EARLY ROMAN TRAGEDY--M. PACUVIUS, B.C. 219-129; L. ACCIUS, B.C.
170--ABOUT B.C. 90.
The powerful impulse given to Roman tragedy by Ennius was sustained
till about the beginning of the first century B.C., first by his
nephew M. Pacuvius and after him by L. Accius. The popularity of the
drama during this period may be estimated from the fact that, of the
early writers of poetry, Lucilius alone contributed nothing to the
Roman stage. The plays of the three tragedians who have just been
mentioned were not only performed during the lifetime of their
authors, but, as appears from many notices of them in Cicero, they
held their place on the stage with much popular applause, and were
read and admired as literary works till the last days of the Republic.
This popularity implies either some adaptation of Roman tragedy to the
time in which it was produced, or some special capacity for awakening
new interests and ideas in a people hitherto unacquainted with
literature. Yet, on the other hand, the want of permanence, and the
want of any power of development in the Roman drama, would indicate
that it was less adapted to the genius of the nation than either
the epic or the satiric poetry of this era. If the dramatic art of
Pacuvius and Accius had been as true an expression of the national
mind as either the epic poem of Ennius or the satire of Lucilius,
it might have been expected that it would have flourished in greater
perfection in the eras of finer literary accomplishment. The efforts
of Naevius and Ennius were crowned with the fulfilment of Virgil, and
the spirit and manner of Lucilius still live in the satires of Horace
and Juvenal; but Roman tragedy, notwithstanding the attempt to give
it a new and higher artistic development in the Augustan age, dwindled
away till it became a mere literary exercise of educated men, and
remains only in the artificial and rhetorical compositions attributed
to the philosopher Seneca.
From the fact that early Roman tragedy left no literary heir, it is
more difficult to discern its original features and character
than those of the epic or satiric poetry of the period. A further
difficulty arises out of the very nature of dramatic fragments.
Isolated passages in a drama afford scanty grounds for judging of the
conduct of the action, or the force and consistency with which the
leading characters are conceived. There is, moreover, very slight
direct evidence bearing on the dramatic genius of the early tragic
poets. Roman critics seem to have paid little attention to, or
had little perception of this kind of excellence. They quote with
admiration the fervid sentiment and morality--'the rugged maxims hewn
from life'--expressed on the Roman stage; but they have not preserved
the memory of any great typical character, or of any dramatic plot
creatively conceived or powerfully sustained.
The Roman drama was confessedly a reproduction or adaptation of the
drama of Athens. The titles of the great majority of Roman tragedies
indicate that they were translated or copied from Greek originals, or
were at least founded on the legends of Greek poetry and mythology.
The _Medea_ of Ennius and the _Antiope_ of Pacuvius are known, on the
authority of Cicero, to have been directly translated from Euripides.
Other dramas were more or less close adaptations from his works, or
from those of the other Attic tragedians. All of the Roman tragic
poets indeed produced one or more plays founded on Roman history or
legend: but, with the exception of the Brutus of Accius, none of these
seem to have been permanently popular. This failure to establish a
national drama seems to imply a want of dramatic invention in the
conduct of a plot and the exhibition of character on the part of the
poets. As their own history was of supreme interest to the Romans at
all times, it is difficult on any other supposition to explain the
failure of the 'fabula praetextata' in gaining the public ear. There
is, however, distinct evidence that in their adaptations from the
Greek the Roman poets in some cases departed considerably from their
originals. Something of a Roman stamp was perhaps unconsciously
impressed on the Greek personages who were represented. Many of the
extant fragments seem to breathe the spirit of Rome more than of
Athens. They are expressed not with the subtlety and reflective genius
of Greece, but in the plain and straightforward tones of the Roman
Republic. The long-continued popularity of Roman tragedy implies also
that it was something more than an inartistic copy of the masterpieces
of Athenian genius. Mere imitations of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides might possibly have obtained some favour with a few men
of literary education, but could never have been listened to with
applause, for more than a century and a half, by miscellaneous
audiences.
The following questions suggest themselves as of most interest in
connexion with the general character of early Roman tragedy:--How far
may it have reproduced not the materials and form only, but the spirit
and ideas of the Greek drama? What was its bearing on the actual
circumstances of Roman life, and what were the grounds of the favour
with which it was received? What cause can be assigned for the
cessation of this favour with the fall of the Republic?
The materials or substance of Roman tragedy were almost entirely
Greek. The stories and characters represented were, save in the few
exceptional cases referred to above, directly derived from the Greek
tragedians or from Homer and the cyclic poets. In point of form also
and some of the metres employed, Roman tragedy endeavoured to imitate
the models on which it was founded, with probably as little perception
of the requirements of dramatic art as of refinement in expression and
harmony in rhythm. But while generally conforming to their models,
the early Roman poets departed in some important respects from their
practice. Thus they banished the Chorus from the orchestra, assigning
to it merely a subsidiary part in the dialogue. Although some simple
lyrical metre, accompanied with music, continued to be employed in the
more rapid and impassioned parts of the dialogue, there was no scope,
on the Roman stage, for the great lyrical poetry of the Greek drama,
and for the nobler functions of the chorus. On the other hand, there
seems to have been more opportunity both for action and for oratorical
declamation. The acting of a Roman play must have been more like that
on a modern stage than the stately movement and the statuesque repose
of the Greek theatre. Again, in imitating the iambic and trochaic
metres of the Greek drama, the Roman poets were quite indifferent to
the laws by which their finer harmony is produced. Any of the feet
admissible in an iambic line might occupy any place in the line, with
the exception of the last. There is thus little metrical harmony in
the fragments of Roman tragedy; but, on the other hand, it may be
remarked that the order of the words in these fragments appears more
natural and direct than in the more elaborate metres of the later
Roman poets.
But it was as impossible for the Roman drama to reproduce the inner
spirit of the noblest type of Greek tragedy as to rival its artistic
excellence. Greek tragedy, in its mature glory, was not only a purely
Greek creation, but was the artistic expression of a remarkable phase
through which the human mind has once passed;--a phase in which the
vivid fancies and emotions of a primitive age met and combined with
the thought, the art, the social and political life of the greatest
era of ancient civilisation. The Athenian dramatists, like the great
dramatists of other times, imparted a new and living interest to
ancient legends; but this was but one part, perhaps not the most
important part, of their functions. They represented before the people
the destiny and sufferings of national heroes and demigods, sanctified
by long association in the feelings of many generations, still
honoured by a vital worship, and appealed to as a present help in
danger. Thus a highly idealised and profoundly religious character was
imparted to the tragic representation of human passion and destiny on
the Athenian stage. This view of life, represented and contemplated
with solemnity of feeling in the age of Pericles, would have been
altogether unmeaning to a Roman of the age of Ennius. Such a one would
understand the natural heroism of a strong will, but not the new force
and elevation imparted to the will by reliance on the hidden powers
and laws overruling human affairs. He might be moved to sympathy
with the sufferers or actors on the scene; but he would be altogether
insensible to the higher consolation which overcomes the natural
sorrow for the mere earthly catastrophe in a great dramatic action.
The inward strength and dignity of a Roman senator might enable him
to appreciate the magnanimity and kingly nature of Oedipus; but the
deeper interest of the great dramas founded on the fortunes of the
Theban king, especially the interest arising from his trust in final
righteousness, his sense of communion with higher powers, from
the thought of his elevation out of the lowest earthly state into
perpetual sanctity and honour, was widely remote from the tangible
objects of a Roman's desire, and the direct motives of his conduct.
Or perhaps a Roman would have a fellow-feeling with the proud and
soldierly bearing of Ajax; but he would be blind to the inward lesson
of self-knowledge and self-mastery, which Sophocles represents as
forced upon the spirit of the Greek hero through the stern visitation
of Athene. Equally remote from the ordinary experience and emotions
of a Roman would be the feeling of awe, gloom, and mystery, diffused
through the great thoughts and imaginations of Aeschylus. Both in
Aeschylus and in Sophocles the light and the gloom cast over the
human story are not of this world. But in the fragments of the Roman
tragedians, though there is often found the expression of magnanimous
and independent sentiment, and of a very dignified and manly morality,
there is little trace of any sense of the relation of the individual
to a Divine power; and there are some indications not only of a scorn
for common superstition, but also of disbelief in the foundations
of personal religion. The thought of the insecurity of life, of the
vicissitudes of human affairs, and of the impotence of man to control
his fate, which forced the Greek poets and historians of the fifth
century B.C. into deeper speculations on the question of Divine
Providence, was utterly alien to the natural temperament of Rome, and
to the confidence inspired by uniform success during the long period
succeeding the Second Punic War.
The contemplative and religious thought of Greek tragedy was thus
as remote from the practical spirit of the Romans as the political
license and the personal humours of the old Athenian comedy were from
the earnestness of public life and the dignity of government in the
great aristocratic Republic. And thus it happened that, as the comic
poets of Rome reproduced the new comedy of Athens, which portrayed the
passions of private not of political life, and the manners rather of a
cosmopolitan than of a purely Greek civilisation, so the tragic poets
found the art of Euripides and of his less illustrious successors more
easy to imitate than that of Aeschylus and Sophocles. The interest of
tragedy, as treated by Euripides, turns upon the catastrophes produced
by human passion: the religious meaning has, in a great measure,
passed out of it; the characters have dwindled from their heroic
stature to the proportions of ordinary life; his thought is the result
of the analysis of motives, and the study of familiar experience. He
has more affinity with the ordinary thoughts and moods of men than
either of the older poets. The older and the later Greek writers have
a nearer relation to the spirit of other eras of the world's history
than those who represent Athenian civilisation in its maturity. It
requires a longer familiarity with the mind and heart of antiquity
to realise and enjoy the full meaning of Sophocles, Thucydides, or
Aristophanes, than of Homer, Euripides, or Theocritus. Homer is indeed
one of the truest, if not the truest, representative of the genius
of Greece,--the representative also of the ancient world in the same
sense as Shakspeare is of the modern world,--but he is, at the same
time, directly intelligible and interesting to all countries and
times from his being the most natural and powerful exponent of the
elementary feelings and forces of human nature. The later poets, on
the other hand, such as Euripides and the writers of the new comedy,
were not indeed more truly human, but were less distinctively Greek
than their immediate predecessors. They had advanced beyond them
in the analytic knowledge of human nature; but, with the decay of
religious belief and political feeling, they had lost much of the
genius and sentiment by which the old Athenian life was characterised.
Both their gain and their loss bring them more into harmony with
later modes of thought and feeling. Thus it happened that, while the
influence of Aeschylus and Sophocles, of Thucydides and Aristophanes,
is scarcely perceptible in Roman literature, Homer and the early
lyrical poets who flourished before Greek civilisation exhibited
its most special type, and Euripides who, though a contemporary of
Sophocles and Aristophanes, yet belonged in spirit and tone to a
younger generation, the writers of the new comedy, and the Alexandrine
poets who flourished when the purely Greek ideas and character were
being merged in a cosmopolitan civilisation, exercised a direct
influence on Roman taste and opinion in every age of their literature.
The early tragic poets of Rome could not rival or imitate the dramatic
art, the pathetic power, the clear and fluent style, the active and
subtle analysis of Euripides; but they could approach nearer to him
than to any of his predecessors, by treating the myths and personages
of the heroic time apart from the sacred associations and ideal
majesty of earlier art, and as a vehicle for inculcating the lessons
and the experience of familiar life.
The primary attraction, by means of which the tragic drama established
itself at Rome, must have been the power of scenic representations to
convey a story, and to produce novel impressions on a people to whom
reading was quite unfamiliar. In Homer, the cyclic poets, and the
Attic dramatists, there existed for the Romans of the second century
B.C. a new world of incident and human interest quite different
from the grave story of their own annals. This new world, which was
becoming gradually familiar to their eyes through the works of plastic
and pictorial art, was made more living and intelligible to them in
the representations of their tragic poets. It cannot be supposed that
these poets attempted to reproduce the antique Hellenic character of
the legends on which they founded their dramas. In this early stage
of literary culture, the harmonious cadences of rhythm, the fine
and delicate shades of expression, the main requirements of dramatic
art,--such as the skilful construction of a plot, the consistent
keeping of a character, the evolution of a tragic catastrophe through
the meeting of passion and outward accident,--would have been lost
upon the unexacting audiences who thronged the temporary theatres on
occasional holidays. The fragments of the lost dramas indicate that
the matter was presented in a straightforward style, little differing
in sound and meaning from the tone of serious conversation. Although
little can be known or conjectured as to the general conduct of the
action in a Roman drama, yet there are indications that in some
cases a series of adventures, instead of one complete action, were
represented[1]. But while failing, or not attempting to reproduce the
Greek spirit and art of their originals, the Roman poets seem to have
animated the outlines of their foreign story and of their legendary
characters with something of the spirit of their own time and country.
They imparted to their dramas a didactic purpose and rhetorical
character which directly appealed to Roman tastes. The fragments
quoted from their works, the testimonies of later Roman writers, and
the natural inference to be drawn from the moral and intellectual
characteristics of the people, all point to the conclusion that the
long-sustained popularity of tragedy rested mainly on the satisfaction
which it afforded to the ethical sympathies, and to the oratorical
tastes of the audience.
The evidence for this popularity is chiefly to be found in Cicero; and
it is mainly, though not solely, to the popularity which the tragic
drama enjoyed in his own age that he testifies. The loss of the
earlier writings renders it impossible to adduce contemporary evidence
of the immediate success of this form of literature. But the activity
with which tragedy was cultivated for about a century, and the favour
with which Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, were regarded by the leading
men in the State, suggest the inference that the popularity of the
drama in the age of Cicero, after the writers themselves had passed
away, and when more exciting spectacles occupied public attention, was
only a continuation of the general favour which these poets enjoyed in
their lifetime. Cicero in many places mentions the great applause with
which the expression of feeling in different dramas was received,
and speaks of the great crowds ('maximus consessus' or 'magna
frequentia'), including women and children, attending the
representation. Varro states that, in his time, 'the heads of families
had gradually gathered within the walls of the city, having quitted
their ploughs and pruning-hooks, and that they liked to use their
hands in the theatres and circus better than on their crops and
vineyards[2].' The large fortunes amassed and the high consideration
enjoyed by the actors Aesopus and Roscius afford further evidence of
the favour with which the representation of tragedy and comedy was
received in the age of Cicero.
According to his testimony, these lively demonstrations of popular
approbation were chiefly called out by the moral significance or the
political meaning attached to the words, and by the oratorical fervour
and passion with which the actor enforced them. Thus Laelius is
represented, in the treatise _De Amicitia_, as testifying to the
applause with which the mutual devotion of Pylades and Orestes, as
represented in a play of Pacuvius, was received by the audience[3]:
'What shouts of applause were heard lately through the whole body of
the house, on the representation of a new play of my familiar friend,
M. Pacuvius, when, the king being ignorant which of the two was
Orestes, Pylades maintained that it was he, while Orestes persisted,
as was indeed the case, that he was the man! They stood up and
applauded at this imaginary situation.' Again, in his speech in
defence of Sestius[4], the same author says, 'amid a great variety of
opinions uttered, there never was any passage in which anything said
by the poet might seem to bear on our time, which either escaped the
notice of the people, or to which the actor did not give point.' In
a letter to Atticus (ii. 19) he states that the actor Diphilus had
applied to Pompey the phrase 'Miseria nostra tu es magnus,' and that
he was compelled to repeat it a thousand times amid the shouts of
the whole theatre. He mentions further, in the speech in defence of
Sestius[5] that the actor Aesopus had applied to Cicero himself a
passage from a play of Accius (the Eurysaces), in which the Greeks are
reproached for allowing one who had done them great public service
to be driven into exile; and that the same actor, in the Brutus, had
referred to him by name in the words, 'Tullius qui libertatem civibus
stabiliverat'; he adds that these words 'were _encored_ over and over
again,' 'millies revocatum est.' These and similar passages testify
primarily to the intense political excitement of the time at which
they were written, but also to the meaning which was looked for by the
audience in the words addressed to them on the stage, and which was
enforced by the emphasis given to them by the actor.
Besides these and other passages in Cicero, the fragments themselves
of Roman tragedy testify to its moral and didactic tone, and its
occasional appeal to national and political feeling.
In so far as it served any political end we may infer from the
personal relations of the poets, from the approving testimony of
Cicero, and from the personages and the nature of the situations
represented, that, unlike the older comedy of Naevius and Plautus,
it was in sympathy with the spirit of the dominant aristocracy. The
'boni' or 'optimates' regarded themselves as the true guardians of law
and liberty, and it would be to their partisans that the resistance
to, and denunciations of tyrannical rule, expressed in such plays as
the Atreus, the Tereus, and the Brutus of Accius, must have been most
acceptable. Members of the aristocracy, eminent in public life and
accomplished as orators, became themselves authors of tragedies. Of
these two are mentioned by Cicero, C. Julius Caesar, a contemporary
and friend of the orator Crassus, and C. Titius, a Roman Eques, also
distinguished as an orator[6]. These instances, and the comments
Cicero makes upon them, indicate the close affinity of Roman tragedy
to the training and accomplishments which fitted men for public life
at Rome.
Passages already referred to, and others which will be brought forward
later, imply also that the audience were easily moved by the dramatic
art and the elocution of the actor. We hear of the pains which the
best actors took to perfect themselves in their art, and of the
success which they attained in it. Cicero specifies among the
accomplishments of an orator, the 'voice of a tragedian, the gestures
and bearing of a consummate actor.' The stage may be said to have been
to the Romans partly a school of practical life, partly a school of
oratory. Spirited declamation, the expression, by voice and gesture,
of vehement passion, of moral and political feeling, and of practical
wisdom, would gratify the same tastes that were fostered by the
discussions and harangues of the Forum[7].
The testimony of later writers points to the conclusion that the early
Roman tragedy, like Roman oratory, was characterised both by great
moral weight and dignity, and also by fervid and impassioned feeling.
The latter quality is suggested by the line of Horace,
Nam spirat tragicum satis et feliciter audet;
and also by the epithets 'altus' and 'animosus' applied by him and
Ovid to the poet Accius. Quintilian describes the ancient tragedies
as superior to those of his own time in the management of their
plots ('oeconomia'), and adds that 'manliness and solemnity of style'
('virilitas et sanctitas')[8], were to be studied in them. He states
also that Accius and Pacuvius were distinguished by 'the earnestness
of their thought, the weight of their language, the commanding bearing
of their personages[9].' The fragments of all the tragic poets bear
further evidence to the union of these qualities in their thought and
style.
These considerations may afford some explanation of the fact, that the
early Roman tragedy, although having less claim to originality,
and less capacity of development than any other branch of Roman
literature, yet exercised a more immediate and more general influence
than either the epic, lyrical, or satiric poetry of the Republic. For
more than a century new tragedies were written and represented at
the various public games, and afforded the sole kind of serious
intellectual stimulus and education to the mass of the people. During
the lifetime of the old dramatists, there was no regular theatre,
but merely structures of wood raised for each occasion. A magnificent
stone theatre was at last built by Pompey from the spoils of the
Mithridatic War; but this, instead of giving a new impulse to
dramatic art, was fatal to its existence. The attraction of a
gorgeous spectacle superseded that afforded by the works of the older
dramatists; and dancers like Bathyllus soon obtained the place in
popular favour which had been enjoyed by the 'grave Aesopus and the
accomplished Roscius.' The composition of tragedy passed from the
hands of popular poets, and became a kind of literary and rhetorical
exercise of accomplished men. We hear that Quintus Cicero composed
four tragedies in sixteen days, and in the Augustan age Virgil and
Horace eulogise the dramatic talent of their friend and patron Asinius
Pollio. The 'Ars Poetica' implies that the composition of tragedy
was the most fashionable form of literary pursuit among the young
aspirants to poetic honour at that time, and the Thyestes of Varius
and the Medea of Ovid enjoyed a great literary reputation. These
were, however, futile attempts to impart artificial life to a withered
branch. Though praised by literary critics, they obtained no general
favour. Of all forms of poetry the drama is most dependent on popular
sympathy and intelligence. With the loss of contact with public
feeling the Roman drama lost its vital power. One cause of the
change in public taste was the passion for more frivolous and coarser
excitement, such as was afforded by the mimes and by gladiatorial
combats and shows of wild beasts to a soldiery brutalised by constant
wars, and to the civic masses degraded by idleness and by intermixture
from all quarters of the world. Other causes may have acted on the
poets themselves, such as the exhaustion of the mine of ancient
stories fit for dramatic purposes, and the truer sense, acquired
through culture, of the bent of Roman genius. But another cause was
the loss of mutual sympathy between the poet and the people, arising
from the decay and final extinction of political life. In ancient,
as occasionally also in modern times, the contests and interests of
politics were the means of affording the highest intellectual stimulus
of which they were capable to the large classes on whom literary
influences act only indirectly. So long as the old republican sense of
citizenship remained, there was a bond of common feelings, ideas, and
sympathies between the body of the people and some of the foremost
and most highly educated men in Rome. There was an immediate sympathy
between the political orator and his audiences within the Senate or
in the public assemblies; there was a sympathy, more remote, but still
active, between the poet of the Republic, who had the strong feelings
of a Roman citizen, and the great body of his countrymen. With the
overthrow of free government, this bond of union between the educated
and the uneducated classes was destroyed. The former became more
refined and fastidious, but lost something in breadth and genuine
strength by the want of any popular contact. The latter became more
debased, coarser, and more servile. Poetic works were more and more
addressed to a small circle of men of rank and education, sharing the
same opinions, tastes, and pleasures. They thus became more finished
as works of art, but had less direct bearing on the passions and great
public interests of their time.
The origin and the earliest stage of the Roman drama have been
examined in a previous chapter. For about a century after the close of
the Second Punic War new tragedies continued to be represented at Rome
with little interruption, first by Ennius, afterwards by his nephew
Pacuvius and by Accius. They devoted themselves more exclusively than
any of their predecessors to the composition of tragedy. While the
fame of Ennius chiefly rested on his epic poem[10], Pacuvius and
Accius are classed together as representatives of the tragic poetry of
the Republic. Though in point of age there was a difference of fifty
years between them, yet Cicero mentions, on the authority of Accius
himself, that they had brought out plays under the same Aediles, when
the one was eighty years of age and the other thirty.
M. Pacuvius, nephew, by the mother's side, of Ennius, was born
at Brundusium, in the south of Italy, about 219 B.C., and died at
Tarentum about 129 B.C., at the age of ninety. He obtained some
distinction as a painter[11], and he is supposed to have written his
tragedies late in life. Jerome records of him, 'picturam exercuit et
fabulas vendidit.' Cicero represents Laelius as speaking of him as a
friend, 'amici et hospitis mei.' A pleasing anecdote is told by Aulus
Gellius[12] of his intercourse with his younger rival, L. Accius.
'When Pacuvius, at a great age, and suffering from disease of long
standing, had retired from Rome to Tarentum, Accius, at that time
a considerably younger man, on his journey to Asia, arrived at that
town, and stayed with Pacuvius. And being kindly entertained, and
constrained to stay for several days, he read to him, at his request,
his tragedy of Atreus. Then, as the story goes, Pacuvius said, that
what he had written appeared to him sonorous and elevated but somewhat
harsh and crude. "It is just as you say," replied Accius; "and in
truth I am not sorry for it, for I hope that I shall write better
in future. For, as they say, the same law holds good in genius as in
fruit. Fruits which are originally harsh and sour afterwards become
mellow and pleasant; but those which have a soft and withered look,
and are very juicy at first, become soon rotten without ever becoming
ripe. It appears, accordingly, that there should be left something
in genius also for the mellowing influence of years and time."' This
anecdote, while giving a pleasing impression of the friendly relation
subsisting between the older and younger poets, seems to add
some corroboration to the opinion that the Romans valued more the
oratorical style than the dramatic art of their tragedies. It affords
support also to the testimony of Horace and Quintilian in regard to
the distinction which the admirers of the old poetry drew between the
excellence of Pacuvius and Accius:--
Ambigitur quoties uter utro sit prior, aufert
Pacuvius docti famam senis, Accius alti.
Aulus Gellius quotes the epitaph of Pacuvius, written by himself to
be inscribed on his tombstone, with a tribute of admiration to 'its
modesty, simplicity, and fine serious spirit'--'Epigramma Pacuvii
verecundissimum et purissimum dignumque ejus elegantissima gravitate.'
Adolescens, tametsi properas, te hoc saxum rogat,
Ut se aspicias, deinde quod scriptum est, legas,
Hic sunt poetae Pacuvi Marci sita
Ossa. Hoc volebam nescius ne esses. Vale[13].
With its quiet and modest simplicity of tone this inscription is still
significant of that dignified self-consciousness which characterised
all the early Roman poets, though the feeling may have been displayed
with more prominence by Naevius and Plautus, by Ennius, Accius, and
Lucilius, than by Pacuvius.
Among the testimonies to his literary qualities the best known is that
of Horace, quoted above. Cicero, in speaking of the age of Laelius as
that of the purest Latinity, does not allow this merit to Pacuvius and
to the comic poet Caecilius. He says of them, 'male locutos esse[14].'
Pacuvius seems to have attempted to introduce new forms of words, such
as 'temeritudo,' 'geminitudo,' 'vanitudo,' 'concorditas,' 'unose'; and
also to have carried to a greater length than any of the older
poets the tendency to form such poetical compounds as 'tardigradus,'
'flexanimus,' 'flexidicus,' 'cornifrontis'--a tendency which the Latin
language continued more and more to repudiate in the hands of its most
perfect masters. One line is quoted in which the tendency probably
reached the extremest limits it ever did in any Latin author,--
Nerei repandirostrum incurvicervicum pecus.
We find also such inflexions as 'tetinerim,' for 'tenuerim,' 'pegi'
for 'pepigi,' 'cluentur' for 'cluent.' These peculiarities are
ridiculed in the fragments of Lucilius, and also in a passage of
Persius. Another author[15] contrasts the _sententiae_ of Ennius with
the _periodi_ of Pacuvius,--a distinction probably connected with the
progress of oratory in the interval between the poets. Persius applies
the term 'verrucosa' (an epithet not inapplicable to his own style) to
the Antiope of Pacuvius, which, on the other hand, was much admired by
Cicero[16]. Lucilius refers to this harshness of style in the line,
Verum tristis contorto aliquo ex Pacuviano exordio.
Pacuvius is known to have been the author of about twelve tragedies,
founded on Greek subjects; and of one, _Paulus_, founded on Roman
history. Among these, the _Antiope_ was perhaps the most famous and
most admired. It was, like the Medea of Ennius, a translation from
Euripides. The principal characters in it were the brothers Zethus and
Amphion, the one devoted to hunting, the other to music. Their dispute
as to the respective advantages of music and philosophy is referred to
by Cicero and Horace, and by other authors. The Zethus of Pacuvius is
described by Cicero[17] as one who made war on all philosophy; and
the author of the treatise addressed to Herennius describes their
controversy as beginning about music, and ending about philosophy and
the use of virtue. Two dramas, the _Dulorestes_ and the _Chryses_, the
latter being a continuation of the first, represented the adventures
of Orestes in his wanderings with his friend Pylades, after the murder
of his mother. The former play, in which Orestes was represented as on
the point of being sacrificed by his sister Iphigenia, contained the
passage already referred to, in which Pylades and Orestes contend as
to which should suffer for the other. The Chryses was founded on their
subsequent adventures, and the title of the play was apparently taken
from the old Homeric priest of Apollo, Chryses, who bore a prominent
part in it. Another of the plays of Pacuvius, the _Niptra_, was
founded on, though not translated from, one of Sophocles[18]; and the
title seems to have been suggested by the story of the recognition of
Ulysses by his nurse, Eurycleia, told at Odyssey xix. 386, etc.
The subjects of his other dramas may be inferred from their
titles:--_Armorum Judicium_, _Atalanta_, _Hermione_, _Ilione_, _Io_,
_Medus_ (son of Medea), _Pentheus_, _Periboea_, _Teucer_.
The fragments of Pacuvius amount to about four hundred lines. Many of
these are single lines, preserved by grammarians in illustration of
old forms and usages of words, and thus are of little value in the
way of illustrating his poetical or dramatic power. Several of them,
however, are interesting, from the light which they throw on his mode
of thought, his moral spirit, and his artistic faculty.
A remarkable passage is quoted from the Chryses, showing the growth of
that interest in physical philosophy, which was first expressed in
the Epicharmus of Ennius, and which continued to have a powerful
attraction for many of the Roman poets:--
Hoc vide, circum supraque quod complexu continet
Terram
Solisque exortu capessit candorem, occasu nigret,
Id quod nostri caelum memorant, Graii perhibent aethera:
Quidquid est hoc, omnia animat, format, alit, auget, creat,
Sepelit recipitque in sese omnia, omniumque idem est pater,
Indidemque eadem quae oriuntur, de integro aeque eodem incidunt[19].
The following fragment illustrates the dawning interest in ethical
speculation, which became much more active in the age of Cicero, under
the influence of Greek studies:--
Fortunam insanam esse et caecam et brutam perhibent philosophi
Saxoque instare in globoso praedicant volubili:
Insanam autem esse aiunt, quia atrox, incerta, instabilisque sit:
Caecam ob eam rem esse iterant, quia nil cernat quo sese adplicet:
Brutam quia dignum atque indignum nequeat internoscere.
Sunt autem alii philosophi, qui contra fortunam negant
Esse ullam, sed temeritate res regi omnis autumant.
Id magis veri simile esse usus reapse experiundo edocet:
Velut Orestes modo fuit rex, factu'st mendicus modo[20].
These lines again from the Chryses show that Pacuvius, like Ennius,
exposed and ridiculed the superstition of his time--
Nam isti qui linguam avium intelligunt
Plusque ex alieno jecore sapiunt quam ex suo,
Magis audiendum quam auscultandum censeo[21];
and this is to the same effect--
Nam si qui, quae eventura sunt, provideant, aequiparent Jovi.
This tendency to physical and ethical speculation may be the reason
for which Horace applies to Pacuvius the epithet 'doctus.'
The fragments of Pacuvius show not only the cast of understanding, but
also the grave and dignified tone of morality, which was found to be
one of the most Roman characteristics of Ennius. They indicate also a
similar humanity of feeling. The moral nobleness of the situation, in
which Pylades and Orestes contend which should sacrifice himself for
the other, has already been noticed: 'stantes plaudebant in re ficta.'
Again, in the Tusculan Disputations (ii. 21), Cicero commends Pacuvius
for deviating from Sophocles, who had represented Ulysses, in the
Niptra, as utterly overcome by the power of his wound; while,
in Pacuvius, those who are supporting him, 'personae gravitatem
intuentes,' address this reproof to him, 'leviter gementi':--
Tu quoque Ulysses, quanquam graviter
Cernimus ictum, nimis paene animo es
Molli, qui consuetu's in armis
Aevom agere[22]!
The strong tones of Roman fortitude are heard in this grave rebuke;
and the lines in which Ulysses, at the point of death, reproves the
lamentations of those around him, have the unstudied directness
that may be supposed to have characterised the serious speech of the
time:--
Conqueri fortunam adversam, non lamentari decet:
Id viri est officium, fletus muliebri ingenio additus[23].
The following maxim is quoted by Aulus Gellius with the remark 'that a
Macedonian philosopher, a friend of his, an excellent man, thought it
deserving of being written in front of every temple':--
Ego odi homines ignava opera et philosopha sententia.
There are other fragments the significance of which is political
rather than ethical, as for instance the following:--
Omnes qui tam quam nos severo serviunt
Imperio callent dominum imperia metuere.
A passage from his writings was sung at games in honour of Caesar, in
order to rouse a feeling of indignation against the conspirators. The
prominent words of the passage were,--
Men' servasse ut essent qui me perderent?[24]
Other passages again appear to be fragments of spirited dialogue,
and well adapted to show the art and the elocution of the actor.
Cicero[25] quotes from the Teucer of Pacuvius the reproach of
Telamon, couched in much the same terms as those which Teucer himself
anticipates in the Ajax of Sophocles:--
Segregare abs te ausu's aut sine illo Salamina ingredi,
Neque paternum aspectum es veritus, quom aetate exacta indigem
Liberum lacerasti orbasti extinxti, neque fratris necis
Neque ejus gnati parvi, qui tibi in tutelam est traditus--[26]?
In commenting on these lines, Cicero speaks of the passion displayed
by the actor ('so that even out of his mask the eyes of the actor
appeared to me to burn'), and of the sudden change to pathos in his
voice as he proceeded. He adds the further comment, 'Do we suppose
that Pacuvius, in writing this passage, was in a calm and passionless
mood?'--one of many proofs that the 'gravity' of the old tragedians
was that of strong and ardent, not of phlegmatic natures, and that
their strength was tempered by a pathos and humanity of feeling which
were gradually gaining ascendency over the old Roman austerity. The
language in such passages has not only the straightforward directness
which is the general characteristic of the early literature, but a
force and impetuosity added to its gravity, recalling the style of
some fragments of the older orators[27].
The fragments of Accius afford the first hint of that enjoyment of
natural beauty which enters largely into the poetry of a later age;
but one or two fragments of Pacuvius, like several passages in Ennius,
show the power of observing and describing the sublime and terrible
aspects of Nature. The description of the storm which overtook the
Greek army after sailing from Troy is perhaps the best specimen in
this style:--
Profectione laeti piscium lasciviam
Intuentur, nec tuendi capere satietas potest.
Interea prope jam occidente sole inhorrescit mare,
Tenebrae conduplicantur, noctisque et nimbum occaecat nigror,
Flamma inter nubes coruscat, caelum tonitru contremit,
Grando mista imbri largifico subita praecipitans cadit,
Undique omnes venti erumpunt, saevi existunt turbines,
Fervit aestu pelagus[28].
There are also, in the same style, these rough and graphic lines,
exemplifying the impetuous force which the older Roman poets impart to
their descriptions by the figure of speech called 'asyndeton,'--
Armamentum stridor, flictus navium,
Strepitus fremitus clamor tonitruum et rudentum sibilus[29].
Virgil must have had this passage in his mind when he wrote the line--
Insequitur clamorque virum, stridorque rudentum.
The effect of alliteration and assonance may be illustrated by a
passage from the 'Niptra,' in which Eurycleia addresses the disguised
Ulysses:--
Cedo tamen pedem tuum lymphis flavis flavum ut pulverem
Manibus isdem quibus Ulixi saepe permulsi abluam,
Lassitudinemque minuam manuum mollitudine[30].
Pacuvius composed one drama on a Roman subject, the title of which was
'Paulus.' Although the name does not indicate whether the principal
character of the drama was the Aemilius Paulus who fell at Cannae,
whom Horace commemorates as one of the national heroes in the words--
Animaeque magnae
Prodigum Paulum, superante Poeno,
or his more fortunate son who conquered the Macedonians at Pydna,
yet it would seem much more probable that the poet should celebrate
a great triumph of his own time, achieved by one in whom, from his
connexion with Scipio, the nephew of Ennius would feel a special
interest, than that he should recall a great calamity of a past
generation, neither near enough to excite immediate attention, nor
sufficiently remote to justify an imaginative treatment. The Fabulae
Praetextatae, of which this was one, were, as Niebuhr[31] has pointed
out, historical plays rather than tragedies. Such a drama would not
naturally or necessarily require a tragic catastrophe, but would
represent the traditions of the earlier annals, or the great events of
current history, in accordance with the dictates of national feeling.
No important fragment of this drama has been preserved, but the fact
of its having been written by Pacuvius is interesting, as affording
a parallel to the celebration of the victory of Marcellus in the
Clastidium of Naevius, and of the success of M. Fulvius Nobilior in
the Ambracia of Ennius.
Neither the fragments nor the ancient notices of Pacuvius produce on
a modern reader so distinct an impression of his peculiar genius
and character as may be formed of Naevius, Ennius, and Lucilius.
His remains are chiefly important as throwing light on the general
features of the Roman tragic drama; and few critics would attempt to
determine from internal evidence alone whether any particular passage
came from the lost works of Pacuvius or of Accius. The main points
that are known in his life are his provincial origin, and his
relationship to Ennius; the fact of his supporting himself, first by
painting, afterwards by the payment he received from the Aediles for
his plays; his friendship with Laelius, the centre of the literary
circle in Rome during the latter part of the second century B.C.;
his intimacy with his younger rival Accius; the facts also that, like
Sophocles, he preserved his poetical power unabated till a great age,
and that, like Shakspeare, he retired to spend his last years in his
native district. The language of his epitaph is suggestive of a kindly
and modest temper, and of the calm and serious spirit of age; while
that of many of his dramatic fragments bears evidence of his moral
strength and worth, and to the manly fervour as well as the gentle
humanity of his temperament.
L. Accius (or Attius) was born in the year 170 B.C., of parentage
similar to that of Horace--'parentibus libertinis.' He was a native
of the Roman colony of Pisaurum in Umbria, founded in 184 B.C.; and an
estate in that district was known in after times by the name 'fundus
Accianus.' Like Pacuvius, he lived to a great age, though the exact
date of his death is uncertain. Cicero, who was born B.C. 106,
speaks of the oratorical and literary accomplishment of D. Junius
Brutus--Consul, along with P. Scipio Nasica, B.C. 138, and one of
the most famous soldiers and chiefs of the senatorian party in that
age--on the authority of what he had himself often heard from the
poet: 'ut ex familiari ejus L. Accio poeta sum audire solitus[32].'
The meeting of the old tragic poet and of the great orator is
remarkable, as a link connecting the two epochs in literature, which
stand so widely apart in the spirit and style by which they are
respectively characterised. Cicero again, in the speech in defence of
Archias, mentions the intimacy subsisting between D. Brutus and the
poet[33]. The expressions 'familiari ejus' and 'amicissimi sui,'
like that of 'hospitis et amici mei,' applied by Laelius, in Cicero's
dialogue, to Pacuvius, indicate that the relation between the poets
(men of humble or provincial origin) and eminent statesmen and
soldiers, was in that age one of familiar intimacy rather than of
patronage and dependence.
Although Cicero's notice of his own acquaintance with Accius, which is
not likely to have existed before the former assumed the toga virilis,
is a proof of the great age which the poet attained, it is not certain
how long he continued the practice of his art. Seneca, in quoting from
the Atreus of this poet the well-known tyrant's maxim, 'oderint dum
metuant'--a maxim, according to Suetonius, constantly in the mouth of
Caligula,--adds the remark that 'any one could see that it was written
in the days of Sulla.' But Aulus Gellius, on the other hand, states
that the Atreus was the play which had been read by the poet in his
youth to Pacuvius at Tarentum. The termination of the literary career
of Accius must have been soon after the beginning of the first century
B.C., so that nearly half a century elapses between the last of the
works of the older poets and the appearance of the great poem of
Lucretius. The journey of Accius to Asia shows the beginning of
that taste for foreign travel which became prevalent among the most
educated men in a generation later, and grew more and more easy with
the advance of Roman conquest, and more attractive from the increased
cultivation of Greek literature. Accius is the first of the Roman
poets who seems to have possessed a country residence; and some taste
for country life and the beauties of Nature first betrays itself
in one or two of his fragments. He possessed apparently all the
self-esteem and high spirit of the earlier poets. Pliny mentions that
though a very little man, he placed a colossal statue of himself in a
temple of the Muses[34].
Another story is told by Valerius Maximus, that on the entrance of C.
Julius Caesar (the author of a few tragedies, and a member of one of
the great patrician houses), into the place of meeting of the 'Poets'
Guild' on the Aventine, he refused to rise up as a mark of deference,
thus asserting his own superiority in literature in opposition to the
unquestionable claims of rank on the part of his younger rival.
He was much the most productive among the early tragic poets. The
titles of his dramas are variously reckoned from about 37 to about 50
in number. Like Ennius, he seems to have made great use of the Trojan
cycle of events; and, in his representation of character and action,
to have appealed largely to the martial sympathies of the Romans. Two
of his dramas, the Brutus, treating of the downfall of the Tarquinian
dynasty, and the Aeneadae, or Decius, founded on the story of the
second Decius, who devoted himself at the battle of Sentinum, belonged
to the class of Fabulae Praetextatae. He followed the example of
Ennius in composing a national epic, called Annales, in three books.
He was the author also of what seem to have been works on grammar and
literary criticism and history, written in trochaic and other metres,
and known by the names Didascalica and Pragmatica, and Parerga. The
subjects of these last works, as well as those of some of the satires
of Lucilius, and of the poems of Porcius Licinus and Volcatius
Sedigitus, written in trochaic and septenarian verse, show the
attention which was given about this time by Roman authors to the
principles of composition. The literary and grammatical studies of the
time of Accius must have prepared the way for the rapid development of
style which characterised the first half of the first century B.C.
In some of the fragments of Accius distinctions in the meaning of
words--e.g. of 'pertinacia' and 'pervicacia'--are prominently brought
out. We note also in his remains, as in those of Pacuvius, a great
access of formative energy in the language, especially in abstract
words in _-tas_ and _-tudo_, many of which afterwards dropped out of
use. The antagonism manifested by Lucilius to Accius seems in a
great measure to have arisen from his claims to a kind of literary
dictatorship in questions of criticism and style.
The literary qualities most conspicuous in the fragments of Accius,
and attributed to him by ancient writers, are of the same kind as
those which the dramatic fragments of Ennius and Pacuvius exhibit.
Cicero testifies to his oratorical force, to his serious spirit, and
to the didactic purpose of his writings. His most important remains
illustrate these attributes of his style, along with the shrewd sense
and vigorous understanding of the older writers, and afford some
traces of a new vein of poetical emotion, which is scarcely observable
in earlier fragments. Horace applies the epithet 'altus,' Ovid that
of 'animosus' to Accius. Cicero characterises him as 'gravis et
ingeniosus poeta,' and attests the didactic purpose of a particular
passage in the words, 'the earnest and inspired poet wrote thus with
the view of stimulating, not those princes who no longer existed, but
us and our children to energy and honourable ambition[35].' The style
of a passage from the Atreus is described by the same author in the
dialogue '_De Oratore_,' as 'nervous, impetuous, pressing on with a
certain impassioned gravity of feeling[36].' Oratorical fervour and
dignity seem thus to have been the most distinctive characteristic of
his style. Virgil, whose genius made as free use of the diction and
sentiment of native as of Greek poets, has cast the ruder language of
the old poet into a new mould in some of the greatest speeches of the
Aeneid, and seems to have drawn from the same source something of the
high spirit and lofty pathos with which he has animated the personages
of his story. The famous address, for instance--
Disce puer virtutem ex me verumque laborem,
Fortunam ex aliis,
though originally found in the Ajax of Sophocles, was yet familiar to
Virgil in the line of Accius--
Virtuti sis par, dispar fortunis patris.
The address of Latinus to Turnus--
O praestans animi juvenis, quantum ipse feroci
Virtute exsuperas, tanto me impensius aequum est
Consulere atque omnis metuentem expendere casus,
is quoted by Macrobius as an echo of these lines of the old tragic
poet--
Quanto magis te istius modi esse intelligo,
Tanto, Antigona, magis me par est tibi consulere ac parcere.
The same author quotes two other passages, in which the sentiment and
something of the language of Accius are reproduced in the speeches
of the Aeneid. The lofty and fervid oratory which is one of the most
Roman characteristics of that great national poem, and is quite unlike
the debates, the outbursts of passion, and the natural interchange of
speech in Homer, recalls the manner of the early tragic poets rather
than the style of the oratorical fragments in the Annals of Ennius.
The following lines may give some idea of the passionate energy which
may be recognised in many other fragments of Accius:--
Tereus indomito more atque animo barbaro
Conspexit in eam amore vecors flammeo,
Depositus: facinus pessimum ex dementia
Confingit[37].
He gives expression also to great strength of will and to that
most powerful kind of pathos which arises out of the commingling of
compassion for suffering with the admiration for heroism, as in these
fragments of the Astyanax and the Telephus,--
Abducite intro; nam mihi miseritudine
Commovit animum excelsa aspecti dignitas[38];
and--
Nam huius demum miseret, cuius nobilitas miserias
Nobilitat[39].
He shows a further power of directly seizing the real meaning of human
life, and setting aside false appearances and beliefs. The following
may be quoted as exhibiting something of his moral strength, humanity,
and direct force of understanding:--
Scin' ut quem cuique tribuit fortuna ordinem,
Nunquam ulla humilitas ingenium infirmat bonum[40].
Erat istuc virile, ferre advorsam fortunam facul[41].
Nam si a me regnum fortuna atque opes
Eripere quivit, at virtutem non quit[42].
Nullum est ingenium tantum, neque cor tam ferum,
Quod non labascat lingua, mitiscat malo[43].
The following, again, like similar passages already quoted from Ennius
and Pacuvius, is expressive of contempt for that form of superstition
which had most practical hold over the minds of the Roman people:--
Nil credo auguribus, qui auris verbis divitant
Alienas, suas ut auro locupletent domos[44].
Again, the view of common sense in regard to dreams is expressed by
the interpreter to whom Tarquinius applies when alarmed by a strange
vision--
Rex, quae in vita usurpant homines, cogitant, curant, vident,
Quaeque agunt vigilantes agitantque, ea si cui in somno accidunt
Minus mirum est[45].
Besides the characteristics already exemplified, one or two
passages may be appealed to, as implying the more special gifts of a
poet--force of imagination, and some sense of natural beauty. There is
considerable descriptive power in the following lines, for instance,
in which a shepherd, who had never before seen a ship, announces the
first appearance of the Argo--
Tanta moles labitur
Fremebunda ex alto, ingenti sonitu et spiritu:
Prae se undas volvit, vortices vi suscitat:
Ruit prolapsa, pelagus respergit, reflat[46].
There is an imaginative apprehension of the active forces of nature in
this fragment--
Sub axe posita ad stellas septem, unde horrifer
Aquilonis stridor gelidas molitur nives[47].
There is a fresh breath of the early morning in the lines from the
Oenomaus--
Forte ante Auroram, radiorum ardentum indicem,
Cum e somno in segetem agrestis cornutos cient,
Ut rorulentas terras ferro rufidas
Proscindant, glebasque arvo ex molli exsuscitent[48].
This is perhaps the first instance in Latin poetry of a descriptive
passage which gives any hint of the pleasure derived from
contemplating the common aspects of Nature. Several other short
fragments betray the existence of this new vein of poetic sensibility,
as, for instance, the following:--
Saxum id facit angustitatem, et sub eo saxo exuberans
Scatebra fluviae radit ripam[49].
The early expression of this kind of emotion seems to have been
accompanied with some degree of affectation, or unnatural straining
after effect, as in this fragment:--
Hac ubi curvo litore latratu
Unda sub undis labunda sonit.
The following lines, quoted by Cicero (Tusc. Disp. i. 28) without
naming the author, are probably from Accius:--
Caelum nitescere, arbores frondescere,
Vites laetificae pampinis pubescere,
Rami bacarum ubertate incurviscere,
Segetes largiri fruges, florere omnia,
Fontes scatere, herbis prata convestirier.
We note also many instances of plays on words, alliteration, and
asyndeton, reminding us of similar modes of conveying emphasis in
Plautus, as in the following:--
Pari dyspari, si impar esses tibi, ego nunc non essem miser.
Pro se quisque cum corona clarum cohonestat caput.
Egredere, exi, ecfer te, elimina urbe.
It remains to sum up the most important results as to the early
tragic drama of Rome, which have been obtained from a consideration of
ancient testimony and of the fossil remains of this lost literature,
as we find them collected and arranged from the works of ancient
critics and grammarians. The Roman tragedies seem to have borne much
the same relation to the works of the Attic tragedians as Roman
comedy to the new comedy of Athens. The expression of Quintilian, 'in
comoedia maxime claudicamus[50],' following immediately on the praise
which he bestows on Pacuvius and Accius, implies that in his opinion
the earlier writers had been more successful in tragedy than in
comedy. But a comparison between the fragments of the tragedians and
the extant works of Plautus and Terence, proves that, in style at
least, Roman comedy was much the most successful; and this superiority
is no doubt one main cause of its partial preservation. The style of
Roman tragedy appears to have been direct and vigorous, serious, often
animated with oratorical passion, but singularly devoid of harmony,
subtlety, poetical refinement and inspiration. There is no testimony
in favour of any great dramatic conceptions or impersonations. The
poets appear to have aimed at expressing some particular passion
oratorically, as Virgil has done so powerfully in his representation
of Mezentius and Turnus, but not to have created any of those great
types of human character such as the world owes to Homer, Sophocles,
and Shakspeare. The popularity and the power of Roman tragedy,
during the century preceding the downfall of the Republic, are to be
attributed chiefly to its didactic and oratorical force, to the Roman
bearing of the persons represented, to the ethical and occasionally
the political cast of the sentiments expressed by them, and to the
plain and vigorous style in which they are enunciated. The works of
the tragic poets aided the development of the Roman language. They
communicated new ideas and experience, and fostered among the mass of
the Roman people the only taste for serious literature of which they
were capable. They may have exercised a beneficial influence also on
the thoughts and lives of men. They kept the national ideal of duty,
the 'manners of the olden time,' the 'fas et antiqua castitudo' (to
use an expression of Accius), before the minds of the people:
they inculcated by precept and by representations great lessons of
fortitude and energy: they taught the maxims of common sense, and
touched the minds of their audiences with a humanity of feeling
naturally alien to them. No teaching on the stage could permanently
preserve the old Roman virtue, simplicity, and loyalty to the
Republic, against the corrupting and disorganising effects of constant
wars and conquests, and of the gross forms of luxury, that suited the
temperament of Rome: but, among the various influences acting on the
mind of the people, none probably was of more unmixed good than that
of the tragic drama of Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius.
[Footnote 1: E.g. the _Dulorestes_ of Pacuvius.]
[Footnote 2: De Re Rustica, Lib. ii. Praef. Quoted also by
Columella, Praef. 15.]
[Footnote 3: De Amicitia, 7.]
[Footnote 4: Cic. Pro P. Sestio, 65.]
[Footnote 5: Chap. 57.]
[Footnote 6: Cicero, Brutus, 48, 45; De Orat. iii. 8. 30:
'Quid noster hic Caesar nonne novam quandam rationem attulit
orationis et dicendi genus induxit prope singulare? Quis
unquam res praeter hunc tragicas paene comice, tristes
remisse, severas hilare, forenses scaenica prope venustate
tractavit atque ita, ut neque iocus magnitudine rerum
excluderetur nec gravitas facetiis minueretur.']
[Footnote 7: Cf. Cic. De Orat. iii. 7: 'Atque id primum in
poetis cerni licet quibus est proxima cognatio cum oratoribus
quam sint inter sese Ennius, Pacuvius, Acciusque dissimiles.']
[Footnote 8: 'Sanctitas certe, et, ut sic dicam, virilitas, ab
iis petenda est, quando nos in omnia deliciarum vitia dicendi
quoque ratione defluximus.'--Quintil. Inst. Or. i. 8. 9.]
[Footnote 9: Inst. Or. x. i. 97.]
[Footnote 10: Cf. Cic. Opt. Gen. Orat.: 'Itaque licet dicere
et Ennium summum epicum poetam si cui ita videtur, et Pacuvium
tragicum, et Caecilium fortasse comicum.']
[Footnote 11: Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxv. 7.]
[Footnote 12: xiii. 2.]
[Footnote 13: 'Young man, though thou art in haste, this
stone entreats thee to regard it, and then read what is
written:--Here are laid the bones of the poet Marcus Pacuvius.
This I desired to be not unknown to thee. Farewell.']
[Footnote 14: Brutus, 74.]
[Footnote 15: The writer of the treatise on Rhetoric addressed
to C. Herennius.]
[Footnote 16: 'Quis enim tam inimicus paene nomini Romano est,
qui Ennii Medeam aut Antiopam Pacuvii spernat aut rejiciat,
quod se eisdem Euripidis fabulis delectari dicat?'--Cic. De
Fin. i. 2.]
[Footnote 17: De Oratore, ii. 37.]
[Footnote 18: Cic. Tusc. Disp. ii. 21.]
[Footnote 19: 'Behold this, which around and above
encompasseth the earth, and puts on brightness at the rising
of the sun, becomes dark at his setting; that which our people
call Heaven, and the Greeks Aether. Whatever this is, it is
to all things the source of life, form, nourishment, growth,
existence; it is the grave and receptacle of all things, and
the parent, too, of all things: all things which arise from
it equally lapse into it again.' Compare with this passage
Lucretius, ii. 991--
'Denique caelesti sumus omnes semine oriundi,' etc.
Both may be traced to a fragment of the Chrysippus of
Euripides, quoted by Ribbeck, Roem. Trag. p. 257; and also by
Munro, Lucret. p. 455, third edition.]
[Footnote 20: 'Philosophers say that Fortune is mad, blind,
and senseless, and represent her as set on a round rolling
stone. They say that she is mad, because she is harsh, fickle,
untrustworthy; blind, for this reason, that she can see
nothing to which to attach herself; senseless, because she
cannot distinguish between the worthy and unworthy. Other
philosophers again deny the existence of Fortune, but hold
that all things are ruled by chance. That this is more
probable, common experience proves, as Orestes was but the
other day a king, and is now a beggar.']
[Footnote 21: 'For those men who understand the language of
birds, and have more wisdom from examining the liver of other
beings than from their own (i.e. understanding), I think
should be heard rather than listened to.']
[Footnote 22: 'Thou, too, Ulysses, although we see thee sore
wounded, art yet almost too much cast down; thou, who hast
been used to pass thy life in arms!']
[Footnote 23: 'To complain of adverse fortune is well, but
not to lament over it. The one is the act of a man; it is a
woman's part to weep.']
[Footnote 24: Sueton. Caes. 84.]
[Footnote 25: De Orat. ii. 46.]
[Footnote 26: 'Didst thou venture to let him part from thee,
or to enter Salamis without him; and didst thou not fear to
see thy father's face, when in his old age, bereft of his
children, thou hast torn him with anguish, robbed, crushed
him; nor didst thou feel for thy brother's death, and his
child, who was trusted to thy protection--?']
[Footnote 27: Compare especially the fragments of the speeches
of C. Gracchus.]
[Footnote 28: 'Glad at their starting, they watch the play
of the fish, and are never weary of watching them. Meanwhile,
nearly at sunset, the sea grows rough, darkness gathers, the
blackness of night and of the storm-clouds hides the world,
the lightning flashes between the clouds, the heaven is shaken
with the thunder, hail mixed with torrents of rain dashes
down in sudden showers; from all quarters all the winds burst
forth, the wild whirlwinds arise, the sea boils with the
surging waters.'--Quoted partly from Cic. De Div. i. 14;
partly from De Orat. iii. 39.]
[Footnote 29: 'The groaning of the ships' tackling, the
dashing together of the ships, the uproar, the crash, the
rattle of the thunder, and the whistling of the ropes.']
[Footnote 30: 'Give me your foot, that with the brown waters
I may wash away the brown dust with those hands with which
I have often rubbed gently the feet of Ulysses, and with my
hands' softness soothe your weariness.']
[Footnote 31: 'It represented the deeds of Roman kings and
generals: hence it is evident that at least it wanted the
unity of time of the Greek tragedy; that it was a history like
Shakspeare's.'--Niebuhr's Roman History, vol. i. note 1150.]
[Footnote 32: Brutus, 28.]
[Footnote 33: 'Decimus quidem Brutus, summus ille vir et
imperator, Accii, amicissimi sui, carminibus templorum ac
monumentorum aditus exornavit suorum.'--Chap. 11.]
[Footnote 34: Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 10: 'Notatum ab auctoribus, et
L. Accium poetam in Camenarum aede maxima forma statuam sibi
posuisse, cum brevis admodum fuisset.']
[Footnote 35: Pro Plancio, 24.]
[Footnote 36: De Orat. iii. 58.]
[Footnote 37: 'Tereus, in his wild mood and savage spirit,
gazed upon her, maddened with burning passion, quite
desperate; in his madness, he resolves a cursed deed.']
[Footnote 38: 'Withdraw him within: for the lofty dignity of
his aspect has moved my mind to compassion.']
[Footnote 39: 'That man indeed we pity whose nobleness gives
distinction to his misery.']
[Footnote 40: 'Dost thou not know, that whatever rank fortune
has assigned to a man, no meanness of station ever weakens a
fine nature?']
[Footnote 41: 'This was the part of a man, to bear adversity
easily.']
[Footnote 42: 'Though fortune could strip me of kingdom and
wealth, it cannot strip me of my virtue.']
[Footnote 43: 'No nature is so strong, no breast so savage,
which is not shaken by words, does not melt at misfortune.']
[Footnote 44: 'I trust not those augurs, who enrich the ears
of others with their words, that they may enrich their own
houses with gold.' There is of course a pun on the _auris_ and
_auro_.]
[Footnote 45: 'O king, what men usually do in life, what they
think about, care about, see,--their pursuits and occupations,
when awake,--if these occur to any one in sleep, it is not
wonderful.']
[Footnote 46: 'So huge a mass is approaching--sounding from
the deep with a mighty rushing noise; it rolls the waves
before it, forces through the eddies, plunges forward, throws
up and dashes back the sea.'--Quoted in Cic. De Nat. Deor. ii.
35.]
[Footnote 47: 'Lying beneath the pole by the seven stars,
whence the blustering roar of the north-wind drives before it
the chill snows.']
[Footnote 48: 'By chance before the dawn, harbinger of burning
rays, when the husbandmen bring forth the oxen from their rest
into the fields, that they may break the red, dew-sprinkled
soil with the plough, and turn up the clods from the soft
soil.']
[Footnote 49: 'That rock makes the passage narrow, and from
beneath that rock a spring gushing out sweeps past the river's
bank.']
[Footnote 50: Inst. Or. x. i. 99.]