399, 409;
(in Martial), 505-510; 539, 547;
(caustic), 575;
(in Juvenal), 614, 618, 622-624;
(in Suetonius), 640
=Huxley=, 365
=Hyginus=, 131, 164, 361, 363, 634
=Hyginus= (gromatic writer), 558
I
_Iaculatione Equestri, De_ (lost), 351-352
=Ihne=, 590 _n._
_Iliacon_ (Lucan, lost), 300
_Iliad_ (Homer), 342, 458, 482
_Iliad_ in Latin, 178
_Ilias Latina_ or _Homerus Latinus_, 341-345, 454
_Immatura Morte, De_ (lost), 207
=Imperial attitude to education=; _see_ under “Emperors”
=Imperial repression=, 6-7, 13-14, 44, 45, 51, 56, 63, 64, 82, 132,
143, 158, 235, 386, 534, 562, 565, 567, 571, 572, 589, 590, 601,
602
_In_: for titles so beginning _see_ under leading word
_Incendio Vrbis, De_ (Lucan, lost), 301
_Incendium_ (_togata_ play, lost), 277
=Indecency=; _see_ “Coarseness”
=Individual note=; _see_ “Originality,” “Subjectivity”
=Innovation=; _see_ “Originality”
_Institutio Oratoria_, 23, 391, 392-413, 421, 566
_Inuentione, De_, 55
=Invective= (formal and informal), 31, 55-56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 91;
(_Ciceromastix_), 432;
(against Planta), 557;
(political), 565;
(in Juvenal’s earlier satires), 607-616, 621-622
Ἱππόλυτος καλυπτόμενος, 254
Ἱππόλυτος στεφανηφόρος, 254
_Ira, De_, 197, 200, 207, 208, 211-212, 234
=Isaeus= (rhetor), 553
=Isidorus of Seville=, 384, 412, 415, 633, 643, 657
=Isocrates=, 569
_Iter_ (Cornelius Balbus), 273
_Iudicium_, 29: _see_ “Literary Criticism”
J
=Jacobs=, 133 _n._
=Jahn=, 287 _n._, 288, 293, 301 _n._, 359
=Janelii=, 135 _n._
=Jansen=, 565 _n._
=Januarius Nepotianus= (epitomator), 71
=Javolenus Priscus= (jurist), 557, 558
=Jerome=, St., 39, 63, 231, 279, 297, 412, 415, 577, 633, 643, 657
=Jerome=, Thos. S., 591 _n._
_Jew of Malta_, 272
=John of Salisbury=, 170, 412
=Johnson=, Samuel, 543, 612, 617, 627
=Johnston=, Arthur, 658
=Jonas=, 196 _n._, 207, 208, 249 _n._
=Jonson=, Ben, 273, 294, 413, 598
=Jordanes=, 649
=Josephus=, 581, 592
_Journal des Goncourt_, 543
=Juba=, King (source for Pliny), 357, 358 _n._, 359, 361 _n._, 363
_Jugurtha_ (Sallust), 570
=Julian the Apostate=, 40, 420, 542, 655
=Julius Africanus= (rhetor), 236, 388
=Julius Asiaticus=, _Life_ (by Julius Secundus), 570
=Julius Atticus=; _see_ “Atticus”
=Julius Avitus=, 557
=Julius Bassus=; _see_ “Bassus”
=Julius Caesar=, 7, 15, 29, 36, 38, 66, 72, 73, 79, 84, 87, 90, 92,
94, 96, 111, 125, 151, 193, 226, 278;
(in Lucan), 301-329; 352, 370, 402, 461, 575, 617, 632, 633, 634,
637, 638, 639, 642, 646, 648
=Julius Cerealis= (epic writer), 530
=Julius Gabinianus= (rhetor), 421
=Julius Graecinus=; _see_ “Graecinus”
=Julius Modestus= (grammarian), 131
=Julius Paris= (epitomator), 66, 71
=Julius Secundus= (orator), 389, 408, 561, 564, 570
=Julius Tiro= (rhetor), 421
=Junius Nipsus= (gromatic writer), 558
=Junius Otho= (speaker and author), 62
=Jurisprudence=, 115, 131, 234-235, 431, 558, 628, 653: _see also_
“Law”
=Justinian=, 41
=Justinus=, 104, 581 _n._, 629, 653
=Juvenal=, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 17, 22, 34, 37, 128, 131, 190, 231,
278, 283, 284, 336, 374, 388, 390, 412, 448, 449, 502, 504, 507,
510, 512, 528, 530, 599-627, 643
=Juventius Celsus the elder= (jurist), 431
=Juventius Celsus the younger= (jurist), 431, 558
K
=Kalkmann=, 359 _n._
=Kanus=, or =Canus=, Julius, 13, 132
Καταστερισμοί (lost), 556
=Keats=, 369
=Keene=, 330 _n._, 332 _n._
=Keil=, 29
=Kelvin=, 365
=Kipling=, 190
=Klebs=, 184 _n._
=Klotz=, 70 _n._, 125 _n._, 354 _n._, 356 _n._, 357 _n._, 358 _n._,
360 _n._
_Knightes Tale, The_, 484
=Koebert=, 357, 358 _n._
=Kortz=, 424 _n._
=Krause=, 86 _n._
=Kriloff=, 153
=Kritz=, 83 _n._, 86 _n._, 98
=Krohn=, 427 _n._
=Kruczkiewicz=, 338
=Kukula=, 293 _n._, 532 _n._, 534 _n._, 551 _n._, 556 _n._
=Kybises=, 150
=Kyd= (dramatist), 272
L
=La Fontaine=, 153
=Labeo= (Augustan), 131
=Labeo=, Attius (translator of Homer), 342
=Laberius=, 651, 652
=Labienus= (speaker, “Rabienus”), 48, 51, 60, 63
=Lachmann=, 135 _n._, 335 _n._, 424 _n._
=Lactantius=, 155, 231, 412, 415, 627, 654, 655
=Lagergren=, 532 _n._, 554 _n._
=Lamarck=, 365
=Lamb=, Charles, 178
=Lanciani=, 422 _n._
=Lange=, 586 _n._
=Langolius=, 658
_Laocoon_, 403
=Laplace=, 365
=Larcius Licinus= (critic), 432
=Last=, H. M., 3 _n._
=Latin=, African, 16, 189, 648, 649 _n._, 650-652, 654
=Latin=, Augustan, 21
=Latin=, Ciceronian: _see_ “Ciceronianism”
=Latin in Schools=, 27-35, 342, 392-411
=Latin literary criticism=; _see_ “Literary Criticism”
=Latin medieval curriculum=, 36, 38
=Latin, Silver=; _see_ “Silver Latinity”
=Latin, Spanish=, 16, 411, 514
=Latin, spoken=, 17, 50, 179-181, 190-192, 229, 230-231, 246, 292,
405, 513-514, 542, 627, 651, 652
=Latin, technical=; _see_ “Learning, technical”
=Latro=, _see_ “Porcius”
_Laudationes funebres_, 561, 569
_Laudes Neronis_ (Lucan, lost), 299, 300
_Laureolus_ (mime, lost), 157
=Laurie=, 409 _n._
_Laus_ (or _Laudatio_ or _De Laude_) _Pisonis_, 293, 332, 335-337, 338
=Law=, in education, 31, 33-34, 36, 38;
(jurisprudence), 115; 397, 398
=Law=, in rhetoric, 55, 60, 398, 416-420
=Law=, Roman, 15, 50, 55, 63, 131, 532, 535, 545, 558, 564, 604, 615,
652-653: _see_ “Jurisprudence”
=Learning=, encyclopaedic: _see_ “Encyclopaedic”
=Learning=, scientific: _see_ “Science,” “Pliny the elder”
=Learning=, technical, 18, 124, 131-132;
(Columella), 160-168; 235, 351, 363, 383, 397;
(Frontinus), 423-431
_Lectio_, 29: _see_ “Reading,” “_Recitationes_”
=Lehmann=, 197 _n._, 208, 280, 293
=Lehnerdt=, 352 _n._
=Lejay=, 297 _n._, 322
=Leo=, 255, 257 _n._, 565 _n._, 569 _n._, 604 _n._, 631 _n._
=Lessing=, 147 _n._, 403
_Letters_ (by Pompeius Saturninus, lost), 556
_Letters_ (by Seneca, lost books), 207
_Letters_ (by Voconius Romanus, lost), 556
_See also_ “_Epistulae_” for Pliny’s and Seneca’s
=Letters of alphabet=, 26, 62, 393, 400, 404, 583
=Letter-writing=, 8, 190, 223-227, 296, 301, 533, 541-555, 556: _see
also_ “_Epistulae_”
=Libanius=, 56, 420, 655
_Liber Memorialis_ (Ampelius), 649
=Libyan fables=, 150
=Licinius Sura= (Spanish rhetor), 421
=Liedloff=, 252 _n._
=Ligurinus=, 257
_Limitibus Constituendis, De_, 558
_Limitibus, De_, 558
=Linnaeus=, 365
=Lipsius=, 196 _n._, 208, 223, 245, 559 _n._, 598
=Literary criticism= (by Romans), 29, 47, 48-49, 55, 89, 182, 192,
227-228, 378, 391, 392;
(in Quintilian), 399-402, 403-408; 536-537, 547-548, 556, 642,
650-652
=Literary history=, Roman contributions to, 47, 89, 400-402, 555-558,
564-566, 629, 633, 636-637, 643
=Literary patronage=, 5-6, 65, 66, 277, 299, 332, 334, 336, 346, 389,
499, 500, 501, 508, 521, 528, 604, 605, 615-616, 629-631
_Litterator_, 25, 37
=Livy=, 1, 21, 30, 32, 58, 61, 62, 70, 80, 84, 86, 89, 90, 93, 104,
113, 318-321, 323, 362, 378, 383, 386, 401, 411, 426, 427, 458,
462, 470, 491, 532, 570, 575, 595, 640, 642, 643, 646, 653
=Livy’s influence=, 21, 62, 80, 90, 113;
(on Lucan), 318-322; 386, 430, 431;
(on younger Pliny), 532, 554;
(on Tacitus), 570, 595; 642, 646
_Loci communes_: _see_ “_Communes loci_”
_London_, 612
=Longus=, 189
=Lope de Vega=, 272
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, 335
=Lucan=, 7, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 21, 30, 43, 57, 92, 158, 170, 173,
192, 193, 198, 230, 247, 254, 277, 281, 294, 296-329, 336, 338,
343, 402, 434, 446, 449, 450, 463, 464, 465, 466, 471, 472, 475,
481, 484, 485, 488, 494, 495, 496, 499, 500, 510, 511, 513, 514,
596, 643, 647
_Lucan, Life of_ (Suetonius), 633
=Lucan’s influence=; (on Silius), 464, 465;
(on Statius), 481, 485, 488;
(on Chaucer), 484;
(on Martial), 513; 596, 647
=Lucian=, 245, 477, 654, 655
=Lucilius= (satirist), 17, 28, 137, 185, 190, 245, 283, 284, 287,
291, 400, 512, 558, 606, 607, 609, 621
=Lucilius Junior= (Seneca’s correspondent), 13, 206, 217, 221, 223,
226, 227, 234, 339, 542
=Lucretius=, 1, 22, 222, 236, 245, 295, 322, 338, 340, 362, 402, 408,
496, 595, 632
=Lucretian influence=, 20, 338, 362, 448, 465, 595, 626
=Lundström=, 593 _n._
=Luxury denounced=, 13, 22, 52, 56, 74-76, 80, 94, 96, 108, 118, 162,
166, 210, 222, 227, 234, 285, 306;
(by elder Pliny), 370, 372-373, 374, 375-377; 563, 574, 607, 608,
612, 647
=Lycophron= “the obscure,” 289
=Lydus=, 115, 289, 633
=Lyell=, 365
=Lyric=, 29, 137, 154, 280, 346, 402, 511-512, 530, 555, 556
_Lyrical Ballads_, 405
=Lysippus= (sculptor), 370
M
=Macaulay=, 47, 230, 426
=Macchiavelli=, 598
=Macé=, 631 _n._, 634, 635 _n._, 642
=Macer=, 319, 402
=Mackail=, Dr. J. W., 154, 492, 645 _n._
=Macleane=, 287 _n._
=Macrobius=, 29, 466 _n._, 554, 643, 653
_Madoc_, 454
=Madvig=, 208
=Maecenas=, 96, 183, 227, 637
=Mago=, 164, 364
=Mahaffy=, 655 _n._
=Mai=, 135 _n._
=Malalas=, 600 _n._, 649
=Mamercus=; _see_ “Scaurus”
=Manilius=, 154, 155, 323, 339, 383, 484
=Manitius=, 555 _n._, 657 _n._
_Manners and Customs of Rome, On the_ (Suetonius, lost), 633
=Mantuanus=, Baptista, 335, 658
=Marchesi=, 213 _n._
=Marius Maximus=, 643
=Marlowe=, 272
_Marriage of Philology and Mercury_, 189
=Martial=, 5, 7, 8, 11, 16, 17, 43, 149, 166, 194, 216, 257, 269,
278, 297, 380, 411, 421, 422, 431, 432, 452, 453, 454, 470, 497,
498-530, 549, 554, 555, 600, 602, 604, 607, 608, 609, 611, 643
=Martianus Capella=, 189, 384
=Martin, Gladys=, 336 _n._
=Marullas=, 43, 48
=Marx=, 586 _n._
=Materia Medica= (in Pliny), 354, 355
=Maternus=; _see_ “Curiatius”
=Mathematics=, 36, 37, 125, 362, 363
=Matius=, Cn., 342
=Maupassant=, Guy de, 186, 187
=Maximus= (polemic writer), 557
=May=, Thomas, 297 _n._, 316, 317
_Medea_ (Curiatius Maternus, lost), 257, 278
_Medea_ (Euripides), 251
_Medea_ (Lucan, lost), 254, 301
_Medea_ (Ovid, lost), 254, 269, 402
_Medea_ (Seneca), 248, 250, 253-254, 259
_Medicina, De_ (Celsus), 115-124
_Medicina Plinii_, 384
=Medicine=, 18, 36, 39;
(Celsus), 114-124;
(Scribonius), 131;
(in Pliny), 354-355, 363, 365, 367, 380-1, 383, 384; 509, 625
_Meditations_ (M. Aurelius), 231, 630
_Meidias_, Demosthenes’ speech against, 537
=Mela=; _see_ “Pomponius”
=Melanchthon=, 413
=Melmoth=, 531 _n._, 545
_Memoirs_, by Agrippina; _see_ “Agrippina’s _Memoirs_”
_Memoirs_, by Augustus, 89
_Memoirs_, by Scaurus, 71
_Memoirs_, by Tiberius, 585
_Memoirs_, by Vespasian, 385, 585
_Memoirs_; _see also_ “Autobiographies”
_Memorabilia_, 630
=Menander=, 29, 557
=Mendel= (biologist), 365
=Mendell=, C. W., 512 _n._
=Menippean satire=, 17, 173, 184, 189, 237, 245, 246, 289
=Menippus of Gadara=, 173, 245
_Mensura Orbis Terrae_ (Dicuil), 385
=Meredith=, 188
=Merivale=, 4 _n._, 322
=Merrill=, Prof. E. T., 531 _n._, 533 _n._, 534 _n._, 555 _n._
=Messala Corvinus=, M. Valerius, 5, 61, 62
=Messalina=, 204, 274, 582, 583, 617, 627
=Messer=, 413 _n._
_Metamorphoses_ (Apuleius): _see_ “Golden Ass”
_Metamorphoses_ (Ovid), 258, 323, 556
=Meteorology=, 221
=Mettius Carus= (_delator_), 421
=Mettius Pompusianus=, 386
=Middle Ages=, survival of Latin authors in, 71-72, 137, 150, 154,
170, 222, 342, 384, 412, 484, 555 _n._, 597, 627, 643, 649, 657
=Milesian tales=, 184, 189
=Military ruses, tactics=, etc., 67, 105, 115, 351-352, 423-427, 558;
(in Greek), 630
_Milone, Pro_, Probus’s introduction to, 235
_Milone, Pro_, rejoinder to, 49-50
=Milton=, 463, 495, 598, 658
=Mime=, 157, 184, 276, 277, 288, 291, 296, 555, 652
Μιμήσεως, Περί, 401
=Mineralogy and Metallurgy= (in Pliny), 354-355, 364
=Minucius Felix=, 653, 654, 655
_Misanthrope, Le_, quoted, 11
=Miscellaneous verse=, 193-195, 246-247, 296, 301, 345, 469;
(_Siluae_), 485-493; 511, 555, 629;
(Ausonius), 656
_Misfortunes of Arthur, The_, 271
=Mithradates=, 363
=Mommsen=, 4 _n._, 37 _n._, 173 _n._, 183, 349, 532 _n._, 533, 535
_n._, 586 _n._, 588, 631 _n._
=Monceaux=, 644 _n._, 649 _n._
=Montaigne=, 230, 294, 493, 598
=Montigny=, 355 _n._, 357, 358
=Moral instruction=, 24-25: _see_ “Ethics”
_Moralis Philosophiae Libri_ (lost), 207
=More=, Sir Thos., 658
=Morillot=, 532 _n._
=Morr=, 581 _n._
=Morris’s= _Life and Death of Jason_, 448
=Moschus= (rhetor), 48
_Mosella_, 656
_Motu Terrarum, De_ (lost), 200, 207
=Mountford=, 412 _n._
=Moy=, 532 _n._, 548 _n._
=Mucianus=, Licinius, 361, 364, 566, 577, 578
=Müllenhoff=, 574 _n._
=Müller=, L., 133 _n._, 135 _n._, 136, 139, 154 _n._, 269, 344
=Münscher=, 196 _n._, 213 _n._, 249 _n._
=Münzer=, 349 _n._, 359, 360 _n._, 361 _n._
_Munitionibus Castrorum, De_, 558
=Muret=, 271
=Murredius= (rhetor), 56, 58
=Musa= (rhetor), 48, 51, 198
=Music=, 28, 36, 37, 39, 394, 397, 584
=Musonius Rufus= (Stoic), 14, 235, 280, 288
=Mussato=, 270
=Mustard=, Prof., 335 _n._
=Mythology= (in education), 31, 32, 55;
(in literature), 77, 133, 145, 148, 155-156, 158, 167-168, 178,
184, 238-242;
(in Seneca’s plays), 247-267; 275, 276, 278, 283, 292, 307, 308,
318, 322, 324-325, 340;
(in elder Pliny), 366;
(in Val. Flacc.), 434-447;
(in Silius), 455, 457, 459, 460, 461, 462, 463;
(in Statius), 472-495;
(Martial’s limited use of), 506, 514, 515, 527; 529, 607, 645-646,
652, 656:
_see also_ “Epic,” “Greek drama”
N
=Naevius=, 28, 29, 273
_Narratio_ (stressed by Apollodorus and Quintilian), 61, 398
_Narratiuncula_, 29
=National note=: _see_ “Roman”
=Natural History=, 206, 354-370, 379
_Natural History_ (Pliny’s), 8, 18, 347-385, 646, 653
_Naturales Quaestiones_: _see_ “_Quaestiones_”: _cf._ “Physics”
=Navagero=, 658
=Nearchus=, 363
=Neissner=, 623 _n._
=Nemesianus=, 17, 330, 335, 656
=Neo-Latin writers=, 516, 528, 658
=Neo-Pythagoreanism=, 12, 370: _cf._ “Pythagoreanism”
=Neo-Scepticism=, 12
=Neo-Stoicism=, 12-16, 198, 232
=Nepos=; _see_ “Cornelius”
=Neratius Priscus= (jurist), 558
=Nero=, 2, 5, 6, 13, 14, 17, 30, 64, 82, 115, 132, 158, 161, 169,
170, 171, 172, 182, 183, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 208, 211, 213,
218, 235, 236, 238, 243, 244, 249;
(in _Octavia_), 273-276; 277, 278, 280, 281, 293, 294, 296, 299,
300, 302, 305, 306, 317, 318, 331, 333, 337, 343;
(as poet), 345-346; 349, 352, 353, 370, 385, 426, 453, 489, 499,
504, 548, 577, 578, 581, 582, 583, 584, 585, 587, 588, 590, 591,
632, 635, 639, 640, 641
_Nero_ (anonymous English play), 598
_Nero, Life of_ (Suetonius), 277, 640
“=Neronia=,” 277, 299, 346
=Nerva= (emperor), 2, 7, 421, 423, 427, 428, 429, 454, 502, 507, 533,
534, 539, 540, 562, 567, 571, 589, 597, 656
=Nerva= (the emperor’s father), 235
=Nerva=, M. Cocceius (the emperor’s grandfather), 131
=Nettleship=, 140 _n._, 352 _n._, 401 _n._, 604 _n._, 605, 637
=Newton=, 365, 658
=Nicander=, 319
=Nicetes Sacerdos= (teacher), 532
=Nicostratus=, 150
=Niebuhr=, 71, 170
=Nigidius Figulus=, 357, 358 _n._, 361, 363
=Nilant=, 135
=Nilsson=, 4 _n._
=Ninnius Crassus=, 342
=Nipperdey=, 171, 559 _n._, 586 _n._
=Nisard=, 133 _n._, 294, 498 _n._, 625 _n._
=Nissen=, 353, 586
_Noctes Atticae_, 651-652
=Nodot=, 170
=Nolte=, 565 _n._
=Norden=, 126 _n._, 184 _n._, 565 _n._
=Novák=, 560 _n._
=Novatus=: _see_ “Annaeus Novatus Gallio”
=Novel=, 6, 8, 17, 172-192, 415-416, 652
_Novum Organum_ (Bacon), 658
O
=Obscenity=; _see_ “Coarseness”
=Obscurity=, 289-290, 291, 292, 294-295
_Octauia_ (drama), 17, 205, 248, 259, 273-276
_Octauius_ (Minucius Felix), 653, 654
=Octavia=, 202, 274-276, 582, 584
=Octavius Rufus= (epic writer), 556
_Ode to a Nightingale_, 369
_Odes_ (Horace), 344, 457
_Odyssey_, 27, 29, 184, 342, 435, 460
_Oedipus_ (Seneca), 248, 250, 253, 255, 270, 272, 481
_Oedipus Coloneus_ (Sophocles), 250, 253
_Oedipus Exul_ (Nero, lost), 277
_Oedipus Tyrannus_ (Sophocles), 251, 253
_Officiorum, De Institutione_ (Suetonius, lost), 633, 634
=Opposition under the Caesars=; _see_ “Caesars”
=Orations=, published: _see_ “Speeches”
=Orations by Cato=, 71
=Orations by Crispus Passienus=, 63 _n._
=Orations by Domitius Afer=, 63 _n._
=Orations by Laelius=, 63 _n._
=Orations by Pliny the younger=, 536-541
=Orations by Quintilian=, 391
_Orationes_ (Lucan’s, lost), 301
_Orationes_ (Seneca’s, lost), 207
_Oratore, De_, 412, 566
_Oratorum et Rhetorum Sententiae Diuisiones Colores_: _see_
“_Controuersiae et Suasoriae_”
=Oratory=, 6, 7, 11, 30, 35, 43, 44, 49, 59, 62-63, 86, 89, 199-200,
234, 236, 345;
(Quintilian), 387-421;
(younger Pliny), 536-541, 547; 556, 557, 558, 561, 564-567, 629,
633:
_see also_ “Rhetoric”
=Oratory=, decadence in: _see_ “Decadence”
=Orelli=, 83 _n._, 86 _n._, 135 _n._, 559 _n._
=Originality in writing=, 8, 17, 184, 185, 189, 229, 245, 252, 258,
268-269, 318, 435, 436, 441, 445-447, 448, 465, 511-512;
(in letter-writing), 541-545;
(in words), 554; 593-596, 652:
_see also_ “Subjectivity”
_Origines_ (Cato, lost), 71, 89
=Orosius=, 321 _n._, 597, 633, 643, 649
_Orpheus_ (Lucan, lost), 300, 301
_Orthographia, De_, 629
=Otho=, emperor, 3, 236, 530, 576, 577, 578, 579, 580, 586;
(_Life_), 638
_Otho_ (Corneille), 598
_Otio, De_, 203, 207, 208, 213, 215
_Ottavia_ (Alfieri), 598
=Otto=, 533 _n._
=Overbeck=, 393 _n._
=Ovid=, 1, 12, 20, 21, 33, 36, 44, 55, 57, 60, 62, 66, 156, 157, 201,
254, 258, 268, 269, 323, 336, 339, 345, 357, 383, 402, 430, 435,
446, 448, 449, 465, 466, 481, 484, 494, 496, 513, 522, 523, 556,
600, 643, 656
=Ovidian influence=, 20, 21, 60, 153, 154, 254, 261, 268, 323, 430,
431, 435, 448, 449, 481, 513, 523, 626, 656
=Owen=, Richard, 366
P
=Pacatus= (rhetor), 48
=Paccius= (dramatist), 278
=Pacuvius=, 30, 153, 269, 273, 283, 466 _n._, 596
=Paetus=; _see_ “Thrasea”
Παίδων Ἀγωγῆς, Περί: _see_ “_Educatione, De_”
=Palaemon=, Q. Remmius, 131, 236, 280, 388, 407
=Palfurius Sura= (_delator_), 421
=Palladius=, 334
_Palliatae_ (Flavian, lost), 530
=Panaetius= (Stoic), 218, 233
=Panegyric= (formal, in prose or verse), 31, 201, 235, 296, 299,
335-337, 386, 397, 561, 569, 570, 635, 655
_Panegyricus_ (Pliny), 535, 538-541, 550 _n._, 551, 655
=Pannonius=, Janus, 529
_Pantomimus_, 140, 158, 276, 601, 610, 615: _see_ “_Agaue_”
=Papinian=, 653
=Paracelsus=, 122
=Paradoxes=, 15, 59, 214, 219-220, 225, 232, 287, 327, 417
=Paris=, (Domitian’s _pantomimus_), 601
=Parody=, 242, 293
=Parrhasios= (painter), 380
=Parthenios of Nicaea=, 5
=Pasiteles=, 359 _n._, 364
=Passennus Paulus= (poet), 557
=Passienus=, Crispus (orator), 63, 246;
(_Life_, by Suetonius), 633
=Pasteur=, 365
=Pastoral poetry=, 17, 331-335, 337-338: _see_ “Eclogues”
=Patavinity=, 411
=Paterculus=; _see_ “Velleius”
=Pathos= (in Phaedrus), 145;
(burlesque), 176-177;
(Tacitean), 203;
(unsuccessful), 260;
(brief), 263;
(ineffectual), 274-276;
(Horatian rule), 288;
(in Lucan), 305-306;
(in Silius, misdirected), 463;
(in Statius), 471, 491, 492;
(in Martial), 524-525;
(in Hadrian), 630
=Patronage of letters=: _see_ “Literary patronage”
=Paucker= (on Silver Latin), 19 _n._
=Paukstadt=, 498 _n._
=Paul=, St., 44, 197, 227, 231, 289
=Paulinus=, 643
_Paulus_ (Pacuvius, lost), 273
=Pedo=; _see_ “Albinovanus”
=Pegasus= (jurist), 431
=Pepys=, 638, 640
=Pergamene literary canons=, 400, 401
=Pericles=, 404
_Periochae_ of Livy, 649
_Periplus_ (Scylax), 126
=Perotti=, 135
=Persius=, 7, 15, 17, 21, 131, 235, 236, 279-295, 298, 322, 345, 370
_n._, 551, 612, 622, 626
_Persius, Life of_, 279, 281 _n._, 282, 293
_Peruigilium Veneris_, 167, 408, 645-646
=Peter=, Hermann, 4 _n._, 66 _n._, 74 _n._, 353 _n._, 541 _n._, 560
_n._, 586 _n._
=Peterson=, 401 _n._, 559 _n._
=Petrarch=, 412, 658
=Petronius=, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 17, 50, 169-195, 205, 231, 245, 318,
367, 391, 471, 512, 554, 584
_Phaedra_ (Seneca), 248, 250, 254-255, 267
_Phaedra_ (Sophocles, lost), 254 _n._
=Phaedrus=, 6, 8, 16, 17, 80, 81, 87, 133-154, 216, 343
Φαινόμενα (Aratus), 155
_Pharsalia_, 193, 296-329, 336
_Phasma_ (mime, lost), 157
=Phillimore=, J. S., 467 _n._, 484 _n._
=Philo=, 592
=Philosophers=, 7, 14, 132, 235;
(jested at by Seneca himself), 237-238; 529, 534, 547, 609, 628, 629
=Philosophy=, 28, 30, 36, 37, 39, 45, 75, 115, 131, 132, 153, 172;
(Seneca’s), 198-234; 246, 248, 258, 266-268;
(in Persius), 280-291;
(in Lucan), 297, 298, 322; 345, 368;
(in elder Pliny), 370-378;
(in Quintilian), 394; 439, 572, 606, 651, 658:
_see also_ “Epicureanism,” “Stoicism”
_Phoenissae_ (Euripides), 250
_Phoenissae_ (Seneca), 248, 250, 253, 267, 272, 277, 481
_Phoenix_, 654
=Physicians=, 39, 40, 116-122, 124, 221, 509, 625: _see_ “Medicine”
=Physics=, 28, 36, 125, 200, 206, 221-222, 339-340, 354, 362, 363,
365, 366, 397
=Piccolomini=, Aeneas Sylvius, 413
=Pichon=, 102 _n._, 207, 218 _n._, 293 _n._, 298 _n._, 301 _n._, 316,
317, 319, 320, 321 _n._, 322, 323 _n._, 657 _n._
=Pindar=, 344
“=Pindarus=” as name of Latin Homer, 344
=Pisani=, 498 _n._
_Piscium Natura, De_ (lost), 207
=Piso= (conspirator against Nero): _see_ “Calpurnius”
=Piso, L.= (source for Pliny), 356
=Plato=, 38, 77
=Platonism=, 13, 652
=Plautius= (jurist), 431
=Plautus=, 30, 154, 191, 556, 595, 629, 643, 651
=Pléiade=, 271
=Plessis=, 134 _n._, 135 _n._, 149 _n._, 343, 345 _n._, 498 _n._
=Plinian type of letter=, 542-545, 556
=Plinies=, uncle and nephew, 349-351, 365, 531-532
=Pliny the elder=, 5, 7, 8, 16, 18, 36, 62, 82, 114, 126, 128, 131,
158, 161, 231, 234, 331, 347-385, 407, 421, 430, 435, 448, 465,
532, 554, 561, 570, 575;
(source for Tacitus), 584, 586 _n._, 587, 595; 643, 646, 653
_Pliny, Life of_ (Suetonius), 633
=Pliny the younger=, 5, 6, 18, 24, 101, 216, 233, 276, 347, 349, 350,
351, 353, 355, 390, 421, 423, 429, 430, 452, 453, 454, 502, 503,
510, 523, 530, 531-558, 560, 565, 570, 577, 586, 595, 604, 605,
612, 629, 631, 632, 635, 643, 655
=Plutarch=, 26 _n._, 27, 102, 105, 137, 235, 280, 412, 586, 654, 655
=Pöhlmann=, 587 _n._
_Poematia_ (Augurinus, lost), 548, 556
_Poetis, De_ (Suetonius, mostly lost), 633, 636
=Poggio=, 412, 448, 484
=Politian= (Poliziano), 555, 658
=Pollio=; _see_ “Asinius”
=Polybius= (Claudius’s freedman, Homeric translator), 201, 342-343:
_see also_ “_Consolatio_”
_Polyxena_ (Sophocles, lost), 252
“=Pompeian=,” in sense of “anti-Caesarian,” 89
=Pompeian wall-scribblings=, 26
=Pompeius Lenaeus=, 363
=Pompeius Saturninus= (orator, historian, poet), 556
=Pompeius=, Sextus (literary patron), 65, 66
=Pompeius Silo= (rhetor), 52
=Pompeius Trogus=, 70, 89, 104, 357, 358 _n._, 360, 361, 363, 629, 653
=Pompey=, 72, 87, 92, 94, 96, 125, 226, 246;
(in Lucan), 302-329; 461, 617
_Pomponii Secundi, De Vita_ (elder Pliny, lost), 352, 570
=Pomponius= (jurist), 628
=Pomponius Atticus=; _see_ “Atticus”
=Pomponius Bassulus= (comedy-writer), 157 _n._
=Pomponius Marcellus= (grammarian), 131
=Pomponius Mela=, 18, 125-131, 357, 363, 575, 646
=Pomponius Rufus=, (_Collecta_), 70
=Pomponius Secundus= (dramatist), 158-159, 249, 273, 277, 348;
(_Life_, by elder Pliny), 352, 570
=Pontano=, 658
=Pope=, 204, 413, 493, 627
=Porcius Latro= (rhetor), 43, 44, 48, 51, 52, 53, 55, 60, 62, 102, 514
=Posidonius=, 223, 319, 362, 581 _n._
=Postgate=, 297 _n._, 321 _n._, 534 _n._, and in bibliographies
=Practical traits=; _see_ under “Roman”
_Praetextae_, 159, 273, 274, 278, 282, 529:
_see also_ “Historical play”
_Prata_ or _Pratum_ (Suetonian miscellany, lost), 633
=Pretor=, 283 _n._, 287 _n._, 293
_Priapea_, 513
=Princeps= (rhetor), 421
_Principia_ (Newton), 658
=Priscian=, 170, 558, 633
_Pro_, for titles so beginning, _see_ under leading word
=Probus=, M. Valerius, 235, 236, 251, 279, 294, 298, 435
“=Proculians=,” 131, 235, 431, 558
=Proculus=, 131, 235
_Proper Names, Dress and Shoes, On_ (Suetonius, lost), 633
=Propertius=, 402, 408, 465, 513, 557
=Prose=, Ciceronian: _see_ “Ciceronianism”
=Prose=, poetic element in, 20-21, 30, 43, 55, 76-77, 91, 231, 383,
410, 430, 554, 556, 593, 595, 642, 648
_Prouidentia_, De, 207, 208, 217
=Prudentius=, 627, 654
=Pseudo-Asconius=, 235
=Pseudo-Frontinus=, 425-426, 430, 431
=(Pseudo-)Plutarch=, 26 _n._, 27, 137, 409 _n._, 566
=Pseudo-Quintilian=, 32, 34 _n._, 56, 414-420
=Psychological skill=: _see_ “Character-drawing”
=Ptolemy= (Alexander’s comrade), 105
=Publilius Syrus=, 153
_Punica_, 344, 453, 454-466
=Purple patches=, 18, 59, 128, 379, 400:
_see also_ “Rhetorical style”
=Pythagoreanism=, 120, 199: _cf._ “Neo-Pythagoreanism”
=Pytheas of Massilia=, 125, 363
Q
=Quadrivium=, 36, 189
_Quaestiones Naturales_, 203, 206, 208, 215, 217, 221-222, 317, 332,
339, 362: _see also_ “Physics”
_Qualitate Vitae, De_ (Florus), 645
=Quintilian=, 5, 9, 16, 18, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35,
39, 43, 56, 63, 115, 117, 122, 131, 149, 159, 228, 236, 248, 249,
257, 282, 326, 346, 352, 353, 386, 387-421, 430, 434, 448, 485,
500, 510, 519, 532, 547, 552, 553, 554, 561, 565, 566, 616, 642,
643, 654
=Quintilius Varus= (rhetor), 61
R
=Rabelais=, 187, 294
=Rabenhorst=, 355 _n._, 357, 358
=Race-mixture in Rome=, 4, 499, 601, 613
=Racine=, 271, 596, 598
=Ramorino=, 597
=Ramsay=, Prof. G. G., 295 _n._, 560 _n._, 593 _n._
=Rand=, Prof. E. K., 534 _n._
_Rape of Proserpine_ (Claudian), 656
_Re Militari, De_ (Frontinus, lost), 424
_Re Rustica, De_, 160-168
=Reading aloud=, 24, 26, 29, 118, 390, 393: _see_ “_Recitationes_”
=Realism=, 8, 45 _n._, 147, 172, 174, 179, 184, 186-188, 192, 250;
(misapplied), 260
(in the mime), 277, 288; 291-292;
(in Lucan), 312-313, 325;
(in Val. Flacc.), 438;
(ludicrous, in Silius), 463-464;
(in Martial), 506-508, 513-514;
(in Juvenal), 607-615, 617, 622-623, 627
_Rebus, De Variis_ (Suetonius, lost), 633, 634
_Recitationes_ (public readings), 7, 10, 118, 158, 249, 276, 280,
299, 345, 468, 470, 536, 537, 538, 547, 557, 607, 615, 625
_Regibus, De_ (Suetonius, lost), 633
=Regulus=, M. Aquilius (_delator_), 421, 510, 543, 549
=Reid=, Prof. J. S., 591 _n._
=Reifferscheid=, 318, 631 _n._, 634 _n._
=Reinach=, 147
=Reitzenstein=, 414
=Remy=, 554 _n._
=Renaissance=, influences on, 258, 270-271, 335, 412-413, 528-529,
544, 658
_Rerum Natura, De_, 340, 362
=Resl=, 565 _n._
=Reuss=, 105 _n._
=Reussner=, 480 _n._
_Rhetor_, 25, 27, 29, 30, 39, 43, 44, 48, 54, 388, 390, 392: _see_
“Rhetoric,” “Rhetoricians”
_Rhetoribus, De_ (Suetonius), 23, 102, 563, 633, 636
=Rhetoric=, 4 _n._, 8-12, 16;
(education), 23-41;
(bibliography), 42; 43-64, 115, 122, 130, 151, 172, 198, 235, 236,
288, 292, 297, 298, 311, 383;
(Quintilian), 387-421; 512, 536, 552, 561, 572, 592, 596, 604, 606,
611, 615-616, 617, 624, 636, 654
=Rhetoric=, Greek, 25, 29, 30, 31, 37, 45, 50, 55, 58, 61, 69, 400,
401, 405, 407, 628
=Rhetorical excesses avoided=, 55, 93, 122, 192, 280, 283, 292, 345,
464, 511, 514, 638, 641
=Rhetorical exercises=, romantic side of, 9, 43, 54, 56, 60, 184,
415-416
=Rhetorical puerility=, 58-59, 173
=Rhetorical repertory=, 65-81, 276
=Rhetorical style=, 20, 59-60, 76-79, 84, 91-94, 106, 112-113,
128-129, 193, 209, 217, 229, 250, 251, 258, 259, 268, 272, 276,
288, 296;
(in Lucan), 301, 304, 306, 308, 309, 320, 321, 323, 324, 326-329;
(in elder Pliny), 379, 383;
(in Val. Flacc.), 450;
(in Silius), 455, 463;
(in Statius), 489-490, 493, 495;
(in younger Pliny), 538-541, 552-553;
(in Tacitus), 568-569, 592, 596;
(in Juvenal), 624-626;
(in Florus), 648
=Rhetoricians=, 18, 42-64, 131, 388, 420-421, 558, 636, 644, 651,
652, 655
=Rhodian style=, 403
=Ribbeck=, 134 _n._, 135 _n._, 252, 278 _n._, 599 _n._, 600 _n._,
602, 621
_Richard III_, 272
=Ritter=, 414, 415
_Ritu_ (_Situ_, codd.) _et Sacris Aegyptiorum, De_ (lost), 199, 207
=Robert of Cricklade=, 385
=Robert of Fulda=, 597
=Rocheblave=, 401 _n._
=Rohde=, 184 _n._
=Roman Empire=, Florus’s conception of, 110 _n._, 647
=Roman Empire=, greatest period, 2, 8
=Roman Empire=, unity of, 106, 125, 376, 590, 591, 657
=Roman national note=, 69-70, 76, 86, 100, 102, 140-143, 162, 198,
268, 286, 303, 304, 321, 333, 343, 368, 375, 378-379, 382-383,
428, 429, 447, 458, 459, 463, 539-540, 551, 579, 589-590, 601,
613, 647-648, 656-657
=Roman practical traits=, 12, 24, 46, 67-68, 69, 87, 117-120, 122,
152, 162-163, 164, 168, 198, 232, 363, 398, 407-408, 429, 606
=Roman religion=, 15-16, 100, 161;
(burlesqued in Petronius), 174; 189, 205, 217, 224, 231-232;
(parodied), 237-242; 284-285, 314, 371, 373-374, 380, 433, 454,
550-551, 587-588, 618, 619, 625 _n._;
_see_ “Deification”
_Roman Year, On the_ (Suetonius, lost), 633
=Romances=, 184-185, 189, 652
=Romantic elements=, 9, 18, 43, 54, 56, 60, 104, 106, 184, 250, 254,
306, 408, 415-416, 418, 434-435, 437, 441, 475, 477, 488, 492,
515, 526-527, 624, 637, 639, 645-646, 647, 652, 656
=Rome=, aspects of imperial history, 2-7
=Rome=, cosmopolitan features, 4, 232, 499, 601, 613, 630, 657
=Rome=, nationalizing power, 4, 656-657
_Romeo and Juliet_, 272
_Romulus_ (medieval), 135, 136, 150, 151 _n._
_Romulus_ (Naevius, lost), 273
=Rose=, 357, 358
=Rossbach=, 208
=Rostovzeff=, 4 _n._
=Roth=, 631 _n._, 634 _n._
=Rousse=, 294 _n._
=Rousseau=, 377
=Rubrenus Lappa= (dramatist), 278
=Rück=, 385 _n._
=Ruskin=, 217
=Rutgers=, 155
=Rutilius Lupus= (_De Figuris_), 62, 420
=Rutilius Namatianus=, 656, 657
=Rutilius Rufus= (Republican autobiography), 570
S
=Sabbadini=, 563 _n._, 644 _n._
_Sabinae_ (Ennius, lost), 273
“=Sabinians=,” 131, 235, 431, 558
=Sabinus=, Caelius (jurist), 431
=Sabinus=, Masurius (jurist), 131
=Saintsbury=, Prof., 387 _n._
=Saleius Bassus=; _see_ “Bassus”
=Sallust=, 21, 30, 70, 93, 102, 113, 123, 130, 227, 386, 401, 426,
432, 491, 570, 572, 575, 595, 642, 646
=Sallust’s influence=, 21, 93, 113, 386, 491;
(on Tacitus), 570, 572, 595
_Salticae fabulae_ (Lucan’s, lost), 301: _see also_ “_Fabula_”
=Salmasius=, 598
=Salvianus=, 136
=Salvius Junianus= (jurist), 628
=Sammonicus=, Serenus, 384
=Sannazaro=, 335, 658
=Santra= (grammarian), 403, 634
_Sardi Venales_, 245
=Sardus=, 557
=Sarpe=, 332
=Sasernae=, 164
_Satirae_ or _Saturae_, 169, 184, 613
=Satire=, 3, 8, 17, 22, 140-146, 172, 176-182, 184-188, 189, 190,
206, 227, 234, 236;
(Seneca), 237-246;
(Persius), 280-295;
(Nero’s), 345; 346, 400;
(in epigram), 511-514; 528, 530;
(in Tacitus), 576, 594;
(Juvenal), 599-627:
_see also_ “Menippean”
_Satires_ (Horace), 621-622: _see_ “_Sermones_”
=Satrius Rufus= (speaker), 421
_Satura, Menippea_ (Lipsius), 245
_Saturnalia_ (Lucan’s, lost), 301
=Saturnian verse=, 29, 342
_Satyricon_ or _Satiricon_, 169-194, 286, 292 _n._
=Scaeva Memor= (dramatist), 278, 530
=Scaliger=, 117, 271, 294, 297, 333, 339
=Scaurus=, M. Aemilius (author of _Memoirs_), 71, 570
=Scaurus=, Mamercus (speaker and dramatist, grandson of M. Aemilius),
48, 51, 62, 158, 198
=Schanz=, 46 _n._, 126 _n._, 173 _n._, 185 _n._, 217 _n._, 221 _n._,
223 _n._, 253 _n._, 294 _n._, 301 _n._, 317 _n._, 337 _n._, 344
_n._, 348 _n._, 353 _n._, 362 _n._, 425, 500 _n._, 533 _n._, 546
_n._, 563 _n._, 565 _n._, 577 _n._, 586 _n._, 634 _n._
=Schäfer=, 248 _n._
=Schenkl=, 433 _n._, 446 _n._
=Schiller=, Friedrich von, 156, 529, 621
=Schiller=, H., _Gesch. d. röm. Kaiserzeit_, 4 _n._, 560 _n._
=Schmalz=, 595 _n._
=Scholastic speaking=, 49: _see also_ “Education,” “Rhetoric”
=Scholasticism= (medieval), 10
=Schools=, curriculum, 23-41, 390, 393-394: _see_ “Education”
=Schools=, philosophic: _see_ “Epicureanism,” “Stoicism,” etc.
=Schools=, provincial, 36, 37, 38-41; _see_ “Africa,” “Gaul,” “Spain”
=Schreiner=, 252 _n._
=Schulze=, 498 _n._
=Schur=, 584 _n._
=Schwabe=, 133 _n._, 560 _n._
=Science=, 5, 18, 119, 125, 156, 163, 215, 221-222, 228, 229, 234,
324, 340, 348 _n._, 350, 353-368, 377, 385;
(in education), 394, 397; 428, 634, 658:
_see also_ “Astronomy,” “Gromatics,” “Mathematics,” “Physics”
_Scientiarum, De Augmentis_, 658
=Scribonius Largus=, 114, 131
=Scylax=, 126
=Sebosus=, 362
“=Second Sophistic=,” 37
=Sejanus=, 62, 66, 82, 87, 90, 100, 142, 158, 209, 582, 583, 617
_Sejanus_ (Ben Jonson), 273, 598
=Seneca= “=Grandio=,” 58
=Seneca=, L. Annaeus, the elder, 11, 23, 32, 33, 34, 38, 42-60, 82,
104, 156, 184, 197, 198, 231, 296, 298, 419, 420, 585, 634, 646,
653
=Seneca=, L. Annaeus, the younger, 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20,
21, 24, 44, 60, 61, 131, 132, 149, 153, 157, 161, 170, 172, 173,
191, 193, 194;
(as philosopher), 196-234, 235;
(as satirist), 237-246;
(as poet), 246-273; 274, 275, 281, 296, 298, 299, 317, 319, 332,
337, 339, 342, 343, 345, 346, 356, 362, 364, 370, 380, 402, 406,
410, 411, 431, 448, 481, 499, 500, 504, 510, 513, 514, 524, 542,
553, 554, 555, 584, 642, 651
=Senecan influence=, 231, 270-273, 274, 276, 401;
(on Statius), 481;
(on Pliny), 554
=Senecan prose=, 18, 20, 21, 228-231, 401, 553
=Seneca’s satiric side=, 3, 17, 216, 233, 237-246
=Seneca’s tragedies=, 12, 17, 208, 246-273, 446, 481
=Senecas, elder and younger=, 16, 43, 130, 197, 319
_Sententiae_, 10, 29, 51, 59, 75, 76, 93-94, 112-113, 191, 193, 198,
211, 228, 230, 248, 261, 262, 264-265, 327-328, 381, 395, 405,
440, 448, 450, 465, 495, 528, 540, 552, 572, 594, 624-626
=Sententious manner=, 153, 190-191, 229, 258
=Septimius Serenus= (Hadrianic poet), 628
=Septimius Severus= (the emperor’s grandfather), 421
=Septimius Severus= (emperor), 652
_Septuagint_, 581
_Sermo_ (in rhetoric), 419-420
_Sermo cotidianus_, 542, 627: _see_ “Latin, spoken”
_Sermo plebeius_: _see_ “Latin, spoken”
_Sermones_ (Horace’s _Satires_), 293
=Serranus= (epic-writer), 346
=Servilius Nonianus= (historian), 83, 280, 388, 585
=Servius=, 29, 128, 170, 558, 627, 633, 643, 653
_Sesame and Lilies_, 217
_Seven against Thebes_, 250, 253
=Sévigné=, Madame de, 223, 542
=Sextii=, 132, 199, 221
=Sextius Niger=, 363
=Shakespeare=, 96, 272, 598
=Shuckburgh=, 631 _n._, 642 _n._
=Siculus Flaccus= (gromatic writer), 558
=Sidonius Apollinaris=, 38, 170, 248, 542, 555, 597, 600, 603
=Sienkiewicz=, 171
_Signs in Writings, On_ (Suetonius, lost), 633
=Sihler=, 92 _n._
=Silius Italicus=, 8, 9, 12, 17, 343-344, 434, 448, 452-466, 484,
510, 555, 556
=Silius Proculus= (poet), 557
_Silua defined_, 485 _n._
_Siluae_ (Lucan, lost), 301
_Siluae_ (Statius), 467, 468, 469, 470, 481, 484-493, 494 _n._, 495,
497
=Silver Age of literature=, 1, 2, 7-12, 16-22, 47, 89, 650;
(influence on neo-Latin poets), 658
=Silver Age=, fresh variety in, 8, 17, 22: _see_ “Originality”
=Silver Latinity=, 16, 18-22, 23, 35, 43, 79-81, 90-93, 123, 152,
379, 410-411, 430, 552-554;
(at its greatest), 593-596; 642, 649, 650:
_see also_ “Rhetorical style”
=Silver style=, in making, 56-59
=Simcox=, 294, 657 _n._
=Simonides of Ceos= (lyric poet), 134, 148, 511
=Singer, Dr.=, 385 _n._
=Sisenna=, 105, 184, 584
_Situ_ (? _Ritu_) _et Sacris Aegyptiorum, De_ (lost), 199, 207
_Situ Indiae, De_ (lost), 207
_Situ Orbis, De_ (Mela), 126
=Slaves=, 25, 34, 67, 79, 133, 136, 138, 140, 141, 162, 163, 171,
176, 182, 201, 225, 227, 232, 242, 243, 286-287, 292, 383, 393,
419, 464, 485, 487, 488, 507, 524-525, 549, 579, 583, 584, 585,
608, 610, 611, 612, 613, 615, 633
=Smiley=, 532 _n._
=Smollett=, 186, 187
=Socrates=, 145, 244
=Socratic philosophy=, 174, 281, 282, 285, 289
=Solinus=, 384, 643
=Sophron=, 288
=Sophocles=, 250, 252, 253, 257, 270, 377, 480
=Sorn=, 294 _n._
=Sotion= (philosopher), 199
=Souriau=, 298 _n._, 322
=Southey=, 454
=Spain=, influence of, 16, 43, 48, 127, 128, 165, 245, 272, 296, 389,
411, 421, 488, 502, 510, 514: _see also_ “Latin, Spanish”
=Spain=, schools in, 31: _see also_ “Corduba”
_Spanish Tragedie_, 272
=Sparsus= (rhetor), 48
=Spartianus=, 631
=Spatzek=, 551 _n._
_Spectacles and Games among Romans_ (Suetonius, lost), 633, 643
_Spectaculis, De_ (Tertullian), 643
_Spectaculorum Liber_ (Martial), 501, 503, 512
=Speeches for and against Sagitta= (Lucan, lost), 301, 326
=Speeches published=, 62, 63, 71, 207, 296, 301, 388, 391;
(Pliny’s), 536-541; 556, 557, 584, 629
=Spenser=, Edmund, 335
=Stahr=, 242 _n._, 590 _n._
=Statius the elder= (schoolmaster and poet), 468, 492, 529
=Statius=, 7, 9, 12, 17, 21, 22, 30, 158, 297, 300, 301, 336, 386,
421, 435, 438, 446, 448, 449, 450, 465, 466, 467-497, 506, 510,
514, 530, 615, 637, 656
=Steele=, R. B., 462 _n._
=Steiner=, 565 _n._
=Stella, Arruntius= (poet), 469, 470, 471, 485, 493, 510, 530
_Stichomythia_, 264, 269, 275
=Stoic diatribe=, 227, 288-289, 291
=Stoic influence=, 15, 37, 132: _see_ “Stoicism”
=Stoic opposition=, 14-15, 235, 280-281, 534
=Stoicism=, 7, 12-16, 36, 105, 110, 111, 123, 154, 192, 197, 198-199,
203, 205, 206, 210, 212-234, 235, 236, 240, 243, 248, 253,
266-268;
(in Persius), 280-291, 293-294; 298, 299;
(in Lucan), 304, 305, 306, 311, 314, 320, 332;
(in elder Pliny), 367, 370-373; 386, 390, 393 _n._, 407, 453, 457,
464, 507, 537, 549, 566, 587;
(in Juvenal), 617-618, 620, 622; 631
=Strabo=, 105, 125, 363, 581 _n._, 655
_Strategematon Libri_, 424-427, 431
=Strauss=, 252 _n._, 256 _n._
=Strong=, H. A., 409 _n._
=Strong=, Mrs. (_née_ Sellers), 4 _n._, 348 _n._, 359 _n._
_Studiosi Tres Libri_ (lost), 352
_Suasoria_, 9, 11, 32-33, 55, 280
_Suasoriae_ (elder Seneca), 23, 32, 46, 55, 57-59
=Subjectivity=, 8, 89, 95, 118, 156, 194-195, 209, 210, 225-226, 245,
377, 379, 542-544, 596: _see also_ “Originality”
Συγγενικόν (Suetonius, lost), 633
=Suetonius=, 2, 5, 7, 16, 18, 23, 27, 28, 44, 102, 201, 277, 297,
299, 300, 331, 347, 349, 358, 412, 419, 421, 554, 555, 563, 565,
592, 597, 598, 600, 629, 630, 631-643, 650, 655
=Suetonius Paulinus=, 234, 585
=Suidas=, 633, 634
=Suil(l)ius=, 64, 204, 213, 583
=Sulla= (Republican autobiography), 570
=Sulpicia= (poetess), 530
=Sulpicius Severus=, 597
=Summers=, Prof., 19 _n._, 165 _n._, 230 _n._, 257 _n._, 332 _n._,
435 _n._, 446, 447 _n._, 450 _n._
=Superstition=, 111-112, 119, 122, 189, 199, 303, 309, 367, 550, 588,
612: _see also_ “Divination”
_Superstitione, De_ (lost), 207
=Surdinus= (rhetor), 61
=Symmachus=, 352, 384, 554
=Synesios=, 542
T
=Tachau=, 252 _n._
=Tacitus=, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 35,
43, 50, 61, 62, 63, 82, 85, 96, 97, 100, 101, 123, 130, 156, 171,
172, 203, 228, 231, 234, 278, 297, 300, 331, 336, 346, 352, 353,
380, 385, 386, 389, 390, 391, 421, 431, 452, 507, 529, 537, 547,
549, 550, 553, 554, 557, 559-598, 605, 621, 628, 629, 637, 638,
643, 656
=Tacitus= (emperor), 597
_Tactics_ (Arrian), 105
=Tanzmann=, 532 _n._
=Tarver=, 591 _n._
=Technical learning=; _see_ “Learning”
=Terence=, 30, 143, 151, 154, 236, 271, 280, 432, 556
_Terence, Life of_ (Suetonius), 633, 634, 637
=Terentianus Maurus= (metrist), 170, 653
=Terentius Scaurus= (grammarian), 629
_Tereus_ (lost play by Faustus), 278
=Tertullian=, 38, 191, 231, 554, 576, 633, 643, 653-654
_Testibus, De_, 63, 388
=Teuffel=, 68 _n._, 70 _n._, 71, 89 _n._, 94, 126 _n._, 149 _n._, 186
_n._, 340, 348 _n._, 357, 558 _n._, 631 _n._, 649 _n._, 657 _n._
_Thebae_ or _Thebais_ (lost play; by Faustus), 278
_Thebaid_ (in Latin, _Thebais_, Statius), 435, 468, 469, 470,
472-482, 483, 484, 490, 492, 493, 494, 495, 496, 615
_Thebais_ (Antimachus), 480
_Thebais_ (variant title for Seneca’s _Phoenissae_), 248
=Themison=, 117, 625
=Theocritus=, 331
=Theodoreans=, 61, 397
=Theodorus of Gadara=, 61, 154, 397
=Theodosius II=, 41
=Theophanes of Mytilene=, 125
=Theophrastus=, 225, 357, 359, 363, 364
=Theophrastus Bombast=, 122
_Theseid_ (Albinovanus), 156
_Theseid_ (Codrus or Cordus), 530
_Theses_, 31, 32 _n._
=Thiele=, 150 _n._, 151 _n._
=Thimm=, 631 _n._
=Thomas=, Paul, 218 _n._
=Thomson=, 493
=Thrasea=, Paetus (Stoic), 13, 14 _n._, 235, 236, 280, 288, 370, 386,
570, 584
=Thucydides=, 401
_Thyestes_ (Curiatius Maternus, lost), 257, 278, 529
_Thyestes_ (Ennius, lost), 257
_Thyestes_ (Euripides, lost), 257
_Thyestes_ (Seneca), 248, 250, 256-257, 266, 272
_Thyestes_ (Sophocles, lost), 257
_Thyestes_ (Varius, lost), 257, 402
_Tibère_ (Chénier), 598
=Tiberianus=, 646
=Tiberius= (emperor), 2, 5, 6, 39, 44, 46, 60, 61, 62, 65, 66, 72,
82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 95, 96-100, 114, 131, 134,
141, 142, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 170, 199, 216, 296, 343, 370,
380, 388, 397, 489, 577, 581, 582, 583, 584, 585;
(in Tacitus), 590-594; 638, 639, 641
=Tiberius’s= _Memoirs_, 585
=Tiberius’s= _Speeches_, 584
=Tibullus=, 5, 402, 513
=Tigellinus=, 171, 202
=Timagenes=, 105
=Time=, sense of its value, 16, 140-141, 194, 216-217, 285, 350-351,
354, 376, 406, 519-521, 528, 532
=Titinius Capito= (historian), 557
=Titius Aristo= (jurist), 558
=Titius Probus= (epitomator), 71
=Titus= (emperor), 5-6, 348, 349, 353, 354, 378, 433, 501, 529, 532,
561, 576, 580, 635;
(_Life_), 641
_Titus Andronicus_, 272
_Togatae_, 277, 530
=Tolkiehn=, 341 _n._, 344
_Tom Jones_, 173
=Toutain=, 4 _n._
=Tozer=, 125 _n._, 126 _n._
_Trachiniae_ (Sophocles), 257
=Tragedy=, 158-159, 208, 247-278, 292, 402, 530
=Tragic authors=, Seneca’s Roman predecessors, 252
=Trajan=, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 16, 39, 202, 421, 427, 428, 431, 453, 454,
470, 502, 507, 533, 534, 535, 536, 538, 539, 540, 541, 545, 546,
551, 555, 562, 563, 564, 566, 567, 570, 571, 574, 582, 589, 602,
605, 609, 630, 632, 644
_Tranquillitate Animi, De_, 207, 213, 214-215, 234
=Trebius Niger= (source for Pliny), 356, 361
=Tremellius Scrofa=, 164
_Trimalchio’s Banquet_, 174-185
=Trissino=, 271
=Trivium=, 36, 189
_Troades_ (Accius, lost), 252
_Troades_ (Euripides), 251
_Troades_ (Seneca), 248, 250, 251, 261-264, 266, 268, 271
=Trogus=; _see_ “Pompeius”
_Troiae Halosis_ (“Sack of Troy” in _Satyricon_), 182, 192
_Troica_ (Nero, lost), 345-346
_Troilus and Criseyde_, 484
=Troubadours=, 56
=Trypho(n)=, (publisher), 392, 519
=Tucker=, 4 _n._
=Turnus= (satirist), 530
=Turrinus Clodius= (rhetor), 48, 62
=Tutilius= (grammarian), 421
U
=Ugoletus, Angelus=, 330
Ὕλη (Sextius Niger), 363
=Ulpian=, 653
=“University” learning in antiquity=, 36, 38, 39-41; _see also_
“Philosophy,” “Rhetoric,” “Science,” etc.
Ὕψους, Περί, 404, 408
=Urbanus= (Virgilian scholar), 558
_Urbanus sermo_, 154
=Urlichs=, 354 _n._, 358, 560 _n._
=Urseius Ferox= (jurist), 431
=Usener=, 401 _n._
=Ussani=, 298 _n._, 317, 319, 321 _n._
V
=Vacca=, 296 _n._, 297, 299, 300, 301, 317
=Vagellius=, 346
=Valens= (emperor), 597, 656
=Valerius Flaccus=, 9, 12, 17, 22, 433-451, 465, 466, 475, 496, 510,
529
=Valerius Licinianus= (reckoned a Spanish Cicero), 421
=Valerius Maximus=, 12, 18, 65-81, 123, 130, 152, 276, 362, 383, 427,
653
=Valerius Messallinus Cotta= (speaker), 62
=Valerius Primanus= (rhetor), 102
=Valerius Probus=; _see_ “Probus”
=Valla=, 658
=Valmaggi=, 593 _n._
=Vanbrugh=, 524
=Vandaele=, 133 _n._
_Vanity of Human Wishes, The_, 613
=Varius= (Augustan dramatist), 257, 402
=Varro of Atax=, 435
=Varro of Reate=, 17, 29, 36, 70, 115, 125, 128, 164, 173, 184, 231,
245, 289, 334, 356, 357, 359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 401, 558,
566, 634
=Vegetius=, 115
=Veiento=, Fabricius, 236
=Velius Longus= (Virgilian scholar), 558
=Velleius Paterculus=, 18, 66, 72, 81, 82, 83-100, 123, 575, 585,
592, 642
_Vergilii, Liber contra obtrectatores_, 235
_Vergilius Orator an Poeta_ (lost dialogue), 644
=Vergilius Romanus= (comedy-writer), 157 _n._, 276-277, 556, 557
=Verginius Flavus= (teacher), 236, 280, 421
=Verginius Rufus= (poet), 530, 532, 561
_Verrine Orations_, Pseudo-Asconius’s notes, 235
=Verrius Flaccus=, 39, 358, 363, 407, 558
=Vespasian=, 3, 5, 14, 39, 235, 257, 331, 349, 350, 353, 378, 385,
431, 433, 447, 453, 529, 561, 565, 576, 580, 581, 585, 603, 634;
(_Life_), 640-641
=Vessereau=, 338 _n._
=Vestricius Spurinna= (lyric poet), 530, 555
=Vianey=, 593 _n._
=Vibius Crispus= (delator), 64, 388
=Vibius Gallus= (rhetor), 56
=Vibius Maximus= (historian), 386, 470, 490-491
=Vibius Rufus= (rhetor), 52
=Vida=, 658
=Villeneuve=, 279 _n._, 281 _n._, 288 _n._, 289 _n._
=Villon=, 504
=Vincent of Beauvais=, 170, 412
=Vindex= (Statius’s poet friend), 471
=Vipstanus Messalla= (source for Tacitus), 386, 564, 584
=Virgil=, 1, 5, 9, 20, 21, 22, 29, 30, 36, 49, 57, 61, 113, 134, 164,
165, 166, 178, 192, 228, 236, 268, 269, 280, 281, 287, 297, 299,
312, 315, 316, 321, 322, 330, 332, 333, 334, 336, 338, 339, 343,
345, 357, 378, 394, 432, 435, 436, 437, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449,
451, 453, 458, 463, 465, 469, 477, 481, 482, 483, 484, 485, 488,
496, 510, 513, 553, 558, 593, 595, 596, 618, 626, 629, 637, 640,
642, 644, 648
_Virgil, Life of_, 636-637
=Virgilian influence=, 9, 17, 19, 20, 113, 166, 268, 287, 318,
322-323, 330, 332, 338, 435, 437, 441, 442, 443, 447, 448, 449,
457, 458, 460, 465, 466, 471, 481-482, 495, 513, 554, 558, 595,
626, 642, 648, 651, 656
_Viris Illustribus, De_ (Suetonius, in part lost), 297, 600, 633, 634
_Vita Beata, De_ (_ad Gallionem_), 197, 207, 212-213, 234
_Vita Caesarum, De_, 633, 637-643: _see_ “_Caesars_”
_Vita Patris, De_ (by younger Seneca, lost biography), 207
=Vitelli=, 297 _n._, 317, 319
=Vitellius= (emperor), 3, 453, 576, 577, 579, 580, 636;
(_Life_), 638
_Vitiis Corporalibus, De_ (Suetonius, lost), 633
=Vitorius Marcellus=, 389, 421
=Vitruvius=, 36, 357, 362, 363, 364, 430 _n._, 653
=Vittorino da Feltre=, 413
=Vives=, 413
=Voconius Romanus= (orator, letter-writer), 556
=Vogt=, 565 _n._
=Vollmer=, 132 _n._, 467 _n._
=Volta=, 365
=Voltaire=, 592 _n._
_Voluseno Catulo, Pro_, 63 _n._
=Vossius=, 65
=Votienus Montanus= (speaker), 48, 55, 63
=Vulgar Latin=; _see_ “Latin, spoken”
_Vulgate_, 269, 657
W
=Wachsmuth=, 425 _n._
=Wagner=, 498 _n._
_Wallenstein_, 156
=Waller=, 516
=Walpole=, Horace, 544, 545
=Waltz=, 196 _n._, 208, 213, 293 _n._
=War=, in education, 36, 101, 115, 351, 423: _see_ “Military tactics”
=Warde Fowler=, 83 _n._, 526 _n._
=Watteau=, 493
=Webster= (dramatist), 272
=Weidemann=, R., 586 _n._
=Weinberger=, 574 _n._
=Weinkauff=, 565 _n._
=Weinreich=, 245 _n._, 246 _n._, 249 _n._
=Wellmann=, 363 _n._
=Welzhofer=, 384 _n._
=Wernsdorf=, 331, 338 _n._, 339, 530 _n._
=Westerburg=, 297 _n._, 319, 321 _n._
=Whately= (rhetorician), 413
_White Devil, The_, 272
=Wickhoff=, 4 _n._
=Wiedemann=, Th., 586 _n._
=Wilamowitz-Möllendorff=, 565 _n._
=Wilcken=, 535 _n._
=Winstedt=, 599 _n._, 606 _n._
=Wissowa=, 126 _n._
_Witnesses, On_: _see_ “_Testibus, De_”
=Wölfflin=, 133 _n._, 424 _n._, 425 _n._, 431, 593 _n._, 649 _n._
=Wordsworth=, 229, 405
=Writing= (in school), 24, 26
X
_Xenia_ (Martial), 501, 503, 512, 529
_Xenien_ (Goethe and Schiller), 529
=Xenocrates=, 364
=Xenophanes=, 371
=Xenophon=, 569, 630
Z
=Zander=, 133 _n._, 136, 151 _n._
=Zeuxis= (painter), 380
=Ziehen=, 297 _n._, 319
=Zingerle=, 452 _n._, 498 _n._
_Zoica_ (Greek), 359
=Zola=, 609
=Zoology=, 125, 354, 356 _n._, 359-361, 363, 366: _see_ “Natural
History”
=Zosimus= (freedman of younger Pliny), 549
_The Mayflower Press, Plymouth._ William Brendon and Son, Ltd.
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