on the wane, and genius becoming more and more rare. The moneyed
interest also in those days was already of great importance. Since
the acquisition of Sicily, there had been a wide field opened for
employment of capital; people went into the provinces to make their
fortunes. In Rome, as by canon law, it was forbidden to take interest;
yet the prohibition was unavailing, as ways and means were sought
out of evading it. As in the middle ages business was done through
the Jews, so in Rome it was carried on by means of foreigners and
freedmen; and it was still more easily managed in the provinces, where
there were none of these checks. And when the property (_publicum_) of
the Roman state had grown immensely great, it became the custom to
lease it out in single lots, such as the mines of Spain, the tithes
of Sicily or Illyricum, or the tunny-fisheries on the Sardinian
coast; so that those who farmed them made enormous profits, and many
suddenly found themselves rich, as people now do by stock-jobbing.
If a war-contribution were laid on a state, there was immediately a
_publicanus_ at hand, who advanced the money at twelve per cent. at
the very lowest, but often at twenty-four, and even at thirty-six per
cent.: the governors of the provinces then helped him to get paid. Thus
a reckless circulation of money began, of which there had never been a
trace before. The first signs of the class of the _publicani_ are to be
met with in Livy as early as in the war with Hannibal, and there are
rather more in the decade which follows; these men did not, however,
gain their extraordinary influence until nearly a hundred years
afterwards, when in the nature and extent of their wealth they form a
counterpart to the fortunes of the eighteenth century.
P. Scipio and Hannibal, according to the common account, died in the
year 569, the latter by his own hand, as the Romans had basely called
upon Prusias, the king of Bithynia, to yield him up. It happened that
the extensive and wealthy state of Eumenes, who was in a sort of
thraldom to the Romans, was so unwarlike, that the small kingdom of
Bithynia was formidable to him; and the latter had spread, and had
wrested from him a great part of Phrygia on the Hellespont. In this
war, Hannibal directed the undertakings of Prusias, and forthwith Roman
ambassadors demanded his surrender. The king was loth to arrest him;
but he ordered his house to be surrounded by soldiers, that he might
secure him until he had made up his mind whether he should give him
up. When Hannibal saw that every way of escape was shut out from him,
he swallowed poison and died. This demand of the Romans is one of the
infamies of that age. But even in their brightest times, they would not
have been more generous to an enemy like Hannibal, as is shown by the
case of C. Pontius in the Samnite war. Hannibal had been unaccountably
overlooked by the Romans for some years. T. Quinctius Flamininus lent
himself to the office of getting him to be delivered up.
LITERATURE OF THE ROMANS AT THIS PERIOD. ATELLANÆ, PRÆTEXTATÆ; LIVIUS
ANDRONICUS; NÆVIUS; ENNIUS; PLAUTUS. ROMAN HISTORIANS IN GREEK.
We are by no means to fancy that the Romans, before they were
acquainted with the Greeks, knew as little of Greek literature, as, for
instance, our forefathers did at the time of the revival of learning,
or that indeed they had had no literature whatever. The class of
scholars and writers was then unknown; but the Romans, and all the
Italian nations in general, were very well versed in Greek poetry.
This is shown by their pictures and monuments of every kind, by the
many representations of Greek fables on the vases of the Etruscans
and other peoples, and by the idiomatic names of Grecian heroes which
were current in Italy; for instance, Ulixes,[38] instead of Odysseus;
Catamitus, instead of Ganymedes; Alumentus, instead of Laomedon, and
so forth; which are proofs that they really were in the mouths of the
people. The religion of the Romans was not mythological, but a regular
theology; their deities were νοούμενα, the myths referring but to the
gods of lesser rank: they were therefore wanting in that which gives
so much life to the Greek poetry. This of course applies rather to the
Sabine element in the Roman population; the Pelasgian one was evidently
more akin to the Grecian. By the other element, as well as by the
Sibylline books and by the oracle of Apollo, they were familiarized
with the mythology, and, therefore, likewise with the poetry of
the Greeks: that mythology, there can be no doubt, was perfectly
intelligible to the Romans. In Rome, after the end of the first Punic
war, Greek poetry became still more known through the medium of the
Latin language: it is true, however, that it awakened less interest
there than in other Italian towns. The theatre at Tusculum, which, if
we may judge from the bases found in the orchestra, dates at latest
from the war with Hannibal, presupposes the performance of native or
Greek pieces.
The Atellan plays, which are mentioned even before the end of the
fourth century, are to us a distinct sign of a national literature.
The statement that they were extemporised, is surely correct. Thus,
before the great change of manners in Italy, there was often some
improvisation interwoven with the pantomimes. As in the Atellanæ they
possessed a sort of comedy, so in the _prætextatæ_, they had not only
a native, but also a most ancient national tragedy. I believe that
there is no mistake in connecting with the _prætextatæ_, the solemn
processions at funerals, in which the masks of deceased men, who had
curule ancestors (_jus imaginum_), were represented in the dress of
their rank by men of similar size; yet even without any reference to
this, we may ascribe to them a very great antiquity. The first poet
whom we know to have treated them according to the rules of art, was
Attius: earlier _prætextatæ_ than his are not mentioned; yet this is no
proof that they did not exist a long time before.
The translation of Greek poetry into the Latin tongue was a step of
immense consequence. That Livius Andronicus had been taken prisoner
at Tarentum, may be a mistake, as he is perhaps confounded with M.
Livius Macatus; Livius Andronicus could at that time have been but a
mere child. The accounts of him are very uncertain; in the earlier
ages, little heed was bestowed upon the lives of the first poets, and
their sayings and doings were only gathered afterwards: thus it still
happened with Plautus and Terence. As far as we can judge from his
fragments, he seems not even to have attained to the Greek form at
all. The Odyssey, which, from its reference to the native country of
the Romans, went indeed nearer home to their hearts, and had greater
attraction for them than the Iliad,[39] he seems not to have translated
at full length, but to have made an abridgment of it, which was also
in the homely Italian measure. The great poem of Nævius was likewise
in the saturnian rhythm. Besides the Odyssey, there are only tragedies
mentioned of Livius, which, however, like the Atellanæ, were not acted
in the theatre, but on a stage in the circus.
Nævius blended the history of the most recent times with Greek
mythology; in his great historical poem, for instance, he brought in
the myth of the giants. Besides this, he wrote tragedies as well as
comedies, as we may see from the titles. That he was a good poet, we
may indeed believe on Cicero’s word, who, on the whole, found the old
writers very little to his taste.
When Nævius was an old man, Plautus, who was undoubtedly one of the
greatest poetical geniuses of ancient times, was growing up by his
side. This poet takes Greek plays and treats them with a finished
irony, not making a mere version from the original, but displaying
in his characters the peculiarities of Roman life, which is that of
the lower orders, freedmen, strangers, and naturalized citizens. The
scene is at Athens, or Epidamnus, or elsewhere; but he has also Greek
characters (for instance, the parasite is thoroughly Greek), and
then one is again reminded that one is in the midst of Romans. The
cleverness with which he managed this, and with which, on the slippery
path where he might so easily have stumbled, he always hits the right
point, is quite miraculous. We see how wonderfully rich and refined
his language was, a proof that even before his time it had been very
much cultivated, otherwise it would not have been changed so quickly.
For we have a _senatus consultum_ of the fifth century,[40] and the
epitaph of Scipio Barbatus, with which we may compare his style, and we
find a remarkable difference.
Livius was a foreign client; Nævius a moneyed man, a maniceps; being
too bold for a foreigner, he was prosecuted because he had given
offence to one of the Metelli.[41] Of Plautus, we do not even know
whether he was a Roman citizen: he must have been poor; but the story
of his having worked at a mill does not rest upon any trustworthy
authority. The first who really was a Roman citizen, being somewhat
younger than Nævius, but standing in quite a different position from
his, was Ennius, a _gentleman_,[42] and certainly a member of the
tribes: he lived with Scipio, Fulvius Nobilior, and the first men,
and was treated with the highest distinction. It is he who gained for
poetry and literature the respect and esteem of the Romans. Among
his fragments, there are some very fair pieces; his poetry, however,
was not directed to higher objects: in comedy he seems to have been
weak, nor does he appear to have held it in particular regard; in epic
poetry, on the other hand, he has decided merit. Some of his things
were written in a purely Roman form,--this was probably the case with
the _Sabinæ_,[43] and also with the _Saturæ_,--yet he followed out
quite a different idea. Plautus’ metres are by no means thoroughly
Greek, though they very often coincide with the latter: the scansion by
long and short syllables is Greek, but the Romans were not so strict
in their measures, not having the quick ear of the Greeks. A trochaic
or iambic movement was of native use among the Romans, and was not
measured in the same way as among the Greeks: so it is with anapæsts
among the modern Greeks, and with all the metres among some of the
Slavonic nations. The _senarius_ may be Greek, and as little peculiar
to the Romans as to us (Germans). Even as Plautus introduced the
latter, so did Ennius the hexameter, which was quite foreign; and this
brought about just such revolution in metres as with us. His hexameters
were still clumsy and full of faults, and without any _cæsura_, or
with a false one, though not so bad as in Klopstock. Much as I like
the old _numeri_, the verses of Ennius have something in them which is
unpleasing to me. Besides the metres which are properly lyric, he has
tried all the _rhythmi_; and indeed he has done it with much greater
trueness than the older dramatists. The _senarius_ has already more of
measured syllables, which gave it a firmer hold; but there is between
the verses of Ennius and those of Virgil, as wide a gulf as between the
first attempts of Klopstock and that height of perfection in metrical
art, to which Count Platen has reached. A peculiarity of the old
versification which as yet is far from being clearly made out, was the
slurring of the short syllables (_ecthlipsis_): _ego_ was pronounced as
one syllable, like the Italian _io_; _accipito_, as a dactyl.
Ennius was not an original genius; yet he surely does not deserve the
contempt with which Horace speaks of him. He had had a Greek education
in Calabria; Greek was his second mother tongue, while the Roman was
for him only an acquired language: he therefore wished to help the
Romans to a translated Greek literature. If we compare it with what
the Greek literature then was, that of the Romans was very brilliant.
The Alexandrine period was now already past. Callimachus was dead,
when Livius Andronicus began; Antagoras[44] and Aratus were dead;
Eratosthenes was a mere versifier. On the other hand, the Romans had a
great deal of freshness, and there would have been still more, had not
Ennius caused the foreign influence to get so much the upperhand.
Somewhat younger than Ennius was Pacuvius, his sister’s son, justly
called the Deep. He scorned the pieces of Euripides, which Ennius had
chosen, and only took those of Æschylus and Sophocles, thus putting
himself altogether in opposition to the taste of the Greeks of that age.
Q. Fabius Pictor and L. Cincius Alimentus then wrote the history of
their own nation in Greek. Dionysius, who finds fault with Fabius as
an historian, has never made any objection against his language; on
the contrary, the fact that Dionysius wrote his own history only down
to the beginning of the first Punic war, when Fabius was getting to be
more diffuse, proves that the latter was very readable. Of the same
standing was Acilius. The great Scipio wrote in the form of a letter
to Philip the history of his own wars,[45] and so did his son-in-law
Scipio Nasica that of the war with Perseus. Greek grammarians,
statuaries, and painters were brought in already by Æmilius Paullus for
the education of his children.
WAR WITH THE LIGURIANS; WITH THE CELTIBERIANS. THE THIRD MACEDONIAN
WAR. PEACE WITH THE RHODIANS. FURTHER WARS IN SPAIN. STATE OF AFFAIRS
AT HOME.
During these changes, when on all points a sudden and thorough
revolution had taken place in the manners of the people, the Romans
were not backward in widening their sway: whilst the state was falling
to pieces, they did not know what to do, unless they were making
conquests. The evil had become so deep-rooted, that it could hardly
have been got rid of; but as it was, nothing was done to heal it, and
the degeneracy quickly increased.
The war against the Ligurians is not only insignificant, when measured
by the standard of other wars, but it is also obscure, owing to our
very defective knowledge of the geography of the country. It has some
resemblance to undertakings against the Caucasian tribes of which
we now (1829) read; and although the Apennines are not such a high
mountain-range as the Caucasus, they yet likewise give great advantages
to the inhabitants. As is always the case when a powerful state has
once determined upon subjugating a people, the Ligurians also were
crushed. Their tribes in fact had their abodes as far as the Rhone; but
the Romans, who were chiefly anxious to secure the Tuscan frontier,
reduced only the Genoese territory. These wars did not reach beyond
the borders of Provence; the hostilities against the Salyans in the
neighbourhood of Marseilles belong to a later period.[46] These tribes
fought for their freedom with such determination, that the Romans had
no other course but to drive them out of their fastnesses,--booty there
was none to be got there,--and the consuls Cornelius and Bæbius[47]
led away fifty thousand Ligurians from their homes into Samnium
where Frontinus,[48] as late as in the second century met with their
descendants under the names of the Cornelian and Bæbian Ligurians.
The war was ended before that of Perseus. For the especial purpose
of commanding Gaul, the highway of Flaminius, which went as far as
Ariminum, was now lengthened as the _via Æmilia_ to Placentia; and the
whole country south of the Po was filled with colonies, so that the
Celtic population disappeared.
All this time, the Romans were likewise establishing their rule in
Spain, where they regularly kept troops. This beginning of standing
armies had a decided influence, not only upon warfare, but also on all
the relations of civil life. In former days, the real burthens of war
had fallen upon all ranks alike: every one who was able to bear arms,
had served for a time, and he became a citizen again, when the legion
was disbanded at the end of the contest; which had this advantage,
that the soldier was not separated from the citizen. But now the men
remained for a long term of years in Spain, married Spanish women, and
became estranged from Italy: many of them never returned. The Roman
sway spread itself over Catalonia, Valencia, and Andalusia, as far as
the Sierra Morena; for when they waged war with the Celtiberians, the
latter had traversed the country of the neighbouring tribes. These wars
were therefore not so much for acquisition as for consolidation. Their
rule over the nations seems to have become somewhat slippery; but Cato,
during his consulate in 557, gained them back by his uprightness. Roman
generals who behaved in this way, always won the confidence of the
Spaniards; and these would submit, until the injustice of the Romans
again drove them to shake off the yoke: the people always appears in a
very noble light. Cato, however, was also cunning, this being a feature
in his character, as well as in that of the Romans as a nation. He
strengthened the power of Rome by circulars which he sent to seventy or
eighty Spanish towns, all of which were strongly fortified, and in case
of rebellion hard to take, so that they were apt to combine with their
neighbours. In these letters, which were all of them to be opened on
one and the same day, as containing a secret of very high importance,
was the command to pull down their walls forthwith under the threat of
a siege and of bondage. The order was generally obeyed; and before
they became aware that it was a stratagem, the work of demolition had
already made considerable progress.
In the year 575, Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, a son of him who in the war
with Hannibal had won a brilliant victory over Hanno and had nobly
fallen, and also the father of the two ill-fated brothers, became
consul, and went to Spain. (It was he who had deeply deplored that P.
Scipio tried to set himself above the law, but who did not wish him to
be punished like any other citizen; and Scipio had afterwards chosen
him for his son-in-law.) At that time, the feeling of hostility had
already been more widely kindled. The Celtiberians, who had spread
from the sources of the Ebro to the threefold border of the Mancha,
Andalusia, and Valencia, and chiefly dwelt in New Castile and Western
Aragon, in the provinces of Soria and Cuença, had never been subject
to the Carthaginians, but had furnished them with mercenaries, as they
also did the Romans: they now got involved in war with the Romans, who
endeavoured to reduce them. They were the bravest people in Spain. With
them Gracchus concluded a peace, the conditions of which are unknown
to us; but they were so fair, that these tribes, who in reality had no
wish whatever for war, ever afterwards looked upon it as the greatest
good which could befall them, if they were only allowed to have them.
The whole family of the Gracchi is distinguished for an extraordinary
mildness and kindness, which otherwise are quite foreign to the Roman
character. Had his successors kept the peace, the Celtiberians would
have become as true and as useful allies to the Romans as the Marsians
and Pelignians. Other generals, however, extended the Roman rule in the
west of Spain: the Vaccæans north of the Tagus and the Lusitanians must
have been brought under subjection between 570 and 580; yet this was
not for long, owing to the extortions of the generals.