Ere impious man, restrain’d from blood in vain,
Began to feast on flesh of bullocks slain,
he designed to have published a proclamation, “to forbid the sacrifice of
oxen.” Before his accession to the imperial authority, and during some
time afterwards, he scarcely ever gave the least grounds for being
suspected of covetousness or avarice; but, on the contrary, he often
afforded proofs, not only of his justice, but his liberality. To all
about him he was generous even to profusion, and recommended nothing more
earnestly to them than to avoid doing anything mean. He would not accept
the property left him by those who had children. He also set aside a
legacy bequeathed by the will of Ruscus Caepio, who had ordered “his heir
to make a present yearly to each of the senators upon their first
assembling.” He exonerated all those who had been under prosecution from
the treasury for above five years before; and would not suffer suits to
be renewed, unless it was done within a year, and on condition, that the
prosecutor should be banished, if he could not make good his cause. The
secretaries of the quaestors having engaged in trade, according to
custom, but contrary to (487) the Clodian law [815], he pardoned them for
what was past. Such portions of land as had been left when it was
divided amongst the veteran soldiers, he granted to the ancient
possessors, as belonging to then by prescription. He put a stop to false
prosecutions in the exchequer, by severely punishing the prosecutors; and
this saying of his was much taken notice of “that a prince who does not
punish informers, encourages them.”
X. But he did not long persevere in this course of clemency and justice,
although he sooner fell into cruelty than into avarice. He put to death
a scholar of Paris, the pantomimic [816], though a minor, and then sick,
only because, both in person and the practice of his art, he resembled
his master; as he did likewise Hermogenes of Tarsus for some oblique
reflections in his History; crucifying, besides, the scribes who had
copied the work. One who was master of a band of gladiators, happening
to say, “that a Thrax was a match for a Marmillo [817], but not so for
the exhibitor of the games”, he ordered him to be dragged from the
benches into the arena, and exposed to the dogs, with this label upon
him, “A Parmularian [818] guilty of talking impiously.” He put to death
many senators, and amongst them several men of consular rank. In this
number were, Civica Cerealis, when he was proconsul in Africa,
Salvidienus Orfitus, and Acilius Glabrio in exile, under the pretence of
their planning to revolt against him. The rest he punished upon very
trivial occasions; as Aelius Lamia for some jocular expressions, which
were of old date, and perfectly harmless; because, upon his commending
his voice after he had taken his wife from him [819], he replied, “Alas!
I hold my tongue.” And when Titus advised him to take another wife, he
answered him thus: “What! have you a mind to marry?” Salvius Cocceianus
was condemned to death for keeping the birth-day of his uncle Otho, the
emperor: Metius Pomposianus, because he was commonly reported to have an
imperial nativity [820], and to carry about with (488) him a map of the
world upon vellum, with the speeches of kings and generals extracted out
of Titus Livius; and for giving his slaves the names of Mago and
Hannibal; Sallustius Lucullus, lieutenant in Britain, for suffering some
lances of a new invention to be called “Lucullean;” and Junius Rusticus,
for publishing a treatise in praise of Paetus Thrasea and Helvidius
Priscus, and calling them both “most upright men.” Upon this occasion,
he likewise banished all the philosophers from the city and Italy. He
put to death the younger Helvidius, for writing a farce, in which, under
the character of Paris and Oenone, he reflected upon his having divorced
his wife; and also Flavius Sabinus, one of his cousins, because, upon his
being chosen at the consular election to that office, the public crier
had, by a blunder, proclaimed him to the people not consul, but emperor.
Becoming still more savage after his success in the civil war, he
employed the utmost industry to discover those of the adverse party who
absconded: many of them he racked with a new-invented torture, inserting
fire through their private parts; and from some he cut off their hands.
It is certain, that only two of any note were pardoned, a tribune who
wore the narrow stripe, and a centurion; who, to clear themselves from
the charge of being concerned in any rebellious project, proved
themselves to have been guilty of prostitution, and consequently
incapable of exercising any influence either over the general or the
soldiers.
XI. His cruelties were not only excessive, but subtle and unexpected.
The day before he crucified a collector of his rents, he sent for him
into his bed-chamber, made him sit down upon the bed by him, and sent him
away well pleased, and, so far as could be inferred from his treatment,
in a state of perfect security; having vouchsafed him the favour of a
plate of meat from his own table. When he was on the point of condemning
to death Aretinus Clemens, a man of consular rank, and one of his friends
and emissaries, he retained him about his person in the same or greater
favour than ever; until at last, as they were riding together in the same
litter, upon seeing the man who had informed against him, he said, “Are
you willing that we should hear this base slave tomorrow?”
Contemptuously abusing the patience of men, he never pronounced a severe
sentence without prefacing it (489) with words which gave hopes of mercy;
so that, at last, there was not a more certain token of a fatal
conclusion, than a mild commencement. He brought before the senate some
persona accused of treason, declaring, “that he should prove that day how
dear he was to the senate;” and so influenced them, that they condemned
the accused to be punished according to the ancient usage [821]. Then,
as if alarmed at the extreme severity of their punishment, to lessen the
odiousness of the proceeding, he interposed in these words; for it is not
foreign to the purpose to give them precisely as they were delivered:
“Permit me, Conscript Fathers, so far to prevail upon your affection for
me, however extraordinary the request may seem, as to grant the condemned
criminals the favour of dying in the manner they choose. For by so
doing, ye will spare your own eyes, and the world will understand that I
interceded with the senate on their behalf.”
XII. Having exhausted the exchequer by the expense of his buildings and
public spectacles, with the augmentation of pay lately granted to the
troops, he made an attempt at the reduction of the army, in order to
lessen the military charges. But reflecting, that he should, by this
measure, expose himself to the insults of the barbarians, while it would
not suffice to extricate him from his embarrassments, he had recourse to
plundering his subjects by every mode of exaction. The estates of the
living and the dead were sequestered upon any accusation, by whomsoever
preferred. The unsupported allegation of any one person, relative to a
word or action construed to affect the dignity of the emperor, was
sufficient. Inheritances, to which he had not the slightest pretension,
were confiscated, if there was found so much as one person to say, he had
heard from the deceased when living, “that he had made the emperor his
heir.” Besides the exactions from others, the poll-tax on the Jews was
levied with extreme rigour, both on those who lived after the manner of
Jews in the city, without publicly professing themselves to be such
[822], and on those who, by (490) concealing their origin, avoided paying
the tribute imposed upon that people. I remember, when I was a youth, to
have been present [823], when an old man, ninety years of age, had his
person exposed to view in a very crowded court, in order that, on
inspection, the procurator might satisfy himself whether he was
circumcised. [824]
From his earliest years Domitian was any thing but courteous, of a
forward, assuming disposition, and extravagant both in his words and
actions. When Caenis, his father’s concubine, upon her return from
Istria, offered him a kiss, as she had been used to do, he presented her
his hand to kiss. Being indignant, that his brother’s son-in-law should
be waited on by servants dressed in white [825], he exclaimed,
ouk agathon polykoiraniae. [826]
Too many princes are not good.
XIII. After he became emperor, he had the assurance to boast in the
senate, “that he had bestowed the empire on his father and brother, and
they had restored it to him.” And upon taking his wife again, after the
divorce, he declared by proclamation, “that he had recalled her to his
pulvinar.” [827] He was not a little pleased too, at hearing the
acclamations of the people in the amphitheatre on a day of festival, “All
happiness to our lord and lady.” But when, during the celebration of the
Capitoline trial of skill, the whole concourse of people entreated him
with one voice to restore Palfurius Sura to his place in the senate, from
which he had been long before expelled--he having then carried away the
prize of eloquence from all the orators who had contended for it,--he did
not vouchsafe to give them any answer, but only commanded silence to be
proclaimed by the voice of the crier. With equal arrogance, when he
dictated the form of a letter to be used by his procurators, he began it
thus: “Our lord and god commands so and so;” whence it became a rule that
no one should (491) style him otherwise either in writing or speaking.
He suffered no statues to be erected for him in the Capitol, unless they
were of gold and silver, and of a certain weight. He erected so many
magnificent gates and arches, surmounted by representations of chariots
drawn by four horses, and other triumphal ornaments, in different
quarters of the city, that a wag inscribed on one of the arches the Greek
word Axkei, “It is enough.” [828] He filled the office of consul
seventeen times, which no one had ever done before him, and for the seven
middle occasions in successive years; but in scarcely any of them had he
more than the title; for he never continued in office beyond the calends
of May [the 1st May], and for the most part only till the ides of January
[13th January]. After his two triumphs, when he assumed the cognomen of
Germanicus, he called the months of September and October, Germanicus and
Domitian, after his own names, because he commenced his reign in the one,
and was born in the other.
XIV. Becoming by these means universally feared and odious, he was at
last taken off by a conspiracy of his friends and favourite freedmen, in
concert with his wife [829]. He had long entertained a suspicion of the
year and day when he should die, and even of the very hour and manner of
his death; all which he had learned from the Chaldaeans, when he was a
very young man. His father once at supper laughed at him for refusing to
eat some mushrooms, saying, that if he knew his fate, he would rather be
afraid of the sword. Being, therefore, in perpetual apprehension and
anxiety, he was keenly alive to the slightest suspicions, insomuch that
he is thought to have withdrawn the edict ordering the destruction of the
vines, chiefly because the copies of it which were dispersed had the
following lines written upon them:
Kaen me phagaes epi rizanomos epi kartophoraeso,
Osson epispeisai Kaisari thuomeno. [830]
Gnaw thou my root, yet shall my juice suffice
To pour on Caesar’s head in sacrifice.
(492) It was from the same principle of fear, that he refused a new
honour, devised and offered him by the senate, though he was greedy of
all such compliments. It was this: “that as often as he held the
consulship, Roman knights, chosen by lot, should walk before him, clad in
the Trabea, with lances in their hands, amongst his lictors and
apparitors.” As the time of the danger which he apprehended drew near,
he became daily more and more disturbed in mind; insomuch that he lined
the walls of the porticos in which he used to walk, with the stone called
Phengites [831], by the reflection of which he could see every object
behind him. He seldom gave an audience to persons in custody, unless in
private, being alone, and he himself holding their chains in his hand.
To convince his domestics that the life of a master was not to be
attempted upon any pretext, however plausible, he condemned to death
Epaphroditus his secretary, because it was believed that he had assisted
Nero, in his extremity, to kill himself.
XV. His last victim was Flavius Clemens [832], his cousin-german, a man
below contempt for his want of energy, whose sons, then of very tender
age, he had avowedly destined for his successors, and, discarding their
former names, had ordered one to be called Vespasian, and the other
Domitian. Nevertheless, he suddenly put him to death upon some very
slight suspicion [833], almost before he was well out of his consulship.
By this violent act he very much hastened his own destruction. During
eight months together there was so much lightning at Rome, and such
accounts of the phaenomenon were brought from other parts, that at last
he cried out, “Let him now strike whom he will.” The Capitol was struck
by lightning, as well as the temple of the Flavian family, with the
Palatine-house, and his own bed-chamber. The tablet also, inscribed upon
the base of his triumphal statue was carried away by the violence of the
storm, and fell upon a neighbouring (493) monument. The tree which just
before the advancement of Vespasian had been prostrated, and rose again
[834], suddenly fell to the ground. The goddess Fortune of Praeneste, to
whom it was his custom on new year’s day to commend the empire for the
ensuing year, and who had always given him a favourable reply, at last
returned him a melancholy answer, not without mention of blood. He
dreamt that Minerva, whom he worshipped even to a superstitious excess,
was withdrawing from her sanctuary, declaring she could protect him no
longer, because she was disarmed by Jupiter. Nothing, however, so much
affected him as an answer given by Ascletario, the astrologer, and his
subsequent fate. This person had been informed against, and did not deny
his having predicted some future events, of which, from the principles of
his art, he confessed he had a foreknowledge. Domitian asked him, what
end he thought he should come to himself? To which replying, “I shall in
a short time be torn to pieces by dogs,” he ordered him immediately to be
slain, and, in order to demonstrate the vanity of his art, to be
carefully buried. But during the preparations for executing this order,
it happened that the funeral pile was blown down by a sudden storm, and
the body, half-burnt, was torn to pieces by dogs; which being observed by
Latinus, the comic actor, as he chanced to pass that way, he told it,
amongst the other news of the day, to the emperor at supper.
XVI. The day before his death, he ordered some dates [835], served up at
table, to be kept till the next day, adding, “If I have the luck to use
them.” And turning to those who were nearest him, he said, “To-morrow
the moon in Aquarius will be bloody instead of watery, and an event will
happen, which will be much talked of all the world over.” About
midnight, he was so terrified that he leaped out of bed. That morning he
tried and passed sentence on a soothsayer sent from Germany, who being
consulted about the lightning that had lately (494) happened, predicted
from it a change of government. The blood running down his face as he
scratched an ulcerous tumour on his forehead, he said, “Would this were
all that is to befall me!” Then, upon his asking the time of the day,
instead of five o’clock, which was the hour he dreaded, they purposely
told him it was six. Overjoyed at this information; as if all danger
were now passed, and hastening to the bath, Parthenius, his chamberlain,
stopped him, by saying that there was a person come to wait upon him
about a matter of great importance, which would admit of no delay. Upon
this, ordering all persons to withdraw, he retired into his chamber, and
was there slain.
XVII. Concerning the contrivance and mode of his death, the common
account is this. The conspirators being in some doubt when and where
they should attack him, whether while he was in the bath, or at supper,
Stephanus, a steward of Domitilla’s [836], then under prosecution for
defrauding his mistress, offered them his advice and assistance; and
wrapping up his left arm, as if it was hurt, in wool and bandages for
some days, to prevent suspicion, at the hour appointed, he secreted a
dagger in them. Pretending then to make a discovery of a conspiracy, and
being for that reason admitted, he presented to the emperor a memorial,
and while he was reading it in great astonishment, stabbed him in the
groin. But Domitian, though wounded, making resistance, Clodianus, one
of his guards, Maximus, a freedman of Parthenius’s, Saturius, his
principal chamberlain, with some gladiators, fell upon him, and stabbed
him in seven places. A boy who had the charge of the Lares in his
bed-chamber, and was then in attendance as usual, gave these further
particulars: that he was ordered by Domitian, upon receiving his first
wound, to reach him a dagger which lay under his pillow, and call in his
domestics; but that he found nothing at the head of the bed, excepting
the hilt of a (495) poniard, and that all the doors were fastened: that
the emperor in the mean time got hold of Stephanus, and throwing him upon
the ground, struggled a long time with him; one while endeavouring to
wrench the dagger from him, another while, though his fingers were
miserably mangled, to tear out his eyes. He was slain upon the
fourteenth of the calends of October [18th Sept.], in the forty-fifth
year of his age, and the fifteenth of his reign [837]. His corpse was
carried out upon a common bier by the public bearers, and buried by his
nurse Phyllis, at his suburban villa on the Latin Way. But she
afterwards privately conveyed his remains to the temple of the Flavian
family [838], and mingled them with the ashes of Julia, the daughter of
Titus, whom she had also nursed.
XVIII. He was tall in stature, his face modest, and very ruddy; he had
large eyes, but was dim-sighted; naturally graceful in his person,
particularly in his youth, excepting only that his toes were bent
somewhat inward, he was at last disfigured by baldness, corpulence, and
the slenderness of his legs, which were reduced by a long illness. He
was so sensible how much the modesty of his countenance recommended him,
that he once made this boast to the senate, “Thus far you have approved
both of my disposition and my countenance.” His baldness so much annoyed
him, that he considered it an affront to himself, if any other person was
reproached with it, either in jest or in earnest; though in a small tract
he published, addressed to a friend, “concerning the preservation of the
hair,” he uses for their mutual consolation the words following:
Ouch oraas oios kago kalos te megas te;
Seest thou my graceful mien, my stately form?
“and yet the fate of my hair awaits me; however, I bear with fortitude
this loss of my hair while I am still young. Remember that nothing is
more fascinating than beauty, but nothing of shorter duration.”
XIX. He so shrunk from undergoing fatigue, that he scarcely ever walked
through the city on foot. In his (496) expeditions and on a march, he
seldom rode on horse-back; but was generally carried in a litter. He had
no inclination for the exercise of arms, but was very expert in the use
of the bow. Many persons have seen him often kill a hundred wild
animals, of various kinds, at his Alban retreat, and fix his arrows in
their heads with such dexterity, that he could, in two shots, plant them,
like a pair of horns, in each. He would sometimes direct his arrows
against the hand of a boy standing at a distance, and expanded as a mark,
with such precision, that they all passed between the boy’s fingers,
without hurting him.
XX. In the beginning of his reign, he gave up the study of the liberal
sciences, though he took care to restore, at a vast expense, the
libraries which had been burnt down; collecting manuscripts from all
parts, and sending scribes to Alexandria [839], either to copy or correct
them. Yet he never gave himself the trouble of reading history or
poetry, or of employing his pen even for his private purposes. He
perused nothing but the Commentaries and Acts of Tiberius Caesar. His
letters, speeches, and edicts, were all drawn up for him by others;
though he could converse with elegance, and sometimes expressed himself
in memorable sentiments. “I could wish,” said he once, “that I was but
as handsome as Metius fancies himself to be.” And of the head of some
one whose hair was partly reddish, and partly grey, he said, “that it was
snow sprinkled with mead.”
XXI. “The lot of princes,” he remarked, “was very miserable, for no one
believed them when they discovered a conspiracy, until they were
murdered.” When he had leisure, he amused himself with dice, even on
days that were not festivals, and in the morning. He went to the bath
early, and made a plentiful dinner, insomuch that he seldom ate more at
supper than a Matian apple [840], to which he added a (497) draught of
wine, out of a small flask. He gave frequent and splendid
entertainments, but they were soon over, for he never prolonged them
after sun-set, and indulged in no revel after. For, till bed-time, he
did nothing else but walk by himself in private.
XXII. He was insatiable in his lusts, calling frequent commerce with
women, as if it was a sort of exercise, klinopalaen, bed-wrestling; and
it was reported that he plucked the hair from his concubines, and swam
about in company with the lowest prostitutes. His brother’s daughter
[841] was offered him in marriage when she was a virgin; but being at
that time enamoured of Domitia, he obstinately refused her. Yet not long
afterwards, when she was given to another, he was ready enough to debauch
her, and that even while Titus was living. But after she had lost both
her father and her husband, he loved her most passionately, and without
disguise; insomuch that he was the occasion of her death, by obliging her
to procure a miscarriage when she was with child by him.
XXIII. The people shewed little concern at his death, but the soldiers
were roused by it to great indignation, and immediately endeavoured to
have him ranked among the gods. They were also ready to revenge his
loss, if there had been any to take the lead. However, they soon after
effected it, by resolutely demanding the punishment of all those who had
been concerned in his assassination. On the other hand, the senate was
so overjoyed, that they met in all haste, and in a full assembly reviled
his memory in the most bitter terms; ordering ladders to be brought in,
and his shields and images to be pulled down before their eyes, and
dashed in pieces upon the floor of the senate-house passing at the same
time a decree to obliterate his titles every where, and abolish all
memory of him. A few months before he was slain, a raven on the Capitol
uttered these words: “All will be well.” Some person gave the following
interpretation of this prodigy:
(498) Nuper Tarpeio quae sedit culmine cornix.
“Est bene,” non potuit dicere; dixit, “Erit.”
Late croaked a raven from Tarpeia’s height,
“All is not yet, but shall be, right.”
They say likewise that Domitian dreamed that a golden hump grew out of
the back of his neck, which he considered as a certain sign of happy days
for the empire after him. Such an auspicious change indeed shortly
afterwards took place, through the justice and moderation of the
succeeding emperors.
* * * * * *
If we view Domitian in the different lights in which he is represented,
during his lifetime and after his decease, his character and conduct
discover a greater diversity than is commonly observed in the objects of
historical detail. But as posthumous character is always the most just,
its decisive verdict affords the surest criterion by which this
variegated emperor must be estimated by impartial posterity. According
to this rule, it is beyond a doubt that his vices were more predominant
than his virtues: and when we follow him into his closet, for some time
after his accession, when he was thirty years of age, the frivolity of
his daily employment, in the killing of flies, exhibits an instance of
dissipation, which surpasses all that has been recorded of his imperial
predecessors. The encouragement, however, which the first Vespasian had
shown to literature, continued to operate during the present reign; and
we behold the first fruits of its auspicious influence in the valuable
treatise of QUINTILIAN.
Of the life of this celebrated writer, little is known upon any authority
that has a title to much credit. We learn, however, that he was the son
of a lawyer in the service of some of the preceding emperors, and was
born in Rome, though in what consulship, or under what emperor, it is
impossible to determine. He married a woman of a noble family, by whom
he had two sons. The mother died in the flower of her age, and the sons,
at the distance of some time from each other, when their father was
advanced in years. The precise time of Quintilian’s own death is
equally inauthenticated with that of his birth; nor can we rely upon an
author of suspicious veracity, who says that he passed the latter part of
his life in a state of indigence which was alleviated by the liberality
of his pupil, Pliny the Younger. Quintilian opened a school of rhetoric
at Rome, where he not only discharged that labourious employment with
great applause, (499) during more than twenty years, but pleaded at the
bar, and was the first who obtained a salary from the state, for
executing the office of a public teacher. He was also appointed by
Domitian preceptor to the two young princes who were intended to succeed
him on the throne.
After his retirement from the situation of a teacher, Quintilian devoted
his attention to the study of literature, and composed a treatise on the
Causes of the Corruption of Eloquence. At the earnest solicitation of
his friends, he was afterwards induced to undertake his Institutiones
Oratoriae, the most elaborate system of oratory extant in any language.
This work is divided into twelve books, in which the author treats with
great precision of the qualities of a perfect orator; explaining not only
the fundamental principles of eloquence, as connected with the
constitution of the human mind, but pointing out, both by argument and
observation, the most successful method of exercising that admirable art,
for the accomplishment of its purpose. So minutely, and upon so
extensive a plan, has he prosecuted the subject, that he delineates the
education suitable to a perfect orator, from the stage of infancy in the
cradle, to the consummation of rhetorical fame, in the pursuits of the
bar, or those, in general, of any public assembly. It is sufficient to
say, that in the execution of this elaborate work, Quintilian has called
to the assistance of his own acute and comprehensive understanding, the
profound penetration of Aristotle, the exquisite graces of Cicero; all
the stores of observation, experience, and practice; and in a word, the
whole accumulated exertions of ancient genius on the subject of oratory.
It may justly be regarded as an extraordinary circumstance in the
progress of scientific improvement, that the endowments of a perfect
orator were never fully exhibited to the world, until it had become
dangerous to exercise them for the important purposes for which they were
originally cultivated. And it is no less remarkable, that, under all the
violence and caprice of imperial despotism which the Romans had now
experienced, their sensibility to the enjoyment of poetical compositions
remained still unabated; as if it served to console the nation for the
irretrievable loss of public liberty. From this source of entertainment,
they reaped more pleasure during the present reign, than they had done
since the time of Augustus. The poets of this period were Juvenal,
Statius, and Martial.
JUVENAL was born at Aquinum, but in what year is uncertain; though, from
some circumstances, it seems to have been in the reign of Augustus. Some
say that he was the son of a freedman, (500) while others, without
specifying the condition of his father, relate only that he was brought
up by a freedman. He came at an early age to Rome, where he declaimed
for many years, and, pleaded causes in the forum with great applause; but
at last he betook himself to the writing of satires, in which he acquired
great fame. One of the first, and the most constant object of is satire,
was the pantomime Paris, the great favourite of the emperor Nero, and
afterwards of Domitian. During the reign of the former of these
emperors, no resentment was shown towards the poet; but he experienced
not the same impunity after the accession of the latter; when, to remove
him from the capital, he was sent as governor to the frontiers of Egypt,
but in reality, into an honourable exile. According to some authors, he
died of chagrin in that province: but this is not authenticated, and
seems to be a mistake: for in some of Martial’s epigrams, which appear to
have been written after the death of Domitian, Juvenal is spoken of as
residing at Rome. It is said that he lived to upwards of eighty years of
age.
The remaining compositions of this author are sixteen satires, all
written against the dissipation and enormous vices which prevailed at
Rome in his time. The various objects of animadversion are painted in
the strongest colours, and placed in the most conspicuous points of view.
Giving loose reins to just and moral indignation, Juvenal is every where
animated, vehement, petulant, and incessantly acrimonious. Disdaining
the more lenient modes of correction, or despairing of their success, he
neither adopts the raillery of Horace, nor the derision of Persius, but
prosecutes vice and folly with all the severity of sentiment, passion,
and expression. He sometimes exhibits a mixture of humour with his
invectives; but it is a humour which partakes more of virulent rage than
of pleasantry; broad, hostile, but coarse, and rivalling in indelicacy
the profligate manners which it assails. The satires of Juvenal abound
in philosophical apophthegms; and, where they are not sullied by obscene
description, are supported with a uniform air of virtuous elevation.
Amidst all the intemperance of sarcasm, his numbers are harmonious. Had
his zeal permitted him to direct the current of his impetuous genius into
the channel of ridicule, and endeavour to put to shame the vices and
follies of those licentious times, as much as he perhaps exasperated
conviction rather than excited contrition, he would have carried satire
to the highest possible pitch, both of literary excellence and moral
utility. With every abatement of attainable perfection, we hesitate not
to place him at the head of this arduous department of poetry.
Of STATIUS no farther particulars are preserved than that he (501) was
born at Naples; that his father’s name was Statius of Epirus, and his
mother’s Agelina, and that he died about the end of the first century of
the Christian era. Some have conjectured that he maintained himself by
writing for the stage, but of this there is no sufficient evidence; and
if ever he composed dramatic productions, they have perished. The works
of Statius now extant, are two poems, viz. the Thebais and the Achilleis,
besides a collection, named Silvae.
The Thebais consists of twelve books, and the subject of it is the Theban
war, which happened 1236 years before the Christian era, in consequence
of a dispute between Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of Oedipus and
Jocasta. These brothers had entered into an agreement with each other to
reign alternately for a year at a time; and Eteocles being the elder, got
first possession of the throne. This prince refusing to abdicate at the
expiration of the year, Polynices fled to Argos, where marrying Argia,
the daughter of Adrastus, king of that country, he procured the
assistance of his father-in-law, to enforce the engagement stipulated
with his brother Eteocles. The Argives marched under the command of
seven able generals, who were to attack separately the seven gates of
Thebes. After much blood had been spilt without any effect, it was at
last agreed between the two parties, that the brothers should determine
the dispute by single combat. In the desperate engagement which ensued,
they both fell; and being burnt together upon the funeral pile, it is
said that their ashes separated, as if actuated by the implacable
resentment which they had borne to each other.
If we except the Aeneid, this is the only Latin production extant which
is epic in its form; and it likewise approaches nearest in merit to that
celebrated poem, which Statius appears to have been ambitious of
emulating. In unity and greatness of action, the Thebais corresponds to
the laws of the Epopea; but the fable may be regarded as defective in
some particulars, which, however, arise more from the nature of the
subject, than from any fault of the poet. The distinction of the hero is
not sufficiently prominent; and the poem possesses not those
circumstances which are requisite towards interesting the reader’s
affections in the issue of the contest. To this it may be added, that
the unnatural complexion of the incestuous progeny diffuses a kind of
gloom which obscures the splendour of thought, and restrains the
sympathetic indulgence of fancy to some of the boldest excursions of the
poet. For grandeur, however, and animation of sentiment and description,
as well as for harmony of numbers, the Thebais is eminently conspicuous,
and deserves to be held in a much higher degree of estimation than it has
(502) generally obtained. In the contrivance of some of the episodes,
and frequently in the modes of expression, Statius keeps an attentive eye
to the style of Virgil. It is said that he was twelve years employed in
the composition of this poem; and we have his own authority for
affirming, that he polished it with all the care and assiduity practised
by the poets in the Augustan age:
Quippe, te fido monitore, nostra
Thebais, multa cruciata lima,
Tentat audaci fide Mantuanae
Gaudia famae.--Silvae, lib. iv. 7.
For, taught by you, with steadfast care
I trim my “Song of Thebes,” and dare
With generous rivalry to share
The glories of the Mantuan bard.
The Achilleis relates to the same hero who is celebrated by Homer in the
Iliad; but it is the previous history of Achilles, not his conduct in the
Trojan war, which forms the subject of the poem of Statius. While the
young hero is under the care of the Centaur Chiron, Thetis makes a visit
to the preceptor’s sequestered habitation, where, to save her son from
the fate which, it was predicted, would befall him at Troy, if he should
go to the siege of that place, she orders him to be dressed in the
disguise of a girl, and sent to live in the family of Lycomedes, king of
Scyros. But as Troy could not be taken without the aid of Achilles,
Ulysses, accompanied by Diomede, is deputed by the Greeks to go to
Scyros, and bring him thence to the Grecian camp. The artifice by which
the sagacious ambassador detected Achilles amongst his female companions,
was by placing before them various articles of merchandise, amongst which
was some armour. Achilles no sooner perceived the latter, than he
eagerly seized a sword and shield, and manifesting the strongest emotions
of heroic enthusiasm, discovered his sex. After an affectionate parting
with Lycomedes’ daughter, Deidamia, whom he left pregnant of a son, he
set sail with the Grecian chiefs, and, during the voyage, gives them an
account of the manner of his education with Chiron.
This poem consists of two books, in heroic measure, and is written with
taste and fancy. Commentators are of opinion, that the Achilleis was
left incomplete by the death of the author; but this is extremely
improbable, from various circumstances, and appears to be founded only
upon the word Hactenus, in the conclusion of the poem:
(503) Hactenus annorum, comites, elementa meorum
Et memini, et meminisse juvat: scit caetera mater.
Thus far, companions dear, with mindful joy I’ve told
My youthful deeds; the rest my mother can unfold.
That any consequential reference was intended by hactenus, seems to me
plainly contradicted by the words which immediately follow, scit caetera
mater. Statius could not propose the giving any further account of
Achilles’s life, because a general narrative of it had been given in the
first book. The voyage from Scyros to the Trojan coast, conducted with
the celerity which suited the purpose of the poet, admitted of no
incidents which required description or recital: and after the voyagers
had reached the Grecian camp, it is reasonable to suppose, that the
action of the Iliad immediately commenced. But that Statius had no
design of extending the plan of the Achilleis beyond this period, is
expressly declared in the exordium of the poem:
Magnanimum Aeaciden, formidatamque Tonanti
Progeniem, et patrio vetitam succedere coelo,
Diva, refer; quanquam acta viri multum inclyta cantu
Maeonio; sed plura vacant. Nos ire per omnem
(Sic amor est) heroa velis, Scyroque latentem
Dulichia proferre tuba: nec in Hectore tracto
Sistere, sed tota juvenem deducere Troja.
Aid me, O goddess! while I sing of him,
Who shook the Thunderer’s throne, and, for his crime,
Was doomed to lose his birthright in the skies;
The great Aeacides. Maeonian strains
Have made his mighty deeds their glorious theme;
Still much remains: be mine the pleasing task
To trace the future hero’s young career,
Not dragging Hector at his chariot wheels,
But while disguised in Scyros yet he lurked,
Till trumpet-stirred, he sprung to manly arms,
And sage Ulysses led him to the Trojan coast.
The Silvae is a collection of poems almost entirely in heroic verse,
divided into five books, and for the most part written extempore.
Statius himself affirms, in his Dedication to Stella, that the production
of none of them employed him more than two days; yet many of them consist
of between one hundred and two hundred hexameter lines. We meet with one
of two hundred and sixteen lines; one, of two hundred and thirty-four;
one, of two hundred and sixty-two; and one of two hundred and
seventy-seven; a rapidity of composition approaching to what Horace
mentions of the poet Lucilius. It is no small encomium to observe, that,
considered as extemporaneous productions, (504) the meanest in the
collection is far from meriting censure, either in point of sentiment or
expression; and many of them contain passages which command our applause.
The poet MARTIAL, surnamed likewise Coquus, was born at Bilbilis, in
Spain, of obscure parents. At the age of twenty-one, he came to Rome,
where he lived during five-and-thirty years under the emperors Galba,
Otho, Vitellius, the two Vespasians, Domitian, Nerva, and the beginning
of the reign of Trajan. He was the panegyrist of several of those
emperors, by whom he was liberally rewarded, raised to the Equestrian
order, and promoted by Domitian to the tribuneship; but being treated
with coldness and neglect by Trajan, he returned to his native country,
and, a few years after, ended his days, at the age of seventy-five.
He had lived at Rome in great splendour and affluence, as well as in high
esteem for his poetical talents; but upon his return to Bilbilis, it is
said that he experienced a great reverse of fortune, and was chiefly
indebted for his support to the gratuitous benefactions of Pliny the
Younger, whom he had extolled in some epigrams.
The poems of Martial consist of fourteen books, all written in the
epigrammatic form, to which species of composition, introduced by the
Greeks, he had a peculiar propensity. Amidst such a multitude of verses,
on a variety of subjects, often composed extempore, and many of them,
probably, in the moments of fashionable dissipation, it is not surprising
that we find a large number unworthy the genius of the author. Delicacy,
and even decency, is often violated in the productions of Martial.
Grasping at every thought which afforded even the shadow of ingenuity, he
gave unlimited scope to the exercise of an active and fruitful
imagination. In respect to composition, he is likewise liable to
censure. At one time he wearies, and at another tantalises the reader,
with the prolixity or ambiguity of his preambles. His prelusive
sentiments are sometimes far-fetched, and converge not with a natural
declination into the focus of epigram. In dispensing praise and censure,
he often seems to be governed more by prejudice or policy, than by
justice and truth; and he is more constantly attentive to the production
of wit, than to the improvement of morality.
But while we remark the blemishes and imperfections of this poet, we must
acknowledge his extraordinary merits. In composition he is, in general,
elegant and correct; and where the subject is capable of connection with
sentiment, his inventive ingenuity never fails to extract from it the
essence of delight and surprise. His fancy is prolific of beautiful
images, and his (505) judgment expert in arranging them to the greatest
advantage. He bestows panegyric with inimitable grace, and satirises
with equal dexterity. In a fund of Attic salt, he surpasses every other
writer; and though he seems to have at command all the varied stores of
gall, he is not destitute of candour. With almost every kind of
versification he appears to be familiar; and notwithstanding a facility
of temper, too accommodating, perhaps, on many occasions, to the
licentiousness of the times, we may venture from strong indications to
pronounce, that, as a moralist, his principles were virtuous. It is
observed of this author, by Pliny the Younger, that, though his
compositions might, perhaps, not obtain immortality, he wrote as if they
would. [Aeterna, quae scripsit, non erunt fortasse: ille tamen scripsit
tanquam futura.] The character which Martial gives of his epigrams, is
just and comprehensive:
Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura,
Quae legis: hic aliter non fit, Avite, liber.
Some are good, some indifferent, and some again still worse;
Such, Avitus, you will find is a common case with verse.