Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 12

These lines may be no more than an academic exercise on a commonplace theme, but there can be no doubt of their artistic success. We find the same simplicity in Columella, but not the same art. Compare them with the work of Petronius' contemporary, Calpurnius Siculus, and there is all the difference between true poetry and mere poetising. More pa.s.sionate and more convincing is the elegiac poem celebrating the poet's return to the scene of former happiness:

o litus vita mihi dulcius, o mare! felix, cui licet ad terras ire subinde tuas!

o formosa dies! hoc quondam rure solebam naidas alterna[335] sollicitare manu.

hic fontis lacus est, illic sinus egerit algas: haec statio est tacitis fida cupidinibus.

pervixi; neque enim fortuna malignior umquam eripiet n.o.bis, quod prior aura dedit.[336]

O sh.o.r.e, O sea, that I love more than life! Happy is he that may straightway visit the lands ye border. O fairest day! 'Twas here that once I was wont to swim and vex the sea-nymphs with my hands' alternate strokes. Here is a stream's deep pool, there the bay casts up its seaweed: here is a spot that can faithfully guard the secret of one's love.

I have lived my life to the full; nor can grudging fortune ever rob me of that which her favouring breeze once gave me.

But Petronius can attain to equal success in other veins. Now we have a fragment in the epic style containing a simile at once original and beautiful:

haec ait et tremulo deduxit vertice canos consecuitque genas; oculis nec defuit imber, sed qualis rapitur per vallis improbus amnis, c.u.m gelidae periere nives et languidus auster non pat.i.tur glaciem resoluta vivere terra, gurgite sic pleno facies manavit et alto insonuit gemitu turbato murmure pectus.[337]

He spake, and rent the white hair on his trembling head and tore his cheeks, and his eyes streamed with a flood of tears. As when a resistless river sweeps down the valley when the chill snows have melted and the languid south wind thaws the earth and suffers not the ice to remain, even so his face streamed with a torrent of weeping and his breast groaned loud with a confused murmur of sorrow.

Elsewhere we find him writing in satirical vein of the origin of religion,[338] on the decay of virtue,[339] on the hardship of the married state[340]:

'uxor legis onus, debet quasi census amari.'

nec censum vellem semper amare meum.

'One should love one's wife as one loves one's fortune.'

Nay, I desire not always to love even my fortune.

But it is in a love-poem that he reaches his highest achievement:

lecto compositus vix prima silentia noctis carpebam et somno lumina victa dabam: c.u.m me saevus Amor prensat sursumque capillis excitat et lacerum pervigilare iubet.

'tu famulus meus,' inquit, 'ames c.u.m mille puellas, solus, io, solus, dure, iacere potes?'

exsilio et pedibus nudis tunicaque soluta omne iter incipio, nullum iter expedio.

nunc propero, nunc ire piget, rursumque redire paenitet et pudor est stare via media.

ecce tacent voces hominum strepitusque viarum et volucrum cantus turbaque fida canum: solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque et sequor imperium, magne Cupido, tuum.[341]

I lay on my bed and began to enjoy the silence of the night scarce yet begun, and was yielding my wearied eyes to sleep, when fierce Love laid hold of me, and, seizing me by the hair, aroused me, tore me, and bade me wake. 'Canst thou, my servant,' he cried, 'the lover of a thousand girls, lie thus alone, alone, hard-hearted?' I leapt from my couch, and barefoot, with dishevelled robe, started on my errand, yet never accomplished it. Now I hurry forward, now am loth to go; now repent me that I have returned, and feel shame to stand thus aimless in mid-street. So the voices of men, the murmur of the streets, the song of birds, and the trusty watchdogs all are silent; and I alone dread the slumbers of my couch and follow thy behest, great G.o.d of love.

If this is not great poetry, it is at least one of the most perfect specimens of conventional erotic verse in all ancient literature. If we except a very few of the best poems of Propertius, Latin Elegiacs have nothing to show that combines such perfection of form with such exquisite sensuous charm. It breathes the fragrance of the Greek anthology.

The general impression left by the poetical work of Petronius is curiously unlike that left by any Latin poet. Sometimes dull, he is never eccentric; without the originality of the greatest artists, he has all the artist's sensibility for form. He writes not as one inspired, but as one steeped in the best literature. Many were greater stylists, but few were endowed with such an exquisite sense of style. As a poet he is a _dilettante_, and his claim to greatness lies in the brilliant and audacious humour of his 'picaresque novel'. But his verse at its best has a charm and fragrance of its own that is almost unique in Latin, and reveals a combination of grace and facility, to find a parallel for which among writers of the post-Augustan age we must turn to the pages of Martial.

CHAPTER VI

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 G.o.ds[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 G.o.ds, no t.i.tan'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, enc.u.mbered 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 c.u.mbrous 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 c.u.m 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 pasc.u.n.t, vel solis parsura piis. namque optima proles Amphinomus fraterque pari sub munere fortes, c.u.m iam vicinis streperent incendia tectis, aspiciunt pigrumque patrem matremque senecta eheu defessos posuisse in limine membra, parcite, avara ma.n.u.s, 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, quac.u.mque 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 sec.u.m 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage shows the author in his most favourable aspect. In his more technical pa.s.sages 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 princ.i.p.ate 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sion 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]