may be assigned for the want of originality in Roman tragedy, and indeed
in the whole Roman drama. The nation was deficient in that milder humanity
of which there are so many beautiful instances in Grecian history. From
the austere patriotism of Brutus sacrificing every personal feeling to the
love of country,—from the frugality of Cincinnatus, and parsimony of the
Censor, it fell with frightful rapidity into a state of luxury and
corruption without example. Even during the short period which might be
called the age of refinement, it wanted a poetical public. To judge by the
early part of their history, one would suppose that the Romans were not
deficient in that species of sensibility which fits for due sympathy in
theatrical incidents. Most of their great revolutions were occasioned by
events acting strongly and suddenly on their feelings. The hard fate of
Lucretia, Virginia, and the youth Publilius, freed them from the tyranny
of their kings, decemvirs, and patrician creditors. On the whole, however,
they were an austere, stately, and formal people; their whole mode of life
tended to harden the heart and feelings, and there was a rigid uniformity
in their early manners, ill adapted to the free workings of the passions.
External indications of tenderness were repressed as unbecoming of men
whose souls were fixed on the attainment of the most lofty objects. Pity
was never to be felt by a Roman, but when it came in the shape of clemency
towards a vanquished foe, and tears were never to dim the eyes of those
whose chief pride consisted in acting with energy and enduring with
firmness. This self-command, which their principles required of them,—this
control of every manifestation of suffering in themselves, and contempt
for the expression of it in others, tended to exclude tragedy almost
entirely from the range of their literature.
Any softer emotions, too, which the Roman people may have once
experienced—any sentiments capable of being awakened to tragic pathos,
became gradually blunted by the manner in which they were exercised. They
had, by degrees, been accustomed to take a barbarous delight in the most
wanton displays of human violence, and brutal cruelty. Lions and elephants
tore each other in pieces before their eyes; and they beheld, with
emotions only of delight, crowds of hireling gladiators wasting their
energy, valour, and life, on the guilty _arena_ of a Circus. Gladiatorial
combats were first exhibited by Decius and Marcus Brutus, at the funeral
of their father, about the commencement of the Punic wars. The number of
such entertainments increased with the luxury of the times; and those who
courted popular favour found no readier way to gain it than by
magnificence and novelty in this species of expense. Cæsar exhibited three
hundred pairs of gladiators; Pompey presented to the multitude six hundred
lions, to be torn in pieces in the Circus, besides harnessed bears and
dancing elephants; and some other candidate for popular favour, introduced
the yet more refined barbarity of combats between men and wild animals.
These were the darling amusements of all, and chief occupations of many
Romans; and those who could take pleasure in such spectacles, must have
lost all that tenderness of inward feeling, and all that exquisite
sympathy for suffering, without which none can perceive the force and
beauty of a tragic drama. The extension, too, of the military power, and
the increasing wealth and splendour of the Roman republic, accustomed its
citizens to triumphal and gaudy processions. This led to a taste for what,
in modern times, has been called _Spectacle_; and, instead of melting with
tenderness at the woes of Andromache, the people demanded on the stage
such exhibitions as presented them with an image of their favourite
pastimes:—
“Quatuor aut plures aulæa premuntur in horas,
Dum fugiunt equitum turmæ, peditumque catervæ:
Mox trahitur manibus regum fortuna retortis;
Esseda festinant, pilenta, petorrita, naves:
Captivum portatur ebur, captiva Corinthus(358).”
This sort of show was not confined to the afterpiece or entertainment, but
was introduced in the finest tragedies, which were represented with such
pomp and ostentation as to destroy all the grace of the performance. A
thousand mules pranced about the stage in the tragedy of _Clytemnestra_;
and whole regiments, accoutred in foreign armour, were marshalled in that
of the _Trojan Horse_(359). This taste, so fatal to the genuine excellence
of tragedy or comedy, was fostered and encouraged by the Ædiles, who had
the charge of the public Shows, and, among others, of the exhibitions at
the theatre. The ædileship was considered as one of the steps to the
higher honours of the state; and those who held it could not resort to
surer means of conciliating the favour of their fellow-citizens, or
purchasing their future suffrages, than by sparing no expense in the
pageantry of theatrical amusements.
The language, also, of the Romans, however excellent in other respects,
was at least in comparison with Greek, but ill suited to the expression of
earnest and vivid emotion. It required an artful and elaborate collocation
of words, and its construction is more forced and artificial than that of
most other tongues. Hence passion always seemed to speak the language with
effort; the idiom would not yield to the rapid transitions and imperfect
phrases of impassioned dialogue.
Little attention, besides, was paid to critical learning, and the
cultivation of correct composition. The Latin muse had been nurtured amid
the festivities of rural superstition; and the impure mixture of
licentious jollity had so corrupted her nature, that it long partook of
her rustic origin. Even so late as the time of Horace, the tragic drama
continued to be unsuccessful, in consequence of the illiberal education of
the Roman youth; who, while the Greeks were taught to open all the mind to
glory, were so cramped in their genius by the love of gain, and by the
early infusion of sordid principles, that they were unable to project a
great design, or conduct it to perfection. The consequence was, that the
“_ærugo et cura peculi_” had so completely infected the Roman dramatists,
that lucre was the sole object of their pains. Hence, provided they could
catch popular applause, and secure a high price from the magistrates who
superintended theatrical exhibitions, they felt indifferent to every
nobler view, and more worthy purpose:—
“Gestit enim nummum in loculos demittere; post hoc
Securus, cadat, an recto stet fabula tale(360).”
But, above all, the low estimation in which the art of poetry was held,
must be regarded as a cause of its little progress during the periods of
the republic: “Sero igitur,” says Cicero, “a nostris, poetæ vel cogniti
vel recepti. Quo minus igitur honoris erat poetis, eo minora studia
fuerunt(361).” The earliest poets of Rome had not the encouragement of
that court favour which was extended to Chaucer in England, to Marot and
Ronsard in France, and to Dante by the petty princes of Italy. From Livius
Andronicus to Terence, poetry was cultivated only by foreigners and
freedmen. Scipio and Lælius, indeed, are said to have written some scenes
in the plays of Terence; but they did not choose that anything of this
sort should pass under their names. The stern republicans seem to have
considered poetry as an art which captives and slaves might cultivate, for
the amusement of their conquerors, or masters, but which it would be
unsuitable for a grave and lofty patrician to practice. I suspect, the
Romans regarded a poet as a tumbler or rope-dancer, with whose feats we
are entertained, but whom we would not wish to imitate.
The drama in Rome did not establish itself systematically, and by degrees,
as it did in Greece. Plautus wrote for the stage during the time of Livius
Andronicus, and Terence was nearly contemporary with Pacuvius and Attius;
so that everything serious and comic, good and bad, came at once, and if
it was Grecian, found a welcome reception among the Romans. On this
account every species of dramatic amusement was indiscriminately adopted
at the theatre, and that which was most absurd was often most admired. The
Greek drama acquired a splendid degree of perfection by a close imitation
of nature; but the Romans never attained such perfection, because, however
exquisite their models, they did not copy directly from nature, but from
its representative and image.
Had the Romans, indeed, possessed a literature of their own, when they
first grew familiar with the works of the Greek poets, their native
productions would no doubt have been improved by the study and imitation
of the masterpieces of these more accomplished foreigners; yet they would
still have preserved something of a national character. But,
unfortunately, when the Romans first became acquainted with the writings
of the Greeks, they had not even sown the seeds of learning, so that they
remained satisfied with the full-ripened produce imported from abroad.
Several critics have indeed remarked in all the compositions of the
Romans, and particularly in their tragedies, a peculiar severity and
loftiness of thought; but they were all formed so entirely on a Greek
model, that their early poetry must be regarded rather as the production
of art than genius, and as a spark struck by contact and attrition, rather
than a flame spontaneously kindled at the altar of the Muses.
In addition to all this, the Latin poet had no encouragement to invent. He
was not required to look abroad into nature, or strike out a path for
himself. So far from this being demanded, Greek subjects were evidently
preferred by the public—
“Omnes res gestas Athenis esse autumant,
Quo vobis illud Græcum videatur magis(362).”
All the works, then, which have been hitherto mentioned, and which, with
exception of the _Annals_ of Ennius, are entirely dramatic, belong
strictly to what may be called the Greek school of composition, and are
unquestionably the least original class of productions in the Latin, or
perhaps any other language. But however little the early dramatists of
Rome may have to boast of originality or invention, they are amply
entitled to claim an unborrowed praise for the genuine purity of their
native style and language.
The style and language of the dramatic writers of the period, on which we
are now engaged, seem to have been much relished by a numerous class of
readers, from the age of Augustus to that of the Antonines, and to have
been equally abhorred by the poets of that time. We have already seen
Horace’s indignation against those who admired the _Carmen Saliare_, or
the poems of Livius, and which appears the bolder and more surprising, as
Augustus himself was not altogether exempt from this predilection(363);
and we have also seen the satire of Persius against his age, for being
still delighted with the fustian tragedies of Attius and the rugged style
of Pacuvius—
“Est nunc Brisei quem venosus liber Atti,
Sunt quos Pacuviusque et verrucosa moretur
Antiope ærumnis cor luctificabile fulta.”
In like manner Martial, in his Epigrams, mimicking the obsolete phrases of
the ancient dramatists—
“Attonitusque legis _terräi frugiferäi_,
Attius et quicquid Pacuviusque vomunt.”
Such sentiments, however, as is evident from Horace’s Epistle to Augustus,
proceeded in a great measure from the modern poets being provoked at an
admiration, which they thought did not originate in a real sense of the
merit of these old writers, but in an envious wish to depreciate, by
odious comparison, the productions of the day—
“Jam Saliare Numæ carmen qui laudat, et illud
Quod mecum ignorat, solus vult scire videri;
Ingentis non ille favet, plauditque sepultis,
Nostra sed impugnat—nos, nostraque lividus odit.”
But although a great proportion of the public may, with malicious designs,
have heaped extravagant commendations on the style of the ancient
tragedians, there can be no doubt that it is full of vigour and richness;
and if inferior to the exquisite refinement of the Augustan age, it was
certainly much to be preferred to the obscurity of Persius, or the
conceits of Martial. “A very imperfect notion,” says Wakefield, in one of
his letters to Fox, “is entertained in general of the copiousness of the
Latin language, by those who confine themselves to what are styled the
Augustan writers. The old comedians and tragedians, with Ennius and
Lucilius, were the great repositories of learned and vigorous expression.
I have ever regarded the loss of the old Roman poets, particularly Ennius
and Lucilius, from the light they would have thrown on the formations of
the Latin language, and its derivation from the Æolian Greek, as the
severest calamity ever sustained by philological learning(364).”
Sometimes, indeed, their words are uncouth, particularly their compound
terms and epithets, in the formation of which they are not nearly so happy
as the Greeks. Livius Andronicus uses _Odorisequos canes_—Pacuvius employs
_Repandirostrum_ and _Incurvicervicum_. Such terms always appear
incongruous and disjointed, and not knit together so happily as _Cyclops_,
and other similar words of the Greeks.
The different classes into which the regular drama of this period may be
reduced, is a subject involved in great contradiction and uncertainty, and
has been much agitated in consequence of Horace’s celebrated line—
“Vel qui _Prætextas_ vel qui docuere _Togatas_(365).”
On the whole, it seems pretty evident, that the _regular_ drama was
divided into tragedy and comedy. A tragedy on a Greek subject, and in
which Greek manners were preserved, as the Hecuba, Dulorestes, &c. was
simply styled _Tragœdia_, or sometimes _Tragœdia Palliata_. Those
tragedies again, in which Roman characters were introduced, as the Decius
and Brutus of Attius, were called _Prætextatæ_, because the Prætexta was
the habit worn by Roman kings and consuls. The comedy which adopted Greek
subjects and characters, like those of Terence, was termed _Comœdia_, or
_Comœdia Palliata_; and that which was clothed in Roman habits and
customs, was called _Togata_(366). Afranius was the most celebrated writer
of this last class of dramas, which were probably Greek pieces
accommodated to Roman manners, since Afranius lived at a period when Roman
literature was almost entirely imitative. It is difficult, no doubt, to
see how an Athenian comedy could be bent to local usages foreign to its
spirit and genius; but the Latin writers were not probably very nice about
the adjustment; and the _Comœdia Togata_ is so slightly mentioned by
ancient writers, that we can hardly suppose that it comprehended a great
class of national compositions. The _Tabernaria_ was a comedy of a lower
order than the _Comœdia Togata_: It represented such manners as were
likely to be met with among the dregs of the Plebeians; and was so called
from Taberna, as its scene was usually laid in shops or taverns. These, I
think, are the usual divisions of the regular Roman drama; but critics and
commentators have sometimes applied the term _Togata_ to all plays,
whether tragedies or comedies, in which Roman characters were represented,
and _Palliata_ to every drama of Greek origin.
There was, however, a species of irregular dramas, for which the Romans
were not indebted to the Greeks, and which was peculiar to themselves,
called _Fabulæ Atellanæ_. These entertainments were so denominated from
Atella, a considerable town of the Oscans, now St Arpino, lying about two
miles south from Aversa, between Capua and Naples,—the place now named
Atella being at a little distance.
When Livius Andronicus had succeeded in establishing at Rome a regular
theatre, which was formed on the Greek model, and was supported by
professional writers, and professional actors, the free Roman youth, who
were still willing, amid their foreign refinements, occasionally to revive
the recollection of the old popular pastimes of their Italian ancestry,
continued to amuse themselves with the satiric pieces introduced by the
_Histrions_ of Etruria, and with the Atellane Fables which Oscan
performers had first made known at Rome(367). The actors of the regular
drama were not permitted to appear in such representations; and the Roman
youths, to whom the privilege was reserved, were not, as other actors,
removed from their tribe, or rendered incapable of military service(368);
nor could they be called on like them to unmask in presence of the
spectators(369). It has been conjectured, that the popularity of these
spectacles, and the privileges reserved to those who appeared in them,
were granted in consequence of their pleasantries being so tempered by the
ancient Italian gravity, that there was no admixture of obscenity or
indecorum, and hence no stain of dishonour was supposed to be inflicted on
the performers(370).
The Atellane Fables consisted of detached scenes following each other,
without much dramatic connection, but replete with jocularity and
buffoonery. They were written in the Oscan dialect, in the same way as the
Venetian or Neapolitan jargons are frequently employed in the Italian
comedies; and they differed from the Greek satiric drama in this, that the
characters of the latter were Satyrs, while those of the Atellane fables
were Oscan(371). One of these was called Maccus, a grotesque and fantastic
personage, with an immense head, long nose, and hump back, who
corresponded in some measure to the clown or fool of modern pantomime, and
whose appellation of Maccus has been interpreted by Lipsius as _Bardus_,
_fatuus_, _stolidus_(372). In its rude but genuine form this species of
entertainment was in great vogue and constant use at Rome. It does not
appear that the Atellane fables were originally written out, or that the
actors had certain parts prescribed to them. The general subject was
probably agreed on, but the performers themselves filled up the scenes
from their own art or invention(373). As the Roman language improved, and
the provincial tongues of ancient Italy became less known, the Oscan
dialect was gradually abandoned. Quintus Novius, who lived in the
beginning of the seventh century of Rome, and whom Macrobius mentions as
one of the most approved writers of Atellane Fables, was the author who
chiefly contributed to this innovation. He is cited as the author of the
_Virgo Prægnans_, _Dotata_, _Gallinaria_, _Gemini_, and various others.
At length, in the time of Sylla, Lucius Pomponius produced Atellane
Fables, which were written without any intermixture of the Oscan dialect,
being entirely in the Latin language; and he at the same time refined
their ancient buffoonery so much, by giving them a more rational cast,
that he is called by Velleius Paterculus the inventor of this species of
drama, and is characterized by that author as “sensibus celebrem, verbis
rudem(374).” Pomponius was remarkable for his accurate observation of
manners, and his genius has been highly extolled by Cicero and Seneca. The
names of sixty-three of his pieces have been cited by grammarians, and
from all these fragments are still extant. From some of them, however, not
more than a line has been preserved, and from none of them more than a
dozen. It would appear that the Oscan character of Maccus was still
retained in many fables of Pomponius, as there is one entitled _Maccus_,
and others _Macci Gemini_, _Maccus Miles_, _Maccus Sequestris_, in the
same manner as we say Harlequin footman, &c. Pappo, or Pappus, seems also
to have been a character introduced along with Maccus, and, I should
think, corresponded to the Pantaloon of modern pantomime. Among the names
of the Atellanes of Pomponius we find _Pappus Agricola_, and among those
of Novius, _Pappus Præteritus_. This character, however, appears rather to
have been of Greek than of Oscan origin; and was probably derived from
Παππος, the Silenus or old man of the Greek dramatic satire.
The improvements of Pomponius were so well received at Rome, that he was
imitated by Mummius, and by Sylla himself, who, we are told by Athenæus,
wrote several Atellane Fables in his native language(375). In this new
form introduced by Pomponius the Atellane dramas continued to enjoy great
popularity in Rome, till they were in some measure superseded by the Mimes
of Laberius and Publius Syrus.
Along with the Atellane Fables, the Roman youth were in the practice of
acting short pieces called _Exodia_, which were interludes, or
after-pieces, of a yet more loose, detached, and farcical description,
than the Atellanes, being a continuation of the ancient performances
originally introduced by the Histrions of Etruria(376). In these Exodia
the actors usually wore the same masks and habits as in the Atellanes and
tragedies(377), and represented the same characters in a ludicrous point
of view:—
“Urbicus Exodio risum movet Atellanæ
Gestibus Autonoes. Hunc diligit Ælia pauper(378).”
Joseph Scaliger, in his Commentary on Manilius, gives his opinion, that
the _Exodia_ were performed at the end of the principal piece, like our
farces, and were so called as being the issue of the entertainment, which
is also asserted by a scholiast on Juvenal(379). But the elder Scaliger
and Salmasius thought that the _exodium_ was a sort of interlude, and had
not necessarily any connection with the principal representation. The
_Exodia_ continued to be performed with much license in the times of
Tiberius and Nero; and when the serious spirit of freedom had vanished
from the empire, they often contained jocular but direct allusions to the
crimes of the portentous monsters by whom it was scourged and afflicted.
It has been much disputed among modern critics, whether the
SATIRE
of the Romans was derived from the Greeks, or was of their own invention.
The former opinion has been maintained by the elder Scaliger(380),
Heinsius(381), Vulpius(382), and, among the most recent German critics, by
Blankenburg(383), Conz, and Flogel(384); the latter theory, which seems to
have been that of the Romans themselves, particularly of Horace and
Quintilian(385), has been supported by Diomedes(386), Joseph Scaliger,
Casaubon(387), Spanheim(388), Rigaltius(389), Dacier(390), and Dryden, and
by Koenig(391), and Manso, among the Germans. Those who suppose that
satire descended directly from the Greeks to the Romans, derive the word
from _Satyrus_, the well-known mythological compound of a man and goat.
Casaubon, on the other hand, and most of those who have followed him,
deduce it from the adjective _Satura_, a Sabine word, originally
signifying a medley, and, afterwards,—full or abundant. To this word the
substantive _Lanx_ was understood, which meant the platter or charger
whereon the first fruits of the earth were offered to Bacchus at his
festivals,—
“Ergo rite suum Baccho dicemus honorem
Carminibus patriis, lancesque et liba feremus(392).”
The term _Satura_ thus came to be applied to a species of composition,
originally written in various sorts of verse, and comprehending a
_farrago_ of all subjects,—
“Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus(393),” &c.
In the same way, laws were called _Leges Saturæ_, when they consisted of
several heads and titles: and Verrius Flaccus calls a dish, which I
suppose was a sort of _olla podrida_—Satura:—“Satura cibi genus ex variis
rebus conditum.” Dacier, however, though he agrees with Casaubon as to the
Latin origin of satire, derives the term from Saturn; as he believes that
it was at festivals in honour of that ancient god of Italy that those
rustic impromptus, which gave rise to satire, were first recited.
Flogel, in his German _History of Comic Literature_, attempts to show, at
considerable length, that Casaubon has attributed too much to the
derivation of the word satire; since, though the term may be of Latin
origin, it does not follow that the thing was unknown to the Greeks,—and
that he also relies too much on the argument, that the satiric plays of
the Greeks were quite different from the satire of the Romans, which may
be true; while, at the same time, there are other sorts of Greek
compositions, as the lyric satires of Archilochus and the _Silli_, which
have a much nearer resemblance to the Latin didactic satire than any
satirical drama.