Horace had said the same thing before him, speaking of his predecessor
in that sort of poetry,--_Et Græcis intacti carminis auctor_. Nothing
can be clearer than the opinion of the poet, and the orator, both the
best critics of the two best ages of the Roman empire, that satire was
wholly of Latin growth, and not transplanted to Rome from Athens.[20]
Yet, as I have said, Scaliger, the father, according to his custom,
that is, insolently enough, contradicts them both; and gives no better
reason, than the derivation of _satyrus_ from #sathy#, _salacitas_; and
so, from the lechery of those fauns, thinks he has sufficiently proved,
that satire is derived from them: as if wantonness and lubricity were
essential to that sort of poem, which ought to be avoided in it. His
other allegation, which I have already mentioned, is as pitiful; that
the Satyrs carried platters and canisters full of fruit in their
hands. If they had entered empty-handed, had they been ever the less
Satyrs? Or were the fruits and flowers, which they offered, any thing
of kin to satire? Or any argument that this poem was originally
Grecian? Casaubon judged better, and his opinion is grounded on sure
authority, that satire was derived from _satura_, a Roman word, which
signifies--full and abundant, and full also of variety, in which
nothing is wanting to its due perfection. It is thus, says Dacier, that
we say--a full colour, when the wool has taken the whole tincture,
and drunk in as much of the dye as it can receive. According to this
derivation, from _satur_ comes _satura_, or _satyra_, according to
the new spelling; as _optumus_ and _maxumus_ are now spelled _optimus_
and _maximus_. _Satura_, as I have formerly noted, is an adjective,
and relates to the word _lanx_ which is understood; and this _lanx_,
in English a charger, or large platter, was yearly filled with all
sorts of fruits, which were offered to the gods at their festivals, as
the _premices_, or first gatherings. These offerings of several sorts
thus mingled, it is true, were not unknown to the Grecians, who called
them #pankarpon thysian#, a sacrifice of all sorts of fruits; and
#panpermian#, when they offered all kinds of grain.
Virgil has mentioned these sacrifices in his "Georgics:"
_Lancibus et pandis fumantia reddimus exta_:
and in another place, _lancesque et liba feremus_: that is, We offer
the smoaking entrails in great platters, and we will offer the chargers
and the cakes.
The word _satura_ has been afterwards applied to many other sort of
mixtures; as Festus calls it a kind of _olla_, or hotchpotch, made of
several sorts of meats. Laws were also called _leges saturæ_, when they
were of several heads and titles, like our tacked bills of parliament:
and _per saturam legem ferre_, in the Roman senate, was to carry a law
without telling the senators, or counting voices, when they were in
haste. Sallust uses the word,--_per saturam sententias exquirere_;
when the majority was visible on one side. From hence it may probably
be conjectured, that the Discourses, or Satires, of Ennius, Lucilius,
and Horace, as we now call them, took their name; because they are
full of various matters, and are also written on various subjects, as
Porphyrius says. But Dacier affirms, that it is not immediately from
thence that these satires are so called; for that name had been used
formerly for other things, which bore a nearer resemblance to those
discourses of Horace. In explaining of which, continues Dacier, a
method is to be pursued, of which Casaubon himself has never thought,
and which will put all things into so clear a light, that no farther
room will be left for the least dispute.
During the space of almost four hundred years, since the building
of their city, the Romans had never known any entertainments of the
stage. Chance and jollity first found out those verses which they
called _Saturnian_, and _Fescennine_; or rather human nature, which
is inclined to poetry, first produced them, rude and barbarous,
and unpolished, as all other operations of the soul are in their
beginnings, before they are cultivated with art and study. However, in
occasions of merriment they were first practised; and this rough-cast
unhewn poetry was instead of stage-plays, for the space of an hundred
and twenty years together. They were made _extempore_, and were, as the
French call them, _impromptùs_; for which the Tarsians of old were much
renowned; and we see the daily examples of them in the Italian farces
of Harlequin and Scaramucha. Such was the poetry of that savage people,
before it was turned into numbers, and the harmony of verse. Little
of the Saturnian verses is now remaining; we only know from authors,
that they were nearer prose than poetry, without feet, or measure.
They were #enrythmoi#, but not #emmetroi#. Perhaps they might be used
in the solemn part of their ceremonies; and the Fescennine, which were
invented after them, in the afternoon's debauchery, because they were
scoffing and obscene.
The Fescennine and Saturnian were the same; for as they were called
Saturnian from their ancientness, when Saturn reigned in Italy, they
were also called Fescennine, from Fescennia, a town in the same
country, where they were first practised. The actors, with a gross and
rustic kind of raillery, reproached each other with their failings;
and at the same time were nothing sparing of it to their audience.
Somewhat of this custom was afterwards retained in the Saturnalia, or
feasts of Saturn, celebrated in December; at least all kind of freedom
in speech was then allowed to slaves, even against their masters; and
we are not without some imitation of it in our Christmas gambols.
Soldiers also used those Fescennine verses, after measure and numbers
had been added to them, at the triumph of their generals: of which we
have an example, in the triumph of Julius Cæsar over Gaul, in these
expressions: _Cæsar Gallias subegit, Nicomedes Cæsarem. Ecce Cæsar
nunc triumphat, qui subegit Gallias: Nicomedes non triumphat, qui
subegit Cæsarem_. The vapours of wine made those first satirical poets
amongst the Romans; which, says Dacier, we cannot better represent,
than by imagining a company of clowns on a holiday, dancing lubberly,
and upbraiding one another, in _extempore_ doggrel, with their defects
and vices, and the stories that were told of them in bake houses and
barbers' shops.
When they began to be somewhat better bred, and were entering, as I may
say, into the first rudiments of civil conversation, they left these
hedge-notes for another sort of poem, somewhat polished, which was
also full of pleasant raillery, but without any mixture of obscenity.
This sort of poetry appeared under the name of satire, because of its
variety; and this satire was adorned with compositions of music, and
with dances; but lascivious postures were banished from it. In the
Tuscan language, says Livy, the word _hister_ signifies a player;
and therefore those actors, which were first brought from Etruria to
Rome, on occasion of a pestilence, when the Romans were admonished to
avert the anger of the Gods by plays, in the year _ab urbe condita_
CCCXC.,--those actors, I say, were therefore called _histriones_; and
that name has since remained, not only to actors Roman born, but to all
others of every nation. They played not the former _extempore_ stuff of
Fescennine verses, or clownish jests; but what they acted was a kind
of civil, cleanly farce, with music and dances, and motions that were
proper to the subject.
In this condition Livius Andronicus found the stage, when he attempted
first, instead of farces, to supply it with a nobler entertainment of
tragedies and comedies. This man was a Grecian born, and being made a
slave by Livius Salinator, and brought to Rome, had the education of
his patron's children committed to him; which trust he discharged so
much to the satisfaction of his master, that he gave him his liberty.
Andronicus, thus become a freeman of Rome, added to his own name
that of Livius his master; and, as I observed, was the first author
of a regular play in that commonwealth. Being already instructed,
in his native country, in the manners and decencies of the Athenian
theatre, and conversant in the _Archæa Comoedia_, or old comedy of
Aristophanes, and the rest of the Grecian poets, he took from that
model his own designing of plays for the Roman stage; the first of
which was represented in the year CCCCCXIV., since the building of
Rome, as Tully, from the commentaries of Atticus, has assured us: it
was after the end of the first Punic war, the year before Ennius was
born. Dacier has not carried the matter altogether thus far; he only
says, that one Livius Andronicus was the first stage-poet at Rome. But
I will adventure on this hint, to advance another proposition, which
I hope the learned will approve. And though we have not any thing of
Andronicus remaining to justify my conjecture, yet it is exceedingly
probable, that, having read the works of those Grecian wits, his
countrymen, he imitated not only the ground work, but also the manner
of their writing; and how grave soever his tragedies might be, yet,
in his comedies, he expressed the way of Aristophanes, Eupolis, and
the rest, which was to call some persons by their own names, and to
expose their defects to the laughter of the people: the examples of
which we have in the forementioned Aristophanes, who turned the wise
Socrates into ridicule, and is also very free with the management of
Cleon, Alcibiades, and other ministers of the Athenian government.
Now, if this be granted, we may easily suppose, that the first hint of
satirical plays on the Roman stage was given by the Greeks: not from
the Satirica, for that has been reasonably exploded in the former part
of this discourse: but from their old comedy, which was imitated first
by Livius Andronicus. And then Quintilian and Horace must be cautiously
interpreted, where they affirm, that satire is wholly Roman, and a sort
of verse, which was not touched on by the Grecians. The reconcilement
of my opinion to the standard of their judgment is not, however, very
difficult, since they spoke of satire, not as in its first elements,
but as it was formed into a separate work; begun by Ennius, pursued by
Lucilius, and completed afterwards by Horace. The proof depends only
on this _postulatum_,--that the comedies of Andronicus, which were
imitations of the Greek, were also imitations of their railleries, and
reflections on particular persons. For, if this be granted me, which is
a most probable supposition, it is easy to infer, that the first light
which was given to the Roman theatrical satire, was from the plays of
Livius Andronicus; which will be more manifestly discovered, when I
come to speak of Ennius. In the meantime I will return to Dacier.
The people, says he, ran in crowds to these new entertainments of
Andronicus, as to pieces which were more noble in their kind, and more
perfect than their former satires, which for some time they neglected
and abandoned. But not long after, they took them up again, and then
they joined them to their comedies; playing them at the end of every
drama, as the French continue at this day to act their farces, in
the nature of a separate entertainment from their tragedies. But more
particularly they were joined to the _Atellane_ fables, says Casaubon;
which were plays invented by the Osci. Those fables, says Valerius
Maximus, out of Livy, were tempered with the Italian severity, and free
from any note of infamy, or obsceneness; and, as an old commentator
of Juvenal affirms, the _Exodiarii_, which were singers and dancers,
entered to entertain the people with light songs, and mimical gestures,
that they might not go away oppressed with melancholy, from those
serious pieces of the theatre. So that the ancient satire of the Romans
was in _extempore_ reproaches; the next was farce, which was brought
from Tuscany; to that succeeded the plays of Andronicus, from the
old comedy of the Grecians; and out of all these sprung two several
branches of new Roman satire, like different scions from the same root,
which I shall prove with as much brevity as the subject will allow.
A year after Andronicus had opened the Roman stage with his new dramas,
Ennius was born; who, when he was grown to man's estate, having
seriously considered the genius of the people, and how eagerly they
followed the first satires, thought it would be worth his pains to
refine upon the project, and to write Satires, not to be acted on the
theatre, but read. He preserved the ground-work of their pleasantry,
their venom, and their raillery on particular persons, and general
vices; and by this means, avoiding the danger of any ill success in a
public representation, he hoped to be as well received in the cabinet,
as Andronicus had been upon the stage. The event was answerable to his
expectation. He made discourses in several sorts of verse, varied often
in the same paper; retaining still in the title their original name of
Satire. Both in relation to the subjects, and the variety of matters
contained in them, the Satires of Horace are entirely like them; only
Ennius, as I said, confines not himself to one sort of verse, as Horace
does; but, taking example from the Greeks, and even from Homer himself
in his MARGITES, which is a kind of Satire, as Scaliger observes,
gives himself the licence, when one sort of numbers comes not easily,
to run into another, as his fancy dictates. For he makes no difficulty
to mingle hexameter with iambick trimeters, or with trochaick
tetrameters; as appears by those fragments which are yet remaining of
him. Horace has thought him worthy to be copied; inserting many things
of his into his own Satires, as Virgil has done into his Æneids.
Here we have Dacier making out that Ennius was the first satirist
in that way of writing, which was of his invention; that is, satire
abstracted from the stage, and new modelled into papers of verses
on several subjects. But he will have Ennius take the ground-work
of satire from the first farces of the Romans, rather than from the
formed plays of Livius Andronicus, which were copied from the Grecian
comedies. It may possibly be so; but Dacier knows no more of it than
I do. And it seems to me the more probable opinion, that he rather
imitated the fine railleries of the Greeks, which he saw in the pieces
of Andronicus, than the coarseness of his old countrymen, in their
clownish extemporary way of jeering.
But besides this, it is universally granted, that Ennius, though an
Italian, was excellently learned in the Greek language. His verses
were stuffed with fragments of it, even to a fault; and he himself
believed, according to the Pythagorean opinion, that the soul of
Homer was transfused into him; which Persius observes, in his Sixth
Satire:--_Postquam destertuit esse Mæonides_. But this being only
the private opinion of so inconsiderable a man as I am, I leave it to
the farther disquisition of the critics, if they think it worth their
notice. Most evident it is, that whether he imitated the Roman farce,
or the Greek comedies, he is to be acknowledged for the first author of
Roman satire, as it is properly so called, and distinguished from any
sort of stage-play.
Of Pacuvius, who succeeded him, there is little to be said, because
there is so little remaining of him; only that he is taken to be
the nephew of Ennius, his sister's son; that in probability he was
instructed by his uncle, in his way of satire, which we are told he has
copied: but what advances he made we know not.
Lucilius came into the world, when Pacuvius flourished most. He also
made satires after the manner of Ennius, but he gave them a more
graceful turn, and endeavoured to imitate more closely the _vetus
comoedia_ of the Greeks, of the which the old original Roman satire had
no idea, till the time of Livius Andronicus. And though Horace seems
to have made Lucilius the first author of satire in verse amongst the
Romans, in these words,--
----_Quid? cum est Lucilius ausus
Primus in hunc, operis componere carmina morem_,--
he is only thus to be understood; that Lucilius had given a more
graceful turn to the satire of Ennius and Pacuvius, not that he
invented a new satire of his own: and Quintilian seems to explain this
passage of Horace in these words: _Satira quidem tota nostra est; in
quâ primus insignem laudem adeptus est Lucilius_.
Thus, both Horace and Quintilian give a kind of primacy of honour to
Lucilius, amongst the Latin satirists.[21] For, as the Roman language
grew more refined, so much more capable it was of receiving the
Grecian beauties, in his time. Horace and Quintilian could mean no
more, than that Lucilius writ better than Ennius and Pacuvius; and on
the same account we prefer Horace to Lucilius. Both of them imitated
the old Greek comedy; and so did Ennius and Pacuvius before them. The
polishing of the Latin tongue, in the succession of times, made the
only difference; and Horace himself, in two of his Satires, written
purposely on this subject, thinks the Romans of his age were too
partial in their commendations of Lucilius; who writ not only loosely,
and muddily, with little art, and much less care, but also in a time
when the Latin tongue was not yet sufficiently purged from the dregs of
barbarism; and many significant and sounding words, which the Romans
wanted, were not admitted even in the times of Lucretius and Cicero, of
which both complain.
But to proceed:--Dacier justly taxes Casaubon, saying, that the Satires
of Lucilius were wholly different in specie, from those of Ennius
and Pacuvius. Casaubon was led into that mistake by Diomedes the
grammarian, who in effect says this: "Satire amongst the Romans, but
not amongst the Greeks, was a biting invective poem, made after the
model of the ancient comedy, for the reprehension of vices; such as
were the poems of Lucilius, of Horace, and of Persius. But in former
times, the name of Satire was given to poems, which were composed of
several sorts of verses, such as were made by Ennius and Pacuvius;
more fully expressing the etymology of the word satire, from _satura_,
which we have observed." Here it is manifest, that Diomedes makes a
specifical distinction betwixt the Satires of Ennius, and those of
Lucilius. But this, as we say in English, is only a distinction without
a difference; for the reason of it is ridiculous, and absolutely
false. This was that which cozened honest Casaubon, who, relying on
Diomedes, had not sufficiently examined the origin and nature of those
two satires; which were entirely the same, both in the matter and the
form: for all that Lucilius performed beyond his predecessors, Ennius
and Pacuvius, was only the adding of more politeness, and more salt,
without any change in the substance of the poem. And though Lucilius
put not together in the same satire several sorts of verses, as Ennius
did, yet he composed several satires, of several sorts of verses, and
mingled them with Greek verses: one poem consisted only of hexameters,
and another was entirely of iambicks; a third of trochaicks; as is
visible by the fragments yet remaining of his works. In short, if the
Satires of Lucilius are therefore said to be wholly different from
those of Ennius, because he added much more of beauty and polishing
to his own poems, than are to be found in those before him, it will
follow from hence, that the Satires of Horace are wholly different from
those of Lucilius, because Horace has not less surpassed Lucilius in
the elegancy of his writing, than Lucilius surpassed Ennius in the turn
and ornament of his. This passage of Diomedes has also drawn Dousa, the
son, into the same error of Casaubon, which I say, not to expose the
little failings of those judicious men, but only to make it appear,
with how much diffidence and caution we are to read their works, when
they treat a subject of so much obscurity, and so very ancient, as is
this of satire.
Having thus brought down the history of Satire from its original to
the times of Horace, and shown the several changes of it, I should
here discover some of those graces which Horace added to it, but that
I think it will be more proper to defer that undertaking, till I make
the comparison betwixt him and Juvenal. In the mean while, following
the order of time, it will be necessary to say somewhat of another
kind of satire, which also was descended from the ancients; it is that
which we call the Varronian satire, (but which Varro himself calls the
Menippean,) because Varro, the most learned of the Romans, was the
first author of it, who imitated, in his works, the manner of Menippus
the Gadarenian, who professed the philosophy of the Cynicks.
This sort of satire was not only composed of several sorts of verse,
like those of Ennius, but was also mixed with prose; and Greek was
sprinkled amongst the Latin. Quintilian, after he had spoken of the
satire of Lucilius, adds what follows; "There is another and former
kind of satire, composed by Terentius Varro, the most learned of
the Romans; in which he was not satisfied alone with mingling in it
several sorts of verse." The only difficulty of this passage is,
that Quintilian tells us, that this satire of Varro was of a former
kind. For how can we possibly imagine this to be, since Varro, who
was contemporary to Cicero, must consequently be after Lucilius?
But Quintilian meant not, that the satire of Varro was in order of
time before Lucilius; he would only give us to understand, that the
Varronian satire, with mixture of several sorts of verses, was more
after the manner of Ennius and Pacuvius, than that of Lucilius, who was
more severe, and more correct; and gave himself less liberty in the
mixture of his verses in the same poem.
We have nothing remaining of those Varronian satires, excepting some
inconsiderable fragments, and those for the most part much corrupted.
The titles of many of them are indeed preserved, and they are generally
double; from whence, at least, we may understand, how many various
subjects were treated by that author. Tully, in his "Academics,"
introduces Varro himself giving us some light concerning the scope and
design of those works. Wherein, after he had shown his reasons why
he did not _ex professo_ write of philosophy, he adds what follows:
"Notwithstanding," says he, "that those pieces of mine, wherein I have
imitated Menippus, though I have not translated him, are sprinkled
with a kind of mirth and gaiety, yet many things are there inserted,
which are drawn from the very entrails of philosophy, and many things
severely argued; which I have mingled with pleasantries on purpose,
that they may more easily go down with the common sort of unlearned
readers." The rest of the sentence is so lame, that we can only make
thus much out of it,--that in the composition of his satires, he so
tempered philology with philosophy, that his work was a mixture of
them both.[22] And Tully himself confirms us in this opinion, when a
little after he addresses himself to Varro in these words:--"And you
yourself have composed a most elegant and complete poem; you have
begun philosophy in many places; sufficient to incite us, though too
little to instruct us." Thus it appears, that Varro was one of those
writers whom they called #spoudogeloioi#, studious of laughter; and
that, as learned as he was, his business was more to divert his reader,
than to teach him. And he entitled his own satires--Menippean; not
that Menippus had written any satires, (for his were either dialogues
or epistles,) but that Varro imitated his style, his manner, his
facetiousness. All that we know farther of Menippus and his writings,
which are wholly lost, is, that by some he is esteemed, as, amongst
the rest, by Varro; by others he is noted of cynical impudence, and
obscenity: that he was much given to those parodies, which I have
already mentioned; that is, he often quoted the verses of Homer and the
tragic poets, and turned their serious meaning into something that
was ridiculous; whereas Varro's satires are by Tully called absolute,
and most elegant, and various poems. Lucian, who was emulous of this
Menippus, seems to have imitated both his manners and his style in
many of his dialogues; where Menippus himself is often introduced as a
speaker in them, and as a perpetual buffoon; particularly his character
is expressed in the beginning of that dialogue, which is called
#Nekyomantia#. But Varro, in imitating him, avoids his impudence and
filthiness, and only expresses his witty pleasantry.