The Roman Poets of the Republic Part 26

The extravagance, airs, and vices of women, are another theme of his satire. But he deals with these topics rather in the spirit of raillery adopted by Plautus, than in that of Juvenal. In one fragment he compares, in terms neither delicate nor complimentary, the pretensions to beauty of the Roman ladies of his time with those of the Homeric heroines. In another he contrasts the care which they take in adorning themselves when expecting the visits of strangers with their indifference as to their appearance when alone with their husbands,--

c.u.m tec.u.m'st, quidvis satis est: visuri alieni Sint homines, spiras, pallam, redimicula promit[37].

Another fragment--

Homines ipsi hanc sibi molestiam ultro atque aerumnam offerunt, Duc.u.n.t uxores, produc.u.n.t quibus haec faciant liberos,--

indicates the same repugnance to marriage, which is expressed in a fragment of contemporary oratory, quoted by A. Gellius: 'If, Quirites, we could get on at all without wives, we should all keep clear of that nuisance; but since, in the way of nature, life cannot go on comfortably with them, nor at all without them, we ought rather to provide for the continued well-being of the world than for our temporary comfort.' The dislike to incur the responsibilities of family life, which appears so conspicuously among the cultivated cla.s.ses in the later times of the Republic, was probably, if we are to judge from the testimony and examples of Lucilius and Horace, as much the result of the license allowed to men, as of the extravagant habits or jealous imperiousness of women.

The intellectual, as well as the moral and social peculiarities of the age were noted by Lucilius. One fragment is directed against the terrors of superst.i.tion, and shows that Lucilius, like all the older poets, was endowed with that strong secular sense which enabled the educated Romans, notwithstanding the forms and ceremonies of religion encompa.s.sing every private and public act, to escape, in all their ordinary relations, from supernatural influences. This pa.s.sage affords a fair specimen of the continuous style of the author:--

Terriculas Lamias, Fauni quas Pompiliique Inst.i.tuere Numae, tremit has, hic omnia ponit; Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena Vivere, et esse homines; et sic isti omnia ficta Vera putant, credunt signis cor inesse in ahenis; Pergula pictorum, veri nihil, omnia ficta[38].

His att.i.tude to philosophy, like his att.i.tude to superst.i.tious terrors, was not unlike that of Horace. We find mention in his fragments of the 'Socratici charti,' of the 'eidola atque atomus Epicuri' of the four [Greek: stoicheia] of Empedocles, of the 'mutatus Polemon,' spoken of in Horace (Sat. ii. 3, 253), of Aristippus, and of Carneades; but his own wisdom was that of the world and not of the schools. In these lines,--

Paenula, si quaeris, canteriu', servu', segestre, Utilior mihi, quam sapiens;

and--

Nondum etiam, qui haec omnia habebit, Formosus, dives, liber, rex solu' feretur,

we find an antic.i.p.ation of the tones in which Horace satirised the professors of Stoicism in his own time. The affectation of Greek manners and tastes is ridiculed in the person of t.i.tus Albutius, in a pa.s.sage which Cicero describes as written 'with much grace and pungent wit'[39]:--

Graec.u.m te, Albuci, quam Romanum atque Sabinum, Municipem Ponti, Tritanni, Centurionum, Praeclarorum hominum ac primorum signiferumque, Maluisti dici. Graece ergo praetor Athenis, Id quod maluisti, te, c.u.m ad me accedi', saluto: Chaere, inquam, t.i.te. Lictores turma omni' cohorsque Chaere, t.i.te. Hinc hostis mi, Albucius, hinc inimicus[40].

We learn from Cicero's account of the orators antecedent to, and contemporary with himself, that this denationalising fastidiousness was a not uncommon result of the new studies. The practice of Lucilius of mixing Greek words and phrases with his Latin style might, at first sight, expose him to a similar criticism. But this mannerism of style, which is condemned by the good sense of Horace, is merely superficial, and does not impair the vigorous nationality of the sentiment expressed by the Roman satirist. Like the similar practice in the Letters of Cicero, it was probably in accordance with the familiar conversational style of men powerfully attracted by the interest and novelty of the new learning, but yet strong enough in their national self-esteem to adhere to Roman standards in all the greater matters of action and sentiment. Lucilius seems however to recognise a deeper mischief than that of mere literary affectation in the general insincerity of character produced by the rhetorical and sophistical arts fostered by the new studies, and finding their sphere of action in the Roman law-courts.

The satire of Lucilius, besides its political, moral, and social function, a.s.sumed the part of a literary critic and censor. The testimony of Horace on this point,--

Nil comis tragici mutat Lucilius Acci?

Non ridet versus Enni gravitate minores, c.u.m de se loquitur non ut maiore reprensis?

confirmed by that of Gellius[41], is amply borne out by extant fragments. These criticisms formed a large part of the twenty-sixth book, which Muller supposes to have been the earliest of the compositions of Lucilius. Several lines preserved from that book are either quotations or parodies from the old tragedies[42]. We observe in these and other quotations the peculiarities of style, noticed in the two tragic poets, such as their tendencies to alliteration and the use of asyndeta, the strained word-formations of Pacuvius, and the occasional inflation of Accius[43]. We trace the influence of these criticisms in the sneer of Persius,--

Est nunc Briseis quem venosus liber Acci, Sunt quos Pacuviusque et verrucosa moretur Antiopa, aerummis cor luctificabile fulta.

The antagonism displayed by Lucilius to the more ambitious style of the tragic and epic poets was perhaps as much due to his own deficiency in poetical imagination, as to his keen critical discernment, the 'stili nasus' or 'emunctae nares' attributed to him by Pliny and Horace.

The criticism of Lucilius was not only aggressive, but also directly didactic. In the ninth book he discussed, at considerable length, disputed questions of orthography; and a pa.s.sage is quoted from the same book, in which a distinction is drawn out between 'poema' and 'poesis.' Under the first he ranks--

Epigrammation, vel Distichum, epistula item quaevis non magna;

under the second, whole poems, such as the Iliad, or the Annals of Ennius. The only interest attaching to these fragments is that, like the didactic works of Accius, they testify to the crude critical effort that accompanied the creative activity of the earlier Roman poets.

As specimens of his continuous style the two following pa.s.sages may be given. The first exemplifies the serious moral spirit with which ancient satire was animated; the second vividly represents and rebukes one of the most prevalent pursuits of the age--

Virtus, Albine, est pretium persolvere verum, Queis in versamur, queis vivimu' rebu', potesse: Virtus est hominis, 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 rei finem scire modumque: Virtus divitiis pretium persolvere posse: Virtus id dare quod re ipsa debetur honori: Hostem esse atque inimic.u.m hominum morumque malorum, Contra defensorem hominum morumque bonorum, Hos magnifacere, his bene velle, his vivere amic.u.m; Commoda praeterea patriae sibi prima putare, Deinde parentum, tertia jam postremaque nostra[44].

If there is no great originality of thought nor rhetorical grace of expression in this pa.s.sage, it proves that Lucilius judged of questions of right and wrong from his own point of view. To him, as to Ennius, common sense and a just estimate of life were large ingredients in virtue. To be a good hater as well as a staunch friend, and to choose one's friends and enemies according to their characters, is another quality of his virtuous man. With him, as with the best Romans of every age, love of country, family, and friends, were the primary motives to right action. The next pa.s.sage, written in language equally plain and forcible, gives a graphic picture of the growing taste for forensic oratory--

Nunc vero a mane ad noctem, festo atque profesto, Toto itidem pariterque die, populusque patresque Iactare indu foro se omnes, decedere nusquam, Uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti, Verba dare ut caute possint, pugnare dolose, Blanditia certare, bonum simulare virum se Insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes[45].

These pa.s.sages are probably not unfavourable specimens of the author's continuous style. At its best that style appears to be sincere, serious, rapid, and full of vital force, but careless, redundant, and devoid of all rhetorical point and subtle suggestiveness. Even to these pa.s.sages the censure of Horace applies,--

At dixi fluere hunc lutulentum.

If we regard these pa.s.sages as on the ordinary level of his style we cannot hesitate to recognise his immense inferiority to Terence in elegance and finish[46], and to Plautus in rich and humorous exuberance of expression. There is scarcely a trace of imaginative power, or of susceptibility to the grandeur and pathos of human life, or to the beauty and sublimity of Nature in the thousand lines of his remains. We find a few vivid touches, as in this half-line--

Terra abit in nimbos imbresque,

but we fail to recognise not only the 'disjecti membra poetae,' but even the elements of the rhetorician, or of the ironical humourist--

Parcentis viribus atque Extenuantis eas consulto.

Thus it is difficult to understand what Cicero means when he speaks of the 'Romani veteres atque urbani sales' as being 'salsiores' than those of the true masters of Attic wit, such as were Aristophanes, Plato, and Menander.

But these pa.s.sages are simple, direct, and clear, compared with many of the single lines or longer pa.s.sages, already quoted in ill.u.s.tration of the substance of his satire. These leave an impression not only of a total want of the 'limae labor,' but of an abnormal harshness and difficulty, beyond what we find in the fragments of Pacuvius, Accius, or Ennius. The fragments of his trochaics and iambics are much simpler, 'much less depart from the natural order of the words,' than those of his hexameters: a fact which reminds us of the great advance made by Horace in adapting the heroic measure to the familiar experience of life. Lucilius is moreover a great offender against not only the graces but the decencies of language. Lines are found in his fragments as coa.r.s.e as the coa.r.s.est in Catullus or Juvenal: nor could he urge the extenuating plea of having forgotten the respect due to his readers from the necessity of relieving his wounded feelings or of vindicating morality.

Yet it is undoubted that, notwithstanding the most glaring faults and defects in form and style, he was one of the most popular among the Roman poets. The testimony of Cicero, Persius, Juvenal, Quintilian, Tacitus, and Gellius, confirms on this point the more ample testimony of Horace. If, as Mr. Munro thinks, Horace may have expressed, in deference to the prevailing taste of his time, a less qualified admiration for him than he really felt, this only shows how strong a hold his writings had over the reading public in the Augustan age. But Horace shows by no means the same deference to the admirers of Plautus and Ennius. To Lucilius he pays also the sincerer tribute of frequent imitation. He made him his model, in regard both to form and substance, in his satires; and even in his epistles he still acknowledges the guidance of his earliest master. In reading both the Satires and Epistles we are continually coming upon the vestiges of Lucilius, in some turn of expression, some personal or ill.u.s.trative allusion. Similar vestiges are found, imbedded in the harsh and jagged diction of Persius, and though not to the same extent, in the polished rhetoric of Juvenal. Nor was his literary influence confined to Roman satirists. Lucretius, Catullus, and even Virgil, have not disdained to adopt his thoughts or imitate his manner[47].

But if we cannot altogether account for, we may yet partially understand the admiration which his countrymen felt for Lucilius. In every great literature, while there are some works which appeal to the imagination of the whole world, there are others which seem to hit some particular mood of the nation to which their author belongs, and are all the more valued from the prominence they give to this idiosyncracy. Every nation which has had a literature seems to have valued itself on some peculiar humour or vein of observation and feeling, which it regards as specially allotted to itself, over and above its common inheritance of the sense of the ludicrous, which it shares with other races. Those writers who have this last in unusual measure become the favourite humourists of the world. But their own countrymen often prefer those endowed with the narrower domestic type; and of this type Lucilius seems to have been a true representative.

The 'antiqua et vernacula festivitas,' attributed to him, seems to have been more combative and aggressive than genial and sympathetic.

The 'Italum acetum' was employed by the Romans as a weapon of controversy with the view of damaging an adversary and making either himself or the cause he represented appear ridiculous and contemptible. The dictum of a modern humourist, that to laugh at a man properly you must first love him, would have seemed to an ancient Roman a contradiction in terms. When Horace writes--

Ridiculum acri Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res,

he means that men are more likely to be made better by the fear of contempt than of moral reprobation.

But Lucilius had much more than this power of personal raillery, exercised with the force supplied and under the restraints imposed by an energetic social and political life. He is spoken of not only as 'comis et urba.n.u.s,' but also as 'doctus' and 'sapiens.' Even his fragments indicate that he was a man of large knowledge of 'books and men.' Horace testifies to the use which he made of the old comic poets of Athens:--

Hinc omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus.

His fragments show familiarity with Homer, with the works of the Greek physical and ethical philosophers, with the systems of the rhetoricians, and some acquaintance with the writings of Plato, Archilochus, Euripides, and Aesop. His habit of building up his Latin lines with the help of Greek phrases ill.u.s.trates the first powerful influence of the new learning before the Roman mind was able thoroughly to a.s.similate it, but when it was in the highest degree stimulated and fascinated by it. The mind of Lucilius was susceptible to the novelty of the new thoughts and new impressions, but like that of his contemporaries was insensible to the grace and symmetry of Greek art. Terence is the only writer in the ante-Ciceronian period who had the sense of artistic form. But all this foreign learning was, in the mind of Lucilius, subsidiary to the freshest observation and most discerning criticism of his own age. He was a spectator of life more than an actor in it, but he yet had been present at one of the most important military events of the time, and he had lived in the closest intimacy with the greatest soldier and most prudent statesman of his age. His satire had thus none of the limitation and unreality which attaches to the work of a student and recluse, such as Persius was. To the writings of Lucilius more perhaps than to those of any other Roman would the words of Martial apply--

Hominem pagina nostra sapit.

It is his strong realistic tendency both in expression and thought that seems to explain his antagonism to the older poets who treated of Greek heroes and heroines in language widely removed from that employed either in the forum or in the social meetings of educated men. The popularity of Lucilius among the Romans may thus be explained on much the same grounds as that of Archilochus among the Greeks. He first introduced the literature of the understanding as distinct from that either of the graver emotions or of humorous and sentimental representation. And, while writing with the breadth of view and wealth of ill.u.s.tration derived from learning, he did not, like the poets of later times, write for an exclusive circle of critical readers, but rather, as he himself said, 'for Tarentines, Consentini, and Sicilians[48].' There was nothing about him of the fastidiousness and shyness of a too refined culture. Every line almost of his fragments attests his possession of that quality which, more than any other, secures a wide, if not always a lasting, popularity, great vitality and its natural accompaniment, boldness and confidence of spirit.

While he saw clearly, felt keenly, and judged wisely the political and social action of his time, he reproduced it vividly in his pages.

Whatever other quality his style may want, it is always alive. And the life with which it is animated is thoroughly healthy. There is a singular sincerity in the ring of his words, the earnest of a mind, absolutely free from cant and pretence, not las.h.i.+ng itself into fierce indignation as a stimulant to rhetorical effect, nor forcing itself to conform to any impracticable scheme of life, but glowing with a hearty scorn for baseness, and never shrinking from its exposure in whatever rank and under whatever disguise he detected it[49], and ever courageously 'upholding the cause of virtue and of those who were on the side of virtue'--

Scilicet uni aequus virtuti atque eius amicis.

It was by the rect.i.tude and manliness of his character, as much as by his learning, his quick and true discernment, his keen raillery and vivid portraiture, that he became the favourite of his time and country, and, alone among Roman writers, succeeded in introducing a new form of literature into the world.

[Footnote 1: Bernhardy quotes the following words from Cicero, de Rep. iv. ap. Augustin. C. D. ii. 9:--