The History of Roman Literature Part 15

A friend of many great men, and especially of Atticus, CORNELIUS NEPOS (74?-24 B.C.) owes his fame to the kindness of fortune more than to his own achievements. Had we possessed only the account of him given by his friends, we should have bewailed the loss of a learned and eloquent author. [64] Fortunately we have the means of judging of his talent by a short fragment of his work _On Ill.u.s.trious Men_, which, though it relegates him to the second rank in intellect, does credit to his character and heart. [65] It consists of the lives of several Greek generals and statesmen, written in a compendious and popular style, adapted especially for school reading, where it has always been in great request. Besides these there are short accounts of Hamilcar and Hannibal, and of the Romans, Cato and Atticus. The last-mentioned biography is an extract from a lost work, _De Historicis Latinis_, among whom friendship prompts him to cla.s.s the good-natured and cultivated banker. The series of ill.u.s.trious men extended over sixteen books, and was divided under the headings of kings, generals, lawyers, orators, poets, historians, philosophers, and grammarians. To each of these two books were devoted, one of Greek, and one of Latin examples. [66] Of those we possess the life of Atticus is the only one of any historical value, the rest being mere superficial compilations, and not always from the best authorities.

Besides the older generation, he had friends also among the younger.

Catullus, who like him came from Gallia Cisalpina, pays in his first poem the tribute of grat.i.tude, due probably to his timely patronage. The work mentioned there as that on which the fame of Nepos rested was called _Chronica_. It seems to have been a laborious attempt to form a comparative chronology of Greek and Roman History, and to have contained three books. Subsequently, he preferred biographical studies, in which field, besides his chief work, he edited a series of _Exempla_, or patterns for imitation, of the character of our modern _Self Help_, and intended to wean youthful minds from the corrupt fashions of their time. A _Life of Cicero_ would probably be of great use to us, had fortune spared it; for Nepos knew Cicero well, and had access through Atticus to all his correspondence. At Atticus's request he wrote also a biography of Cato at greater length than the short one which we possess. It has been observed by Merivale [67] that the Romans were specially fitted for biographical writing. The rhetorical cast of their minds and the disposition to reverence commanding merit made them admirable panygerists; and few would celebrate where they did not mean to praise. Of his general character as a historian Mr. Oscar Browning in his useful edition says: "He is most untrustworthy. It is often difficult to disentangle the wilful complications of his chronology; and he tries to enhance the value of what he is relating by a foolish exaggeration which is only too transparent to deceive." His style is clear, a merit attributable to the age in which he lived, and, as a rule, elegant, though verging here and there to prettiness. Though of the same age as Caesar he adopts a more modern Latinity. We miss the quarried marble which polish hardens but does not wear away. Nepos's language is a softer substance, and becomes thin beneath the file. He is occasionally inaccurate. In the _Phocion_ [68] we have a sentence incomplete; in the _Chabrias_ [69] we have an accusative (_Agesilaum_) with nothing to govern it; we have _ante se_ for _ante eum_, a fault, by the way, into which almost every Latin writer is apt to fall, since the rules on which the true practice is built are among the subtlest in any language. [70] We have poetical constructions, as _tollere consilia iniit_; popular ones, as _infitias it, dum_ with the perfect tense, and colloquialisms like _impraesentiarum_; we have Graecizing words like _deuteretur, automatias_, and curious inflexions such as _Thuynis, Coti, Datami_, genitives of _Thuys, Cotys_, [71] and _Datames_, respectively. We see in Nepos, as in Xenophon, the first signs of a coming change. He forms a link between the exclusively prosaic style of Cicero and Caesar, and prose softened and coloured with poetic beauties, which was brought to such perfection by Livy.

After the life of Hannibal, in the MS., occurred an epigram by the grammarian Aemilius Probus inscribing the work to Theodosius. By this scholars were long misled. It was Lambinus who first proved that the pure Latinity of the lives could not, except by magic, be the product of the Theodosian age; and as ancient testimony amply justified the a.s.signment of the life of Atticus to Nepos, and he was known also to have been the author of just such a book as came out under Probus's name, the great scholar boldly drew the conclusion that the series of biographies we possess were the veritable work of Nepos. For a time controversy raged. A _via media_ was discovered which regarded them as an abridgment in Theodosius's time of the fuller original work. But even this, which was but a concession to prejudice, is now generally abandoned, and few would care to dispute the accuracy of Lambinus's penetrating criticism. [72]

The first artistic historian of Rome is C. SALl.u.s.tIUS CRISPUS (86-34 B.C.). This great writer was born at Amiternum in the year in which Marius died, and, as we know from himself, he came to Rome burning with ambition to enn.o.ble his name, and studied with that purpose the various arts of popularity. He rose steadily through the quaestorship to the tribuneship of the plebs (52 B.C.), and so became a member of the senate. From this position he was degraded (50 B.C.) on the plea of adultery, committed some years before with the wife of Annius Milo, a disgrace he seems to have deeply felt, although it was probably instigated by political and not moral disapprobation. For Sall.u.s.t was a warm admirer and partisan of Caesar, who in time (47 B.C.) made him praetor, thus restoring his rank; and a.s.signed him (46 B.C.) the province of Numidia, from which he carried an enormous fortune, for the most part, we fear, unrighteously obtained.

On his return (45 B.C.), content with his success, he sank into private life; and to the leisure and study of his later years we owe the works that have made him famous. He employed his wealth in ministering to his comfort. His favourite retreats were a villa at Tibur which had once been Caesar's, and a magnificent palace which he built in the suburbs of Rome, surrounded by pleasure-grounds, afterwards well-known as the "Gardens of Sall.u.s.t," and as the residence of successive emperors. The preacher of ancient virtue was an adept in modern luxury. Augustus chose the historian's dwelling as the scene of his most sumptuous entertainments; Vespasian preferred it to the palace of the Caesars; Nerva and Aurelian, stern as they were, made it their constant abode. [73] And yet Sall.u.s.t was not a happy man. The inconsistency of conduct and the whirlwind of political pa.s.sion in which most men then lived seems to have sapped the springs of life and worn out body and mind before their time. Caesar's activity had at his death begun to make him old; [74] Sall.u.s.t lived only to the age of 52; Lucretius and Catullus were even younger when they died.

And the views of life presented in their works are far from hopeful.

Sall.u.s.t, indeed, praises virtue; but it is an ideal of the past, colossal but extinct, on which his gloomy eloquence is exhausted. Among his contemporaries he finds no vestige of ancient goodness; honour has become a traffic, ambition has turned to avarice, and envy has taken the place of public spirit. From this scene of turpitude he selects two men who in diverse ways recall the strong features of antiquity. These are Caesar and Cato; the one the idol of the people, whom with real persuasion they adored as a G.o.d; [75] the other the idol of the senate, whom the Pompeian poet exalts even above the G.o.ds. [76] The contrast and balancing of the virtues of these two great men is one of the most effective pa.s.sages in Sall.u.s.t. [77]

From his position in public life and from his intimacy with Caesar, he had gained excellent opportunities of acquiring correct information. The desire to write history seems to have come on him in later life. Success had no more illusions for him. The bitterness with which he touches on his early misfortunes [78] shows that their memory still rankled within him.

And the pains with which he justifies his historical pursuits indicate a stifled anxiety to enter once more the race for honours, which yet experience tells him is but vanity. The profligacy of his youth, grossly overdrawn by malice, [79] was yet no doubt a ground of remorse; and though the severity of his opening chapters is somewhat ostentatious, there is no intrinsic mark of insincerity about them. They are, it is true, quite superfluous. Iugurtha's trickery can be understood without a preliminary discourse on the immortality of the soul; and Catiline's character is not such as to suggest a preface on the dignity of writing history. But with all their inappropriateness, these introductions are valuable specimens of the writer's best thoughts and concentrated vigour of language. In the _Catiline_, his earliest work, he announces his attention of subjecting certain episodes of Roman history [80] to a thorough treatment, omitting those parts which had been done justice to by former writers. Thus it is improbable that Sall.u.s.t touched the period of Sulla, [81] both from the high opinion he formed of Sisenna's account, and from the words _neque alio loco de Sullae rebus dicturi sumus_; [82] nevertheless, some of the events he selected doubtless fell within Sulla's lifetime, and this may have given rise to the opinion that he wrote a history of the dictator.

Though Sall.u.s.t's _Historiae_ are generally described as a consecutive work from the premature movements of Lepidus on Sulla's death [83] (78 B.C.) to the end of the Mithridatic war (63 B.C.); this cannot be proved. It is equally possible that his series of independent historical cameos may have been published together, arranged in chronological order, and under the common t.i.tle of _Historiae_. The _Iugurtha_ and _Catilina_, however, are separate works; they are always quoted as such, and formed a kind of commencement and finish to the intermediate studies.

Of the histories (in five books dedicated to the younger Lucullus), we have but a few fragments, mostly speeches, of which the style seems a little fuller than usual: our judgment of the writer must be based upon the two essays that have reached us entire, that on the war with Iugurtha, and that on the Catilinarian conspiracy. Sall.u.s.t takes credit to himself, in words that Tacitus has almost adopted, [84] for a strict impartiality.

Compared with his predecessors he probably _was_ impartial, and considering the closeness of the events to his own time it is doubtful whether any one could have been more so. For he wisely confined himself to periods neither too remote for the testimony of eye-witnesses, nor too recent for the disentanglement of truth. When Catiline fell (63 B.C.) the historian was twenty-two years old, and this is the latest point to which his studies reach. As a friend of Caesar he was an enemy of Cicero, and two declamations are extant, the productions of the reign of Claudius, [85] in which these two great men vituperate one another. But no vituperation is found in Sall.u.s.t's works. There is, indeed, a coldness and reserve, a disinclination to praise the conduct and even the oratory of the consul which bespeaks a mind less n.o.ble than Cicero's, [86] But facts are not perverted, nor is the odium of an unconst.i.tutional act thrown on Cicero alone, as we know it was thrown by Caesar's more unscrupulous partisans, and connived at by Caesar himself. The veneration of Sall.u.s.t for his great chief is conspicuous. Caesar is brought into steady prominence; his influence is everywhere implied. But Sall.u.s.t, however clearly he betrays the ascendancy of Caesar over himself, [87] does not on all points follow his lead. While, with Caesar, he believes fortune, or more properly chance, to rule human affairs, he retains his belief in virtue and immortality, [88] both of which Caesar rejected. He can not only admit, but glorify the virtues of Cato, which Caesar ridiculed and denied. But he is anxious to set the democratic policy in the most favourable light. Hence he depicts Cato rather than Cicero as the senatorial champion, because his impracticable views seemed to justify Caesar's opposition; [89] he throws into fierce relief the vices of Scaurus who was _princeps Senatus_; [90] and misrepresents the conduct of Turpilius through a desire to screen Marius. [91] As to his authorities, we find that he gave way to the prevailing tendency to manipulate them.

The speeches of Caesar and Cato in the senate, which he surely might have transcribed, he prefers to remodel according to his own ideas, eloquently no doubt, but the originals would have been in better place, and ent.i.tled him to our grat.i.tude. The same may be said of the speech of Marius. That of Memmius [92] he professes to give intact; but its genuineness is doubtful. The letter of Catiline to Catulus, that of Lentulus and his message to Catiline, may be accepted as original doc.u.ments. [93] In the sifting of less accessible authorities he is culpably careless. His account of the early history of Africa is almost worthless, though he speaks of having drawn it from the books of King Hiempsal, and taken pains to insert what was generally thought worthy of credit. It is in the delineation of character that Sall.u.s.t's penetration is unmistakably shown.

Besides the instances already given, we may mention the admirable sketch of Sulla, [94] and the no less admirable ones of Catiline [95] and Iugurtha. [96] His power of depicting the terrors of conscience is tremendous. No language can surpa.s.s in condensed but lifelike intensity the terms in which he paints the guilty n.o.ble carrying remorse on his countenance and driven by inward agony to acts of desperation. [97]

His style is peculiar. He himself evidently imitated, and was thought by Quintilian to rival, Thucydides. [98] But the resemblance is in language only. The deep insight of the Athenian into the connexion of events is far removed from the popular rhetoric in which the Roman deplores the decline of virtue. And the brevity, by which both are characterised, while in the one it is nothing but the incapacity of the hand to keep pace with the rush of thought, in the other forms the artistic result of a careful process of excision and compression. While the one kindles reflection, the other baulks it. Nevertheless the style of Sall.u.s.t has a special charm and will always find admirers to give it the palm among Latin histories. The archaisms which adorn or deface it, the poetical constructions which tinge its cla.s.sicality, the rough periods without particles of connexion which impart to it a masculine hardness, are so fused together into a harmonious fabric that after the first reading most students recur to it with genuine pleasure. [99] On the whole it is more modern than that of Nepos, and resembles more than any other that of Tacitus. Its brevity rarely falls into obscurity, though it sometimes borders on affectation. There is an appearance as if he was never satisfied, but always straining after an excellence beyond his powers. It is emphatically a cultured style, and, as such often recalls older authors. Now it is a reminiscence of Homer: _aliud clausum in pectore, aliud in lingua promptum habere_; [100] now of a Latin tragedian: _secundae res sapientium animos fatigant_. Much allowance must be made for Sall.u.s.t's defects, when we remember that no model of historical writing yet existed at Rome. Some of the aphorisms which are scattered in his book are wonderfully condensed, and have pa.s.sed into proverbs. _Concordia parvae res cresc.u.n.t_ from the _Iugurtha_; and _idem velle, idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est_, from the _Catiline_, are instances familiar to all. The prose of Sall.u.s.t differs from that of Cicero in being less rhythmical; the hexametrical ending which the orator rightly rejects, is in him not infrequent. It is probably a concession to Greek habit. [101] Sall.u.s.t did good service in pointing out what historical writing should be, and his example was of such service to Livy that, had it not been for him, it is possible the great master- history would never have been designed.

It does not appear that this period was fruitful in historians. Tubero (49-47 B.C.) is the only other whose works are mentioned; the convulsions of the state, the short but sullen repose, broken by Caesar's death (44 B.C.), the bloodthirsty sway of the triumvirs, and the contests which ended in the final overthrow at Actium (31 B.C.), were not favourable to historical enterprise. But private notes were carefully kept, and men's memories were strengthened by silence, so that circ.u.mstances naturally inculcated waiting in patience until the time for speaking out should have arrived. [102]

APPENDIX.

_On the Acta Diurna and Acta Senatus._

It is well known that there was a sort of journal at Rome a.n.a.logous, perhaps, to our _Gazette_, but its nature and origin are somewhat uncertain. Suetonius (Caes. 20) has this account: "_Inito honore, primus omnium inst.i.tuit, ut tam Senatus quam populi diurna acta conficerentur et publicarentur_," which seems naturally to imply that the people's _acta_ had been published every day before Caesar's consulship, and that he did the same thing for the _acta_ of the senate. Before investigating these we must distinguish them from certain other _acta_:--(1) _Civilia_, containing a register of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces, called _apographai_ by Polybius, and alluded to by Cicero (_ad Fam._ viii. 7) and others. These were at first intrusted to the care of the censors, afterwards to the praefecti aerarii. (2) _Forensia_, comprising lists of laws, plebiscites, elections of aediles, tribunes, &c. like the _daemosia grammata_ at Athens, placed among the archives annexed to various temples, especially that of Saturn. (3) _Iudiciaria_, the legal reports, often called _gesta_, kept in a special _tabularium_, under the charge of military men discharged from active service. (4) _Militaria_, which contained reports of all the men employed in war, their height, age, conduct, accomplishments, &c. These were entrusted to an officer called _librarius legionis_ (Veg. ii. 19), or sometimes _tabularius castrensis_, but so only in the later Latin. Other less strictly formal doc.u.ments, as lists of cases, precedents, &c. seem to have been also called _acta_, but the above are the regular kinds.

The _Acta Senatus_ or deliberations of the senate were not published until Caesar. They were kept jealously secret, as is proved by a quaint story by Cato, quoted in Aulus Gellius (i. 23). At all important deliberations a senator, usually the praetor as being one of the junior members, acted as secretary. In the imperial times this functionary was always a confidant of the emperor. The _acta_ were sometimes inscribed on _tabulae publicae_ (Cic. pro Sull. 14, 15), but only on occasions when it was held expedient to make them known. As a rule the publication of the resolution (_Senatus Consultum_) was the first intimation the people had of the decisions of their rulers. In the times of the emperors there were also _acta_ of each emperor, apparently the memoranda of state councils held by him, and communicated to the senate for them to act upon. There appears also to have been _acta_ of private families when the estates were large enough to make it worth while to keep them. These are alluded to in Petronius Arbiter (ch. 53). We are now come to the _Acta Diurna, Populi, Urbana_ or _Publica_, by all which names the same thing is meant. The earliest allusion to them is in a pa.s.sage of Semp.r.o.nius Asellio, who distinguishes the annals from the _diaria_, which the Greeks call _ephaemeris_ (ap. A.

Gell. V. 18). When about the year 131 B.C. the _Annales_ were redacted into a complete form, the _acta_ probably begun. When Servius (ad. Aen. i.

373) says that the _Annales_ registered each day all noteworthy events that had occurred, he is apparently confounding them with the _acta_, which seem to have quietly taken their place. During the time that Cicero was absent in Cilicia (62 B.C.) he received the news of town from his friend. Coelius (Cic. Fam. viii. 1, 8, 12, &c.). These news comprised all the topics which we should find now-a-days in a daily paper. Asconius Pedia.n.u.s, a commentator on Cicero of the time of Claudius, in his notes on the Milo (p. 47, ed. Orell. 1833), quotes several pa.s.sages from the _acta_, on the authority of which he bases some of his arguments. Among them are a.n.a.lyses of forensic orations, political and judicial; and it is therefore probable that these formed a regular portion of the daily journal in the latest age of the Republic. When Antony offered Caesar a crown on the feast of the Lupercalia, Caesar ordered it to be noted in the _acta_ (Dio xliv. 11); Antony, as we know from Cicero, even entered the fact in the _Fasti_, or religious calendar. Augustus continued the publication of the _Acta Populi_, under certain limitations, a.n.a.logous to the control exercised over journalism by the governments of modern Europe; but he interdicted that of the _Acta Senatus_ (Suet. Aug. 36). Later emperors abridged even this liberty. A portico in Rome having been in danger of falling and sh.o.r.ed up by a skilful architect, Tiberius forbade the publication of his name (Dio lvii. 21). Nero relaxed the supervision of the press, but it was afterwards re-established. For the genuine fragments of the _Acta_, see the treatise by Vict. Le Clerc, _sur les journaux chez les Romains_, from which this notice is taken.

CHAPTER IV.

THE HISTORY OF POETRY TO THE CLOSE OF THE REPUBLIC--RISE OF ALEXANDRINISM --LUCRETIUS--CATULLUS.

As long as the drama was cultivated poetry had not ceased to be popular in its tone. But we have already mentioned that coincidentally with the rise of Sulla dramatic productiveness ceased. We hear, indeed, that J. CAESAR STRABO (about 90 B.C.) wrote tragedies, but they were probably never performed. Comedy, as. .h.i.therto practised, was almost equally mute. The only forms that lingered on were the _Atellanae_, and those few plebeian types of comedy known as _Togata_ and _Tabernaria_. But even these had now withered. The present epoch brings before us a fresh type of composition in the _Mime_, which now first took a literary shape. Mimes had indeed existed in some sort from a very early period, but no art had been applied to their cultivation, and they had held a position much inferior to that of the national farce. But several circ.u.mstances now conspired to bring them into greater prominence. First, the great increase of luxury and show, and with it the appet.i.te for the gaudy trappings of the _spectacle_; secondly, the failure of legitimate drama, and the fact that the _Atellanae_, with their patrician surroundings, were only half popular; and lastly, the familiarity with the different offshoots of Greek comedy, thrown out in rank profusion at Alexandria, and capable of a.s.similation with the plastic materials of the _Mimus_. These worthless products, issued under the names of Rhinthon, Sopater, Sciras, and Timon, were conspicuous for the entire absence of restraint with which they treated serious subjects, as well as for a merry-andrew style of humour easily naturalised, if it were not already present, among the huge concourse of idlers who came to sate their appet.i.te for indecency without altogether sacrificing the pretence of a dramatic spectacle. Two things marked off the _Mimus_ from the _Atellana_ or national farce; the players appeared without masks, [1] and women were allowed to act. This opened the gates to licentiousness. We find from Cicero that _Mimae_ bore a disreputable character, [2] but from their personal charms and accomplishments often became the chosen companions of the profligate n.o.bles of the day. Under the Empire this was still more the case. Kingsley, in his _Hypatia_, has given a lifelike sketch of one of these elegant but dissolute females. To these seductive innovations the Mime added some conservative features. It absorbed many characteristics of legitimate comedy. The actors were not necessarily _planipedes_ in fact, though they remained so in name; [3]

they might wear the _soccus_ [4] and the Greek dress [5] of the higher comedy. The Mimes seem to have formed at this time interludes between the acts of a regular drama. Hence they were at once simple and short, seasoned with as many coa.r.s.e jests as could be crowded into a limited compa.s.s, with plenty of music, dancing, and expressive gesture-language.

Their plot was always the same, and never failed to please; it struck the key-note of all decaying societies, the discomfiture of the husband by the wife. [6] Nevertheless, popular as was the Mime, it was, even in Caesar's time, obliged to share the palm of attractiveness with bear-fights, boxing matches, processions of strange beasts, foreign treasures, captives of uncouth aspect, and other curiosities, which pa.s.sed sometimes for hours across the stage, feeding the gaze of an unlettered crowd, to the utter exclusion of drama and interlude alike. Thirty years later, Horace [7]

declares that against such compet.i.tors no play could get a silent hearing.

This being the lamentable state of things, we are surprised to find that Mime writing was practised by two men of vigorous talent and philosophic culture, whose fragments, so far from betraying any concession to the prevailing depravity, are above the ordinary tone of ancient comic morality. They are the knight D. LABERIUS (106-43 B.C.) and PUBLILIUS SYRUS (fl. 44 B.C.), an enfranchised Syrian slave. It is probable that Caesar lent his countenance to these writers in the hope of raising their art. His patronage was valuable; but he put a great indignity (45 B.C.) on Laberius. The old man, for he was then sixty years of age, had written Mimes for a generation, but had never acted in them himself. Caesar, whom he may have offended by indiscreet allusions, [8] recommended him to appear in person against his rival Syrus. This recommendation, as he well knew, was equivalent to a command. In the prologue he expresses his sense of the affront with great manliness and force of language. We quote some lines from it, as a specimen of the best plebeian Latin;

"Necessitas, cuius cursus, transversi impetum Voluerunt multi effugere, pauci potuerunt, Quo me detrusit paene extremis sensibus?

Quem nulla ambitio, nulla unquam largitio, Nullus timor, vis nulla, nulla auctoritas Movere potuit in inventa de statu, Ecce in senecta ut facile labefecit loco Viri excellentis mente clemente edita Summissa placide blandiloquens oratio!

Et enim ipsi di negare cui nil potuerunt, Hominem me denegare quis posset pati?

Ego bis tricenis actis annis sine nota, Eques Roma.n.u.s e lare egressus meo, Domum revertormimus--ni mirum hoc die Uno plus vixi mihi quam vivendum fuit.

Porro, Quirites, libertatem perdimus." [9]

In these n.o.ble lines we see the native eloquence of a free spirit. But the poet's wrathful muse roused itself in vain. Caesar awarded the prize to Syrus, saying to Laberius in an impromptu verse of polite condescension,

"Favente tibime victus, Laberi, es a Syro." [10]

From this time the old knight surrendered the stage to his younger and more polished rival.

Syrus vas a native of Antioch, and remarkable from his childhood for the beauty of his person and his sparkling wit, to which he owed his freedom.

His talent soon raised him to eminence as an improvisatore and dramatic declaimer. He trusted mostly to extempore inspiration when acting his Mimes, but wrote certain episodes where it was necessary to do so. His works abounded with moral apophthegms, tersely expressed. We possess 857 verses, arranged in alphabetical order, ascribed to him, of which perhaps half are genuine. This collection was made early in the Middle Ages, when it was much used for purposes of education. We append a few examples of these sayings: [11]

"Beneficium dando accipit, qui digno dedit."

"Furor fit laesa saepius patientia."

"Comes facundus in via pro vehiculo est."

"Nimium altercando veritas amitt.i.tur."

"Iniuriarum remedium est oblivio."

"Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest."

"Nunquam periclum sine periclo vincitar."

Horace mentions Laberius not uncomplimentarily, though he professes no interest in the sort of composition he represented. [12] Perhaps he judged him by his audience. Besides these two men, CN. MATIUS (about 44 B.C.) also wrote _Mimiambi_ about the same date. They are described as _Mimicae fabulae, versibus plerunque iambicis conscriptae_, [13] and appear to have differed in some way from the actual mimes, probably in not being represented on the stage. They reappear in the time of Pliny, whose friend VERGINIUS ROMa.n.u.s (he tells us in one of his letters) [14] wrote Mimiambi _tenuiter, argute, venuste, et in hoc genere eloquentissime_. This shows that for a long tune a certain refinement and elaboration was compatible with the style of Mime writing. [15]

The _Pantomimi_ have been confused with the _Mimi_; but they differed in being dancers, not actors; they represent the inevitable development of the mimic art, which, as Ovid says in his _Tristia_, [16] even in its earlier manifestations, enlisted the eye as much as the ear. In Imperial times they almost engrossed the stage. PYLADES and BATHYLLUS are monuments of a depraved taste, which could raise these men to offices of state, and seek their society with such zeal that the emperors were compelled to issue stringent enactments to forbid it. TIGELLIUS seems to have been the first of these _effeminati_; he is satirised by Horace, [17] but his influence was inappreciable compared with that of his successors. The pantomimus aspired to render the emotions of terror or love more speakingly by gesture than it was possible to do by speech; and ancient critics, while deploring, seem to have admitted this claim. The moral effect of such exhibitions may be imagined. [18]

It is pleasing to find that in Cicero's time the interpretation of the great dramatists' conceptions exercised the talents of several ill.u.s.trious actors, the two best-known of whom are AESOPUS, the tragedian (l22-54 B.C.), and ROSCIUS, the comic actor (120-61? B.C.), [19] After the exhaustion of dramatic creativeness a period of splendid representation naturally follows. It was so in Germany and England, it was so at Rome. Of the two men, Roscius was the greater master; he was so perfect in his art that his name became a synonym for excellence in any branch. [20] Neither of them, however, embraced, as Garrick did, both departments of the art; their provinces were and always remained distinct. Both had the privilege of Cicero's friendship; both no doubt lent him the benefit of their professional advice. The interchange of hints between an orator and an actor was not unexampled. When Hortensius spoke, Roscius always attended to study his suggestive gestures, and it is told of Cicero himself that he and Roscius strove which could express the higher emotions more perfectly by his art. Roscius was a native of Solonium, a Latin town, his praenomen was Quintus; Aesopus appears to have been a freedman of the Claudia gens.

Of other actors few were well-known enough to merit notice. Some imagine DOSSENNUS, mentioned by Horace, [21] to have been an actor; but he is much more likely to be the Fabius Dossennus quoted as an author of _Atellanae_ by Pliny in his _Natural History_ [22] The freedom with which popular actors were allowed to treat their original is shown by Aesopus on one occasion (62 B.C.?) changing the words _Brutus qui patriam stabiliverat_ to _Tullius_, a change which, falling in with the people's humour at the moment, was vociferously applauded, and gratified Cicero's vanity not a little. [23] Aesopus died soon after (54 B.C.); Roscius did not live so long. His marvellous beauty when a youth is the subject of a fine epigram by Lutatius Catulus, already referred to. [24] Both ama.s.sed large fortunes, and lived in princely style.

While the stage was given up to Mimes, cultured men wrote tragedies for their improvement in command of language. Both Cicero and his brother wrought a.s.siduously at these frigid imitations. Caesar followed in their steps; and no doubt the practice was conducive to copiousness and to an effective simulation of pa.s.sion. Their appearance as orators before the people must have called out such different mental qualities from their cold and calculating intercourse with one another, that tragedy writing as well as declaiming may have been needful to keep themselves ready for an emergency. Cicero, as is well known, tried hard to gain fame as a poet.

The ridicule which all ages have lavished on his unhappy efforts has been a severe punishment for his want of self-knowledge. Still, judging from the verses that remain, we cannot deny him the praise of a correct and elegant _versateur_. Besides several translations from Homer and Euripides scattered through his works, and a few quotations by hostile critics from his epic attempts, [25] we possess a large part of his translation of Aratus's _Phaenomena_, written, indeed, in his early days, but a graceful specimen of Latin verse, and, as Munro [26] has shown, carefully studied and often imitated by Lucretius. The most noticeable point of metre is his disregard of the final s, no less than thrice in the first ninety lines, a practice which in later life he stigmatised as _subrustic.u.m_. In other respects his hexameters are a decided advance on those of Ennius in point of smoothness though not of strength. He still affects Greek caesuras which are not suited to the Latin cadence, [27] and his rhythm generally lacks variety.

Caesar's pen was nearly as prolific. He wrote besides an _Oedipus_ a poem called _Laudes Herculis_, and a metrical account of a journey into Spain called _Iter_. [28] Sportive effusions on various plants are attributed to him by Pliny. [29] All these Augustus wisely refused to publish; but there remain two excellent epigrams, one on Terence, already alluded to, which is undoubtedly genuine, [30] the other probably so, though others ascribe it to Germanicus or Domitian. [31] But the rhythm, purity of language, and continuous structure of the couplets seem to point indisputably to an earlier age. It is as follows--

"Thrax puer, astricto glacie dum ludit in Hebro, Frigore concretas pondere rupit aquas.

Quumque imae partes rapido traherentur ab amne, Abscidit, heu! tenerum lubrica testa caput.

Orba quod inventum mater dum conderet urna, 'Hoc peperi flammis, cetera,' dixit, 'aquis.'"

This is evidently a study from the Greek, probably from an Alexandrine writer.

We have already had occasion more than once to mention the influence of Alexandria on Roman literature. Since the fall of Carthage Rome had had much intercourse with the capital of the Greek world. Her thought, erudition, and style, had acted strongly upon the rude imitators of Greek refinement. But hitherto the Romans had not been ripe for receiving their influence in full. In Cicero's time, however, and in a great measure owing to his labours, Latin composition of all kinds had advanced so far that writers, and especially poets, began to feel capable of rivalling their Alexandrian models. This type of h.e.l.lenism was so eminently suited to Roman comprehension that, once introduced, it could not fail to produce striking results. The results it actually produced were so vast, and in a way so successful, that we must pause a moment to contemplate the rise of the city which was connected with them.