MINOR POETRY, 14-70 A.D.
I
DIDACTIC POETRY
Only two didactic poems of this period have survived, the poem of
Columella on gardening, and the anonymous work on Mount Etna, setting
forth a theory of volcanic action.
i
THE 'AETNA'
The _Aetna_ is a hexameter poem, 646 lines in length. The author laments
the indifference shown by poets to the natural phenomena of his day.
They waste their time on the description of the marvels of art, the
spectacular side of human civilization, and the surface-beauties of
Nature.[342] They write trivial epics on the voyage of Argo, the sack of
Troy, Niobe, Thyestes, Cadmus, Ariadne, the Battle of the Giants[343].
They tell of the terrors of the underworld[344], and the loves of the
gods[345]: they seek the false rather than the true, they neglect the
genuine wonders of Nature, the laws that govern heavenly and terrestrial
phenomena.
He will be wiser. But there is no need to travel far. He will not soar
skyward to treat of the stars in their courses, of the seasons and signs
of the weather, to the neglect of the marvels of mother earth.[346] The
greatest of miracles is close at hand, Etna, the home of eternal fire.
Deep in the heart of earth dwell two irresistible forces, wind and
fire.[347] It is their conflict that causes the outbursts of flame and
molten rock that devastate the slopes of Etna. It is no smithy of the
gods, no Titan's prison. The causes are natural, water and wind and
fire. He has seen Etna; he describes the crater,[348] the volcanic rock
that can imprison fire,[349] the clouds that continually veil the
mountain's crest,[350] the flames that burst from its summit, the
subterranean rumblings,[351] the terrors of the lava stream. He
concludes with the touching story of the Catanian brothers who,
neglecting all else, sought only to save their aged parents from the
flames. Their piety had its reward; they, and they alone, escaped from
the lava; their neighbours, who sought to save their chattels and their
wealth, perished in the stream, encumbered by their belongings.
Of the poet's theory of volcanic action we need not speak; it was the
current scientific theory of the day, and has no value for us; nor has
the author any claim to originality. As to the style and composition of
the work, brief comment will suffice. We may give the author credit for
a real enthusiasm, and for a just contempt of the prevailing themes that
engaged the attention of the minor poets of the day. But he has no gifts
for poetry. His theme, although it gave considerable opportunities for
episodic display, was one of great difficulty. Much dry scientific
detail was necessarily required. If Lucretius is sometimes tedious and
prosaic in spite of the vastness of his theme, the magnificence of his
moral background, and his inspired enthusiasm, what can be expected of a
poem on a minor scientific theme such as Etna? Volcanoes can hardly
compete with the universe as a theme for poetry. The subject is one that
might have fascinated an Alexandrian poet and found skilful treatment at
his hands. But the author of the _Aetna_ had not the stylistic gifts of
the Alexandrian. The actual arrangement of his matter is good, but, even
when due allowance is made for the corruption of our text, his obscurity
is intolerable, his imagery confused, his language cumbrous and wooden.
He has, moreover, no poetic imagination. _Aetna_, not the poet, provides
the fire. Even the beautiful story of the Catanian brothers, which forms
by far the best portion of the poem, never rises to the level of pure
poetry. It is illumined neither by the fire of rhetoric nor by the
lambent light of sensuous diction and rich imagination. A few lines may
be quoted to show its general character (605):
Nam quondam ruptis excanduit Aetna cavernis,
et velut eversis penitus fornacibus ingens
evecta in longum est rapidis fervoribus unda.
* * * * *
ardebant agris segetes et mollia cultu
iugera cum dominis, silvae collesque rubebant.
* * * * *
tum vero ut cuique est animus viresque rapinae
tutari conantur opes, gemit ille sub auro,
colligit ille arma et stulta cervice reponit,
defectum raptis illum sua carmina tardant,
hic velox minimo properat sub pondere pauper.
* * * * *
... haec nullis parsura incendia pascunt,
vel solis parsura piis. namque optima proles
Amphinomus fraterque pari sub munere fortes,
cum iam vicinis streperent incendia tectis,
aspiciunt pigrumque patrem matremque senecta
eheu defessos posuisse in limine membra,
parcite, avara manus, dulces attollere praedas:
illis divitiae solae materque paterque:
hanc rapient praedam. mediumque exire per ignem
ipso dante fidem properant. o maxima rerum
et merito pietas homini tutissima virtus!
erubuere pios iuvenes attingere flammae
et, quacumque ferunt illi vestigia, cedunt
felix illa dies, illa est innoxia terra.
dextra saeva tenent, laevaque incendia fervent;
ille per obliquos ignes fraterque triumphant
tutus uterque pio sub pondere: suffugit illa
et circa geminos avidus sibi temperat ignis,
incolumes abeunt tandem et sua numina secum
salva ferunt. illos mirantur carmina vatum,
illos seposuit claro sub nomine Ditis
nec sanctos iuvenes attingunt sordida fata,
securas cessere domus et iura piorum.
For once Etna burst its caves and, glowing with fire, cast
forth all that its furnaces contained; a vast wave, swift and
hot with fire, streamed forth afar.... Crops blazed along the
fields, rich acres with their masters were consumed, forest and
hill glowed rosy red.... Then each man, as he had courage and
strength to bear away his goods, strove to protect his wealth.
One groans beneath a weight of gold, another collects his weapons
and slings them on his foolish neck. Another, unable to carry away
what he has snatched up, wastes time in repeating charms, while
there the poor man moves swift beneath his slender burden.... The
fire feeds on all it meets: nought will it spare, or, if aught it
spares, only the pious. For Amphinomus and his brother, the best of
sons, brave in the toil they shared, when the fires roared loud and
were already nigh their home, behold their father and their mother
fall fainting on the threshold fordone with years. Cease, greedy
folk, to shoulder the spoil of your fortunes that are so dear to
you: for these men father and mother are their sole wealth; this
only is the spoil that they would save. They hasten to escape
through the midst of the fire, which itself gave them confidence.
O piety, greatest of all that man may possess, of all virtues that
which most saves the righteous. The flames blushed to touch the
pious youths, and yield a path wherever they turn their steps.
Blest was that day; the ground they trod was unharmed. The fierce
burning holds all things on their right and blazes on their left.
The brethren move triumphant on their path aslant the flame, each
saved by his pious burden: the fire shuns their path and restrains
its greedy hunger where pass the twain; scatheless they escape at
length and bear those whom they worship to a place of safety. The
songs of poets hymn their praise and the underworld gives them a
glorious resting-place apart, nor does any unworthy fate befall
these youths that lived so holy. They have passed away to dwell
among the blessed, and sorrow cometh not nigh their dwelling-place.
The narrative is clear, and the story delightful. But the telling of it,
though free from affectation, is dull, prosaic, and uninspired. And it
must be remembered that this passage shows the author in his most
favourable aspect. In his more technical passages the clearness and
simplicity is absent, the prosiness and lack of imagination remain,
nakedly hideous.
The author of the poem is unknown, the very date is uncertain. The
conception of the work is Lucretian, but in point of style, while full
of reminiscences of Lucretius, the poem owes most to Vergil, whose
hexameter has undoubtedly been taken for a model, though it has lost all
its music. Except in the avoidance of elision there is no trace of the
influence of Ovid. The poem might easily have been written in the latter
half of the reign of Augustus.[352] The obscurity is due to the lack,
not the excess of art, and the poem has no special affinity with the
Silver Age. Servius and Donatus, indeed, both seem to ascribe the poem
to Vergil,[353] while it is found in the MSS. which give us the
_Appendix Vergiliana_. But there are considerations which have inclined
editors to place it later, in the reign of Nero, or in the opening years
of the principate of Vespasian. In one of his letters (Sen. 79) Seneca,
writing to his friend Lucilius Junior, urges him to 'describe Etna in
his poem, and by so doing treat a topic common to all poets'. The fact
that Vergil had already treated it was no obstacle to Ovid's essaying
the task, nor was Cornelius Severus deterred by the fact that both
Vergil and Ovid had handled the theme. Later he adds, 'If I know you
aright, the subject of Aetna will make your mouth water.' Lucilius was
procurator in Sicily, and had sung the story of the Syracusan nymph
Arethusa.[354] It has been suggested that he[355] wrote the _Aetna_. But
Lucilius was an imitator of Ovid,[356] and Seneca advises him _not_ to
write a didactic poem on Etna, but to treat it episodically (_in suo
carmine_), as Vergil and Ovid[357] had done. It is conceivable that he
may have written a didactic poem on the subject, but Seneca's remarks
yield absolutely no evidence for the fact.
Others have made Cornelius Severus the author,[358] though it is
practically certain that his description of the volcano must have
occurred in his poem _On the Sicilian War_.[359] But the fact that
Seneca makes no reference to the existence of any learned didactic poem
on the subject carries a little more weight, and there are marked
parallels between Seneca's 'quaestiones Naturales' and passages in the
_Aetna_.[360] Further, the very badness of the poem makes us hesitate to
place it in the Augustan period. That age, no doubt, produced much bad
work as well as good, but a poem so obscure and inartistically prosaic
as the _Aetna_ was more likely to be produced and more likely to survive
in an imitative and uninspired age such as that which followed on the
death of Augustus. But for the evidence of Seneca we should place the
poem in the prosaic reign of Tiberius; the considerations adduced from
Seneca lead us, though with the utmost hesitation, to place it somewhere
between 57 and 79 A.D.[361] Of the lower limit there can be no doubt.
The fires of the Phlegraean plains are extinct,[362] therefore the poem
was composed before the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D.[363] The
question of the authorship of the _Aetna_ has necessarily been treated
at greater length than the merits of the poem deserve. It is a work of
small importance; its chief value is to show how low it was possible for
Roman didactic poetry to sink. In the _Aetna_ it sinks lower than epic
in the _Punica_ of Silius Italicus. That poem, for all its portentous
dullness, shows a certain ponderous technical skill and literary
facility. The author of the _Aetna_, though clearly a man of culture, is
never at his ease, the verse is laboured and lacking flexibility, and
there is no technical dexterity to compensate for a total absence of
genius. The terror and beauty of the mountain crowned with snow and fire
find no adequate expression in these monotonous lines. There remains a
conglomerate of unoriginal and unsound physical speculation.
ii
COLUMELLA
The _Aetna_ is a Lucretian poem decked out in a Vergilian dress. In the
tenth book of Columella we have a didactic poem modelled on the
_Georgics_ of Vergil. The author was of Spanish origin, a native of
Gades,[364] and the contemporary of his great compatriot the younger
Seneca.[365] He had served in a military capacity in Syria,[366] but his
real passion was agriculture. His ambition was to write a really
practical farmers' manual.[367] He had written nine books in prose,
covering the whole range of farming, from the tillage of the soil to the
breeding of poultry and cattle, and concluding with a disquisition on
wild animals and bee-keeping. But in the tenth book, yielding to the
solicitation of his friend Publius Silvinus,[368] he set himself a more
exalted task, no less than the writing of a fifth Georgic on gardening.
Vergil, in his fourth Georgic (148), had left the theme of gardens for
another's singing. Columella takes him at his word. The tenth book is
manifestly intended as the crown and conclusion of his work. But later
he changed his plan. Another friend, Claudius Augustalis,[369] demanded
a paraphrase, or rather an amplification in prose. This resulted in an
eleventh book, in which the care of the garden and the duties of the
_villicus_ are described, while the work was finally concluded in a
twelfth book setting forth the duties of the _villica_.[370]
It may be doubted whether Columella was well advised when he yielded to
the entreaties of his friend Silvinus and wrote his tenth book in
verse. He had no great poetic talent, nor did he possess the sleight of
hand of Calpurnius, the imitator of the _Eclogues_. But he possesses
qualities which render his work far more attractive than that of
Calpurnius. He is a genuine enthusiast, with a real love of the
countryside and a charming affection for flowers. And as a stylist he
is modest. He makes no attempt at display, no contorted striving after
originality. His verse is clear and simple as his tastes. He is content
to follow humbly in the footsteps of his great master, the 'starry'
Vergil.[371] He imitates and even plagiarizes[372] because he loves,
not because it is the fashion. He shows no appreciation of the more
intimate harmonies of the Vergilian hexameter; like so many
contemporaries, he realizes neither the value of judicious elision nor
varied pauses; but his verse, in spite of its monotony and lack of life
and movement, is not unmelodious. The poem is a sober work, uninspired
in tone, straightforward and simple in plan. It need not be described
in detail; its advice is obvious, setting forth the times and seasons
to be observed by the gardener, the methods of preparing the soil, the
choice of flowers, with all the customary mythological allusions.[373]
At its worst, with its tedious lists of the names of flowers, it reads
like a seedsman's catalogue,[374] at its best it is lit up with a
quaint humour, a love of colour, and a homely yet vivid imagination.
Mother earth--'sweet earth' he calls her--is highly personified; that
she may be adorned anew, her green locks must be torn from their tangle
by the plough, her old raiment stripped from her, her thirst quenched
by irrigation, her hunger satisfied with fertilizing manure.[375] The
garden is to be no rich man's park for the display of statues and
fountains. Its one statue shall be the image of the garden god, its
patron and its protector.[376] Its splendour shall be the varied hue of
its flower-beds and its wealth in herbs that serve the use of man:
verum ubi iam puro discrimine pectita tellus
deposito squalore nitens sua semina poscet,
pingite tunc varios, terrestria sidera, flores,
candida leucoia et flaventia lumina caltae
narcissique comas et hiantis saeva leonis
ora feri calathisque virentia lilia canis,
nec non vel niveos vel caeruleos hyacinthos,
tum quae pallet humi, quae frondens purpurat auro,
ponatur viola et nimium rosa plena pudoris (94).
But when earth, with parted locks combed clear, gleams, all
soilure cast aside, and demands the seeds that are her due,
call forth the varied hues of flowers, earth's constellations,
the white snowflake and the marigold's golden eyes, the
narcissus-petals and the blossom that apes the fierce lion's
gaping maw; the lily, too, with calix shining white amid its
green leaves, the hyacinths white and blue; plant also the
violet lying pale upon the ground or purple shot with gold
among its leafage, and the rose with its deep shamefaced blush.
He loves the return of spring with as deep a love as Vergil's, though he
must borrow Vergil's language to describe its coming and its power.[377]
But his painting of its harvest of colour is his own:
quin et odoratis messis iam floribus instat:
iam ver purpureum, iam versicoloribus anni
fetibus alma parens pingi sua tempora gaudet.
iam Phrygiae loti gemmantia lumina promunt
et coniventis oculos violaria solvunt (255).
Nay, more, the harvest-time draws near for sweet-scented
flowers. The purple spring has come, and kindly mother
earth rejoices that her brows are painted bright with all
the many-coloured offspring of the year. Now the Phrygian
lotus puts forth its jewelled orbs and the violet beds
open their winking eyes.
All the glories of an Italian spring are in the lines in which a little
later he describes the joy of living when the year is young, and the
wasting heat of summer is still far off, when it is sweet to be in the
sun and watch the garden with its rainbow colours:
nunc ver egelidum, nunc est mollissimus annus,
dum Phoebus tener ac tenera decumbere in herba
suadet et arguto fugientes gramine fontes
nec rigidos potare iuvat nec sole tepentes,
iamque Dionaeis redimitur floribus hortus,
iam rosa mitescit Sarrano clarior ostro.
nec tam nubifugo Borea Latonia Phoebe
purpureo radiat vultu, nec Sirius ardor
sic micat aut rutilus Pyrois aut ore corusco
Hesperus, Eoo remeat cum Lucifer ortu,
nec tam sidereo fulget Thaumantias arcu
quam nitidis hilares conlucent fetibus horti (282).
Now cool spring is come, the gentlest season of the year,
while Phoebus yet is young and bids us recline in the young
herbage, and 'tis sweet to drink the rill that flows among
the murmuring grass, with waters neither icy cold nor warm
with the sun's heat. Now, too, the garden is crowned with the
flowers Dione loves, and the rose ripens brighter than Tyrian
purple. Not so brightly does Phoebe, Leto's daughter, shine
with radiant face when Boreas has dispersed the clouds, nor
glows hot Sirius so, nor ruddy Pyrois, nor Hesperus with
shining countenance when he returns as the daystar at the
break of dawn, not so fair gleams Iris with her starry
bow, as shines the joyous garden with its bright offspring.
These are the words of an enthusiast and a poet, and these few
outbursts of song redeem the poem from dullness. There is wafted from
his pages the perfume of the countryside, and the fresh air breathes
welcome amid the hothouse cultures of contemporary poets. And he is
almost the only poet of the age that can be read without a wince of
pain. He is at least as good a laureate of the garden as Thomson of the
seasons, and he has all the grace of humility. Even when the artist
fails us, we love the man.
II
CALPURNIUS SICULUS. THE EINSIEDELN FRAGMENTS AND THE 'PANEGYRICUS
IN PISONEM'
It may be said of pastoral poetry, without undue disrespect, that it is
the most artificial and the least in touch with reality of all the more
important forms of poetic art. Even in the hands of a master like
Theocritus, invested as it is with an incomparable charm, and
distinguished in many respects by an astonishing truth and fidelity, it
is never other than highly artificial. For its birth an age was required
in which the class whence the majority of poets and their audience are
drawn had largely lost touch with country life, or had at any rate
developed ideals that can only spring up in town society. This does not
imply that men have ceased altogether to appreciate the value of the
country life or the beauty of country surroundings, only that they have
lost much of their understanding of them; and so their appreciation
takes new forms. They love the country as a half-forgotten paradise,
they fly back to it as a refuge from the artificiality of town life, but
they take much of that artificiality with them. From the time of
Theocritus pastoral poetry pure and simple has steadily declined. Great
poems have been written with exquisite pastoral elements or even cast in
pastoral form. But they have never owed their greatness entirely, or
even chiefly, to the pastoral element. That element has merely provided
a charming setting for scenes or thoughts that have nothing genuinely
pastoral about them.
Of the small amount of pastoral poetry extant in Latin it need hardly be
said that the _Bucolica_ of Vergil stand in a class by themselves. And
yet for all their beauty they are unsatisfactory to those who know and
love Theocritus. Their charm is undeniable, but they are immature and
too obviously imitative. But Vergil was at least country-born and had a
deep sympathy for country life. When we come to the scanty relics of his
successors and imitators we are conscious of a lamentable falling away.
If Vergil's imitations of Theocritus fail to ring as true as their
original, what shall be said of the imitators of Vergil's imitations?
Even if they had been true poets, their verse must have rung false. But
the poets with whom we have to deal, Calpurnius Siculus and the
anonymous author of two poems known as the Einsiedeln fragments, were
not genuine poets. They had little of the intimacy with nature and
unsophisticated man that was demanded by their self-chosen task. That
they possessed some real affection for the country is doubtless true,
but it was not the prime inspiration of their verse. They had the
ambition to write poetry rather than the call; a slight bent towards the
country, heightened by a vague dissatisfaction and weariness with the
artificial luxury of Rome, led them to choose pastoral poetry. They make
up for depth of observation by a shallow minuteness. In the seven
eclogues of Calpurnius may be found a larger assortment of vegetables,
of agricultural implements and operations, than in the _Bucolics_ of
Vergil, but there is little poetry, pastoral or otherwise. The 'grace of
all the Muses' and the breath of the country are fled for ever; the
dexterous phrasing of a laborious copyist reigns in their stead.
Of the life of Calpurnius Siculus nothing is known and but little can be
conjectured. Of his date there can be little doubt. We learn from the
evidence of the poems themselves that they were written in the
principate of a youthful Caesar (i. 44; iv. 85, 137; vii. 6), beautiful
to look upon (vii. 84), the giver of splendid games (vii. 44), the
inaugurator of an age of peace, liberty and plenty (i. 42-88; iv
_passim_). This points strongly to the opening of Nero's reign. The
young Nero was handsome and personally popular, and the opening years of
his reign (_quinquennium Neronis_) were famous for good government and
prosperity. But there are two further pieces of internal evidence which
clinch the argument. A comet is mentioned (i. 77) as appearing in the
autumn, an appearance which would tally with that of the comet observed
shortly before the death of Claudius in 54 A.D., while the line
maternis causam qui vicit Iulis (i. 45)
seems clearly to refer to the speech delivered by the young Nero for the
people of Ilium,[378] from whom the Iuli, Nero's ancestors on the
mother's side, claimed to trace their descent. It may therefore safely
be assumed that the poems were written early in the reign of Nero. A
most ingenious attempt has been made to throw some light on the identity
of their author.[379] He speaks of himself as Corydon, and he has a
patron whom he styles Meliboeus. He prays that Meliboeus may bring him
before Caesar's notice as Pollio brought Vergil (iv. 157 sqq.; also i.
94). It has been suggested with some plausibility that Meliboeus is no
other than C. Calpurnius Piso, the distinguished noble round whom in 65
A.D. centred the great conspiracy against Nero. The evidence rests on
the existence of a poem entitled _panegyricus in Pisonem_,[380] in which
a nameless poet seeks by his laudations to win Piso for a patron. The
style of the poem has a marked resemblance to that of Calpurnius. If, as
is possible, it should be assigned to his authorship, it becomes fairly
certain that he was a dependent of Piso, and the name Calpurnius would
suggest that he may have been the son of one of his freedmen.
The eclogues of Calpurnius are seven in number.[381] The first is in
praise of the Golden Age, with special reference to the advent of the
young princeps. Though given a different setting it is clearly modelled
on the fourth eclogue of Vergil. The second, describing a contest of
song between two shepherds before a third as judge, follows Vergil even
more closely.[382] Parallels might be further elaborated, but it is
sufficient to say here that only two of the poems show any originality,
namely, the fifth and the seventh. In the former we have the advice
given by an aged farmer to his son, to whom he is handing over his farm.
It is inclined to be prosy, but is simple and pleasing in tone, and the
old countryman may be forgiven if he sometimes seems to be quoting the
Georgics. The seventh is a more ambitious effort. A rustic describes the
great games that he has seen given in the amphitheatre at Rome. The
language, though characteristically decadent in its elaboration, shows
considerable originality. The amphitheatre is, for instance, thus
described (vii. 30):
qualiter haec patulum concedit vallis in orbem
et sinuata latus resupinis undique silvis
inter continuos curvatur concava montes,
sic ibi planitiem curvae sinus ambit arenae
et geminis medium se molibus alligat ovum.
* * * * *
balteus en gemmis, en illita porticus auro
certatim radiant; nec non, ubi finis arenae
proxima marmoreo praebet spectacula muro,
sternitur adiunctis ebur admirabile truncis
et coit in rotulum, tereti qui lubricus axe
impositos subita vertigine falleret ungues
excuteretque feras. auro quoque torta refulgent
retia, quae totis in arenam dentibus extant,
dentibus aequatis: et erat (mihi crede, Lycota,
si qua fides) nostro dens longior omnis aratro.
Even as this vale rounds to a wide circle, and with
bending sides and slanting woods on every side makes
a curved hollow amid the unbroken hills, so there the
circle of the curving arena surrounds its level plain
and locks either side of its towering structure into
an oval about itself.... See how the gangway's parapet
studded with gems and the colonnade plated with gold
vie with each other's brightness; nay more, where the
arena's bound sets forth its shows close to the marble
wall, ivory is overlaid in wondrous wise on jointed beams
and is bent into a cylinder, which, turning nimbly on its
trim axle, may cheat with sudden whirl the wild beast's
claws and cast them from it. Nets, too, of twisted gold
gleam forth, hung out into the arena on tusks in all their
length and of equal size, and--believe me, Lycotas, if you
can--each tusk was longer than our ploughshare.
In its defence it may be urged that the very nature of the subject
demands elaboration, and that the resulting picture has the merit of
being vivid despite its elaborate ingenuity. It is in this poem that
Calpurnius is seen at his best. Elsewhere his love for minute and
elaborate description is merely wearisome. It would be hard, for
instance, to find a more tiresomely circuitous method of claiming to be
an authority on sheep-breeding than (ii. 36)--
me docet ipsa Pales cultum gregis, ut niger albae
terga maritus ovis nascenti mutet in agna
quae neque diversi speciem servare parentis
possit et ambiguo testetur utrumque colore.
Pales herself teaches me how to breed my flocks and tells
me how the black ram transforms the fleece of the white
ewe in the lamb that comes to birth, that cannot reproduce
the colour of its sire, so different from that of its dam,
and by its ambiguous hue testifies to either parent.
It is difficult to give a poetic description of the act of
rumination, but
et matutinas revocat palearibus herbas (iii. 17)
And recalls to its dewlaps the grass of its morning's meal.
is needlessly grotesque. And the vain struggle to give life to old and
outworn themes leads to laboured lines such as (iii. 48)--
non sic destricta marcescit turdus oliva,
non lepus extremas legulus cum sustulit uvas,
ut Lycidas domina sine Phyllide tabidus erro.
Not so does the thrush pine when the olives are plucked,
not so does the hare pine when the vintager has gathered
the last grapes, as I, Lycidas, droop while I roam apart
from my mistress Phyllis.
Calpurnius yields little to compensate for such defects. He meanders on
through hackneyed pastoral landscapes haunted by hackneyed shepherds. It
is only on rare occasions that a refreshing glimmer of poetry revives
the reader. In lines such as (ii. 56)--
si quis mea vota deorum
audiat, huic soli, virides qua gemmeus undas
fons agit et tremulo percurrit lilia rivo
inter pampineas ponetur faginus ulmos;
If any of the gods hear my prayer, to his honour, and his
alone, shall his beechwood statue be planted amid my
vine-clad elms, where the jewelled stream rolls its green
wave and with rippling water runs through the lilies.
or, in the pleasant description of the return of spring (v. 16),
vere novo, cum iam tinnire volueres
incipient nidosque reversa lutabit hirundo,
protinus hiberno pecus omne movebis ovili.
tune etenim melior vernanti germine silva
pullat et aestivas reparabilis incohat umbras,
tune florent saltus viridisque renascitur annus,[383]
When spring is young and the birds begin to pipe once more,
and the swallow returns to plaster its nest anew, then move
all your flock from its winter fold. For then the wood sprouts
in fresh glory with its spring shoots and builds anew the
shades of summer, then all the glades are bright with flowers
and the green year is born again.
we seem to catch a glimpse of the real countryside; but for the most
part Calpurnius paints little save theatrical and _maniéré_ miniatures.
Of such a character is the clever and not unpleasing description of the
tame stag in the sixth eclogue (30). He shows a pretty fancy and no
more.
The metre is like the language, easy, graceful, and correct. But the
pauses are poorly managed; the rhythm is unduly dactylic; the verse
trips all too lightly and becomes monotonous.
The total impression that we receive from these poems is one of
insignificance and triviality. The style is perhaps less rhetorical and
obscure than that of most writers of the age; as a result, these poems
lack what is often the one saving grace of Silver Latin poetry, its
extreme cleverness. To find verse as dull and uninspired, we must turn
to Silius Italicus or the _Aetna_.
* * * * *
The two short poems contained in a MS. at Einsiedeln and distinguished
by the name of their place of provenance are also productions of the
Neronian age. The first, in the course of a contest of song between
Thamyras and Ladas, with a third shepherd, Midas, as arbiter, sets
forth the surpassing skill of Nero as a performer on the _cithara_.[384]
The second celebrates the return of the Golden Age to the world now
under the beneficent guidance of Nero. Neither poem possesses the
slightest literary importance; both are polished but utterly insipid
examples of foolish court flattery. The author is unknown. An ingenious
suggestion[385] has been made that he is no other than Calpurnius Piso,
the supposed Meliboeus of Calpurnius Siculus. The second of these
eclogues begins, 'Quid tacitus, Mystes?' The fourth eclogue of
Calpurnius Siculus begins (Meliboeus loquitur), 'Quid tacitus, Corydon?'
Is Meliboeus speaking in person and quoting his own poem? It may be so,
but the evidence is obviously not such as to permit any feeling of
certainty.
But it is at least probable that the poet had access to the court and had
been praised by Nero. Such is the most plausible interpretation of a
passage in the first eclogue, where Ladas, in answer to Thamyras, who
claims the prize on the ground that his song shall be of Caesar, replies
(16, 17):
et me sidereo respexit Cynthius ore
laudatamque chelyn iussit variare canendo.[386]
On me, too, has the Cynthian god cast his starry glance and
bidden me accompany the lyre he praised with diverse song.
Whether the author be Piso or another, the poems do him small credit.
The _Panegyricus in Pisonem_ remains to be considered. Attributed to
Vergil by one MS.,[387] to Lucan by another,[388] the poem is certainly
by neither. Quite apart from stylistic evidence, which is convincing
against its attribution to Lucan, it is almost certain that the name of
Lucan has been wrongly inserted for that of Vergil. That it is not by
Vergil would be clear from the very inferior nature of the verse, but it
can further be shown that the Piso addressed is the Calpurnius Piso of
the reigns of Claudius and Nero to whom we have alluded above. If the
account of Piso given by Tacitus be compared with the characteristics
described in the _Panegyricus_, it will be found that both alike refer
in strong terms to his eloquence in the law courts so readily exercised
in defence of accused persons, and also to his affability and capacity
for friendship.[389] Further, we have the evidence of a scholium on
Juvenal as to his skill in the game of draughts.[390] He played so well
that crowds would throng to see him. One of the chief points mentioned
in the _Panegyricus_ is the skill of Piso at the same game.[391] Nor is
it a mere casual allusion; on the contrary, the writer treats this
portion of his eulogy with even greater elaboration than the rest. There
can, therefore, be little doubt as to the date of the poem. It is
addressed to Calpurnius Piso after his rise to fame (i.e. during the
latter portion of the principate of Claudius, or during the earlier part
of the reign of Nero). The poet prays that Piso may be to him what
Maecenas was to Vergil. It is hardly possible for a poem of this type to
possess any real interest for others than the recipient of the flattery
and its author. But in this case the poet has done his work well. The
flattery never becomes outrageous and is expressed in easy flowing verse
and graceful diction. At times the language is genuinely felicitous. Any
great man might be proud to receive such a tribute as (129)--
tu mitis et acri
asperitate carens positoque per omnia fastu
inter ut aequales unus numeraris amicos,
obsequiumque doces et amorem quaeris amando.
Mild is thy temper and free from sharp harshness. Thou
layest aside thy pride in thy every act, and among thy
friends thou art counted a friend and equal, thou teachest
men to follow thee and seekest to be loved by loving.
There is, moreover, little straining after effect and little real
obscurity. The difficulties of the description of Piso's
draught-playing are due to our ignorance of the exact nature of the
game.[392] The actual language is at least as lucid as Pope's famous
description of the game of ombre in _The Rape of the Lock_. The verse
is of the usual post-Augustan type, showing strongly the primary
influence of Vergil modified by the secondary influence of Ovid. It is
light and easy and not ill-suited to its subject. It has distinct
affinities, both in metre and diction, with the verse of Calpurnius
Siculus, and may be by the same hand; but the resemblance is not so
close as to afford anything approaching positive proof. Minor poets,
lacking all individuality, the victims and not the controlling forces
of the tendencies of the age, are apt to resemble one another. There
are, however, two noteworthy passages which point strongly to the
identity of the author of the _Panegyricus_ with the Bucolic poet. The
former, addressing Piso as his patron (246), says:
mea vota
si mentem subiere tuam, memorabilis olim
tu mihi Maecenas tereti cantaberé versu.
If my prayers reach thy mind, thou shalt be sung
of as Maecenas in my slender verse, and future ages
shall tell of thy glory.
The latter, addressing his patron Meliboeus and begging him to commend
him to Caesar, exclaims (iv. 152):
o mihi quae tereti decurrent carmina versu
tunc, Meliboee, meum si quando montibus istis (i.e. at Rome)
dicar habere larem.
O how shall my songs trip in slender verse then, Meliboeus,
if ever men shall say of me 'He has a house on yonder mountain'.
Is it a mere coincidence, a plagiarism, or a direct allusion? There is
no certainty, but the coincidence is--to say the least--suggestive. If
the identity of authorship be assumed as correct, it is probable that
the eclogues are the later production. To place one's patron among the
_dramatis personae_ of an eclogue argues a nearer intimacy than the
writing of a formal panegyric. That the poet is more at home as a
panegyrist than as a writer of idylls does not affect the question. In
such an age such a result was to be expected.
III
THE ILIAS LATINA
Latin poetry may almost be said to have begun with Livius Andronicus'
translation of the _Odyssey_ into the rude Saturnian metre. This
translation had great vogue as a school book. But the _Iliad_ remained
untranslated, and it was only natural that later authors should try
their hand upon it. Translations were produced in Republican times by
Cn. Matius[393] and Ninnius Crassus,[394] but neither work attained to
any popularity.
With the growth of the knowledge of Greek and its increasing use as a
medium of instruction in the schools on the one hand, and the appearance
of Vergil and the rise of the Aeneas saga on the other, the demand for a
translation of the _Iliad_ naturally became less. The Silver Age arrived
with the problem unsolved. It was a period when writers abounded who
would have been better employed on translation than on any attempt at
original work. Further, in spite of the general knowledge of Greek, a
translation of Homer would have its value in the schools both as a
handbook for the subject-matter and as a 'crib '.
Three works of the kind seem to have been produced between the reigns of
Tiberius and Nero.
Attius Labeo[395] translated not only the _Iliad_ but also the _Odyssey_
into hexameters. But it was a poor performance. It was a baldly literal
translation, paying small attention to the meaning of the original.[396]
Persius pours scorn upon it, and one verse has survived to confirm our
worst suspicions[397]--
crudum manduces Priamum Priamique pisinnos.
Polybius, the well-known freedman of Claudius, also produced a work,
which is praised by Seneca as having introduced Homer and Vergil to a
yet larger public than they already enjoyed, and as preserving the charm
of the original in an altered form.[398] As Polybius had dealt with
Vergil as well as Homer, it may be conjectured that the work praised by
Seneca was a prose paraphrase. Lastly, there is the _Ilias Latina_,
which has been preserved to the present day. It is written in graceful
hexameter verse, and is an abridgement rather than a translation. It
consists of 1,070 lines, of which the first five books in fact claim a
little more than half. The author wearied of his task and finished off
the remaining nineteen books in summary fashion. While the twenty-second
occupies as much as sixty lines, the abridgements of the thirteenth and
seventeenth are reduced to a meagre seven and three lines respectively.
That such work is of small importance is obvious. It must have been
useless from its birth save as a handbook for the schools, and even for
this purpose its value must have been greatly impaired by its lack of
proportion. Its survival can only be accounted for on the assumption
that it was written and employed as a textbook. In fact, during the
Middle Ages, when the original was a sealed book, there is definite
evidence that it was so used.[399] The work is trivial, but might well
have been worse. The language is clear and often vigorous, and there is
an easy grace about the verse which shows that the author was a man of
culture, knowing his Vergil well and his Ovid better. The date cannot be
proved with certainty, but there can be no doubt that it was written
before the death of Nero.
The lines (899),
quem (Aenean) nisi servasset magnarum rector aquarum
ut profugus laetis Troiam repararet in arvis,
augustumque genus claris submitteret astris,
non carae gentis nobis mansisset origo,
Unless the ruler of the mighty deep had preserved Aeneas to
found in exile a new Troy in happier fields, and beget a line
of princes to shine among the stars, the stock of the race we
love would not have endured to bless us.
can only have been written under the Julian Dynasty.
The work is clearly post-Ovidian and must therefore be attributed to the
principates of Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, or Nero. Further evidence of
date is entirely wanting. No meaning can be attached to the heading
Pindarus found in certain MSS.[400] There is, however, an interesting
though scarcely more fruitful problem presented by the possible
existence of two acrostics in the course of the poem.[401] The initial
letters of the first nine lines spell the name 'Italices', while the
last eight lines yield the word 'scqipsit'. Baehrens, by a not very
probable alteration in the eighth line, procures the name 'Italicus',
while a slighter and more natural change yields 'scripsit' at the
close.[402] Further, a late MS. gives Bebius Italicus as the name of the
author.[403] On these grounds the poem has been attributed to Silius
Italicus. But Martial makes no reference to the existence of this work
in any of his references to Silius, and indeed suggests that Silius only
took to writing poetry after his withdrawal from public life.[404] This
would make the poem post-Neronian, which, as we have seen, is most
improbable. Further, the style of the verse is very different from that
of the _Punica_. When, over and above these considerations, it is
remembered that the acrostics can only be produced by emendation of the
text, the critic has no course open to him but to abandon the
attribution to Silius and to give up the problem of the acrostics as an
unprofitable curiosity of literature.
IV
LOST MINOR POETS
In addition to the poets of whom we have already treated as writing
under the Julian Dynasty there must have been many others of whom chance
or their own insignificance has deprived us. But few names have
survived,[405] and only two of these lost poets merit mention here, the
erotic poet Lentulus Gaetulicus and the lyric writer Caesius Bassus.
Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus was consul in 26 A.D.,[406] and for
ten years was legatus in Upper Germany, where his combination of
firmness and clemency won him great popularity.[407] He conspired
against Caligula while holding this command, and was put to death.[408]
Pliny the younger speaks of him as the writer of sportive and lascivious
erotic verse, and Martial writes of him in very similar terms.[409] His
mistress was named Caesennia, and was herself a poetess.[410] It is
possible that the poems in the Greek Anthology under the title [Greek:
Gaitoulikou][411] may be from his pen, but the only fragment of his
Latin poems which survives is from a work in hexameters, and describes
the geographical situation of Britain.[412]
More important is the lyric poet Caesius Bassus,[413] whose loss is the
more to be regretted because of the very scanty remains of Roman lyric
verse that have survived to modern times. Statius attempted with but
indifferent success to imitate the Sapphics and Alcaics of Horace, while
the plays of Seneca provide a considerable quantity of lyric choruses of
varying degrees of merit. But of lyric writers pure and simple there is
scarcely a trace. That they existed we know from Quintilian. If we may
trust him, certain of his contemporaries[414] attained to considerable
distinction in this branch of poetry--that is to say, they surpassed all
Roman lyric poets subsequent to Horace. But when all is said, it is
scarcely possible to go beyond Quintilian's emphatic statement, that of
Roman lyricists Horace alone repays reading. If any other name deserves
mention it is that of Caesius Bassus, but he is inferior to Quintilian's
own contemporaries. Caesius Bassus is best known to us as the editor of
the satires of Persius. The sixth satire is actually addressed to him:
admovit iam bruma foco te, Basse, Sabino?
iamne lyra et tetrico vivunt tibi pectine chordae?
mire opifex numeris veterum primordia vocum
atque marem strepitum fidis intendisse Latinae,
mox iuvenes agitare iocos et pollice honesto
egregius lusisse senex.[415]
Has winter made you move yet to your Sabine fireside, dear
Bassus? Are your lyre and its strings and the austere quill
that runs over them yet in force? Marvellous artist as you
are at setting to music the primitive antiquities of our
language, the manly utterance of the Latian harp, and then
showing yourself excellent in your old age at wakening young
loves and frolicking over the chords with a virtuous touch.
CONINGTON.
The only information yielded by this passage is that Bassus had a
Sabine villa, that he was already advanced in years, that he affected
'the simple and manly versification of antiquity', and that he dealt
also with erotic themes. But few other facts are known to us. He wrote
a treatise on metre--a portion of which has been preserved to the
present day,[416] and he perished at his Campanian villa in 79 A.D.,
during the great eruption of Vesuvius.[417] The fragments of verse
enshrined in his metrical treatise suggest that he wrote in a large
variety of metres,[418] but they may be no more than examples invented
solely to illustrate metres unfamiliar in Latin. The one quotation that
is explicitly made from his lyrical poems is, curiously enough, a
hexameter line. As to his literary merits or defects, it is now
impossible even to guess.