CHAPTER VII.

_LATER GREEK LITERATURE._

=Extinction of Greek Genius.=—The long period which now engages our

attention is marked by a further decline, and the ultimate extinction

of letters. Roman despotism was inimical to literature; Greece lay

prostrate and broken-spirited; night was fast settling down on the

world. Poetry, a faint shadow of its former self, appeared principally

in epigrams. The prose of the early Christian centuries exhibits some

exceptional gleams, but they are only the flickerings of a dying flame.

About the Christian Era is gathered a group of geographical and

historical writers with Stra’bo, Diodo’rus Sic’ulus, and Dionysius

of Halicarnassus as the prominent figures. The first century after

Christ presents to us the authors of the New Testament; Clement of

Rome, an eminent authority with the early Christians; and Josephus, the

Jewish historian, all of whom wrote in Greek. Plutarch, the eminent

biographer, born about 50 A.D., lived through the first twenty years of

the second century, which was also adorned with the names of Lucian and

Pausanias the geographer. In the third century flourished Longi’nus,

the greatest rhetorician of this later age; while the writings of the

Christian fathers extend over a period of several hundred years, from

the time of Clement just named.

After the fall of Rome (476 A.D.), Constantinople became the sole

centre of letters, and there for nearly a thousand years they

languished. After Mahomet II. carried the city by storm in 1453, the

native scholars dispersed over Europe, and by awakening an interest in

classical studies contributed not a little to the revival of letters.

THE FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

=Diodorus Siculus= (_the Sicilian_) was the author of “the Historical

Library,” which cost him thirty years of labor. Unfolding the story of

the human race from remote antiquity to the time of Julius Cæsar, his

work contains much valuable information.

=Dionysius of Halicarnassus.=—The longest production of this writer is

his “Roman Antiquities,” a history of Rome prior to the Punic wars,

pervaded by an evident partiality for Greece and her institutions.

Dionysius was also a rhetorician of the highest rank, as his critical

essays on the eloquence of Demosthenes, the style of Thucydides, and

other subjects, testify.

=Strabo=, of Pontus in Asia Minor, must be remembered in connection

with his “Geography,” still extant, an interesting work in seventeen

books, for which he prepared himself by travels in Asia, Africa, and

Europe. It is not a mere tissue of names and statistics, but is lighted

up with sketches of social life, pleasant stories, and epitomes of

political history, thus entertaining at the same time that it instructs.

What this lively writer records of India may interest the reader:—

THE WONDERS OF INDIA.

“Between the Hydaspes and the Acesi’nes is the country of Porus,

an extensive and fertile district, containing nearly three hundred

cities. Here also is the forest in which Alexander cut down a large

quantity of fir, pine, cedar, and a variety of other trees fit for

shipbuilding, and brought the timber down the Hydaspes. With this he

constructed a fleet near the cities which he built on each side of

the river, where he had crossed it and conquered Porus. One of these

cities he called Bucephalia, from the horse Bucephalus, which was

killed in the battle with Porus. The name Bucephalus (_ox-headed_) was

given to the animal from the breadth of his forehead.

In the forest before mentioned it is said there is a vast number

of monkeys, as large as they are numerous. On one occasion the

Macedonians, seeing a body of them standing in array on some bare

eminences, prepared to attack them as real enemies.

The chase of this animal is conducted in two different ways. The

hunters, when they perceive a monkey seated on a tree, place in sight

a basin containing water, with which they wash their own eyes; then,

instead of water, they put a basin of bird-lime, go away, and lie in

wait at a distance. The animal, being an imitative creature, leaps

down, and besmears itself with the bird-lime, and when it winks,

the eyelids are fastened together. The hunters then come upon it,

and take it. The other method of capturing them is as follows: the

hunters dress themselves in bags like trousers and go away, leaving

behind them others which are downy, with the inside smeared over with

bird-lime. The monkeys put them on, and are easily taken.

* * * * *

A very singular usage is related of the high estimation in which the

inhabitants of Cathaia (the tract between the Hydaspes and Acesines)

hold the quality of beauty. They elect the handsomest person as king.

A child, two months after birth, undergoes a public inspection. They

determine whether it has the amount of beauty required by law. The

presiding magistrate then pronounces whether it is to be allowed

to live, or to be put to death. The bride and the husband are

respectively the choice of each other, and the wives, it is related,

burn themselves with their deceased husbands. The reason assigned for

this practice is, that the women sometimes fell in love with young

men, and deserted or poisoned their husbands. This law was therefore

established in order to check the practice of administering poison;

but neither the existence nor the origin of the law is probable.

The dogs in this territory are said to possess remarkable courage.

Alexander received from Sopeithes, the monarch, a present of one

hundred and fifty of them. To prove them, two were set at a lion; when

these were mastered, two others were set on; when the battle became

equal, Sopeithes ordered a man to seize one of the dogs by the leg,

and to drag him away; or to cut off his leg, if he still held on.

Alexander at first refused his consent to the dog’s leg being cut off,

as he wished to save the dog. But on Sopeithes saying,‘I will give

you four in the place of it,’ Alexander consented; and he saw the dog

permit his leg to be cut off by a slow incision rather than loose his

hold.

* * * * *

Nearchus is surprised at the multitude and the noxious nature of

the reptiles. They retreat from the plains to the settlements at

the period of inundations, and fill the houses. For this reason the

inhabitants raise their beds from the ground, and are sometimes

compelled to abandon their dwellings. Charmers go about the country,

and are supposed to cure wounds made by serpents. This seems to

comprise nearly their whole art of medicine, for disease is not

frequent among them, owing to their frugal manner of life, and to the

absence of wine. Whenever diseases do occur, they are treated by the

Sophists (_wise men_).

* * * * *

All the Indians are frugal in their mode of life, and are happy

on account of their simple manners. They never drink wine but at

sacrifices. Their beverage is made from rice instead of barley, and

their food consists for the most part of rice pottage. The simplicity

of their laws appears from their having few lawsuits. Theft is very

rare among them. Their houses and property are unguarded. These things

denote temperance and sobriety. Others of their customs no one would

approve; as their eating always alone, and their not having all of

them one common hour for their meals, but each taking food as he

likes. As an exercise of the body they prefer friction in various

ways, but particularly by making use of smooth sticks of ebony, which

they pass over the surface of the skin. They marry many wives, who are

purchased from their parents, and give in exchange for them a yoke of

oxen.

* * * * *

Megasthenes divides the philosophers into two kinds, the Brahmans and

the Garmanes. The Brahmans are held in greater repute. They do not

communicate their philosophy to their wives, for fear they should

divulge to the profane anything which ought to be concealed. They

discourse much on death, and discipline themselves to prepare for

it. According to the Brahmans, the world was created and is liable

to corruption; it is of a spheroidal figure; the god who made and

governs it, pervades the whole of it; the earth is situated in the

centre of the universe. Many other peculiar things they say of the

principles of generation and of the soul. They invent fables also,

after the manner of Plato, on immortality and on the punishment in

Hades; and other things of this kind.”—FALCONER.

THE FIRST THREE CHRISTIAN CENTURIES.

=Josephus=, born A.D. 37 at Jerusalem, was the scion of a noble line.

At the early age of fourteen he astonished the chief priests by his

mental power and familiarity with the intricacies of Jewish law. We

next hear of him as spending three years in the desert with a hermit,

and then as joining the Pharisees.

The revolutionary tendencies of his countrymen brought on a war with

the Romans, in the course of which Josephus, after the brave defence

of a city under his command, was made prisoner by the Roman general

Flavius Vespasian. Prophesying that Vespasian would one day wear the

purple of the emperors, he alone of the captives was spared; the

fulfilment of this prediction about three years later insured him

the favor of the Flavian family, whose name he prefixed to his own.

Vespasian’s son, Titus, he accompanied to the siege of Jerusalem,

receiving at the hands of the victorious general after its capture the

lives of two hundred and forty of his friends, together with the sacred

volumes which he greatly prized.

From the desolation of his country, Josephus returned to Rome as the

honored guest of the emperor and his sons, during whose reigns he

produced his great works,—“the History of the Jewish War” and “Jewish

Antiquities.” These interesting standards, though written in a style

which has led to their author’s being called “the Grecian Livy,” are

yet tinged with vanity and skepticism.

=Plutarch= (50-120 A.D.), the great biographer of antiquity, was born

in Chæronea, a Bœotian town. After completing his education at Athens,

he sailed to Egypt, and in Domitian’s reign (81-96 A.D.) visited Rome,

where his lectures won golden opinions from the learned.

From Italy, Plutarch returned to his native city, and there passed the

last twenty or thirty years of his life, happy in the society of his

wife, a paragon of good sense, economy, and virtue. Literature was

henceforth his pursuit; but believing it a duty to devote part of his

time to the public good, he accepted office from his fellow-townsmen,

and was finally made chief-magistrate of Chæronea. He tells us

with relish how his neighbors often laughed at his doing what they

considered beneath his dignity. When they wondered that so great a man

should carry fish from market in his own hands, he told them, “Why,

it’s for myself;” and when they found fault with him for personally

superintending the building of public edifices, he silenced them with

the reply, “This service is not for myself, but for my country.”

“The meaner the office you sustain,” said Plutarch, “the greater the

compliment you pay to the public.”

In his delightful retreat at Chæronea, Plutarch compiled from two

hundred and fifty authorities the work that has given him a niche

in the Temple of Fame—“Parallel Lives”—sparkling with interest and

animation, as it is underlaid by good judgment. His plan was to present

the biography of a distinguished Greek, follow it with that of some

Roman, and then critically compare the two characters. But the “Lives,”

as we have it, is not the complete work its author probably left at

his death, inasmuch as a number of biographies and parallels are

wanting. Though Plutarch’s passion for story-telling sometimes carries

him beyond the bounds of the probable, yet his work is an invaluable

storehouse; his capital literary portraits have stood the test of time,

and are still universally admired. The charms of a book in which are

recorded “the greatest characters and most admirable actions of the

human race” can never fade.

Among the best of Plutarch’s Parallels is his

COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO.

“Omitting an exact comparison of their respective faculties in

speaking, yet thus much seems fit to be said: That Demosthenes, to

make himself a master in rhetoric, applied all the faculties he

had, natural or acquired, wholly that way; that he far surpassed

in force and strength of eloquence all his contemporaries in

political and judicial speaking, in grandeur and majesty all the

panegyrical orators, and in accuracy and science all the logicians and

rhetoricians of his day: That Cicero was highly educated, and by his

diligent study became a most accomplished general scholar in all these

branches, having left behind him numerous philosophical treatises

of his own on Academic principles; as, indeed, even in his written

speeches, both political and judicial, we see him continually trying

to show his learning by the way.

One may discover the different temper of each of them in their

speeches. For the oratory of Demosthenes was without any embellishment

or jesting, wholly composed for real effect and seriousness; not

smelling of the lamp, as Pytheas scoffingly said, but of the

temperance, thoughtfulness, austerity, and grave earnestness of his

temper. Whereas Cicero’s fondness for mockery often ran him into

scurrility; and in his love of laughing away serious arguments in

judicial cases by jests and facetious remarks, with a view to the

advantage of his clients, he paid too little regard to what was

decent: saying, for example, in his defence of Cælius, that he had

done no absurd thing in indulging himself so freely in pleasures, it

being a kind of madness not to enjoy the things we possess, especially

since the most eminent philosophers have asserted pleasure to be

the chief good. So also we are told that when Cicero, being consul,

undertook the defence of Murena against Cato’s prosecution, by way

of bantering Cato, he made a long series of jokes upon the absurd

_paradoxes_, as they are called, of the Stoic sect; so that, a loud

laugh passing from the crowd to the judges, Cato, with a quiet smile,

said to those who sat next him,‘My friends, what an amusing consul we

have!’

Cicero was by natural temper very much disposed to mirth and

pleasantry, and always appeared with a smiling and serene countenance.

But Demosthenes had constant care and thoughtfulness in his look,

and a serious anxiety, which he seldom, if ever, laid aside; and,

therefore, he was accounted by his enemies, as he himself confessed,

morose and ill-mannered.

It is very evident, also, from their several writings, that

Demosthenes never touched upon his own praises but decently and

without offence when there was need of it, and for some weightier

end; but, upon other occasions, modestly and sparingly. But Cicero’s

immeasurable boasting of himself in his orations argues him guilty

of an uncontrollable appetite for distintion, his cry being evermore

that arms should give place to the gown, and the soldier’s laurel to

the tongue. And at last we find him extolling not only his deeds and

actions, but his orations also, as well those that were only spoken

as those that were published; as if he were engaged in a boyish trial

of skill, who should speak best, with the rhetoricians Isocrates and

Anaximenes, not as one who could claim the task to guide and instruct

the Roman nation, the

Soldier full-armed, terrific to the foe.

Moreover, the banishment of Demosthenes was infamous, upon conviction

for bribery; Cicero’s very honorable, for ridding his country of a

set of villains. Therefore when Demosthenes fled his country, no man

regarded it; for Cicero’s sake, the senate changed their habit and

put on mourning, and would not be persuaded to make any act before

Cicero’s return was decreed.

Cicero, however, passed his exile idly in Macedonia. But the very

exile of Demosthenes made up a great part of the services he did for

his country; for he went through the cities of Greece, and everywhere,

as we have said, joined in the conflict on behalf of the Grecians,

driving out the Macedonian ambassadors, and approving himself a much

better citizen than Themistocles and Alcibiades did in the like

fortune. After his return, he again devoted himself to the same

public service, and continued firm in his opposition to Antipater and

the Macedonians. Whereas Lælius reproached Cicero in the senate for

sitting silent when Cæsar, a beardless youth, asked leave to come

forward, contrary to the law, as a candidate for the consulship;

and Brutus, in his epistles, charges him with nursing and rearing a

greater and more heavy tyranny than that they had removed.

Finally, Cicero’s death excites our pity; for an old man to be

miserably carried up and down by his servants, flying and hiding

himself from that death which was, in the course of nature, so near

at hand—and yet at last to be murdered. Demosthenes, though he

seemed at first a little to supplicate, yet, by his preparing and

keeping the poison by him, demands our admiration; and still more

admirable was his using it. When the temple of the god no longer

afforded him a sanctuary, he took refuge at a mightier altar, freeing

himself from arms and soldiers, and laughing to scorn the cruelty of

Antipater.”—CLOUGH.

A moralist as well as a biographer, Plutarch wrote many ethical and

philosophical essays. The death of his daughter called forth a feeling

letter to his wife,—“the Consolation,”—in which he affectionately bids

her not give way to extravagant grief, but submit with resignation to

the blow, comforting her with thoughts of immortality; it may be added

that he held Plato’s views on this subject as on others.

In his “Essay on Inquisitiveness” he condemns all eagerness to learn

news and impatience in opening letters, or “biting the strings in two,

as many will if they do not succeed at once with their fingers.” As an

example of dignified patience, he instances Rusticus at Rome, who in

the midst of a lecture received a letter from the emperor Domitian, but

would not open it till Plutarch had finished speaking.

=Lucian= (probably 120-200 A.D.); one of the wittiest of Greek writers,

was a native of Syria, and passed his boyhood on the banks of the

Euphrates. Doubtless his favorite amusement of moulding wax into

figures weighed with his parents, no less than their own poverty, when

they bound him as an apprentice to his mother’s brother to learn the

sculptor’s art. The young Lucian enthusiastically fell in with their

decision, fondly anticipating the time when he should astonish his

playfellows with little gods cut from the marble by his own hands. But

his maiden attempt in the statuary’s shop resulted in a broken slab and

a cruel whipping at the hands of his uncle. “The first wages I earned,”

he said, “were tears”—but they were also the last. He never returned to

the chisel and mallet.

After picking up a rhetorical education, by what means he does not tell

us, Lucian established himself at Antioch as a lawyer; but failing of

success, he set out on a lecture tour through Europe. In Gaul, where

rhetoric, the art he taught, was in special demand, he accumulated a

fortune; with which he retired from his profession in the prime of

life, and took up his residence at Athens. Here he prosecuted his

literary studies, exchanged his Syrian Greek for pure Attic, and is

believed to have written his finest Dialogues.

At the age of seventy, Lucian found himself so reduced as to be obliged

to accept from the Roman emperor the clerkship of the Alexandrian

courts. This position, which allowed him to continue his literary

labors, he is said to have enjoyed until his death.

LUCIAN’S STYLE AND WRITINGS.—Piquant humor, inimitable power of

satire, and wonderful versatility, are Lucian’s strong points. His

style is clear and graceful. Of his voluminous writings the most

popular are the “Dialogues” on various subjects, serious and humorous.

He attacked falsehood and trickery, folly and superstition; and the

deadly blows he rained upon his country’s mythology, which led to his

being called “the Blasphemer,” indirectly, though unintentionally,

helped the spread of Christianity.

In the “Dialogues of the Gods,” the deities talk over the domestic

affairs of the Olympian household, gossip, and wrangle, and pry

into one another’s secrets, quite after the manner of humans. Such

a belittling of the national divinities could not be without an

unsettling effect on the popular faith.—The “Dialogues of the Dead” are

equally rich with humor and ridicule.

Against the philosophers of his day, whom he looked upon as miserable

charlatans, Lucian launched the laughable Dialogue entitled “the Sale

of the Philosophers,” in which the founders of the old schools are

disposed of at auction by Jupiter in a slave-market, Mercury playing

the part of auctioneer. Pythagoras is put up first and sells for $175;

Diogenes, the next, brings less than sixpence; while Socrates commands

the high price of two talents. Pyrrho, the universal doubter, will not

believe that he has been sold, even after he has seen himself paid for

and delivered. The laughing Democritus and weeping Heraclitus fail to

find a purchaser. The attempted sale of these two philosophers is thus

depicted:—

“JUPITER.—Bring out another. Stay—those two there, that fellow from

Abdera, who is always laughing, and the Ephesian, who is always

crying; I’ve a mind to sell them as a pair. MERCURY.—Stand out

there in the ring, you two.—We offer you here, sirs, two most

admirable characters, the wisest we’ve had for sale yet.

CUSTOMER.—By Jove, they’re a remarkable contrast! Why, one of them

never stops laughing, while the other seems to be in trouble about

something, for he’s in tears all the time. Holloa, you fellow! what’s

all this about? What are you laughing at?

DEMOCRITUS.—Need you ask? Because everything seems to me so

ridiculous—you yourselves included.

CUSTOMER.—What! do you mean to laugh at us all to our faces, and mock

at all we say and do?

DEMOCRITUS.—Undoubtedly; there’s nothing in life that’s serious.

Everything is unreal and empty—a mere fortuitous concurrence of

indefinite atoms.

CUSTOMER.—You’re an indefinite atom yourself, you rascal! Confound

your insolence, won’t you stop laughing? But you there, poor soul [_to

Heraclitus_], why do you weep so? for there seems more use in talking

to you.

HERACLITUS.—Because, stranger, everything in life seems to me to call

for pity and to deserve tears; there is nothing but what is liable to

calamity; wherefore I mourn for men and pity them. The evil of to-day

I regard not much: but I mourn for that which is to come hereafter—the

burning and destruction of all things. This I grieve for, and that

nothing is permanent, but all mingled, as it were, in one bitter

cup—pleasure that is no pleasure, knowledge that knows nothing,

greatness that is so little, all going round and round, and taking

their turn in this game of life.

CUSTOMER.—What do you hold human life to be then?

HERACLITUS.—A child at play, handling its toys, and changing them

with every caprice.

CUSTOMER.—And what are men?

HERACLITUS.—Gods—but mortal.

CUSTOMER.—And the gods?

HERACLITUS.—Men—but immortal.

CUSTOMER.—You speak in riddles, fellow, and put us off with puzzles.

You are as bad as Apollo Loxias, giving oracles that no man can

understand.

HERACLITUS.—Yea; I trouble not myself for any of ye.

CUSTOMER.—Then no man in his senses is like to buy you.

HERACLITUS.—Woe! woe to every man of ye, I say! buyers or not buyers.

CUSTOMER.—Why, this fellow is pretty near mad—I’ll have naught to do

with either of them, for my part.

MERCURY [_turning to Jupiter_].—We shall have this pair left on our

hands too.”—COLLINS.

“The Sale of the Philosophers” has a sequel in “the Resuscitated

Professors.” Permitted to return to earth for a day to revenge

themselves on Lucian, the Philosophers capture him, and bring him to

trial before the goddess of philosophy. He clears himself by showing

that he has not attacked the venerable sages themselves, but only the

impostors who cheat the world under their great names. In the beginning

of the Dialogue, Lucian is thus assailed by the belligerent Socrates

and his _confrères_:—

“SOCRATES.—Pelt the wretch! pelt him with volleys of stones—throw

clods at him—oyster-shells! Beat the blasphemer with your clubs—don’t

let him escape! Hit him, Plato! and you, Chrysippus! and you! Form

a phalanx, and rush on him all together. As Homer says—’Let wallet

join with wallet, club with club!’ He is the common enemy of us all,

and there is no man among ye whom he has not insulted. You, Diogenes,

now use that staff of yours, if ever you did! Don’t stop! let him

have it, blasphemer that he is! What! tired already, Epicurus and

Aristippus? Aristotle, do run a little faster! That’s good! we’ve

caught the beast! We’ve got you, you rascal! You shall soon find out

whom you’ve been abusing! Now what shall we do with him? Let us think

of some multiform kind of death that may suffice for all of us, for he

deserves a separate death from each.

PHILOSOPHER A.—I vote that he be impaled.

PHILOSOPHER B.—Yes—but be well scourged first.

PHILOSOPHER C.—Let his eyes be gouged out.

PHILOSOPHER D.—Ay—but his tongue should be cut out first.

SOCRATES.—What think you, Empedocles?

EMPEDOCLES.—He should be thrown down the crater of some volcano,[39]

and so learn not to revile his betters.

PLATO.—Nay—the best punishment for him will be that, like Pentheus or

Orpheus,

‘Torn by the ragged rocks he meet his fate.’

LUCIAN.—Oh! no, no, pray! spare me, for the love of Heaven!

SOCRATES.—Sentence is passed: nothing can save you.”

COLLINS.

Lucian is also famous in another line. His “True History,” a burlesque

on the Munchausen stories of the old poets and historians, recounts the

stirring adventures of a party of voyagers who sail westward from the

Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar). It describes their visit to

the moon, their sojourn in a country where wine flowed in rivers, their

twenty months’ experience inside of a sea-monster that swallowed their

vessel, and their discovery of “the Island of the Blest,” with its

golden-paved city and vines loaded with monthly fruitage. The lunarians

happened to be engaged in war with the people of the sun, at the time

of Lucian’s arrival, and he had the good fortune to witness a grand

review of the lunar army. There were cavalry mounted on lettuce-winged

birds, darters of millet-seed, garlic-fighters, wind-coursers, and

archers who rode elephantine fleas. Spiders as large as islands hovered

on their flanks. On the side of the sun were mustered horse-ants that

covered two acres, archers on colossal gnats, slingers who discharged

fetid radishes, and dog-headed men astride of winged acorns.—Had

novel-writing been in vogue in Lucian’s time, he would no doubt have

excelled in that department of fiction.

=Pausanias=, the Lydian geographer, was a contemporary of Lucian’s. It

has been said that “no writer of antiquity except Herodotus has stored

away so many valuable facts in a small volume” as he in his “Itinerary

of Greece.” Pausanias made art items a special feature of his Itinerary.

=Other Writers of the Second Century.=—In the second century, CLAUDIUS

PTOLEMY, the astronomer, put forth his theory of the universe: that

the earth is stationary and the centre of eight huge, hollow, crystal

spheres, placed one within another. The moon he located in the nearest

sphere, Mercury in the next, Venus in the third, the Sun in the fourth,

Mars in the fifth, Jupiter in the sixth, and Saturn in the seventh.

The eighth sphere he appropriated to the stars, which, despite their

distance, were still visible through the transparent crystal. All these

heavenly bodies he believed to revolve in their respective spheres

around the earth. Ptolemy’s “Syntaxis,” or “Construction,” embodying

these views, was received as authority until Copernicus, fourteen

hundred years later, taught the true theory of the solar system.

In this century, also, JUSTIN MARTYR wrote his “Apologies” in defence

of Christianity against paganism; and POLYCARP, bishop of Smyrna, his

“Epistle to the Philippians”—both sealing their faith with their blood.

From IRENÆUS, bishop of Lyons, we have inherited a valuable legacy in

his “Treatise against Heresies.”

=Origen=, the gifted pupil of Cle’mens the Alexandrian, an ardent

Christian philosopher, flourished in the third century. Among his

writings, which, including his discourses, were numbered by thousands,

are “Commentaries on the Scriptures,” in the preparation of which he

was assisted by clerks who wrote in short-hand from his dictation.

Origen also replied effectively to CELSUS, an Epicurean philosopher

who some years before had attacked Christianity in his “True Story,” a

powerful and much-read work of the time.

=Neo-Platonism.=—The Academic philosophy, modified by its later

professors and wrapped in a veil of mysticism, gave rise to the

eclectic school of the Neo-Platonists, which was popular among the

learned till the time of Constantine. The seeds of this philosophy

were planted by Philo the Jew, mentioned on page 104 as attempting to

reconcile Plato’s doctrines with the teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures.

AMMONIUS, of Alexandria, was the real founder of Neo-Platonism, which,

as it left his hand, was a medley of Plato’s and Aristotle’s tenets

harmonized with the leading doctrines of Christianity. Though Ammonius

enjoined his disciples to keep the mysteries of his philosophy to

themselves, PLOTI’NUS, one of his distinguished pupils, unfolded them

in his writings and taught them publicly at Rome, where he went to live

244 A.D.

After Plotinus, PORPHYRY became a shining light of the Neo-Platonists;

but he was an outspoken opponent of Christianity, maintaining that the

world was without beginning, and denying the divinity of our Saviour.

His work “Against the Christians” was afterward burned by order of the

Roman emperor Theodosius the Great.

IAMBLICHUS, a successor of Porphyry, went back to the mystical

speculations of Pythagoras, and, taking quite a different view from the

early Neo-Platonists, turned his philosophy to the support of paganism.

The emperor Julian the Apostate was one of his converts.

EUSEBIUS, the learned ecclesiastical historian, bishop of Cæsare’a

in the fourth century, was among those who repelled the assaults of

Porphyry on the Christian faith. He was a favorite of Constantine,

whose life he wrote.

=Longinus= (213-273 A.D.) was the greatest critic and most learned

philosopher of his age. He studied and taught at Athens, and by reason

of his extensive information was styled “the Living Encyclopædia.”

The most distinguished of his pupils was Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, a

woman of refined tastes and unusual talent. By his advice, she revolted

from Rome; overpowered by the emperor Aurelian, 273 A.D., she sought

to exculpate herself by throwing the blame upon her counsellor, and

Longinus was put to death.

Part of this author’s “Treatise on the Sublime” is all that remains of

his many works.

=Athanasius.=—A century after Longinus, lived Athanasius, one of the

main pillars of the early Christian Church. His life was spent in

contentions with Arius and his followers, who denied the equality of

Christ with the Father; in controversy with them, his vigorous pen was

constantly employed.

=St. Chrysostom= (_golden-mouthed_, so called from his

eloquence—350-407) was the most famous of the Greek fathers. He was

archbishop of Constantinople, and a voluminous writer of homilies,

epistles, and commentaries. His language is elegant, and his fund of

figures inexhaustible.

LIGHT LITERATURE.

=Novel-Writers.=—The novel and romance are not unrepresented in Greek

literature. HELIODO’RUS, a Phœnician by birth, who lived toward the

close of the fourth century, obtained a well-deserved reputation

as the author of “Æthiopica,” a touching, pure-toned, but somewhat

sensational, romance. Its heroine, Charicle’a, an Ethiopian princess,

exposed by her mother in infancy and brought up in ignorance of her

birth, with her lover Theagenes, falls into the hands of pirates and

undergoes a variety of adventures. The tale ends happily, quite in the

modern style.

Heliodorus, later in life, gave up novel-writing for a mitre, being

made bishop of Tricca in Thessaly.

Another Greek novelist, perhaps a contemporary of Heliodorus, perhaps

belonging to a later generation, was LONGUS, author of the “Loves of

Daphnis and Chloë.” The scene of this pastoral love-story is laid in

the groves of Lesbos, where the hero and heroine have grown up together

in the bonds of innocent affection, _à la_ “Paul and Virginia.”

The “Story of Leucippe and Cli’tophon,” by ACHILLES TA’TIUS, an

Alexandrian rhetorician who flourished about 500, stands next to the

“Æthiopica” among the Greek novels.

=Hierocles.=—The “Facetiæ” of Hierocles (5th century) must not be

forgotten in this connection. Though a Neo-Platonist, grave and learned

enough to discuss “Providence and Fate” and make a volume of profound

commentaries on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, he evidently enjoyed a

good joke. He has left us twenty-eight brief stories of _Scholastici_,

or bookworms so unsophisticated and unused to the ways of the world

that we may call them simpletons. A few of these are given as samples

of his humor; from which it may be seen that some of the wit that

passes for modern is as old as Hierocles.

STORIES OF SIMPLETONS.

A simpleton, wishing to swim, was nearly drowned; whereupon he swore

that he would never touch the water until he had learned how to swim.

A simpleton, visiting a sick person, inquired about his health. He,

however, was not able to reply. Thereupon the simpleton, being angry

and scolding the man, said: “I hope that I shall be sick some of these

days, and then when you come to ask how I am, I will not answer.”

A simpleton, wishing to teach his horse to be a small eater, gave

him no food at all. At length the horse having starved to death, he

exclaimed: “I have suffered a great loss, for now that he had just

learned not to eat he has died.”

A simpleton, looking out of the window of a house which he had bought,

asked the passers-by whether the house was becoming to him.

A simpleton, having dreamed that he had trodden on a nail and that

the wound pained him, on waking bound up his foot. Another simpleton,

having learned the cause, remarked: “It served you right, for why do

you sleep without sandals?”

A simpleton, meeting a doctor, hid himself behind a wall. Some one

asking the cause, he answered: “I have not been sick for a long time,

and therefore I am ashamed to come into the sight of a physician.”

A simpleton had sealed up a vessel of Aminæan wine which he had.

His servant, having made a hole in the vessel beneath and drawn off

some of the wine, he was astonished to see the contents diminished

while the seals remained unbroken. A neighbor having told him to look

whether it had not been taken out from below, he replied: “Why, you

fool, it’s the upper part, not the lower, that is missing.”

A simpleton, meeting another simpleton, said, “I heard you were

dead.”—“And yet,” replied the other, “you see that I am still

alive.”—“Well,” said the first in perplexity, “I don’t know what to

believe, for he who told me is much more deserving of confidence than

you.”

A simpleton, learning that the raven would live more than two hundred

years, bought one and brought it up, that he might test the matter.

Of twin brothers, one died. A simpleton, thereupon, meeting the

survivor, asked, “Is it you that died, or your brother?”

A simpleton, in danger of being shipwrecked, called for his tablets

that he might make his will. Seeing, thereupon, his slaves lamenting

their lot, he said, “Do not grieve, for I am going to set you free.”

A simpleton, wishing to cross a river, went on board the boat on

horseback. When some one asked the reason, he answered that he wanted

to get over in a hurry.

A simpleton and a bald man and a barber, travelling together, agreed

to keep watch in turn four hours each while the others slept. The

barber’s turn came first. He quietly shaved the head of the sleeping

simpleton, and when the time elapsed awoke him. The latter, scratching

his head as he got up, and finding it bare, cried out: “What a rascal

that barber is; he’s waked the bald man instead of me!”

BYZANTINE LITERATURE.

The list of sophists, grammarians, historians, and other writers

belonging to the Byzantine period, contains names without number and

without lustre. A love-song of the Justinian era (527-565 A.D.), by the

emperor’s privy-councillor, will give an idea of the poetry of this age.

THE DRENCHED LOVER.

“The voice of the song and the banquet was o’er,

And I hung up my chaplet at Glycera’s door,

When the mischievous girl from a window above,

Who looked down and laughed at the offering of love,

Filled with water a goblet whence Bacchus had fled,

And poured all the crystal contents on my head.

So drenched was my hair, three whole days it resisted

All attempts of the barber to friz it or twist it;

But the water (so whimsical, Love, are thy ways!)

While it put out my curls, set my heart in a blaze.”

J. H. MERIVALE.

THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY.

=The Anthology= (_bunch of flowers_) is a collection of more than four

thousand short pithy poems, from the pens of about three hundred Greek

writers.

Melea’ger was the first gatherer of these literary flowers; his

“Garland” contained choice morsels of poetry from the time of Sappho

down, many of the best pieces being the work of his own hand.

“Meleager’s poetry,” says Symonds, “has the sweetness of the rose, the

full-throated melody of the nightingale.” Others added to Meleager’s

collection, the last ancient anthologist being the historian Aga’thias,

who flourished at Constantinople in the reign of Justinian.

The pieces of the Greek Anthology are epigrams and fugitive verses,

amatory, witty, and didactic. Some of them compare favorably with the

best efforts of the writers already considered; while not a few are

plainly the sources of some of the household sayings and proverbial

philosophy of modern times. (_Consult Macgregor’s “Greek Anthology.”_)

FLOWERS FROM THE ANTHOLOGY.

A PIOUS ACT REWARDED.

“While from the strand his line a fisher threw,

Shoreward a shipwrecked human head he drew.

His moistened eyes soft drops of pity shed,

While gazing on the bald and trunkless head.

No spade he had; but while his active hands

Scraped a small grave among the yielding sands,

A store of gold, there hid, he found. Yes! yes!

Heaven will the just man’s pious actions bless.”

CARPHYLLIDES.

“Enjoy your goods as if your death were near;

Save them as if ’twere distant many a year.

Sparing or spending, be thy wisdom seen

In keeping ever to the golden mean.”—LUCIAN.

THE PARTNERSHIP.

“Damon, who plied the undertaker’s trade,

With Doctor Cra’teas an agreement made.

What linens Damon from the dead could seize,

He to the Doctor sent for bandages;

While the good Doctor, here no promise-breaker,

Sent all his patients to the undertaker.”

“Swift kindnesses are best; a long delay

In kindness takes the kindness all away.”

THE LESSON OF THE TOPS.

“An Atarne’an stranger once to Pittacus applied,

That ancient sage, Hyrradius’ son, and Mytilene’s pride;

‘Grave sir, betwixt two marriages I now have power to choose.

And hope you will advise me which to take and which refuse.

One of the maidens, every way, is very near myself;

The other’s far above me, both in pedigree and pelf.

Now which is best?’ The old man raised the staff which old men bear,

And with it pointed to some boys that then were playing there,

Whipping their tops along the street:‘Their steps,’ he said,‘pursue,

And look and listen carefully; they’ll tell you what to do.’

Following them, the stranger went to see what might befall,

And‘Whip the top that’s nearest you!’ was still their constant call.

He, by this boyish lesson taught, resigned the high-born dame,

And wed the maiden‘nearest him.’ Go thou and do the same.”

ENVY.

“Poor Diophon of envy died,

His brother thief to see

Nailed near him, to be crucified,

Upon a higher tree.”

THE FLEAS OUTWITTED.

“A countryman once who was troubled with fleas,

Jumped up out of bed in a thundering breeze,

And triumphantly cried, as he blew out the light,

‘Now I have you, you rogues, you can’t see where to bite!’”

LUCIAN.

CURES FOR LOVE.

“Hunger, perhaps, may cure your love,

Or time your passion greatly alter;

If both should unsuccessful prove,

I strongly recommend a halter.”—CRATES.

“Too much is always bad; old proverbs call

E’en too much honey nothing else than gall.”

THE RAVEN LOCKS.

“Chloe, those locks of raven hair—

Some people say you dye them black;

But that’s a libel, I can swear,

For I know where you buy them black.”

LOVE SONG.

“The winecup is glad: dear Zenophilè’s lip

It boasts to have touched, when she stooped down to sip.

Happy winecup! I wish that, with lips joined to mine,

All my soul at a draught she would drink up like wine.”

“Short is the rose’s bloom; another morn

Will show no rose, but in its stead, a thorn.”

HELIODORA’S GARLAND.

“I’ll frame, my Heliodora! a garland for thy hair,

Which thou, in all thy beauty’s pride, mayst not disdain to wear;

For I, with tender myrtles, white violets will twine—

White violets, but not so pure as that pure breast of thine:

With laughing lilies I will twine narcissus; and the sweet

Crocus shall in its yellow hue with purple hyacinth meet:

And I will twine with all the rest, and all the rest above,

Queen of them all, the red, red Rose, the flower which lovers love.”

MELEAGER.

GEMS OF GREEK THOUGHT.

HOMER.

“Mob rule is not good; let there be one monarch.—Victory changes oft

her side.—Pray, for all men require aid from on high.—Even the fool

is wise after the event.—The man whom Jove loves, is a match for

many.—Wine leads to folly.—The force of union conquers all.—Too much

rest itself becomes a pain.—Noblest minds are most easily bent.—Few

sons are equal to their sires.—To sorrow without ceasing is wrong.”

HESIOD.

“Emulation is good for mortals.—The best treasure among men is a

frugal tongue.—Idleness, not labor, is disgraceful.”

PINDAR.

“Mirth is the best physician for man’s toils.—The guilty souls of

those who die here must pay the penalty in another life.—Point thy

tongue on the anvil of truth.”

ÆSCHYLUS.

“He hears but half that hears one party only.—To know and to

conjecture differ widely.—To be without evil thoughts is God’s best

gift.”

SOPHOCLES.

“Clamorous sorrow wastes itself in sound.—Quick resolves are often

unsafe.—What good man is not his own friend?—In a just cause, the weak

subdue the strong.”

EURIPIDES.

“The Deity helps him who helps himself.—Gold has greater power over

men than ten thousand arguments.—Temperance, the noblest gift of

Heaven!—To form devices, quick is woman’s wit.—In darkness a runaway

has mighty strength.—Death is a debt that all mortals must pay.”

ARISTOPHANES.

“To fear death is a great folly.—Old men are boys twice over.—Poverty

is a sister of beggary.”

HERODOTUS.

“Rash haste ever goes before a fall.—Men are dependent on

circumstances, not circumstances on men.—The god loves to cut down all

towering things. The god suffers none but himself to be haughty.—The

hand of a king is very long.—Self-restraint brings blessings, not seen

at the moment perhaps, yet found out in due time.”

XENOPHON.

“The sweetest of all sounds is praise.—It is impossible for a man

attempting many things to do them all well.”

PLATO.

“A boy is the most ferocious of animals.—Wisdom is the true and

unalloyed coin.—Much learning brings danger to youth.—The race of

fools is not to be counted.—Those are profane who think that nothing

exists except what they can grasp with their hands.—Dogs are like

their mistresses.—Let no one speak evil of another.—Self-conquest is

the greatest of victories.”

ARISTOTLE.

“One swallow does not make a spring.—We ought rather to pay a debt

to a creditor than give to a companion.—Of this alone is even God

deprived, the power of making that which is past never to have

been.—The beginning is said to be half the whole.—All flatterers are

mercenary.—No one loves the man whom he fears.”

DEMOSTHENES.

“Success tends to throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.—What we

wish, that we readily believe.—To find fault is easy.”

MENANDER.

“A daughter is an embarrassing and ticklish possession.—He whom the

gods love, dies young.—Evil communications corrupt good manners

(_quoted by St. Paul_).—Whoever blushes seems to be good.—Nobody

sees his own faults, but every one is lynx-eyed to those of his

neighbor.—Love blinds all men.—Silence has many advantages.—He is

well cleansed that hath his conscience clean.—There is nothing more

daring than ignorance.—Truth, when not sought after, sometimes comes

to light.”

POLYBIUS.

“Nothing happens without a cause.—Royalty, aristocracy, and democracy,

must combine to make a perfect government.—Many know how to conquer;

few are able to use their conquest aright.”

PLUTARCH.

“Absolute monarchy is a fair field, but has no outlet.—What one does

not need, is dear at a penny.—Often, while we are delighted with the

work, we regard the workman with contempt.—Dead men do not bite.”

MINOR WRITERS AND THEIR WORKS.

OPPIAN (second century): didactic poems on fishing and hunting.

ARRIAN (second century): masterpiece, “Expedition of Alexander the

Great.”

DION CASSIUS, a Roman senator (born 155 A.D.): “History of Rome” in

80 books, from the earliest ages to 229 A.D.

ÆLIAN (second century): a zoölogy and a miscellaneous history.

APPIAN of Alexandria (second century): a “Roman History” in 24 books.

HERO’DIAN (180-238 A.D.): “History of the Roman Emperors.”

DIOGENES LAERTIUS: his “Lives of the Philosophers” contains a

valuable summary of the Epicurean tenets.

GA’LEN (second century), one of the world’s greatest physicians:

medical treatises.

MUSÆUS (fifth century): the poem “Hero and Leander.”

TRYPHIODO’RUS (fifth century): poems on the Battle of Marathon and

the sack of Troy; a lipogrammatic Odyssey, from the first book of

which, styled _Alpha_, the letter _a_ was excluded; from _Beta_, the

second, _b_; and so the several letters in turn through its 24 books.

This work is lost.

QUINTUS SMYRNÆUS (500 A.D.): his poem, “Things Omitted by Homer,” a

continuation of the Iliad.

NONNUS (sixth century): “the Dionysiaca,” an Epic on Bacchus in 48

books.

PROCO’PIUS (flourished 550), the Byzantine historian: “History of his

Own Times.”

PART III.

ROMAN LITERATURE.

CHAPTER I.

_LATIN AND ITS OLDEST MONUMENTS._

=Italy Peopled.=—While watching the rise, meridian splendors, and

glowing sunset of Grecian letters, we have left unnoticed the dawn

of literary taste in Italy, the sister of Hellas, peopled, as we

have seen, by kindred Phrygian tribes who spoke dialects of the

Phrygo-Hellenic tongue (p. 133). Whether they were the first of human

kind to wake the echoes of the Italian solitudes, must ever remain a

matter of doubt. Some believe that the Alps had proved an insuperable

barrier to previous emigrants from the East; others, that the

adventurous Pelasgians, on descending their slopes, found a Turanian

population already in possession of the peninsula. If the latter theory

be correct, the Turanian aborigines were speedily overpowered by the

new-comers and became incorporated with their conquerors.

When Rome was founded, 753 B.C., the predominant Italian races were

distinguished as Latin and Umbrian (embracing the Oscans); their

languages were closely related, and have been called _Italic_. The

Etruscans, who lived west of the Tiber, though probably of Aryan

origin, differed in many respects from the Umbrians and Latins.

[Illustration: ANCIENT ITALY and the PLACES NOTED

in the HISTORY of its LITERATURE

[See the above map for the various localities mentioned in connection

with Roman Literature.]]

=The Latin Language=, in its most ancient form, was probably spoken by

the people of Latium at least twelve hundred years before the Christian

Era. For many centuries it remained harsh and unpolished, nor did its

roughness materially wear away until it came in contact with the Greek,

about 250 B.C. Then its vocabulary was enriched, and it gradually

acquired elegance and beauty. A knowledge of Greek came to be regarded

as indispensable to a polite education, and Roman children were taught

this language before their own.

A reaction, however, ultimately set in, and the foisting of foreign

words and idioms on the native tongue was condemned as strongly as it

had once been favored; a strange expression was now compelled to run

the gantlet of merciless criticism before it was admitted as part of

the language. Cæsar advised to shun a new term as one would a reef;

Augustus frankly acknowledged that, though he was emperor of the world,

he could not make a Latin word; and Tiberius was thus pointedly rebuked

by a Roman grammarian for a verbal error: “Thou, O Cæsar! canst confer

Roman citizenship on men, but not on words.”

When the rest of Italy submitted to the arms of Rome, it accepted the

language of the conqueror. Latin also supplanted the Carthaginian

tongue in Africa and Spain, Celtic in Gaul and Britain, and finally was

spoken in greater or less purity throughout the empire.

In its perfection, which it attained during the first century B.C.,

Latin was characterized by energy, dignity, and precision, its power

and gravity compensating for the lack of “Attic grace.” According to

its system of grammar, six cases and two numbers were distinguished;

nouns, pronouns, and adjectives, were declined; and verbs were varied

in form through the tenses and moods of two voices. Thus the Latin

had one more case-form than the Greek, but lacked the dual number and

middle voice of Greek and Sanscrit.

The Latin alphabet, consisting originally of twenty-one letters,

was borrowed from the Greeks through a Dorian colony at Cumæ. Its

resemblance to the Greek may be seen by turning to page 87. The

character X. of the Roman system of notation is ascribed to the

Etruscans.

=Ancient Latin Relics.=—During the five centuries that followed the

founding of Rome, the literary history of the city is all but a blank.

Curious specimens of its antique tongue are preserved in fragments

of laws and a few inscriptions; but the songs of the first Latin

bards are lost forever. The legends of Romulus, the seizure of the

Sabine women, the stories of Lucretia and Virginia, of Coriolanus

and Horatius,—these, with many similar traditions, were doubtless the

subjects of irregular ballads and heroic poems.

The rough simple verse in which they appeared was called

_Saturnian_;[40] it is supposed to have been adopted from the Etruscan

poets, and charmed the ears of the Romans until they listened to

the more tuneful measures of the Greeks. The time-honored Saturnian

verses were then thrust aside, with the old lays that told the proud

conquerors of Italy of their humble origin and early struggles. This

ballad-poetry may never have been written; sung from generation to

generation, it was kept alive to grace in after-days the epic of Ennius

and the pages of the historian Livy.

The oldest existing Latin poetry is inscribed on a tablet exhumed at

Rome in 1778. It is a chant of the _Arval Brothers_, an association of

priests founded under the Roman kings, and consists of an invocation

to Mars, the god of war, to avert pestilence. Almost as venerable is a

fragment from a _Salian Hymn_, sung by the Salian (_dancing_) priests

in honor of Ja’nus. (_See Prof. Allen’s “Remnants of Early Latin.”_)

Extracts from the Laws of the Twelve Tables (450 B.C.), which were

destroyed in the early wars, have been collected from the works of

later writers. The old Latin, however, is very obscure; so much did the

language afterward change that in the golden age the Salian poems were

enigmas to the Romans themselves.

There are also traces of an ancient Umbrian literature, which has

perished.

Age of native minstrelsy, 753-250 B.C.: early poetry composed of

hymns, festal and religious, banquet songs and funeral odes in

commemoration of heroes, rude satiric verses, and, according to

Niebuhr, epic poems surpassing the works of later times “in power and

brilliance of imagination.” No remnants of all this literature.—In

prose, a primitive oratory.

CHAPTER II.

_DAWN OF ROMAN LITERATURE._

As Italy received her first lessons in reading and writing from the

Greeks, in law-making from Solon, in art from Phidias and Praxiteles,

so in polite literature she drew her inspiration from the same source.

The early Roman writers not only took their cue from Greek authors, but

were in some cases downright imitators and mere translators.

A Greek slave, Livius Andronicus, who may be called the father of

Roman classical literature, translating the Odyssey into Saturnian

verse, introduced his captors to the literary treasures of his country.

Enraptured Rome eagerly snatched the crown of letters as it fell from

the head of her elder sister, and for a time the borrowed jewels

sparkled on her brow. But she paid dearly for her brilliant ornaments;

for, with Greek taste and culture, came also Greek effeminacy and vice.

The aim of the first Latin writers was to give their tongue the same

polish as the model from which they copied; but an excess of foreign

graces was repugnant to the genius of their more stately language, and

it was soon seen that the refinement of the Greek would prove fatal

to the vigor of Latin. Accordingly the Roman orators set their faces

against any further “Grecizing,” and struggled as manfully to preserve

the purity of their vernacular as they did to maintain the moral purity

of the nation, fast drifting into the dangerous quicksands of sloth and

self-indulgence.

The sixth and seventh centuries of Rome, the period covered by the

present chapter, saw the birth of the regular drama and its decline;

the earliest attempts at epic and satiric poetry; and the rise of a

vigorous prose. Livius Androni’cus paraphrased Greek tragedies; Nævius

and Ennius not only contributed to dramatic literature, but called

epic poetry into being; Plautus and Terence set forth a feast of good

things in their comedies; Lucilius, the father of Roman satire, lashed

vice and corruption unsparingly in his hexameters; and Cato laid the

foundations of Latin prose.

DRAMATIC POETRY.

=The Roman Drama.=—While in the later and more developed stages

of Roman literature the plastic influence of Greece is everywhere

perceptible, in the earlier days there were original elements, devoid

of polish indeed, but possessing the rude vigor that distinguished

the nation. There was a sort of drama, for instance, native to

Italy. It appeared in its primitive guise in the Fescennine[41]

dialogues—metrical songs accompanied with rustic dances—which were long

the delight of the mirth-loving Italian country-folk. When, however,

the improvised jests and satires of these entertainments opened the

door to malicious personal abuse, it was found necessary to prohibit

libellous verses by law.

The merry songs called _Saturæ_ (from the _satura lanx_, dish of

various fruits offered to the gods) were brought upon the Roman stage

in the fourth century B.C. A flute accompaniment and Etruscan actors,

who through ignorance of the Roman language merely played the part of

dancers and pantomimists, rendered the Saturæ highly attractive. At a

later period, these medleys formed the afterpieces to regular dramas.

From the Oscan town Atella in Campa’nia, the so-called _Atellane

Fables_ derived their name—pieces with simple plots, that pictured

ancient village-life in Italy, with its inevitable characters of the

chatterbox, the sharper, and the long-eared glutton. It was no disgrace

for young nobles, appropriately masked, to improvise the dialogue of

the Atellane Fable, or sing the songs in Saturnian verse.

The regular Roman drama was a copy of the Greek, and first saw the

light at the grand celebration over the downfall of Carthage, when (240

B.C.) a real tragedy and comedy were represented. Their author was

=Livius Andronicus= (about 285-204 B.C.), who fell into the hands of

the Romans when his native city, Tarentum in southern Italy, submitted

to their arms. Brought to their capital as a slave, he succeeded in

obtaining his liberty and opened a school for his support. The wants of

his pupils led him to translate Homer’s Odyssey into Latin; he thus not

only provided the Roman schools with a text-book which held its place

for centuries, but inspired the people generally with a strong desire

to become acquainted with the Greek masterpieces, and gave a spur to

the development of a national literature.

Andronicus was no less successful as a literary caterer, when he

put upon the Roman stage his Latin versions of certain Greek plays;

yet, though the public relished higher and more dignified dramatic

performances than the Fescennines and Saturæ, they loved the latter too

much to dispense with them entirely. The vulgar off-hand humor of the

amateur actors in these performances was long exceedingly popular.

Andronicus had a rough theatre assigned him on the Aventine Mount. In

accordance with the fashion of his day, he played entire parts without

assistance, until an injury to his voice obliged him to delegate the

recitative passages to a boy, who sung them to the accompaniment of

the flute, while he made the appropriate gestures. Thus originated a

custom which thereafter prevailed at Rome,—that of having two actors,

one to declaim and the other to gesticulate.

Livius Andronicus kindled the first spark of literary ambition in

Rome, and paved the way for her future progress in letters. He enjoyed

the respect of his contemporaries, and was honored by succeeding

generations, though Cicero pronounced his plays unworthy of a second

reading. If we except a few doubtful lines, posterity knows his dramas

only by their titles.

=Cneius Nævius= (269-204 B.C.), a Campanian by birth, after serving

in the First Punic War, took up his residence at Rome and there made

dramatic literature his profession. His first play was represented

about 235 B.C.

The Greek dramatists furnished Nævius with the material for his

tragedies and comedies, in the latter of which—better adapted to

his genius, and therefore more original—he particularly excelled.

Closing his eyes to the danger of satirizing the patrician houses, he

fearlessly revived the personal attack of Aristophanes in his ridicule

of Scipio and the Metelli. His lampoons directed against the latter

cost him dear. The verse of the poet,—“It is fate, not merit, that has

made the Metelli always consuls of Rome,”—stung them to the quick, and

they procured his imprisonment. Nævius employed the time in writing

comedies; and after his liberation, nowise daunted by his previous bad

fortune, he let fly his shafts at the nobility as recklessly as ever.

Rome could no longer tolerate him, and sent him forth from her gates to

die in exile.

The fate of Nævius proved a warning to future comic poets. None were

ambitious to assume the role which he had played; but, taking Menander

for their model rather than Aristophanes, they sought their subjects in

the follies and foibles of society at large.

So far as we can judge from the scanty fragments that remain, the style

of Nævius, though unpolished (for he still wrote in the old Saturnian

verse), was nervous, bold, and pointed. His works were for centuries

the delight of the Romans, who admired his independence; while

succeeding authors did not regard it unworthy of their genius to borrow

the spirited thoughts of Rome’s first native poet. His epitaph read as

follows:—

“If gods might to a mortal pay the tribute of a tear,

The Muses would shed one upon the poet Nævius’ bier;

For when he was transferred unto the regions of the tomb,

The people soon forgot to speak the native tongue of Rome.”

Sellar thus puts in English the old Roman’s description of a flirt,

which survives from one of his comedies:—

“Like one playing at ball in a ring, she tosses about from one to

another, and is at home with all. To one she nods, to another winks;

she makes love to one, clings to another. Her hand is busy here, her

foot there. To one she gives a ring to look at, to another blows a

kiss; with one she sings, with another corresponds by signs.”

The ablest work of Nævius is an epic poem, which will be described

hereafter.

=Ennius=, partly Greek, partly Oscan by descent, was born in Rudiæ in

southern Italy, 239 B.C. After serving with honor in the Roman army in

Sardinia, he was induced to visit Rome by Cato the Censor, who appears

at one time to have been his patron.

Filled with a desire to refine the taste of his countrymen, Ennius

drew upon Euripides for their benefit. The titles of twenty-five of

his tragedies survive; but the fragments that are preserved of these,

as well as of several comedies, show them to be mere copies of Greek

pieces. Though gifted with poetical genius and possessed of remarkable

learning, Ennius found imitation easier than original composition.

In the following fragment from one of his plays, Ennius denies the

providence of God:—

“Yes! there are gods; but they no thought bestow

On human deeds, on mortal bliss or woe;

Else would such ills our wretched race assail?

Would the good suffer? Would the bad prevail?”

It is not, however, as a dramatic poet that Ennius has won distinction.

His renown is based on his “Annals,” or “Metrical Chronicles,” of all

their poems the favorite with the Romans, in whose minds they were

associated with the heroic achievements they commemorated. The “Annals”

must be reserved for the present, while we view the progress of comedy

in the works of Plautus and Terence.

=Titus Maccius Plautus= (254-184 B.C.), a contemporary of Ennius, was

the first great comic poet of Rome. A boorish country-boy, he left his

home among the mountains of Umbria to seek his fortune in the capital,

and was at first quite successful as a stage-carpenter and decorator.

The sobriquet _Plautus_, by which he is universally known, was

significant of his large flat feet; nor do his personal peculiarities

generally, judging from a self-painted portrait in one of his comedies,

appear to have been of a very prepossessing type:—

“A red-haired man, with round protuberant stomach,

Legs with stout calves, and of a swart complexion:

Large head, keen eyes, red face, and monstrous feet.”

Unthrifty as he was uncomely, Plautus before long found himself reduced

to the menial employment of grinding corn for a baker, to keep body

and soul together; but his hardships were the making of the man.

While thus engaged, during his unoccupied hours he tried his hand at

writing comedies. He struck the right vein; play followed play in

rapid succession; the author rose in public estimation, and during the

rest of his life reigned without a peer on the comic stage. Modern

imitations of his comedies prove how lasting has been their popularity.

The Greek poets inspired the pen of Plautus; but he paints Roman

manners, breathes Roman sentiments, and employs the idiomatic

conversational Latin of his time. The tone of his dramas is far from

elevating; his humor, though bold and sprightly, is coarse; and his

Greek pictures of imbecile fathers, dissipated sons, intriguing slaves,

jealous husbands, hungry parasites, and disreputable female characters

(for all other female characters, except servants, were studiously kept

in the background), had their effect in undermining the stern old Roman

virtue. Yet the style of Plautus is flowing and animated; his plays

are full of bustle and fun; and we can but admire his fertility of

invention and wonderful command of language. Some of his characters are

not unworthy of Shakespeare.

Plautus prefaced most of his comedies with prologues, which served the

purpose of modern play-bills in that they contained brief analyses of

the pieces. Curious requests appear in some of these: women are asked

to refrain from disturbing the house by gossiping, children are desired

to keep quiet, and mothers are besought not to bring infants to the

theatre.

Twenty comedies of Plautus are extant, of which the finest is “the

Captives.” Its plot is as follows:—

During a war between Elis and Ætolia, Hegio, a rich Ætolian, buys at a

sale of captives Philoc’rates and Tyndarus his slave, hoping to possess

himself of a prisoner of rank to exchange for a son, who has fallen

into the enemy’s hands. To effect the negotiation, he proposes to send

the slave to Elis with a message to the father of Philocrates, who, he

learns, is a man of wealth and standing. The devoted Tyndarus, however,

seizes the opportunity to restore Philocrates to liberty, allowing him

to go on the journey and remaining in his stead, a change of apparel

having been made, to impose upon Hegio. The parting scene between the

two, in the presence of their master, is among the best passages of

the play. The disguised Philocrates, about to leave, has inquired what

message he shall carry to the captive’s father:—

“TYNDARUS (_habited as Philocrates_).—Say I am well;

and tell him this, good Tyndarus,

We two have lived in sweetest harmony,

Of one accord in all things; never yet

Have you been faithless, never I unkind.

And still, in this our strait, you have been true

And loyal to the last, through woe and want,

Have never failed me, nor in will nor deed.

This when my father hears, for such good service

To him and to his son, he cannot choose

But give you liberty. I will insure it,

If I go free from hence. ’Tis you alone,

Your help, your kindness, your devoted service,

Shall give me to my parents’ arms again.

PHILOCRATES (_as Tyndarus_).—I have done this:

I’m glad you should remember;

And you have well deserved it: for if I

Were in my turn to count up all the kindness

That you have shown to me, day would grow night

Before the tale were told. Were you my slave,

You could have shown no greater zeal to serve me.”

Hegio is moved to tears, and exclaims:—

“O ye gods!

Behold the honest nature of these men!

They draw tears from me. Mark how cordially

They love each other! and what praise the servant

Heaps on his master!”

Hegio, however, soon discovers the trick, and condemns Tyndarus to

the quarries—a punishment whose horrors the young man compares to

“the torments of the damned.” He is freed from bondage on the return

of Philocrates with Hegio’s son—to learn that he also is a son of

Hegio, stolen by a slave in his infancy and mourned as lost for twenty

years. It had been his good fortune to be bought by the father of

Philocrates, and to grow up the companion of the young noble.

After this happy dénouement, the play closes with an address to the

audience, valuable for the view it gives of the characters in the

popular comedy.

“Gallants, this play is founded on chaste manners;

No amorous intrigues, no child exposed,

No close old dotard cheated of his money,

No youth in love, making his mistress free

Without his father’s knowledge or consent.

Few of this sort of plays our poets find,

T’ improve our morals, and make good men better.

Now if the piece has pleased you, with our acting

If you’re content, and we have not incurred

Displeasure by it, give us then this token:

All who are willing that reward should wait

On chaste and virtuous manners, give applause.”

WARNER.

Among the best-known of our author’s comedies are “the Twins” and “the

Three Silver Pieces.” In the former a series of laughable incidents

grows out of the resemblance of twin brothers, separated for many years

and suddenly brought together. To this play Shakespeare owed the plot

of his “Comedy of Errors.” The second derives its name from three coins

paid to a man to disguise himself as a foreigner, and pretend to bring

a dowry of a thousand gold pieces to the heroine from her father, who

is abroad at the time. The unexpected arrival of the father changes the

aspect of affairs; but the marriage takes place, and everything ends

happily.

The best of the remaining plays of Plautus are,

THE BOASTFUL SOLDIER (_Miles Gloriosus_).

THE HAUNTED HOUSE (_Mostellaria_).

THE SHIPWRECK (_Rudens_).

AMPHITRYON.

THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN (_Pænulus_).

THE POT OF GOLD (_Aulularia_).

THE TWIN SISTERS (_Bacchides_).

THE LOST CHILD (_Epidicus_).

THE PARASITE (_Curculio_).

THE TRICKSTER (_Pseudolus_).

=Terence=, “the Prince of the Roman Drama,” flourished between 195

and 159 B.C. Of his life the accounts are scanty and unsatisfactory.

He appears to have been a Carthaginian slave-boy, the property of

a Roman senator, who treated him with great kindness, gave him an

education, and at last set him free. The youth’s mind matured early;

and when only twenty-one he submitted his first comedy, “the Andrian

Maid,” to the ædiles, who superintended dramatic representations,

for their acceptance. Referred by them to Cæcilius, a comic poet of

distinction, he repaired to the house of the latter at supper-time,

and, humbly seated on a stool, began to read his play. The first few

verses revealed to Cæcilius the genius of the young author; he beckoned

Terence to a seat beside him, heard him through, and accepted his

comedy at once.

On the performance of “the Andrian Maid,” the reputation of Terence

was secured. His plays paid him handsomely, and gave him the entrée

to the highest literary circles. The great men of Rome became his

intimates; among others, Scipio, the future destroyer of Carthage. They

are thought to have encouraged Terence with the view of elevating the

masses through his dramas, and are even suspected of having lent him a

helping hand in their composition.

After completing six comedies, Terence sailed for Greece, to travel

and study there. He is believed to have translated over one hundred of

Menander’s plays. None of these versions survive, and they are supposed

to have been lost, together with the poet himself, on the return voyage.

Terence, Carthaginian though he was, is distinguished for the

exceptional purity of his Latin and the beauty of his style. His taste

was cultivated; his sentiments were pure; and his plays put to shame

many a licentious comedy of the English stage. In lively humor and

comic effect, however, he falls short both of Plautus and his Greek

originals. It was in allusion to the source whence he borrowed his

plots that Julius Cæsar addressed him as “thou half-Menander.”

The masterpiece of Terence is “the Self-Tormentor,” a copy of one of

Menander’s lost plays. Its title is derived from the self-inflicted

punishment of Menede’mus, an Athenian, who, having refused his consent

to the nuptials of his son Clin’ia with a poor but virtuous Corinthian

girl, Antiph’ila, and thus driven Clinia to enlist as a mercenary, is

stricken with remorse, leaves the city, and imposes on himself the

severe toil of farm-life.

Chremes, a neighboring country gentleman, noticing how hard Menedemus

works when there is apparently no necessity for it, inquires the

reason. The first scene represents a conversation between the two,

in which Menedemus, after asking his neighbor how he found time

to pry into other people’s affairs, and receiving the memorable

answer,—“I am a man, and I have an interest in everything that concerns

humanity,”[42]—acquaints him with the state of affairs as told above.

The love-sick Clinia now returns, and, reluctant to go to his father’s

house, becomes the guest of Chremes’ son, Clit’ipho, the friend of

his youth. At his entreaty, Clitipho sends a slave for Antiphila; but

the cunning fellow brings at the same time the lady-love of Clitipho

himself, the dashing beauty Bacchis, introducing her to the family

as Clinia’s mistress, and passing off the modest Antiphila as one of

her servants. The slave thus describes to Clinia, Antiphila and her

employments when he came suddenly upon her, and announced her lover’s

return:—

“Busily plying the web we found her,

Decently clad in mourning. She had on

No gold or trinkets, but was plain and neat,

And dressed like those who dress but for themselves.

No female varnish to set off her beauty;

Her hair dishevelled, long, and flowing loose

About her shoulders.”

Chremes finds Bacchis a very expensive guest, and, announcing to

Menedemus the next morning the return of his son, tries to put him on

his guard against the extravagant tastes of Clinia’s supposed mistress,

but without producing any effect on the father thus relieved of his

anxiety:—

“CHREMES.—First, she’s brought with her half a score of maids,

Tricked out, the jades, with gold and jewelry;

Why, if her lover were an Eastern prince,

He couldn’t stand it—how on earth can you?

MENEDEMUS.—Oh! is she here, too?

CHREMES.—Is she here, do you ask?

Oh! yes, she’s here. There’s no doubt as to that.

I know it to my cost. They’ve had one dinner,

She and her party. If I give another

Such as last night, why—I’m a ruined man.

She’s very curious, mind you, as to her wines;

Knows the best brands—and drinks them.‘Ha!’ she’d say,

‘This wine’s not dry enough, old gentleman—

Get us some better, there’s a dear old soul!’

I had to tap my oldest casks. My servants

Are driven almost wild. And this, remember,

Was but one evening. What’s your son to do,

And you, my friend, that will have to keep her always?

MENEDEMUS.—Let him do what he will: let him take all,

Spend, squander it upon her; I’m content,

So I may keep my son.”—COLLINS.

The play is full of amusing incidents,—the intrusions of the eager

Clitipho on the pretended love-making of his adored Bacchis and

Clinia—the indignation of Chremes at his son’s seeming want of

politeness—the cozening of Chremes by the clever slave out of a large

sum for his young master to give to Bacchis. The discovery that

Antiphila is Chremes’ own daughter, whom, at her birth, his wife had

given to a Corinthian woman to expose, adds fresh interest to the plot.

The marriage takes place to the delight of all parties. Chremes is

persuaded to forgive his son, who promises to abandon Bacchis for a

more modest wife. The “Self-Tormentor” is happy at last, and can afford

to indulge in a hearty laugh at the misfortunes of his neighbor.

“I don’t profess myself to be a genius—

I’m not so sharp as some folk—that I know;

But this same Chremes—this my monitor,

My would-be guide, philosopher, and friend,

He beats me hollow. Blockhead, donkey, dolt,

Fool, leaden-brains, and all those pretty names—

They might suit _me_; to him they don’t apply:

His monstrous folly wants a name to itself.”

The extant comedies of Terence are,

THE ANDRIAN MAID (_Andria_).

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW (_Hecyra_).

THE SELF-TORMENTOR (_Heautontimoroumenos_).

THE EUNUCH (_Eunuchus_).

PHORMIO (_taken wholly from a Greek comedy of Apollodorus_).

THE BROTHERS (_Adelphi_).

=Decline of the Drama.=—While the comedies of Terence were drawing

crowded houses, tragedy, which Ennius attempted to popularize, that the

heroic examples of early times might be emulated by his countrymen, was

successfully cultivated by his nephew PACUVIUS “the Learned” (220-132

B.C.). The thirteen tragedies of Pacuvius (an accomplished painter

as well as poet) were long favorites, particularly with the educated

classes. The finest of them, “Orestes in Slavery,” contained the famous

scene between the bosom friends Py’lades and Orestes, in which each

offers his life for the other. At its representation, the audience

leaped to their feet and shouted their applause.

But Rome was no genial home for the tragic drama, and both tragedy

and comedy soon began to languish. With Terence, the glory of the

Roman theatre expired. Rope-dancing, buffoonery, and the games of the

circus, offered superior attractions; and as the Republic lapsed into

the Empire, the degenerate taste of the people sought gratification in

the sports of the arena, where gladiators fought together or with wild

beasts hardly more of brutes than themselves. In this first period of

the national literature, the history of the Roman drama is written.

(_Read Mommsen’s “History of Rome.”_)

EPIC POETRY.

=Nævius=, meanwhile, ventured to appeal to the popular taste in a new

department of poetry, with his epic, “the (First) Punic War”—in which

contest, it will be remembered, the poet took an active part. It was

written during his banishment at Utica, after he had signalized himself

as a dramatist at Rome, and was a work which Cicero said “afforded him

a pleasure as exquisite as the finest statue ever chiselled by Myron.”

“The Punic War” entitles Nævius to the claim of originality as well as

genius. The episode of Dido and Æneas, the career of Regulus, and other

soul-stirring stories, were told in its Saturnian lines; and it must

ever be a matter of regret that so interesting a poem is virtually lost

to literature. Nævius is called “the last of the native minstrels.”

=Ennius= (239-169 B.C.).—In Ennius we are introduced to a greater epic

poet, and the founder of a new school. Brought to Rome, as we have

seen, by Cato, he taught the young nobles Greek, translated dramas

from that tongue, and devoted his leisure to poetical composition.

A panegyric on Scipio decided his destiny; he rapidly rose in the

estimation of the distinguished men of the time, and in 184 B.C. was

made a Roman citizen—an honor to which Livius Andronicus had never

aspired, and which Nævius sought in vain.

Though a friend of the wealthy and powerful, Ennius himself seems

never to have been rich in this world’s goods. A genial _bon vivant_,

he spent his earnings in extravagant living; and much of his poetry

was written while he was confined by the gout, a disease brought on by

intemperate habits. Horace, perhaps, exaggerates his failing when he

tells us that “Father Ennius never sung battles unless intoxicated.”

The family tomb of his friend Scipio became the final resting-place

of Ennius; and from his time the name of poet was honored by the

aristocracy of Rome.

Ennius owes his fame chiefly to his “Annals,” an historical epic,

the work of his old age. Here he wove together the ancient legends

and folk-lore of the Romans handed down in Saturnian ballads, with

later accredited events, and contemporary history, accomplishing the

difficult task of adapting the old Latin to dactylic hexameters.

Greek metres henceforth superseded the irregular Saturnian verse, the

syllables being arranged according to quantity, and not as before

by accent. Moreover, the language was indebted to him not only for

this improved versification, but for fresh elements of strength, and

grammatical changes for the better. Thus Ennius introduced a new era

in Roman literature, laying solid foundations on which his successors

built. He is recognized as “the father of Latin song,” and it has

been well said: “Whatever in the later poets is most truly Roman in

sentiment and morality, appears to be conceived in the spirit of

Ennius.”

Ennius had a high opinion of his own talents; he deemed himself the

Roman Homer, and claimed, in accordance with the Pythagorean doctrines,

that the soul of the Greek bard had passed into his frame from the

intermediate body of a peacock. And indeed his spirited battle-scenes,

his “verses fiery to the heart’s core,” sometimes recalled his sublime

prototype; while an air of antiquity breathed in his picturesque style

and archaic forms.

The poet’s self-praise was echoed by his countrymen. Cicero proudly

styled him “our own Ennius;” Virgil enriched the Æneid with his most

musical verses; Horace hailed him as “the Calabrian Muse.” The triumphs

of Rome and her heroes were often told in the verse that he made

familiar; even during the Dark Ages his works remained favorites, until

in the thirteenth century they gradually sunk into obscurity. (_Read

Sellar’s “Roman Poets of the Republic.”_)

The versatile genius of Ennius displayed itself in satires, epigrams,

and didactic poems, as well as in epics and dramas. A curious specimen

of his composition was his metrical treatise on edible fish, a

compilation from a number of existing works on the subject.

From the fragments that remain of “the Annals” (600 lines in all) we

present one of the most pleasing passages,—that in which the vestal

Il’ia tells her elder sister a dream she has had, foreshadowing her

great destiny as the mother of Romulus, founder of Rome.

ILIA’S DREAM.

Quick rose the aged dame, with trembling limbs

The light to bring; and Ilia then, from sleep aroused,

With tears and terror tells her wondrous dream:—

“Child of Eurydice, by our sire beloved,

Through all my fibres fail my strength and life.

A goodly man, methought, bore me away

Through pleasant willow-groves and places strange.

Next, all alone I seemed to wander desolate,

And slowly, sister, to retrace my steps,

Thee seeking but not finding; nor did path

Steady my steps. Soon a familiar voice—

My father’s—thus with pitying accents spoke:

‘Daughter, ’tis thine deep sorrow to endure;

This borne, thy great good fortune then is sure!’

He spoke, and suddenly departing, gave

To my fond yearning arms no sweet embrace.

Alas! I saw him not, though eagerly

To the blue vault of heaven I stretched my hands,

And called on him with loving tones. At last,

With aching heart sleep left me, and I woke.”

The “Annals” were continued, and Homer’s Iliad was rendered into Latin

hexameters, by imitators of Ennius. But they were third or fourth rate

men, and epic poetry really slumbered after Ennius passed from the

stage, till it wakened to new triumphs at the call of Virgil.

SATIRIC POETRY.

In this era, we have to chronicle the birth of a new plant in the

parterre of Roman literature—Satirical Poetry. It was no exotic,

but native-born. The germ appeared in Nævius, the bud in Ennius, the

full-blown blossom in Lucilius, the ripe fruit in the golden age of

Augustus; the leaves were still green in the declining days of the

empire.

=Lucilius= (148-103 B.C.), a Roman knight who fought under Scipio at

the siege of Numantia, converted the _miscellanies_ (_saturæ_) of

Ennius into true satire. Though a mere youth, he was intimate with

Rome’s greatest statesmen, who were accustomed to doff their dignity in

his lively society, and even to frolic with him before dinner. Shielded

by them, and taking as his standard the stern morality and lofty

patriotism of the fathers, he assailed with impunity prevalent social

vices, ridiculed superstition, and denounced political corruption.

In bold relief against this dark background he brought out the noble

qualities of Scipio. Always arrayed on the side of virtue, he devoted

his brilliant talents to the improvement of the public morals. Yet

he occasionally stooped to abuse, if we may believe the story that,

having once sued a person for attacking his character, he lost his case

because it was shown that he himself was not above similar practices.

The satires of Lucilius were embraced in thirty books, many fragments

of which are extant. His style is forcible and not without elegance,

though some of his verses are harsh and occasional Greek words lower

the standard of his Latinity. He composed with haste, often standing on

one foot while he dictated two hundred verses. His satires, had they

been preserved, would have been valuable as a mirror of Roman manners.

VIRTUE AS DEFINED BY LUCILIUS.

“Virtue, Albinus, consists in being able to give their true worth to

the things on which we are engaged, among which we live. The virtue of

a man is to understand the real meaning of each thing: to understand

what is right, useful, honorable, for him; what things are good, what

bad, what is unprofitable, base, dishonorable; to know the due limit

and measure in making money; to give its proper worth to wealth;

to assign what is really due to honor; to be a foe and enemy of bad

men and bad principles; to stand by good men and good principles; to

extol the good, to wish them well, to be their friend through life.

Lastly, it is true worth to look on our country’s weal as the chief

good; next to that, the weal of our parents; third and last, our own

weal.”—SELLAR.

EARLY LATIN PROSE.

In her prose, Rome owed but little to Greece. Had she never known the

Greek masters, she might not have produced a poetical literature, but

she would have had her great orators and historians. Statesmanship was

the natural profession of her nobles and educated men; jurisprudence

and oratory were essential accomplishments of the aspirant to public

honors; and Latin was peculiarly adapted to prose composition, which

appears to have been practised very early in Latium. The development

of this primitive, yet nervous, prose was not left to Greek slaves and

freedmen, but called forth the efforts of the foremost citizens,—Cato

the Censor, Lælius and Scipio, the Gracchus brothers, Crassus and

Antonius, Hortensius. In the period under consideration it began to

lose its ruggedness, and acquire polish, grace, and harmony.

=Cato= (234-149 B.C.).—The early historians of Rome, following the

example of FABIUS PICTOR, the first of her prose annalists, employed

the Greek language. It was the elder Cato, the Censor and moralist, the

inflexible enemy of all that was Greek, whose warning voice foretold

the national corruption that must follow the introduction of Hellenic

literature; it was Cato, the philosopher, orator, and historian, who

dignified Latin prose by embodying in it his vigorous thoughts.

Inured from boyhood to hard toil and simple fare on his father’s Sabine

farm, Cato took an active part in the war against Hannibal, returning

after the conflict to his humble rustic life. But his country soon

demanded his services in another field; at her bar he won even greater

glory, and she rewarded him with every office in her gift. Cato nobly

discharged his various trusts; but it is as the uncompromising foe of

effeminacy and vice that we know him best. His political life, a model

of economy and uprightness, was a ceaseless battle with corruption—a

struggle to banish the luxury he despised and restore the stern virtue

of his fathers. But it was one man against a nation, and the current

was too strong for one alone to stem. He served Rome to the bitter end,

and fell in the traces at the age of ninety, his energies unimpaired,

his purpose unshaken.

Amid all his active duties, Cato, whose constitution like his will was

of iron, found time for literary work. He is known to have written at

least one hundred and fifty orations, not without faults of style,

for the amenities he was too apt to disregard, but cogent in their

reasoning, clear and powerful in expression. Extensive remains of his

practical hand-book “on Agriculture” are extant, which show him to

have been familiar with all the details of the farm and garden. In a

work on medicine, dedicated to his son, he exclaims against the Greek

physicians, and recommends the simple remedies which he had always

found efficacious. His prejudice against medical men was founded on

the belief that their introduction from Greece was a deep-laid plot to

poison his fellow-citizens; moreover, he knew that Rome had thriven

marvellously for five centuries, in blissful ignorance of the medical

faculty.

Cato’s chief work was his “Origines” (in seven books), a history of his

country, deriving its name from the first three books, which discussed

the origin of Rome and the Italian states. The aged patriot prepared

this treatise just before his death, to throw it into the scale against

Greek influence; but not a hundred Catos could have turned the balance

then. The loss of the “Origines” is an irreparable one to archæology.

SPECIMENS OF CATO’S STYLE.

“For myself, I think well of a merchant as a man of energy and

studious of gain; but it is a career that leads to danger and ruin.

Farming, however, makes the bravest men and the sturdiest soldiers;

and of all sources of gain is the surest, the most natural, and the

least invidious. Those who are busy with it have the fewest bad

thoughts.”—TREATISE ON AGRICULTURE.

“Buy not what you want, but what you must have; what you don’t want is

dear at a farthing.”—“Men are worn out by hard work; but if they do no

work, rest and sloth injure them more than exercise.”

HEROISM OF CÆDICIUS.

During the First Punic War the Roman army was surprised and threatened

with destruction, when Cædicius the Tribune promptly volunteered to

engage the enemy with 400 men, while the rest escaped. The little band

was cut down to a man.

“The immortal gods,” said Cato, “granted the tribune a lot according

to his valor. For thus it came to pass. Though he had received many

wounds, none proved mortal; and when his comrades recognized him among

the dead, faint from loss of blood, they took him up and he recovered.

But it makes a vast difference in what country a generous action is

performed. Leonidas of Lacedæmon, who performed a similar exploit

at Thermopylæ, is praised. On account of his valor, united Greece

testified her gratitude in every possible way, and adorned his exploit

with monumental records, pictures, statues, eulogies, histories. The

Roman tribune gained but faint praise, and yet he had done the same

and saved the republic.”—ORIGINES.

=Lælius= and =Scipio= followed Cato, and improved upon his rude

eloquence. Their speeches, which were committed to writing, bore the

impress of learning and genius.

=The Gracchi= (169-121 B.C.), sons of the noble Cornelia, Scipio’s

daughter, to whom they owed their early education, introduced a new era

in Roman eloquence, and have been called “the founders of classical

Latin.” Both gave up their lives in the interest of the Commons.

Tiberius, the elder, was the impersonation of clear-headed,

dispassionate, argumentative oratory. Caius, the younger, of greater

intellectual power, declaimed with such impetuosity that it was his

custom to keep a slave at his side to remind him with the note of a

flute when his vehemence became immoderate. Cicero inclined to the

belief that, had not Caius Gracchus met an untimely death, he would

have been the most brilliant representative of Roman eloquence. Nothing

remains of the speeches of Tiberius, and the few fragments we possess

of Caius indicate a want of finish.

=Antonius= and =Crassus= were the most distinguished speakers of the

period that separated the Gracchi from Cicero. Both were diligent

students of Greek literature, though both sought to conceal their

indebtedness to it. Crassus excelled in the elegance of his language;

Antonius, in gesture.

=Hortensius= (114-50 B.C.).—Crassus, in the last year of his life,

highly complimented the young Hortensius, whose promise as an orator he

was quick to discern. After the death of Antonius (87 B.C.), Hortensius

became “prince of the Roman bar,” a position which he enjoyed until

eclipsed by the superior genius of Cicero (70 B.C.). During his early

manhood he labored with untiring industry, turning his remarkable

memory to good account. His style was ornate, his voice perfect; his

gestures were so graceful that actors came to learn their art from

him; never before had Rome listened to a flow of language so copious

and elegant. As a matter of course his services were in great demand,

and hardly a day passed in which he did not either speak or prepare a

speech.

Thus Hortensius accumulated a vast fortune, which proved his

stumbling-block. Wealth begot a love of luxury, his energy gave way

to indolence, and he quietly yielded the first place to his youthful

rival. His luxurious villas, with their deer-parks, and gardens whose

plants he watered with wine, were more to Hortensius than the victories

of the forum. In these charming retreats he loved to entertain his

friends, and exhibit to them his menagerie and tame fish—for which he

showed more concern than for his servants. The death of a favorite

lamprey affected him to tears. At his luxurious mansion in Rome, the

nucleus of the future imperial palace, peacocks were served for the

first time at a feast.

The orator’s tastes, however, were æsthetic as well; he wrote poetry,

and expended large sums on statues and paintings. His orations are

lost. Only the merest fragments of all the above prose writers survive.

MINOR DRAMATIC POETS.

LAVINIUS, the rival of Terence, who jealously interrupted the

performance of the “Eunuch,” denouncing its author as a plagiarist;

yet this play brought Terence more than had ever before been paid for

a comedy.

TURPILIUS (125 B.C.), a popular comic poet.

ACCIUS (170-94 B.C.), the last of the tragic poets; 37 tragedies,

borrowed to a great extent from the Greek; diction majestic and

eloquent.

* * * * *

Early Roman theatres, temporary wooden structures; first stone theatre

built by Pompey (55 B.C.), capable of accommodating 40,000 spectators.

Pompey’s example promptly followed by others. The orchestra reserved

for the chief men of Rome, and not occupied by the chorus as in

ancient Greece. Awnings for theatres invented by the Romans. The vast

size of the later theatres obliged the actors to wear masks with

features much larger than life and arranged at the mouth so as to give

additional force to the voice.

MINOR PROSE WRITERS.

HISTORIANS.

FABIUS PICTOR: “Annals” of Rome, from the founding of the city to the

end of the Second Punic War; careless and inaccurate.

CINCIUS (210 B.C.): a truthful and diligent annalist.

ACILIUS GLABRIO (180 B.C.): History of Rome.

CALPURNIUS PISO: “Annals;” style barren and lifeless.

SISENNA (119-67 B.C.): History of Rome from the destruction of the

city by the Gauls.

ORATORS.

GALBA (180-136 B.C.): first master of Greek rhetoric; vehemence and

artifice his characteristics.

CARBO (164-119 B.C.): an unscrupulous, but sweet-voiced and powerful

pleader.

RUTILIUS (158-78 B.C.): a distinguished jurist.

CATULUS: graceful and elegant; a master of pure Latin.

COTTA: soft-spoken and courteous; his eloquence of the sweet,

persuasive kind. Study of grammar introduced by Crates, who,

fortunately for the Romans, broke his leg while on an embassy to

their city from the king of Pergamus (156 B.C.), and during his

convalescence lectured on philology at Rome. The earliest works on

Roman law were produced during this period.

CHAPTER III.

_GOLDEN AGE OF ROMAN LITERATURE._

(B.C. 80-14 A.D.)

=Divisions and Ornaments.=—The Golden Age, which now engages our

attention, is naturally divided into two distinct periods, bearing

the names of Cicero, the greatest of Roman writers, and Augustus, the

founder of the empire and patron of letters.

In the Ciceronian Period (80-43 B.C.), a stormy era of conspiracy as

well as conquest—marked by Catiline’s formidable attempt to destroy the

commonwealth, by the civil war of Cæsar and Pompey, and the murder of

these renowned leaders—political eloquence and history monopolized the

attention of the master minds of Rome. As a consequence, Latin prose

matured early in the golden age; while poetry boasted of no ornaments

until, at the close of the Ciceronian Period, Lucretius penned his

philosophical poem “On the Nature of Things,” and Catullus produced his

erotic odes and elegies.

In the Augustan Period (B.C. 42-14 A.D.), the greatest of Roman

poets, Virgil and Horace, lived and wrote, prose playing a secondary

part. Tibullus and Propertius put forth their sweet elegies, and

Ovid his amatory pieces. Even the pages of Livy’s history are aglow

with poetical coloring. But the blossom was as transient as it was

beautiful, and expanded only to die.

[Illustration: ORNAMENTS OF THE GOLDEN AGE

HORACE CICERO VIRGIL]

PROSE WRITERS OF THE CICERONIAN PERIOD.

=Marcus Tullius Cicero= (106-43 B.C.) was born at Arpi’num, a Latian

town south-east of Rome. As his family (of equestrian rank) had never

distinguished itself, he is known as a _novus homo_ (_new man_).

Detecting unusual talent in the boy, his father resolved to develop

it by a thorough education, which he himself superintended at Rome.

The most accomplished teachers were secured, the Greek poet Ar’chias

among the number, and the youth was thoroughly grounded in grammar,

rhetoric, and Grecian literature. This early training Cicero sedulously

supplemented with a course on Roman law under Scævola, avoiding the

whirl of dissipation that surrounded him, and even relinquishing social

pleasure for the labors of his closet or to study in the forum the

style of the first public speakers. “Who can blame me,” he asked in his

oration for Archias, “if while others are gazing at festal shows and

idle ceremonies, exploring new pleasures, engaged in midnight revels,

in the distraction of gaming, the madness of intemperance, I dedicate

_my_ time to learning and the Muses?”

At twenty-five Cicero made his début; and within two years he rose to

the highest rank at the Roman bar by ably pleading the cause of one

Roscius against a friend of the terrible Sulla. Successful in this

case, to escape the vengeance of the dictator as well as to recruit

his failing health, Cicero went abroad. At Athens he pursued the study

of philosophy with Pompo’nius Atticus, the companion of his boyhood

and ever after his warmest friend. In the schools of Asia Minor, as

well as at Rhodes, then a great literary centre, he studied under

distinguished teachers, storing his memory with valuable knowledge at

the same time that he made himself proficient in the rhetorical art.

The death of Sulla having removed all danger, at the age of thirty he

went back to Italy, thoroughly restored by his travels, and fired with

the noble ambition of making himself the Demosthenes of Rome. Step

by step he approached the realization of his hopes, and when, in the

prosecution of Verres, the rapacious governor of Sicily, he triumphed

over Hortensius (70 B.C.), his end was practically achieved.

Cicero served his country in many capacities, but in none more

effectively than as consul; since, while holding this office (63-62

B.C.), he saved the republic from a dangerous conspiracy, headed by

the profligate Catiline. The consul’s tact and courage were sorely

tried, but prevailed. Four crushing orations laid bare the plans of the

traitor and drove him from the city, to fall in a desperate battle with

the Roman legions, while a grateful nation greeted the vigilant Cicero

as “the Father of his Country.”

But the Roman people were fickle, and at the instigation of an enemy

banished Cicero from the city he had saved, 58 B.C. The next year,

however, the decree was revoked, and he returned. When the civil

war between Cæsar and Pompey was imminent, Cicero’s indecision told

powerfully against him.[43] At last he joined Pompey, who, provoked

at his vacillation, exclaimed: “I wish that Cicero would go over to

the other side; perhaps he would then be afraid of us.” The battle of

Pharsalia (48 B.C.) overthrew the hopes of the party whose cause he

had espoused, and Cicero, returning to Italy, accepted the rule and

friendship of Cæsar, and settled down to a literary life.

Shortly after, a plot is laid against the dictator; the fatal Ides

(15th) of March (44 B.C.) arrive; the assassins do their bloody work in

the senate-house; and Brutus, flourishing his traitorous dagger, cries

to Cicero: “Rejoice, O Father of our Country, for Rome is free!”

But it was grief, not joy, that the dagger of Brutus brought to the

Republic; another Pompey and another Cæsar arose to contend for the

mastery of the world. Marc Antony aspired to the dead dictator’s place;

but Cicero, now the foremost statesman in Rome, regarding him as the

enemy of liberty, upheld the cause of the people and of Octavius,

Cæsar’s young nephew. Into the struggle that ensued, he entered with

all the spirit of his youth, thundering against Antony his grand

“Philippics,” in the second of which are concentrated all his powers of

invective, passion, and eloquence. It is Cicero’s mightiest effort.

FROM THE SECOND PHILIPPIC.

“When, therefore, this fellow (_Antony_) had begun to wallow in the

treasures of that great man, he began to exult like a buffoon in a

play, who has lately been a beggar and has become suddenly rich.[44]

But, as some poet or other says,

‘Ill-gotten gains come quickly to an end.’

It is an incredible thing, and almost a miracle, how he in a few,

not months, but days, squandered all that vast wealth. There was an

immense quantity of wine, an excessive abundance of very valuable

plate, much precious apparel, great quantities of splendid furniture,

and other magnificent things in many places, such as one was likely

to see belonging to a man who was not indeed luxurious, but who was

very wealthy. Of all this in a few days there was nothing left. What

Charybdis was ever so voracious? Charybdis, do I say? Charybdis, if

she existed at all, was only one animal. The ocean, I swear most

solemnly, appears hardly capable of having swallowed up such numbers

of things so widely scattered, and distributed in such different

places, with such rapidity.

Nothing was shut up, nothing sealed up, no list was made of anything.

Whole storehouses were abandoned to the most worthless of men.

Actors seized on this, actresses on that; the house was crowded with

gamblers, and full of drunken men; people were drinking all day, and

that too in many places; there were added to all this expense (for

this fellow was not invariably fortunate) heavy gambling losses. You

might see, in the cellars of the slaves, couches covered with the most

richly embroidered counterpanes of Cneius Pompey. Wonder not, then,

that all these things were so soon consumed. Such profligacy as that

could have devoured, not only the patrimony of one individual, however

ample it might have been, but whole cities and kingdoms.

And then his houses and gardens! O the cruel audacity! Did you dare

to enter into that house? Did you dare to cross that most sacred

threshold? and to show your most profligate countenance to the

household gods who protect that abode? A house which for a long time

no one could behold, no one could pass by, without tears! Are you

not ashamed to dwell so long in that house—one in which, stupid and

ignorant as you are, still you can see nothing which is not painful to

you?

When you behold those beaks of ships in the vestibule, and those

warlike trophies, do you fancy that you are entering into a house

which belongs to you? It is impossible. Although you are devoid of all

sense and all feeling, still you are acquainted with yourself, and

with your trophies, and with your friends. Nor do I believe that you,

either waking or sleeping, can ever act with quiet sense.

It is impossible but that, were you ever so drunk and frantic, as

in truth you are, when the recollection of the appearance of that

illustrious man comes across you, you should be roused from sleep by

your fears, and often stirred up to madness if awake. I pity even the

walls and the roof.”—YONGE.

The patriot paid for his stanch defence of freedom with his life.

Octavius and Antony, becoming reconciled, formed with Lepidus the

Second Triumvirate, or board of three, to govern the Roman world; and

Cicero knew that the sun of liberty had set. The triumvirs agreed upon

a general proscription of their enemies. A reign of terror deluged

Italy with blood, but the noblest of those who fell was Cicero.

Antony demanded his life, and Octavius covered himself with infamy by

yielding it. The orator met his fate near his villa at Formiæ; timid

throughout his life, in the last scene he exhibited manly fortitude.

He is said to have been calmly reading the “Medea” of Euripides in

his litter when Antony’s myrmidons overtook him; a desperado who owed

him many favors, while even his brutal companions covered their eyes,

struck the fatal blow. The head and hands of the murdered orator were

cut off and sent to Antony, whose inhuman wife, as she fondled the

ghastly head in her lap, maliciously thrust her bodkin into the tongue

that had denounced her husband.—True as it was, it ill became the

time-serving Octavius to say, when afterward wielding the sceptre of

the world as Augustus Cæsar, “Cicero was a good citizen, who really

loved his country.”

CICERO’S WORKS.—Cicero was emphatically a many-sided man, and filled a

wide space in Roman literature. Though he excelled chiefly in oratory,

he has left us, besides fifty-nine orations, a number of philosophical

treatises, essays, and many letters to his friend Atticus, his brother,

and other correspondents. While deeply absorbed in public duties, he

found opportunities, without neglecting these, to pursue the study of

philosophy, having in view not only his own relaxation, but also the

moral advancement of his countrymen. His works on this subject, some of

which, for the sake of interest and variety, he wrote in the form of

dialogues, present a valuable survey of the Greek systems. They assert

his belief in the existence of one Supreme Creator and the immortality

of the soul. (_See Mayor’s “A Sketch of Ancient Philosophy.”_)

Cicero’s chief philosophical writings are “the Tusculan Disputations,”

imaginary discussions of various practical questions at the author’s

Tusculan villa,—the scorn of death, the endurance of suffering, etc.;

“the Offices,” a moral essay; treatises “On Friendship” and “On Old

Age,” justly considered as among the most charming productions of their

class in any literature; political dissertations “On the Republic” and

“On Laws;” and a theological disquisition “On the Nature of the Gods.”

THE END OF LIFE.

[From Cicero’s Treatise on Old Age.]

“An old man, indeed, has nothing to hope for; yet he is in so much the

happier state than a young one; since he has already attained what

the other is only hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, the

other has lived long. And yet, good gods! what is there in man’s life

that can be called long? To my mind, nothing whatever seems of long

duration, in which there is any end. For when that arrives, then the

time which is past has flowed away; that only remains which you have

secured by virtue and right conduct. Hours indeed depart from us, and

days, and months, and years; nor does past time ever return, nor can

it be discovered what is to follow.

Whatever time is assigned to each to live, with that he ought to be

content: for neither need the drama be performed entire by the actor,

in order to give satisfaction, provided he be approved in whatever act

he may be; nor need the wise man live till the _plaudite_.[45] The

short period of life is long enough for living well and honorably; and

if you should advance farther, you need no more grieve than farmers

do, when the loveliness of spring-time hath passed, that summer and

autumn have come. For spring represents the time of youth, and gives

promise of the future fruits; the remaining seasons are intended for

plucking and gathering those fruits. Now the harvest of old age, as

I have often said, is the recollection and abundance of blessings

previously secured. In truth, everything that happens agreeably

to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. What, however, is so

agreeable to nature as for an old man to die? which even is the lot

of the young, though nature opposes and resists. And thus it is that

young men seem to me to die, just as when the violence of flame

is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die, as the

exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any

force. And as fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the

trees, but when ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their

lives from youths, maturity from old men; a state which to me indeed

is so delightful that, the nearer I approach to death, I seem as it

were to be getting sight of land, and at length, after a long voyage,

to be just coming into harbor.”—EDMONDS.

Cicero also wrote a treatise “On Glory,” now lost. It was once in the

possession of Petrarch, who commends it in the most flattering terms.

The Italian poet was induced to lend it to his aged preceptor; but

the latter, driven by poverty, secretly put the work in pawn and died

without making known its whereabouts. It never saw the light afterward;

although it is supposed to have been destroyed two centuries later by a

plagiarist, who had helped himself to some of its fine periods.

As a letter-writer, Cicero excels all others. It was the custom of

his countrymen to bestow as great pains on private correspondence as

on works intended for publication; and his epistles, eight hundred of

which survive, are simple, elegant, and glow with wit, though some of

them were written so fast as to be almost illegible. (_Consult Jeans’s

“Life and Letters of Cicero; Church’s “Roman Life in the Days of

Cicero.”_)

Our author also turned his hand to history and poetry, but with

indifferent success. His works were extremely popular among his

contemporaries, some of them selling by the thousand.

CICERO’S STYLE.—Cicero has always been commended for the cadence of

his periods. The art of framing harmonious balanced sentences was his

special study, and the Latin language, which he perfected in beauty

and richness, was well adapted to his purpose. His style is often

exuberant, for he cultivated the flowers of rhetoric. Character he

sketched with a powerful pen, and his speeches are enlivened with

abundant illustrations drawn from the wonderful storehouse of his

memory. Too often, however, vanity crops out, to mar the effect.

Quintilian declared that as an orator Cicero combined “the force of

Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the elegance of Isocrates.”

Through all his works flows a current of mingled majesty and sweetness.

Merivale aptly styles him “the most consummate specimen of the Roman

character under the influence of Hellenic culture.”

CICERO ON PROVIDENCE.

[From the Treatise on the Nature of the Gods.]

“There are and have been philosophers who have given it as their

opinion that the gods exercise no superintending care whatever over

human affairs. Now, if the opinion of these men be true, what becomes

of piety? what of public worship? what of religion itself? For all

these marks of homage are to be rendered in a pure and holy spirit

unto the majesty of the gods, only in case they are observed by these

same, and in case any favor has been bestowed by the immortal gods on

the race of men. If, however, the gods are neither able nor willing to

assist us; if they take no care whatever of us; if they mark not what

we do; if there is nothing that can come from them and exercise an

influence on the lives of men,—what reason is there why we are to pay

any adoration, render any honors, offer any prayers, to the immortal

gods?

Piety, just as much as the other virtues, cannot exist in outward show

and empty feignings; while along with piety, both public worship and

religion itself must of necessity be done away with. Remove these, and

a great disturbance and total confusion of life ensue. Nay, indeed, I

do not know whether, if piety toward the gods be removed, good faith

also, and every social tie that binds together the human race, and

justice too, that most excellent of all virtues, would not be removed

along with it.”—CHARLES ANTHON.

=Varro= (116-28 B.C.).—The great central sun of the Republican Era was

Cicero, compared with whom the brightest of his contemporaries seem

but as lesser luminaries whose light is swallowed up in his. Of these,

Marcus Terentius Varro was perhaps the greatest. Years of incessant

application, which a boyhood passed among the Sabine mountains at Reate

(_re’ă-te_) had prepared him to endure, won for Varro the proud title

“Most Learned of the Romans.”

During the civil war, Varro sided with Pompey. After the triumph of

Cæsar, he retired from public life to his favorite studies, the victor

magnanimously recognizing his merit by placing him in charge of the

public library at Rome. The material results of his literary labors

enabled him to live like a prince, and we find him the proprietor of

three sumptuous country-seats, one of which was celebrated for its

costly marble aviary of three thousand song-birds—Varro’s pets.

All this wealth did not escape the notice of the rapacious triumvirs

after the assassination of Cæsar. The name of Varro, then more than

seventy, was placed on the proscription list; his property was

confiscated; and Antony sacked his beautiful villa at Casi’num,

committing his invaluable library to the flames. The old man owed his

life to friends, who concealed him from his implacable foe till the

order for his murder was countermanded. Augustus afterward restored his

fortune, but Varro always keenly missed the society of his books. At

the advanced age of eighty, he composed, in dialogue form, an admirable

work “On Husbandry,” written in a brisk and entertaining style.

The genius of Varro was remarkably versatile; as over six hundred

different books on various subjects, in both prose and verse,

abundantly testify. In fertility he surpassed all other Romans; and we

can but wonder, with St. Augustine, how he found time to write so much.

His most creditable work was his “Antiquities Divine and Human,” a lost

treasure, of which the present age, with its profound interest in the

religions of the past, severely feels the want.

Varro also prepared a treatise “On the Latin Language,” edited a

popular encyclopædia of the liberal arts, and wrote on history.

Throughout his works he appears as a pure patriot, a defender

of ancient simplicity and virtue. His satires on effeminacy and

affectation are caustic; no one can help enjoying his humorous etchings

of the spruce dandy, the dainty epicure, and the finical poet who

gargles his throat before reciting his pieces. In every kind of writing

that he attempted (and there was little he did not attempt) he is

worthy of respect: the familiar line from Dr. Johnson’s epitaph on

our own Goldsmith, would apply with equal force to Varro—“He touched

nothing that he did not adorn.”

Little survives of Varro’s writings beyond the treatise on agriculture,

and a part of that on the Latin language.

=Julius Cæsar.=—July 12th, 100 B.C., was the birthday of Caius Julius

Cæsar, by some believed to be, as Shakespeare styled him, “the foremost

man of all this world.” The period at which he lived was a critical one

in history. Roman virtue had depreciated, justice was bought and sold,

luxury had sapped the vigor of the nation, and vice ran riot. Only

one-man power, and that wielded by a clear head and powerful arm, could

save the state. The times demanded a statesman who would not shrink

from taking upon himself all needful responsibilities; and in Julius

Cæsar that statesman was forthcoming.

Cæsar’s whole career evinces ambition, courage, and determination.

Sulla himself he feared not to defy, when ordered to divorce his wife

for political reasons; and he was adroit enough to escape the vengeance

of the ruthless dictator who saw in “the loose-girt boy” many Mariuses.

Leaving Rome for the East, he acquitted himself with signal ability,

though only twenty-two, in a campaign against Mytilene; and when

captured by pirates on the high seas, he paid them an extortionate

ransom, but promptly turned the tables on them by overhauling their

vessel with a small fleet, and nailing them to crosses on the coast of

Asia Minor.

At Rhodes he studied oratory and rhetoric. On his return to Rome he

gave evidence of his powers in the forum, and was hailed as second in

eloquence to Cicero only. His readiness to protect the poor and the

oppressed, together with his insinuating manners, made Cæsar the idol

of the people, who bestowed upon him various offices and finally raised

him to the consulship. At the expiration of his term, he was intrusted

with the government of the two Gauls; and the military skill he

displayed in this position, during nine years of active service (58-50

B.C.), proved him to be one of the world’s great captains. Overpowering

many fierce tribes, he carried the terror of the Roman eagles into the

forests of Germany and even across the Channel. A million human beings

are computed to have been sacrificed in his Gallic campaigns.