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THE ROMAN POETS OF THE REPUBLIC
BY
W. Y. SELLAR, M.A., LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF HUMANITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
AND FORMERLY FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD
RE-ISSUE OF THE THIRD EDITION
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M DCCCC V
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO
[_Dedication of the Edition of 1881._]
TO
J. C. SHAIRP, M.A., LL.D.,
PRINCIPAL OF THE UNITED COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS,
PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT
OF MUCH ACTIVE AND GENEROUS KINDNESS,
AND OF
A LONG AND STEADY FRIENDSHIP,
THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In preparing a second edition of this volume, which has been for some
years out of print, I have, with the exception of a few pages added to
Chapter IV, retained the first five chapters substantially unchanged.
Chapters VI and VII, on Roman Comedy, are entirely new. I have
enlarged the account formerly given of Lucilius in Chapter VIII, and
modified the Review of the First Period, contained in Chapter IX.
The short introductory chapter to the Second Period is new. The four
chapters on Lucretius have been carefully revised, and, in part,
re-written. The chapter on Catullus has been re-written and enlarged,
and the views formerly expressed in it have been modified.
In the preface to the first edition I acknowledged the assistance I
had derived from the editions of the Fragments of the early writers
by Klussman, Vahlen, Ribbeck, and Gerlach; from the Histories of Roman
Literature by Bernhardy, Baehr, and Munk, and from the chapters on
Roman Literature in Mommsen's Roman History; from a treatise on the
origin of Roman Poetry, by Corssen; from Sir G. C. Lewis's work on
'The Credibility of Early Roman History'; from the Articles on
the Roman Poets by the late Professor Ramsay, contained in Smith's
'Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'; and from
Articles by Mr. Munro in the 'Journal of Classical and Sacred
Philology.' In addition to these I have, in the present edition, to
acknowledge my indebtedness to the History of Roman Literature by W.
S. Teuffel, to Ribbeck's 'Roemische Tragoedie,' to Ritschl's 'Opuscula,'
to the editions of some of the Plays of Plautus by Brix and Lorenz, to
that of the Fragments of Lucilius by L. Mueller, to the Thesis of M. G.
Boissier, entitled 'Quomodo Graecos Poetas Plautus Transtulerit,' to
Articles on Lucilius by Mr. Munro in the 'Journal of Philology,' and
to the edition of Lucretius, and the 'Criticisms and Elucidations of
Catullus' by the same writer, to Schwabe's 'Quaestiones Catullianae,'
to Mr. Ellis's 'Commentary on Catullus,' to R. Westphal's 'Catull's
Gedichte,' and to M. A. Couat's 'Etude sur Catulle.' I have more
especially to express my sense of obligation to Mr. Munro's writings
on Lucretius and Catullus. In so far as the chapters on these poets in
this edition may be improved, this will, in a great measure, be due to
the new knowledge of the subject I have gained from the study of his
works.
I have retained, with some corrections, the translations of the longer
quotations, contained in the first edition, and have added a literal
prose version of some passages quoted from Plautus and Terence.
Instead of offering a prose version of the longer passages quoted from
Catullus, I have again availed myself of the kind permission formerly
given me by Sir Theodore Martin to make use of his translation.
EDINBURGH, _Dec. 1880_.
PREFATORY NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
In revising this work for a new edition the most important change I
have made is in the account of Terence, contained in Chapter VII. I
have to acknowledge the kind permission of Messrs. A. & C. Black to
make use of the article on Terence which I wrote for the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, in which I first expressed the modification of my views
on that author. I have added some notes to the Chapter on Catullus,
suggested by the opinions expressed in the Prolegomena to the Edition
of B. Schmidt. In the Chapter on Naevius I have availed myself of a
suggestion contained in a paper by Prof. A. F. West, 'On a Patriotic
Passage in the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus,' which appeared in the
American Journal of Philology, for my knowledge of which I am indebted
to his courtesy in sending the article to me. I have introduced
various verbal changes in different parts of the book, implying some
slight modification of the opinions originally expressed. Several of
these were suggested by critics who noticed the earlier editions of
the book, to whom I beg to express my thanks.
W. Y. S.
_January, 1889._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF ROMAN POETRY.
PAGE
Recent change in the estimate of Roman Poetry 1
Want of originality 2
As compared with Greek Poetry 2
" " with Roman Oratory and History 3
The most complete literary monument of Rome 5
Partly imitative, partly original 6
Imitative in forms 7
" in metres 8
Imitative element in diction 9
" " in matter 11
Original character, partly Roman, partly Italian 13
National spirit 14
Imaginative sentiment 15
Moral feeling 16
Italian element in Roman Poetry 17
Love of Nature 17
Passion of Love 19
Personal element in Roman Poetry 20
Four Periods of Roman Poetry 23
Character of each 24
Conclusion 26
CHAPTER II.
VESTIGES OF INDIGENOUS POETRY IN ROME AND ANCIENT ITALY.
Niebuhr's theory of a Ballad-Poetry 28
The Saturnian metre 29
Ritual Hymns 31
Prophetic verses 33
Fescennine verses 34
Saturae 36
Gnomic verses 37
Commemorative verses 37
Inferences as to their character 38
" from early state of the language 39
No public recognition of Poetry 40
Roman story result of tradition and reflection 41
Inferences from the nature of Roman religion 43
" from the character and pursuits of the people 44
Roman Poetry of Italian rather than Roman origin 45
FIRST PERIOD.
FROM LIVIUS ANDRONICUS TO LUCILIUS.
CHAPTER III.
BEGINNING OF ROMAN LITERATURE. LIVIUS ANDRONICUS,
CN. NAEVIUS, 240-202 B.C.
Contact with Greece after capture of Tarentum 47
First period of Roman literature 49
Forms of Poetry during this period 50
Livius Andronicus 51
Cn. Naevius, his life 52
Dramas 55
Epic poem 57
Style 59
Conclusion 60
CHAPTER IV.
Q. ENNIUS, 239-170 B.C., LIFE, TIMES, AND PERSONAL TRAITS.
VARIOUS WORKS. GENIUS AND INTELLECT.
Importance of Ennius 62
Notices of his life 63
Influences affecting his career 64
Italian birth-place 64
Greek education 65
Service in Roman army 66
Historical importance of his age 68
Intellectual character of his age 69
Personal traits 71
Description of himself in the Annals 72
Intimacy with Scipio 74
His enthusiastic temperament 75
Religious spirit and convictions 77
Miscellaneous works 79
Saturae 81
Dramas 83
Annals 88
Outline of the Poem 89
Idea by which it is animated 92
Artistic defects 93
Roman character of the work 94
Contrast with the Greek Epic 96
Contrast in its personages 96
Contrast in supernatural element 97
Oratory in the Annals 98
Description and imagery 100
Rhythm and diction 102
Chief literary characteristics of Ennius 106
Energy of conception 107
Patriotic and imaginative sentiment 110
Moral emotion 112
Practical understanding 113
Estimate in ancient times 116
Disparaging criticism of Niebuhr 118
CHAPTER V
EARLY ROMAN TRAGEDY. M. PACUVIUS, 219-129 B.C.
L. ACCIUS, 170-ABOUT 90 B.C.
Popularity of early Roman Tragedy 120
Partial adaptation of Athenian drama 121
Inability to reproduce its pure Hellenic character 123
Nearer approach to the spirit of Euripides than of Sophocles 125
Grounds of popularity of Roman Tragedy 126
Moral tone and oratorical spirit 129
Causes of its decline 131
M. Pacuvius, notices of his life 133
Ancient testimonies 135
His dramas 136
Passages illustrative of his thought 137
" " of his moral and oratorical spirit 139
Descriptive passages 141
Drama on a Roman subject 142
Character 142
L. Accius, notices of his life 143
His various works 145
Fragments illustrative of his oratorical spirit 147
" " of his moral fervour 148
" " of his sense of natural beauty 149
Conclusion as to character of Roman Tragedy 150
CHAPTER VI.
ROMAN COMEDY. T. MACCIUS PLAUTUS, ABOUT 254 TO 184 B.C.
Flourishing era of Roman Comedy 153
How far any claim to originality? 154
Disparaging judgment of later Roman critics 155
Connection with earlier Saturae 156
Naevius and Plautus popular poets 157
Facts in the life of Plautus 158
Attempt to fill up the outline from his works 160
Familiarity with town-life 161
Traces of maritime adventure 162
Life of the lower and middle classes represented in his plays 163
Love of good living 164
Love of money 166
Artistic indifference 166
Knowledge of Greek 167
Influence of the spirit of his age 167
Dramas adaptations of outward conditions of Athenian New Comedy 169
Manner and spirit, Roman and original 172
Indications of originality in his language 173
" " in his Roman allusions and national characteristics 174
Favourite plots of his plays 178
Pseudolus, Bacchides, Miles Gloriosus, Mostellaria 179
Aulularia, Trinummus, Menaechmi, Rudens, Captivi, Amphitryo 182
Mode of dealing with his characters 191
Moral and political indifference of his plays 192
Value as a poetic artist 195
Power of expression by action, rhythm, diction 200
CHAPTER VII.
TERENCE AND THE COMIC POETS SUBSEQUENT TO PLAUTUS.
Comedy between the time of Plautus and Terence 204
Caecilius Statius 204
Scipionic Circle 206
Complete Hellenising of Roman Comedy 207
Conflicting accounts of life of Terence 207
Order in which his Plays were produced 209
His 'prologues' as indicative of his individuality 210
'Dimidiatus Menander' 212
Epicurean 'humanity' chief characteristic 213
Sentimental motive of his pieces 214
Minute delineations of character 215
Diction and rhythm 217
Influence on the style and sentiment of Horace 218
Modern estimates of Terence 220
Comoedia Togata, Atellanae, Mimus 220
CHAPTER VIII.
EARLY ROMAN SATIRE. C. LUCILIUS, DIED 102 B.C.
Independent origin of Roman satire 222
Essentially Roman in form and spirit 224
" " in its political and censorial function 225
Personal and miscellaneous character of early satire 227
Critical epoch at which Lucilius appeared 229
Question as to the date of his birth 229
Fragments chiefly preserved by grammarians 232
Miscellaneous character and desultory treatment of subjects 233
Traces of subjects treated in different books 234
Impression of the author's personality 236
Political character of Lucilian satire 238
Social vices satirised in it 239
Intellectual peculiarities 243
Literary criticism 245
His style 246
Grounds of his popularity 249
CHAPTER IX.
REVIEW OF THE FIRST PERIOD.
Common aspects in the lives of poets in the second century B.C. 253
Popular and national character of their works 256
Political condition of the time reflected in its literature 257
Defects of the poetic literature in form and style 259
Other forms of literature cultivated in that age 260
Oratory and history 260
Familiar letters 262
Critical and grammatical studies 263
Summary of character of the first period 264
SECOND PERIOD.
THE CLOSE OF THE REPUBLIC.
CHAPTER X.
TRANSITION FROM LUCILIUS TO LUCRETIUS.
Dearth of poetical works during the next half century 269
Literary taste confined to the upper classes 271
Great advance in Latin prose writing 272
Influence of this on the style of Lucretius and Catullus 273
Closer contact with the mind and art of Greece 273
Effects of the political unsettlement on the contemplative life
and thought 275
" on the life of pleasure, and the art founded on it 277
The two representatives of the thought and art of the time 278
CHAPTER XI.
LUCRETIUS. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.
Little known of him from external sources 280
Examination of Jerome's statement 284
Inferences as to his national and social position 287
Relation to Memmius 288
Impression of the author to be traced in his poem 290
Influence produced by the action of his age 290
Minute familiarity with Nature and country life 292
Spirit in which he wrote his work 294
His consciousness of power and delight in his task 295
His polemical spirit 298
Reverence for Epicurus 299
Affinity to Empedocles 300
Influence of other Greek writers 302
" of Ennius 303
His interests speculative, not national 304
His Roman temperament 305
CHAPTER XII.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LUCRETIUS.
Three aspects of the poem 307
General scope of the argument 308
Analysis of the poem 308
Question as to its unfinished condition 321
What is the value of the argument? 324
Weakness of his science 329
Interest of the work as an exposition of ancient physical enquiry 331
" from its bearing on modern questions 332
Power of scientific reasoning, observation, and expression 335
Connecting links between his philosophy and poetry 340
Idea of law 341
" of change 344
" of the infinite 347
" of the individual 348
" of the subtlety of Nature 349
" of Nature as a living power 350
CHAPTER XIII.
THE RELIGIOUS ATTITUDE AND MORAL TEACHING OF LUCRETIUS.
General character of Greek epicureanism 356
Prevalence at Rome in the last age of the Republic 358
New type of epicureanism in Lucretius 360
Forms of evil against which his teaching was directed 363
Superstition 364
Fear of death 369
Ambition 374
Luxury 375
Passion of love 376
Limitation of his ethical views 378
His literary power as a moralist 381
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LITERARY ART AND GENIUS OF LUCRETIUS.
Artistic defects of the work 384
" arising from the nature of the subject 385
" from inequality in its execution 387
Intensity of feeling pervading the argument 388
Cumulative force in his rhythm 389
Qualities of his style 390
Freshness and sincerity of expression 392
Imaginative suggestiveness and creativeness 394
Use of analogies 395
Pictorial power 397
Poetical interpretation of Nature 398
Energy of movement in his descriptions 400
Poetic aspect of Nature influenced by his philosophy 402
Poetical interpretation of life 403
Modern interest of his poem 406
CHAPTER XV.
CATULLUS.
Contrast to the poetry of Lucretius 408
The poetry of youth 409
Accidental preservation of the poems 410
Principle of their arrangement 412
Vivid personal revelation afforded by them 413
Uncertainty as to the date of his birth 414
Birth-place and social standing 417
Influences of his native district 419
Identity of Lesbia and Clodia 422
Poems written between 61 and 57 B.C. 425
Poems connected with his Bithynian journey 429
Poems written between 56 and 54 B.C. 433
Character of his poems, founded on the passion of love 436
" " " on friendship and affection 439
His short satirical pieces 444
Other poems expressive of personal feeling 450
Qualities of style in these poems 452
" of rhythm 453
" of form 454
The Hymn to Diana 455
His longer and more purely artistic pieces 456
His Epithalamia 457
His Attis 461
The Peleus and Thetis 462
The longer elegiac poems 469
Rank of Catullus among the poets of the world 472
THE ROMAN POETS OF THE REPUBLIC.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF ROMAN POETRY.
A great fluctuation of opinion has taken place, among scholars and
critics, in regard to the worth of Latin Poetry. From the revival of
learning till the end of last century, the poets of ancient Rome, and
especially those of the Augustan age, were esteemed the purest models
of literary art, and were the most familiar exponents of the life and
spirit of antiquity. Their works were the chief instruments of the
higher education. They were studied, imitated, and translated by
some of the greatest poets of modern Europe; and they supplied their
favourite texts and illustrations to moralists and humourists, from
Montaigne to the famous English essayists who flourished during the
last century. Up to a still later period, their words were habitually
used in political debate to add weight to argument and point to
invective. Perhaps no other writers, during so long a period,
exercised so powerful an influence, not on literary style and taste
only, but on the character and understanding, of educated men in the
leading nations of the modern world.
It was natural that this excessive deference to their authority should
be impaired both by the ampler recognition of the claims of modern
poetry, and by a more intimate familiarity with Greek literature. They
have suffered, in the estimation of literary critics, from the change
in poetical taste which commenced about the beginning of the present
century, and, in that of scholars, from the superior attractions of
the great epic, dramatic, and lyrical poets of Greece. They were thus,
for some time, the objects of undue disparagement rather than of undue
admiration. The perception of the large debt which they owed to their
Greek masters, led to some forgetfulness of their original merits.
Their Roman character and Italian feeling were insufficiently
recognised under the foreign forms and metres in which these
qualities were expressed. It used to be said, with some appearance of
plausibility, that Roman poetry is not only much inferior in
interest to the poetry of Greece, but that it is a work of cultivated
imitation, not of creative art; that other forms of literature were
the true expression of the genius of the Roman people; that their
poets brought nothing new into the world; that they enriched the life
of after times with no pure vein of native feeling, nor any impressive
record of national experience.
It is, indeed, impossible to claim for Roman poetry the unborrowed
glory or the varied inspiration of the earlier art of Greece. To the
genius of Greece alone can the words of the bard in the Odyssey be
applied,
[Greek:
autodidaktos d' eimi, theos de moi en phresin oimas
pantoias enephysen[1].]
Besides possessing the charm of poetical feeling and artistic form in
unequalled measure, Greek poetry is to modern readers the immediate
revelation of a new world of thought and action, in all its lights and
shadows and moving life. Like their politics, the poetry of the Greeks
sprang from many independent centres, and renewed itself in every
epoch of the national civilisation. Roman poetry, on the other hand,
has neither the same novelty nor variety of matter; nor did it, like
the epic, lyric, dramatic, and idyllic poetry of Greece, adapt itself
to the changing phases of human life in different generations and
different States. But the poets of Rome have another kind of value.
There is a charm in their language and sentiment distinct from that
which is found in any other literature of the world. Certain deep
and abiding impressions are stamped upon their works, which have
penetrated into the cultivated sentiment of modern times. If, as we
read them, the imagination is not so powerfully stimulated by the
revelation of a new world, yet, in the elevated tones of Roman poetry,
there is felt to be a permanent affinity with the strength and dignity
of man's moral nature; and, in the finer and softer tones, a power
to move the heart to sympathy with the beauty, the enjoyment, and the
natural sorrows of a bygone life. If we are no longer moved by the
eager hopes and buoyant fancies of the youthful prime of the ancient
world, we seem to gather up, with a more sober sympathy, the fruits of
its mature experience and mellowed reflexion.
While the literature and civilisation of Greece were still unknown
to them, the Romans had produced certain rude kinds of metrical
composition; they preserved some knowledge of their history in various
kinds of chronicles or annals: they must have been trained to some
skill in oratory by the contests of public life, and by the practice
of delivering commemorative speeches at the funerals of famous men.
But they cannot be said to have produced spontaneously any works of
literary art. Their oratory, history, poetry, and philosophy owed
their first impulse to their intellectual contact with Greece. And
while the form and expression of all Roman literature were moulded
by the teaching of Greek masters and the study of Greek writings, the
debt incurred by the poetry and philosophy of Rome was greater than
that incurred by her oratory and history. The two latter assumed
a more distinct type, and adapted themselves more naturally to the
genius of the people and the circumstances of the State. They were
the work of men for the most part eminent in the State; and they
bore directly on the practical wants of the times in which they were
cultivated. Even the structure of the Latin language testifies to the
oratorical force and ardour by which it was moulded into symmetry; as
the language of Greece betrays the plastic and harmonising power of
her early poetry. There is no improbability in the supposition that,
if Greek literature had never existed, or had remained unknown to the
Romans, the political passions and necessities of the Republic would
have called forth a series of powerful orators; and that the national
instinct, which clung with such strong tenacity to the past, would,
with the advance of power and civilisation, have produced a type of
history, capable of giving adequate expression to the traditions and
continuous annals of the commonwealth.
But their poetry, on the other hand, came to the Romans after their
habits were fully formed[2], as an ornamental addition to their
power,--[Greek: kepion kai enkallopisma ploytou]. Unlike the poetry
of Greece, it was not addressed to the popular ear, nor was it an
immediate emanation from the popular heart. The poets who commemorated
the greatness of Rome, or who sang of the passions and pleasures
of private life, in the ages immediately before and after the
establishment of the Empire, were, for the most part, men born in the
provinces of Italy, neither trained in the formal discipline of Rome,
nor taking any active part in practical affairs. Their tastes and
feelings are, in some ways, rather Italian than purely Roman; their
thoughts and convictions are rather of a cosmopolitan type than
moulded on the national traditions. They drew the materials of their
art as much from the stores of Greek poetry as from the life and
action of their own times. Their art is thus a composite structure,
in which old forms are combined with altered conditions; in which the
fancies of earlier times reappear in a new language, and the spirit of
Greece is seen interpenetrating the grave temperament of Rome, and the
genial nature of Italy.
But, although oratory and history may have been more essential to the
national life of the Romans, and more adapted to their genius, their
poetry still remains their most complete literary expression. Of the
many famous orators of the Republic one only has left his speeches
to modern times. The works of the two greatest Roman historians have
reached us in a mutilated shape; and the most important periods in the
later history of the Republic are not represented in what remains of
the works of any Latin writer. Tacitus records only the sombre and
monotonous annals of the early Empire; and the extant books of Livy
contain the account of times and events from which he himself was
separated by many generations. Roman poetry, on the other hand, is the
contemporary witness of several important eras in the history of the
Republic and the Empire. It includes many authentic and characteristic
fragments from the great times of the Scipios,--the complete works of
the two poets of finest genius, who flourished in the last days of the
Republic,--the masterpieces of the brilliant Augustan era;--and, of
the works of the Empire, more than are needed to exemplify the decay
of natural feeling and of poetical inspiration under the deadening
pressure of Imperialism. And, besides illustrating different eras, the
Roman poets throw light on the most various aspects of Roman life and
character. They are the most authentic witnesses both of the national
sentiment and ideas, and of the feelings and interests of private
life. They stamp on the imagination the ideal of Roman majesty; and
they bring home to modern sympathies the charm and the pathos of the
old Italian life, and the activities and humours of society in the
great capital of pleasure and business.
Roman poetry was the living heir, not the lifeless reproduction of
the genius of Greece. If it seems to have been a highly-trained
accomplishment rather than the irrepressible outpouring of a natural
faculty, still this accomplishment was based upon original gifts of
feeling and character, and was marked by its own peculiar features.
The creative energy of the Greeks died out with Theocritus; but their
learning and taste, surviving the decay of their political existence,
passed into the education of a kindred race, endowed, above all other
races of antiquity, with the capacity of receiving and assimilating
alien influences, and of producing, alike in action and in literature,
great results through persistent purpose and concentrated industry.
It was owing to their gifts of appreciation and their capacity for
labour, that the Roman poets, in the era of the transition from
the freedom and vigour of the Republic to the pomp and order of the
Empire, succeeded in producing works which, in point of execution,
are not much inferior to the masterpieces of Greece. It was due to the
spirit of a new race,--speaking a new language, living among different
scenes, acting their own part in the history of the world,--that the
ancient inspiration survived the extinction of Greek liberty, and
reappeared, under altered conditions, in a fresh succession of
powerful works, which owe their long existence as much to the vivid
feeling as to the artistic perfection by which they are characterised.
From one point of view, therefore, Roman poetry may be regarded as an
imitative reproduction, from another, as a new revelation of the human
spirit. For the form, and for some part of the substance, of their
works, the Roman poets were indebted to Greece: the spirit and
character, and much also of the substance of their poetry, are native
in their origin. They betray their want of inventiveness chiefly
in the forms of composition and the metres which they employed;
occasionally also in the cast of their poetic diction, and in their
conventional treatment of foreign materials. But, in even the least
original aspects of their art, they still bear the impress of their
nationality. Although, with the exception of Satire and the poetic
Epistle, they struck out no new forms of poetic composition, yet those
adopted by them assumed something of a new type, owing to the weight
of their contents, the massive structure of the Roman language, the
fervour and gravity of the Roman temperament, the practical bent and
logical mould of the Roman understanding, the strong vitality and the
emotional susceptibility of the Italian race.
They were not equally successful in all the forms which they attempted
to reproduce. They were especially inferior to their masters in
tragedy. They betray the inferiority of their dramatic genius also in
other fields of literature, especially in epic and idyllic poetry, and
in philosophical dialogues. They express passion and feeling either
directly from their own hearts and experience, or in great rhetorical
passages, attributed to the imaginary personages of their story--to
Ariadne or Dido, to Turnus or Mezentius. But this occasional
utterance of passion and sentiment is not united in them with a vivid
delineation of the complex characters of men; and it is only in their
comic poetry that they are quite successful in reproducing the natural
and lively interchange of speech. There is thus, as compared with
Homer and Theocritus, some want of personal interest in the epic,
descriptive, and idyllic poetry of Virgil. The natural play of
characters, acting and reacting upon one another, enlivens the
divinely-appointed action of the Aeneid, only in such exceptional
passages as the episode of Dido; nor does it add the charm of human
associations to the poet's deep and quiet pictures of rural beauty,
and to his graceful expression of pensive and tender feeling.
The Romans, as a race, were wanting in speculative capacity; and
thus their poetry does not rise, or rises only in Lucretius, to those
imaginative heights from which the great lyrical and dramatic poets of
Greece contemplated the spectacle of human life in all its wonder and
solemnity. Yet both the epic and the lyrical poetry of Rome have
a character and perfection of their own. The Aeneid, with many
resemblances in points of detail to the poems of Homer, is yet, in
design and execution, a true national monument. The lyrical poetry of
Rome, if inferior to the choral poetry of Greece in range of thought
and in ethereal grace of expression, and, apparently, to the early
Iambic and Melic poetry of Greece in the range of the emotions to
which it appeals, is yet an instrument of varied power, capable of
investing the more serious or more transient joys and sorrows of life
with an unfading charm, and rising into fuller and more commanding
tones to express the national sentiment and moral dignity of Rome.
Didactic poetry obtained in Lucretius and Virgil ampler volume and
profounder meaning than in their Greek models, Empedocles and Hesiod.
It was by the skill of the two great Latin poets that poetic art
was made to embrace within its province the treatment of a great
philosophical argument, and of a great and ancient form of human
industry. The Satires and Epistles of Horace showed, for the first
time, how the didactic spirit could deal in poetry with the whole
conduct and familiar experience of life. The elegiac poets of the
Augustan age, while borrowing the metre of their compositions from the
early poets of Ionia and the later writers at the court of Alexandria,
have taken the substance of their poetry to a great extent from their
own lives and interests; and have treated their materials with a
fluent and varied brilliancy of style, and often with a graceful
tenderness and sincerity of feeling, unborrowed from any foreign
source. It may thus be generally affirmed that the Roman poets,
although adding little to the great discoveries or inventions
in literature, and although not equally successful in all their
adaptations of the inventions of their predecessors, have yet left
the stamp of their own genius and character on some of the great forms
which poetry has assumed.
The metres of Roman poetry are also adaptations to the Latin language
of the metres previously employed in the epic, lyrical, dramatic and
elegiac poetry of Greece. The Italian race had, in earlier times,
struck out a native measure, called the Saturnian,--of a rapid and
irregular movement,--in which their religious emotions, their festive
and satiric raillery, and their commemorative instincts found a rude
expression. But after this measure had been rejected by Ennius,
as unsuited to the gravity of his greatest work, the Roman poets
continued to imitate the metres of their Greek predecessors. But, in
their hands, these became characterised by a slower, more stately,
and regular movement, not only differing widely from the ring of the
native Saturnian rhythm, but also, with every improvement in poetic
accomplishment, receding further and further from the freedom and
variety of the Greek measures. The comic and tragic measures, in which
alone the Roman writers observed a less strict rule than their models,
never attained among them to any high metrical excellence. The rhythm
of the Greek poets, owing in a great measure to the frequency of
vowel sounds in their language, is more flowing, more varied, and more
richly musical than that of Roman poetry. Thus, although their verse
is constructed on the same metrical laws, there is the most marked
contrast between the rapidity and buoyancy of the Iliad or
the Odyssey, and the stately and weighty march of the Aeneid.
Notwithstanding their outward conformity to the canons of a foreign
language, the most powerful and characteristic measures of Roman
poetry,--such as the Lucretian and the Virgilian hexameter, and
the Horatian alcaic,--are distinguished by a grave, orderly, and
commanding tone, symbolical of the genius and the majesty of Rome. In
such cases, as the Horatian sapphic and the Ovidian elegiac, where
the structure of the verse is too slight to produce this impressive
effect, there is still a remarkable divergence from the freedom
and manifold harmony of the early Greek poets to a more uniform and
monotonous cadence.
The diction also of Roman poetry betrays many traces of imitation.
Some of the early Latin tragedies were literal translations from the
works of the Athenian dramatists; and fragments of the rude Roman copy
may still be compared with the polished expression of the original.
Some familiar passages of the Iliad may be traced among the rough-hewn
fragments of the Annals of Ennius. Even Lucretius, whose diction,
more than that of most poets, produces the impression of being the
immediate creation of his own mind, has described outward objects, and
clothed his thoughts, in language borrowed from Homer, Empedocles,
and Euripides. The short volume of Catullus contains translations from
Sappho and Callimachus, and frequent imitations of other Greek poets;
and, from the extant fragments of Alcaeus, Anacreon, and others of
the Greek lyric poets, it may be seen how frequently Horace availed
himself of some turn of their expression to invest his own experience
with old poetic associations. Virgil, whose great success is, in no
slight measure, due to the skill and taste with which he used the
materials of earlier Greek and native writers, has reproduced
the heroic tones of Homer in his epic, and the mellow cadences of
Theocritus in his pastoral poems; and has blended something of the
antique quaintness and oracular sanctity of Hesiod with the golden
perfection of his Georgics.
But besides the direct debt which each Roman poet owed to the Greek
author or authors whom he imitated, it is difficult to estimate
the extent to which the taste of the later Romans was formed by the
familiar study of Greek literature. The habitual study of any foreign
language has an influence not on style only, but even on the structure
of thought and the development of emotion. The Roman poets first
learned, from the study of Greek poetry, to feel the graceful
combinations and the musical power of expression, and were thus
stimulated and trained to elicit similar effects from their native
language. It is for this gift, or power over language, that Lucretius
prays in his invocation to the creative power of Nature,--
Quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem;
and those who came after him devoted still greater study to attain
perfection in the diction and rhythm of poetry. But their success was
gained with some loss of direct force and freshness in the expression
of feeling. In Virgil and in Horace words are combined in a less
natural order than in Homer and the Attic dramatists. Their language
does not strike the mind with the spontaneous force of Greek poetry,
nor does it seem equally capable of gaining and retaining the ear of a
popular audience. Catullus alone among the great Roman poets combines
in those short poems, which are the direct expression of his feeling,
perfect grace with the happiest freedom and simplicity. Yet the
studied and compact diction of Latin poetry, if wanting in fluency,
ease, and directness, lays a strong hold upon the mind, by its power
of marking with emphasis what is most essential and prominent in
the ideas and objects presented to the imagination. The thought and
sentiment of Rome have thus been engraved on her poetical literature,
in deep and enduring characters. And, notwithstanding all manifest
traces of imitation, the diction of the greatest Roman poets attests
the presence of genuine creative power. A strong vital force is
recognised in the direct and vigorous diction of Ennius and Lucretius;
and, though more latent, it is felt no less really to pervade
the stateliness and chastened splendour of Virgil, and the subtle
moderation of Horace.
Roman poetry owes also a considerable part of its substance to Greek
thought, art, and traditions. This is the chief explanation of that
conventional character which detracts from the originality of some of
the masterpieces of Roman genius. The old religious belief of Rome and
Italy became merged in the poetical restoration of the Olympian Gods;
the story of the origin of Rome was inseparably connected with
the personages of Greek poetry; the familiar manners of a late
civilisation appear in unnatural association with the idealised
features of the heroic age. Even the expression of personal feeling,
experience, and convictions is often coloured by light reflected from
earlier representations. Hence a good deal of Latin poetry appears to
fit less closely to the facts of human life, than the best poetry of
Greece and of modern nations. This imitative and composite workmanship
is more apparent in the later than in the earlier poets. The substance
and thought of Ennius, Lucretius, and Catullus, even when they
reproduce Greek materials, appear to be more vivified by their own
feeling than the substance and thought of the Augustan poets. The
beautiful and stately forms of Greek legend, which lived a second
life in the young imagination of Catullus, were becoming trite and
conventional to Virgil:--
Cetera, quae vacuas tenuissent carmine mentes,
Omnia jam vulgata.
The ideal aspect of the golden morning of the world has been seized
with a truer feeling in the Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis than in
the episode of the 'Pastor Aristaeus' in the Georgics. Not only are
the main features in the story of the Aeneid of foreign origin, but
the treatment of the story betrays some want of vital sympathy with
the heterogeneous elements out of which it is composed. The poem is
a religious as well as a great national work; but the religious creed
which is expressed in it is a composite result of Greek mythology, of
Roman sentiment, and of ideas derived from an eclectic philosophy. The
manners represented in the poem are a medley of the Augustan and of
the Homeric age, as seen in vague proportions, through the mists
of antiquarian learning. It must, indeed, be remembered that Greek
traditions had penetrated into the life of the whole civilised world,
and that the belief in the connexion of Rome with Troy had rooted
itself in the Roman mind for two centuries before the time of Virgil.
Still, the tale of the settlement of Aeneas in Latium, as told in the
great Roman epics, bears the mark of the artificial construction of
a late and prosaic era, not of the spontaneous growth of imaginative
legend, in a lively and creative age. So, also, in another sphere of
poetry, while there are genuine touches of nature in all the odes of
Horace, yet the reproduction of Greek mythology which plays so large a
part in many of them is a result of his artistic sympathy, and has not
any vital root in his own belief or the beliefs of his age.
Roman poetry, from this point of view, appears to be the old Greek
art reappearing under new conditions: or rather the new art of the
civilised world, after it had been leavened by Greek thought, taste,
and education. The poetry of Rome was, however, a living power,
after the creative energy of Greece had disappeared, so that, were it
nothing more, that literature would still be valuable as the fruit of
the later summer of antiquity. As in Homer, the earliest poet of the
ancient world, there is a kind of promise of the great life that
was to be; so, in the Augustan poets, there is a retrospective
contemplation of the life, the religion, and the art of the past,--a
gathering up of 'the long results of time.' But the Roman poets had
also a strong vein of original character and feeling, and many phases
of national and personal experience to reveal. They had to give a
permanent expression to the idea of Rome, and to perpetuate the charm
of the land and life of Italy. In their highest tones, they give
utterance to the patriotic spirit, the dignified and commanding
attributes, and the moral strength of the Imperial Republic. But
other elements in their art proclaim their large inheritance of the
receptive and emotional nature which, in ancient as in modern times,
has characterised the Southern nations. As the patrician and plebeian
orders were united in the imperial greatness of the commonwealth, as
the energy of Rome and of the other Italian communities was welded
together to form a mighty national life, so these apparently
antagonistic elements combined to create the majesty and beauty of
Roman poetry. Either of these elements would by itself have been
unproductive and incomplete. The pure Roman temperament was too
austere, too unsympathetic, too restrained and formal, to create and
foster a luxuriant growth of poetry: the genial nature of the south,
when dissociated from the control of manlier instincts and the
elevation of higher ideals, tended to degenerate into licentious
effeminacy, both in life and literature. The fragments of the earlier
tragic and epic poets indicate the predominance of the gravity and
the masculine strength inherent in the Roman temper, almost to the
exclusion of the other element. Roman comedy, on the other hand,
gave full play to Italian vivacity and sensuousness with only slight
restraint from the higher instincts inherited from ancient discipline.
In Lucretius, Virgil, and Horace, moral energy and dignity of
character are most happily combined with susceptibility to the
charm and the power of Nature. Catullus and the elegiac poets of the
Augustan age abandoned themselves to the passionate enjoyment of their
lives, under little restraint either from the pride or the virtue
of their forefathers. Their faults and weaknesses are of a type
apparently most opposed to the tendencies of the higher Roman
character. Yet even these may be looked upon as a kind of indirect
testimony to the ancient vigour of the race. Catullus, in his very
coarseness, betrays the grain of that strong nature, out of which the
freedom and energy of the Republic had been developed. Ovid, in
his libertinism, displays his vigorous and ardent vitality. The
indifference of Tibullus and Propertius to the graver duties and
interests of life, looks like a reaction from a standard of manliness
too high to be permanently upheld.
Among the most truly Roman characteristics of Latin poetry, national
and patriotic sentiment is conspicuous. Among the poets of the
Republic, Naevius and Lucilius were animated by political as well
as national feeling. The chief work of Ennius was devoted to the
commemoration of the ancient traditions, the august institutions, the
advancing power, and the great character of the Roman State. In the
works of the Augustan age, the fine episodes of the Georgics, the
whole plan and many of the details of the Aeneid, show the spell
exercised over the mind of Virgil by the ancient memories and the
great destiny of his country, and bear witness to his deep love of
Italy, and his pride in her natural beauty and her strong breed of
men. Horace rises above his irony and epicureanism, to celebrate the
imperial majesty of Rome, and to bear witness to the purity of the
Sabine households, and to the virtues exhibited in the best types of
Roman character. The Fasti of Ovid, also, is a national poem, owing
its existence to the renewed interest imparted to the mythical and
early story of Rome by the establishment of the Empire. The other
elegiac poets, though they devote much less of their writings to the
subject, yet betray a graver and deeper feeling in the rare passages
in which they appeal to patriotic memories.
The poets of the latest age of the Republic alone express little
sympathy with national or public interests. The time in which they
flourished was not favourable to the pride of patriotism or to
political enthusiasm. The contemplative genius of Lucretius separated
him from the pursuits of active life; and his philosophy taught the
lesson that to acquiesce in any government was better than to engage
in the strife of personal ambition:--
Ut satius multo jam sit parere quietum
Quam regere imperio res velle et regna tenere.
Catullus, while eagerly enjoying his life, seems, in regard to the
political turmoil of his time, to 'daff the world aside, and bid it
pass': yet there is, as has been well said[3], a rough republican
flavour in his careless satire; and he retained to the last, and
boldly asserted, what was the earliest, as well as the latest,
instinct of ancient liberty--the spirit of resistance to the arbitrary
rule of any single man.
Roman poetry is pervaded also by a peculiar vein of imaginative
emotion. There is no feeling so characteristic of the higher works of
Roman genius as the sense of majesty. This feeling is called forth by
the idea or outward manifestation of strength, stability, vastness,
and order; by whatever impresses the imagination as the symbol of
power and authority, whether in the aspect of Nature, or in the works,
actions, and institutions of man. It is in their most serious and
elevated writings, and chiefly in their epic and didactic poetry,
that the Romans show their peculiar susceptibility to this grave and
dignified emotion. Even the plain and rude diction of Ennius rises
into rugged grandeur when he is moved by the vastness or massive
strength of outward things, by 'the pomp and circumstance' of war, or
by the august forms and symbols of government. The majestic tones of
Lucretius seem to give a voice to the deep feeling of the order and
immensity of the universe which possessed him. The sustained dignity
of the Aeneid, and the splendour of some of its finest passages--such
for instance as that which brings before us the solemn and magnificent
spectacle of the fall of Troy--attest how the imagination of Virgil
was moved to sympathy with the attributes of ancient and powerful
sovereignty.
Further, in the fervour and dignity of their moral feeling, the Roman
poets are true exponents of the genius of Rome. Their spirit is more
authoritative, and less speculative than that of Greek poetry. They
speak rather from the will and conscience than from the wisdom that
has searched and understood the ways of life. Greek poetry
strengthens the will or purifies the heart indirectly, by its truthful
representation of the tragic situations in human life; Roman poetry
appeals directly to the manlier instincts and more magnanimous
impulses of our nature. This glow of moral emotion pervades not the
poetry only, but the oratory, history, and philosophy of Rome. It has
cast a kind of religious solemnity around the fragments of the early
epic, tragic, and satiric poetry: it has given an intenser fervour
to the stern consistency and desperate fortitude of Lucretius: it has
added the element of strength to the pathos and fine humanity in the
Aeneid. It is by his moral, as well as his national enthusiasm, that
Horace reveals the Roman gravity that tempered his genial nature. The
language of Lucan, Persius, and Juvenal still breathed the same spirit
in the deadening atmosphere of the Empire. Of the greater poets
of Rome, Catullus alone shows little trace of this grave ardour of
feeling, the more usual accompaniment of the firm temper of manhood
than of the prodigal genius of youth.
There are, however, as was said above, other feelings expressed in
Roman poetry, more akin to modern sympathies. In no other branch of
ancient literature is so much prominence given to the enjoyment
of Nature, the passion of love, and the joys, sorrows, tastes, and
pursuits of the individual. The gravity and austerity of the old Roman
life, and the predominance of public over private interest in the best
days of the Republic, tended to repress, rather than to foster, the
birth of these new modes of emotion. They are like the flower of
that more luxuriant but less stately Italian life which spread itself
abroad under the shadow of Roman institutions, and came to a rapid
maturity after her conquests had brought to Rome the accumulated
treasures of the world, and left to her more fortunate sons ample
leisure to enjoy them.
The love of natural scenery and of country life is certainly more
prominently expressed in Roman than in Greek poetry. Homer, indeed,
among all the poets of antiquity, presents the most vivid and true
description of the outward world; and the imagination of Pindar and
the Attic dramatists appears to have been strongly, though indirectly,
affected both by the immediate aspect and by the invisible power of
Nature. Thucydides and Aristophanes testify to the enjoyment which the
Athenians found in the ease and abundance of their country life, and
to the affection with which they clung to the old religious customs
and associations connected with it. The conscious enjoyment of Nature
as a prominent motive of poetry first appears in the Alexandrian era.
The great poets of earlier times were too deeply penetrated by the
thought of the mystery and the grandeur in human life, to dwell much
on the spectacle of the outward world. Though their delicate sense of
beauty was unconsciously cherished and refined by the air which they
breathed, and the scenes by which they were surrounded, yet they do
not, like the Roman poets, yield to the passive pleasures derived from
contemplating the aspect of the natural world; nor do they express the
happiness of passing out of the tumult of the city into the peaceful
security of the country. The difference between the two nations in
social temper and customs is connected with this difference in their
aesthetic susceptibility. The spirit in which a Greek enjoyed his
leisure, was one phase of his sociability, his communicativeness, his
constant passion for hearing and telling something new,--a disposition
which made the [Greek: lesche] a favourite resort so early as the
time of Homer, and which is seen still characterising the most
typical representatives of the race in the days of St. Paul. The Roman
statesman, on the other hand, prized his _otium_ as the healthy
repose after strenuous exertion. The chief relaxation to his proud and
self-dependent temper consisted in being alone, or at ease with
his household and his intimate friends. This desire for rest and
retirement was one great element in the Roman taste for country
life;--a taste which was manifested among the foremost public men,
such as the Scipios and Laelius, long before any trace of it is
betrayed in Roman poetry. But, as the practice of spending the
unhealthy months of autumn away from Rome became general among the
wealthier classes, and as new modes of sentiment were fostered
by greater leisure and finer cultivation, a genuine love of
Nature,--taking the form either of attachment to particular places,
or of enjoyment in the life and beautiful spectacle of the outward
world,--was gradually awakened in the more refined spirits of the
Italian race.
The poetry of the Augustan age and of that immediately preceding it
is deeply pervaded by this new sentiment. Each of the great poets
manifests the feeling in his own way. Lucretius, while contemplating
the majesty of Nature's laws, and the immensity of her range, is at
the same time powerfully moved to sympathy with her ever-varying life.
He feels the charm of simply living in fine weather, and looking
on the common aspects of the world,--such as the sea-shore, fresh
pastures and full-flowing rivers, or the new loveliness of the early
morning. He represents the punishment of the Danaides as a symbol of
the incapacity of the human spirit to enjoy the natural charm of the
recurring seasons of the year. Catullus, too, although his active
social temper did not respond to the spell which Nature exercised over
the contemplative and pensive spirits of Lucretius and Virgil, has
many fine images from the outward world in his poems. He delights in
comparing the grace and the passion of youth with the bloom of flowers
and the stateliness of trees; he associates the beauty of Sirmio with
his bright picture of the happiness of home; he feels the return of
the genial breezes of spring as enhancing his delight in leaving the
dull plains of Phrygia, and in hastening to visit the famous cities of
Asia. Virgil's early art was characterised by his friend and brother
poet in the lines,--
Molle atque facetum
Vergilio annuerunt gaudentes rure camenae[4].
The love of natural, and especially of Italian, beauty blends with all
his patriotic memories, and with the charm which he has cast around
the common operations of rustic industry. The freedom and peace of his
country life, among the Sabine hills, kept the heart of Horace fresh
and simple, in spite of all the pleasures and flatteries to which he
was exposed; and enabled him, till the end of his course, to mingle
the clear fountain of native poetry,--'ingeni benigna vena,'--with the
stiller current of his meditative wisdom.
The passion of love was a favourite theme both of the early lyrical
poets of Greece, and of the courtly writers of Alexandria; but the
works of the former have reached us only in inconsiderable fragments;
and the latter, with the exception of Theocritus, are much inferior to
the Roman poets who made them their models. It is in Latin literature
that we are brought most near to the power of this passion in the
ancient world. Few among the poets who have recorded their own
experience of love, in any age, have expressed a feeling so true or so
intense as Catullus. He has all the ardent, self-forgetful devotion,
if he wants the chivalry and purity, of modern sentiment. He has
painted the love of others also with grateful fidelity. He has shown
the finest sense in discerning, and the finest power in delineating
the charm of youthful passion, when first awakening into life, or
first unfolding into true affection. It is by his delineation of the
agony of Dido that Virgil has imparted the chief personal interest
to the story of the Aeneid; and the love which finds a voice in his
pastoral poems is as ideal as that which has found its truest voice in
some of our great modern poets. Horace is the poet of the lighter and
gayer moods of the passion. Without ever becoming a slave to it, he
experienced enough of its pains and pleasures to enable him to paint
the fascination or the waywardness of a mistress with the equable
feeling of an epicurean, but, at the same time, with the refined
observation of a poet. The elegiac poets of the Augustan age, making
pleasure the chief pursuit of their lives, have made the more sensuous
phases of this passion the predominant motive of their poetry. Yet
the tenderness of Tibullus is as genuine as that of Virgil; there is
ardent emotion expressed by Propertius for his living mistress, and
deep feeling in the lines in which he recalls her memory after death;
the license of Ovid is, if not redeemed, at least relieved, by his
buoyant wit and his brilliant fancy.
Roman poetry is also interesting as the revelation of personal
experience and character. The biographies of ancient authors are,
for the most part, meagre and untrustworthy; and thus it is chiefly
through the conscious or unconscious self-portraiture in their
writings that the actual men of antiquity are brought into close
contact with the modern world. Few men of any age or country are
so well known to us as Horace; and it is from his own writings,
exclusively, that this intimate knowledge has been obtained. The lines
in which he describes Lucilius are more applicable to himself than to
any extant writer of Greece or Rome,--
Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris: neque si male cesserat, unquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
Vita senis[5].
He has described himself, his tastes and pursuits, his thoughts and
convictions, with perfect frankness and candour, and without any of
the triviality or affectation of literary egotism. Catullus, although
sometimes wanting in proper reticence, and altogether devoid of that
meditative art with which Horace transmutes his own experience into
the common experience of human nature, is known also as a familiar
friend, from the force of feeling with which he realised, and the
transparent sincerity with which he recorded, all the pain and the
pleasure of his life. The elegiac poets of the Augustan age have
written, neither from so strong a heart as that of Catullus, nor with
the self-restraint and self-respect of Horace; but yet one of the
chief sources of interest in their poetry, as of that of Martial in
a later age, arises from their strong realisation of life, their
unreserved communicativeness, and the light they thus throw on one
phase of personal and social manners in ancient times.
Nor are these indications of individual character confined to the
poets who profess to communicate their own feelings, and to record
their own fortunes. All the works of Roman poetry bear emphatically
the impress of their authors. While the finest Greek poetry seems like
an almost impersonal emanation of genius, Roman poetry is, to a much
greater extent, the impression of character. The great Roman writers
manifest that kind of self-consciousness which accompanies
resolute and successful effort; while the Greeks enjoy that happy
self-forgetfulness which attends the unimpeded exercise of a natural
gift. The epitaphs composed for themselves by Naevius, Plautus,
Ennius, and Pacuvius, and the assertion of their own originality
and of their hopes of fame which occurs in the poetry of Lucretius,
Virgil, and Horace, were dictated by a strong sense of their own
personality, and of the importance of the task on which they were
engaged. Catullus, although he is much preoccupied with, and most
frank in communicating his feelings and pursuits, has much less of the
consciousness of genius, is much more humble in his aspirations, and
more modest in his estimate of himself. In this, as in other respects,
he approaches nearer to the type of Greek art than any of his
brother-poets of Rome.
It is a common remark that the very greatest poets are those about
whose personal characteristics least is known. It is impossible
in their case to determine how far they have expressed their real
sympathies or convictions. They rise above the prejudices of their
country and the accidents of their time, and can see the good and
evil inseparably mixed in all human action. No criticism can throw any
trustworthy light on the personal position, the pursuits and aims, the
outward and inward experience of Homer. It cannot even be determined
with certainty how much of the poetry which bears his name is the
creation of one, seemingly, inexhaustible genius; and how much is the
'divine voice' of earlier singers still 'floating around him.' Such
inquiries are ever attracting and ever baffling a high curiosity. They
leave the mind perplexed with the doubt whether it is discerning,
in the far distance, the outline of solid mountain-land, or only the
transient shapes of the clouds. Hesiod, on the other hand, a poet of
perhaps equal antiquity, but of an infinitely lower order of genius,
has left his own likeness graphically delineated on his remains. There
is much to interest a reader in the old didactic poem, 'The Works
and Days,' but it is not the interest of studying a work of art or of
creative genius. The charm of the book consists partly in its power
of calling up the ideas of a remote antiquity and of human life in its
most elemental conditions; partly in the distinct impression which
it bears of a character of an antique and primitive and yet not
unfamiliar type;--a character of deep natural piety and righteousness,
but with a quaint intermixture of other qualities;--homespun sagacity
and worldly wisdom; genuine thrift, and horror of idleness, of war,
of seafaring enterprise;--sardonic dislike of the airs and vices of
women, and a grim discontent with his own condition, and with the poor
soil which it was his lot to till[6]. It is through his want of those
gifts of genius which have made Homer immortal as a poet, and a mere
name as a man, that Hesiod has left so distinct a picture of himself
to the latest times. In like manner Roman poetry, while never rising
to the heights of purely creative and impersonal genius, from this
very defect, is a truer revelation of the poets themselves. The
Aeneid supplies ample materials for understanding the affections and
convictions of Virgil. Lucretius makes his personal presence felt
through the whole march of his argument, and supports every position
of his system not with his logic only, but with the whole force of his
nature. The fragments of Ennius and of Lucilius afford ample evidence
by which we may judge what kind of men they were.
It thus appears that, over and above their higher and finer
excellences, the Roman poets have this additional source of interest,
that, more than any other authors in the vigorous times of antiquity,
they satisfy the modern curiosity in regard to personal character
and experience. These poets have themselves left the most trustworthy
record of their happiest hours and most real interests; of their
standard of conduct, their personal worth, and their strength of
affection; of the studies and the occupations in which they passed
their lives, and of the spirit in which they awaited the certainty of
their end.
It remains to say a few words in regard to the historical progress of
this branch of literature. The history of Roman poetry may be divided
into four great periods:--
I. The age of Naevius, Ennius, Lucilius, etc., extending from about
B.C. 240 till about B.C. 100:
II. The age of Lucretius and Catullus, whose active poetical career
belongs to the last age of the Republic, the decennium before the
outbreak of the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey:
III. The Augustan age:
IV. The whole period of the Empire after the time of Augustus.
The poetry of each of these periods is distinctly marked in form,
style, and character. There is evidently a great advance in artistic
accomplishment and in poetical feeling, from the rude cyclopean
remains of the annals of Ennius to the stately proportions and
elaborate workmanship of the Aeneid. Yet this advance was attended
with some loss as well as gain. With infinitely less accomplishment
and less variety, the older writers show signs of a robuster life and
a more vigorous understanding than some at least of those who adorn
the Augustan era. They endeavoured to work in the spirit of the
great masters, who had made the most heroic passions and most serious
interests of men the subject of their art. They were men also of the
same fibre as the chief actors on the stage of public affairs, living
with them in familiar friendship, while at the same time maintaining
a close sympathy with popular feeling and the national life. Their
fragments are thus, apart from their intrinsic merits, especially
valuable as the contemporary language of that great time, and as
giving some expression to the strength, the dignity, and the freedom
which were stamped upon the old Republic.
For more than a generation after the death of Accius and Lucilius, no
new poet of any eminence appeared at Rome. The vivid enjoyment of
life and the sense of security which usually accompany and foster
the successful cultivation of art had been rudely interrupted by
the convulsions of the State. A new birth of Roman poetry took place
during the brief lull between the storms of the first and second civil
wars. The new poets arose independently of the old literature. They
appealed not to popular favour, but to the tastes of the few and
the educated; they gave expression not to any public or national
sentiment, but to their individual thought and feeling. Their works
reflect the restless agitation of a time of revolution; but they show
also all the vigour and sincerity of republican freedom. While greatly
superior to the fragments of the older poetry in refinement of style,
and in depth and variety of poetical feeling, they want the simple
strength of moral conviction, and the interest in great practical
affairs, which characterised their predecessors. They are inferior to
the poets of the Augustan age in artistic skill; but they show
more force of thought, or more intensity of passion, a stronger and
livelier inspiration, a bolder and more independent character.
The short interval between the death of Catullus and the appearance of
the Bucolics of Virgil marks the beginning of a new era in literature
and in history:
Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.
Catullus, dying only a few years before the extinction of popular
freedom, is, in every nerve and fibre, the poet of a republic. Virgil,
even before the final success of Augustus, proclaimed the advent of
the new Empire; and he became the sincere admirer and interpreter
of its order and magnificence. Most of the other poets of that age,
though born before the overthrow of the Republic, show the influence
of their time, not only by sympathy with or acquiescence in the new
order of things, but by a perceptible lowering in the higher energies
of life. Still, the poetry of the Augustan age, if inferior in natural
force to that of the Republic, is the culmination of all the previous
efforts of Roman art; and presents at the same time the most complete
and elaborate picture of Roman and Italian life.
The chief interest of Roman poetry, considered as the work of men of
natural genius and cultivated taste, and as the expression of great
national ideas or of individual thought and impulse, ceases with the
end of the Augustan age. Under the continued pressure of the Empire,
true poetical inspiration and pure feeling for art were lost. One
certain test of this decay is the absence of musical power and
sweetness from the verse of the later poets. Yet some of the poets of
the Empire have their own peculiar value. Lucan and Juvenal recall in
their vigorous rhetoric the masculine tone and fervid feeling of
the old Roman character, liberalised by the progress of thought and
education. In the Satires of Persius, there is an atmosphere of purer
morality than in any earlier Roman writer, with the exception of
Cicero. There is much vigour, sense, wit, and a keen appreciation of
life, intermingled with the coarseness of Martial. Yet it is owing
rather to their rhetorical or their intellectual ability and to their
historical interest, than to their poetical genius, that these writers
are still read and admired. If good taste, culture, and devotion to
the Muses could make a man a poet in an unpoetical age, Statius would
be counted among the great poets of Rome. The artificial epics of
Silius Italicus and Valerius Flaccus may be occasionally read in the
interests of learning: but it is hardly probable that they will, or
desirable that they should, ever be permanently restored from the
neglect and oblivion into which they have long been sinking.
This review of Roman poetry will bring before us the origin and
progressive growth of a branch of literature, moulded, indeed, on
the forms of a foreign art, but executed with native energy, and
expressive of native character. In this poetry not the genius only,
but the whole nature and sympathies of some of the more interesting
men of antiquity are displayed. It throws light on the impulses of
thought and feeling which influenced the action of different epochs
in Roman history. The great qualities of Rome are seen to mould and
animate her poetry. These qualities are found in harmonious union with
the spirit of enjoyment and the sense of exuberant life, fostered by
the genial air of Italy; and with a refinement of taste drawn from the
purest source of human culture which the world has ever enjoyed. After
all deductions have been made for their want of inventiveness, it
still remains true, that the Roman poets of the last days of the
Republic and of the Augustan age have added to the masterpieces of
literature some great works of native feeling as well as of finished
execution.
[Footnote 1: Hom. Od. xxii. 347.]
[Footnote 2: Cf. Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 2, 3. Sero igitur a
nostris poetae vel cogniti vel recepti. At contra oratorem
celeriter complexi sumus: nec cum primo eruditum, aptum tamen
ad dicendum.]
[Footnote 3: Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Biography, art.
Catullus.]
[Footnote 4: Horace, Sat. i. 10. 45.]
[Footnote 5: 'He used from time to time to intrust all his
secret thoughts to his books, as to trusty friends; it was to
them only he turned in evil fortune or in good; and thus it
is, that the whole life of the old poet lies before our eyes,
as if it were portrayed on a votive picture.'--Sat. ii. 1.
30.]
[Footnote 6: The parallel which Mr. Ruskin draws (Modern
Painters, vol. iii. p. 194) between an ancient Greek and 'a
good, conscientious, but illiterate Scotch Presbyterian Border
farmer of a century or two back,' becomes intelligible if we
regard Hesiod as a normal type of the Greek mind.]