ON THE BEGINNINGS OF ROMAN LITERATURE.
Mommsen has truly remarked that the culminating point of Roman development
was the period which had no literature. Had the Roman people continued to
move in the same lines as they did before coming in contact with the works
of Greek genius, it is possible that they might have long remained without
a literature. Or if they had wrought one out for themselves, it would no
doubt have been very different from that which has come down to us. As it
is, Roman literature forms a feature in human history quite without a
parallel. We see a nation rich in patriotic feeling, in heroes legendary
and historical, advancing step by step to the fullest solution then known
to the world of the great problems of law and government, and finally
rising by its virtues to the proud position of mistress of the nations,
which yet had never found nor, apparently, even wanted, any intellectual
expression of its life and growth, whether in the poet's inspired song or
in the sober narrative of the historian.
The cause of this striking deficiency is to be sought in the original
characteristics of the Latin race. The Latin character, as distinguished
from the Greek, was eminently practical and unimaginative. It was marked
by good sense, not by luxuriant fancy: it was "natum rebus agendis." The
acute intellect of the Romans, directing itself from the first to
questions of war and politics, obtained such a clear and comprehensive
grasp of legal and political rights as, united with an unwavering tenacity
of purpose, made them able to administer with profound intelligence their
vast and heterogeneous empire. But in the meantime reflective thought had
received no impulse.
The stern and somewhat narrow training which was the inheritance of the
governing class necessarily confined their minds to the hard realities of
life. Whatever poetical capacity the Romans may once have had was thus
effectually checked. Those aspirations after an ideal beauty which most
nations that have become great have embodied in "immortal verse"--if they
ever existed in Rome--faded away before her greatness reached its
meridian, only to be rekindled into a shadowy and reflected brightness
when Rome herself had begun to decay.
There is nothing that so powerfully influences literature as the national
religion. Poetry, with which in all ages literature begins, owes its
impulse to the creations of the religious imagination. Such at least has
been the case with those Aryan races who have been most largely endowed
with the poetical gift. The religion of the Roman differed from that of
the Greek in having no background of mythological fiction. For him there
was no Olympus with its half-human denizens, no nymph-haunted fountain, no
deified heroes, no lore of sacred bard to raise his thoughts into the
realm of the ideal. His religion was cold and formal. Consisting partly of
minute and tedious ceremonies, partly of transparent allegories whereby
the abstractions of daily life were clothed with the names of gods, it
possessed no power over his inner being. Conceptions such as Sowing
(Saturnus), War (Bellona), Boundary (Terminus), Faithfulness (Fides), much
as they might influence the moral and social feelings, could not be
expanded into material for poetical inventions. And these and similar
deities were the objects of his deepest reverence. The few traces that
remained of the ancient nature-worship, unrelated to one another, lost
their power of producing mythology. The Capitoline Jupiter never stood to
the Romans in a true personal relation. Neither Mars nor Hercules (who
were genuine Italian gods) was to Rome what Apollo was to Greece. Whatever
poetic sentiment was felt centred rather in the city herself than in the
deities who guarded her. Rome was the one name that roused enthusiasm;
from first to last she was the true Supreme Deity, and her material
aggrandisement was the never-exhausted theme of literary, as it had been
the consistent goal of practical, effort.
The primitive culture of Latium, in spite of all that has been written
about it, is still so little known, that it is hard to say whether there
existed elements out of which a native art and literature might have been
matured. But it is the opinion of the highest authorities that such
elements did exist, though they never bore fruit. The yearly Roman
festival with its solemn dance, [1] the masquerades in the popular
carnival, [2] and the primitive litanies, afforded a basis for poetical
growth almost identical with that which bore such rich fruit in Greece. It
has been remarked that dancing formed a more important part of these
ceremonies than song. This must originally have been the case in Greece
also, as it is still in all primitive stages of culture. But whereas in
Greece the artistic cultivation of the body preceded and led up to the
higher conceptions of pure art, in Rome the neglect of the former may have
had some influence in repressing the existence of the latter.
If the Romans had the germ of dramatic art in their yearly festivals, they
had the germ of the epos in their lays upon distinguished warriors. But
the heroic ballad never assumed the lofty proportions of its sister in
Greece. Given up to women and boys it abdicated its claim to widespread
influence, and remained as it had begun, strictly "gentile." The theory
that in a complete state place should be found for the thinker and the
poet as well as for the warrior and legislator, was unknown to ancient
Rome. Her whole development was based on the negation of this theory. It
was only when she could no longer enforce her own ideal that she admitted
under the strongest protest the dignity of the intellectual calling. This
will partly account for her singular indifference to historical study.
With many qualifications for founding a great and original historical
school, with continuous written records from an early date, with that
personal experience of affairs without which the highest form of history
cannot be written, the Romans yet allowed the golden opportunity to pass
unused, and at last accepted a false conception of history from the
contemporary Greeks, which irreparably injured the value of their greatest
historical monuments. Had it been customary for the sober-minded men who
contributed to make Roman history for more than three centuries, to leave
simple commentaries for the instruction of after generations, the result
would have been of incalculable value. For that such men were well
qualified to give an exact account of facts is beyond doubt. But the
exclusive importance attached to active life made them indifferent to such
memorials, and they were content with the barren and meagre notices of the
pontifical annals and the yearly registers of magistrates in the temple of
Capitoline Jupiter.
These chronicles and registers on the one hand, and the hymns, laws, [3]
and formulas of various kinds on the other, formed the only written
literature existing in the times before the Punic wars. Besides these,
there, were a few speeches, such as that of Ap. Claudius Caecus (280 B.C.)
against Pyrrhus, published, and it is probable that the funeral orations
of the great families were transmitted either orally or in writing from
one generation to another, so as to serve both as materials for history
and models of style.
Much importance has been assigned by Niebuhr and others to the ballad
literature that clustered round the great names of Roman history. It is
supposed to have formed a body of national poetry, the complete loss of
which is explained by the success of the anti-national school of Ennius
which superseded it. The subjects of this poetry were the patriots and
heroes of old Rome, and the traditions of the republic and the struggles
between the orders were faithfully reflected in it. Macaulay's _Lays of
Ancient Rome_ are a brilliant reconstruction of what he conceived to be
the spirit of this early literature. It was written, its supporters
contend, in the native Saturnian, and, while strongly leavened with Greek
ideas, was in no way copied from Greek models. It was not committed to
writing, but lived in the memory of the people, and may still be found
embedded in the beautiful legends which adorn the earlier books of Livy.
Some idea of its scope may be formed from the fragments that remain of
Naevius, who was the last of the old bards, and bewailed at his own death
the extinction of Roman poetry. Select lays were sung at banquets either
by youths of noble blood, or by the family bard; and if we possessed these
lays, we should probably find in them a fresher and more genuine
inspiration than in all the literature which followed.
This hypothesis of an early Roman epos analogous to the Homeric poems, but
preserved in a less coherent shape, has met with a close investigation at
the hands of scholars, but is almost universally regarded as "not proven."
The scanty and obscure notices of the early poetry by no means warrant our
drawing so wide an inference as the Niebuhrian theory demands. [4] All
they prove is that the Roman aristocracy, like that of all other warlike
peoples, listened to the praises of their class recited by minstrels
during their banquets or festive assemblies. But so far from the minstrel
being held in honour as in Greece and among the Scandinavian tribes, we
are expressly told that he was in bad repute, being regarded as little
better than a vagabond. [5] Furthermore, if these lays had possessed any
merit, they would hardly have sunk into such complete oblivion among a
people so conservative of all that was ancient. In the time of Horace
Naevius was as well known as if he had been a modern; if, therefore, he
was merely one, though, the most illustrious, of a long series of bards,
it is inconceivable that his predecessors should have been absolutely
unknown. Cicero, indeed, regrets the loss of these rude lays; but it is in
the character of an antiquarian and a patriot that he speaks, and not of
an appraiser of literary merit. The really imaginative and poetical halo
which invests the early legends of Rome must not be attributed to
individual genius, but partly to patriotic impulse working among a people
for whom their city and her faithful defenders supplied the one material
for thought, and partly, no doubt, though we know not in what degree, to
early contact with the legends and culture of Greece. The epitaphs of the
first two Scipios are a good criterion of the state of literary
acquirement at the time. They are apparently uninfluenced by Greek models,
and certainly do not present a high standard either of poetical thought or
expression.
The fact, also, that the Romans possessed no native term for a poet is
highly significant. _Poeta_, which we find as early as Naevius, [6] is
Greek; and _vates_, which Zeuss [7] traces to a Celtic root, meant
originally "soothsayer," not "poet." [8] Only in the Augustan period does
it come into prominence as the nobler term, denoting that inspiration
which is the gift of heaven and forms the peculiar privilege of genius.
[9] The names current among the ancient Romans, _librarius_, _scriba_,
were of a far less complimentary nature, and referred merely to the
mechanical side of the art. [10] These considerations all tend to the
conclusion that the true point from which to date the beginning of Roman
literature is that assigned by Horace, [11] viz. the interval between the
first and second Punic wars. It was then that the Romans first had leisure
to contemplate the marvellous results of Greek culture, revealed to them
by the capture of Tarentum (272 B.C.), and still more conspicuously by the
annexation of Sicily in the war with Carthage. In Sicily, even more than
in Magna Graecia, poetry and the arts had a splendid and enduring life.
The long line of philosophers, dramatists, and historians was hardly yet
extinct. Theocritus was still teaching his countrymen the new poetry of
rustic life, and many of the inhabitants of the conquered provinces came
to reside at Rome, and imported their arts and cultivation; and from this
period the history of Roman poetry assumes a regular and connected form.
[12]
Besides the scanty traces of written memorials, there were various
elements in Roman civilisation which received a speedy development in the
direction of literature and science as soon as Greek influence was brought
to bear on them. These may be divided into three classes, viz. rudimentary
dramatic performances, public speaking in the senate and forum, and the
study of jurisprudence.
The capacity of the Italian nations for the drama is attested by the fact
that three kinds of dramatic composition were cultivated in Rome, and if
we add to these the semi-dramatic _Fescenninae_, we shall complete the
list of that department of literature. This very primitive type of song
took its rise in Etruria; it derives its name from Fescennium, an Etrurian
town, though others connect it with _fascinum_, as if originally it were
an attempt to avert the evil eye. [13] Horace traces the history of this
rude banter from its source in the harvest field to its city developments
of slander and abuse, [14] which needed the restraint of the law. Livy, in
his sketch of the rise of Roman drama, [15] alludes to these verses as
altogether unpolished, and for the most part extemporaneous. He agrees
with Horace in describing them as taking the form of dialogue
(_alternis_), but his account is meagre in the extreme. In process of time
the Fescennines seem to have modified both their form and character. From
being in alternate strains, they admitted a treatment as if uttered by a
single speaker,--so at least we should infer from Macrobius's notice of
the Fescennines sent by Augustus to Pollio, [16] which were either lines
of extempore raillery, or short biting epigrams, like that of Catullus on
Vatinius, [17] owing their title to the name solely to the pungency of
their contents. In a general way they were restricted to weddings, and we
have in the first _Epithalamium_ of Catullus, [18] and some poems by
Claudian, highly-refined specimens of this class of composition. The
Fescennines owed their popularity to the light-hearted temper of the old
Italians, and to a readiness at repartee which is still conspicuous at the
present day in many parts of Italy.
With more of the dramatic element than the Fescennines, the _Saturae_
appear to have early found a footing in Rome, though their history is
difficult to trace. We gather from Livy [19] that they were acted on the
stage as early as 359 B.C. Before this the boards had been occupied by
Etruscan dancers, and possibly, though not certainly, by improvisers of
Fescennine buffooneries; but soon after this date _Saturae_ were performed
by one or more actors to the accompaniment of the flute. The actors, it
appears, sang as well as gesticulated, until the time of Livius, who set
apart a singer for the interludes, while he himself only used his voice in
the dialogue. The unrestrained and merry character of the _Saturae_ fitted
them for the after-pieces, which broke up the day's proceedings
(_exodium_); but in later times, when tragedies were performed, this
position was generally taken by the _Atellana_ or the _Mime_. The name
_Satura_ (or _Satira_) is from _lanx saturu_, the medley or hodge-podge,
"quae referta variis multisque primitiis in sacro apud priscos diis
inferebatur." Mommsen supposes it to have been the "masque of the full
men" (_saturi_), enacted at a popular festival, while others have
connected it with the Greek Satyric Drama. In its dramatic form it
disappears early from history, and assumes with Ennius a different
character, which has clung to it ever since.
Besides these we have to notice the _Mime_ and the _Atellanae_. The former
corresponds roughly with our farce, though the pantomimic element is also
present, and in the most recent period gained the ascendancy. Its true
Latin name is _Planipes_ (so Juvenal _Planipedes audit Fabios_ [20] in
allusion to the actor's entering the stage barefoot, no doubt for the
better exhibition of his agility). Mimes must have existed from very
remote times in Italy, but they did not come into prominence until the
later days of the Republic, when Laberius and Syrus cultivated them with
marked success. We therefore defer noticing them until our account of
that period.
There still remain the _fabulae Atellanae_, so called from Atella, an
Oscan town of Campania, and often mentioned as _Osci Ludi_. These were
more honourable than the other kinds, inasmuch as they were performed by
the young nobles, wearing masks, and giving the reins to their power of
improvisation. Teuffel (L. L. § 9) considers the subjects to have been
"comic descriptions of life in small towns, in which the chief personages
gradually assumed a fixed character." In the period of which we are now
treating, _i.e._ before the time of a written literature, they were
exclusively in the hands of free-born citizens, and, to use Livy's
expression, were not allowed to be polluted by professional actors. But
this hindered their progress, and it was not until several centuries after
their introduction, viz., in the time of Sulla, that they received
literary treatment. They adopted the dialect of the common people, and
were more or less popular in their character. More details will be given
when we examine them in their completer form. All such parts of these
early scenic entertainments as were not mere conversation or ribaldry,
were probably composed in the Saturnian metre.
This ancient rhythm, the only one indigenous to Italy, presents some
points worthy of discussion. The original application of the name is not
agreed upon. Thompson says, "The term Saturnius seems to have possessed
two distinct applications. In both of these, however, it simply meant 'as
old as the days of Saturn,' and, like the Greek _Ogugios_, was a kind of
proverbial expression for something antiquated. Hence (1) the rude
rhythmical effusions, which contained the early Roman story, might be
called Saturnian, not with reference to their metrical law, but to their
_antiquity_; and (2) the term _Saturnius_ was also applied to a definite
measure on the principles of Greek prosody, though rudely and loosely
moulded--the measure employed by Naevius, which soon became _antiquated_,
when Ennius introduced the hexameter--and which is the _metrum Saturnium_
recognised by the grammarians." [21] Whether this measure was of Italian
origin, as Niebuhr and Macaulay think, or was introduced from Greece at an
early period, it never attained to anything like Greek strictness of
metrical rules. To scan a line of Livius or Naevius, in the strict sense
of the word, is by no means an easy task, since there was not the same
constancy of usage with regard to quantity as prevailed after Ennius, and
the relative prominence of syllables was determined by accent, either
natural or metrical. By natural accent is meant the higher or lower pitch
of the voice, which rests on a particular syllable of each word _e.g.
Lúcius_; by metrical accent the _ictus_ or beat of the verse, which in the
Greek rhythms implies a long _quantity_, but in the Saturnian measure has
nothing to do with quantity. The principle underlying the structure of the
measure is as follows. It is a succession of trochaic beats, six in all,
preceded by a single syllable, as in the instance quoted by
Macaulay:
"The | queén was ín her chámber eáting bréad and hóney,"
So in the Scipionic epitaph,
"Qui | bús si in lónga lícuisét tibi útier víta."
These are, doubtless, the purest form of the measure. In these there is no
break, but an even continuous flow of trochaic rhythm. But even in the
earliest examples of Saturnians there is a very strong tendency to form a
break by making the third trochaic beat close a word, _e.g._
"Cor | néliús Lucíus || Scípió Barbátus,"
and this structure prevailed, so that in the fragments of Livius and
Naevius by far the greater number exhibit it.
When Greek patterns of versification were introduced, the Saturnian rhythm
seems to have received a different explanation. It was considered as a
compound of the iambic and trochaic systems. It might be described as an
_iambic hepthemimer_ followed by a _trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic_.
The latter portion was preserved with something like regularity, but the
former admitted many variations. The best example of this _Graecised_
metre is the celebrated line--
"Dabunt malum Metelli | Naevio poetae."
If, however, we look into the existing fragments of Naevius and Livius,
and compare them with the Scipionic epitaphs, we shall find that there is
no appreciable difference in the rhythm; that whatever theory grammarians
might adopt to explain it, the measure of these poets is the genuine
trochaic beat, so natural to a primitive people, [22] and only so far
elaborated as to have in most cases a pause after the first half of the
line. The idea that the metre had prosodiacal laws, which, nevertheless,
its greatest masters habitually violated, [23] is one that would never
have been maintained had not the desire to systematise all Latin prosody
on a Greek basis prevailed almost universally. The true theory of early
Latin scansion is established beyond a doubt by the labours of Ritschl in
regard to Plautus. This great scholar shows that, whereas after Ennius
classic poetry was based on quantity alone, before him accent had at least
as important a place; and, indeed, that in the determination of quantity,
the main results in many cases were produced by the influence of accent.
Accent (Gr. _prosodia_) implied that the pronunciation of the accented
syllable was on a higher or lower note than the rest of the word. It was
therefore a musical, not a quantitative symbol. The rules for its position
are briefly as follows. No words but monosyllables or contracted forms
have the accent on the last; dissyllables are therefore always accented on
the first, and polysyllables on the first or second, according as the
penultimate is short or long, _Lúcius, cecídi_. At the same time, old
Latin was burdened with a vast number of suffixes with a long final vowel.
The result of the non-accentuation of the last syllable was a continual
tendency to slur over and so shorten these suffixes. And this tendency was
carried in later times to such an extent as to make the quantity of all
final vowels after a short syllable bearing the accent indifferent. There
were therefore two opposing considerations which met the poet in his
capacity of versifier. There was the desire to retain the accent of every-
day life, and so make his language easy and natural, and the desire to
conform to the true quantity, and so make it strictly correct. In the
early poets this struggle of opposing principles is clearly seen. Many
apparent anomalies in versification are due to the influence of accent
over-riding quantity, and many again to the preservation of the original
quantity in spite of the accent. Ennius harmonised with great skill the
claims of both, doing little more violence to the natural accent in his
elaborate system of quantity than was done by the Saturnian and comic
poets with their fluctuating usage. [24]
To apply these results to the Saturnian verses extant, let us select a few
examples:
"Gnaivód patré prognátus | fórtis vír sapiénsque."
_patre_ or _patred_ retains its length by position, _i.e._ its metrical
accent, against the natural accent _pátre_. In the case of syllables on
which the _ictus_ does not fall the quantity and accent are indifferent.
They are always counted as short, two syllables may stand instead of one--
per liquidum máre sudántes | dítem véxárant.
or the unaccented syllable may be altogether omitted, as in the second
half of the line--
"dítem véxárant."
In a line of Naevius--
"Runcús atqué Purpúreus | fílií térras."
we have in _Purpúreus_ an instance of accent dominating over quantity. But
the first two words, in which the _ictus_ is at variance with both accent
and quantity, show the loose character of the metre. An interesting table
is given by Corssen proving that the variance between natural and metrical
accent is greater in the Saturnian verses than in any others, and in
Plautus than in subsequent poets, and in iambics than in trochaics. [25]
We should infer from these facts (1) that the trochaic metre was the one
most naturally suited to the Latin language; (2) that the progress in
uniting quantity and accent, which went on in spite of the great
inferiority of the poets, proves that the early poets did not understand
the conditions of the problem which they had set before them. To follow
out this subject into detail would be out of place here. The main point
that concerns our present purpose is, that the great want of skill
displayed in the construction of the Saturnian verse [26] shows the Romans
to have been mere novices in the art of poetical composition.
The Romans, as a people, possessed a peculiar talent for public speaking.
Their active interest in political life, their youthful training and the
necessity of managing their own affairs at an age which in most countries
would be wholly engrossed with boyish sports, all combined to make
readiness of speech an almost universal acquirement. The weighty
earnestness (_gravitas_) peculiar to the national character was nowhere
more conspicuously displayed than in the impassioned and yet strictly
practical discussions of the senate. Taught as boys to follow at their
father's side, whether in the forum, at the law courts, in the senate at a
great debate, or at home among his agricultural duties, they gained at an
early age an insight into public business and a patient aptitude for work,
combined with a power of manly and natural eloquence, which nothing but
such daily familiarity could have bestowed. In the earlier centuries of
Rome the power of speaking was acquired solely by practice. Eloquence was
not reduced to the rules of an art, far less studied through manuals of
rhetoric. The celebrated speech of Appius Claudius when, blind, aged, and
infirm, he was borne in a litter to the senate-house, and by his burning
words shamed the wavering fathers into an attitude worthy of their
country, was the greatest memorial of this unstudied native eloquence.
When Greek letters were introduced, oratory, like everything else, was
profoundly influenced by them; and although it never, during the
republican period, lost its national character, yet too much of mere
display was undoubtedly mixed up with it, and the severe self-restraint of
the native school disappeared, or was caricatured by antiquarian
imitators. The great nurse of Roman eloquence was Freedom; when that was
lost, eloquence sank, and while that existed, the mere lack of technical
dexterity cannot have greatly abated from the real power of the speakers.
The subject which the Romans wrought out for themselves with the least
assistance from Greek thought, was Jurisprudence. In this they surpassed
not only the Greeks, but all nations ancient and modern. From the early
formulae, mostly of a religious character, which existed in the regal
period, until the publication of the Decemviral code, conservatism and
progress went hand in hand. [27] After that epoch elementary legal
knowledge began to be diffused, though the interpretation of the Twelve
Tables was exclusively in the hands of the Patricians. But the limitation
of the judicial power by the establishment of a fixed code, and the
obligation of the magistrate to decide according to the written letter,
naturally encouraged a keen study of the sources which in later times
expanded into the splendid developments of Roman legal science. The first
institution of the table of _legis actiones_, attributed to Appius
Claudius (304 B.C.), must be considered as the commencement of judicial
knowledge proper. The _responsa prudentium_, at the giving of which
younger men were present as listeners, must have contributed to form a
legal habit of thought among the citizens, and prepared a vast mass of
material for the labours of the philosophic jurists of a later age.
But inasmuch as neither speeches nor legal decisions were generally
committed to writing, except in the bare form of registers, we do not find
that there was any growth of regular prose composition. The rule that
prose is posterior to poetry holds good in Rome, in spite of the
essentially prosaic character of the people. It has been already said that
religious, legal, and other formulae were arranged in rhythmical fashion,
so as to be known by the name of _carmina_. And conformably to this we see
that the earliest composers of history, who are in point of time the first
prose writers of Rome, did not write in Latin at all, but in Greek. The
history of Latin prose begins with Cato. He gave it that peculiar
colouring which it never afterwards entirely lost. Having now completed
our preliminary remarks, we shall proceed to a more detailed account of
the earliest writers whose names or works have come down to us.