History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Volume I Part 28

Much dispute has existed with regard to the comparative merit of the epigrammatic productions of Catullus, and those of Martial, who sharpened the Latin epigram, and endeavoured to surprise, by terminating an ordinary thought with some word or expression, which formed a _point_. Of the three great triumvirs of Latin literature, Joseph Scaliger, Lipsius, and Muretus, the last considers Catullus as far superior to his successor, as the wit of a gentleman to that of a scoffer and buffoon, while the two former award the palm to Martial. Their respective merits are very well summed up by Vava.s.sor.-"Catullum quidem, puro ac simplici candore, et nativa quadam, minimeque adscita, excellere venustate formae, quae accedat quam proxime ad Graecos. Martialem ac.u.mine, quod proprium Latinorum, et peculiare tunc fieri cpit, valere; adeoque Catullum toto corpore epigrammatis esse conspicuum, Martialem clausula praecipue, atque ultimo fine, in quo relinquat, c.u.m delectatione, aculeum spectari(516)."

There can, I think, be no doubt, that, as an epigrammatist, Martial is infinitely superior to Catullus; but it is not on his epigrams that the fame of Catullus rests: He owes his reputation to about a dozen pieces, in which every word, like a note of music, thrills on the heart-strings. It is this felicitous selection of the most appropriate and melodious expressions, which seem to flow from the heart without study or premeditation, which has rendered him the most _graceful_ of poets:-

-- "Ce naif agrement, Ce ton de cur, ce neglige charmant, Qui le rendit le poete _des Graces_(517)."

Few poets, besides, have shown more freshness in their conceptions-more truth and nature in their delineations of amatory pa.s.sion-more heartfelt tenderness in grief-and none, certainly, ever possessed a more happy art of embellis.h.i.+ng trivial incidents, by the manner in which he treated them.

Indeed, the most exquisite of his productions, in point of grace and delicacy, are those which were called forth by the most trifling occasions; while, at the same time, his Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis proves, that he was by no means deficient in that warmth of imagination, energy of thought, and sublimity of conception, which form the attributes of perfection in those bards who tread the higher paths of Parna.s.sus.

Catullus is a great favourite with all the early critics and commentators of the 16th century. The elder Scaliger alone has p.r.o.nounced on him a harsh and unmerited sentence: "Catullo," says he, "docti nomen quare sit ab antiquis attributum, neque apud alios comperi, neque dum in mentem venit mihi. Nihil enim non vulgare est in ejus libris: ejus autem syllabae c.u.m durae sint, tum ipse non raro durus; aliquando vero adeo mollis, ut fluat, neque consistat. Multa impudica, quorum pudet-multa languida, quorum miseret-multa coacta, quorum piget(518)." In conclusion, the reader may, perhaps, like to hear the opinion of the pure and saintly Fenelon, concerning this obscene pagan.-"Catulle, qu'on ne peut nommer sans avoir horreur de ses obscenitez, est au comble de la perfection pour une simplicite pa.s.sionnee-

'Odi et amo: quare id faciam forta.s.se requiris.

Nescio; sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.'

Combien Ovide et Martial, avec leurs traits ingenieux et faconnez, sont ils au dessous de ces paroles negligees, ou le cur saisi parle seul dans un espece de desespoir."

The different sorts of poetry which Catullus, though not their inventor, first introduced at Rome, were cultivated and brought to high perfection by his countrymen. Horace followed, and excelled him in Lyric compositions. The elegiac measure was adopted with success by Ovid, Tibullus, and Propertius, and applied by them to the expression of amatory sentiments, which, if they did not reach the refinement, or pure devotedness of the middle ages(519), were less gross than those of Catullus.

In his epigrammatic compositions, Catullus was imitated by several of his own contemporaries, most of whom also ranked in the number of his friends.

Their works, however, have almost entirely perished. Quintus Lutatius Catulus, who is praised as an orator and historian by Cicero(520), has left two epigrams-one, _Ad Theotimum_, translated from Callimachus, the name Theotimus being merely subst.i.tuted for that of Cephissus-and the other, _Ad Roscium Puerum_, addressed to the celebrated actor in his youth, and quoted by Cicero in his treatise, _De Natura Deorum_(521)-

"Const.i.teram, exorientem Auroram forte salutans; c.u.m subito a laeva Roscius exoritur.

Pace mihi liceat, Clestes, dicere vestra; Mortalis visus pulchrior esse deo(522)."

This epigram formed a theme and subject of poetical contest among the French _beaux esprits_ of the 17th century, who vied with each other in sonnets and madrigals, ent.i.tled _La Belle Matineuse_, written in imitation of the above verses. One will suffice as a specimen-

LA BELLE MATINEUSE.

"Le silence regnait sur la terre et sur l'onde, L'air devenait serein, et l'Olympe vermeil, Et l'amoureux Zephyr affranchi du sommeil Ressuscitait les fleurs d'une haleine feconde.

L'Aurore deployait l'or de sa tresse blonde, Et semait de rubis le chemin du soleil.

Enfin ce Dieu venait au plus grand appareil, Qu'il fut jamais venus pour eclairer le monde.

Quand la jeune Philis au visage riant, Sortant de son palais, plus clair que l'Orient, Fit voir une lumiere et plus vive et plus belle.

Sacre flambeau de jour, n'en soyez point jaloux; Vous parutes alors aussi peu devant elle, Que les feux de la nuit avoient fait devant vous."

From a vast collection of Italian sonnets on the same subject, I select one by Annibal Caro, the celebrated translator of Virgil-

"Eran l'aer tranquillo, e l'onde chiare, Sospirava Favonio, e fuggia Clori, L'alma Ciprigna innanzi ai primi albori Ridendo empia d'amor la terra e 'l mare.

"La rugiadosa Aurora in ciel piu rare Facea le stelle; e di piu bei colori Spa.r.s.e le nubi, e i monti; uscia gia fuori Febo, qual piu lucente in Delfo appare.

"Quando altra Aurora un piu vezzoso ostello Aperse, e lampeggi sereno, e puro Il Sol, che sol m'abbaglia, e mi disface.

"Volsimi, e 'n contro a lei mi parve oscuro, (Santi lumi del ciel, con vostra pace) L'Oriente, che dianzi era si bello."

Licinius Calvus was equally distinguished as an orator and a poet. In the former capacity he is mentioned with distinction by Cicero; but it was probably his poetical talents that procured for him the friends.h.i.+p of Catullus, who has addressed to him two Odes, in which he is commemorated as a most delightful companion, from whose society he could scarcely refrain. Calvus was violently enamoured of a girl called Quintilia, whose early death he lamented in a number of verses, none of which have descended to us. There only remain, an epigram against Pompey, satirizing his practice of scratching his head with one finger, and a fragment of another against Julius Caesar(523). The sarcasm it contains would not have been pardonable in the present age; but the dictator, hearing that Calvus had repented of his petulance, and was desirous of a reconciliation, addressed a letter to him, with a.s.surances of unaltered friends.h.i.+p(524).

The fragments of his epigrams which remain, do not enable us to judge for ourselves of his poetical merits. He is cla.s.sed by Ovid among the licentious writers(525); but he is generally mentioned along with Catullus, which shows that he was not considered as greatly inferior to his friend-

"Nil praeter Calvum et doctus cantare Catullum."

Pliny, in one of his letters, talking of his friend Pompeius Saturnius, mentions, that he had composed several poetical pieces in the manner of Calvus and Catullus(526); and Augurinus, as quoted by Pliny in another of his epistles, says,

"Canto carmina versibus minutis His olim quibus et meus Catullus, Et Calvus --"(527)

VALERIUS aeDITUUS,

Of Valerius aedituus, another writer of epigrams and amorous verses in the time of Catullus, little is known; but the following lines by him, to a slave carrying a torch before him to the house of his mistress, have been quoted by Aulus Gellius-

"Quid faculam praefers, Phileros, qua nil opu' n.o.bis?

Ibimus, hoc lucet pectore flamma satis.

Istam nam potis est vis saeva extinguere venti, Aut imber clo candidus praecipitans: At contra, hunc ignem Veneris, nisi si Venus ipsa, Nulla 'st quae possit vis alia opprimere(528)."

Aulus Gellius has also preserved the following verses of Porcius Licinius-

"Custodes ovium, teneraeque propaginis agnum, Quaeris ignem?-Ite huc: quaeritis? ignis h.o.m.o est.

Si digito attigero, incendam silvam simul omnem, Omne pecus: flamma 'st omnia quae video(529)."

During the period in which the works of Lucretius and Catullus brought the Latin language to such perfection, the drama, which we have seen so highly elevated in the days of the Scipios, had sunk into a state of comparative degradation. National circ.u.mstances and manners had never been favourable to the progress of the dramatic art at Rome; but, subsequently to the conquest of Carthage, the increasing size and magnificence of the Roman theatres, some of which held not less than 60,000 people, required splendid spectacles, or extravagant buffoonery, to fill the eye, and catch the attention of a crowded, and often tumultuous a.s.sembly.

Accordingly, in the long period from the termination of the Punic wars till the Augustan age, there scarcely appeared a single successor to Plautus or Pacuvius. That the pieces of the ancient tragic or comic writers still continued to be occasionally represented, is evident from the immense wealth ama.s.sed, in the time of Cicero, by aesopus and Roscius, who never, so far as we know, condescended to appear, except in the regular drama; but a new tragedy or comedy was rarely brought out. This deficiency in the fund of entertainment and novelty, in the province of the legitimate drama, was supplied by the MIMES, which now became fas.h.i.+onable in Rome.

Though resembling them in name, the Latin Mimes differed essentially from the Greek ????, from which they derived their appellation. The Greek Mimes, of which Sophron of Syracuse was the chief writer, represented a single adventure taken from ordinary life, and exhibited characters without any gross caricature or buffoonery. The fifteenth Idyl of Theocritus is said to be written in the manner of the Greek Mimes(530); and, to judge from it, they were not so much actions as conversations with regard to some action which was supposed to be going on at the time, and is pointed out, as it were, by the one interlocutor to the other, or an imitation of the action, whence their name has been derived. They resembled detached or unconnected scenes of a comedy, and required no more gesticulation or mimetic art, than is employed in all dramatic representations. On the other hand, mimetic gestures of every species, except dancing, were essential to the Roman Mimes, as also the exhibition of grotesque characters, which had often no prototypes in real life. The Mimes of the Romans, again, differed from their pantomime in this, that, in the former, most of the gestures were accompanied by recitation, whereas the pantomimic entertainments, carried to such perfection by Pylades and Bathyllus, were _ballets_, often of a serious, and never of a ludicrous or grotesque description, in which everything was expressed by dumb show, and in which dancing const.i.tuted so considerable a part of the amus.e.m.e.nt, that the performers danced a poem, a chorus, or whole drama, (_Cantic.u.m saltabant_.)

It is much more difficult to distinguish the Mimes from the _Fabulae Atellanae_, than from the Pantomimes or Greek _Mimi_; and indeed they have been frequently confounded(531). It appears, however, that the characters represented in the Atellane dramas were chiefly provincial, while those introduced in the Mimes were the lowest cla.s.s of citizens at Rome. Antic gestures, too, were more employed in the Mimes than the Atellane fables, and they were more obscene and ludicrous: "Toti," says Vossius, "erant ridiculi." The Atellanes, though full of mirth, were always tempered with something of the ancient Italian severity, and consisted of a more liberal and polite kind of humour than the Mimes. In this respect Cicero places the Mimes and Atellane fables in contrast, in a letter to Papyrius Paetus, where he says, that the broad jests in which his correspondent had indulged, immediately after having quoted the tragedy of nomaus, reminds him of the modern method of introducing, at the end of such graver dramatic pieces, the buffoonery of the Mimes, instead of the more delicate humour of the old Atellane farces(532).

These Mimes, (which, with the Atellane fables, and regular tragedy and comedy, form the four great branches of the Roman drama,) were represented by actors, who sometimes wore masks, but more frequently had their faces stained like our clowns or mountebanks. There was always one princ.i.p.al actor, on whom the jests and ridicule chiefly hinged. The second, or inferior parts, were entirely subservient to that of the first performer: They were merely introduced to set him off to advantage, to imitate his actions, and take up his words-

"Sic iterat voces, et verba cadentia tollit; Ut puerum saevo credas dictata magistro Reddere, vel partes mimum tractare secundas."

Some writers have supposed, that a Mime was a sort of _monodrame_, and that the _partes secundae_, here alluded to by Horace, meant the part of the actor who gesticulated(533), while the other declaimed, or that of the declaimer(534). It is quite evident, however, from the context of the lines, that Horace refers to the inferior characters of the Mime(535). I doubt not that the chief performer a.s.sumed more than one character in the course of the piece(536), in the manner in which the Admirable Crichton is recorded to have performed at the court of Mantua(537); but there were also subordinate parts in the Mime-a fool or a parasite, who a.s.sisted in carrying on the jests or tricks of his princ.i.p.al:-"C. Volumnius," says Festus, "qui ad tibicinem saltarit, secundarum partium fuerit, qui, fere omnibus Mimis, parasitus inducatur(538);" and to the same purpose Petronius Arbiter,-

"Grex agit in scena Mimum-Pater ille vocatur, Filius hic, nomen Divitis ille tenet(539)."

The performance of a Mime commenced with the appearance of the chief actor, who explained its subject in a sort of prologue, in order that the spectators might fully understand what was but imperfectly represented by words or gestures. This prolocutor, also, was generally the author of a sketch of the piece; but the actors were not confined to the mere outline which he had furnished. In one view, the province of the mimetic actor was of a higher description than that of the regular comedian. He was obliged to trust not so much to memory as invention, and to clothe in extemporaneous effusions of his own, those rude sketches of dramatic scenes, which were all that were presented to him by his author. The performers of Mimes, however, too often gave full scope, not merely to natural unpremeditated gaiety, but abandoned themselves to every sort of extravagant and indecorous action. The part written out was in iambic verse, but the extemporary dialogue which filled up the scene was in prose, or in the rudest species of versification. Through the course of the exhibition, the want of refinement or dramatic interest was supplied by the excellence of the mimetic part, and the amusing imitation of the peculiarities or personal habits of various cla.s.ses of society. The performers were seldom anxious to give a reasonable conclusion to their extravagant intrigue. Sometimes, when they could not extricate themselves from the embarra.s.sment into which they had thrown each other, they simultaneously rushed off the stage, and the performance terminated(540).

The characters exhibited were parts taken from the dregs of the populace-courtezans, thieves, and drunkards. The Sannio, or Zany, seems to have been common to the Mimes and Atellane dramas. He excited laughter by lolling out his tongue, and making a.s.ses' ears on his head with his fingers. There was also the Panniculus, who appeared in a party-coloured dress, with his head shaved, feigning stupidity or folly, and allowing blows to be inflicted on himself without cause or moderation. That women performed characters in these dramas, and were often the favourite mistresses of the great, is evident from a pa.s.sage in the Satires of Horace, who mentions a female Mime, called Origo, on whom a wealthy Roman had lavished his paternal inheritance(541). Cornelius Gallus wrote four books of _Elegies_ in praise of a Mime called Cytheris, who, as Aurelius Victor informs us, was also beloved by Antony and Brutus-"Cytheridam Mimam, c.u.m Antonio et Gallo, amavit Brutus." It appears from a pa.s.sage in Valerius Maximus, that these Mimae were often required to strip themselves of their clothes in presence of the spectators(542).

As might be expected from the characters introduced, the Mimes were appropriated to a representation of the lowest follies and debaucheries of the vulgar. "Argumenta," says Valerius Maximus, "majore ex parte, stuprorum continent actus." That they were in a great measure occupied with the tricks played by wives on their husbands, (somewhat, probably, in the style of those related by the Italian novelists,) we learn from Ovid; who, after complaining in his _Tristia_ of having been undeservedly condemned for the freedom of his verses, asks-

"Quid si scripsissem Mimos obscna jocantes?

Qui semper juncti crimen amoris habent; In quibus a.s.sidue cultus procedit adulter, Verbaque dat stulto callida nupta viro(543)."

We learn from another pa.s.sage of Ovid that these were by much the most popular subjects,-

"c.u.mque fefellit amans aliqua novitate maritum, Plauditur, et magno palma favore datur."