Interspersed with the love-odes, addresses to friends and _pièces de

circonstance_, we observe, even in the earlier books, lyrics of a more

serious cast. Some are moral and contemplative, as the grand ode to

Fortune [45] and that beginning

"Non ebur neque aureum

Mea renidet in domo lacunar." [46]

Others are patriotic or political, as the second, twelfth, and thirty-

seventh of Book I. (the last celebrating the downfall of Cleopatra), and

the fifteenth of Book II. which bewails the increase of luxury. In these

Horace is rising to the truly Roman conception that poetry, like other

forces, should be consecrated to the service of the state. And now that he

could see the inevitable tendency of things, could gauge the emperor's

policy and find it really advantageous, he arose, no longer as a half-

unwilling witness, but as a zealous co-operator to second political by

moral power. The first six and the twenty-fourth Odes of the third book

show us Horace not indeed at his best as a poet, but at his highest as a

writer. They exhibit a more sustained manliness of tone than is perhaps to

be found in any passages of equal length from any other author. Heathen

ethics have no nobler portrait than that of the just man tenacious of his

purpose, with which the third ode begins; and Roman patriotism no grander

witness than the heart-stirring narrative of Regulus going forth to

Carthage to meet his doom. Whether or not the third ode was written to

dissuade Augustus from his rumoured project of transferring the seat of

empire from Rome to Troy, it expresses most strongly the firm conviction

of those best worth consulting, and, if the emperor really was in doubt,

must, in conjunction with Virgil's emphatic repetition of the same

sentiment, [47] have effectually turned him from his purpose. For these

odes carried great authority. In them the poet appears as the authorised

voice of the state, dispensing _verba et voces_ [48] "the charm of poesy"

to allay the moral pestilence that is devouring the people.

No one can read the odes without being struck with certain features

wherein they differ from his other works. One of these is his constant

employment of the Olympian mythology. Whatever view we may hold as to

their appearance in the _Aeneid_, there can he no doubt that in the _Odes_

these deities have a purely fictitious character. With the single

exception of Jupiter, the eternal Father, without second or equal even

among the Olympian choir, [49] whom he is careful not to name, none of his

allusions imply, but on the contrary implicitly disown, any belief in

their existence. In the satires and epistles he never employs this

conventional ornament. The same thing is true of his language to Augustus.

Assuming the poet's license, he depicts him as the son of Maia, [50] the

scion of kindly deities, [51] and a living denizen of the ethereal

mansions. [52] But in the epistles he throws off this adulatory tone, and

accosts the Caesar in a way befitting their mutual relations; for in

declaring that altars are raised to him and men swear by his name, [53] he

is not using flattery, but stating a fact. Another point of difference is

his fondness in the Odes for commonplaces, _e.g._ the degeneracy of the

age, [54] the necessity of enjoying the moment, [55] which he enforces

with every variety of illustration. Neither of these was the result of

genuine conviction. On the former he gives us his real view (a very noble

and rational one) in the third Satire of the first book, [56] and in the

_Ars Poetica_, as different as possible from the desponding pessimism of

ode and epode. And the Epicurean maxims which in them he offers as the sum

of wisdom, are in his _Epistles_ exchanged for their direct opposites:

[56]

"Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum,

Sperne voluptates; nocet empta dolore voluptas."

It is clear then that in the _Odes_, for the most part, he is an artist

not a preacher. We must not look to them for his deepest sentiments, but

for such, and such only, as admitted an effective lyric treatment.

As regards their form, we observe that they are moulded strictly upon the

Greek, some of those on lighter themes being translations or close

imitations. But in naturalising the Greek metres, he has accommodated them

with the rarest skill to the harmonies of the Latin tongue. The Virgilian

movement differs not more from the Homeric, than does the Horatian sapphic

or alcaic from the same metres as treated by their Greek inventors. The

success of Horace may be judged by comparing his stanzas with the sapphics

of Catullus on the one hand, and the alcaics of Statius on the other. The

former struggle under the complicated shackles of Greek prosody; the

latter move on the stilts of school-boy imitation. In language he is

singularly choice without being a purist; agreeably to their naturalised

character he has interspersed the odes with Greek constructions, some

highly elegant, others a little forced and bordering upon experiments on

language. [57] The poetry of his language consists not so much in its

being imaginative, as in its employing the fittest words in the fittest

places. Its general level is that of the best epistolary or oratorical

compositions, according to the elevation of the subject. He loves not to

soar into the empyrean, but often checks Pegasus by a strong curb, or by a

touch of irony or an incongruous allusion prevents himself or his reader

being carried away. [58] This mingling of irony and earnest is thoroughly

characteristic of his genius. To men of realistic minds it forms one of

the greatest of its charms.

Among the varied excellences of these gems of poetry, we shall select

three, as those after which Horace most evidently sought. They are

brevity, ease, life. In the first he is perhaps unequalled. It is not only

that what he says is terse; in what he omits we recognise the master hand.

He knows precisely what to dwell on, what to hint at, what to pass by. He

is on the best understanding with his reader. He knows the reader is a

busy man, and he says--"Read me! and, however you may judge my work, you

shall at least not be bored." We recollect no instance in which Horace is

prolix; none in which he can be called obscure; though there are many

passages that require weighing, and many abrupt transitions that somewhat

task thought. In condensed simplicity he is the first of Latin poets. Who

that has once heard can forget such phrases as _Nil desperandum, splendide

mendax, non omnis moriar, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_, and a

hundred others? His brevity is equalled by his ease. By this must not be

understood either spontaneity of invention or rapidity of execution. We

know that he was a slow, nay, a laborious workman.[59] But he has the _ars

celare artem_. What can be more natural than the transition from the

praises of young Nero to Hannibal's fine lament? [60] from those of

Augustus to the speech of Juno? [61] Yet these are effected with the most

subtle skill. And even when the digression appears more forced, as in the

well-known instances of Europa [62] and the Danaides, [63] the incongruity

is at once removed by supposing that the legend in each case forms the

main subject of the poem, and that the occasional introductions are a

characteristic form of preamble, perhaps reflected from Pindar. And once

more as to his liveliness. This is the highest excellence of the _Odes_.

It never flags. If the poet does not rise to an exalted inspiration, he at

least never sinks into heaviness, never loses life. To cite but one ode,

in an artistic point of view, perhaps, the jewel of the whole collection--

the dialogue between the poet and Lydia; [64] here is an entire comedy

played in twenty-four lines, in which the dialogue never becomes insipid,

the action never flags. Like all his love odes it is barren of deep

feeling, for which reason, perhaps, they have been compared to scentless

flowers. But the comparison is most unjust. Aroma, _bouquet:_ this is

precisely what they do _not_ lack. Some other metaphor must be sought to

embody the deficiency. At the same time the want is a real one; and

exquisite as are the _Odes_, no one knew better than their author himself

that they have no power to pierce the heart, or to waken those troubled

musings which in their blending of pain and pleasure elevate into

something that it was not before, the whole being of him that reads them.

The _Satires_ and _Epistles_ differ somewhat in form, in elaboration, and

in metrical treatment, but on the whole they have sufficient resemblance

to be considered together. The Horatian satire is _sui generis_. In the

familiar modern sense it is not satire at all. The censorious spirit that

finds nothing to praise, everything to ridicule, is quite alien to Horace.

Neither Persius nor Juvenal, Boileau nor Pope, bears any real resemblance

to him. The two former were satirists in the modern sense; the two latter

have caught what we may call the _town_ side of Horace, but they are

accomplished epigrammatists and rhetoricians, which he is not, and they

entirely lack his strong love for the simple and the rural. Horace is

decidedly the least rhetorical of all Roman poets. His taste is as free

from the contamination of the basilica [65] as it is from that of

Alexandrinism. As in lyric poetry he went straight to the fountain-head,

seeking models among the bards of old Greece, so in his _prose-poetry_, as

he calls the _Satires_, [66] he draws from the well of real experience,

departing from it neither to the right hand nor to the left. This is what

gives his works their lasting value. They are all gold; in other words,

they have been dug for. Refined gold all certainly are not, many of them

are strikingly the reverse; for all sorts of subjects are treated by them,

bad as well as good. The poet professes to have no settled plan, but to

wander from subject to subject, as the humour or the train of thought

leads him; as Plato says--

_opae an o logos agoi, tautae iteon_.

Without the slightest pretence of authority or the right to dictate, he

contrives to supply us with an infinite number of sound and healthy moral

lessons, to reason with us so genially and with so frank an admission of

his own equal frailty, that it is impossible to be angry with him,

impossible not to love the gentle instructor. He has been accused of

tolerance towards vice. That is, we think, a great error. Horace knew men

too well to be severe; his is no trumpet-call, but a still small voice,

which pleads but does not accuse. He was no doubt in his youth a lax

liver; [67] he had adopted the Epicurean creed and the loose conduct that

follows it. But he was struggling towards a purer ideal. Even in the

_Satires_ he is only half an Epicurean; in the _Epistles_ he is not one at

all: and in proportion as he has outlived the hot blood of youth, his

voice becomes clearer and his faith in virtue stronger. The _Epistles_ are

to a great extent reflective; he has examined his own heart, and depicts

his musings for our benefit. Many of them are moral essays filled with

precepts of wisdom, the more precious as having been genuinely thought out

by the writer for himself. Less dramatic, less vigorous, perhaps, than the

_Satires_, they embody in choicest language the maturest results of his

reflection. Their poetical merits are higher, their diction more chaste,

their metre more melodious. With the _Georgics_ they are ranked as the

most perfect examples of the modulation of hexameter verse. Their movement

is rippling rather than flowing, and satisfies the mind rather than the

ear, but it is a delicious movement, full of suggestive grace. The

diction, though classical, admits occasional colloquialisms. [68]

Several of the _Satires_, [69] and the three Epistles which form the

second book, are devoted to literary criticism, and these have always been

regarded as among the most interesting of Horace's compositions. His

opinions on previous and contemporary poetry are given with emphasis, and

as a rule ran counter to the opinion of his day. The technical dexterity

in versification which had resulted from the feverish activity of the last

forty years, had produced a disastrous consequence. All the world was

seized with the mania for writing poetry:

"Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim."

The young Pisos were among the number. To them the poet gave this friendly

counsel, to lock up their creations for nine years, and then publish, or

as we may shrewdly suspect he meant--destroy them. Poetry is the one thing

that, if it is to be done at all, must be done well:

"Mediocribus esse poetis

Non di, non homines, non concessere columnae."

In Horace's opinion none of the old poetry came up to this standard. When

he quotes two lines of Ennius [70] as defying all efforts to make prose of

them, we cannot help fancying he is indulging his ironical vein. He never

speaks seriously of Ennius. In fact he thoroughly disliked the array of

"old masters" that were at once confronted with him whenever he expressed

a predilection. It was not only the populace who yawned over Accius's

tragedies, or the critics who lauded the style of the Salian hymn, that

moved his resentment. These he could afford to despise. It was rather the

antiquarian prepossessions of such men as Virgil, Maecenas, and Augustus,

that caused him so earnestly to combat the love of all that was old. In

his zeal there is no doubt he has outrun justice. He had no sympathy for

the untamed vigour of those rough but spirited writers; his fastidious

taste could make no allowance for the circumstances against which they had

to contend. To reply that the excessive admiration lavished by the

multitude demanded an equally sweeping condemnation, is not to excuse

Horace. One who wrote so cautiously would never have used exaggeration to

enforce his words. The disparaging remarks must be regarded as expressing

his real opinion, and we are not concerned to defend it.

His attitude towards the age immediately preceding his own is even less

worthy of him. He never mentions Lucretius, though one or two allusions

[71] show that he knew and was indebted to his writings; he refers to

Catullus only once, and then in evident depreciation, [72] mentioning him

and Calvus as the sole literature of a second-rate singer, whom he calls

the ape of Hermogenes Tigellius. Moreover his boast that he was the first

to introduce the Archilochian iambic [73] and the lyric metres, [74]

though perhaps justifiable; is the reverse of generous, seeing that

Catullus had treated before him three at least of the metres to which he

alludes. Mr. Munro's assertion as to there being indications that the

school of Lucretius and Catullus would have necessarily come into

collision with that of the Augustan poets, had the former survived to

their time, is supported by Horace's attitude. Virgil and Tibullus would

have found many points of union, so probably would Gallus; but Horace,

Propertius, and Ovid, would certainly have been antagonistic. It is

unfortunate that the canons laid down by Horace found no followers. While

Virgil had his imitators from the first, and Tibullus and Propertius

served as models to young aspirants, Horace, strangely enough, found no

disciples. Persius in a later age studied him with care, and tried to

reproduce his style, but with such a signal want of success that in every

passage where he imitates, he caricatures his master. He has, however,

left us an appreciative and beautiful criticism on the Horatian method.

[75]

It has often been supposed that the _Ars Poetica_ was writen in the hope

of regenerating the drama. This theory is based partly on the length at

which dramatic subjects are treated, partly on the high pre-eminence which

the critic assigns to that class of poetry. But he can hardly have so far

deceived himself as to believe that any efforts of his could restore the

popular interest in the legitimate drama which had now sunk to the lowest

ebb. It should rather be considered as a deliberate expression of his

views upon many important subjects connected with literary studies,

written primarily for the young Pisos, but meant for the world at large,

and not intended for an exhortation (_adhortatio_) so much as a treatise.

Its admirable precepts have been approved by every age: and there is

probably no composition in the world to which so few exceptions have been

taken.

Here we leave Horace, and conclude the chapter with a very short account

of some of his friends who devoted themselves to poetry. The first is C.

VALGIUS RUFUS, who was consul in the year 12 B.C. and to whom the ninth

Ode of the second book is addressed. Whether from his high position or

from his genuine poetical promise, we find great expectations held

regarding him. Tibullus (or rather, the author of the poem ascribed to

him) [76] says that no other poet came nearer to Homer's genius, and

Horace by asking him to celebrate the new trophies of Augustus implies

that he cultivated an epic strain. [77] Besides loftier themes he treated

erotic subjects in elegiac verse, translated the rhetoric of Apollodorus,

[78] and wrote letters on grammar, probably in the form afterwards adopted

by Seneca's moral epistles. ARISTIUS FUSCUS to whom the twenty-second Ode

of the first book and the tenth Epistle are addressed, was a writer of

some pretensions. It is not certain what line he followed, but in all

probability the drama. He was an intimate acquaintance of Horace, and, it

will be remembered, delivered him from the intrusive acquaintance on the

Via Sacra. [79] FUNDANIUS, who is twice mentioned by Horace, and once in

very complimentary terms as the best comic poet of the day, [80] has not

been fortunate enough to find any biographer. TITUS, one of the younger

men to whom so many of the epistles are addressed, was a very ambitious

poet. He attempted Pindaric flights from which the genius of Horace

shrank, and apparently he cultivated tragedy, but in a pompous and ranting

manner. [81] ICCIUS, who is referred to in the ninth Ode of Book I., and

in the twelfth Epistle, as a philosopher, may have written poems. JULIUS

FLORUS, to whom two beautiful epistles (I. iii. II. ii.) are addressed, is

rallied by Horace on his tendency to write love-poems, but apparently his

efforts came to nothing. CELSUS ALBINOVANUS was, like Florus, a friend of

Tiberius, to whom he acted as private secretary for some time; [82] he was

given to pilfering ideas and Horace deals him a salutary caution:--

"Monitus multumque monendus

Privatas ut quaerat opes, et tangere vitet

Scripta Palatinus quaecunque recepit Apollo." [83]

The last of these friends we shall notice is JULUS ANTONIUS [84] a son of

the triumvir, who, according to Acron, [85] wrote twelve excellent books

in epic metre on the legends of Diomed, a work obviously modelled on those

of Euphorion, whose fourteen books of _Heracleia_ were extremely popular;

in a later age Statius attempted a similar task in essaying the history of

Achilles. The ode addressed to him by Horace seems to hint at a foolish

ambition to imitate Pindar. Besides these lesser known authors Horace

knew, though he does not mention, the poets Ovid and Domitius Marsus;

probably also Propertius. With Tibullus he was long on terms of

friendship, and one epistle and one ode [86] are addressed to him. His

gentle nature endeared him to Horace, as his graceful poetry drew forth

his commendation.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ELEGIAC POETS--GRATIUS--MANILIUS.

The short artificial elegy of Callimachus and Philetas had, as we have

seen, found an imitator in Catullus. But that poet, when he addressed to

Lesbia the language of true passion, wrote for the most part in lyric

verse. The Augustan age furnishes a series of brilliant poets who united

the artificial elegiac with the expression of real feeling; and one of

them, Ovid, has by his exquisite formal polish raised the Latin elegiac

couplet to a popularity unparalleled in imitative literature. The metre

had at first been adapted to short epigrams modelled on the Greek, _e.g._,

triumphal inscriptions, epitaphs, _jeux d'esprit_, &c., several examples

of which have been quoted in these pages. Catullus and his contemporaries

first treated it at greater length, and paved the way for the highly

specialised form in which it appears in Tibullus, the earliest Augustan

author that has come down to us.

There are indications that Roman elegy, like heroic verse, had two

separate tendencies. There was the comparatively simple continuous

treatment of the metre seen in Catullus and Virgil, who are content to

follow the Greek rhythm, and there was the more rhetorical and pointed

style first beginning to appear in Tibullus, carried a step further in

Propertius, and culminating in the epigrammatic couplet of Ovid. This last

is a peculiarly Latin development, unsuited to the Greek, and too

elaborately artificial to be the vehicle for the highest poetry, but, when

treated by one who is master of his method, admitting of a facility,

fluency, and incomparable elegance, which perhaps no other rhythm combines

in an equal degree. In almost all its features it may be illustrated by

the heroic couplet of Pope. The elegiac line is in the strictest sense a

pendant to the hexameter; only rarely does it introduce a new element of

thought, and perhaps never a new commencement in narration. It is for the

most part an iteration, variation, enlargement, condensation or antithesis

of the idea embodied in its predecessor. In the most highly finished of

Ovid's compositions this structure is carried to such a point that the

syntax is rarely altogether continuous throughout the couplet; there is

generally a break either natural or rhetorical at the conclusion of the

hexameter or within the first few syllables of the pentameter. [1] The

_rhetorical_ as distinct from the _natural_ period, which appears, though

veiled with great skill, in the Virgilian hexameter, is in Ovid's verse

made the key to the whole rhythmical structure, and by its restriction

within the _minimum_ space of two lines offers a tempting field to the

various tricks of composition, the turn, the point, the climax, &c. in all

of which Ovid, as the typical elegist, luxuriates, though he applies such

elegant manipulation as rarely to over-stimulate and scarcely ever to

offend the reader's attention. The criticism that such a system cannot

fail to awaken is that of want of variety; and in spite of the diverse

modes of producing effect which these accomplished writers, and above all

Ovid, well knew how to use, one cannot read them long without a sense of

monotony, which never attends on the far less ambitious elegies of

Catullus, and probably would have been equally absent from those of

CORNELIUS GALLUS.

This ill-starred poet, whose life is the subject of Bekker's admirable

sketch, was born at Forum Julii (Fréjus) 69 B.C., and is celebrated as the

friend of Virgil's youth. Full of ambition and endowed with talent to

command or conciliate, he speedily rose in Augustus's service, and was the

first to introduce Virgil to his notice. For a time all prospered; he was

appointed the first prefect of Egypt, then recently annexed as a province,

but his haughtiness and success had made him many enemies; he was accused

of treasonable conversation, and interdicted the palace of the emperor. To

avoid further disgrace he committed suicide, in the 43d year of his age

(27 B.C.). His poetry was entirely taken from Alexandria; he translated

Euphorion and wrote four books of love-elegies to Cytheris. Whether she is

the same as the Lycoris mentioned by Virgil, [2] whose faithlessness he

bewails, we cannot tell. No fragments of his remain, [3] but the

passionate nature of the man, and the epithet _durior_ applied to his

verse by Quintilian, makes it probable that he followed the older and more

vigorous style of elegiac writing. [4]

Somewhat junior to him was DOMITIUS MARSUS who followed in the same track.

He was a member of the circle of Maecenas, though, strangely enough, never

mentioned by Horace, and exercised his varied talents in epic poetry, in

which he met with no great success, for Martial says [5]--

"Saepius in libro memoratur Persius uno

Quam levis in toto Marsus Amazonide."

From this we gather that _Amazonis_ was the name of his poem. In erotic

poetry he held a high place, though not of the first rank. His _Fabellae_

and treatise on _Urbanitas_, both probably poetical productions, are

referred to by Quintilian, and Martial mentions him as his own precursor

in treating the short epigram. From another passage of Martial,

"Et Maecenati Maro cum cantaret Alexin

Nota tamen Marsi fusca Melaenis erat," [6]

we infer that he began his career early; for he was certainly younger than

Horace, though probably only by a few years, as he also received

instruction from Orbilius. There is a fine epigram by Marsus lamenting the

death of his two brother-poets and friends:

"Te quoque Virgilio comitem non aequa, Tibulle,

Mors invenem campos misit ad Elysios.

Ne foret aut molles elegis qui fleret amores,

Aut caneret forti regia bella pede."

ALBIUS TIBULLUS, to whom Quintilian adjudges the palm of Latin elegy, was

born probably about the same time as Horace (65 B.C.), though others place

the date of his birth as late as that of Messala (59 B.C.). In the fifth

Elegy of the third book [7] occur the words--

"Natalem nostri primum videre parentes

Cum cecidit fato consul uterque pari."

As these words nearly reappear in Ovid, fixing the date of his own

birth, [8] some critics have supposed them to be spurious here. But there

is no occasion for this. The elegy in which they occur is certainly not by

Tibullus, and may well be the work of some contemporary of Ovid. They

point to the battle of Mutina, 43 B.C., in which Hirtius and Pansa lost

their lives. The poet's death is fixed to 19 B.C. by the epigram of

Domitius just quoted.

Tibullus was a Roman knight, and inherited a large fortune. This, however,

he lost by the triumviral proscriptions, [9] excepting a poor remnant of

his estate near Pedum which, small as it was, seems to have sufficed for

his moderate wants. At a later period Horace, writing to him in

retirement, speaks as though he were possessed of considerable wealth

[10]--

"Di tibi divitias dederunt artemque fruendi."

It is possible that Augustus, at the intercession of Messala, restored the

poet's patrimony. It was as much the fashion among the Augustan writers to

affect a humble but contented poverty, as it had been among the libertines

of the Caesarean age to pretend to sanctity of life--another form of that

unreality which, after all, is ineradicable from Latin poetry. Ovid is far

more unaffected. He asserts plainly that the pleasures and refinements of

his time were altogether to his taste, and that no other age would have

suited him half so well. [11] Tibullus is a melancholy effeminate spirit.

Horace exactly hits him when he bids him "chant no more woeful elegies,"

[12] because a young and perjured rival has been preferred to him. He

seems to have had no ambition and no energy, but his position obliged him

to see some military service, and we find that he went on no less than

three expeditions with his patron. This patron, or rather friend, for he

was above needing a patron, was the great Messala, whom the poet loved

with a warmth and constancy testified by some beautiful elegies, the

finest perhaps being those where the general's victories are celebrated.

[13] But the chief theme of his verse is the love, ill-requited it would

seem, which he lavished first on Delia and afterwards on Nemesis. Each

mistress gives the subject to a book. Delia's real name as we learn from

Apuleius was Plania, [14] and we gather from more than one notice in the

poems that she was married [15] when Tibullus paid his addresses to her.

If the form of these poems is borrowed from Alexandria, the gentle pathos

and gushing feeling redeem them from all taint of artificiality. In no

poet, not even in Burns, is simple, natural emotion more naturally

expressed. If we cannot praise the character of the man, we must admire

the graceful poet. Nothing can give a truer picture of affection than the

following tender and exquisitely musical lines:

"Non ego laudari curo: mea Delia, tecum

Dummodo sim quaeso segnis inersque vocer.

Te spectem suprema mihi cum venerit hora:

Te teneam moriens deficiente manu." [16]

Here is the same "linked sweetness long drawn out" which gives such a

charm to Gray's elegy. In other elegies, particularly those which take the

form of idylls, giving images of rural peace and plenty, [17] we see the

quiet retiring nature that will not be drawn into the glare of Rome.

Tibullus is described as of great personal beauty, and of a candid [18]

and affectionate disposition. Notwithstanding his devotion Delia was

faithless, and the poet sought distraction in surrendering to the charms

of another mistress. Horace speaks of a lady named Glycera in this

connection; it is probable that she is the same as Nemesis; [19] the

custom of erotic poetry being to substitute a Greek name of similar

scansion for the original Latin one; if the original name were Greek the

change was still made, hence Glycera might well stand for Nemesis. The

third book was first seen by Niebuhr to be from another and much inferior

poet. It is devoted to the praises of Neaera, and imitates the manner of

Tibullus with not a little of his sweetness but with much less power. Who

the author was it is impossible to say, but though he had little genius he

was a man of feeling and taste, and the six elegies are a pleasing relic

of this active and yet melancholy time. The fourth book begins with a

short epic on Messala, the work of a poetaster, extending over 200 lines.

It is followed by thirteen most graceful _elegidia_ ascribed to the lovers

Cerinthus and Sulpicia of which one only is by Cerinthus. It is not

certain whether this ascription is genuine, or whether, as the ancient

life of Tibullus in the Parisian codex asserts, the poems were written by

him under the title of _Epistolae amatoriae_. Their finished elegance and

purity of diction are easily reconcilable with the view that they are the

work of Tibullus. They abound in allusions to Virgil's poetry. [20] At the

same time the description of Sulpicia as a poetess [21] seems to point to

her as authoress of the pieces that bear her name, and from one or two

allusions we gather that Messala was paying her attentions that were

distasteful but hard to refuse. [22] The materials for coming to a

decision are so scanty, that it seems best to leave the authorship an open

question.

The rhythm of Tibullus is smooth, easy, and graceful, but tame. He

generally concludes his period at the end of the couplet, and closes the

couplet with a dissyllable; but he does not like Ovid make it an

invariable rule. The diction is severely classical, free from Greek

constructions and antiquated harshness. In elision he stands midway

between Catullus and Ovid, inclining, however, more nearly to the latter.

SEX. AURELIUS PROPERTIUS, an Umbrian, from Mevania, Ameria, Assisi, or

Hispellum, it is not certain which, was born 58 B.C. or according to

others 49 B.C., and lost his father and his estate in the same year (41

B.C.) under Octavius's second assignation of land to the soldiers. He

seems to have begun life at the bar, which he soon deserted to play the

cavalier to Hostia (whom he celebrates under the name Cynthia), a lady

endowed with learning and wit as well as beauty, to whom our poet remained

constant for five years. The chronology of his love-quarrels and

reconciliations has been the subject of warm disputes between Nobbe,

Jacob, and Lachmann; but even if it were of any importance, it is

impossible to ascertain it with certainty.

He unquestionably belonged to Maecenas's following, but was not admitted

into the inner circle of his intimates. Some have thought that the

troublesome acquaintance who besought Horace to introduce him was no other

than Propertius. The man, it will be remembered, expresses himself willing

to take a humble place: [23]

"Haberes

Magnum adiutorem posset qui ferre secundas

Hunc hominem velles si tradere. Dispeream ni

Submosses omnes."

And as Propertius speaks of himself as living on the Esquiliae, [24] some

have, in conformity with this view, imagined him to have held some

domestic post under Maecenas's roof. A careful reader can detect in

Propertius a far less well-bred tone than is apparent in Tibullus or

Horace. He has the air of _a parvenu_, [25] parading his intellectual

wares, and lacking the courteous self-restraint which dignifies their

style. But he is a genuine poet, and a generous, warm-hearted man, and in

our opinion by far the greatest master of the pentameter that Rome ever

produced. Its rhythm in his hands rises at times almost into grandeur.

There are passages in the elegy on Cornelia (which concludes the series)

whose noble naturalness and stirring emphasis bespeak a great and

patriotic inspiration; and no small part of this effect is due to his

vigorous handling of a somewhat feeble metre. [26] Mechanically speaking,

he is a disciple in the same school as Ovid, but his success in the

Ovidian distich is insignificant; for he has nothing of the epigrammatist

in him, and his finest lines all seem to have come by accident, or at any

rate without effort. [27] His excessive reverence for the Alexandrines

Callimachus and Philetas, has cramped his muse. With infinitely more

poetic fervour than either, he has made them his only models, and to

attain their reputation is the summit of his ambition. It is from respect

to their practice that he has loaded his poems with pedantic erudition; in

the very midst of passionate pleading he will turn abruptly into the mazes

of some obscure myth, often unintelligible [28] to the modern reader,

whose patience he sorely tries. There is no good poet so difficult to read

through; his faults are not such as "plead sweetly for pardon;" they are

obtrusive and repelling, and have been more in the way of his fame than

those of any extant writer of equal genius. He was a devoted admirer of

Virgil, whose poems he sketches in the following graceful lines: [29]--

"Actia Virgilio custodit (deus) litora Phoebi,

Caesaris et fortes dicere posse rates:

Qui nunc Aeneae Troianaque suscitat arma,

Iactaque Lavinis moenia litoribus.

Cedite Romani seriptores, cedite Graii,

Nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade!

Tu canis umbrosi subter pineta Galesi

Thyrsin et attritis Daphnin arundinibus,

Utque decera possint corrumpere mala puellas,

Missus et impressis haedus ab uberibus.

Felix qui viles pomis mercaris amores!

Huic licet ingratae Tityrus ipse canat.

Felix intactum Corydon qui tentat Alexin

Agricolae domini carpere delicias.

Quamvis ille sua lassus requiescat avena,

Laudatur faciles inter Hamadryadas.

Tu canis Ascraei veteris praecepta poetae,

Quo seges in campo, quo viret uva iugo.

Tale facis carmen, docta testudine quale

Cynthius impositis temperat articulis."

The elegies that show his characteristics best are the second of the first

book, where he prays his lady to dress modestly; the seventeenth, where he

rebukes himself for having left her side; the twentieth, where he tells

the legend of Hylas with great pictorial power and with the finest

triumphs of rhythm; the beautiful lament for the death of Paetus; [30] the

dream in which Cynthia's shade comes to give him warning; [31] and the

patriotic elegy which begins the last book. Maecenas, [32] it appears, had

tried to persuade him to attempt heroic poetry, from which uncongenial

task he excuses himself, much as Horace had done.

In reading these poets we are greatly struck by the free and easy way in

which they borrow thoughts from one another. A good idea was considered

common property, and a happy phrase might be adopted without theft. Virgil

now and then appropriates a word from Horace, Horace somewhat oftener one

from Virgil, Tibullus from both. Propertius, who is less original, has

many direct imitations, and Ovid makes free with some of Virgil and

Tibullus's finest lines. This custom was not thought to detract from the

writer's independence, inasmuch as each had his own domain, and borrowed

only where he would be equally ready to give. It was otherwise with those

thriftless bards so roughly dealt with by Horace in his nineteenth

Epistle--

"O imitatores, servum pecus! ut mihi saepe

Bilem, saepe iocum movistis."

the Baviad and Maeviad of the Roman poet-world. These lay outside the

charmed sphere, and the hands they laid on the works of those who wrought

within it were sacrilegious. In the next age we shall see how imitation of

these great masters had become a regular department of composition, so

that Quintilian gives elaborate rules for making a proper use of it. At

this time originality consisted in introducing some new form of Greek

song. Virgil made Theocritus and Hesiod speak in Latin. Horace had brought

over the old Aeolian bards; Propertius, too, must make his boast of having

enticed Callimachus to the Tiber's banks--

"Primus ego ingredior puro de fonte sacerdos

Itala per Graios orgia ferre chores." [33]

In the Middle Ages he was almost lost; a single copy, defaced with mould

and almost illegible, was found in a wine cellar in Italy, 1451 A.D.

Quintilian tells us there were some in his day who preferred him to

Tibullus.

The same critic's remark on the brilliant poet who now comes before us, P.

OVIDIUS NASO, is as follows: "_Ovidius utroque lascivior_" and he could

not have given a terser or more comprehensive criticism. Of all Latin

poets, not excepting even Plautus, Ovid possesses in the highest degree

the gift of facility. His words probably express the literal truth, when

he says--

"Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos,

Et quod tentabam scribere versus erat."

This incorrigibly immoral but inexpressibly graceful poet was born at

Sulmo in the Pelignian territory 43 B.C. of wealthy parents, whose want of

liberality during his youthful career he deplores, but by which he

profited after their death. Of equestrian rank, with good introductions

and brilliant talents, he was expected to devote himself to the duties of

public life. At first he studied for the bar; but so slight was his

ambition and so unfitted was his genius for even the moderate degree of

severe reasoning required by his profession, that he soon abandoned it in

disgust, and turned to the study of rhetoric. For some time he declaimed

under the first masters, Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro, [34] and

acquired a power of brilliant improvisation that caused him to be often

quoted in the schools, and is evidenced by many reminiscences in the

writings of the elder Seneca. [35] A short time was spent by him,

according to custom, at Athens, [36] and while in Greece he took the

opportunity of visiting the renowned cities of Asia Minor. He also spent

some time in Sicily, and returned to Rome probably at the age of 23 or 24,

where he allowed himself to be nominated _triumvir capitalis, decemvir

litibus iudicandis_, and _centumvir_, in quick succession. But in spite of

the remonstrances of his friends he finally gave up all active work, and

began that series of love-poems which was at once the cause of his

popularity and of his fall, His first mistress was a lady whom he calls

Corinna, but whose real name is not known. That she was a member of the

_demi-monde_ is probable from this fact; as also from the poet's strong

assertion that he had never been guilty of an intrigue with a married

woman. The class to which she belonged were mostly Greeks or Easterns,

beautiful and accomplished, often poetesses, and mingling with these

seductive qualities the fickleness and greed natural to their position, of

which Ovid somewhat unreasonably complains. To her are dedicated the great

majority of the _Amores_, his earliest extant work. These elegant but

lascivious poems, some of which perhaps were the same which he recited to

large audiences as early as his twenty-second year, were published 13

B.C., and consisted at first of five books, which he afterwards reduced to

three. [37] No sooner were they before the public than they became

universally popular, combining as they do the personal experiences already

made familiar to Roman audiences through Tibullus and Propertius, with a

levity, a dash, a gaiety, and a brilliant polish, far surpassing anything

that his more serious predecessors had attained. During their composition

he was smitten with the desire (perhaps owing to his Asiatic tour) to

write an epic poem on the wars of the gods and giants, but Corinna,

determined to keep his muse for herself, would not allow him to gratify

it. [38]

The _Heroides_ or love-letters from mythological heroines to their

(mostly) faithless spouses, are declared by Ovid to be an original

importation from Greece. [39.] They are erotic _suasoriae_, based on the

declamations of the schools, and are perhaps the best appreciated of all

his compositions. They present the Greek mythology under an entirely new

phase of treatment. Virgil had complained [40] that its resources were

used up, and in Propertius we already see that allusive way of dealing

with it which savours of a general satiety. But in Ovid's hands the old

myths became young again, indeed, younger than ever; and people wonder

they could ever have lost their interest. His method is the reverse of

Virgil's or Livy's. [41] They take pains to make themselves ancient; he,

with wanton effrontery, makes the myths modern. Jupiter, Juno, the whole

circle of Olympus, are transformed into the _hommes et femmes galantes_ of

Augustus's court, and their history into a _chronique scandaleuse_. The

immoral incidents, round which a veil of poetic sanctity had been cast by

the great consecrator time, are here displayed in all their mundane

pruriency. In the _Metamorphoses_ Jupiter is introduced as smitten with

the love of a nymph, Dictynna; some compunctions of conscience seize him,

and the image of Juno's wrath daunts him, but he finally overcomes his

fear with these words--

"Hoc furtum certe coniux mea nesciet (inquit);

Aut si rescierit, sunt O sunt iurgia tanti?"

So, in the _Heroides_, the idea of the desolate and love-lorn Ariadne

writing a letter from the barren isle of Naxos is in itself ridiculous,

nor can all the pathos of her grief redeem the irony. Helen wishes she had

had more practice in correspondence, so that she might perhaps touch her

lover's chilly heart. Ovid using the language of mythology, reminds us of

those heroes of Dickens who preface their communications by a wink of

intelligence.

His next venture was of a more compromising character. Intoxicated with

popularity, he devoted three long poems to a systematic treatment of the

_Art of Love_, on which he lavished all the graces of his wayward talent,

and a combination of mythological, literary, and social allusion, that

seemed to mark him out for better things. He is careful to remark at the

outset that this poem is not intended for the virtuous. The frivolous

gallants, whose sole end in life is dissipation, with the objects of their

licentious passion, are the readers for whom he caters. But he had

overshot his mark; The _Amores_ had been tolerated, for they had followed

precedent. But even they had raised him enemies. The _Art of Love

_produced a storm of indignation, and without doubt laid the foundations

of that severe displeasure on the part of Augustus, which found vent ten

years later in a terrible punishment. For Ovid was doing his best to

render the emperor's reforms a dead letter. It was difficult enough to get

the laws enforced, even with the powerful sanction of a public opinion

guided by writers like Horace and Virgil. But here was a brilliant poet

setting his face right against the emperor's will. The necessity of

marriage had been preached with enthusiasm by two unmarried poets; a law

to the same effect had been passed by two unmarried consuls; [42] a moral

_régime_ had been inaugurated by a prince whose own morals were or had

been more than dubious. All this was difficult; but it had been done. And

now the insidious attractions of vice were flaunted in the most glowing

colours in the face of day. The young of both sexes yielded to the charm.

And what was worse, the emperor's own daughter, whom he had forced to stay

at home carding wool, to wear only such garments as were spun in the

palace, to affect an almost prudish delicacy, the proud and lovely Julia,

had been detected in such profligacy as poured bitter satire on the old

monarch's moral discipline, and bore speaking witness to the power of an

inherited tendency to vice. The emperor's awful severity bespoke not

merely the aggrieved father but the disappointed statesman. Julia had

disgraced his home and ruined his policy, and the fierce resentment which

rankled in his heart only waited its time to burst forth upon the man who

had laboured to make impurity attractive. [43] Meanwhile Ovid attempted,

two years later, a sort of recantation in the _Remedia Amoris_, the

frivolity of which, however, renders it as immoral as its predecessor

though less gross; and he finished his treatment of the subject with the

_Medicamina Faciei_, a sparkling and caustic quasi-didactic treatise, of

which only a fragment survives. [44] During this period (we know not

exactly when) was composed the tragedy of _Medea_, which ancient critics

seem to have considered his greatest work. [45] Alone of his writings it

showed his genius in restraint, and though _we_ should probably form a

lower estimate of its excellence, we may regret that time has not spared

it. Among other works written at this time was an elegy on the death of

Messala (3. A.D.), as we learn from the letters from Pontus. [46] Soon

after he seems, like Prince Henry, to have determined to turn over a new

leaf and abandon his old acquaintances. Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, were

dead; there was no poet of eminence to assist the emperor by his pen. Ovid

was beyond doubt the best qualified by his talent, but Augustus had not

noticed him. He turned to patriotic themes in order to attract favourable

notice, and began his great work on the national calendar. Partly after

the example of Propertius, partly by his own predilection, he kept to the

elegiac metre, though he is conscious of its betraying him into occasional

frivolous or amatory passages where he ought to be grave. [47] "Who would

have thought (he says) that from a poet of love I should have become a

patriotic bard?" [48] While writing the _Fasti_ he seems to have worked

also at the _Metamorphoses_, a heroic poem in fifteen books, entirely

devoted to mythological stories, mostly of transformations caused by the

love or jealousy of divine wooers, or the vengeance of their aggrieved

spouses. There are passages in this long work of exceeding beauty, and a

prodigal wealth of poetical ornament, which has made it a mine for modern

poets. Tasso, Ariosto, Guarini, Spenser, Milton, have all drunk deep of

this rich fountain. [49] The skill with which the different legends are

woven into the fabric of the composition is as marvellous as the frivolous

dilettantism which could treat a long heroic poem in such a way. The

_Metamorphoses_ were finished before 7 A.D.; the _Fasti_ were only

advanced to the end of the sixth book, when all further prosecution of

them was stopped by the terrible news, which struck the poet like a

thunderbolt, that he was ordered to leave Rome forever. The cause of his

exile has been much debated. The ostensible ground was the immorality of

his writings, and especially of the _Art of Love_, but it has generally

been taken for granted that a deeper and more personal reason lay behind.

Ovid's own hints imply that his eyes had been witness to something that

they should not, which he calls a _crimen_ (_i.e._ a crime against the

emperor). [50] The most probable theory is that Augustus took advantage of

Ovid's complicity in the younger Julia's misconduct to wreak the full

measure of his long-standing indignation against the poet, whose evil

counsels had helped to lead astray not only her but his daughter also. He

banished him to Tomi, an inhospitable spot not far from the mouth of the

Danube, and remained deaf to all the piteous protestations and abject

flatteries which for ten years the miserable poet poured forth.

This punishment broke Ovid's spirit. He had been the spoilt child of

society, and he had no heart for any life but that of Rome. He pined away

amid the hideous solitudes and the barbarous companionship of Goths and

Sarmatians. His very genius was wrecked. Not a single poem of merit to be

compared with those of former times now proceeded from his pen.

Nevertheless he continued to write as fluently as before. Now that he was

absent from his wife--for he had been thrice married--this very undomestic

poet discovered that he had a deep affection for her. He wrote her

endearing letters, and reminded her of their happy hours. As she was a

lady of high position and a friend of the Empress Livia, he no doubt hoped

for her good offices. But her prudence surpassed her conjugal devotion.

Neither she, nor the noble and influential friends [51] whom he implored

in piteous accents to intercede for him, ever ventured to approach the

emperor on a subject on which he was known to be inexorable. And when

Augustus died and Tiberius succeeded, the vain hopes that had hitherto

buoyed up Ovid seem to have quite faded away. From such a man it was idle

to expect mercy. So, for two or three years the wretched poet lingered on,

still solacing himself with verse, and with the kindness of the natives,

who sought by every means to do him honour and soothe his misfortune, and

then, in the sixtieth year of his age, 17 A.D., he died, and was buried in

the place of his dreary exile.

Much as we may blame him, the severity of his punishment seems far too

great for his offence, since Ovid is but the child of his age. In praising

him, society praised itself; as he says with natural pride, "The fame that

others gain after death, I have known in my lifetime." He was of a

thoroughly happy, thoughtless, genial temper; before his reverse he does

not seem to have known a care. His profligacy cost him no repentance; he

could not see that he had done wrong; indeed, according to the lax notions

of the time, his conduct had been above rather than below the general

standard of dissipated men. The palliations he alleges in the second book

of the _Tristia_, which is the best authority for his life, are in point

of fact, unanswerable. To regard his age as wicked or degenerate never

entered into his head. He delighted in it as the most refined that the

world had ever known; "It is," he says jokingly, "the true Golden Age, for

every pleasure that exists may be got for gold." So wedded was he to

literary composition that he learnt the Sarmatian language and wrote poems

in it in honour of Augustus, the loss of which, from a philological point

of view, is greatly to be regretted. His muse must be considered as at

home in the salons find fashionable coteries of the great. Though his

style is so facile, it is by no means simple. On the contrary, it is one

of the most artificial ever created, and could never have bea attained at

all but by a natural aptitude, backed by hard study, amid highly-polished

surroundings from childhood. These Ovid had, and he wielded his brilliant

instrument to perfection. What euphuism was to the Elizabethan courtiers,

what the _langue galante_ was to the court of Louis XIV., the mythological

dialect was to the gay circles of aristocratic Rome. [5]

It was select, polished, and spiced with a flavour of profanity. Hence,

Ovid could never be a popular poet, for a poet to be really popular must

be either serious or genuinely humorous; whereas Ovid is neither. His

irony, exquisitely ludicrous to those who can appreciate it, falls flat

upon less cultivated minds, and the lack of strength that lies beneath his

smooth exterior [53] would unfit him, even if his immorality did not stand

in the way, for satisfying or even pleasing the mass of mankind.

The _Ibis_ and _Halieuticon_ were composed during his exile; the former is

a satiric attack upon a person now unknown, the latter a prosaic account

of the fish found in the neighbourhood of Tomi.

Appended to Ovid's works are several graceful poems which have put forward

a claim to be his workmanship. His great popularity among the schools of

the rhetoricians both in Rome and the provinces, caused many imitations to

be circulated under his name. The most ancient of these is the _Nux

elegia_, which, if not Ovid's, must be very shortly posterior to him; it

is the complaint of a walnut tree on the harsh treatment it has to suffer,

sometimes in very difficult verse, [54] but not inelegant. Some of the

_Priapeia_ are also attributed to him, perhaps with reason; the

_Consolatio ad Liviam_, on the death of Drusus, is a clever production of

the Renaissance period, full of reminiscences of Ovid's verse, much as the

_Ciris_ is filled with reminiscences of Virgil. [55]

Ovid was the most brilliant figure in a gay circle of erotic and epic

poets, many of whom he has handed down in his _Epistles_, others have

transmitted a few fragments by which we can estimate their power. The

eldest was PONTICUS, who is also mentioned by Propertius as an epic writer

of some pretensions. Another was MACER, whose ambition led him to group

together the epic legends antecedent and subsequent to those narrated in

the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. There was a Pompeius Macer, an excellent man,

who with his son committed suicide under Tiberius, [56] his daughter

having been accused of high treason, and unable to clear herself. The son

is probably identical with this friend of Ovid's. SABINUS, another of his

intimates, who wrote answers to the _Heroides_, was equally conspicuous in

heroic poetry. The title of his poem is not known. Some think it was

_Troezen_; [57] but the text is corrupt. Ovid implies [58] that his

rescripts to the _Heroides_ were complete; it is a misfortune that we have

lost them. The three poems that bear the title of _A. Sabini Epistolae_,

and are often bound with Ovid's works, are the production of an Italian

scholar of the fifteenth century. TUTICANUS, who was born in the same year

with Ovid, and may perhaps have been the author of Tibullus's third book,

is included in the last epistle from Pontus [59] among epic bards.

CORNELIUS SEVERUS, a better versifier than poet, [60] wrote a _Sicilian

War_, [61] of which the first book was extremely good. In it occurred the

verses on the death of Cicero, quoted by the elder Seneca [62] with

approbation:

Oraque magnanimum spirantia paene virorum

In rostris iacuere suis: sed enim abstulit omnis,

Tanquam sola foret, rapti Ciceronis imago.

Tunc redeunt animis ingentia consulis acta

Iurataeque manus deprensaque foedera noxae

Patriciumque nefas extinctum: poena Cethegi

Deiectusque redit votis Catilina nefandis.

Quid favor aut coetus, pleni quid honoribus anni

Profuerant? sacris exculta quid artibus aetas?

Abstulit una dies aevi decus, ictaque luctu

Conticuit Latiae tristis facundia linguae.

Unica sollicitis quondam tutela salusque,

Egregium semper patriae caput, ille senatus

Vindex, ille fori, legum ritusque togaeque,

Publica vox saevis aeternum obmutuit armis.

Informes voltus sparsamque cruore nefando

Canitiem sacrasque manus operumque ministras

Tantorum pedibus civis proiecta superbis

Proculcavit ovans nec lubrica fata deosque

Respexit. Nullo luet hoc Antonius aevo.

Hoc nec in Emathio mitis victoria Perse,

Nec te, dire Syphax, non fecerat hoste Philippo;

Inque triumphato ludibria cuncta Iugurtha

Afuerant, nostraeque cadens ferus Hannibal irae

Membra tamen Stygias tulit inviolata sub umbras.

From these it will be seen that he was a poet of considerable power.

Another epicist of some celebrity, whom Quintilian thought worth reading,

was PEDO ALBINOVANUS; he was also an epigrammatist, and in conversation

remarkable for his brilliant wit. There is an Albinus mentioned by

Priscian who is perhaps intended for him. Other poets referred to in the

long list which closes the letters from Pontus are RUFUS, LARGUS, probably

the perfidious friend of Gallus so mercilessly sketched by Bekker,

CAMERINUS, LUPUS, and MONTANUS. All these are little more than names for

us. The references to them in succeeding writers will be found in Teuffel.

RABIRIUS is worth remarking for the extraordinary impression he made on

his contemporaries. Ovid speaks of him as _Magni Rabirius oris_, [63] a

high compliment; and Velleius Paterculus goes so far as to couple him with

Virgil as the best representative of Augustan poetry! His _Alexandrian

War_ was perhaps drawn from his own experience, though, if so, he must

have been a very young man at the time.

From an allusion in Ovid [64] we gather that GRATIUS [65] was a poet of

the later Augustan age. His work on the chase (_Cynegetica_) has come down

to us imperfect. It contains little to interest, notwithstanding the

attractiveness of its subject: but in truth all didactic poets after

Virgil are without freshness, and seem depressed rather than inspired by

his success. After alluding to man's early attempts to subdue wild beasts,

first by bodily strength, then by rude weapons, he shows the gradual

dominion of reason in this as in other human actions. Diana is also made

responsible for the huntsman's craft, and a short mythological digression

follows. Then comes a description of the chase itself, and the implements

and weapons used in it. The list of trees fitted for spearshafts (128-

149), one of the best passages, will show his debt to the _Georgics_--more

than half the lines show traces of imitation. Next we have the different

breeds of dogs, their training, their diseases, and general supervision

discussed, and after a digression or two--the best being a catalogue of

the evils of luxury--the poem (as we possess it) ends with an account of

the horses best fitted for hunting. The technical details are carefully

given, and would probably have had some value; but there is scarcely a

trace of poetic enthusiasm, and only a moderate elevation of style.

The last Augustan poet we shall notice is M. MANILIUS, whose dry subject

has caused him to meet with very general neglect. His date was considered

doubtful, but Jacob has shown that he began to write towards the close of

Augustus's reign. The first book refers to the defeat of Varus [66] (7

A.D.), to which, therefore, it must be subsequent, and the fourth book

contemplates Augustus as still alive, [67] though Tiberius had already

been named as his successor. [68] The fifth book must have appeared after

the interval of Augustus's death; and from one passage which seems to

allude to the destruction of Pompey's theatre, [69] Jacob argues that it

was written as late as 22 A.D. The danger of treating a subject on which

the emperor had his own very decided views [70] may have deterred Manilius

from completing his work. Literature of all kinds was silent under the

tyrant's gloomy frown, and the weak style of this last book seems to

reflect the depressed mind of its author.

The birth and parentage of Manilius are not known. That he was a foreigner

is probable, both from the uncouthness of his style at the outset, and

from the decided improvement in it that can be traced through succeeding

books. Bentley thought him an Asiatic; if so, however, his lack of florid

ornament would be strange. It is more likely that he was an African. But

the question is complicated by the corrupt state of his text, by the

obscurity of his subject, and by the very incomplete knowledge of it

displayed by the author. It was not considered necessary to have mastered

a subject to treat of it in didactic verse. Cicero expressly instances

Aratus [71] as a man who, with scarce any knowledge of astronomy,

exercised a legitimate poetical ingenuity by versifying such knowledge as

he had. These various causes make Manilius one of the most difficult of

authors. Few can wade through the mingled solecisms in language and

mistakes in science, the empty verbiage that dilates on a platitude in one

place, and the jejune abstract that hurries over a knotty argument in

another, without regretting that so unreadable a poet should have been

preserved. [72]

And yet his book is not altogether without interest. The subject is called

_Astronomy_, but should rather be called _Astrology_, for more than half

the space is taken up with these baseless theories of sidereal influence

which belong to the imaginary side of the science. But in the exordia and

perorations to the several books, as well as in sundry digressions, may be

found matter of greater value, embodying the poet's views on the great

questions of philosophy. [73] On the whole he must be reckoned as a Stoic,

though not a strictly dogmatic one. He begins by giving the different

views as to the origin of the world, and lays it down that on these points

truth cannot be attained. The universe, he goes on to say, rests on no

material basis, much less need we suppose the earth to need one. Sun,

moon, and stars, whirl about without any support; earth therefore may well

be supposed to do the same. The earth is the centre of the universe, whose

motions are circular and imitate those of the gods. [74] The universe is

not finite as some Stoics assert, for its roundness (which is proved by

Chrysippus) implies infinity. Lucretius is wrong in denying antipodes;

they follow naturally from the globular shape, from which also we may

naturally infer that seas bind together, as well as separate, nations.

[75] All this system is held together by a spiritual force, which he calls

God, governing according to the law of reason. [76] He next describes the

Zodiac and enumerates the chief stars with their influences. Following the

teaching of Hegesianax, [77] he declares that those which bear human names

are superior to those named after beasts or inanimate things. The study of

the stars was a gift direct from heaven. Kings first, and after them

priests, were guided to search for wisdom, and now Augustus, who is both

supreme ruler and supreme pontiff, follows his divine father in

cultivating this great science. Mentioning some of the legends which

recount the transformations of mortals into stars, he asserts that they

must not be understood in too gross a sense. [78] Nothing is more

wonderful than the orderly movement of the heavenly bodies. He who has

contemplated this eternal order cannot believe the Epicurean doctrine.

Human generations pass away, but the earth and the stars abide for ever.

Surely the universe is divine. Passing on to the milky way, he gives two

fanciful theories of its origin, one that it is the rent burnt by Phaethon

through the firmament, the other that it is milk from the breast of Juno.

As to its consistency, he wavers between the view that it is a closely

packed company of stars, and the more poetical one that it is formed by

the white-robed souls of the just. This last theory leads him to recount

in a dull catalogue the well-worn list of Greek and Roman heroes. Comets

are mysterious bodies, whose origin is unknown. The universe is full of

fiery particles ever tending towards conglomeration, and perhaps their

impact forms comets. Whether natural or supernatural, one thing is

certain--they are never without effect on mankind.

In the second book he begins by a complaint that the list of attractive

subjects is exhausted. This incites him to essay an untried path, from

which he hopes to reap no stolen laurels [79] as the bard of the universe!

[80] He next expounds the doctrine of an ever-present spirit moving the

mass of matter, in language reflected from the sixth Aeneid. Men must not

seek for mathematical demonstration. Considerations of analogy are enough

to awaken conviction. The fact that, _e.g._, shell-fish are affected by

the moon, and that all land creatures depend on solar influence, should

forbid us to dissociate earth from heaven, or man's activity from the

providence of the gods. How could man have any knowledge of deity unless

he partook of its nature? The rest of the book gives a catalogue of the

different kinds of stars, their several attributes, and their astrological

classification, ending with the _Dodecatemorion_ and _Oclotopos_.

The third book, after a short and offensively allusive description of the

labours of preceding poets, sketches the twelve _athla_ or accidents of

human life, to each of which is assigned its special guardian influence.

It then passes to the horoscope, which it treats at length, giving minute

and various directions how to draw it. The extreme importance attached to

this process by Tiberius, and the growing frequency with which, on every

occasion, Chaldeans and Astrologers were now consulted, made the poet

specially careful to treat this subject with clearness and precision. It

is accordingly the most readable of all the purely technical parts of the

work. The account of the tropics, with which the book closes, is

singularly inaccurate, but contains some rather elegant descriptions: [81]

at the tropic of Cancer summer always reigns, at Capricorn there is

perpetual winter. The book here breaks off quite abruptly; apparently he

intended to compose the epilogue at some future time, but had no

opportunity of doing it.

The exordium to the fourth book, which sometimes rises into eloquence,

glorifies fate as the ultimate divine power, but denies it either will or

personality. He fortifies his argument, according to his wont, by a

historical catalogue, which exemplifies the harshness that, except in

philosophical digressions, rarely leaves his style. Then follow the

horoscopic properties of the Zodiacal constellations, the various reasons

for desiring to be born under one star rather than another, a sort of

horoscopico-zodiacal account of the world, its physical geography, and the

properties of the zones. These give occasion for some graphic touches of

history and legend; the diction of this book is far superior to that of

the preceding three, but the wisdom is questionable which reserves the

"good wine" until so late. Passing on to the ecliptic, he drags in the

legends of Deucalion, Phaethon, and others, which he treats in a

rhetorical way, and concludes the book with an appeal to man's reason, and

to the necessity of allowing the mental eye free vision. Somewhat

inconsistently with the half-religious attitude of the first and second

books, he here preaches once more the doctrine of irresistible fate, which

to most of the Roman poets occupies the place of God. The poem practically

ends here. He himself implies at the opening of Book V., that most poets

would not have pursued the theme further; apparently he is led on by his

interest in the subject, or by the barrenness of his invention which could

suggest no other. The book, which is unfinished, contains a description of

various stars, with legends interspersed in which a more ambitious style

appears, and a taste which, though rhetorical and pedantic, is more

chastened than in the earlier books.

It will be seen from the above _résumé_ that the poem discusses several

questions of great interest. Rising above the technicalities of the

science, Manilius tries to preach a theory of the universe which shall

displace that given by Lucretius. He is a Stoic combating an Epicurean. A

close study of Lucretius is evidenced by numerous passages, [82] and the

earnestness of his moral conclusions imitates, though it does not approach

in impressiveness, that of the great Epicurean. Occasionally he imitates

Horace, [83] much more often Virgil, and, in the legends, Ovid. [84] His

technical manipulation of the hexameter is good, though tinged with

monotony. Occasionally he indulges in licenses which mark a deficient ear

[85] or an imperfect comprehension of the theory of quantity. [86] He has

few archaisms, [87] few Greek words, considering the exigencies of his

subject, and his vocabulary is greatly superior to his syntax; the

rhetorical colouring which pervades the work shows that he was educated in

the later taste of the schools, and neither could understand nor desired

to reproduce the simplicity of Lucretius or Virgil. [88]

CHAPTER V.

PROSE-WRITERS OF THE AUGUSTAN PERIOD.

Public oratory, which had held the first rank among studies under the

Republic, was now, as we have said, almost extinct. In the earlier part of

Augustus's reign, Pollio and Messala for a time preserved some of the

traditions of freedom, but both found it impossible to maintain their

position. Messala retired into dignified seclusion; Pollio devoted himself

to other kinds of composition. Somewhat later we find MESSALINUS, the son

of Messala, noted for his eloquent pleading; but as he inherited none of

the moral qualities which had made his father dangerous, Augustus

permitted him to exercise his talent. He was an intimate friend of Ovid,

from whom we learn details of his life; but he frittered away his powers

on trifling jests [1] and extempore versifying. The only other name worthy

of mention is Q. HATERIUS, who from an orator became a noted declaimer.

The testimonies to his excellence vary; Seneca, who had often heard him,

speaks of the wonderful volubility, more Greek than Roman, which in him

amounted to a fault. Tacitus gives him higher praise, but admits that his

writings do not answer to his living fame, a persuasive manner and

sonorous voice having been indispensible ingredients in his oratory. [2]

The activity before given to the state was now transferred to the

basilica. But as the full sway of rhetoric was not established until quite

the close of Augustus's reign, we shall reserve our account of it for the

next book, merely noticing the chief rhetoricians who flourished at this

time. The most eminent were PORCIUS LATRO, FUSCUS ARELLIUS, and ALBUCIUS

SILUS, who are frequently quoted by Seneca; RUTILIUS LUPUS, [3] who was

somewhat younger; and SENECA, the father of the celebrated philosopher.

[4] Fuscus was an Asiatic, and seems to have been one of the first who

declaimed in Latin. Foreign professors had previously exercised their own

and their pupils' ingenuity in Greek; Cicero had almost invariably

declaimed in that language, and there can be no doubt that this was a much

less harmful practice; but now the bombast and glitter of the Asiatic

style flaunted itself in the Latin tongue, and found in the increasing

number of provincials from Gaul and Spain a body of admirers who

cultivated it with enthusiasm. CESTIUS PIUS, a native of Smyrna, espoused

the same florid style, and was even preferred by his audience to such men

as Pollio and Messala. To us the extracts from these authors, preserved in

Seneca, present the most wearisome monotony, but contemporary criticism

found in them many grades of excellence. The most celebrated of all was

Porcius Latro, who, like Seneca himself, came from Spain. There is a

special character about the Spanish literary genius which will be more

prominent in the next generation. At present it had not sufficiently

amalgamated with the old Latin culture to shine in the higher branches.

But in the rhetorical schools it gradually leavened taste by its

attractive qualities, and men like Latro must be regarded as wielding

immense influence on Roman style, though somewhat in the background, much

as Antipho influenced the oratory of Athens.

Annaeus Seneca of _Corduba_ (Cordova), [5] the father of Novatus, Seneca,

and Mela the father of Lucan, belonged to the equestrian order, was born

probably about 54 B.C. and lived on until after the death of Tiberius. [6]

The greater part of this long life, longer even than Varro's, was spent in

the profession of eloquence, for which in youth he prepared himself by

studying the manner of the most renowned masters. Cicero alone he was not

fortunate enough to hear, the civil wars having necessitated his

withdrawal to Spain. [7] He does not appear to have visited Rome more than

twice, but he shows a thorough knowledge of the rhetoricians of the

capital, whence we conclude that his residence extended over some time.

[8] The stern discipline of Caesar's wars had taught the Spaniards

something of Roman severity, and Seneca seems to have adopted with a good

will the maxims of Roman life. [9] He possessed that _élan_ with which

young races often carry all before them when, they give the fresh vigour

of their understanding to master an existing system; his memory, as he

himself tells us, was so prodigious that he could recite 2000 names

correctly after once hearing them; [10] and, with the taste for showy

ornament which his race has always evinced, he must have launched himself

without misgiving into the competition of the schools. Nevertheless, in

his old age, when he came to look back on his life, he felt half ashamed

of its results. His sons had asked him to write a critical account of the

greatest rhetoricians he had known; he gladly acceded to their wish, and

has embodied in his work vast numbers of extracts, drawn either from

memory or rough notes, specifying the manner in which each professor

treated his theme; he then adds his own judgment on their merits, often

interspersing the more tedious discussions with _bon-mots_ or literary

anecdotes. The most readable portions are the prefaces, where he writes in

his own person in the unaffected epistolary style. We learn from them many

particulars about the lives of the great _rhetores_ and the state of taste

and literary education. But in the preface to the tenth book (the last of

the series) he expresses an utter weariness of a subject which not even

the reminiscences of happier days could invest with serious interest.

There are no indications that Seneca rose to the first eminence. His

extraordinary memory, diligence, and virtuous habits gained him respect

from his pupils and the intimacy of the great. But there is nothing in his

writings to show a man of more than average capacity, who, having been

thrown all his life in an artificial and narrowing profession, has lost

the power of taking a vigorous interest in things, and acquired the habit

of looking at questions from what we might call _the examiner's point of

view_. We have remains of two sets of compositions by him;

_Controversiae_, or legal questions discussed by way of practice for

actual cases, divided into ten books, of which about half are preserved;

and _Suasoriae_, or imaginary themes, such as those ridiculed by Juvenal:

"Consilium dedimus Sullae, privatus ut altum

Dormiret."

These last are printed first in our editions, because, being abstract in

character and not calling for any special knowledge, they were better

suited for beginners. The style of the book varies. In the prefaces it is

not inelegant, and shows few traces of the decline, but in the excerpts

from Latro and Fuscus, (which are perhaps nearly in their own words) we

observe the silver Latinity already predominant. Much is written in a very

compressed manner, reading like notes of a lecture or a table of contents.

There is, however, a geniality about the old man which renders him, even

when uninteresting, not altogether unpleasing.

We pass from rhetoric to history, and here we meet with one of the great

names of Roman letters, the most eloquent of all historians, TITUS LIVIUS

PATAVINUS. The exact date of his birth is disputed, but may be referred to

59 or 57 B.C. at _Pataviam_ (Padua), a populous and important town, no

less renowned for its strict morals than for its opulence. [11] Little is

known of his life, but he seems to have been of noble birth; his relative,

C. Cornelius, took the auspices at Pharsalia, and the aristocratic tinge

which pervades his work would lead to the same inference. Padua was a

bustling place, where public-speaking was rife, and aptitude for affairs

common; thus Livy was nursed in eloquence and in scenes of human activity.

Nothing tended to turn his mind to the contemplation of nature--at least

we see no signs of it in his work,--his conceptions of national

development were uncomplicated by reference to the share that physical

conditions have in moulding it; man alone, and man as in all respects

self-determining, has interest for him. His gifts are pre-eminently those

of an orator; the talent for developing an idea, for explaining events as

an orderly sequence, for establishing conclusions, for moving the

feelings, for throwing himself into a cause, for clothing his arguments in

noble language, shine conspicuous in his work, while he has the good

faith, sincerity, and patriotism which mark off the orator from the mere

advocate. For some years he remained at Padua studying philosophy [12] and

practising as a teacher of rhetoric, declaiming after the manner of Seneca

and his contemporaries. Reference is made to these declamations by Seneca

and Quintilian, and no doubt they were worth preserving as a grade in his

intellectual progress and as having helped to produce the artistic

elaborateness of his speeches. In 31 B.C. or thereabouts, he came to Rome,

where he speedily rose into favour. But though a courtier, he was no

flatterer. He praised Brutus and Cassius, [13] he debated whether Caesar

was useful to the state, [14] his whole history is a praise of the old

Republic, his preface states that Rome can neither bear her evils, nor the

remedy that has been applied to them (by which it is probable he means the

Empire), and we know that Augustus called him a Pompeian, though, at the

same time, he cannot have been an imprudent one, otherwise he could hardly

have retained the emperor's friendship. As regards the date of his work,

Professor Seeley decides that the first decade was written between 27 and

20 B.C., the very time during which the _Aeneid_ was in process of

composition. The later decades were thrown off from time to time until his

death at Patavium in 17 A.D. Indications exist to show that they were not

revised by him after publication, _e.g._, the errors into which he had

been led by trusting to Valerius Antias were not erased; but he was

careful not to rely on his authority afterwards. That he enjoyed a high

reputation is clear from the fact recorded by Pliny the younger, that a

man journeyed to Rome from Cadiz for the express purpose of seeing him,

and, having succeeded, returned at once. [15] The elder Pliny [16] draws a

picture of him at an advanced age studying with undiminished zeal at his

great work. The "old man eloquent" used to say that he had written enough

for glory, and had now earned rest; but his restless mind fed on labour

and would not lie idle. When completed, his book at once became the

authoritative history of Rome, after which nothing was left but to abridge

or comment upon it.

The state of letters at Rome, while unfavourable to strictly political

history, was ripe for the production of a work like Livy's. Augustus,

Agrippa, and Pollio, had founded public libraries in which the older works

were accessible. The emperor took a keen interest in all studies; he

encouraged not merely poets but philologians and scientific writers, and

he was not indisposed to protect historical study, if only it were treated

in the way he approved. Rabirius, Pedo Albinovanus, and Cornelius Severus

had written poems on the late wars, Ovid and Propertius on the legends

embodied in the calendar; the rival jurists Labeo and Capito had wrought

the _Juris Responsa_ into a body of legal doctrine; Strabo was giving the

world the result of his travels in a universal geography; Pompeius Trogus,

Labienus, Pollio, and the Greeks Dionysius, Dion, and Timagenes, had all

treated Roman history; Augustus had published a volume of his own _Gesta_;

all things seem to demand a comprehensive dramatic account of the growth

of the Roman state, which should trace the process by which the world

became Roman, and Rome became united in the hands of Caesar.

Hitherto Roman history had been imperfectly treated. It is unfortunate

that such crude conceptions of its nature prevailed. Even Cicero says,

_opus hoc unum maxime oratorium_. [17] It had been either a register of

events kept by aristocratic pontiffs from pride of race, or a series of

pictures for the display of eloquence. Neither the flexible imagination,

nor the patient sagacity, nor the disinterested view of life necessary for

a great historian, was to be found among the Romans. There was no true

criticism. For instance, while Juvenal depicts the first inhabitants of

the city, according to tradition, as rude marauders, [18] Cicero commends

their virtues and extols the wisdom of the early kings as the Athenian

orators do that of Solon; and in his _Cato Maior_ makes of the harsh

censor a refined country gentleman and a student of Plato! Varro had

amassed a vast collection of facts, a formidable array of authorities;

Dionysius had spent twenty years in studying the monuments of Rome, and

yet had so little intelligence of her past that he made Romulus a

philosopher of the Sophistic type! Caesar and Sallust gave true narratives

of that which they had themselves known, but they did little more. No

ancient writer, unless perhaps Thucydides, has grasped the truth that

history is an indivisible whole, and that humanity marches according to

fixed law towards a determinate end. The world is in their eyes a stage on

which is played for ever the same drama of life and death, whose fate

moves in a circle bounded by the catastrophes of cities mortal as their

inhabitants, without man's becoming by progress of time either better or

more powerful. In estimating, then, the value of Livy's work, we must ask,

How far did he possess the qualifications necessary for success? We turn

to his preface and find there the moralist, the patriot, and the stylist;

and we infer that his fullest idea of history is of a book in which he who

runs can read the lesson of virtue; and, if he be a lawgiver, can model

his legislation upon its high precedents, and, if he be a citizen, can

follow its salutary precepts of conduct. An idea, which, however noble, is

certainly not exhaustive. It may entitle its possessor to be called a

lofty writer, but not a great historian. This is his radical defect. He

treats history too little as a record, too little as a science, too much

as a series of texts for edification.

How far is he faithful to his authorities? In truth, he never deserts

them, never (or almost never) advances an assertion without them. [19] His

fidelity may be inferred from the fact that when he follows Polybius

alone, he adds absolutely nothing, he merely throws life into his

predecessor's dead periods. Moreover, he writes, after the method of the

old annalists, of events year by year; he rarely conjectures their causes

or traces their connexion, he is willing to efface himself in the capacity

of exponent of what is handed down. Whole passages we cannot doubt,

especially in the early books, are inserted from Fabius and the other

ancients, only just enough changed to make them polished instead of rude;

and it is astonishing how slight the changes need be when the hand that

makes them is a skilful one. So far as we can judge he never alters the

testimony of a witness, or colours it by interested presentation. His

chief authorities for the early history are Licinius Macer, Claudius

Quadrigarius, Gn. Gellius, [20] Sempronius Tuditanus, Aelius Tubero,

Cassius Hemina, Calpurnius Piso, Valerius Antias, Acilius Glabrio, [21]

Porcius Cato, Cincius, and Pictor. [22] These writers, or at least the

most ancient of them, Cato and Pictor, founded their investigations on

such, records as treaties, public documents--_e.g._ the annals, censors'

and pontiffs' commentaries, augural books, books relating to civil

procedure kept by the pontiffs, &c.; [23] laws, lists of magistrates, [24]

_Libri Lintei_ kept in the temple of Juno Moneta; all under the

reservation noticed before, that the majority perished in the Gallic

conflagration. [25] These Professor Seeley classes as _pure_ sources. The

rest, which he calls _corrupt_, are the funeral orations, inscriptions in

private houses placed under the _Imagines_, [26] poems of various kinds,

both _gentile_ and popular, in all of which, there was more or less of

intentional misrepresentation. For the history after the first decade new

authorities appear. The chief are Polybius, Silenus the Sicilian a friend

of Hannibal, Caelius Antipater, Sisenna, Caecilius, Rutilius, and the

Fasti, which are now almost or quite continuous; and still further on he

followed Posidonius, and perhaps for the Civil Wars Asinius Pollio,

Theophanes, and others. There is evidence that these were carefully

digested, but by instalments. For instance, he did not read Polybius until

he came to write the Punic wars. Hence he missed several antiquarian

notices (_e.g._ the treaty with Carthage) which would have helped him in

the first decade. Still he uses the authors he quotes with moderation and

fidelity. When the _Fasti_ omit or confuse the names of the consuls, he

tells us so; [27] when authorities differ as to whether the victory lay

with the Romans or Samnites, [28] he notes the fact. In the early history

he is reticent, where Dionysius is minute; he is content with the broad

legendary outline, where Dionysius constructs a whole edifice of probable

but utterly uncertified particulars. In the important task of sifting

authorities Livy follows the plan of selecting the most ancient, and those

who from their position had best access to facts. In complicated cases of

divergence he trusts the majority, [29] the earliest, [30] or the most

accredited, [31] particularly Fabius and Piso. [32] He does not analyse

for us his method of arriving at a conclusion. "Erudition is for him a

mine from which the historian should draw forth the pure gold, leaving the

mud where he found it." Many of his conclusions are reached by a sort of

instinct, which by practice divines truth, or rather verisimilitude, which

is but too often its only available substitute.

So far as enthusiasm serves (and without it criticism, though it may

succeed in destroying, is helpless to construct), Livy penetrates to the

spirit of ancient times. He says himself, in a very celebrated passage

where he bewails the prevailing scepticism, [33] "Non sum nescius ab eadem

neglegentia qua nihil portendere deos volgo nunc credunt neque nuntiari

admodum ulla prodigia in publicum neque in annales referri. Ceterum et

mihi vetustas res scribenti nescio quo pacto antiquus fit animus et

quaedam religio tenet, quae illi prudentissimi viri publice suscipienda

curarint, ea pro indignis habere quae in meos annales referam." This

"antiquity of soul" is not criticism, but it is an important factor in it.

In the history of the kings he is a poet. If we read the majestic sentence

in which the end of Romulus is described, [34] we must admit that if the

event is told at all this is the way in which it should be told. We meet,

however, here and there, with genuine insertions from antiquity which

spoil the beauty of the picture. Take, _e.g._, the law of treason, [35]

terrible in its stern accents, "Duumviri perduellionem iudicent: si a

duumviris provocarit, provocatione certato: si vincent, caput obnubito:

infelici arbori reste suspendito: verberato vel intra pomoerium vel extra

pomoerium," where, as the historian remarks, the law scarcely hints at the

possibility of an acquittal. In the struggles of the young Republic one

traces the risings of political passion, not of individuals as yet, but of

parties in the state. After the Punic wars have begun individual features

predominate, and what has been a rich canvass becomes a speaking portrait.

Constitutional questions, in which Livy is singularly ill informed, are

hinted at, [36] but generally in so cursory and unintelligent a way, that

it needs a Niebuhr to elicit their meaning. And Livy is throughout led

into fallacious views by his confusion of the mob (_faex Romuli_, as

Cicero calls it) which represented the sovereign people in his day, with

the sturdy and virtuous plebs, whose obstinate insistance on their right

forms the leading thread of Roman constitutional development. Conformably

with his promise at the outset he traces with much more effect the

gradually increasing moral decadence. It is when Rome comes into contact

with Asia that her virtue, already tried, collapses almost without a

struggle. The army, once so steady in its discipline, riots in revelry,

and marches against Antiochus with as much recklessness as if it were

going to butcher a flock of sheep. [37] The soldiers even disobey orders

in pillaging Phocaea; they become cowards, _e.g._, the Illyrian garrison

surrenders to Perseus; and before long the abominable and detested

oriental orgies gain a permanent footing in Rome. Meanwhile, the senate

falls from its old standard, it ceases to keep faith, its generals boast

of perfidy, [38] and the corrupted fathers have not the face to check

them. [39] The epic of decadence proceeds to its _dénouement_, and if we

possessed the lost books the decline would be much more evident. It must

be admitted that in this department of his subject Livy paints with a

master's hand. But nothing can atone for his signal deficiency in

antiquarian and constitutional knowledge. He had (it has been said) a

taste for truth, but not a passion for it. Had he gone into the _Aedes

Nympharum_, he might have read on brass the so-called royal and

tribunician laws; he might have read the treaties with the Sabines, with

Gabii and Carthage; the Senatus Consulta and the Plebi Scita. Augustus

found in the ruined temple of Jupiter Fucinus [40] the _spolia opima_ of

Cossus, who was there declared to have been consul when he won them. All

the authorities represented him as military tribune. Livy, it seems, never

took the trouble to examine it. When he professes to cite an ancient

document, it is not the document itself he cites but its copy in Fabius.

He seems to think the style of history too ornate to admit such rugged

interpositions, [41] and when he inserts them he offers a half apology for

his boldness. This _dilettante_ way of regarding his sources deserves all

the censure Niebuhr has cast on it. If it were not for the fidelity with

which he has incorporated without altering his better-informed

predecessors, the investigations of Niebuhr and his successors would have

been hopelessly unverifiable. The student who wishes to learn the value of

Livy for the history of the constitution should read the celebrated

Lectures (VII. and VIII.) of Niebuhr's history. Their publication

dethroned him, nor has he yet been reinstated. But it must be remembered

that this censure does not attach to him in other aspects, for instance as

a chronicler of Rome's wars, or a biographer of her worthies. As a

geographer, however, he is untrustworthy; his description of Hannibal's

march is obscure, and many battles are extremely involved. It is evident

he was a clear thinker only on certain points; his preface, _e.g._, is

intricate both in matter and manner.

It remains to consider him shortly as a philosophic and as an artistic

historian. On these points some excellent remarks are made by M. Taine.

[42] When we read or write a history of Rome we ask, Why was it that Rome

conquered the Samnites, the Carthaginians, the Etruscans? How was it that

the plebeians gained equal rights with the patricians? The answer to such

questions satisfies the intelligent man of the world who desires only a

clear and consistent view. But philosophy asks a yet further _why?_ Why

was Rome a conquering state? why these never-ceasing wars? why was her

cult of abstract deities a worship of the letter which never rose to a

spiritual idea? In the resolution of problems like these lies the true

delight of science; the former is but information; this is knowledge. Has

Livy this knowledge? It does not follow that the philosophic historian

should deduce with mathematical precision; he merely narrates the events

in their proper order, or chooses from the events those that are

representative; he groups facts under their special laws, and these again

under universal laws, by a skilful arrangement or selection, or else by

flashes of imaginative insight. Livy is no more a philosopher than a

critic; he discovers laws, as he verifies facts, imperfectly. The

treatment of history known to the ancients did not admit of separate

discussions summing up the results of previous narrative; for philosophic

views we are as a rule driven to consult the inserted speeches. Livy's

speeches often reveal considerable insight; Manlius's account of the Gauls

in Asia, [43] and Camillus's sarcastic description of their behaviour

round Rome, [44] go to the root of their national character and lay bare

its weakness. The Samnites are criticised by Decius in terms which show

that Livy had analysed the causes of their fall before Rome. [45] Hannibal

arraigns the narrow policy of his country as his true vanquisher. These

and the like are as effectual means of inculcating a general truth as a

set discussion. To these numerous and perhaps more striking passages

bearing on the internal history might be added. [46] But a historian

should have his whole subject under command. It is not enough to

illuminate it by flashes. The speeches, besides being in the highest

degree unnatural and unhistoric, are far too eloquent, moving the feelings

instead of the judgment. [47] "For an annalist," to quote Niebuhr, "a

clear survey is not necessary; but in a work like Livy's, it is of the

highest importance, and no great author has this deficiency to such an

extent as he. He neither knew what he had written nor what he was going to

write, but wrote at hap-hazard." To put all facts on an equal footing is

to be like a child threading beads. To know how to select representative

facts, to arrange according to representative principles is an

indispensable requisite, as its absence is an irremediable defect in a

writer who aspires to instruct the world.

To turn to his artistic side. In this he has been allowed to stand on the

highest pinnacle of excellence. Whether he paints the character of a

nation or an individual; whether he paints it by pausing to reflect on its

elements, as in the beautiful studies of Cato and Cicero, [48] or by

describing it in action, which is the poetical and dramatic mode, or by

making it express itself in speech, which is the method the orator favours

most, he is always great. He was a Venetian, and Niebuhr finds in him the

rich colouring of the Venetian school; he has also the darker shadow which

that colouring necessitates, and the bold delineation of form which

renders it not meretricious but noble. When he makes the old senators

speak, we recognise men with the souls of kings. Manlius regards the claim

of the Latins for equal rights as an outrage and a sacrilege against

Capitoline Jupiter, with a truly Roman arrogance which would be grotesque

were it not so grand. [49] The familiar conception we form in childhood of

the great Roman worthies, where it does not come from Plutarch, is

generally drawn from Livy.

The power of his style is seen sometimes in stately movement, sometimes in

lightning-like flashes. When Hannibal at the foot of the Alps sees his men

dispirited, he cries out, "_You are scaling the walls of Rome!_" When the

patricians shrink in fear from the dreaded tribunate, the consuls declare

that _their emblems of office are a funeral pageant_. [50] All readers

will remember pithy sentences like these: "_Hannibal has grown old in

Campania_;" [51] "_The issue of war will show who is in the right_." [52]

His rhetorical training discovers itself in the elaborate exactness with

which he disposes of all the points in a speech. The most artificial of

all, perhaps, and yet at the same time the most effective, is the pleading

of old Horatius for his son. [53] It might have come from the hands of

Porcius Latro, or Arellius Fuscus. The orator treats truth as a means; the

historian should treat it as an end. Livy wishes us not so much to know as

to admire his heroes.

His language was censured by Pollio as exhibiting a _Patavinitas_, but

what this was we know not. To us he appears as by far the purest writer

subsequent to Cicero. Of the great orator he was a warm admirer. He

imitated his style, and bade his son-in-law read only Cicero and

Demosthenes, or other writers in proportion as they approached these two.

He models his rhythm on the Ciceronian period so far as their different

objects permit. But poetical phrases have crept in, [54] marring its even

fabric; and other indications of too rich a colouring betray the near

advent of the Silver Age.

As the book progresses the style becomes more fixed, until in the third

decade it has reached its highest point; in the later books, as we know

from testimony as well as the few specimens that are extant, it had become

garrulous, like that of an old man. His work was to have consisted of

fifteen decades, but as we have no epitome beyond Book CXLII., it was

probably never finished. Perhaps the loss of the last part is not so

serious as it seems. We have thirty books complete and the greater part of

five others; but no more, except a fragment of the ninety-first book, has

been discovered for several centuries, and in all probability the

remainder is for ever lost. Livy was so much abridged and epitomized that

during the Middle Ages he was scarcely read in any other form. Compilers

like Florus, Orosius, Eutropius, &c. entirely supplied his place.

A word should perhaps be said about POMPEIUS TROGUS, who about Livy's time

wrote a universal history in forty-four books. It was called _Historiae

Philippicae_, and was apparently arranged according to nations; it began

with Ninus, the Nimrod of classical legend, and was brought down to about

9 A.D. We know the work from the epitomes of the books and from Justin's

abridgment, which is similar to that of Florus on Livy. Who Justin was,

and where he lived, are not clearly ascertained. He is thought to have

been a philosopher, but if so, he was anything but a talented one; most

scholars place his _floruit_ under the Antonines. He seems to have been a

faithful abbreviator, at least as far as this, that he has added nothing

of his own. Hence we may form a conception, however imperfect, of the

value of Trogus's labours. Trogus was a scientific man, and seems to have

desired the fame of a _polymath_. In natural science he was a good

authority, [55] but though his history must have embodied immensely

extended researches, it never succeeded in becoming authoritative.

Among the writers on applied science, one of considerable eminence has

descended to us, the architect VITRUVIUS POLLIO. He is very rarely

mentioned, and has been confounded with Vitruvius Cerdo, a freedman who

belongs to a later date, and whose precepts contradict in many particulars

those of the first Vitruvius. His birth-place was Formiae; he served in

the African War (46 B.C.) under Caesar, so that he was born at least as

early as 64 B.C. [56] The date of his work is also uncertain, but it can

be approximately fixed, for in it he mentions the emperor's sister as his

patroness, and as by her he probably means Octavia, who died 11 B.C., the

book must have been written before that year. As, moreover, he speaks of

one stone theatre only as existing in Rome, whereas two others were added

in 13 B.C., the date is further thrown back to at least 14 B.C. As he

expressly tells us it was written in his old age, and he must have been a

young man in 46 B.C., when he served his first campaign, the nearer we

bring its composition to the latest possible date (_i.e._ 14) the more

correct we shall probably be. He was of good birth and had had a liberal

education; but it is clear from the style of his work that he had either

forgotten how to write elegantly, or had advanced his literary studies

only so far as was necessary for a professional man. [57] His language is

certainly far from good.

He began life as a military engineer, but soon found that his personal

defects prevented him from succeeding in his career. [58] He therefore

seems to have solaced himself by setting forward in a systematic form the

principles of his art, and by finding fault with the great body of his

professional brethren. [59] The dedication to Augustus implies that he had

a practical object, viz. to furnish him with sound rules to be applied in

building future edifices and, if necessary, for correcting those already

built. He is a patient student of Greek authors, and adopts Greek

principles unreservedly; in fact his work is little more than a compendium

of Greek authorities. [60] His style is affectedly terse, and so much so

as to be frequently obscure. The contents of his book are very briefly as

follows:--

Book I. General description of the science--education of the

architect--best choice of site for a city—disposition of its

plan, fortifications, public buildings, &c.

" II. On the proper materials to be used in building, preceded,

like several of Pliny's books, by a quasi-philosophical

digression on the origin and early history of man--the

progress of art--Vitruvius gives his views on the nature of

matter.

" III. IV. On temples--an account of the four orders, Doric, Ionic,

Corinthian, and Composite.

" V. On other public buildings.

" VI. On the arrangement and plan of private houses.

" VII. On the internal decoration of houses.

" VIII. On water supply--the different properties of different

waters--the way to find them, test them, and convey them

into the city.

" IX. On sun dials and other modes of measuring time.

" X. On machines of all kinds, civil and military.

As will be seen from this analysis, the work is both comprehensive and

systematic; it was of great service in the Middle Ages, when it was used

in an abridged form (sufficiently ancient, however,) which we still

possess.

Antiquarian research was carried on during this period with much zeal.

Many illustrious scholars are mentioned, none of whose works have come

down to us, except in extremely imperfect abridgments. FENESTELLA (52

B.C.-22 A.D.) wrote on various legal and religious questions, on

miscellaneous topics, as literary history, the art of good living, various

points in natural history, &c. for which he is quoted as an authority by

Pliny. His greatest work seems to have been _Annales_, which were used by

Plutarch. It is probable, however, that in these he showed his special

aptitude for archaeological research, and passed over the history in a

rapid sketch. Special grammatical studies were carried on by VERRIUS

FLACCUS, a freedman, whose great work, _De Verborum Significatu_, the

first Latin lexicon conducted on an extensive scale, we possess in an

abridgment by Festus. Its size may be conjectured from the fact that the

letter A occupied four books, P five, and so on; and that Festus's

abridgment consisted of twenty large volumes. [61] It was a rich

storehouse of knowledge, the loss of which is much to be lamented. Another

freedman, C. JULIUS HYGINUS (64 B.C.-16 A.D.?), who was also keeper of

Augustus's library on the Palatine, manifested an activity scarcely less

encyclopaedic than that of Varro. Of his multifarious works we possess two

short treatises which pass under his name, the first on mythology, called

_Fabulae_, a series of extracts from his _Genealogiae_, which we have in

an abridgment; the second on astronomy, extending, though this is also in

an abridged form, to four books. A few details of his life are given by

Suetonius. He was a Spaniard by birth, though some believed him to be an

Alexandrian, since Caesar brought him to Rome after the Alexandrine War;

he attended at Rome the lectures of the grammarian Cornelius Alexander,

surnamed Polyhistor. He was an intimate acquaintance of Ovid, [62] and is

said to have died in great poverty. It is doubtful whether the works we

possess were written by him in his youth, or are the production of an

imperfectly educated abbreviator. Bursian, quoted by Teuffel, [63] thinks

it probable that in the second half of the second century of the Christian

era, a grammarian made a very brief abridgment of Hyginus's work entitled

_Genealogiae_, and to this added a treatise on the whole mythology so far

as it concerned poetical literature, compiled from good sources. This

mythology, which retained the name of Hyginus and the title of

_Genealogiae_, came to be generally used in the schools of the

grammarians.

The demand for school-books was now rapidly increasing; and as the great

classical authors published their works, an abundant supply of material

was given to the ingenious and learned. The _grammaticae tribus_, whom

Horace mentions with such disdain, [64] were already asserting their right

to dispense literary fame. They were not as yet so compact or popular a

body as the rhetoricians, but they had begun to cramp, as the others had

begun to corrupt, literature. Dependence on the opinion of a clique is the

most hurtful state possible, even though the clique be learned; and Horace

showed wisdom as well as spirit in resisting it. The endeavour to please

the leading men of the world, which Horace professed to be his object, is

far less narrowing; such men, though unable to appraise scientific merit,

are the best judges of general literature.

The careful methods of exact inquiry, were, as we have said, directed also

to law, in which Labeo remained the highest authority. Capito abated

principle in favour of the imperial prerogative. They did not, however,

affect philosophy, which retained its original colouring as an _ars

vivendi_. Many of Horace's friends, as we learn from the _Odes_, gave

their minds to speculative inquiry, but, like the poet himself, they seem

to have soon deserted it. At least we hear of no original investigations.

Neither a metaphysic nor a psychology arose; only a loose rhetorical

treatment of physical questions, and a careful collection of ethical

maxims for the most part eclectically obtained.

SEXTIUS PYTHAGOREUS--there were two born of this name, father and son--

wrote in Greek, reproducing the oracular style of Heraclitus. The

_gnuomai_, which were translated and christianised by Rufinus, were

stamped with a strongly theistic character. A few inferior thinkers are

mentioned by Quintilian and Seneca, as PAPIRIUS FABIANUS, SERGIUS FLAVIUS,

and PLOTIUS CRISPINUS. Of these, Papirius treated some of the

classificatory sciences, which now first began to attract interest in

Rome. Botany and zoology were the favourites. Mineralogy excited more

interest on its commercial side with regard to the value and history of

jewels; it was also treated in a mystic or imaginative way.

From this rapid summary it will be seen that real learning still

flourished in Rome. Despotism had not crushed intellectual energy, nor

enforced silence on all but flatterers. The emperor had nevertheless grown

suspicious in his old age, and given indications of that tyranny which was

soon to be the rule of government; he had interdicted Timagenes from his

palace, banished Ovid, burnt the works of Labienus, exiled Severus, and

shown such severity towards Albucius Silo that he anticipated further

disgrace by a voluntary death. His reign closed in 14 A.D., and with it

ceases for near a century the appearance of the highest genius in Rome.

APPENDIX

NOTE I.--_A fragment translated from Seneca's Suasoriae, showing the style

of expression cultivated in the schools._

The subject (Suas. 2) debated is whether the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae,

seeing themselves deserted by the army, shall remain or flee. The

different rhetors declaim as follows, making Leonidas the speaker:--

_Arellius Fuscus_.--What! are our picked ranks made up of raw recruits, or

spirits likely to be cowed, or hands likely to shrink from the

unaccustomed steel, or bodies enfeebled by wounds or decay? How shall I

speak of us as the flower of Greece? Shall I bestow that name on Spartans

or Eleans? or shall I rehearse the countless battles of our ancestors, the

cities they sacked, the nations they spoiled? and do men now dare to boast

that our temples need no walls to guard them? Ashamed am I of our conduct

ashamed to have entertained even the idea of flight. But then, you say,

Xerxes comes with an innumerable host. O Spartans! and Spartans matched

against barbarians, have you no reverence for your deeds, your grandsires,

your sires, from whose example your souls from infancy gather lofty

thoughts? I scorn to offer Spartans such exhortations as these. Look! we

are protected by our position. Though he bring with him the whole East,

and parade his useless numbers before our craven eyes, this sea which

spreads its vast expanse before us is pressed into a narrow compass, is

beset by treacherous straits which scarce admit the passage of a single

row-boat, and then by their chopping swell make rowing impossible; it is

beset by unseen shallows, wedged between deeper bottoms, rough with sharp

rocks, and everything that mocks the sailor's prayer. I am ashamed (I

repeat it) that Spartans, and Spartans armed, should even stop to ask how

it is they are safe. Shall I not carry home the spoil of the Persians?

Then at least I will fall naked upon it. They shall know that we have yet

three hundred men who thus scorn to flee, who thus mean to fall. Think of

this: we can perhaps conquer; with all our effort we cannot be conquered.

I do not say you are doomed to death--you to whom I address these words;

but if you are, and yet think that death is be feared, you greatly err. To

no living thing has nature given unending life; on the day of birth the

day of death is fixed. For heaven has wrought us out of a weak material;

our bodies yield to the slightest stroke, we are snatched away unwarned by

fate. Childhood and youth lie beneath the same inexorable law. Most of us

even long for death, so perfect a rest does it offer from the struggle of

life. But glory has no limits, and they who fall like us rise nearest to

the gods. Even women often choose the path of death which leads to glory.

What need to mention Lycurgus, those heroes handed down by history, whom

no peril could appal? to awake the spirit of Othryades alone, would be to

give example enough, and more than enough, for us three hundred men!

_Triarius_.--Are not Spartans ashamed to be conquered, not by blows but by

rumours? 'Tis a great thing to be born a scion of valour and a Spartan.

For certain victory all would wait; for certain death none but Spartans.

Sparta is girt with no walls, her walls are where her men are. Better to

call back the army than to follow them. What if the Persian bores through

mountains, makes the sea invisible? Such proud felicity never yet stood

sure; the loftiest exaltation is struck to earth through its forgetfulness

of the instability of all things human. You may be sure that power which

has given rise to envy has not seen its last phase. It has changed seas,

lands, nature itself; let us three hundred die, if only that it may here

find something it cannot change. If such madmen's counsel was to be

accepted, why did we not flee with the crowd?

_Porcius Latro_.--This then is what we have waited for, to collect a band

of runaways. You flee from a rumour; let us at least know of what sort it

is. Our dishonour can hardly be wiped out even by victory; bravely as we

may fight, successful as we may be, much of our renown is already lost;

for Spartans have debated whether or not to flee. O that we may die! For

myself, after this discussion, the only thing I fear is to return home.

Old women's tales have shaken the arms out of our hands. Now, now, let us

fight, among the thirty thousand our valour might have lain hid. The rest

have fled. If you ask my opinion, which I utter for the honour of

ourselves and Greece, I say they have not deserted us, they have chosen us

as their champions.

_Marillus_.--This was our reason for remaining, that we might not be

hidden among the crowd of fugitives. The army has a good excuse to offer

for its conduct: "We knew Thermopylae would be safe since we left Spartans

to guard it."

_Cestius Pius_.--You have shown, Spartans, how base it were to fly by so

long remaining still. All have their privilege. The glory of Athens is

speech, of Thebes religion, of Sparta arms. 'Tis for this Eurotas flows

round our state that its stream may inure our boys to the hardships of

future war; 'tis for this we have our peaks of Taygetus inaccessible but

to Spartans; 'tis for this we boast of a Hercules who has won heaven by

merit; 'tis for this that arms are our only walls. O deep disgrace to our

ancestral valour! Spartans are counting their numbers, not their manhood.

Let us see how long the list is, that Sparta may have, if not brave

soldiers, at least true messengers. Can it be that we are vanquished, not

by war, but by reports? that man, i' faith, has a right to despise

everything at whose very name Spartans are afraid. If we may not conquer

Xerxes, let us at least be allowed to see him; I would know what it is I

flee from. As yet I am in no way like an Athenian, either in seeking

culture, or in dwelling behind a wall; the last Athenian quality that I

shall imitate will be cowardice.

_Pompeius Silo_.--Xerxes leads many with him, Thermopylae can hold but

few. We shall be the most timid of the brave, the slowest of cowards. No

matter how great nations the East has poured into our hemisphere, how many

peoples Xerxes brings with him; as many as this place will hold, with

those is our concern.

_Cornelius Hispanus_.--We have come for Sparta; let us stay for Greece;

let us vanquish the foe as we have already vanquished our friends; let

this arrogant barbarian learn that nothing is so difficult as to cut an

armed Spartan down. For my part, I am glad the rest have gone; they have

left Thermopylae for us; there will now be nothing to mingle or compare

itself with our valour; no Spartan will be hidden in the crowd; wherever

Xerxes looks he will see none but Spartans.

_Blandus_.--Shall I remind you of your mother's command--"Either with your

shield or on it?" and yet to return without arms is far less base than to

flee under arms. Shall I remind you of the words of the captive?--"Kill

me, I am no slave!" To such a man to escape would not have been to avoid

capture. Describe the Persian terrors! We heard all that when we were

first sent out. Let Xerxes see the three hundred, and learn at what rate

the war is valued, what number of men the place is calculated to hold. We

will not return even as messengers except after the fight is over. Who has

fled I know not; these men Sparta has given me for comrades. I am thankful

that the host has fled; they had made the pass of Thermopylae too narrow

for me to move in.

§ _On the other side_.

_Cornelius Hispanus_.--I hold it a great disgrace to our state if Xerxes

see no Greeks before he sees the Spartans. We shall not even have a

witness of our valour; the enemy's account of us will be believed. You

have my counsel, it is the same as that of all Greece. If any one advise

differently, he wishes you to be not brave men but ruined men.

_Claudius Marcellus_.--They will not conquer us; they will overwhelm us.

We have been true to our renown, we have waited till the last. Nature

herself has yielded before we.

The above _Suasoria_ is by no means one of the most brilliant; on the

contrary, it is a decidedly a tame one, but it is a good instance of an

ordinary declamation of the better sort, and gives passages from most of

the rhetoricians to whom reference is made in the text.

NOTE II.--_A few Observations on the Treatment of Rhetorical Questions,

taken from the Third Book of Quintilian._

"The division of the departments of rhetoric, or to use a more correct

term, the classification of causes, is three-fold: They are either

laudatory, deliberative, or judicial. This is a division according to the

subject matter, not according to the artistic treatment. Correspondingly,

there are three requisites for pleading well, nature, art, and practice;

and three objects which the orator must set before him, to teach, to move,

and to delight. Every question turns either on things or on words; or as

it may be expressed in other language, is either indefinite or definite.

The _indefinite_ is in the form of a universal proposition (_Oesis_) which

Cicero calls _propositum_, others _quaestio universalis civilis_, others

_quaestio philosopho conveniens_, and Athenaeus _pars causae_. This again

is divided under the heads of knowledge and action respectively; of

knowledge, _e.g. Is the world ruled by Providence?_ of action, _e.g., Is

political activity a duty?_ The _definite_ question regards things,

persons, times, circumstances: it is called _upothesis_ in Greek, _causa_

in Latin. It always depends on an indefinite question, _e.g., Ought Cato

to marry?_ depends on the wider one, _is marriage desirable?_ Hence it may

be a _suasoria_. And this is true even of cases in which no person is

specially mentioned, _e.g._, the question, _Ought a man to hold office

under a tyranny?_ depends on the wider one, _Ought a man to hold office at

all?_ And this question refers of necessity to some special tyrant, though

it may not mention him by name. This is the same division as that into

_general_ and _special_ questions. Thus every special includes a general.

It is true that generals often bear only remotely on practice, and

sometimes are altogether neutralised by peculiar circumstances, _e.g._,

the question, _Is political activity a duty?_ becomes inapplicable to a

chronic invalid. Still, all are not of this kind, _e.g., Is virtue the end

of man?_ is equally applicable to every human being, whatever his

capacity. Cicero in his earlier treatises disapproved of these questions

being discussed by the orator; he wished to leave them to the philosopher;

but as he grew in experience he changed his mind.

"A cause is defined by Valgius, after Apollodorus, as _negotium omnibus

suis partibus spectans ad quaestionem_, or as _negotium cuius finis est

controversia_. The _negotium_ (or business in hand) is thus defined,

_congregatio personarum locorum temporum causarum modorum casuum factorum

instrumentorum sermonum scriptorum et non scriptorum_. The cause,

therefore, corresponds to the Greek _upostasis_ (subject), the _negotium_

to _peristasis_ (surroundings). These are of course closely connected; and

many have defined the cause as though it were identical with its

surroundings or conditions.

"In every discussion three things are the objects of inquiry, _an sit_, Is

it so? _quid sit_, If so, what is it? _quale sit_, of what kind is it? For

first, there must _be_ something, about which the discussion has arisen.

Till this is made clear no discussion as to what it is can arise; far less

can we determine what its qualities are, until this second point is

ascertained. These three objects of inquiry are exhaustive; on them every

question, whether definite or indefinite, depends. The accuser will try to

establish, first, the occurrence of the act in dispute, then its

character; and, lastly, its criminality. The advocate will, if possible,

deny the fact; if he cannot do that he will prove that it is not what the

accuser states it to be; or, thirdly, he may contend--and this is the most

honourable kind of defence--that it was rightly done. As a fourth

alternative, he may take exception to the legality of the prosecution. All

these, and every other conceivable division of questions, come under the

two general heads (_status_) of _rational_ and _legal_. The rational is

simple enough, depending only on the contemplation of nature; thus it is

content with exhibiting conjecture, definition, and quality. The legal is

extremely complex, laws being infinite in number and character. Sometimes

the letter is to be observed, sometimes the spirit. Sometimes we get at

its meaning by comparison, or induction; sometimes its meaning is open to

the most contradictory interpretations. Hence there is room for a far

greater display of diverse kinds of excellence in the _legal_ than in the

_rational_ department. Thus the declamatory exercises called _suasoriae_,

which are confined to _rational_ considerations, are fittest for young

students whose reasoning powers are acute, but who have not the knowledge

of law necessary for enabling them to treat _controversiae_ which hinge on

legal questions. These last are intended as a preparation for the pleading

of actual causes in court, and should be regularly practised even by the

most accomplished pleader during the spare moments that his profession

allows him."

BOOK III.

THE DECLINE.

_FROM THE ACCESSION OF TIBERIUS TO THE DEATH OF M. AURELIUS_ (14-180 A.D.)

CHAPTER I

THE AGE OF TIBERIUS (14-37 A.D.).

Augustus was not more unlike his gloomy successor than were the writers

who flourished under him to those that now come before us. The history of

literature presents no stronger contrast than between the rich fertility

of the last epoch and the barrenness of the present one. The age of

Tiberius forms an interval of silence during which the dead are buried,

and the new generation prepares itself to appear. Under Nero it will have

started forth in all its panoply of tinsel armour; at present the seeds

that will produce it are being sown by the hand of despotism. [1]

The sudden collapse of letters on the death of Augustus is easily

accounted for. As long as the chief of the state encouraged them labourers

in every field were numerous. When his face was withdrawn the stimulus to

effort was removed. Thus, even in Augustus's time, when ill health and

disappointment had soured his nature and disposed him to arbitrary

actions, literature had felt the change. The exile of Ovid was a blow to

the muses. We have seen how it injured his own genius, a decline over

which he mourns, knowing the cause but impotent to overcome it. [2] We

have seen also how it was followed up by other harsh measures, stifling

the free voice of poets and historians. And when we reflect how the

despotism was entwining itself round the entire life of the nation,

gathering by each new enactment food for future aggression, and only

veiled as yet by the mildness or caution of a prince whose one object was

to found a dynasty, our surprise is lessened at the spectacle of

literature prostrate and dumb, threatened by the hideous form of tyranny

now no longer in disguise, offering it with brutal irony the choice

between submission, hypocrisy, and death. Tiberius (whose portrait drawn

by Tacitus in colours almost too dark for belief, is nevertheless rendered

credible by the deathlike silence in which his reign was passed) had in

his youth shown both taste and proficiency in liberal studies. He had

formed his style on that of Messala, but the gloomy bent of his mind led

him to contract and obscure his meaning to such a degree that, unlike most

Romans, he spoke better extempore [3] than after preparation. In the art

of perplexing by ambiguous phrases, of indicating intentions without

committing himself to them, he was without a rival. In point of language

he was a purist like Augustus; but unlike him he mingled archaisms with

his diction. While at Rhodes he attended the lectures of Theodorus; and

the letters or speeches of his referred to by Tacitus indicate a nervous

and concentrated style. Poetry was alien from his stern character.

Nevertheless, Suetonius tells us he wrote a lyric poem and Greek

imitations of Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius; but it was the minute

questions of mythology that chiefly attracted him, points of useless

erudition like those derided by Juvenal: [4]

"Nutricem Anchisae, nomen patriamque novercae

Anchemoli, dicat quot Acestes vixerit annos,

Quot Siculus Phrygibus vini donaverit urnas."

In maturer life he busied himself with writing memoirs, which formed the

chief, almost the only study of Domitian, and of which we may regret that

time has deprived us. The portrait of this arch dissembler by his own able

hand would be a good set off to the terrible indictment of Tacitus.

Besides the above he was the author of funeral speeches, and, according to

Suidas, of a work on the art of rhetoric.

With these literary pretensions it is clear that his discouragement of

letters as emperor was due to political reasons. He saw in the free

expression of thought or fancy a danger to his throne. And as the

abominable system of _delations_ made every chance expression penal, and

found treason to the present in all praise of the past, the only resource

open to men of letters was to suppress every expression of feeling, and,

by silent brooding, to keep passion at white heat, so that when it speaks

at last it speaks with the concentrated intensity of a Juvenal or a

Tacitus.

We might ask how it was that authors did not choose subjects outside the

sphere of danger. There were still forms of art and science which had not

been worked out. The _Natural History_ of Pliny shows how much remained to

be done in fields of great interest. Neither philosophy nor the lighter

kinds of poetry could afford matter for provocation. But the answer is

easy. The Roman imagination was so narrow, and their constructive talent

so restricted, that they felt no desire to travel beyond the regular

lines. It seemed as if all had been done that could be done well. History,

national and universal, [5] science [6] and philosophy, [7] Greek poetry

in all its varied forms, had been brought to perfection by great masters

whom it was hopeless to rival. The age of literary production seemed to

have been rounded off, and the self-consciousness that could reflect on

the new era had not yet had time to arise. Rhetoric, as applied to the

expression of political feeling, was the only form which literature cared

to take, and that was precisely the form most obnoxious to the government.

Thus it is possible that even had Tiberius been less jealously repressive

letters would still have stagnated. The severe strain of the Augustan age

brought its inevitable reaction. The simultaneous appearance of so many

writers of the first rank rendered necessary an interval during which

their works were being digested and their spirit settling down into an

integral constituent of the national mind. By the time thought reawakens,

Virgil, Horace, and Livy are already household words, and their works the

basis of all literary culture.

In reading the lives of the chief post-Augustan writers we are struck by

the fact that many, if not most of them, held offices of state. The desire

for peaceful retirement, characteristic of the early Augustans, the

contentment with lettered leisure that signalises the poetry of the later

Augustans, have both given place to a restless excitement, and to a

determination to make the most of literature as an aid to a successful

career. Hitherto we have observed two distinct classes of writers, and a

corresponding double relation of politics and literature. The early poets,

and again those of Augustus's era, were not men of affairs, they belonged

to the exclusively literary class. The great prose writers on the contrary

rose to political eminence by political conduct. Literature was with them

a relaxation, and served no purpose of worldly aggrandisement. Now,

however, an unhealthy confusion between the two provinces takes place. A

man rises to office through his poems or rhetorical essays. The

acquirements of a professor become a passport to public life. Seneca and

Quintilian are striking and favourable instances of the school door

opening into the senate:

"Si fortuna volet fies de rhetore consul." [8]

But nearly all the chief writers carried their declamatory principles into

the serious business of life. This double aspect of their career produced

two different types of talent, under one or other of which the great

imperial writers may be ranged. Excluding men of the second rank, we have

on the one side Lucan, Juvenal, and Tacitus, all whose minds have a strong

political bias, the bias of old Rome, which makes them the most powerful

though the most prejudiced exponents of their times. Of another kind are

Persius, Seneca, and Pliny the elder. Their genius is contemplative and

philosophical; and though two of them were much mixed in affairs, their

spirit is cosmopolitan rather than national, and their wisdom, though

drawn from varied sources, cannot be called political. These six are the

representative minds of the period on which we are now entering, and

between them reflect nearly all the best and worst features of their age.

Quintilian, Statius, and Pliny the younger, represent a more restricted

development; the first of them is the typical rhetorician, but of the

better class; the second is the brilliant improvisatore and ingenious

word-painter; the third the cultivated and amiable but vain, common-place,

and dwarfed type of genius which under the Empire took the place of the

"fine gentlemen" of the free Republic.

Writers of this last stamp cannot be expected to show any independent

spirit. They are such as in every age would adopt the prevalent fashion,

and theorise within the limits prescribed by respectability. While a bad

emperor reigns they flatter him; when a good emperor succeeds they flatter

him still more by abusing his predecessor; at the same time they are

genial, sober, and sensible, adventuring neither the safety of their necks

nor of their intellectual reputation.