PAGAN LITERATURE OF THE THIRD CENTURY
Terentianus, about 200 A. D.—Quintus Serenus Sammonicus, about
200 A. D.—Nemesianus, 283 A. D.—Reposianus, toward 300 A.
D.—Vespa, late in the third century—Hosidius Geta, early in the
third century—Disticha Catonis—Marius Maximus, about 165-230
A. D.—Ælius Julius Cordus, about 250 A. D.—The _Historia
Augusta_—Domitius Ulpianus, killed 228 A. D.—Julius Paulus,
first half of third century—Cornelius Labeo—Quintus Gargilius
Martialis—Censorinus, 238 A. D.—Gaius Julius Solinus—Gaius
Julius Romanus, early third century—Marius Plotius Sacerdos,
latter part of third century—Aquila Romanus—Ælius Festus
Aphthonius, end of third century—The panegyrists: Eumenius,
Nazarius, Mamertinus, Drepanius.
[Sidenote: Pagan poetry of the third century.] While Christian
literature was developing in the third century the pagan literature
dragged on its senile existence. There was little poetry that deserved
the name, though skill in versification was not uncommon. Terentianus
wrote in verse his handbook of metres about the beginning of the
century, and not far from the same time Quintus Serenus Sammonicus
composed a medical handbook containing sixty-three recipes in 1,107
hexameters. He does not pretend to be a physician, but derives his
wisdom, such as it is, from Pliny and other writers. The recipes are
of various kinds, some recommending the use of herbs in a simple and
sensible way, while others prescribe more or less disgusting compounds
of animal matter, and a few are nothing more nor less than magic
charms. So fevers are to be cured by wearing tied to one’s neck a bone
found within the enclosure of a house, and a cure for another fever
is found in a piece of paper inscribed in the proper manner with the
magic formula _abracadabra_, which is to be worn round the neck of
the patient. To the credit of Sammonicus it should be said that his
knowledge of metre is greater than his knowledge of medicine; but even
that does not raise his handbook to the level of poetry. A writer of
much better quality, who even deserves to be called a poet, is Marcus
Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus, who wrote, in the year 283 A. D., a poem
_On Hunting_ (_Cynegetica_), 325 lines of which are preserved, and who
is also the author of four eclogues formerly attributed to Calpurnius
(see page 188). The discussion of dogs, horses, hunting-nets, and the
like in the _Cynegetica_ can hardly be called poetry, but the eclogues,
though written in close imitation of Calpurnius, who was himself an
imitator of Virgil, show some genuine poetic spirit. There is also some
poetic beauty in the poem on the love of Mars and Venus, by Reposianus,
written toward the end of the third century, but not so much can be
said in praise of Vespa’s metrical argument between a baker and a cook
(_Indicium Coci et Pistoris Iudice Vulcano_) as to the relative merits
of their callings, or of the epigrams and “echo verses” of Pentadius.
These last consist of elegiac distichs so written that the first words
of the hexameter are repeated or “echoed” at the end of the pentameter.
Such verse has little relation to poetry, but shows that there was
still an interest felt in the technique of metrical writing. That the
study of the classic writers, especially of Virgil, was diligently
cultivated, is shown by the existence of poems composed entirely of
Virgilian lines and fragments of lines. A remarkable extant specimen of
such work is the short tragedy _Medea_, probably written by Hosidius
Geta, near the beginning of the third century. Several anonymous poems
add little to our admiration for the poets of the third century,
but the so-called _Disticha Catonis_ should be mentioned because
they gained great and long-continued popularity. They are maxims of
every-day wisdom expressed in distichs of two hexameters. Such maxims
are: “Regard it as the first virtue to hold your tongue; he is nearest
God who knows how to keep a wise silence”; or, “Be sure to tell many
of another’s kindness, but keep silence about the kindnesses you have
done to others.” These distichs were soon imitated, and similar maxims
in one line—monostichs—were also written. They are hardly poetry, but
have some interest because of their popular nature.
[Sidenote: Pagan prose in the third century.] The prose of the
third century possesses even less interest than the verse. The only
historians worthy of the name—Dio Cassius and Herodian—wrote in Greek.
Marius Maximus (about 165-230 A. D.) continued Suetonius’s lives of
the emperors from Nerva to Heliogabalus, and about the middle of the
century Ælius Julius Cordus wrote lives of the more obscure emperors.
These works are lost, but, like those of several other writers of this
period, were used by the authors of the so-called _Historia Augusta_,
a collection of lives of the emperors from Hadrian to Numerianus
(117-284 A. D.). These lives were written by six authors, four of
whom, Ælius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Vulcacius Gallicanus, and
Trebellius Pollio, wrote under Diocletian (284-305 A. D.), while the
remaining two, Ælius Lampridius and Flavius Vopiscus, belong to the
early part of the fourth century. They are all alike in the poverty of
their style and their liking for petty personal details. The books on
the _Prætorian Edict_ by Domitius Ulpianus, who was killed in 228 A.
D., and by his younger contemporary, Julius Paulus, as well as other
juristic works of the third century, were important contributions to
the development of Roman law, and the attempt made by Cornelius Labeo
in his lost work on the Roman religion to explain the pagan cult would
probably, if it were preserved, be interesting as an attempt to defend
the old religion against skepticism and Christianity. The extant
parts of the work of Quintus Gargilius Martialis on agriculture,
veterinary medicine, the use of healing herbs, and the like, show that
the whole was a compilation from the works of Pliny the elder and
other writers by a man who had sense and judgment; the treatise _On
Birthdays_ (_De Die Natali_), written in a lively and easy style by a
grammarian Censorinus in 238 A. D., is a compilation from Suetonius,
Varro, and others, of information concerning the birth and life of a
man, astrology, music, and some other matters; and the _Collection of
Things Worth Remembering_ (_Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium_), by Gaius
Julius Solinus, contains valuable information about early Roman history
(to Augustus) and the geography of the ancient world, with especial
attention to oddities and peculiarities, whether of the countries or
their inhabitants; but none of these works is of independent literary
importance. The grammatical writings of Gaius Julius Romanus, who lived
in the first years of the third century, were much used by Charisius
somewhat more than a century later. A grammar (_Ars Grammatica_) in
three books by Marius Plotius Sacerdos, written in the latter part
of the century, is extant, as is also a brief rhetorical treatise by
Aquila Romanus. The four books _On Metres_ by Ælius Festus Aphthonius,
written under Diocletian, are lost, but their contents are in part
preserved by Marius Victorinus. These grammatical works are of
importance chiefly for their references to earlier literature.
None of the prose works just mentioned exhibits any creative talent
or testifies to any new literary development. The only new literary
phenomenon of the period is the rise of a school of oratory in Gaul,
which produced, to be sure, nothing of great importance, but which
shows by its very existence how far removed from Rome were now the
centres of intellectual life, when the great Christian writers were
Africans and the pagan orators were Gauls. The Gallic orators avoided
the harshness and obscurity of the African school, and wrote in smooth
Ciceronian Latin, with a plentiful flow of words and a poor supply of
ideas. [Sidenote: The panegyrists.] A collection of twelve panegyrics
has been preserved, the first of which is Pliny’s address in honor of
Trajan, delivered in 100 A. D., while the remaining eleven are dated
at different times from 291 to 389 A. D. One of these was delivered in
297 A. D. by Eumenius, a teacher of Greek descent, but Gallic birth,
for the benefit of the schools in his native town of Augustodunum
(Autun), and three (perhaps four) of the others are probably by the
same author. Three of the remaining speeches are assigned to known
authors and dates. They are by Nazarius, in honor of Constantine (321
A. D.); by Mamertinus, in honor of Julian (362 A. D.); and by Latinus
Drepanius Pacatus, in honor of Theodosius (389 A. D.). Two of these
orators belong to the second half of the fourth century, but their
speeches resemble the others in the collection, all of which are full
of most exaggerated praise of the emperors. These speeches contain many
references to the history of the times, but must be used with great
care by the historian, since their purpose is to praise the emperors,
and not even historical facts must be allowed to cast a shadow upon the
imperial glory. The Gallic school of oratory was evidently flourishing
in the later years of the third century and the greater part at least
of the fourth. It was a learned school, based upon imitation of the
ancient classics, and standing in no close relation to the living
language of the times. The extant speeches show how thoroughly the
study of the classics was carried on in Gaul, and at the same time how
ready the orators were to flatter emperors who were pleased to listen
to their obsequious praise.
Now that the chief centres of Latin literature are found to be in Gaul
and Africa, not in Rome or even Italy, the history of Roman literature
has apparently reached its end; and yet throughout the fourth century,
yes, even into the sixth century, the stream of old Roman tradition
can be traced, and in the poems of Ausonius and Claudian and the _De
Consolatione Philosophiæ_ of Boëthius classical literature still
survives. It is hard to fix a date for the beginning of the Middle
Ages, and even harder to assign a definite time for the end of
classical Roman literature. The first great independent and original
Christian writings in Latin—those of Tertullian—may be regarded as
the beginning of mediæval literature; but classical Latinity was by
no means yet dead. In fact, in the fourth century, after Constantine
had recognized Christianity as a state religion on an equal footing
with the ancient belief, there was a revival of literature. Christian
writers wrote in the ancient Roman manner, and secular writings by
Christians are not to be distinguished from those of the adherents of
the old religion. The religious writings of the leaders of Christian
thought—St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan,
St. Jerome and St. Augustine—belong to the history of the church
rather than to that of Roman literature, and can be mentioned here only
in passing, while the writings of many lesser lights of the church must
be altogether neglected. There still remain, however, many works in
which something of the old Roman literary spirit survives, even after
Rome herself has ceased to be the seat of empire.