The Roman Poets of the Republic Part 12

[Greek: hos d' hote tis statos hippos, akostesas epi phatne, desmon aporrhexas theie pedioio kroainon, eiothos louesthai eurrheios potamoio, kydioon; hypsou de kare echei, amphi de chaitai omois a.s.sontai; ho d' aglaephi pepoithos, rhimpha he gouna pherei meta t' ethea kai nomon hippon.]

Cf. Virgil, Aen. xi. 492:--

Qualis ubi abruptis fugit praesepia vinclis Tandem liber equus, campoque pot.i.tus aperto Aut ille in pastus armentaque tendit equarum, Aut adsuetus aquae perfundi flumine noto Emicat, arrectisque fremit cervicibus alte Luxurians, luduntque jubae per colla, per armos.]

[Footnote 47: 'They watch, as when the consul is going to give the signal, all look eagerly to the barrier, to see how soon he may start the chariots from the painted entrance.']

[Footnote 48:

Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum Voltu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat.--Aen. i. 254.]

[Footnote 49: [Greek: Ennios Rhomaios poietes; hon Ailianos epainein axion phesi.... delon de hos etethepei tou poietou ten megalonoian kai ton metron to megaleion kai axiagaston.]

Suidas, vol i. p. 1258, ed. Gaisford.]

[Footnote 50: Cf. Iliad xxiii. 114-120; and also Virgil, Aen.

vi. 179:--

Itur in antiquam silvam, stabula alta ferarum, Proc.u.mbunt piceae, sonat icta securibus ilex, Fraxineaeque trabes cuneis et fissile robur Scinditur, advolvunt ingentis montibus ornos.]

[Footnote 51: 'One man, by biding his time, restored the commonwealth. He cared not for what men said of him, as compared with our safety: therefore now his fame waxeth brighter day by day.']

[Footnote 52: 'He watched the courage of his army, to see if any murmur should arise for some pause to the long battle, some rest from their weary toil.']

[Footnote 53: 'As sang our Ennius, the first who brought down from beautiful Helicon a chaplet of unfading leaf, the fame of which should be bruited loud through the nations of Italian men.']

[Footnote 54: 'When the old dame had risen, and with trembling limbs had brought the light, thus she (Ilia), roused in terror from her sleep, with tears tells her tale: "Daughter of Eurydice, whom our father loved, my strength and life now fail me through all my frame. For methought that a goodly man was bearing me off through the pleasant willow-groves, by the river-banks, and places strange to me. Thereafter, O my sister, I seemed to be wandering all alone, and with slow steps to track my way, to be seeking thee, and to be unable to find thee near; no footpath steadied my step. Afterwards methought I heard my father address me in these words--'Daughter, trouble must first be borne by thee; afterwards thy fortune shall rise up again from the river.'

With these words, O sister, he suddenly departed, nor gave himself to my sight, though my heart yearned to him, though I kept eagerly stretching my hands to the blue vault of heaven, weeping, and calling on him with loving tones. With pain and weary heart at last sleep left me."']

[Footnote 55: Aen. ii. 270.]

[Footnote 56: 'Regret and sorrow fill their hearts, while thus they say to one another, O Romulus, G.o.d-like Romulus, how great a guardian of our country did the G.o.ds create in thee! O father, author of our being, O blood sprung from the G.o.ds!

it is thou that hast brought us forth within the realms of light.']

[Footnote 57: E.g. pa.s.sages such as the following:--

Quique altum Praeneste viri, quique arva Gabinae Junonis gelidumque Anienem et roscida rivis Hernica saxa colunt, quos dives Anagnia pascit, Quos, Amasene pater.--Aen. vii. 682-5.]

[Footnote 58: 'O father! O fatherland! O house of Priam, palace, closing on high-sounding hinge, I have seen thee, guarded by a barbaric host, with carved and deep-fretted roof, with ivory and gold royally adorned.']

[Footnote 59: 'But they rise superior in spirit, and spurn the first sharp wounds of war.']

[Footnote 60: 'When I begat them, I knew that they must die, and to that end I bred them. Besides, when I sent them to Troy to fight for Greece, I was well aware that I was sending them, not to a feast, but to a deadly war.']

[Footnote 61: 'Such is my nature. Enmity and friends.h.i.+p equally I bear stamped on my forehead.']

[Footnote 62: 'Ennio delector, ait quispiam, quod non discedit a communi ordine verborum.'--Orator, 11.]

[Footnote 63: Cicero, Brutus, 15; Aulus Gellius, xii. 2.]

[Footnote 64: 'He was called by those, his fellow-countrymen, who flourished then and enjoyed their day, the chosen flower of the people, and the marrow of persuasion.']

[Footnote 65: Compare his account of the Tribune in the Istrian war:--

'Undique conveniunt velut imber, tela tribuno,' etc.]

[Footnote 66: Cf. 'Unus h.o.m.o n.o.bis cunctando rest.i.tuit rem,'

etc.]

[Footnote 67: Cf.

'Ita sapere opino esse optimum, ut pro viribus Tacere ac fabulare tute noveris;'

also

'Ea libertas est quae pectus purum et firmum gest.i.tat.']

[Footnote 68: 'Egregie cordatus h.o.m.o catus Aeliu' s.e.xtus.']

[Footnote 69: 'In idleness the mind knows not what it wants.

This is now our case. We are neither now at home nor abroad. We go hither, back again to the place from which we came,--when we have reached it we desire to leave it again.

Our mind is all astray--existence goes on outside of real life.']

[Footnote 70: iii. 1059-67.]

[Footnote 71: 'But your superst.i.tious prophets and impudent fortune-tellers, idle fellows, or madmen, or the victims of want, who cannot discern the path for themselves, yet point the way out to others, and ask a drachma from the very persons to whom they promise a fortune.']

[Footnote 72: 'And there it is announced to Julia.n.u.s that a certain public reader, an accomplished man, with a very well-trained and musical voice, read the Annals of Ennius publicly in the theatre. Let us go, says he, to hear this "Ennianista," whoever he is,--for by that name he chose to be called.'--Aulus Gellius, xviii. 5.

The following line of Martial (v. 10. 7) implies also his popularity under the Empire--

'Ennius est lectus, salvo tibi, Roma, Marone.']

[Footnote 73: 'Let us venerate Ennius like the groves, sacred from their antiquity, in which the great and ancient oak-trees are invested not so much with beauty as with sacred a.s.sociations.'--Inst. Or. x. i. 88.]

[Footnote 74: 'Ennius, the wise and strong, and the second Homer, as his critics will have it, seems to care little for the issue of all his promises and Pythagorean dreams.'--Epist.

II. i. 50-2.]

CHAPTER V.

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.