THE EARLY HISTORY OF SATIRE (ENNIUS TO LUCILIUS)
200-103 B.C.
Satire, as every one knows, is the one branch of literature claimed by the
Romans as their own. [1] It is, at any rate, the branch in which their
excellence is most characteristically displayed. Nor is the excellence
confined to the professed satirists; it was rather inherent in the genius
of the nation. All their serious writings tended to assume at times a
satirical spirit. Tragedy, so far as we can judge, rose to her clearest
tones in branding with contempt the superstitions of the day. The epic
verses of Ennius are not without traces of the same power. The prose of
Cato abounds with sarcastic reflections, pointedly expressed. The
arguments of Cicero's theological and moral treatises are largely
sprinkled with satire. The whole poem of Lucretius is deeply imbued with
it: few writers of any age have launched more fiery sarcasm upon the fear
of death, or the blind passion of love than he has done in his third and
fourth books. Even the gentle Virgil breaks forth at times into earnest
invective, tipped with the flame of satire: [2] Dido's bitter irony,
Turnus' fierce taunts, show that he could wield with stern effect this
specially Roman weapon. Lucan and Seneca affect a style which, though
grotesque, is meant to be satirical; while at the close of the classical
period, Tacitus transforms the calm domain of history into satire, more
burning because more suppressed than that of any of his predecessors. [3]
The claim to an independent origin advanced by Quintilian has been more
than once disputed. The name _Satire_ has been alleged as indicative of a
Greek original (_Satyrion_). [4] It is true this can no longer be
maintained. Still some have thought that the poems of Archilochus or the
_Silli_ may have suggested the Roman form of composition. But the former,
though full of invective, were iambic or personal, not properly satirical.
And the _Silli_, of which examples are found in Diogenes Laertius and Dio
Chrysostom, were rather patched together from the verses of serious
writers, forming a kind of _Cento_ like the _Carmen Nuptiale_ of Ausonius,
than original productions. The Roman Satire differed from these in being
essentially _didactic_. Besides ridiculing the vices and absurdities of
individuals or of society, it had a serious practical purpose, viz. the
improvement of public culture or morals. Thus it followed the old Comedy
of Athens in its plain speaking, and the method of Archilochus in its
bitter hostility to those who provoked attack. But it differed from the
former in its non-political bias, as well as its non-dramatic form: and
from the latter in its motive, which is not personal enmity, but public
spirit. Thus the assertion of Horace, that Lucilius is indebted to the old
comedians, [5] must be taken in a general sense only, and not be held to
invalidate the generally received opinion that, in its final and perfected
form, Satire was a genuine product of Rome.
The metres adopted by Satire was originally indifferent. The _Saturae_ of
Ennius were composed in trochaics, hexameters, and iambics; those of Varro
(called _Menippean_, from Menippus of Gadara), mingled together prose and
verse. [6] But from Lucilius onwards, Satire, accurately so called, was
always treated in hexameter verse. [7]
Nevertheless, Horace is unquestionably right in saying that it had more
real affinity for prose than for poetry of any kind--
"Primum ego me illorum, dederim quibus esse poetis,
Excerpam numero: neque enim concludere versum
Dixeris esse satis; neque si quis scribat, uti nos,
Sermoni propiora, pates hunc esse poetam." [8]
The essence of satiric talent is that it should be able to understand the
complexities of real life, that it should penetrate beneath the surface to
the true motives of action, and if these are bad, should indicate by life-
like touches their ridiculous or contemptible nature. There is room here
for great variety of treatment and difference of _personnel_. One may have
a broad and masculine grasp of the main outlines of social intercourse;
another with subtler analysis may thread his way through the intricacies
of dissimulation, and lay bare to the hypocrite secrets which he had
concealed even from himself; a third may select certain provinces of
conduct or thought, and by a good-humoured but discriminating portraiture,
throw them into so new and clear a light, as to enable mankind to look at
them, free from the prejudices with which convention so often blinds our
view.
The qualifications for excelling in this kind of writing are clearly such
as have no special connection with poetry. Had the modern prose essay
existed at Rome, it is probable the satirists would have availed
themselves of it. From the fragments of Lucilius we should judge that he
found the trammels of verse somewhat embarrassing. Practice had indeed
enabled him to write with unexampled fluency; [9] but except in this
mechanical facility he shows none of the characteristics of a poet. The
accumulated experience of modern life has pronounced in favour of
abandoning the poetic form, and including Satire in the domain of prose.
No doubt many celebrated poets in France and England have cultivated verse
satire; but in most cases they have merely imitated, whereas the prose
essay is a true formation of modern literary art. Conington, in an
interesting article, [10] regards the progressive enlargement of the
sphere of prose composition as a test of a nation's intellectual advance.
Thus considered, poetry is the imperfect attempt to embody in vivid
language ideas which have themselves hardly assumed definite form, and
necessarily gives way to prose when clearness of thought and sequence of
reasoning have established for themselves a more perfect vehicle. However
inadequate such a view may be to explain the full nature of poetry, it is
certainly true so far as concerns the case at present before us. The
assignment of each special exercise of mind to its proper department of
literature is undoubtedly a late growth of human culture, and such nations
as have not attained to it, whatever may be the splendour of their
literary creations, cannot be said to have reached the full maturity of
intellectual development.
The conception of Satire by the ancients is illustrated by a passage in
Diomedes: [11] "_Satira dicitur carmen apud Romanos nunc quidem maledicum
et ad carpenda hominum vitia archaeae comoediae charactere compositum,
quale scripserunt Lucilius et Horatius et Persius; at olim carmen quod ex
variis poematibus constabat satira cocabatur, quale scripserunt Pacuvius
et Ennius_." This old-fashioned _satura_ of Ennius may be considered as
half-way between the early semi-dramatic farce and the classical Satire.
It was a genuine medley, containing all kinds of subjects, often couched
in the form of dialogue, but intended for recitation, not for action. The
poem on Scipio was classed with it, but what this poem was is not by any
means clear; from the fragment that remains, describing a calm after storm
in sonorous language, we should gather that Scipio's return voyage from
Africa may have formed its theme. [12] Other subjects, included in the
_Saturae_ of Ennius, were the _Hedyphagetica_, a humorous didactic poem on
the mysteries of gastronomy, which may have suggested similar effusions by
Lucilius and Horace; [13] the _Epicharmus_ and _Euhemerus_, both in
trochaics, the latter a free translation of the _iera anagraphae_, or
explanation of the gods as deified mortals; and the _Epigrams_, among
which two on the great Scipio are still preserved, the first breathing the
spirit of the Republic, the second asserting with some arrogance the
exploits of the hero, and his claims to a place among the denizens of
heaven. [14]
Of the _Saturae_ of Pacuvius nothing is known. C. LUCILIUS (148-103 B.C.),
the founder of classical Satire, was born in the Latin town of Suessa
Aurunca in Campania. He belonged to an equestrian family, and was in easy
circumstances. [15] He is supposed to have fought under Scipio in the
Numantine war (133 B.C.) when he was still quite a youth; and it is
certain from Horace that he lived on terms of the greatest intimacy, both
with him, Laelius, and Albinus. He is said to have possessed the house
which had been built at the public expense for the son of King Antiochus,
and to have died at Naples, where he was honoured with a public funeral,
in the forty-sixth year of his age. His position, at once independent and
unambitious (for he could not hold office in Rome), gave him the best
possible chance of observing social and political life, and of this chance
he made the fullest use. He lived behind the scenes: he saw the corruption
prevalent in high circles; he saw also the true greatness of those who,
like Scipio, stood aloof from it, and he handed down to imperishable
infamy each most signal instance of vice, whether in a statesman, as
Lupus, [16] Metellus, or Albucius, or in a private person, as the glutton
Gallonius.
It is possible that he now and then misapplied his pen to abuse his own
enemies or those of his friends, for we know that the honourable Mucius
Scaevola was violently attacked by him; [17] and there is a story that
being once lampooned in the theatre in a libellous manner, the poet sued
his detractor, but failed in obtaining damages, on the ground that he
himself had done the same to others. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt
whatever that on the whole he nobly used the power he possessed, that his
trenchant pen was mainly enlisted on the side of patriotism, virtue, and
enlightenment, and that he lashed without mercy corruption, hypocrisy, and
ignorance. The testimony of Horace to his worth, coming from one who
himself was not easily deceived, is entitled to the highest consideration;
[18] that of Juvenal, though more emphatic, is not more weighty, [19] and
the opinion, blamed by Quintilian, [20] that he should be placed above all
other poets, shows that his plain language did not hinder the recognition
of his moral excellence.
Although a companion of the great, he was strictly popular in his tone. He
appealed to the great public, removed on the one hand from accurate
learning, on the other from indifference to knowledge. "_Nec
doctissimis_," he says, [21] "_Manium Persium haec legere nolo, Junium
Congum volo._" And in another passage quoted by Cicero, [22] he professes
to desire that his readers may be the Tarentines, Consentines, and
Sicilians,--those, that is, whose Latin grammar and spelling most needed
improvement. But we cannot extend this humility [23] to his more famous
political allusions. Those at any rate would be nothing if not known to
the parties concerned; neither the poet's genius nor the culprit's guilt
could otherwise be brought home to the individual.
In one sense Lucilius might be called a moderniser, for he strove hard to
enlarge the people's knowledge and views; but in another and higher sense
he was strictly national: luxury, bribery, and sloth, were to him the very
poison of all true life, and cut at the root of those virtues by which
alone Rome could remain great. This national spirit caused him to be
preferred to Horace by conservative minds in the time of Tacitus, but it
probably made his critics somewhat over-indulgent. Horace, with all his
admiration for him, cannot shut his eyes to his evident faults, [24] the
rudeness of his language, the carelessness of his composition, the habit
of mixing Greek and Latin words, which his zealous admirers construed into
a virtue, and, last but not least, the diffuseness inseparable from a
hasty draft which he took no trouble to revise. Still his elegance of
language must have been considerable. Pliny speaks of him as the first to
establish a severe criticism of style, [25] and the fragments reveal
beneath the obscuring garb of his uncouth hexameters, a terse and pure
idiom not unlike that of Terence. His faults are numerous, [26] but do not
seriously detract from his value. The loss of his works must be considered
a serious one. Had they been extant we should have found useful
information in his pictures of life and manners in a state of moral
transition, amusement in such pieces as his journal of a progress from
Rome to Capua, [27] and material for philological knowledge in his careful
distinctions of orthography and grammar.
As a favourable specimen of his style, it will be sufficient to quote his
definition of virtue:
"Virtus, Albine, est pretium persolvere verum
Quis in versamur, quis vivimus rebus potesse.
Virtus est homini scire id quod quaeque habeat res.
Virtus scire homini rectum, utile, quid sit honestum,
Quae bona, quae mala item, quid inutile, turpe, inhonestum.
Virtus, quaerendae finem rei scire modumque;
Virtus divitiis pretium persolvere posse.
Virtus, id dare quod reipsa debetur honori,
Hostem esse atque inimicum hominum morumque malorum
Contra, defensorem hominum morumque bonorum;
Magnificare hos, his bene velle, his vivere amicum;
Commoda praeterea patriai prima putare,
Deinde parentum, tertia iam postremaque nostra."
We see in these lines a practical and unselfish standard--that of the
cultivated but still truly patriotic Roman, admitting the necessity of
knowledge in a way his ancestors might have questioned, but keeping
steadily to the main points of setting a true price upon all human things,
and preferring the good of one's country to personal advantage. This is a
morality intelligible to all, and if it falls below the higher
enlightenment of modern, knowledge, it at least soars above the average
practice. We are informed [28] that Lucilius did not spare his immediate
predecessors and contemporaries in literature any more than in politics.
He attacked Accius for his unauthorised innovations in spelling, Pacuvius
and Ennius for want of a sustained level of dignity. His satire seems to
have ranged over the whole field of life, so far as it was known to him;
and though his learning was in no department deep, [29] it was sound so
far as it went, and was guided by natural good taste. He will always
retain an interest for us from the charming picture given by Horace of his
daily life; how he kept his books beside him like the best of friends, as
indeed they were, and whatever he felt, thought, or saw, intrusted to
their faithful keeping, whence it comes that the man's life stands as
vividly before one's eyes as if it had been painted on a votive tablet.
Then the way in which Laelius and Scipio unbent in his company, mere youth
as he was compared to them, gives us a pleasing notion of his social
gifts; he who could make the two grave statesmen so far forget their
decorum as to romp in the manner Horace describes, must at least have been
gifted with contagious light-heartedness. This genial humour Horace tried
with success to reproduce, but he is conscious of inferiority to the
master. In English literature Dryden is the writer who most recalls him,
though rather in his higher than in his more sportive moods.