NERVA AND TRAJAN
Nerva, 96-98 A. D.—Trajan, 98-117 A. D.—Tacitus, about 55 to
about 118 A. D.—Juvenal, 55 (?) to about 135 A. D.—Pliny the
younger, 61 or 62 to 112 or 113 A. D.—Other writers.
[Sidenote: Nerva and Trajan.] Under Nerva (96-98 A. D.) and Trajan
(98-117 A. D.) freedom of speech and literary utterance, which had
been banished under the tyranny of Domitian, were restored. Nerva and
Trajan were educated men. Nothing remains of Nerva’s poems, which led
Martial to call him “the Tibullus of our times,” and Trajan’s history
of the Dacian War is also, unfortunately, lost. Trajan’s replies to
the letters of the younger Pliny show that he could write in a clear,
concise, and business-like manner, but exhibit no further literary
qualities. He paid attention to the education of the young and founded
the Ulpian library, but was not a man of marked literary tastes.
Under Nerva and Trajan literature was allowed to take its own course
without hindrance and also without that imperial patronage which
sometimes stifles free utterance quite as effectually as severity or
intimidation. Nevertheless there was little literary production of any
importance. There were many writers, but most of them have left not
even their names to posterity. The only authors of literary importance
under these emperors are Tacitus, Juvenal, and the younger Pliny.
[Sidenote: Tacitus.] Cornelius Tacitus[105] was born, according to
such evidence as exists, in 55 or 56 A. D. The place of his birth is
not recorded, and nothing certain is known of his family; but his
education, his career, and his marriage to the daughter of Agricola all
combine to indicate that he belonged to a family of some importance.
His marriage took place in 78 A. D., one year after the consulship of
Agricola. Tacitus began his official career under Vespasian, continued
it under Titus, and reached the rank of prætor under Domitian, in 88
A. D. Under Trajan, in 97 A. D., he was appointed _consul suffectus_,
and about 112-116 A. D. he was proconsul of Asia. His death took place
probably not long after 117 A. D. He had a great reputation as a
public speaker, as is evident from the fact that in 97 or 98 A. D. he
delivered the funeral oration over Verginius Rufus, and it was probably
due in great measure to his eloquence that in 100 A. D. he and Pliny
accomplished the conviction of Marius Priscus, proconsul of Africa,
for extortion. It was not without knowledge of public affairs that
Tacitus turned to the writing of history, nor was it without practical
knowledge of oratory that he wrote the dialogue _De Oratoribus_.
[Sidenote: Works of Tacitus. The Dialogus.] The works of Tacitus in
the order of composition are the _Dialogue on Orators_ (_Dialogus de
Oratoribus_), the dramatic date of which is 75 A. D., while the date of
composition is uncertain; the _Germania_, published in 98 A. D.; the
_Agricola_, written early in the reign of Trajan, probably in 98 A. D.;
the _Histories_, written under Trajan, and apparently not completed
much before 110 A. D.; and the _Annals_, published between 115 and
117 A. D. The _Dialogue on Orators_ is an inquiry into the causes of
the decay of oratory. In form it is an imitation of Cicero’s famous
dialogue _De Oratore_, and the style also imitates that of Cicero. In
this respect the dialogue is so unlike the later works of Tacitus that
his authorship has been denied by many scholars. It must, however, be
remembered that this is his earliest work, and that the Ciceronian
style was taught in the school of Quintilian and no doubt in other
schools at Rome, so that an imitation of Cicero was a natural beginning
for a young author. Moreover, there are in the dialogue traces of the
later style of Tacitus, which is distinguished for its epigrammatic
utterances and its frequent use of innuendo. The work may therefore be
unhesitatingly ascribed to Tacitus. It is an interesting and attractive
dialogue, in which the quiet life of the poet is contrasted with the
more active career of the orator before the real subject—the reasons
for the decay of oratory—is discussed. The conclusion is reached
that oratory has declined partly on account of the faulty rhetorical
education in vogue, but still more because the orator no longer has
under the imperial government the influence and power that belonged to
his predecessors in the days of the republic.
[Sidenote: The Agricola.] The _Agricola_ (_De Vita et Moribus Iulii
Agricolæ_) is a biography and panegyric of Gnæus Julius Agricola,
Tacitus’s father-in-law. In the introduction Tacitus gives his reasons
for having written nothing during the reign of Domitian. The passage
deserves to be quoted, not only as a specimen of Tacitus’s style, but
because it places in a clear light his view of the imperial government
in the first century. Throughout the _Histories_ and the _Annals_ his
attitude is the same, and his genius has imposed his view upon all
later times. Under Domitian two eminent Stoics, Arulenus Rusticus and
Herennius Priscus, had been put to death and their works publicly
burned. Tacitus mentions this and then expresses himself as follows:
They thought forsooth that in that fire the voice of the Roman
people and the freedom of the senate and the conscience of the
human race were being consumed, especially since the teachers
of philosophy had been banished and every good profession
driven into exile, that nothing honorable might offend them.
We have indeed given a great proof of our patience; and
just as the ancient time saw the utmost limit of liberty,
so we have seen the utmost limit of servitude, when even
the intercourse of speech and hearing was taken away by the
inquisitions. And with our speech we should have lost even
our very memory, if we had been as able to forget as to keep
silent. Now at last our courage has returned, but although ...
Trajan is daily adding to the blessedness of the times, ...
and the state has gained confidence and strength, nevertheless
by the nature of human weakness remedies are slower than
diseases; and just as our bodies grow slowly, but are quickly
destroyed, so you can oppress genius and learning more quickly
than you can revive them. For the charm of sloth also comes
over us, and the inactivity we hated at first grows dear at
last. Throughout fifteen years, a great part of the life of
man, many have fallen through chance mishaps, and all the most
energetic ones by the cruelty of the emperor, and a few of us
are left, so to speak, as survivors not only of the others,
but even of ourselves, since there have been taken out of our
lives so many years, in which we who were youths have passed
to old age and as old men have almost reached the limit of
life itself without a word.[106]
Agricola was not a great man either in intellect or in force of
character. Moreover, he had lived through the reign of Domitian in
safety by not opposing the will of the tyrant. Naturally it was hard
to write a panegyric on such a man which should interest and please
the public. But Tacitus, by laying the chief stress upon Agricola’s
successful administration in Britain, which is prefaced by an account
of the country and of the previous Roman expeditions thither, made
of his panegyric a genuine bit of history with Agricola, the most
prominent person in it. Thus the reader’s interest is kept alive and
the writer’s purpose accomplished. The work closes with an eloquent and
beautiful apostrophe to Agricola.
When he wrote the _Agricola_, Tacitus was already planning a great
history of his own times, for which he had at least begun to accumulate
materials. [Sidenote: The Germania.] In the _Germania_ (_De Origine
Situ Moribus ac Populis Germaniæ_) the material collected to serve as
introductory to the account of the wars in Germany is published as
a separate work. The little treatise is interesting as the earliest
extant connected account of the country and inhabitants of northern
Europe. A few of the statements contained in it are manifestly
incorrect, but for the most part, what Tacitus tells us agrees with
and supplements what we know from other sources. The essay is a
compilation from various earlier works, among which Pliny’s _History
of the German Wars_ was no doubt the most important, though Tacitus
probably consulted the works of Cæsar, Velleius Paterculus, and others,
besides obtaining information from some of the many Romans who had
served in the army in Germany. There is no indication that Tacitus
was ever in Germany himself. As a literary production the _Germania_
is far inferior to the _Agricola_, though written at about the same
time. In the _Agricola_ Tacitus expresses his own feelings for his
father-in-law, whom he evidently loved and respected, while in the
_Germania_ there is little room for feeling of any sort, and none for
emotion. Yet, with all the difference in literary merit, the two works
show the style of Tacitus at the same stage. There are still some
remnants of Ciceronian smoothness, but these are evidently survivals.
The tendency to use concise, even abbreviated phrases, to add point
to expressions by verbal antithesis or by inversion of order, and to
make his sentences imply more than the words actually express, is
characteristic of Tacitus’s mature style and is evident, though not yet
fully developed, in the _Agricola_ and the _Germania_ alike.
[Sidenote: The great history.] At least as early as 98 A. D. Tacitus
planned to write a history of his own times. His original purpose was
to begin with the accession of Galba and continue in chronological
order. But after completing the history of the period from Galba to
the death of Domitian (68-96 A. D.) he went back to the death of
Augustus, and wrote the history of the time to the accession of Galba
(14-68 A. D.). He intended to write the history of the reigns of Nerva
and Trajan, but never did so. The part of the work first completed,
treating of the events of the author’s own lifetime, is entitled
_Histories_ (_Historiæ_); the part written later, but treating of the
earlier period, is usually called the _Annals_ (_Annales_), though its
proper title is _Ab Excessu Divi Augusti_, in imitation of the title
of Livy’s history, _Ab Urbe Condita_. The two together consisted of
thirty books, of which fourteen belong to the _Histories_ and sixteen
to the _Annals_. Of the _Annals_, the following parts are preserved:
Books I-IV and the beginning of Book V, from the death of Augustus
to the year 29 A. D., Book VI, with the exception of the beginning,
carrying on the story to the death of Tiberius, and Books XI-XVI, from
47-66 A. D., though this long fragment is mutilated at the beginning
and the end. The account of the reign of Caligula is lost, as is that
of the first seven years of the reign of Claudius, and of somewhat more
than two years at the end of the reign of Nero. Of the _Histories_ only
the first four books and part of the fifth remain, and this important
fragment is preserved in only one manuscript. It contains the history
of little more than one year, the memorable year 68-69 A. D., in which
Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, in quick succession, gained the imperial
power and lost their lives, to be followed by Vespasian.
[Sidenote: The Annals.] In the _Annals_, dealing with a period before
his own recollection, Tacitus treats the history of Rome and the
empire as if it were directed by the wishes, the whims, and caprices
of a few individuals. He depicts the character of Tiberius and the
court of Nero in vivid and lurid colors. The court intrigues, the
judicial and private murders, the licentiousness and corruption of
the capital are spread before us with all the power of his brilliant
and incisive style. These things appear as the most important matters
in the history of the time. Modern scholars have, with the aid of
inscriptions, found that the Roman empire was, throughout this period,
ably and peaceably administered by permanent officials, and was little
affected by the terror that reigned in the capital. But for Tacitus,
Rome was the empire. The provinces were in the dim distance and had
in his eyes little historical importance. That his view of history is
narrow and distorted is clear; yet his genius has made it for centuries
the only accepted view of Roman history under the early emperors.
In the _Histories_, dealing with his own times, he sees things more
clearly. The uprising of the Batavians under Civilis and the war in
Palestine are treated with as much detail as the sanguinary struggles
in Rome, though here also the influence of the characters and acts of
individuals upon the irresistible course of history is overrated. This
view of history, which makes events depend too much upon individuals,
joined with a pessimism which sees hidden motives behind even innocent
or indifferent acts, is the great defect of Tacitus as an historian.
His information is carefully collected, though, as a rule, he neglects
all mention of his authorities. In preparing his account of the Jews
in the fifth book of the _Histories_ he relied apparently upon hearsay
and upon other untrustworthy sources of information, without referring
to the Septuagint or to Josephus, but similar carelessness can not be
proved in other parts of his work.
[Sidenote: Style of Tacitus.] His style is impregnated with the words
and phrases of the classical writers, especially of Virgil, and with
the rhetorical teaching of the Silver Age, and yet it is thoroughly
individual. It is concise, sharp, and cutting, but often grandly poetic
in its eloquence; it is apparently straightforward, yet somehow often
reveals a half-hidden meaning; it is carefully elaborated, yet it
affects the reader with rugged earnestness. Such a style is almost
inimitable, whether by writers of Latin or by translators. It has been
compared to that of Carlyle, and the comparison is worth mentioning,
though it should not be pushed too far. Few prose works contain more
epigrammatic sentences than those of Tacitus. Examples are: “Traitors
are hated, even by those whom they advance”;[107] “None grieve more
ostentatiously than those who are most delighted in their hearts”;[108]
“Princes are mortal, the state eternal”;[109] “When the state was most
corrupt the laws were most numerous”;[110] “New men rather than new
measures”;[111] “Vices will exist as long as men”;[112] “Fame does
not always err; sometimes it chooses.”[113] Endowed, as he was, with
striking stylistic ability, writing, in fact, in a style which could
not fail to arouse the interest and hold the attention of his readers,
it is no wonder that Tacitus succeeded in imposing upon the world his
views of history, which can be only partially corrected by the careful
study and interpretation of fragmentary records.
[Sidenote: Juvenal.] Juvenal can hardly be separated from Tacitus.
Both depict the life of Rome in the same lurid light, and the picture
presented by each agrees with that of the other. Juvenal’s diatribes
seem to illustrate the statements of Tacitus, and Tacitus shows that
Juvenal’s violence is justified by the facts. Of Juvenal’s life little
is known. His full name is given in some manuscripts as Decimus Iunius
Iuvenalis. One _vita_ or _life_ gives the date of his birth as 55 A.
D., which may be correct, though there is no especial reason to regard
it as exact. He was born at Aquinum, a town of the Volscians, where
he held the offices of _duumvir quinquennalis_ and of _flamen Divi
Vespasiani_. He was also at one time a military tribune, serving with
the first Dalmatian cohort, perhaps in Britain. This military service
probably belongs to his youth, and the local offices to his later
life. He evidently received a good education, and he appears to have
practised oratory for some years. Martial, who mentions him several
times, speaks of him as eloquent, not as poetic or satirical. The
_lives_ agree in stating that he was banished, but not in regard to the
time or place of his banishment. He came to Rome about 90 A. D., was
still there in 101 A. D., and probably spent part of some of the later
years in the capital. At Rome he lived in the Subura, the plebeian
quarter, but had access to the houses of rich nobles. His satires were
written between 100 and 127 A. D., and he died about 135 A. D.
[Sidenote: The Satires.] Juvenal is the harshest and most violent of
the four great Roman satirists. Lucilius was outspoken and sometimes
bitter, but aimed to correct while he rebuked the follies of his time;
Horace soon lost all bitterness and expressed good-humored raillery;
Persius derived his themes from books and preached Stoic doctrines; but
Juvenal attacks Roman society in fierce and biting verses, shrinking
from no gruesome or indecent detail, showing no humor save of the
grimmest and harshest sort, and with no hope of correcting the evils
he depicts. He has all the variety of phrase of the accomplished
rhetorician, and his lines have a rolling grandeur almost Virgilian. He
shows, indeed, the influence of Virgil more than of any other previous
writer, though traces of Homer, Herodotus, Plato, nearly all the
Roman poets, and among Roman prose writers Cicero, Valerius Maximus,
and Seneca are found in his satires. The violence of his satires is,
however, not directed against his contemporaries. He seems to have in
mind rather the Rome of Domitian than that of Trajan or Hadrian, under
whose rule he wrote. The sixteen satires are divided into five books.
Book I (Satires i-v) not earlier than 100 A. D., and Book II (Satire
vi) not before 116 A. D. These are the most powerful, most violent,
and least agreeable books. Book III (Satires vii-ix) was written about
120, Book IV (Satires x-xii) about 125, and Book V (Satires xiii-xvi)
in 127 A. D. In these three books there is less virulence, but also
less power than in the first two. Old age brought with it a loss at
once of fierceness and of strength.
[Sidenote: Contents of the Satires.] In the first satire, Juvenal gives
his reasons for writing as he does. He is tired of listening to endless
epics, and the corruptions of the time are such that “it is difficult
not to write satire,”[114] and “indignation makes verse.”[115] The
evils to be attacked are enumerated in a series of rapidly sketched
pictures, and the poet declares that “all that men do, their hope,
fear, wrath, pleasure, joys, and gaddings make up the medley of my
book.”[116] And in the following satires the faults of men, the dangers
of the city, the court of Domitian, the pride of wealth, the crimes of
women, the lack of honor paid to intellect, the worthlessness of noble
birth without virtue, unnatural lust, the shortsightedness of human
wishes, the wrong of setting children a bad example, and other striking
features of the life of Rome are vividly presented and ruthlessly
attacked. One of the most interesting satires is the third, in which
the dangers of the city are described. A man who is leaving Rome for a
small country town gives reasons for his departure:
What should I do at Rome? I can not lie;
I can not praise a book that’s bad and beg
A copy of it; I am ignorant
Of the motions of the stars; I neither will
Nor can make promise of a father’s death.[117]
The dirty streets, the water dripping from the aqueduct, the risk
from falling tiles or household vessels, the drunken brawls in the
streets, the rich man escorted home by clients and slaves with flaming
torches, the danger from robbers—these and many other details of
the ill regulated capital are set before us. This satire is imitated
by Johnson in his _London_, which has rightly been called one of the
finest modern imitations of an ancient poem, and the same author’s poem
on _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ is a less accurate, though not less
admirable, imitation of Juvenal’s tenth satire. The closing passage of
the tenth satire, in which the poet tells what are the proper objects
of prayer, is a lofty utterance of human wisdom. The most savage of all
the satires is, on the other hand, the sixth, in which the crimes of
women are held up to execration.
It is not easy for the modern reader to enjoy Juvenal. His satires
are full of allusions to unknown persons and things at Rome; they
abound also in mythological references and literary reminiscences, and
finally the savage tone of the earlier books is disagreeable. Yet the
power of invective, the clearness and vividness of description, the
variety of diction, and the beauty of versification have combined to
make Juvenal a much read author. That he is also much quoted is due to
the epigrammatic and pointed form of many of his phrases. _Mens sana
in corpore sano_,[118] _Rara avis_,[119] _Panem et circenses_,[120]
_Hoc volo, sic iubeo_,[121] _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_[122]
are among the most familiar Latin quotations, and many other almost
equally familiar expressions are derived from Juvenal. Some of these
are distinguished for their significance quite as much as for their
form. Such are, for instance: “_And for the sake of life give up life’s
only end_”[123] and “_The greatest reverence is due a child._”[124] It
is not without reason that Juvenal has exerted great influence on human
thought.
Tacitus and Juvenal resemble each other in their originality and vigor
of thought and expression, their severe judgment of men and manners,
and their pessimism. [Sidenote: Pliny the younger.] The younger Pliny
contrasts with them in all these respects, and his letters give us an
idea of Roman life very different from that which we derive from them.
Gaius Plinius Cæcilius Secundus was the son of Lucius Cæcilius Cilo,
a wealthy nobleman of Comum, but was adopted by will by his uncle,
the elder Pliny. He therefore changed his name, which was originally
Publius Cæcilius Secundus, and took that of his uncle, retaining his
original family name, Cæcilius, only for legal and formal use. He was
born in 61 or 62 A. D., for he was in his eighteenth year when the
eruption of Vesuvius took place, August 24, 79 A. D. Cilo had died
when Pliny was young, and the boy had become the ward of Verginius
Rufus, which fact did not, however, diminish the paternal interest of
his uncle, with whom he was at the time of the eruption. Pliny began
his career as an advocate in 80 or 81 A. D. He held various offices,
was military tribune, quæstor in 89-90 A. D., tribune of the people
in 90-91 A. D., prætor in 93 A. D., was one of the prefects in charge
of the war treasury and also of the general treasury, became consul
in 100 A. D., and succeeded Sextus Julius Frontinus in the college
of augurs in 103 or 104 A. D. He was governor of Pontus and Bithynia
either in 111-112 or 112-113 A. D., and died before 114 A. D., either
in his province or soon after his return to Italy. His life was passed
chiefly in the service of the government, and for the most part at
Rome. He was married three times, but had no children. He was an orator
of some importance, delivering most of his speeches in inheritance
cases, though he was employed five times in important criminal
suits. He recited his speeches before delivering them in public, and
after delivery he published them, sometimes with corrections. He was
interested in poetry, and wrote poems of various kinds, but these, as
well as his speeches, with the exception of his panegyric on Trajan,
are lost.
[Sidenote: Pliny’s letters.] Pliny’s extant works consist of nine books
of letters to various persons, written between 97 and 109 A. D., a
panegyric on the Emperor Trajan, delivered in 100 A. D. when
Pliny was made consul, and seventy-two letters to Trajan, written
between 98 and 106, and from September, 111, to January, 113 A. D.
Trajan’s replies to fifty-one of these letters are published which
exhibit his firm judgment and practical common sense in striking
contrast to Pliny’s indecision and lack of independence. Pliny’s
other letters are more interesting. He describes the scenes in the
Roman courts, the gatherings where the audience was bored by authors
who recited their works, he gives detailed descriptions of his
Laurentine[125] and Tuscan[126] villas, in two letters[127] to Tacitus
he gives an account of the eruption of Vesuvius, his uncle’s death,
and his own feelings. Incidentally he throws much light upon the
social and family life of the time. His own character is also clearly
portrayed. What a young prig he must have been who refused his uncle’s
invitation to accompany him to see, from a nearer point of view, the
great eruption, preferring to spend his time over his books, and who
even continued to make extracts when awakened by the terrible quaking
of the earth—and this at seventeen years of age! His vanity is
beautifully exhibited in another letter to Tacitus,[128] in which he
tells a story to his own credit, and hopes that Tacitus will insert it
in the _Histories_, and in still another,[129] where he says to the
most original and inimitable of all Roman writers since the Augustan
times, “You, such is the similarity of our natures, always seemed to me
most easy to imitate and most to be imitated. Wherefore I am the more
pleased that, if there is any talk about literature, we are mentioned
together, that I occur at once to those who are speaking of you.” Other
qualities appear no less clearly. Vain he was and fond of praise, but
at the same time kind to his slaves, affectionate to his friends,
gentle, and conscientious. He seldom speaks unkindly of any one; and
when he utters a sharp criticism, he almost always avoids mentioning
the name of the person criticized. The love of nature was fashionable
at Rome, and Pliny may be only following the fashion when he writes
of natural scenery, but it is quite as probable that he really felt
its charms. He had a great admiration for Cicero, and it was doubtless
owing, in part, at least, to this admiration that Pliny, like Cicero,
published his letters. There is, however, a great difference between
the two collections. Cicero’s letters were collected and published
by others, whereas Pliny’s were from the beginning intended for
publication and were published at various times by Pliny himself. They
are therefore not unpremeditated utterances, but carefully prepared
writings for the perusal of the public. Nevertheless the epistolary
style is well preserved, though not without some pedantic elegance, and
the letters give us the same insight into Roman life under Trajan as do
those of Cicero into the life of the last years of the republic.
[Sidenote: The Panegyric.] The _Panegyric on Trajan_ was delivered
as the official expression of thanks on the part of Pliny and his
colleague Cornutus Tertullus for their elevation to the consulate.
After the speech was delivered it was revised and enlarged. It is
therefore in its extant form neither a speech nor an historical essay,
but a mixture of the two. After an introduction, Trajan’s acts before
his entrance into Rome are recounted, then his entrance into the city,
and his many political, municipal, and financial measures for the good
of the state. Trajan’s personal qualities are praised in the most
fulsome manner and those of Domitian set forth in the most hateful
light. Then comes an account of Trajan’s second and third consulships,
his care for the provinces, and his judicial acts, with traits of his
private life. The speech or treatise ends with the expression of thanks
from Pliny and his colleague. The _Panegyric_ is not an attractive
production, but it is the chief source of information concerning the
history of the earlier years of Trajan’s rule.
Though not a great man nor a great writer, Pliny was a cultivated
gentleman and a useful citizen. His letters make us acquainted with
Roman life from a side that Tacitus and Juvenal leave practically
untouched. They are therefore not only interesting, but, as historical
documents of great importance. Besides Tacitus, Juvenal, and Pliny,
there are no writers of the time of Trajan who deserve more than
passing mention. [Sidenote: Other writers.] The names of numerous
poets are preserved, chiefly in Pliny’s letters, but their works are
lost, and we have no reason to believe that they merited preservation.
Orators, jurists, and grammarians continued speaking and writing, and
some among them attained eminence, but their works are lost for the
most part, and the technical treatises on grammar which are preserved
possess little interest for the student of literature. The same remark
applies to the treatises on surveying and on the fortification of camps
by Hyginus, on geometry by Balbus, and on surveying by Siculus Flaccus.
The literature of the period between the death of Domitian and the
accession of Hadrian is contained in the works of Tacitus, Juvenal, and
Pliny.