The History of Roman Literature Part 6

For the first time in any consecutive way he introduced the hexameter into Latin poetry. It is true that Plautus had composed his epitaph in that measure, if we may trust Varro's judgment on its genuineness. [4] And the Marcian oracles, though their rhythm has been disputed, were in all probability written in the same. [5] But these last were translations, and were in no sense an epoch in literature. Ennius compelled the intractable forms of Latin speech to accommodate themselves to the dactylic rhythm.

Difficulties of two kinds met him, those of accent and those of quant.i.ty.

The former had been partially surmounted by the comic writers, and it only required a careful extension of their method to render the deviations from the familiar emphasis of daily life harmonious and acceptable. In respect of quant.i.ty the problem was more complex. Plautus had disregarded it in numerous instances (_e.g. dari_), and in others had been content to recognize the natural length or shortness of a vowel (_e.g. senex ipse_), neglecting the subordinate laws of position, &c. This custom had, as far as we know, guided Ennius himself in his dramatic poems; but for the epos he adopted a different principle. Taking advantage of the tendency to shorten final vowels, he fixed almost every doubtful case as short, _e.g.

musa, patre, dare, omnibus, amaveris, pater_, only leaving the long syllable where the metre required it, as _condiderit_. By this means he gave a dactylic direction to Latin prosody which it afterwards, though only slightly, extended. At the same time he observed carefully the Greek laws of position and the doubled letters. He admitted hiatus, but not to any great extent, and chiefly in the caesura. The lengthening of a short vowel by the ictus occurs occasionally in his verses, but almost always in words where it was originally by nature long. In such words the lengthening may take place even in the thesis of the foot, as in--

"non enim rumores ponebat ante salutem."

Elision played a prominent part in his system. This was natural, since with all his changes many long or intractable terminations remained, _e.g. enim, quidem, omnium_, &c. These were generally elided, sometimes shortened as in the line quoted, sometimes lengthened as in the comedians,--

"inimicitiam agitantes."

Very rarely does he improperly shorten a naturally long vowel, _e.g.

contra_ (twice); terminations in _o_ he invariably retains, except _ego_ and _modo_. The final _s_ is generally elided before a consonant when in the thesis of the foot, but often remains in the arsis (_e.g. plenu'

fidei, Isque dies_). The two chief blots on his versification are his barbarous examples of tmesis,--_saxo cere comminuit brum: Ma.s.sili portant invenes ad litora tanas_ (= cerebrum, Ma.s.silitanas), and his quaint apocope, _cael, gau, do_ (_caelum, gaudium, domum_), probably reflected from the Homeric _do, kri_, in which Lucilius imitates him, _e.g. nol._ (for _nolueris_). The caesura, which forms the chief feature in each verse, was not understood by Ennius. Several of his lines have no caesura at all; and that delicate alternation of its many varieties which charms us in Homer and Virgil, is foreign to the conception, as it would have been unattainable by the efforts, of the rugged epic bard. Nevertheless his labour achieved a great result. He stamped for centuries the character and almost the details of subsequent versification. [6] If we study the effect of his pa.s.sages, we shall observe far greater power in single lines or sentences than in a continuous description. The solemn grandeur of some of his verses is unsurpa.s.sable, and, enshrined in the Aeneid, their dignity seems enhanced by their surroundings. Such are--

"Tuque pater Tiberine tuo c.u.m ilumino sancto."

"Unus h.o.m.o n.o.bis cunctando rest.i.tuit rem."

"Quae neque Dardaniis campis potuere perire Nec quom capta capi, nec quom combusta cremari, Augusto augurio postquam incluta condita Roma est."

On the other hand he sometimes falls into pure prose;

"Cives Romani tum facti sunt Campani,"

and the like, are scarcely metre, certainly not poetry. Later epicists in their desire to avoid this fault over elaborate their commonplace pa.s.sages. Ennius tries, however clumsily, to copy Homer in dismissing them without ornament. The one or two similes that are preserved are among his least happy efforts. [7] Among battle scenes he is more at home, and these he paints with reality and strength. There are three pa.s.sages of considerable length, which the reader who desires to judge of his narrative power should study. They are the dream of Ilia and the auspices of Romulus in the first book, and the description of the friend of Servilius in the seventh. This last is generally thought to be a picture of the poet himself, and to intimate in the most pleasing language his relations to his great patron. For a singularly appreciative criticism of these fragments the student is referred to Sellar's _Poets of the Republic_. The ma.s.sive Roman vigour of treatment which shone forth in the _Annals_ and made them as it were a rock-hewn monument of Rome's glory, secured to Ennius a far greater posthumous renown than that of any of the other early poets. Cicero extols him, and has no words too contemptuous for those who despise him, Lucretius praises him in the well known words--

"Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam, Per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret." [8]

Virgil, it is true, never mentions him, but he imitates him continually.

Ovid, with generous appreciation, allows the greatness of his talent, though he denies him art; [9] and the later imperial writers are even affected in their admiration of him. He continued to be read through the Middle Ages, and was only lost as late as the thirteenth century.

Ennius produced a few scattered imitators, but not until upwards of two generations after his death, if we except the doubtful case of Accius. The first is MATIUS, who translated the Iliad into hexameters. This may be more properly considered as the sequel to Livius, but the few fragments remaining show that his versification was based on that of Ennius.

Gellius, with his partiality for all that was archaic, warmly praises this work.

HOSTIUS wrote the _Bellum Istric.u.m_ in three books. This was no doubt a continuation of the great master's _Annales_. What the war was is not quite certain. Some fix it at 178 B.C.; others as late as 129 B.C. The earlier date is the more probable. We then have to ask when Hostius himself lived. Teuffel inclines to place him before Accius; but most commentators a.s.sign him a later date. A few lines are preserved in Macrobius, [10] which seem to point to an early period, _e.g._

"non si mihi linguae Centum atque ora sient totidem vocesque liquatae,"

and again,

"Dia Minerva, semol autem tu invictus Apollo Arquitenens Latonius."

His object in quoting these is to show that they were copied by Virgil. A pa.s.sage in Propertius has been supposed to refer to him, [11]

"Splendidaque a docto fama refulget avo,"

where he would presumably be the grandfather of that Hostia whom under the name of Cynthia so many of Propertius's poems celebrate. Another poet of whom a few lines are preserved in Gellius and Macrobius is A. FURIUS of Antium, which little town produced more than one well-known writer. His work was ent.i.tled _Annals_. Specimens of his versification are--

"Interea Oceani linquens Aurora cubile."

"Quod genus hoc hominum Saturno sancte create?"

"Pressatur pede pes, mucro mucrone, viro vir." [12]

CHAPTER VII.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF SATIRE (ENNIUS TO LUCILIUS)

200-103 B.C.

Satire, as every one knows, is the one branch of literature claimed by the Romans as their own. [1] It is, at any rate, the branch in which their excellence is most characteristically displayed. Nor is the excellence confined to the professed satirists; it was rather inherent in the genius of the nation. All their serious writings tended to a.s.sume at times a satirical spirit. Tragedy, so far as we can judge, rose to her clearest tones in branding with contempt the superst.i.tions of the day. The epic verses of Ennius are not without traces of the same power. The prose of Cato abounds with sarcastic reflections, pointedly expressed. The arguments of Cicero's theological and moral treatises are largely sprinkled with satire. The whole poem of Lucretius is deeply imbued with it: few writers of any age have launched more fiery sarcasm upon the fear of death, or the blind pa.s.sion of love than he has done in his third and fourth books. Even the gentle Virgil breaks forth at times into earnest invective, tipped with the flame of satire: [2] Dido's bitter irony, Turnus' fierce taunts, show that he could wield with stern effect this specially Roman weapon. Lucan and Seneca affect a style which, though grotesque, is meant to be satirical; while at the close of the cla.s.sical period, Tacitus transforms the calm domain of history into satire, more burning because more suppressed than that of any of his predecessors. [3]

The claim to an independent origin advanced by Quintilian has been more than once disputed. The name _Satire_ has been alleged as indicative of a Greek original (_Satyrion_). [4] It is true this can no longer be maintained. Still some have thought that the poems of Archilochus or the _Silli_ may have suggested the Roman form of composition. But the former, though full of invective, were iambic or personal, not properly satirical.

And the _Silli_, of which examples are found in Diogenes Laertius and Dio Chrysostom, were rather patched together from the verses of serious writers, forming a kind of _Cento_ like the _Carmen Nuptiale_ of Ausonius, than original productions. The Roman Satire differed from these in being essentially _didactic_. Besides ridiculing the vices and absurdities of individuals or of society, it had a serious practical purpose, viz. the improvement of public culture or morals. Thus it followed the old Comedy of Athens in its plain speaking, and the method of Archilochus in its bitter hostility to those who provoked attack. But it differed from the former in its non-political bias, as well as its non-dramatic form: and from the latter in its motive, which is not personal enmity, but public spirit. Thus the a.s.sertion of Horace, that Lucilius is indebted to the old comedians, [5] must be taken in a general sense only, and not be held to invalidate the generally received opinion that, in its final and perfected form, Satire was a genuine product of Rome.

The metres adopted by Satire was originally indifferent. The _Saturae_ of Ennius were composed in trochaics, hexameters, and iambics; those of Varro (called _Menippean_, from Menippus of Gadara), mingled together prose and verse. [6] But from Lucilius onwards, Satire, accurately so called, was always treated in hexameter verse. [7]

Nevertheless, Horace is unquestionably right in saying that it had more real affinity for prose than for poetry of any kind--

"Primum ego me illorum, dederim quibus esse poetis, Excerpam numero: neque enim concludere versum Dixeris esse satis; neque si quis scribat, uti nos, Sermoni propiora, pates hunc esse poetam." [8]

The essence of satiric talent is that it should be able to understand the complexities of real life, that it should penetrate beneath the surface to the true motives of action, and if these are bad, should indicate by life- like touches their ridiculous or contemptible nature. There is room here for great variety of treatment and difference of _personnel_. One may have a broad and masculine grasp of the main outlines of social intercourse; another with subtler a.n.a.lysis may thread his way through the intricacies of dissimulation, and lay bare to the hypocrite secrets which he had concealed even from himself; a third may select certain provinces of conduct or thought, and by a good-humoured but discriminating portraiture, throw them into so new and clear a light, as to enable mankind to look at them, free from the prejudices with which convention so often blinds our view.

The qualifications for excelling in this kind of writing are clearly such as have no special connection with poetry. Had the modern prose essay existed at Rome, it is probable the satirists would have availed themselves of it. From the fragments of Lucilius we should judge that he found the trammels of verse somewhat embarra.s.sing. Practice had indeed enabled him to write with unexampled fluency; [9] but except in this mechanical facility he shows none of the characteristics of a poet. The acc.u.mulated experience of modern life has p.r.o.nounced in favour of abandoning the poetic form, and including Satire in the domain of prose.

No doubt many celebrated poets in France and England have cultivated verse satire; but in most cases they have merely imitated, whereas the prose essay is a true formation of modern literary art. Conington, in an interesting article, [10] regards the progressive enlargement of the sphere of prose composition as a test of a nation's intellectual advance.

Thus considered, poetry is the imperfect attempt to embody in vivid language ideas which have themselves hardly a.s.sumed definite form, and necessarily gives way to prose when clearness of thought and sequence of reasoning have established for themselves a more perfect vehicle. However inadequate such a view may be to explain the full nature of poetry, it is certainly true so far as concerns the case at present before us. The a.s.signment of each special exercise of mind to its proper department of literature is undoubtedly a late growth of human culture, and such nations as have not attained to it, whatever may be the splendour of their literary creations, cannot be said to have reached the full maturity of intellectual development.

The conception of Satire by the ancients is ill.u.s.trated by a pa.s.sage in Diomedes: [11] "_Satira dicitur carmen apud Romanos nunc quidem maledic.u.m et ad carpenda hominum vitia archaeae comoediae charactere compositum, quale scripserunt Lucilius et Horatius et Persius; at olim carmen quod ex variis poematibus constabat satira cocabatur, quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius_." This old-fas.h.i.+oned _satura_ of Ennius may be considered as half-way between the early semi-dramatic farce and the cla.s.sical Satire.

It was a genuine medley, containing all kinds of subjects, often couched in the form of dialogue, but intended for recitation, not for action. The poem on Scipio was cla.s.sed with it, but what this poem was is not by any means clear; from the fragment that remains, describing a calm after storm in sonorous language, we should gather that Scipio's return voyage from Africa may have formed its theme. [12] Other subjects, included in the _Saturae_ of Ennius, were the _Hedyphagetica_, a humorous didactic poem on the mysteries of gastronomy, which may have suggested similar effusions by Lucilius and Horace; [13] the _Epicharmus_ and _Euhemerus_, both in trochaics, the latter a free translation of the _iera anagraphae_, or explanation of the G.o.ds as deified mortals; and the _Epigrams_, among which two on the great Scipio are still preserved, the first breathing the spirit of the Republic, the second a.s.serting with some arrogance the exploits of the hero, and his claims to a place among the denizens of heaven. [14]

Of the _Saturae_ of Pacuvius nothing is known. C. LUCILIUS (148-103 B.C.), the founder of cla.s.sical Satire, was born in the Latin town of Suessa Aurunca in Campania. He belonged to an equestrian family, and was in easy circ.u.mstances. [15] He is supposed to have fought under Scipio in the Numantine war (133 B.C.) when he was still quite a youth; and it is certain from Horace that he lived on terms of the greatest intimacy, both with him, Laelius, and Albinus. He is said to have possessed the house which had been built at the public expense for the son of King Antiochus, and to have died at Naples, where he was honoured with a public funeral, in the forty-sixth year of his age. His position, at once independent and unambitious (for he could not hold office in Rome), gave him the best possible chance of observing social and political life, and of this chance he made the fullest use. He lived behind the scenes: he saw the corruption prevalent in high circles; he saw also the true greatness of those who, like Scipio, stood aloof from it, and he handed down to imperishable infamy each most signal instance of vice, whether in a statesman, as Lupus, [16] Metellus, or Albucius, or in a private person, as the glutton Gallonius.

It is possible that he now and then misapplied his pen to abuse his own enemies or those of his friends, for we know that the honourable Mucius Scaevola was violently attacked by him; [17] and there is a story that being once lampooned in the theatre in a libellous manner, the poet sued his detractor, but failed in obtaining damages, on the ground that he himself had done the same to others. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt whatever that on the whole he n.o.bly used the power he possessed, that his trenchant pen was mainly enlisted on the side of patriotism, virtue, and enlightenment, and that he lashed without mercy corruption, hypocrisy, and ignorance. The testimony of Horace to his worth, coming from one who himself was not easily deceived, is ent.i.tled to the highest consideration; [18] that of Juvenal, though more emphatic, is not more weighty, [19] and the opinion, blamed by Quintilian, [20] that he should be placed above all other poets, shows that his plain language did not hinder the recognition of his moral excellence.

Although a companion of the great, he was strictly popular in his tone. He appealed to the great public, removed on the one hand from accurate learning, on the other from indifference to knowledge. "_Nec doctissimis_," he says, [21] "_Manium Persium haec legere nolo, Junium Congum volo._" And in another pa.s.sage quoted by Cicero, [22] he professes to desire that his readers may be the Tarentines, Consentines, and Sicilians,--those, that is, whose Latin grammar and spelling most needed improvement. But we cannot extend this humility [23] to his more famous political allusions. Those at any rate would be nothing if not known to the parties concerned; neither the poet's genius nor the culprit's guilt could otherwise be brought home to the individual.

In one sense Lucilius might be called a moderniser, for he strove hard to enlarge the people's knowledge and views; but in another and higher sense he was strictly national: luxury, bribery, and sloth, were to him the very poison of all true life, and cut at the root of those virtues by which alone Rome could remain great. This national spirit caused him to be preferred to Horace by conservative minds in the time of Tacitus, but it probably made his critics somewhat over-indulgent. Horace, with all his admiration for him, cannot shut his eyes to his evident faults, [24] the rudeness of his language, the carelessness of his composition, the habit of mixing Greek and Latin words, which his zealous admirers construed into a virtue, and, last but not least, the diffuseness inseparable from a hasty draft which he took no trouble to revise. Still his elegance of language must have been considerable. Pliny speaks of him as the first to establish a severe criticism of style, [25] and the fragments reveal beneath the obscuring garb of his uncouth hexameters, a terse and pure idiom not unlike that of Terence. His faults are numerous, [26] but do not seriously detract from his value. The loss of his works must be considered a serious one. Had they been extant we should have found useful information in his pictures of life and manners in a state of moral transition, amus.e.m.e.nt in such pieces as his journal of a progress from Rome to Capua, [27] and material for philological knowledge in his careful distinctions of orthography and grammar.

As a favourable specimen of his style, it will be sufficient to quote his definition of virtue:

"Virtus, Albine, est pretium persolvere verum Quis in versamur, quis vivimus rebus potesse.

Virtus est homini scire id quod quaeque habeat res.

Virtus scire homini r.e.c.t.u.m, utile, quid sit honestum, Quae bona, quae mala item, quid inutile, turpe, inhonestum.

Virtus, quaerendae finem rei scire modumque; Virtus divitiis pretium persolvere posse.

Virtus, id dare quod reipsa debetur honori, Hostem esse atque inimic.u.m hominum morumque malorum Contra, defensorem hominum morumque bonorum; Magnificare hos, his bene velle, his vivere amic.u.m; Commoda praeterea patriai prima putare, Deinde parentum, tertia iam postremaque nostra."