PART II

SATIRE

Satire has always shone among the rest,

And is the boldest way, if not the best,

To tell men freely of their foulest faults,

To laugh at their vain deeds and vainer thoughts.

1. INTRODUCTION AND EARLY SATIRE

What prophecy was to the ancient Hebrews, the drama to the Greeks, the

purpose-novel and the newspaper editorial to our own day, satire was

to the Roman of the republic and the early empire--the moral mentor of

contemporary society. This conception of the prophet as the preacher of

his day is often obscured by the conception of him as one who could

reveal the future; but a closer study of the life and times of these

great religious leaders shows them to have been men profoundly

interested in current life, who gave all their energies to the task of

raising the standard of the religious and social thought of their own

day. The function of Greek tragedy was ever religious. It had its very

origin in the worship of the gods; and the presence of the altar as the

center of the strophic movements of the chorus was a constant reminder

that the drama was dealing with the highest problems of human life.

Added to the general religious atmosphere of tragedy were the direct

moral teachings, the highest sentiments of ancient culture, which

constantly sounded through the play. Greek comedy, especially of the old

and middle type, also served a distinct moral purpose in society. It did

not, indeed, sound the same lofty notes as did its sister tragedy; but

it was the lash which was mercilessly applied, at first with bolder

license to individual sinners in high places, and afterward in a more

guarded manner to the vices and follies of men in general. In either

case, the powerful stimulus of fear of public ridicule and castigation

must have had a real effect upon the manners and morals of the ancient

Greeks.

When we turn to our own time, we find the literary preacher at the

novelist's desk or in the editor's chair. The influence of the

purpose-novel and the editorial can hardly be overestimated. In the

generation immediately preceding our own, a very direct influence upon

the public social life of his day was wielded by the pen of Dickens. His

eyes were open to abuses of every kind--in educational, charitable,

legal, and criminal institutions; and he used every weapon known to

literary art to right these wrongs. In this task he was ably assisted by

men like Thackeray, Reade, Kingsley, and others. And there can be little

doubt that the improved conditions in the England of to-day are due in

generous measure to the work of these novelist preachers. The editor's

function is still more intimately and constantly to hold the mirror up

to society, revealing and reproving its faults. And to-day there is

probably no more potent force acting directly upon the opinions and

conduct of men than the daily editorial.

Now, the literary weapon of the Roman moralist was satire. It flourished

in all periods of Roman literature, both the word _satire_ and the thing

itself being of Latin origin. In other fields of literature there is a

large imitation of Greek models. Roman tragedy was at first but little

more than a translation of the Greek plays, and the same is true of

comedy. Cato, Varro, Vergil, and the rest who wrote of agriculture, had

a Greek prototype in Hesiod, who in his _Works and Days_ had treated of

the same theme; Lucretius was the professed disciple and imitator of

Epicurus; Cicero, in oratory, had ever before his eyes his Demosthenes,

and in philosophy his Plato and Aristotle; Vergil had his Homer in epic

and his Theocritus in pastoral; Horace, in his lyrics, is Greek through

and through, both in form and spirit, for Pindar and Anacreon, Sappho,

Alcaeus, Archilochus, and the whole tuneful line are forever echoing

through his verse. Ovid, in his greatest work, only succeeded in setting

Greek mythology in a frame of Latin verse, though he told those

fascinating stories as they had never been told before; while the

historians, the rhetoricians, the philosophers--all had their Greek

originals and models.

But in the field of satire the Romans struck out a new literary path for

themselves. Even here we are bound to admit that the spirit is Greek,

the spirit of the old comedy, of bold assault upon the evils of

government, of society, of individuals. But still satire, as a form of

literature, is the Roman's own; and beginning with Lucilius, the father

of satire in the modern sense, the long line of satirists who followed

his lead sufficiently attests the strong hold which this particular form

of literature gained upon the Roman mind.

We have said that Lucilius was the father of satire in the modern sense;

but the name at least, together with many of the features of his satire

and that of his successors, reaches far back of him into the recesses of

an ancient Italian literature, long since vanished, of which we can gain

only the faintest hints. These hints as to the character of that ancient

forerunner of the Lucilian satire come to us from two sources--the

discussions of the Latin grammarians as to the derivation of the word

_satura_ (satire), and the remote reflections and imitations of the old

_satura_ in later works.

These far-off imitations give some idea of the character of the genuine

satire of the earliest time,--that of a medley of verse of different

meters, intermingled with prose, introducing words and phrases of other

languages, and treating of a great variety of subjects. This literary

medley or jumble probably had its origin in the farm or vineyard, where,

in celebration of the "harvest home" or other joyous festival, it would

be brought out, perhaps accompanied by some kind of musical recitation,

and of course loaded with the rude wit of the time.

Such, then, we may suppose, was the character of the rude satire of

ancient Italy. But alas for any real personal knowledge which we may

gain of it, those merry, clumsy jests, those rustic songs, are vanished

with the simple sun-loving race which produced them. The olive orchards

still wave gray-green upon the sunny slopes, the vineyards still cling

to every hillside and nestle in every valley; but the ancient peasantry

who once called this land their home, whose simple annals old Cato loved

to tell, and who could have given us material for precious volumes upon

the folk-lore and customs of their times, have gone, and left scarcely a

trace of their rude, unlettered literature.

The first tangible literary link that binds us to the old Roman satire

is found in the poet Ennius, who flourished about two hundred years

before Christ. The story of his life is outlined elsewhere in this book.

His satires seem to have been a sort of literary miscellany which

included such of his writings as could not conveniently be classified

elsewhere.

The merest handful of fragments of these satires remains, although there

is good ground for believing that there were six books of these. No

adequate judgment can therefore be formed as to their character. It can

with safety be said, however, that they were in a sense the connecting

link between the early satire and the literary satire of the modern

type. As has been said above, they were a literary miscellany or medley,

and as such contain some salient features of their predecessors; and it

is highly probable that they contained attacks upon the vices and

follies of the time, in which respect they looked forward to a more

complete development in Lucilian satire.

A most interesting fragment of the _Epicharmus_ describes the nature of

the gods according to the philosophy of Ennius:

And that is he whom we call Jove, whom Grecians call

The atmosphere: who in one person is the wind and clouds, then rain,

And after, freezing hail; and once again, thin air.

For this, those things are Jove considered which I name to you,

Since by these elements do men and cities, beasts.

And all things else exist.

There was a satire by Ennius, as Quintilian tells us, containing a

dialogue between Life and Death; but of this we have not a remnant. He

also introduced the fables of AEsop into his writings. The following is

the moral which he deduces from the story of the lark and the farmers--a

moral which Aulus Gellius assures us that it would be worth our while to

take well to heart. It may be freely translated as follows:

Now list to this warning, give diligent heed,

Whether seeking for pleasure or pelf:

Don't wait for your neighbors to help in your need,

But just go and do it yourself!

Surely Miles Standish might have gained from his Ennius, as well as from

his Caesar, that famous motto:

If you wish a thing well done,

You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!

We may leave our present notice of Ennius with a glance at the epitaph

which he wrote for himself. It is classed with his epigrams, but it may

properly be considered in connection with the medley of his satires. In

it he claims that unsubstantial immortality of remembrance and of

mention among men which is even now, as we write and read, being

vouchsafed to him.

Behold, O friends, old Ennius' carved stone,

Who wrote your father's deeds with lambent pen;

Let no tears deck my funeral, for lo,

My soul immortal lives on lips of men.

We have seen that the spirit of invective in Lucilius, which became in

his hands the spirit of satire, is traceable to the old Greek comedy.

The poetic form (the dactylic hexameter in which he wrote twenty of the

thirty books of his satire) had already been naturalized in Roman

literature by Ennius in his great epic poem. But to Lucilius is due the

credit of being the first to incarnate this spirit in this form, and

thus to establish an entirely new type in literature.

His satires contain invectives against luxury, avarice, and kindred

vices, and prevalent superstitions; an attack upon the rich; ridicule of

certain rhetorical affectations; grammatical remarks, and criticisms on

art; observations upon the Stoic philosophy; the poet's own political

experiences and expectations, also other anecdotes and incidents

gathered from his own experience; an interesting account of a journey to

Sicily, from which Horace probably obtained the model for his famous

journey to Brundisium. These and many other subjects filled his pages,

and suggest by their wide range the old-time medley-satire.

The poet lived in stirring times. Born in 180 B. C., eleven years before

the death of Ennius, he died about 103 B. C., three years after Cicero's

birth and the year before the birth of Caesar. He was thus contemporary

with some of the most important and striking events in Roman

history--the third Macedonian War; the Third Punic War; the Numantian

War, in which he himself served as a knight under Scipio Africanus in

133 B. C.; the troubled times of the two Gracchi; the Jugurthine War,

and the rise of Caius Marius. He was of equestrian rank, and lived on

terms of intimacy with some of the best men at Rome, notably the younger

Scipio and Laelius. With such backing as this, of family and friends, he

was in good position to direct his satire against the wicked and

unscrupulous men of his time, regardless of their rank, without fear or

favor.

What did the Romans themselves think of Lucilius? To judge from the

frequency and character of their references to him, the poet must have

made a profound impression upon his countrymen. A study of these

references shows that in the main this impression was favorable. He is

_doctus_, that is, profoundly learned in the wisdom of the Greeks; and,

according to Aulus Gellius, he was equally well versed in the language

and literature of his own land. He is to Juvenal the _magnus_, the

"father of satire," who has well-nigh preempted the field, to follow

whom requires elaborate explanation and apology on the part of the

would-be satirist. He is to Cicero _perurbanus_, preeminently endowed

with that subtle something in spirit and expression which marks at once

the polished man of the world. He is to Fronto remarkable for his

_gracilitas_, that plainness, directness, and simplicity of style which,

joined with the "harshness" and "roughness" of his "eager" spirit and of

his righteous indignation, made his satire such a formidable weapon

against the vices of his day. Persius says of him that he "slashed the

citizens of his time and broke his jaw-teeth on them." And the testimony

of Juvenal is still more striking: "But whenever Lucilius with drawn

sword fiercely rages, his hearer, whose soul is cold within him because

of his crimes, blushes with shame, and his heart quakes in silent fear

because of his guilty secrets."

Like those of so many of his predecessors in literature, the works of

Lucilius remain to us only in the merest fragments. For these we are

indebted largely to the Latin grammarians, who quote freely from him,

usually in illustration of the meaning of some word which they may be

discussing. A comparatively small number of the fragments have come down

to us through quotations on account of their sentiment, as when Cicero

says: "Lucilius used to say that he did not write to be read by either

of the extremes of society, because one would not understand him, and

the other knew more than he did."

We shall now examine a few of the more important of the fragments which

have been preserved to us. The following has been thought to be a vivid

picture of the unworthy struggle of life as he saw it in the Rome of his

own time. Lactantius, however, whose quotation of the fragment has saved

it, thinks that the poet is portraying in a more general way the

unhappy, unrestful life of mankind, unrelieved, as Lucretius would say,

by the comforting reflections of philosophy.

But now, from morning to night, on holidays and work days, in the

same place, the whole day long, high and low, all busy themselves

in the forum and never depart. To one and the same pursuit and

practice have they all devoted themselves: to cheat as guardedly

as possible, to strive craftily, to vie in flattery, to make a

pretense of being good men, to lay snares just as if they were all

the foes of all.

There was a certain Titus Albucius, who, it seems, was so enamored with

everything Greek that he was continually affecting the manners and

language of that country. Such running after foreign customs and speech

has not yet wholly disappeared. This weakness is the object of the

poet's wit in the following passage, in which he tells how Scaevola, the

propraetor of Asia, once "took down" the silly Albucius in Athens:

A Greek, Albucius, you would be called, and not a Roman and a Sabine, a

fellow-townsman of Pontius and Tritanius, though they are both

illustrious men, and first-rate standard-bearers. And so, as praetor at

Athens, when I meet you, I salute you in the foreign style which you are

so fond of: "+chaire+!"[A] I say; and my lictors and all my

retinue inquire: "+chaire+?" Fie, Albucius! for this thou art my

country's foe, and my own enemy!

[A] Hail.

The fourth satire, says an ancient scholiast, was an attack upon luxury

and the vices of the rich. The following passage might well have been

the opening lines of this satire, representing Laelius as exclaiming in

praise of a vegetable diet and against gluttony:

"O sorrel, how praiseworthy art thou,

And yet how little art thou really known!"

over his mess of sorrel Laelius the wise used to cry out, chiding one by

one the gluttons of our day.

And that he did not hesitate to call the glutton and spendthrift by name

is shown by this fragment, which is evidently a continuation of the same

diatribe:

"O Publius Gallonius, thou spendthrift," said he, "thou art a

wretched fellow. Never in all thy life hast thou dined well,

though all thy wealth on that lobster and that sturgeon thou

consumest."

The last selection which we shall present from Lucilius is the longest

extant fragment. The passage is a somewhat elaborate definition of

_virtue_ as the old Roman understood it. We use the translation of

Sellar.

Virtue, Albinus, consists in being able to give their true worth

to the things on which we are engaged, among which we live. The

virtue of a man is to understand the real meaning of each thing:

to understand what is right, useful, honorable for him; what

things are good, what bad, what is unprofitable, base,

dishonorable; to know the due limit and measure in making money;

to give its proper worth to wealth; to assign what is really due

to office; to be a foe and enemy of bad men and bad principles; to

extol the good, to wish them well, to be their friend through

life. Lastly, it is true worth to look on our country's weal as

the chief good; next to that the weal of our parents; third and

last, our own weal.

2. QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS

Horace well sustains the character of preacher whose function it has

already been said that satire performs. He found in his world the same

frail human nature which had aroused the righteous scorn of Lucilius,

and had led him to those bitter attacks upon the follies of his time for

which his satire was justly dreaded. But Horace is cast in a different

mold from Lucilius. While he sees just as clearly the shortcomings of

society, he has a realizing sense that he himself is a part of that same

society, guilty of the same sins, subject to the same criticism.

This consciousness of common frailty leads to moderation on the part of

the preacher. He manifests a kindly sense of human brotherhood for

better or for worse, which forms one of his most charming

characteristics, and differentiates him from his great predecessor as

well as from those who followed in the field of satire. It is true that

Horace is sufficiently strenuous and severe in his polemics against the

prevalent frailties of society as he saw them; but he has a habit of

taking his hearers into his confidence at the end of his lecture, and

reassuring them by some whimsical jest or the information that the

sermon was meant as much for himself as for them. He had no idea of

reforming society from the outside as from a separate world; but he

proceeded upon the principle that, as real reformation and progress must

be the result of reformed internal conditions, so the reformer himself

must be a sympathetic part of his world.

It was in a homely and wholesome school that our poet learned his moral

philosophy. In a glowing tribute of filial affection for his father, he

tells us how that worthy man, who was himself only a freedman--a humble

collector of debts by trade, or possibly a fishmonger, away down in his

provincial home in Apulia--decided that his son should have a better

chance in life than had fallen to his own lot. The local school in the

boy's native village of Venusia, where the big-boned sons of retired

centurions gained their meager education, was not good enough for our

young man. He must to Rome and afterward to Athens, and have all the

chances which were open to the sons of the noblest families of the land.

And so we have the pleasing picture of the sensible old father, not

sending but taking his boy to Rome, where he was the young student's

constant companion, his "guide, philosopher, and friend," attending him

in all his ways, both in school and out.

Horace tells us how this practical old father taught him to avoid the

vices of the day. No fine-spun, theoretical philosophy for him; but

practical illustration drove every lesson home. The poet dwells with

pleasure upon this element in his education.

That Horace was a worthy son of a worthy father is proved in many ways,

but in none more clearly than when, in after years, as a welcome member

of the most exclusive social set in Rome, he affectionately recalls his

father's training, and tells his high-born friends that, if he had the

chance to choose his ancestry, he would not change one circumstance of

his birth.

The practice of personal observations of the life around him, which he

learned from his father, the poet carried with him through life, and is

the explanation of the intensely practical and realistic character of

his satire. See him as he comes home at night and sits alone recalling

the varied happenings of the day. These are some of the thoughts, as he

himself tells us, which come to him at such times, and find

half-unconscious audible expression:

Now that's the better course.--I should live better if I acted

along that line.--So-and-so didn't do the right thing that

time.--I wonder if I shall ever be foolish enough to do the like.

It is after such meditations as these that he takes up his tablets and

outlines his satires. We are reminded in this of the practice of the

great Caesar, who is said to have recalled, as he rested in his tent at

night, the stirring events of each day, and to have noted these for his

history.

This method of composition from practical observation explains many

peculiarities of the style of Horace's satires. They are absolutely

unpretentious, prevailingly conversational in tone, abounding in homely

similes and colloquialisms, pithy anecdotes, familiar proverbs, and

references to current people and events which make up the popular gossip

of the day. He also has an embarrassing habit of suddenly turning his

"thou-art-the-man" search-light upon us just when we are most enjoying

his castigation of our neighbors. He employs burlesque and irony also

among his assortment of satiric weapons. He is, above all, personal,

rarely allowing the discourse to stray from the personality of himself

and his audience.

The following outline of one of his "sermons" will afford a good

illustration of his style and method of handling a discourse. Its

subject is the sin and folly of discontent and greed for gain, a sin

which he frequently denounces, not alone in his satires, but in his odes

as well. This satire is addressed by way of compliment to his patron

Maecenas, and is placed at the beginning of his two books of satires.

How strange it is that no one lives content with his lot, but must

always be envying his neighbor! The soldier would be a merchant,

the merchant a soldier; the lawyer would be a farmer, the farmer a

lawyer. But these malcontents are not in earnest in this prayer

for a change; should some god grant their petition, they would one

and all refuse to accept the boon.

The excuse of those who toil early and late is, that when they

have "made their pile" and have a modest competency for a peaceful

old age, they will retire. They say that they seek gold only as a

means to an end, and cite the example of the thrifty ant. But

herein they show their insincerity; for, while the ant lives upon

its hoarded wealth in winter, and stops its active life, the

gain-getter never stops so long as there is more to be gotten.

"But," you say, "it is so delightful to have a whole river to

drink from." Why so? You can't possibly drink it all, and besides,

the river water is apt to be muddy. I prefer to drink from a clear

little spring myself. And then, too, you are liable to be drowned

in your attempt to drink from the river.

"But one _must_ have money. A man's social standing depends upon

his bank account." It's useless to argue with such a man. He can

see nothing but the almighty dollar. If he did but know it, he is

simply another Tantalus, surrounded by riches which he cannot, or,

in his case, will not enjoy. And besides he does not really care

for popular opinion as he professes to do. Poor wretch! he has all

the care and none of the pleasures of his wealth. Heaven keep me

poor in such possessions!

You say that money secures help in sickness? But _such_ help! Your

greed has alienated all who would naturally love and care for you;

and you must not be surprised if you do not keep the love which

you are doing nothing to preserve.

No, no! away with your greed; cease to think that lack of money is

necessarily an evil; and beware lest your fate at last be

miserably to lose your all by a violent death. No, I am not asking

you to be a spendthrift. Only seek a proper mean between this and

the miser's character.

But, to get back to the original proposition, no one is content

with his lot, but is constantly trying to surpass his fellows. And

so the jostling struggle for existence goes on, and rare indeed is

it to find a man who leaves this life satisfied that he has had

his share of its blessings.

With this conclusion another man would have been content. But Horace

somehow feels that he has been a little hard upon his kind, and by way

of softening down the seriousness of the lecture, and at the same time

saving himself from the fault of verbosity, which he detests, he ends

with a characteristic jibe at the wordy Stoic philosophers:

But enough of this. Lest you think that I have stolen the notes of

the blear-eyed Crispinus, I'll say no more.

In another satire, Horace rebukes the fault of censoriousness. His text

practically is: "Judge not that ye be not judged." With characteristic

indirect approach to his subject, he begins with a tirade against one

Tigellius, until we begin to be indignant with this censorious preacher;

when suddenly he whips around to the other side, assumes the role of one

of his hearers, and puts the question to himself: "Have you no faults of

your own?" And then we see that he has only been playing a part, and

giving us an objective illustration of how it sounds when the other man

finds fault, thus exposing to themselves those who, habitually blind to

their own faults, are quick to discover those of other men.

The dramatic element, which seems to have been inherent in satire from

the beginning, is one of the most noticeable characteristics of style in

the satires of Horace. Indeed, his favorite method of expression is the

dialogue, carried on either between himself and some other person, real

or imaginary, or between two characters of his creation, whom he

introduces as best fitted to conduct the discussion of a theme.

The most dramatic of his satires is that in which he introduces the

bore. In this, the poem consists solely of dialogue and descriptions of

action which may be taken as stage direction. It therefore needs but

slight change to give it perfect dramatic form. The problem of the

episode is how to get rid of the bore and at the same time keep within

the bounds of gentlemanly conduct. This famous satire is given below in

full.

THE BORE: A DRAMATIC SATIRE IN ONE ACT

The persons of the drama: Horace; the Bore; Aristius Fuscus, a

friend of Horace; an adversary of the Bore; Horace's slave-boy; a

street mob.

SCENE: The Sacred Way in Rome, extending on during the action into

the Forum.

[_Enter Horace, walking along the street in deep thought. To him

enters Bore, who grasps his hand with great show of affection and

slaps him familiarly on the shoulder._]

_Bore._ How are you, my dear old fellow? _Horace_ [_stiffly_].

Fairly well, as times go. I trust all is well with you? [_As the

Bore follows him up, Horace attempts to forestall conversation,

and to dismiss his companion with the question of formal leave:_]

There's nothing I can do for you is there? _Bore._ Yes, make my

acquaintance. I am really worth knowing; I'm a scholar. _Horace._

Really? You will be more interesting to me on that account, I am

sure. [_He tries desperately to get rid of the Bore, goes faster,

stops, whispers in the slave-boy's ear; while the sweat pours down

his face, which he mops desperately. He exclaims aside:_] O

Bolanus, how I wish I had your hot temper! _Bore_ [_chatters empty

nothings, praises the scenery, the buildings, etc. As Horace

continues silent, he says:_] You're terribly anxious to get rid of

me; I've seen that all along. But it's no use, I'll stay by you,

I'll follow you. Where are you going from here? _Horace_ [_trying

to discourage him_]. There's no need of your going out of your

way. I'm going to visit a man--an entire stranger to you. He lies

sick at his house away over beyond the Tiber, near Caesar's

gardens. _Bore._ O, I have nothing else to do, and I'm a good

walker. I'll just go along with you. [_As Horace keeps on doggedly

in sullen silence, he continues:_] Unless I am much mistaken in

myself, you will find me a more valuable friend than Viscus or

Varius. There's no one can write more poetry in a given time than

I, or dance more gracefully; and as for singing, Hermogenes

himself would envy me. _Horace_ [_interrupting, tries to frighten

him off by suggesting that the sick man whom he is going to visit

may be suffering from some contagious disease_]. Have you a mother

or other relative dependent on you? _Bore._ No, I have no one at

all. I've buried every one of them. _Horace_ [_aside_]. Lucky

dogs! Now I'm the only victim left. Finish me up; for a dreadful

fate is dogging my steps, which an old Sabine fortune-teller once

warned me of when I was a boy. She said: "No poisonous drug shall

carry this boy off, nor deadly sword, nor wasting consumption, nor

crippling gout; in the fulness of time some chatterbox will talk

him to death. So then, if he be wise, when he shall come to man's

estate, let him beware of all chatterboxes." [_They have now come

opposite the Temple of Vesta in the south end of the Forum, near

which the courts of justice were held. The hour for opening court

has arrived._] _Bore_ [_suddenly remembering that he has given

bond to appear in a certain suit, and that if he fails to appear

this suit will go against him by default_]. Won't you kindly

attend me here in court a little while? _Horace._ I can't help you

any. Hang it, I'm too tired to stand around here; and I don't know

anything about law, anyhow. Besides, I'm in a hurry to get--you

know where. _Bore._ I'm in doubt what to do, whether to leave you

or my case. _Horace._ Leave me, by all means. _Bore_ [_after a

brief meditation_]. No, I don't believe I will. [_He takes the

lead, and Horace helplessly follows. The Bore starts in on the

subject which is uppermost in his mind._] How do you and Maecenas

get on? He's a very exclusive and level-headed fellow, now, isn't

he? No one has made a better use of his chances. You would have an

excellent assistant in that quarter, one who could ably support

you, if only you would introduce yours truly. Strike me dead, if

you wouldn't show your heels to all competitors in no time.

_Horace._ Why, we don't live there on any such basis as you seem

to think. There is no circle in Rome more free from self-seeking

on the part of its members, or more at variance with such a

feeling. It makes no difference to me if another man is richer or

more learned than I. Every man has his own place there. _Bore._

You don't really mean that? I can scarcely believe it. _Horace._

And yet such is the case. _Bore._ You only make me more eager to

be admitted. _Horace_ [_with contemptuous sarcasm_]. O, you have

only to wish it: such is your excellence, you'll be sure to gain

your point. To tell the truth, Maecenas is a soft-hearted fellow,

and for this very reason guards the first approach to his

friendship more carefully. _Bore_ [_taking Horace's suggestion in

earnest_]. O, I shall keep my eyes open. I'll bribe his servants.

And if I don't get in to-day, I'll try again. I'll lie in wait for

chances, I'll meet him on the street corners, and walk down town

with him. You can't get anything in this life without working for

it. [_Enter Aristius Fuscus, an intimate friend of Horace. They

meet and exchange greetings_]. _Horace_ [_to Fuscus_]. Hello!

where do you come from? _Fuscus._ Where are you going? [_Horace

slyly plucks his friend's toga, pinches his arm, and tries by nods

and winks to get Fuscus to rescue him from the Bore. But Fuscus

pretends not to understand._] _Horace_ [_to Fuscus_]. Didn't you

say that you had something to say to me in private? _Fuscus._ Yes,

but I'll tell you some other time. To-day is a Jewish festival.

You wouldn't have me insult the Jews, would you? _Horace._ O, I

have no such scruples myself. _Fuscus._ But I have. I'm just one

of the plain people--not as strong-minded as you are. You really

must excuse me; I'll tell you some other time. [_Fuscus hurries

away, with a wicked wink, leaving his friend in the lurch._]

_Horace_ [_in a despairing aside_]. O, to think that so dark a day

as this should ever have dawned for me! [_At this juncture the

Bore's adversary at law comes running up._] _The Adversary_ [_to

Bore, in a loud voice._] Where are you going, you bail-breaking

rascal? [_To Horace._] Will you come witness against him? [_Horace

gives him his ear to touch in token of his assent, and the Bore is

hurried off to court, with loud expostulations on both sides, and

with the inevitable jeering street crowd following after._]

_Horace_ [_left alone_]. Saved, by the grace of Apollo!

The fourth and tenth satires of the first book are of especial value to

us, because they contain Horace's own estimate of his predecessor,

Lucilius; answers to popular criticism against the spirit and form of

satire; much general literary criticism; and many personal comments by

the poet upon his own method and spirit as a satirist. Following is an

abstract of the tenth:

Yes, Lucilius _is_ rough--anybody will admit that. I also admit

that he is to be praised for his great wit. But wit of itself does

not constitute great poetry. There must also be polish, variety of

style, sprightliness and versatility. This is what caused the

success of the old Greek comedy. "But," you say, "Lucilius was so

skilled in mingling Latin and Greek." That, I reply, neither

requires any great skill, nor is it a thing to be desired. This

last assertion is at once apparent if you take the discussion into

other fields of literature than poetry. I myself have been warned

by Quirinus not to attempt Greek verse.

I have looked over the literary field and found it occupied by

men who could write better than I in each department--comedy,

tragedy, epic, pastoral. Satire alone promised success to me; but

still I do not profess to excel Lucilius. I freely leave the crown

to him.

But for all that I cannot help seeing his faults which I mentioned

in my former satire--his extreme verbosity and roughness. In

criticizing him I take the same license which he himself used

toward his predecessors, and which he would use now toward his own

extant works were he alive to-day. He surely would be more

careful, and take more pains with his work, if he were now among

us.

And that is just the point. One must write and rewrite, and polish

to the utmost, if he would produce anything worth reading. He must

not be eager to rush into print and cater to the public taste. Let

him be content with the applause of men of culture, and strive to

win that; and let him leave popular favor to men who are

themselves no better than the rabble whom they court.

Few Roman writers are more frankly autobiographical than Horace. His

odes, epodes, satires, and epistles are full of his own personality and

history. From various references in these poems, we learn that he was

born in 65 B. C., in Venusia, a municipal town in Apulia; that his

father was a freedman, a small farmer, and debt collector by trade; that

he was educated in Rome under his father's personal care; that he

finished his education in Athens, where he eagerly imbibed Greek

philosophy and literature. But now the long storm of civil war, which

had attended the rise of Julius Caesar and the struggle between that

leader and Pompey for supremacy, and which had been temporarily allayed

by the complete ascendency of Caesar, broke out afresh with renewed

violence upon the assassination of the great dictator. The verse of

Horace, especially in his odes, is full of the consciousness of this

civil strife, and of deep and sincere regret for its consequence to the

state.

The young student was just twenty-one years of age when the fall of

Caesar startled the world. And when Brutus reached Athens on his way to

Macedonia, and called upon the young Romans there to rally to the

republic and liberty, the ardent heart of the youthful Horace responded

to the summons. He joined the ill-fated army of the liberators, was made

a military tribune, and served as such until the disastrous day of

Philippi, when Horace's military and political ambition left him

forever, together with all hope which he may have cherished of the lost

cause. He made his way back to Rome under shelter of the amnesty which

the merciful conqueror had granted, and there found himself in an

unfortunate plight indeed; for his father was now dead, his modest

estate lost, probably swallowed up in the general confiscations, and he

himself with neither money, friends, nor occupation. He managed in some

way, however, to secure a small clerkship, the income from which served

to keep the wolf from his humble door.

But in this obscure, unfriended clerk one was now walking the streets of

Rome to whom Rome's proudest and most princely mansions were before many

years to open as to a welcome guest. For he carried within him,

concealed in a most unpretentious personality, a rich store of

education, experience, and genius, which was to prove the open sesame

for him to the world's best gifts. To the exercise of this genius he now

turned; and the appearance of the earliest of his satires, with perhaps

some of his odes and epodes as well, was the result. All these things

and much more the poet tells us, frankly giving the whole of his story

with neither boasting on the one hand nor false pride on the other.

And now the event occurred which was the first link that bound Horace

tangibly to his future greatness--his meeting with the poet Vergil, who

was at this time famous and powerful in the friendship of Maecenas,

Pollio, and even the emperor himself. This sweet and generous-souled

poet, recognizing the kindred spirit of genius in the youthful Horace,

straightway admitted him to his own friendship, a friendship which is

one of the most charming pictures of that brilliant age, and which was

destined to endure unbroken until parted by the death of Vergil himself.

It was Vergil who in due time introduced Horace to another friend, a man

who was one of the great personages of that age, a leading statesman, a

man of letters himself, and a generous patron of letters--Maecenas,

under whose sheltering patronage our poet grew and expanded to the full

development of those poetic powers which first had brought him

recognition.

From this shelter Horace writes a satire addressed to Maecenas, in which

he recounts, among other circumstances of his life, the occasion of his

introduction to his patron; and takes occasion to answer the envious

criticisms which were aimed against him, that he, a mere freedman's son,

should be elevated above his betters to this high social position. The

theme of this satire, which he sturdily maintains, is, that in social,

even if not in political matters, character, not family, should be the

standard; or, in the language of another gifted son of poverty:

The rank is but the guinea's stamp;

The man's the gowd for a' that.

We give quotations from this satire in the translation of Francis.

The poet feels justified in addressing it to his patron, because, though

Maecenas is of noble birth himself, he does not hold in contempt the

worthy of lowly descent. Horace says that it is all very well to deny a

man political advancement on the score of low birth; but when it comes

to denying social advancement upon this score to a man of worth, that is

quite unbearable. Horace cannot rightly be envied or criticized for his

friendship with Maecenas, for this came to him purely on his merits and

not by chance. A pleasing picture is given of his first introduction to

Maecenas, and his final admission to that nobleman's charmed circle of

friends.

As for myself, a freedman's son confessed;

A freedman's son, the public scorn and jest,

That now with you I joy the social hour,--

That once a Roman legion owned my power;

But though they envied my command in war

Justly, perhaps, yet sure 'tis different far

To gain your friendship, where no servile art

Where only men of merit claim a part.

Nor yet to chance this happiness I owe;

Friendship like yours it had not to bestow.

First my best Vergil, then my Varius, told

Among my friends what character I hold;

When introduced, in few and faltering words

(Such as an infant modesty affords),

I did not tell you my descent was great,

Or that I wandered round my country seat

On a proud steed in richer pastures bred;

But what I really was I frankly said.

Short was your answer, in your usual strain;

I take my leave, nor wait on you again,

Till, nine months past, engaged and bid to hold

A place among your nearer friends enrolled.

An honor this, methinks, of nobler kind,

That, innocent of heart and pure of mind,

Though with no titled birth, I gained his love,

Whose judgment can discern, whose choice approve.

The poet here pays a glowing tribute of filial affection to his father,

to whose faithful care and instruction he owes it that he has been

shielded from the grosser sins and defects of character.

If some few venial faults deform my soul

(Like a fair face when spotted with a mole),

If none with avarice justly brand my fame,

With sordidness, or deeds too vile to name;

If pure and innocent, if dear (forgive

These little praises) to my friends I live,

My father was the cause, who, though maintained

By a lean farm but poorly, yet disdained

The country schoolmaster, to whose low care

The mighty captain sent his high-born heir,

With satchel, copy-book, and pelf to pay

The wretched teacher on th' appointed day.

To Rome by this bold father was I brought,

To learn those arts which well-born youth are taught;

So dressed and so attended, you would swear

I was some senator's expensive heir;

Himself my guardian, of unblemished truth,

Among my tutors would attend my youth,

And thus preserved my chastity of mind

(That prime of virtue in its highest kind)

Not only pure from guilt, but even the shame

That might with vile suspicion hurt my fame;

Nor feared to be reproached, although my fate

Should fix my fortune in some meaner state,

From which some trivial perquisites arise,

Or make me, like himself, collector of excise.

For this my heart, far from complaining, pays

A larger debt of gratitude and praise;

Nor, while my senses hold, shall I repent

Of such a father, nor with pride resent,

As many do, th' involuntary disgrace

Not to be born of an illustrious race.

But not with theirs my sentiments agree,

Or language; for if Nature should decree

That we from any stated point might live

Our former years, and to our choice should give

The sires to whom we wished to be allied,

Let others choose to gratify their pride;

While I, contented with my own, resign

The titled honors of an ancient line.

Horace proceeds to draw a strong contrast between the very onerous

duties and social obligations which fall to the lot of the high-born,

and his own simple, quiet, independent life.

This friendship with Maecenas, of which the preceding satire relates the

foundation, began in the year 38 B. C., when Horace was twenty-seven

years of age. From this time on the poet received many substantial

proofs of his patron's regard for him, the most notable of which was the

gift of a farm among the Sabine hills about thirty miles from Rome.

Such a gift meant to Horace freedom from the drudgery of the workaday

world, consequent leisure for the development of his literary powers, a

proper setting and atmosphere for the rustic moods of his muse; while

his intimacy in the palace of Maecenas on the Esquiline gave him standing

in the city and ample opportunity for indulging his urban tastes.

Although this gift of the farm and other favors derived from the

friendship of Maecenas were so important to Horace as to color all his

after life and work, he nowhere manifests the slightest spirit of

sycophancy toward his patron. While always grateful, he makes it very

clear that the favors of Maecenas cannot be accepted at the price of his

own personal independence. Rather than lose this, he would willingly

resign all that he has received.

The following satire expresses that deep content which the poet

experiences upon his farm, the simple delights which he enjoys there,

and, by contrast, some of the amusing as well as annoying incidents of

his life in Rome as the favorite of the great minister Maecenas. The

satire is in the translation of Sir Theodore Martin.

My prayers with this I used to charge,--

A piece of land not over large,

Wherein there should a garden be,

A clear spring flowing ceaselessly,

And where, to crown the whole, there should

A patch be found of growing wood.

All this and more the gods have sent,

And I am heartily content.

O son of Maia,[B] that I may

These bounties keep is all I pray.

If ne'er by craft or base design

I've swelled what little store is mine,

Nor mean it ever shall be wrecked

By profligacy or neglect;

If never from my lips a word

Shall drop of wishes so absurd

As, "Had I but that little nook,

Next to my land, that spoils its look!"

Or, "Would some lucky chance unfold

A crock to me of hidden gold,

As to the man whom Hercules

Enriched and settled at his ease,

Who, with the treasure he had found,

Bought for himself the very ground

Which he before for hire had tilled!"

If I with gratitude am filled

For what I have--by this I dare

Adjure you to fulfil my prayer,

That you with fatness will endow

My little herd of cattle now,

And all things else their lord may own

Except what wits he has, alone,

And be, as heretofore, my chief

Protector, guardian, and relief!

So, when from town and all its ills

I to my perch among the hills

Retreat, what better theme to choose

Than Satire for my homely muse?

No fell ambition wastes me there,

No, nor the south wind's leaden air,

Nor Autumn's pestilential breath,

With victims feeding hungry death.

[B] Mercury, the god of gain, and protector of poets.

The poet proceeds to contrast with his restful country life the

vexatious bustle of the city, and the officious attentions which people

thrust upon him because of his supposed influence with Maecenas.

Some chilling news through lane and street

Spreads from the Forum. All I meet

Accost me thus--"Dear friend, you're so

Close to the gods, that you must know;

About the Dacians have you heard

Any fresh tidings?" "Not a word."

"You're always jesting!" "Now may all

The gods confound me, great and small,

If I have heard one word!" "Well, well

But you at any rate can tell

If Caesar means the lands which he

Has promised to his troops shall be

Selected from Italian ground,

Or in Trinacria be found?"

And when I swear, as well I can,

That I know nothing, for a man

Of silence rare and most discreet

They cry me up to all the street.

Thus do my wasted days slip by,

Not without many a wish and sigh:

Oh, when shall I the country see,

Its woodlands green? Oh, when be free,

With books of great old men, and sleep,

And hours of dreamy ease, to creep

Into oblivion sweet of life,

Its agitations and its strife?

When on my table shall be seen

Pythagoras' kinsman bean,

And bacon, not too fat, embellish

My dish of greens, and give it relish?

Oh happy nights, oh feasts divine,

When, with the friends I love, I dine

At mine own hearth-fire, and the meat

We leave gives my bluff hinds a treat!

No stupid laws our feasts control,

But each guest drains or leaves the bowl,

Precisely as he feels inclined.

If he be strong, and have a mind

For bumpers, good! If not, he's free

To sip his liquor leisurely.

And then the talk our banquet rouses!

Not gossip 'bout our neighbors' houses,

But what concerns us nearer, and

Is harmful not to understand;

Whether by wealth or worth, 'tis plain

That men to happiness attain;

By what we're led to choose our friends,--

Regard for them, or our own ends;

In what does good consist, and what

Is the supremest form of that.

At some such informal gathering of neighbors as this the story of the

city mouse and the country mouse would be told. The poet's own moral of

this homely tale is gathered from the farewell words of the country

mouse as he escapes from the splendors--and terrors of the city:

"Ho!" cries the country mouse. "This kind

Of life is not for me, I find.

Give me my woods and cavern. There

At least I'm safe! And though both spare

And poor my food may be, rebel

I never will; so, fare ye well!"

3. AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS

The mantle of the satirist preacher which had fallen from Horace found

no worthy claimant for nearly half a century. The successor, and, so far

as in him lay, the sincere imitator of Horace, was Aulus Persius

Flaccus. His circumstances were as unlike those of his great predecessor

as can well be imagined. Horace was the son of a freedman, with no

financial or social backing save that which he won by his own genius;

Persius was, like Lucilius, of noble equestrian rank, rich, and related

by birth to some of the first men of his time. Horace, while he had

every opportunity for learning all that books and the schools could

teach him, was, as we have already seen, preeminently a student of real

life, having been taught by his father to study men as they actually

were. Persius, on the other hand, saw little of the world except through

the medium of books and teachers. When the future satirist was but six

years of age, his father died, and he was brought up chiefly in the

society of his mother and sister, carefully shielded from contact with

the rough and wicked world. At the age of twelve he was taken from his

native Volaterrae in Etruria to Rome, where his formal education was

continued in the same careful seclusion until he assumed the toga of

manhood. His writings do not, therefore, smack of the street and the

world of men as do those of Horace, but they savor of the cloister and

the library. Horace preached against the sins of men as he saw them;

Persius, as he imagined them and read of them, taking his texts often

from the more virile satires of Horace himself. Horace was devoted to

no school of philosophy, but accepted what seemed to him best and sanest

from all schools, and jeered alike at the follies of all. But Persius

was by birth, education, and choice a Stoic. He became an ardent

preacher and expounder of the Stoic philosophy, just as Lucretius had

thrown his whole heart into expounding the doctrine of Epicurus a

hundred years before.

Stoicism, as Tyrrell says, was the "philosophy in which under the Roman

Empire the human conscience sought and found an asylum. It had ceased

now to be a philosophy, and had become a religion, appealing to the rich

and great as Christianity appealed to the poor and humble."

Persius, accordingly, following his early bent, as soon as he arrived at

man's estate, placed himself under the care and instruction of Cornutus,

a Stoic philosopher. His own account of this event forms one of the most

pleasing passages in his works, and is found in the fifth satire, which

is a confession of his own ardent devotion both to his friend the Stoic,

and to Stoicism as well.

The lofty and almost Christian tone of this ardent young Stoic preacher

was greatly admired in the Middle Ages, and he was much quoted by the

Church Fathers. His high moral truths sounded out in an age of moral

laxity, when faith in the old religious beliefs had given way, and had

not yet laid hold upon the nascent doctrine of Christianity which was

even now marching westward and was soon to gain admission to Rome

itself. To the Stoic, virtue was the bright goal of all living. To gain

her was to gain life indeed; and to lose her was to suffer loss

irreparable. This loss the poet invokes in a masterly apostrophe in the

third satire upon those rulers who basely abuse their power.

Dread sire of gods! when lust's envenomed stings

Stir the fierce nature of tyrannic kings;

When storms of rage within their bosoms roll,

And call in thunder for thy just control;

O then relax the bolt, suspend the blow,

And thus and thus alone thy vengeance show:

In all her charms set Virtue in their eye,

And let them see their loss, despair, and die!

Gifford.

The Christian tone of Persius is perhaps best seen in the second satire,

which is a sermon on prayer. The tone throughout is far above the level

of the thinking of his time, and shows a lofty conception of the deity

and of spiritual things. In the closing lines especially, he reaches so

high and true a spiritual note that he seems almost to have caught a

glimpse of those high conceptions which inspired his great contemporary,

the apostle Paul. This sermon might well have had for its text the

inspired words of the Old Testament prophet Hosea: "For I desired mercy

and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings."

That the Romans were not without their own light as to the acceptable

offering to heaven is further seen in an ode of Horace, in which he

voices the same high truth, that the thought of the heart is of more

moment in the sight of God than the offering of the hand. This fine ode

ends with the following stanza:

If thy hand, free from ill, the altar touch,

Thou shalt the offended gods appease as much

With gifts of sparkling salt and pious meal

As if thy vows more costly victims seal.

Hawkins.

But let us now return to our poet's sermon on prayer. Persius addresses

it to his friend Plotius Macrinus, congratulating him upon the returning

anniversary of his birthday.

Health to my friend! and while my vows I pay,

O mark, Macrinus, this auspicious day,

Which, to your sum of years already flown,

Adds yet another--with a whiter stone.

Amid the prayers to his tutelary genius this day, Macrinus will not

offer those selfish and impious prayers with which men are too prone to

come before the gods, prayers which they would not dare to utter to a

man, or even in the hearing of men.

Indulge your genius, drench in wine your cares:

It is not yours, with mercenary prayers,

To ask of heaven what you would die with shame,

Unless you drew the gods aside, to name;

While other great ones stand, with downcast eyes,

And with a silent censer tempt the skies!--

Sound sense, integrity, a conscience clear,

Are begged aloud, that all at hand may hear;

But prayers like these (half whispered, half suppressed)

The tongue scarce hazards from the conscious breast:

"O that I could my rich old uncle see

In funeral pomp!--O that some deity

To pots of buried gold would guide my share!

O that my ward, whom I succeed as heir,

Were once at rest! Poor child, he lives in pain,

And death to him must be accounted gain.--

By wedlock thrice has Nerius swelled his store,

And now--he is a widower once more!"

The ingenious manner in which this prayer is framed so as to calm the

conscience of the votary is admirably pointed out by Gifford. "The

supplicant meditates no injury to any one. The death of his uncle is

concealed under a wish that he could see his magnificent funeral, which,

as the poor man must one day die, is a prayer becoming a pious nephew.

The second petition is quite innocent.--If people will foolishly bury

their gold and forget it, there is no more harm in his finding it than

another. The third is even laudable; it is a prayer uttered in pure

tenderness of heart, for the relief of a poor suffering child. With

respect to the last, there can be no wrong in mentioning a fact which

everybody knows. Not a syllable is said of his own wife; if the gods are

pleased to take a hint and remove her, that is their concern; he never

asked it."

One question, friend, an easy one, in fine:

What are thy thoughts of Jove? "My thoughts?" Yes, thine.

Wouldst thou prefer him to the herd of Rome?

To any individual?--But to whom?

To Statius, for example. Heavens! a pause?

Which of the two would best dispense of laws?

Best shield th' unfriended orphan? Good! Now move

The suit to Statius, late preferred to Jove:

"O Jove! Good Jove!" he cries, o'erwhelmed with shame,

And must not Jove himself "O Jove!" exclaim?

Or dost thou think the impious wish forgiven,

Because, when thunder shakes the vault of heaven,

The bolt innoxious flies o'er thee and thine,

To rend the forest oak and mountain pine?

Because, yet livid from the lightning's scath,

Thy smoldering corpse, a monument of wrath,

Lies in no blasted grove, for public care

To expiate, with sacrifice and prayer;

Must, therefore, Jove, unsceptered and unfeared

Give to thy ruder mirth his foolish beard?

What bribe hast thou to win the powers divine

Thus to thy rod?--The lungs and lights of swine!

Again, the ears of heaven are assailed by ignorant and superstitious

prayers, against which the poet inveighs. Then follows a rebuke to those

who pray for health and happiness, but who, by their vices and folly,

thwart their own prayer.

Why do men pray so impiously and foolishly? It is because they entertain

such ignorant and unworthy conceptions of the gods, because they think

that they are beings of like passions with themselves. No, no! the gods

have no such carnal passions, nor do they care for gold and the rich

offerings of men's hands. They regard the heart of the worshiper, and if

this is pure, even empty hands may bring an acceptable offering.

O grovelling souls, and void of things divine!

Why bring our passions to the Immortals' shrine,

And judge, from what this carnal sense delights,

Of what is pleasing in their purer sights?

This the Calabrian fleece with purple soils,

And mingles cassia with our native oils;

Tears from the rocky conch its pearly store,

And strains the metal from the glowing ore.

This, this, indeed, is vicious; yet it tends

To gladden life, perhaps, and boasts its ends;

But you, ye priests (for sure ye can), unfold--

In heavenly things, what boots this pomp of gold?

No more, in truth, than dolls to Venus paid,

The toys of childhood, by the riper maid!

No! let me bring the Immortals what the race

Of great Messala, now depraved and base,

On their huge charger, cannot;--bring a mind

Where legal and where moral sense are joined

With the pure essence; holy thoughts that dwell

In the soul's most retired and sacred cell;

A bosom dyed in honor's noblest grain,

Deep-dyed;--with these let me approach the fane,

And heaven will hear the humble prayer I make,

Though all my offering be a barley cake.

Gifford.

4. DECIMUS JUNIUS JUVENALIS

When one has read his Horace, one feels personally acquainted with the

poet, so frankly biographical is he. This is true, though to a much less

extent, of Persius. But Juvenal is almost sphinxlike in regard to

himself. What little we know is gained from a few indirect references in

his writings themselves, and from the numerous and contradictory ancient

lives which have come down to us prefaced to the different manuscripts

of Juvenal's satires. From these we gather that he was born sometime

between 48 and 55 A. D., at the town of Aquinum in Latium, and was the

son of a well-to-do freedman who left him a patrimony sufficient for his

modest maintenance through life. He had a good education in grammar and

rhetoric, and devoted himself through a large part of his earlier life

to rhetorical declamation; though he seems not to have made any

professional or profitable use of the talent which he undoubtedly

possessed for the vocation of the advocate. He enjoyed some unimportant

though honorable civil employment under Titus and Domitian, and served

for one period of his life in the army, probably in Britain, with the

rank of military tribune.

In Juvenal's later life he seems to have given offense either to

Domitian by some lines which he wrote upon a favorite pantomime dancer

of the emperor, or to Hadrian for a similar cause. By one or the other

of these emperors, according to tradition, he was practically exiled by

an appointment to a command of a legion in Africa. The date of his death

is as uncertain as that of his birth, but it seems to lie between 128

and 138 A. D.

It will be seen, therefore, that our poet was contemporaneous with ten

Roman emperors, his life covering the period from Nero to Hadrian,

inclusive. It was during the reign of Domitian, however, that Juvenal,

now already well advanced to middle life, took up his residence in Rome

and began that work which was to be his material contribution to life

and letters.

Life in Rome under Domitian!--what a challenge to the satirist! what a

field for the preacher! These were the crowning years of well-nigh a

century of ever-increasing horror. With the downfall of liberty and the

republic, both of which had perished in fact long before their name and

semblance vanished, wealth and luxury had poured into Rome from the

conquered provinces, and with these that moral laxity against which

Horace had aimed his satire, then in four successive reigns Rome had

cringed and groaned under the absolute sway of cynic, madman, fool, and

flippant murderer, each more recklessly disregardful than the last of

civic virtue and the lives and common rights of man. Then three puppets

within a year involving the world in civil strife were themselves swept

off the stage by Vespasian and Titus, who did indeed give passing

respite to the state. And then for fifteen years--Domitian! Of these

fifteen years Tacitus, just emerging into the grateful light of Nerva's

and of Trajan's reigns, indignantly exclaims:

They had besides expelled all the professors of philosophy, and

driven every laudable science into exile, that naught which was

worthy and honest might anywhere be seen. Mighty, surely, was the

testimony which we gave of our patience; and as our forefathers

had beheld the ultimate consummation of liberty, so did we of

bondage, since through dread of informers and inquisitions of

state, we were bereft of the common intercourse of speech and

attention. Nay, with our utterance we had likewise lost our

memory, had it been equally in our power to forget as to be

silent.... Few we are who have escaped; and, if I may so speak, we

have survived not only others, but even ourselves, when from the

middle of our lives so many years were rent; whence from being

young we are arrived at old age, from being old we are nigh come

to the utmost verge of mortality, all in a long course of awful

silence.--_Galton._

Somewhat earlier than this, though within the same generation, Paul the

apostle to the Gentiles, _the_ preacher of that dark age, had written a

letter to the infant Christian church at Rome in which he had drawn a

terrible picture of what human society can become when it has thrown off

all checks and abandoned itself to profligacy. His picture, we may be

sure, was drawn from the life.

And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave

them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not

fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness,

covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit,

malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent,

haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to

parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural

affection, unmerciful: who, knowing the ordinance of God, that

they which practice such things are worthy of death, not only do

the same, but also consent with them that practice them.

Upon such a world as this did Juvenal, in the prime of manhood, his

powers of reason, observation, and expression fully ripened, look out

from his home in the Roman Subura;[C] with the product of such times did

he mingle in the crowded reception-rooms of rich and noble patrons. He

looked upon society and noted it, and long restrained his speech. But at

last, as Tyrrell has well expressed it, "the flood of indignation, pent

up in furious silence for forty years, once loose, carried away on its

current or tossed aside every obstacle that impeded its onward rush."

[C] A quarter in Rome given up to markets and tenement-houses.

And this is that which mainly distinguishes him from Horace--his

tremendous moral earnestness, his fiery indignation. His spirit did not

allow him to play with his theme; there were hard blows to strike at

outbreaking sins, and he would strike them. And if venial faults were

struck as hard as more serious offenses, that was a proof not of

inconsistency, but of an earnestness that could not stop to distinguish;

if he writes of practices too shameful for telling in the hearing of

polite ears, it is because his righteous indignation was in no mood to

mince words, but would hold up vice in all its hideousness to the fatal

light. He speaks with frankness of shameful sins, but only to hurl his

denunciations at them. He is always in a rage,--strenuous where Horace

is gently satirical and whimsical; didactic and straightforward where

Horace is conversational and dramatic. At the same time he paints most

vivid pictures, filling in the lines with tremendous sweeps of his

rhetorical brush.

He tells us that he was fairly driven to write satire by the very

atmosphere and daily occurrences of folly and sin around him.[D]

[D] The quotations from Juvenal which follow are taken from the

excellent prose version of Leeper.

For who so tolerant of this wrong-headed city, who so callous,

that he can contain himself when lawyer Matho's brand-new litter

comes along, filled with his Greatness, and after him the betrayer

of his distinguished friend, who will soon finish off the remnants

of our nobility already preyed upon.... Is not one moved to fill a

bulky note-book right in the middle of the cross-roads, when a man

is carried past, already indulging in six bearers, showing himself

to view on both sides--a forger who has made himself aristocrat

and millionaire with a little tablet and a damp seal? Now you are

confronted by a lady of position, who, when her husband is

thirsty, just before she hands him the mild Calenian, puts in a

dash of poison, and, like a superior Lucusta, teaches her

unsophisticated kinswomen to carry their livid husbands to burial

right through the town and all its gossip.... It is to crime that

men owe their pleasure-grounds, their castles, banquets, old

silver, and goblets with goat's figure in relief.... When nature

refuses, sheer scorn produces verse--the best it can.

He cannot abide the Greeks. His national pride is touched at the thought

that not only do they swarm in Rome, monopolizing by their superior

shrewdness all profitable employments, but that Rome itself has gone

crazy after them, and things Greek are all the rage.

And now I will at once admit to you,--no false shame shall stop

me,--what class is most in favor with our wealthy men, and whom

most of all I am flying from. I cannot abide, fellow-citizen, a

Greecized Rome.... Your yeoman citizen, Quirinus, dons his Greek

boots and wears a Greek collar upon a neck rubbed with Greek

ointment.... What a quick intellect, what desperate effrontery,

what a ready tongue, surpassing Isaeus himself in fluency. Tell me

now, what do you take him for? In his own person he has brought

us--why, whom you will--critic, rhetorician, geometer, painter,

trainer, prophet, rope-dancer, doctor, sorcerer. The starveling

Greek knows everything.... Mark how that race, so adroit in

flattery, extols the foolish friend's conversation, the

ill-favored friend's features; how they compare some weakling's

scraggy neck with the throat of a Hercules, or admire a harsh

voice which is not a whit better than the cry of a cock.... The

whole breed of them are actors. If you but smile, your Greek

shakes his sides with heartier merriment; he weeps, if he has

spied a tear in his friend's eye, and yet he feels no grief. If

you ask in winter time for a bit of a fire, he takes an overcoat:

should you remark, "I feel warm," he is in a sweat.

Juvenal complains bitterly of the unproductiveness of honest toil in

literature and the professions. It's all very well to talk about the

poet's inspiration, but Pegasus does not fly upon an empty stomach.

He has dined, has Horace, when he shouts his "Evoe." ... Were

Vergil left without a slave and a decent lodging, then every snake

would tumble from his locks: his trumpet would be hushed, and

sound forth no more impressive notes.... Historians, is your toil

more productive? It demands more time and more oil. Each of you,

doubtless, has his pages rising by the hundred, knowing no limit,

growing towards bankruptcy with the pile of papyrus. But what is

your harvest--what does opening up that field yield you? Who will

pay a historian as much as he would pay a reporter?... Then say

what public services and the ever-present big packet of documents

bring in to our advocates. Would you know their real gains? In

one scale set a hundred advocates' estates; in the other just that

of Lacerna, the Red Jockey.

The teacher fares no better:

Who places in Celadus' and learned Palaemon's lap a due reward for

their scholastic toils? Yet, little as it is, the pupil's stupid

body servant takes the first bite, and the steward will snip off a

something for himself. Submit to it, Palaemon; let something be

abated of your due, as if you were a-huckstering winter blankets

and white counterpanes.

Here is his exhortation to those degenerate Roman nobles who prided

themselves upon their blue blood and ancient names, but whose lives

belied their birth. The sentiment may seem a commonplace, but it still

inspires our modern poets, as in Tennyson:

'Tis only noble to be good.

Kind hearts are more than coronets,

And simple faith than Norman blood.

Of what avail are pedigrees? What boots it, Ponticus, taking rank

by length of descent, and having one's ancestors' portrait-masks

to show off? What do you gain by the display of a Corvinus in your

big family roll, or by your affinity with smoke-begrimed Masters

of the Horse, if you live a life of shame in the very face of the

Lepidi?... No, though time-honored waxen likenesses adorn the

length and breadth of your hall, still virtue is the sole and only

nobility. Be a Paulus, a Cossus, or a Drusus in _character_. Rank

that above the statues of your ancestors. The first thing you are

bound to show me is a good heart. If by word and deed you deserve

the character of a blameless man, one who cleaves to the

right--good: I recognize the noble; I salute you, Gaetulicus be

you, or Silanus, or of whatever other blood you come.... For who

will call "noble" one who shames his race, and challenges notice

by the luster of his name alone?

The very horse is ranked and valued by what he does; so much more man,

and besides, _noblesse oblige_:

He is a "noble" steed, whatever grass he comes from, who takes

rank above his fellows--in pace, and who raises the dust upon the

course ahead of all; but the progeny of Coryphaeus and Hirpinus are

"stock for sale"--if Victory has rarely perched on their collar.

_There_ is no regard for ancestors, no favoritism toward the

shades of the departed.... Therefore, so that we may admire

yourself and not your belongings, give me something of your own to

carve 'neath your statue, beyond the honors which we have

rendered, and render still, to those who made you all you are.

Juvenal's most famous satire is the tenth, upon the theme "The Vanity of

Human Wishes." It is more general in scope than the other satires, but

is nevertheless full of the moral earnestness that everywhere

characterizes the author. Here is the broad thesis:

Through all lands but few are they who can clear themselves of the

mists of errors, and discriminate between the real blessings and

what are quite the reverse. For in what fear or wish of ours are

we guided by reason's rule? No matter how auspiciously you start

with a plan, do you not live to regret your efforts and the

attainment of your desire? Whole households have been overthrown

ere now, at their own petition, by a too gracious heaven. By the

arts of peace and war alike we strive for what will only hurt us.

Wealth is notoriously a fatal gift, and should be shunned, not sought.

No one need fear poison if he drinks his wine out of a cheap cup. If the

love of money is the root of all evil, the possession of money is a

challenge to all evil-doers. What, then, may one rightly desire? Power?

This is just as fatal to its possessor.

Some are brought to ruin through their great power, subject itself

to envy just as great; they are wrecked by their long and

brilliant roll of honors; down from the pedestals come their

statues, and now the stroke of the axe shatters the very wheels of

the triumphal cars. Hark! now the fires are hissing, now, by dint

of bellows and forge, that head, the people's idol, is aglow; and

the great Sejanus is a crackling! And soon from the face, second

to one only in the whole world, they are making pipkins, and

basins, and a pan--ay, and even meaner vessels!... What laid low a

Crassus, and a Pompey, and that leader who broke the proud Romans'

spirit and brought them under his lash? Why, it was just the

unscrupulous struggling for the highest place, and the prayer of

ambition, heard but too well by the malicious gods. It is but

seldom that a king does not take a murderous crowd with him down

to Ceres' son-in-law; seldom that a despot dies without

blood-letting.... Just weigh Hannibal. How many pounds' weight

will you find in that greatest of leaders? This is the man for

whom Africa is too small--Africa, lashed by the Moorish main, and

stretching thence to the tepid Nile; and, on another side again,

to the Ethiopian tribes with their towering elephants! He adds

Spain to his empire; he bounds over the Pyrenees; Nature barred

his path with her Alp and her snow; he rives the rocks and bursts

the mountain with vinegar. Now he holds Italy, yet he still

strains forward. "Nothing," cries he, "is gained unless we storm

the city gates with our Punic soldiery, and this hand plants my

standard in the very heart of Rome!" Oh, what a sight! oh, what a

subject for a caricature--the one-eyed general bestriding the

Gaetulian monster! What, then, is his end? Fie, glory! Why, he in

his turn is conquered, and flies headlong into exile; and there he

sits, that august dependent--a gazing stock at a king's

gates--until it may please His Majesty of Bithynia to awake. The

soul which once turned the world upside down shall be quelled, not

by a sword, not by a stone, no, nor by a javelin; but by that

Nemesis of Cannae, the avenger of all that blood--just a ring.[E]

Off with you, madman! Scour the bleak Alps, that so you may--catch

the fancy of schoolboys, and become a theme for declamation!

[E] Hannibal always carried with him, concealed in a ring, a dose of

poison, with which, at last, he took his own life, to escape capture by

the Romans.

If any are disposed to pray for long life and length of days, Juvenal's

dark and repulsive picture of old age would effectually banish that

desire. One by one the physical and mental powers fail and the man is

left but a pitiful wreck of his former self.

But suppose his faculties be sound, yet still he must conduct his

sons to their burial; must gaze at the pyre of his beloved wife,

and of his brother, and on urns filled with what was once his

sisters. This is the forfeit laid upon longevity, to pass to old

age amid bereavement after bereavement, thick-coming griefs, and

one weary round of lamentations, with the garb of the mourner

never laid aside.

But age brings not alone loss of friends, but in many instances personal

suffering and disaster from which one would be mercifully delivered by a

more timely death. This, Caius Marius, the great Roman general, found to

his cost:

That banishment, that jail, Minturnae's swamps, and the bread of

beggary in conquered Carthage, all had their origin in a long

life. What happier being in the world than that Roman could

nature, could Rome ever have produced, if, after leading round the

train of captives amid all the circumstance of war, he had

breathed out his soul in glory, when just stepping down from his

Teutonic car?

As for beauty, foolish indeed is that mother who prays for her son or

her daughter that he or she may possess this; for it is the most fatal

possession of all. Not even the most rugged training of the old Sabine

school of morality can shield the possessor of great beauty from the

poisonous, insidious temptations, if not actual violence, of the wicked

world. What then?

Shall men then pray for nothing? If you will take my advice, you

will allow the gods themselves to determine what is meet for us,

and suited to our lot; for the gods will give us--not what is

pleasant, but what is most befitting in each case. Man is dearer

to them than to himself. Urged on by impulse, by blind and violent

desires, we pray for a wife, and for offspring; but only they (the

gods) know what the children will be, and of what character the

wife. Still, if you must make your petition, and must vow a meat

offering at the shrine, then pray for a healthy mind in a healthy

body; pray for a brave spirit free from the fear of death--a

spirit that regards life's close as one of nature's boons, that

can endure any toil, that is innocent of anger and free from

desire, and that looks on the sufferings of Hercules and his cruel

labors as more blessed than all the wantoning, and reveling, and

down-couches of a Sardanapalus.

Perhaps the appeal of Juvenal that comes most powerfully to the present

generation, and contains the most solemn lesson for us, is his warning

to fathers and mothers that all unconsciously to them their sons and

daughters are following in their footsteps, bound to copy them, and

reproduce their faults in later life. The presence of a child is as

sacred as a temple shrine, and should be as carefully guarded from every

profaning influence. It is surely notable to find this wholesome

teaching springing like a lily out of the mire of that degenerate age.

It smacks neither of fervid rhetoric nor of cold and formal philosophy,

but rings true and natural as childhood itself.

Let no foul word or sight come nigh the threshold where dwells the

father of a family. _You owe your boy the profoundest respect. If

meditating aught that is base, despise not your boy's tender

years; but let the image of your infant son arrest you on the

verge of sin._ For should he some day do a deed to earn the

censor's wrath, and show himself not only your counterpart in face

and figure, but heir of your character as well--one to follow in

your steps, and sin every sin in worse degree--you will chide and

scold him, no doubt, with loud reproaches, and then proceed to

change your will. But whence that boldness, whence those parental

rights, when you do worse, despite your age? If company is coming,

none of your people will have any rest. Sweep the pavement! Let me

see the pillars glistening! Down with the shriveled spider and all

her web! Ho! you polish the plain silver, and you the figured

cups! So the master storms at the top of his voice, urging them

on, with rod in hand. Poor wretch! are you in such a fidget lest

the hall may offend your friend's eye, when he comes, and lest the

vestibule be splashed with mud--all of which one little page with

one half-peck of sawdust puts to rights--but yet bestow no thought

on this, that your son's eye shall rest upon a household

unsullied, stainless, innocent of vice? We thank you that you gave

a citizen to your country and your people, if you make him worthy

of that country, helpful to its soil, helpful in public work, in

peace and war; for it will matter much in what lessons and

principles you train him.

Such wholesome truths as these and many more did Juvenal press home upon

his generation. And he speaks no less to all humanity; for the problems

of human life and conduct are not peculiar to any age, but are always

and everywhere the same.

We have now reviewed two centuries of Roman preachers, and it may

naturally be asked, "What was their influence upon the Roman world?" No

direct results are traceable to their efforts. Society went on its

accustomed course; the seeds of decay and death sprang up, grew to

maturity, and brought forth their natural fruits of national destruction

in due season, apparently unchecked by the counter influences of which

we have spoken. These influences cannot yet be weighed and known--not

until account has been taken of all the factors in the world's life

problem, the grand totals cast up and the trial balance made. But in

that time the bead-roll of the world's real benefactors will contain the

names of these Roman satirists whose voices were raised against an age

of wrong in immemorial protest, who were the numb and dormant conscience

of the human race awakened and incarnate in a human tongue.

SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

_Roman Satire_, as illustrated by the works of Ennius (239-169 B. C.),

Lucilius (180-103 B. C.), Horace (65-8 B. C.), Persius (34-62 A. D.),

and Juvenal (48(?)-138(?) A. D.).

1. What position did the Roman satirist occupy as a teacher of morals?

2. Show how the great Greek writers served as models for the leading

Roman men of letters. 3. In what literary field did the Romans strike

out for themselves? 4. What may we suppose was the character of the rude

satire of ancient Italy? 5. What position does Ennius hold among Roman

satirists? 6. What famous events took place within the lifetime of

Lucilius? 7. How did his social position help to make his writings

effective? 8. What did the Romans themselves think of him? 9. How have

fragments of his works been preserved to us? 10. What picture of life in

the Roman Forum does he present? 11. Give other examples of the

teachings of Lucilius. 12. Quote his definition of virtue. 13. How does

Horace's attitude toward his fellow-men differ from that of Lucilius?

14. What advantage had he in his early education? 15. Illustrate his

habit of personal reflection upon the events of the day. 16. What are

the marked qualities of his style? 17. Describe his argument in favor of

contentment. 18. What qualities of the "bore" are brought out in his

famous satire on this subject? 19. What is his criticism of Lucilius?

20. Give an account of Horace's own life. 21. What ideas does he set

forth in his satire to Maecenas? 22. What description does he give of his

father? 23. What picture does he give of his life on his farm as

contrasted with his life in Rome? 24. How did the circumstances of the

life of Persius differ from those of Horace? 25. How different is his

poetry for this reason? 26. Illustrate the poet's high estimate of

Stoicism. 27. How does he treat the subject of prayer in one of his

famous satires? 28. How is his skill shown in his picture of the false

suppliant? 29. What do we know of the life of Juvenal? 30. What was the

character of the times in which he lived? 31. How does his style differ

from that of Horace? 32. How does he deal with the Hellenizing

tendencies of his time? 33. Give an outline of his satire upon the

vanity of human wishes. 34. What is his solemn warning to parents?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SIMCOX, _History of Latin Literature_: Early Satire, Lucilius, Vol. I,

pp. 62-68; Horace, pp. 283-300; Persius, Vol. II, pp. 80-86; Juvenal,

pp. 118-138.

SELLAR, _The Roman Poets of the Republic_: Early Roman Satire, C.

Lucilius, pp. 222-252. _The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age--Horace and

the Elegiac Poets_: The Satires of Horace, pp. 51-84.

TYRRELL, _Latin Poetry_: Horace and Lucilius, pp. 162-181; Latin Satire,

pp. 216-259.

NETTLESHIP, _The Original Form of the Roman Satura. Lectures and

Essays_: Horace, Life and Poems, pp. 143-167.

CONINGTON, _The Satires of Persius_, with translations and commentary:

Lecture on Life and Writings of Persius, pp. xiii-xxxii.

GIFFORD, _Satires of Juvenal and Persius_, translated into English

verse: The Life of Juvenal, Vol. I, pp. xxxi-xlviii; The Roman

Satirists, pp. xlix-lxxxii; Life and Satires of Persius, Vol. II, pp.

v-xlvii.

PEARSON AND STRONG, _Thirteen Satires of Juvenal_ (the best text edition

with commentary): Life of Juvenal, pp. 9-46.