The History of Roman Literature Part 24

" III. IV. On temples--an account of the four orders, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite.

" V. On other public buildings.

" VI. On the arrangement and plan of private houses.

" VII. On the internal decoration of houses.

" VIII. On water supply--the different properties of different waters--the way to find them, test them, and convey them into the city.

" IX. On sun dials and other modes of measuring time.

" X. On machines of all kinds, civil and military.

As will be seen from this a.n.a.lysis, the work is both comprehensive and systematic; it was of great service in the Middle Ages, when it was used in an abridged form (sufficiently ancient, however,) which we still possess.

Antiquarian research was carried on during this period with much zeal.

Many ill.u.s.trious scholars are mentioned, none of whose works have come down to us, except in extremely imperfect abridgments. FENESTELLA (52 B.C.-22 A.D.) wrote on various legal and religious questions, on miscellaneous topics, as literary history, the art of good living, various points in natural history, &c. for which he is quoted as an authority by Pliny. His greatest work seems to have been _Annales_, which were used by Plutarch. It is probable, however, that in these he showed his special apt.i.tude for archaeological research, and pa.s.sed over the history in a rapid sketch. Special grammatical studies were carried on by VERRIUS FLACCUS, a freedman, whose great work, _De Verborum Significatu_, the first Latin lexicon conducted on an extensive scale, we possess in an abridgment by Festus. Its size may be conjectured from the fact that the letter A occupied four books, P five, and so on; and that Festus's abridgment consisted of twenty large volumes. [61] It was a rich storehouse of knowledge, the loss of which is much to be lamented. Another freedman, C. JULIUS HYGINUS (64 B.C.-16 A.D.?), who was also keeper of Augustus's library on the Palatine, manifested an activity scarcely less encyclopaedic than that of Varro. Of his multifarious works we possess two short treatises which pa.s.s under his name, the first on mythology, called _Fabulae_, a series of extracts from his _Genealogiae_, which we have in an abridgment; the second on astronomy, extending, though this is also in an abridged form, to four books. A few details of his life are given by Suetonius. He was a Spaniard by birth, though some believed him to be an Alexandrian, since Caesar brought him to Rome after the Alexandrine War; he attended at Rome the lectures of the grammarian Cornelius Alexander, surnamed Polyhistor. He was an intimate acquaintance of Ovid, [62] and is said to have died in great poverty. It is doubtful whether the works we possess were written by him in his youth, or are the production of an imperfectly educated abbreviator. Bursian, quoted by Teuffel, [63] thinks it probable that in the second half of the second century of the Christian era, a grammarian made a very brief abridgment of Hyginus's work ent.i.tled _Genealogiae_, and to this added a treatise on the whole mythology so far as it concerned poetical literature, compiled from good sources. This mythology, which retained the name of Hyginus and the t.i.tle of _Genealogiae_, came to be generally used in the schools of the grammarians.

The demand for school-books was now rapidly increasing; and as the great cla.s.sical authors published their works, an abundant supply of material was given to the ingenious and learned. The _grammaticae tribus_, whom Horace mentions with such disdain, [64] were already a.s.serting their right to dispense literary fame. They were not as yet so compact or popular a body as the rhetoricians, but they had begun to cramp, as the others had begun to corrupt, literature. Dependence on the opinion of a clique is the most hurtful state possible, even though the clique be learned; and Horace showed wisdom as well as spirit in resisting it. The endeavour to please the leading men of the world, which Horace professed to be his object, is far less narrowing; such men, though unable to appraise scientific merit, are the best judges of general literature.

The careful methods of exact inquiry, were, as we have said, directed also to law, in which Labeo remained the highest authority. Capito abated principle in favour of the imperial prerogative. They did not, however, affect philosophy, which retained its original colouring as an _ars vivendi_. Many of Horace's friends, as we learn from the _Odes_, gave their minds to speculative inquiry, but, like the poet himself, they seem to have soon deserted it. At least we hear of no original investigations.

Neither a metaphysic nor a psychology arose; only a loose rhetorical treatment of physical questions, and a careful collection of ethical maxims for the most part eclectically obtained.

s.e.xTIUS PYTHAGOREUS--there were two born of this name, father and son-- wrote in Greek, reproducing the oracular style of Herac.l.i.tus. The _gnuomai_, which were translated and christianised by Rufinus, were stamped with a strongly theistic character. A few inferior thinkers are mentioned by Quintilian and Seneca, as PAPIRIUS FABIa.n.u.s, SERGIUS FLAVIUS, and PLOTIUS CRISPINUS. Of these, Papirius treated some of the cla.s.sificatory sciences, which now first began to attract interest in Rome. Botany and zoology were the favourites. Mineralogy excited more interest on its commercial side with regard to the value and history of jewels; it was also treated in a mystic or imaginative way.

From this rapid summary it will be seen that real learning still flourished in Rome. Despotism had not crushed intellectual energy, nor enforced silence on all but flatterers. The emperor had nevertheless grown suspicious in his old age, and given indications of that tyranny which was soon to be the rule of government; he had interdicted Timagenes from his palace, banished Ovid, burnt the works of Labienus, exiled Severus, and shown such severity towards Albucius Silo that he antic.i.p.ated further disgrace by a voluntary death. His reign closed in 14 A.D., and with it ceases for near a century the appearance of the highest genius in Rome.

APPENDIX

NOTE I.--_A fragment translated from Seneca's Suasoriae, showing the style of expression cultivated in the schools._

The subject (Suas. 2) debated is whether the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, seeing themselves deserted by the army, shall remain or flee. The different rhetors declaim as follows, making Leonidas the speaker:--

_Arellius Fuscus_.--What! are our picked ranks made up of raw recruits, or spirits likely to be cowed, or hands likely to shrink from the unaccustomed steel, or bodies enfeebled by wounds or decay? How shall I speak of us as the flower of Greece? Shall I bestow that name on Spartans or Eleans? or shall I rehea.r.s.e the countless battles of our ancestors, the cities they sacked, the nations they spoiled? and do men now dare to boast that our temples need no walls to guard them? Ashamed am I of our conduct ashamed to have entertained even the idea of flight. But then, you say, Xerxes comes with an innumerable host. O Spartans! and Spartans matched against barbarians, have you no reverence for your deeds, your grandsires, your sires, from whose example your souls from infancy gather lofty thoughts? I scorn to offer Spartans such exhortations as these. Look! we are protected by our position. Though he bring with him the whole East, and parade his useless numbers before our craven eyes, this sea which spreads its vast expanse before us is pressed into a narrow compa.s.s, is beset by treacherous straits which scarce admit the pa.s.sage of a single row-boat, and then by their chopping swell make rowing impossible; it is beset by unseen shallows, wedged between deeper bottoms, rough with sharp rocks, and everything that mocks the sailor's prayer. I am ashamed (I repeat it) that Spartans, and Spartans armed, should even stop to ask how it is they are safe. Shall I not carry home the spoil of the Persians?

Then at least I will fall naked upon it. They shall know that we have yet three hundred men who thus scorn to flee, who thus mean to fall. Think of this: we can perhaps conquer; with all our effort we cannot be conquered.

I do not say you are doomed to death--you to whom I address these words; but if you are, and yet think that death is be feared, you greatly err. To no living thing has nature given unending life; on the day of birth the day of death is fixed. For heaven has wrought us out of a weak material; our bodies yield to the slightest stroke, we are s.n.a.t.c.hed away unwarned by fate. Childhood and youth lie beneath the same inexorable law. Most of us even long for death, so perfect a rest does it offer from the struggle of life. But glory has no limits, and they who fall like us rise nearest to the G.o.ds. Even women often choose the path of death which leads to glory.

What need to mention Lycurgus, those heroes handed down by history, whom no peril could appal? to awake the spirit of Othryades alone, would be to give example enough, and more than enough, for us three hundred men!

_Triarius_.--Are not Spartans ashamed to be conquered, not by blows but by rumours? 'Tis a great thing to be born a scion of valour and a Spartan.

For certain victory all would wait; for certain death none but Spartans.

Sparta is girt with no walls, her walls are where her men are. Better to call back the army than to follow them. What if the Persian bores through mountains, makes the sea invisible? Such proud felicity never yet stood sure; the loftiest exaltation is struck to earth through its forgetfulness of the instability of all things human. You may be sure that power which has given rise to envy has not seen its last phase. It has changed seas, lands, nature itself; let us three hundred die, if only that it may here find something it cannot change. If such madmen's counsel was to be accepted, why did we not flee with the crowd?

_Porcius Latro_.--This then is what we have waited for, to collect a band of runaways. You flee from a rumour; let us at least know of what sort it is. Our dishonour can hardly be wiped out even by victory; bravely as we may fight, successful as we may be, much of our renown is already lost; for Spartans have debated whether or not to flee. O that we may die! For myself, after this discussion, the only thing I fear is to return home.

Old women's tales have shaken the arms out of our hands. Now, now, let us fight, among the thirty thousand our valour might have lain hid. The rest have fled. If you ask my opinion, which I utter for the honour of ourselves and Greece, I say they have not deserted us, they have chosen us as their champions.

_Marillus_.--This was our reason for remaining, that we might not be hidden among the crowd of fugitives. The army has a good excuse to offer for its conduct: "We knew Thermopylae would be safe since we left Spartans to guard it."

_Cestius Pius_.--You have shown, Spartans, how base it were to fly by so long remaining still. All have their privilege. The glory of Athens is speech, of Thebes religion, of Sparta arms. 'Tis for this Eurotas flows round our state that its stream may inure our boys to the hardships of future war; 'tis for this we have our peaks of Taygetus inaccessible but to Spartans; 'tis for this we boast of a Hercules who has won heaven by merit; 'tis for this that arms are our only walls. O deep disgrace to our ancestral valour! Spartans are counting their numbers, not their manhood.

Let us see how long the list is, that Sparta may have, if not brave soldiers, at least true messengers. Can it be that we are vanquished, not by war, but by reports? that man, i' faith, has a right to despise everything at whose very name Spartans are afraid. If we may not conquer Xerxes, let us at least be allowed to see him; I would know what it is I flee from. As yet I am in no way like an Athenian, either in seeking culture, or in dwelling behind a wall; the last Athenian quality that I shall imitate will be cowardice.

_Pompeius Silo_.--Xerxes leads many with him, Thermopylae can hold but few. We shall be the most timid of the brave, the slowest of cowards. No matter how great nations the East has poured into our hemisphere, how many peoples Xerxes brings with him; as many as this place will hold, with those is our concern.

_Cornelius Hispa.n.u.s_.--We have come for Sparta; let us stay for Greece; let us vanquish the foe as we have already vanquished our friends; let this arrogant barbarian learn that nothing is so difficult as to cut an armed Spartan down. For my part, I am glad the rest have gone; they have left Thermopylae for us; there will now be nothing to mingle or compare itself with our valour; no Spartan will be hidden in the crowd; wherever Xerxes looks he will see none but Spartans.

_Blandus_.--Shall I remind you of your mother's command--"Either with your shield or on it?" and yet to return without arms is far less base than to flee under arms. Shall I remind you of the words of the captive?--"Kill me, I am no slave!" To such a man to escape would not have been to avoid capture. Describe the Persian terrors! We heard all that when we were first sent out. Let Xerxes see the three hundred, and learn at what rate the war is valued, what number of men the place is calculated to hold. We will not return even as messengers except after the fight is over. Who has fled I know not; these men Sparta has given me for comrades. I am thankful that the host has fled; they had made the pa.s.s of Thermopylae too narrow for me to move in.

-- _On the other side_.

_Cornelius Hispa.n.u.s_.--I hold it a great disgrace to our state if Xerxes see no Greeks before he sees the Spartans. We shall not even have a witness of our valour; the enemy's account of us will be believed. You have my counsel, it is the same as that of all Greece. If any one advise differently, he wishes you to be not brave men but ruined men.

_Claudius Marcellus_.--They will not conquer us; they will overwhelm us.

We have been true to our renown, we have waited till the last. Nature herself has yielded before we.

The above _Suasoria_ is by no means one of the most brilliant; on the contrary, it is a decidedly a tame one, but it is a good instance of an ordinary declamation of the better sort, and gives pa.s.sages from most of the rhetoricians to whom reference is made in the text.

NOTE II.--_A few Observations on the Treatment of Rhetorical Questions, taken from the Third Book of Quintilian._

"The division of the departments of rhetoric, or to use a more correct term, the cla.s.sification of causes, is three-fold: They are either laudatory, deliberative, or judicial. This is a division according to the subject matter, not according to the artistic treatment. Correspondingly, there are three requisites for pleading well, nature, art, and practice; and three objects which the orator must set before him, to teach, to move, and to delight. Every question turns either on things or on words; or as it may be expressed in other language, is either indefinite or definite.

The _indefinite_ is in the form of a universal proposition (_Oesis_) which Cicero calls _propositum_, others _quaestio universalis civilis_, others _quaestio philosopho conveniens_, and Athenaeus _pars causae_. This again is divided under the heads of knowledge and action respectively; of knowledge, _e.g. Is the world ruled by Providence?_ of action, _e.g., Is political activity a duty?_ The _definite_ question regards things, persons, times, circ.u.mstances: it is called _upothesis_ in Greek, _causa_ in Latin. It always depends on an indefinite question, _e.g., Ought Cato to marry?_ depends on the wider one, _is marriage desirable?_ Hence it may be a _suasoria_. And this is true even of cases in which no person is specially mentioned, _e.g._, the question, _Ought a man to hold office under a tyranny?_ depends on the wider one, _Ought a man to hold office at all?_ And this question refers of necessity to some special tyrant, though it may not mention him by name. This is the same division as that into _general_ and _special_ questions. Thus every special includes a general.

It is true that generals often bear only remotely on practice, and sometimes are altogether neutralised by peculiar circ.u.mstances, _e.g._, the question, _Is political activity a duty?_ becomes inapplicable to a chronic invalid. Still, all are not of this kind, _e.g., Is virtue the end of man?_ is equally applicable to every human being, whatever his capacity. Cicero in his earlier treatises disapproved of these questions being discussed by the orator; he wished to leave them to the philosopher; but as he grew in experience he changed his mind.

"A cause is defined by Valgius, after Apollodorus, as _negotium omnibus suis partibus spectans ad quaestionem_, or as _negotium cuius finis est controversia_. The _negotium_ (or business in hand) is thus defined, _congregatio personarum locorum temporum causarum modorum casuum factorum instrumentorum sermonum scriptorum et non scriptorum_. The cause, therefore, corresponds to the Greek _upostasis_ (subject), the _negotium_ to _peristasis_ (surroundings). These are of course closely connected; and many have defined the cause as though it were identical with its surroundings or conditions.

"In every discussion three things are the objects of inquiry, _an sit_, Is it so? _quid sit_, If so, what is it? _quale sit_, of what kind is it? For first, there must _be_ something, about which the discussion has arisen.

Till this is made clear no discussion as to what it is can arise; far less can we determine what its qualities are, until this second point is ascertained. These three objects of inquiry are exhaustive; on them every question, whether definite or indefinite, depends. The accuser will try to establish, first, the occurrence of the act in dispute, then its character; and, lastly, its criminality. The advocate will, if possible, deny the fact; if he cannot do that he will prove that it is not what the accuser states it to be; or, thirdly, he may contend--and this is the most honourable kind of defence--that it was rightly done. As a fourth alternative, he may take exception to the legality of the prosecution. All these, and every other conceivable division of questions, come under the two general heads (_status_) of _rational_ and _legal_. The rational is simple enough, depending only on the contemplation of nature; thus it is content with exhibiting conjecture, definition, and quality. The legal is extremely complex, laws being infinite in number and character. Sometimes the letter is to be observed, sometimes the spirit. Sometimes we get at its meaning by comparison, or induction; sometimes its meaning is open to the most contradictory interpretations. Hence there is room for a far greater display of diverse kinds of excellence in the _legal_ than in the _rational_ department. Thus the declamatory exercises called _suasoriae_, which are confined to _rational_ considerations, are fittest for young students whose reasoning powers are acute, but who have not the knowledge of law necessary for enabling them to treat _controversiae_ which hinge on legal questions. These last are intended as a preparation for the pleading of actual causes in court, and should be regularly practised even by the most accomplished pleader during the spare moments that his profession allows him."

BOOK III.

THE DECLINE.

_FROM THE ACCESSION OF TIBERIUS TO THE DEATH OF M. AURELIUS_ (14-180 A.D.)

CHAPTER I

THE AGE OF TIBERIUS (14-37 A.D.).

Augustus was not more unlike his gloomy successor than were the writers who flourished under him to those that now come before us. The history of literature presents no stronger contrast than between the rich fertility of the last epoch and the barrenness of the present one. The age of Tiberius forms an interval of silence during which the dead are buried, and the new generation prepares itself to appear. Under Nero it will have started forth in all its panoply of tinsel armour; at present the seeds that will produce it are being sown by the hand of despotism. [1]

The sudden collapse of letters on the death of Augustus is easily accounted for. As long as the chief of the state encouraged them labourers in every field were numerous. When his face was withdrawn the stimulus to effort was removed. Thus, even in Augustus's time, when ill health and disappointment had soured his nature and disposed him to arbitrary actions, literature had felt the change. The exile of Ovid was a blow to the muses. We have seen how it injured his own genius, a decline over which he mourns, knowing the cause but impotent to overcome it. [2] We have seen also how it was followed up by other harsh measures, stifling the free voice of poets and historians. And when we reflect how the despotism was entwining itself round the entire life of the nation, gathering by each new enactment food for future aggression, and only veiled as yet by the mildness or caution of a prince whose one object was to found a dynasty, our surprise is lessened at the spectacle of literature prostrate and dumb, threatened by the hideous form of tyranny now no longer in disguise, offering it with brutal irony the choice between submission, hypocrisy, and death. Tiberius (whose portrait drawn by Tacitus in colours almost too dark for belief, is nevertheless rendered credible by the deathlike silence in which his reign was pa.s.sed) had in his youth shown both taste and proficiency in liberal studies. He had formed his style on that of Messala, but the gloomy bent of his mind led him to contract and obscure his meaning to such a degree that, unlike most Romans, he spoke better extempore [3] than after preparation. In the art of perplexing by ambiguous phrases, of indicating intentions without committing himself to them, he was without a rival. In point of language he was a purist like Augustus; but unlike him he mingled archaisms with his diction. While at Rhodes he attended the lectures of Theodorus; and the letters or speeches of his referred to by Tacitus indicate a nervous and concentrated style. Poetry was alien from his stern character.

Nevertheless, Suetonius tells us he wrote a lyric poem and Greek imitations of Euphorion, Rhia.n.u.s, and Parthenius; but it was the minute questions of mythology that chiefly attracted him, points of useless erudition like those derided by Juvenal: [4]

"Nutricem Anchisae, nomen patriamque novercae Anchemoli, dicat quot Acestes vixerit annos, Quot Siculus Phrygibus vini donaverit urnas."