The History of Roman Literature Part 25

In maturer life he busied himself with writing memoirs, which formed the chief, almost the only study of Domitian, and of which we may regret that time has deprived us. The portrait of this arch dissembler by his own able hand would be a good set off to the terrible indictment of Tacitus.

Besides the above he was the author of funeral speeches, and, according to Suidas, of a work on the art of rhetoric.

With these literary pretensions it is clear that his discouragement of letters as emperor was due to political reasons. He saw in the free expression of thought or fancy a danger to his throne. And as the abominable system of _delations_ made every chance expression penal, and found treason to the present in all praise of the past, the only resource open to men of letters was to suppress every expression of feeling, and, by silent brooding, to keep pa.s.sion at white heat, so that when it speaks at last it speaks with the concentrated intensity of a Juvenal or a Tacitus.

We might ask how it was that authors did not choose subjects outside the sphere of danger. There were still forms of art and science which had not been worked out. The _Natural History_ of Pliny shows how much remained to be done in fields of great interest. Neither philosophy nor the lighter kinds of poetry could afford matter for provocation. But the answer is easy. The Roman imagination was so narrow, and their constructive talent so restricted, that they felt no desire to travel beyond the regular lines. It seemed as if all had been done that could be done well. History, national and universal, [5] science [6] and philosophy, [7] Greek poetry in all its varied forms, had been brought to perfection by great masters whom it was hopeless to rival. The age of literary production seemed to have been rounded off, and the self-consciousness that could reflect on the new era had not yet had time to arise. Rhetoric, as applied to the expression of political feeling, was the only form which literature cared to take, and that was precisely the form most obnoxious to the government.

Thus it is possible that even had Tiberius been less jealously repressive letters would still have stagnated. The severe strain of the Augustan age brought its inevitable reaction. The simultaneous appearance of so many writers of the first rank rendered necessary an interval during which their works were being digested and their spirit settling down into an integral const.i.tuent of the national mind. By the time thought reawakens, Virgil, Horace, and Livy are already household words, and their works the basis of all literary culture.

In reading the lives of the chief post-Augustan writers we are struck by the fact that many, if not most of them, held offices of state. The desire for peaceful retirement, characteristic of the early Augustans, the contentment with lettered leisure that signalises the poetry of the later Augustans, have both given place to a restless excitement, and to a determination to make the most of literature as an aid to a successful career. Hitherto we have observed two distinct cla.s.ses of writers, and a corresponding double relation of politics and literature. The early poets, and again those of Augustus's era, were not men of affairs, they belonged to the exclusively literary cla.s.s. The great prose writers on the contrary rose to political eminence by political conduct. Literature was with them a relaxation, and served no purpose of worldly aggrandis.e.m.e.nt. Now, however, an unhealthy confusion between the two provinces takes place. A man rises to office through his poems or rhetorical essays. The acquirements of a professor become a pa.s.sport to public life. Seneca and Quintilian are striking and favourable instances of the school door opening into the senate:

"Si fortuna volet fies de rhetore consul." [8]

But nearly all the chief writers carried their declamatory principles into the serious business of life. This double aspect of their career produced two different types of talent, under one or other of which the great imperial writers may be ranged. Excluding men of the second rank, we have on the one side Lucan, Juvenal, and Tacitus, all whose minds have a strong political bias, the bias of old Rome, which makes them the most powerful though the most prejudiced exponents of their times. Of another kind are Persius, Seneca, and Pliny the elder. Their genius is contemplative and philosophical; and though two of them were much mixed in affairs, their spirit is cosmopolitan rather than national, and their wisdom, though drawn from varied sources, cannot be called political. These six are the representative minds of the period on which we are now entering, and between them reflect nearly all the best and worst features of their age.

Quintilian, Statius, and Pliny the younger, represent a more restricted development; the first of them is the typical rhetorician, but of the better cla.s.s; the second is the brilliant improvisatore and ingenious word-painter; the third the cultivated and amiable but vain, common-place, and dwarfed type of genius which under the Empire took the place of the "fine gentlemen" of the free Republic.

Writers of this last stamp cannot be expected to show any independent spirit. They are such as in every age would adopt the prevalent fashion, and theorise within the limits prescribed by respectability. While a bad emperor reigns they flatter him; when a good emperor succeeds they flatter him still more by abusing his predecessor; at the same time they are genial, sober, and sensible, adventuring neither the safety of their necks nor of their intellectual reputation.

Such an author comes before us in M. VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, the court historian of Tiberius. This well-intentioned but loquacious writer gained his loyalty from an experience of eight years' warfare under Tiberius in various parts of Europe, and the flattery of which he is so lavish was probably sincere. His birth may perhaps be referred to 18 B.C., since his first campaign, under M. Vinicius, to whose son he dedicated his work, took place in the year 1 B.C. Tiberius's sterling qualities as a soldier gained him the friendship of many of his legati, and Velleius was fortunate enough to secure that of Tiberius in return. By his influence he rose through the minor offices to the praetorship (14 A.D.), and soon after set himself to repair the deficiencies of a purely military education by systematic study. The fruit of this labour is the _Abridgment of Roman History_, in two books, a mere rapid survey of the early period, becoming more diffuse as it nears his own time, and treating the life of Tiberius and the events of which he was the centre with considerable fulness. The latter part is preserved entire; of the first book, which closes with the destruction of Carthage, a considerable portion has been lost. As, however, he is not likely to have followed in it any authorities inaccessible to us, the loss is unimportant. For his work generally the authorities he quotes are good--Cato's _Origines_, the _Annales_ of Hortensius, and probably Atticus's abridgment; Cornelius Nepos, and Trogus for foreign, Livy and Sall.u.s.t (of whom he was a great admirer) for national, history. As a recipient and expectant of court favour, he naturally echoed the language of the day. Brutus and Ca.s.sius are for him parricides; Caesar, the divine founder of an era which culminates in the divine Tiberius. [9] So full was he of his master's praises that he intended to write a separate book on the subject, but was prevented by his untimely death. This took place in 31 A.D., when the discovery of Seja.n.u.s's conspiracy caused many suspected to be put to death, and it seems that Velleius was among the number.

His blind partisanship naturally obscures his judgment; but, making allowance for a defect which he does not attempt to conceal, the reader may generally trust him for all matters of fact. His studies were not as a rule deep; but an exception must be made in the case of his account of the Greek colonies in Italy, the dates at which they were founded, and their early relations with Rome. These had never been so clearly treated by any writer, at least among those with whom we are familiar. His mind is not of a high order; he can neither sift evidence nor penetrate to causes; his talents lie in the biographical department, and he has considerable insight into character. His style is not uncla.s.sical so far as the vocabulary goes, but the equable moderation of the Golden Age is replaced by exaggeration, and like all who cultivate artificial brilliancy, he cannot maintain his ambitious level of poetical and pretentious ornament.

The last year referred to in the book is 30 A.D. The dearth of other material gives him additional value. As a historian he takes a low rank; as an abridger he is better, but best of all as a rhetorical anecdotist and painter of character in action.

A better known writer (especially during the Middle Ages) is VALERIUS MAXIMUS, author of the _Facta et Dicta Memorabilia_, in nine books, addressed to Tiberius in a dedication of unexampled servility, [10] and compiled from few though good sources. The object of the work is stated in the preface. It was to save labour for those who desired to fortify their minds with examples of excellence, or increase their knowledge of things worth knowing. The methodical arrangement by subjects, _e.g._, religion, which is divided into religion observed and religion neglected, and instances of both given, first from Roman, then from foreign, history, and so on with all the other subjects, makes Teuffel's suggestion extremely probable, namely, that it was intended for the use of young declaimers, who were thus furnished with instances for all sorts of themes. The constant tendency in the imperial literature to exhaust a subject by a catalogue of every known instance may be traced to these pernicious rhetorical handbooks. If a writer praises temperance, he supplements it by a list of temperate Romans; if he describes a storm, he _puts down_ all he knows about the winds. Uncritical as Valerius is, and void of all thought, he is nevertheless pleasant enough reading for a vacant hour, and if we were not obliged to rate him by a lofty standard, would pa.s.s muster very well. But he is no fit company for men of genius; our only wonder is he should have so long survived. His work was a favourite school-book for junior cla.s.ses, and was epitomised or abridged by Julius Paris in the fourth or fifth century. At the time of this abridgment the so-called tenth book must have been added. Julius Paris's words in his preface to it are, _Liber decimus de praenominibus et similibus_: but various considerations make it certain that Valerius was not the author. [11] Many interesting details were given in it, taken chiefly from Varro; and it is much to be regretted that the entire treatise is not preserved. Besides Paris one t.i.tius Probus retouched the work in a still later age, and a third abstract by Januarius Nepotia.n.u.s is mentioned. This last writer cut out all the padding which Valerius had so largely used ("_dum se ostentat sententiis, locis iactat, fundit excessibus_"), and reduced the work to a bare skeleton of facts.

A much more important writer, one of whose treatises only has reached us, was A. CORNELIUS CELSUS. He stood in the first rank of Roman scientists, was quite encyclopaedic in his learning, and wrote, like Cato, on eloquence, law, farming, medicine, and tactics. There is no doubt that the work on medicine (extending over Books VI.-XIII. of his Encyclopaedia) which we possess, was the best of his writings, but the chapters on agriculture also are highly praised by Columella.

At this time, as Des Etangs remarks, nearly all the knowledge and practice of medicine was in the hands of Greek physicians, and these either freedmen or slaves. Roman pract.i.tioners seem to have inspired less confidence even when they were willing to study. Habits of scientific observation are hereditary; and for centuries the Greeks had studied the conditions of health and the theory of disease, as well as practised the empirical side of the art, and most Romans were well content to leave the whole in their hands.

Celsus tried to attract his countrymen to the pursuit of medicine by pointing out its value and dignity. He commences his work with a history of medical science since its first importation into Greece, and devotes the rest of Book I. to a consideration of dietetics and other prophylactics of disease; the second book treats of general pathology, the third and fourth of special illnesses, the fifth gives remedies and prescriptions, the sixth, seventh, and eighth--the most valuable part of the book--apply themselves chiefly to surgical questions. The value of his work consists in the clear, comprehensive grasp of his subject, and the systematic way in which he expounds its principles. The main points of his theory are still valid; very few essentials need to be rejected; it might still be taken as a popular handbook on the subject. He writes for Roman citizens, and is therefore careful to avoid abstruse terms where plain ones will do, and Greek words where Latin are to be had. The style is bare, but pure and cla.s.sical. An excellent critic says [12]--"Quo saepius eum perlegebam, eo magis me detinuit c.u.m dicendi nitor et brevitas tum perspicacitas iudicii sensusque vorax et ad agendum accommodatus, quibus omnibus genuinam repraesentat n.o.bis civis Romani imaginem." The text as we have it depends on a single MS. and sadly needs a careful revision; it is interpolated with numerous glosses, both Greek and Latin, which a skilful editor would detect and remove. Among the other treatises in his _Encyclopaedia_, next to that on farming, those on rhetoric and tactics were most popular. The former, however, was superseded by Quintilian, the latter by Vegetius. In philosophy he did not so much criticise other schools as detail his own views with concise eloquence. These views were almost certainly Eclectic, though we know on Quintilian's authority that he followed the two s.e.xtii in many important points. [13]

The other branches of prose composition were almost neglected in this reign. Even rhetoric sank to a low level; the splendid displays of men like Latro, Arellius, and Ovid gave place to the flimsy ostentation of REMMIUS PALAEMON. This dissolute man, who combined the professions of grammarian and rhetorician, possessed an extraordinary apt.i.tude for fluent harangue, but soon confined his attention to grammatical studies, in which he rose to the position of an authority. Suetonius says he was born a slave, and that while conducting his young master to school he learnt something of literature, was liberated, and set up a school in Rome, where he rose to the top of his profession. Although infamous for his abandoned profligacy, and stigmatized by Tiberius and Claudius as utterly unfit to have charge of the young, he managed to secure a very large number of pupils by his persuasive manner, and the excellence of his tutorial method. His memory was prodigious, his eloquence seductive, and a power of extempore versification in the most difficult metres enhanced the charm of his conversation. He is referred to by Pliny, Quintilian, and Juvenal, and for a time superintended the studies of the young satirist Persius.

Oratory, as may easily be supposed, had well nigh ceased. VOTIENUS MONTa.n.u.s, MAMERCUS SCAURUS, and P. VITELLIUS, all held high positions in the state. Scaurus, in particular, was also of n.o.ble lineage, being the great-grandson of the celebrated chief of the senate. His oratory was almost confined to declamation, but was far above the general level of the time. Careless, and often full of faults, it yet carried his hearers away by its native power and dignity. [14] ASINIUS GALLUS, the son of Pollio, so far followed his father as to take a strong interest in politics, and with filial enthusiasm compared him favourably with Cicero. DOMITIUS AFER also is mentioned by Tacitus as an able but dissolute man, who under a better system might have been a good speaker. A writer of some mark was CREMUTIUS CORDUS, whose eloquent account of the rise of the Empire cost him his life: in direct defiance of the fashionable cant of the day he had called Ca.s.sius "the last of the Romans." The higher spirits seemed to take a gloomy pleasure in speaking out before the tyrant, even if it were only with their last breath; more than one striking instance of this is recorded by Tacitus; and though he questions the wisdom of relieving personal indignation by a vain invective, which must bring death and ruin on the speaker and all his family, and in the end only tighten the yoke it tries to shake, yet the intractable pride of these representatives of the old families has something about it to which, human as we are, we cannot refuse our sympathy. The only other prose-writer we need mention is AUFIDIUS Ba.s.sUS, who described the Civil Wars and the German expeditions, and is mentioned with great respect by Tacitus.

Poetry is represented by the fifth book of Manilius, by Phaedrus's _Fables_, and perhaps by the translation of Aratus ascribed to GERMANICUS, the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius. This translation, which is both elegant and faithful, and superior to Cicero's in poetical inspiration, has been claimed, but with less probability, for Domitian, who, as is well known, affected the t.i.tle of Germanicus. [15] But the consent of the most ancient critics tends to restore Germanicus Drusus as the author, the t.i.tle _genitor_ applied to Tiberius not being proof positive the other way.

The only writer who mentions PHAEDRUS is Martial, [16] and he only in a single pa.s.sage. The Aesopian beast-fable was a humble form of art peculiarly suited to a period of political and literary depression. Seneca in his _Consolatio ad Polybium_ implies that that imperial favourite had cultivated it with success. Apparently he did not know of Phaedrus; and this fact agrees with the frequent complaints that Phaedrus makes to the effect that he is not appreciated. Of his life we know only what we can gather from his own book. He was born in Pieria, and became the slave of Augustus, who set him free, and seems to have given him his patronage. The poet was proud of his Greek birth, but was brought to Rome at so early an age as to belong almost equally to both nationalities. His poverty [17]

did not secure him from persecution, Seja.n.u.s, ever suspicious and watchful, detected the political allusions veiled beneath the disguise of fable, and made the poet feel his auger. The duration of Phaedrus's career is uncertain. The first two books were all that he published in Tiberius's reign; the third, dedicated to Eutychus, and the fourth to Particulo, Claudius's favourite, clearly show that he continued to write over a considerable time. The date of Book V. is not mentioned, but it can hardly be earlier than the close of Claudius's reign. Thus we have a period of nearly thirty years during which these five short books were produced.

Like all who con over their own compositions, Phaedrus had an unreasonably high opinion of their merit. Literary reputation was his chief desire, and he thought himself secure of it. He echoes the boast so many greater men have made before him, that he is the first to import a form of Greek art; but he limits his imitation to the general scope, reserving to himself the right to vary the particular form in each fable as he thinks fit. [18] The careful way in which he defines at what point his obligations to Aesop cease and his own invention begins, shows him to have had something of the trifler and a great deal of the egotist. His love of condensation is natural, for a fabulist should be short, trenchant, and almost proverbial in his style; but Phaedrus carries these to the point of obscurity and enigma. It seems as if at times he did not see his drift himself. To this fault is akin the constant moralising tone which reflects rather than paints, enforces rather than elicits its lesson. He is himself a small sage, and all his animals are small sages too. They have not the life-like reality of those of Aesop; they are mere lay figures. His technical skill is very considerable; the iambic senarius becomes in his hands an extremely pleasing rhythm, though the occurrence of spondees in the second and fourth place savours of archaic usage. His diction is hardly varied enough to admit of clear reference to a standard, but on the whole it may be p.r.o.nounced nearer to the silver than the golden Latinity, especially in the frequent use of abstract words. His confident predictions of immortality were nearly being falsified by the burning, by certain zealots, of an abbey in France, where alone the MS. existed (1561 A.D.); but Phaedrus, in common with many others, was rescued from the worthy Calvinists, and has since held a quiet corner to himself in the temple of fame.

A poet whose misfortunes were of service to his talent, was POMPONIUS SECUNDUS. His friendship with Aelius Gallus, son to Seja.n.u.s, caused him to be imprisoned during several years. While in this condition he devoted himself to literature, and wrote many tragedies which are spoken well of by Quintilian: "Eorum (tragic poets) quos viderim longe princeps Pomponius Secundus." [19] He was an acute rhetorician, and a purist in language. The extant names of his plays are _Aeneas_, and perhaps _Armorum Judicium_ and _Atreus_, but these last two are uncertain. Tragedy was much cultivated during the imperial times; for it formed an outlet for feeling not otherwise safe to express, and it admitted all the ornaments of rhetoric.

Those who regard the tragedies of Seneca as the work of the father, would refer them to this reign, to the end of which the old man's activity lasted, though his energies were more taken up with watching and guiding the careers of his children than with original composition. When Tiberius died (37 A.D.) literature could hardly have been at a lower ebb; but even then there were young men forming their minds and imbibing new canons of taste, who were destined before long--for almost all wrote early--to redeem the age from the charge of dulness, perhaps at too great a sacrifice.

CHAPTER II.

THE REIGNS OF CALIGULA, CLAUDIUS, AND NERO (37-68 A.D.).

1. POETS.

We have grouped these three emperors under a single heading because the shortness of the reigns of the two former prevented the formation of any special school of literature. It is otherwise with the reign of Nero. To this belongs a constellation of some of the most brilliant authors that Rome ever produced. And they are characterised by some very special traits. Instead of the depression we noticed under Tiberius we now observe a forced vivacity and sprightliness, even in dealing with the most awful or serious subjects, which is unlike anything we have hitherto met with in Roman literature. It is quite different from the natural gaiety of Catullus; equally so from the witty frivolity of Ovid. It is not in the least meant to be frivolous; on the contrary it arises from an overstrained earnestness, and a desire to say everything in the most pointed and emphatic form in which it can be said. To whatever school the writers belong, this characteristic is always present. Persius shows it as much as Seneca; the historians as much as the rhetors. The only one who is not imbued with it is the professed wit Petronius. Probably he had exhausted it in conversation; perhaps he disapproved of it as a corrupt importation of the Senecas.

The emperors themselves were all _literati_. CALIGULA, it is true, did not publish, but he gave great attention to eloquence, and was even more vigorous as an extempore speaker than as a writer. His mental derangement affected his criticism. He thought at one time of burning all the copies of Homer that could be got at; at another of removing all the statues of Livy and Virgil, the one as unlearned and uncritical, the other as verbose and negligent. One is puzzled to know to which respectively these criticisms refer. We do not venture to a.s.sign them, but translate literally from Suetonius. [1]

CLAUDIUS had a brain as sluggish as Caligula's was over-excitable; nevertheless he prosecuted literature with care, and published several works. Among these was a history, beginning with the death of Julius Caesar, in forty-three volumes, [2] an autobiography in eight, [3] "magis inepte quam ineleganter scriptum;" a learned defence of Cicero against Asinius Gallus's invective, besides several Greek writings. His philological studies and the innovations he tried to introduce have been referred to in a former chapter. [4]

NERO, while a young man before his accession, tried his powers in nearly every department of letters. He approached philosophy, but his prudent mother deterred him from a study which might lead him to views "above his station as a prince." He next turned to the old orators, but here his preceptor Seneca intervened, Tacitus insinuates, with the motive of turning him from the best models to an admiration of his own more seductive style. Nero declaimed frequently in public, and his poetical effusions seem to have possessed some real merit. At the first celebration of the festival called _Neroniana_ he was crowned with the wreath of victory. His most celebrated poem, the one that drew down on him the irony of Juvenal, was the _Troica_, in which perhaps occurred the _Troiae Halosis_ which this madman recited in state over the burning ruins of Rome, and which is parodied with subtle mockery in Petronius. Other poems were of a lighter cast and intended to be sung to the accompaniment of the harp. These were the crowning scandal of his imperial vagaries in the eyes of patriotic Romans. "With our prince a fiddler," cries Juvenal, "what further disgrace remains?" King Lewis of Bavaria and some other great personages of our era would perhaps object to Juvenal's conclusion. With all these accomplishments, however, Nero either could not or would not speak. He had not the vigour of mind necessary for eloquence. Hence he usually employed Seneca to dress up speeches for him, a task which that polite minister was not sorry to undertake.

The earliest poet who comes before us is the unknown author of the panegyric on Calpurnius Piso. It is an elegant piece of versification with no particular merit or demerit. It takes pains to justify Piso for flute- playing in public, and as Nero's example is not alleged, the inference is natural that it was written before his time. There is no independence of style, merely a graceful reflection from that of the Augustan poets.

We must now examine the circ.u.mstances which surrounded or produced the splendid literature of Nero's reign. Such persons as from political hostility to the government, or from disgust at the flagitious conduct by which alone success was to be purchased, lived apart in a select circle, stern and defiant, unsullied by the degradation round them, though helpless to influence it for good. They consisted for the most part of virtuous n.o.blemen such as Paetus Thrasea, Barea, Rubellius Plautus, above all, Helvidius Priscus, on whose uncompromising independence Tacitus loves to dwell; and of philosophers, moral teachers and literati, who sought after real excellence, not contemporary applause. The members of this society lived in intimate companionship, and many ladies contributed their share to its culture and virtuous aspirations. Such were Arria, the heroic wife of Paetus, Fannia, the wife of Helvidius, and Fulvia Sisenna, the mother of Persius. These held _reunions_ for literary or philosophical discussions which were no mere conversational displays, but a serious preparation for the terrible issues which at any time they might be called upon to meet. It had long been the custom for wealthy Romans of liberal tastes to maintain a philosopher as part of their establishment. Laelius had shown hospitality both to Panaetius and Polybius; Cicero had offered a home to Diodotus for more than twenty years, and Catulus and Lucullus had both recognised the temporal needs of philosophy. Under the Empire the practice was still continued, and though liable to the abuse of charlatanism or pedantry, was certainly instrumental in familiarising patrician families (and especially their lady members) with the great thoughts and pure morality of the best thinkers of Greece. From scattered notices in Seneca and Quintilian, we should infer that the philosopher was employed as a repository of spiritual confidences--almost a father- confessor--at least as much as an intellectual teacher. When Ka.n.u.s Julius was condemned to death, his philosopher went with him to the scaffold and uttered consoling words about the destiny of the soul; [5] and Seneca's own correspondence shows that he regarded this relation as the n.o.blest philosophy could hold. Of such moral directors the most influential was ANNAEUS CORNUTUS, both from his varied learning and his consistent rect.i.tude of life. Like all the higher spirits he was a Stoic, but a genial and wise one. He neither affected austerity nor encouraged rash attacks on power. His advice to his n.o.ble friends generally inclined towards the side of prudence. Nevertheless he could not so far control his own language as to avoid the jealousy of Nero. [6] He was banished, it is not certain in what year, and apparently ended his days in exile. He left several works, mostly written in Greek; some on philosophy, of which that on the nature of the G.o.ds has come down to us in an abridged form, some on rhetoric and grammar; besides these he is said to have composed satires, tragedies, [7] and a commentary on Virgil. But his most important work was his formation of the character of one of the three Roman satirists whose works have come down to us.

Few poets have been so differently treated by different critics as A.

PERSIUS FLACCUS, for while some have p.r.o.nounced him to be an excellent satirist and true poet, others have declared that his fame is solely owing to the trouble he gives us to read him. He was born at Volaterrae, 34 A.D., of n.o.ble parentage, brought to Rome as a child, and educated with the greatest care. His first preceptor was the grammarian Virginius Flavus, an eloquent man endued with strength of character, whose earnest moral lectures drew down the displeasure of Caligula. He next seems to have attended a course under Remmius Palaemon; but as soon as he put on the manly gown he attached himself to Cornutus, whose intimate friend he became, and of whose ideas he was the faithful exponent. The love of the pupil for his guide in philosophy is beautiful and touching; the verses in which it is expressed are the best in Persius: [8]

"Secreti loquimur: tibi nunc hortante Camena Excutienda damus praecordia: quantaque nostrae Pars tua sit Cornute animae, tibi, dulcis amice, Ostendisse iuvat ... Teneros tu suscipis annos Socratico Cornute sino. Tune fallere sollers Apposita intortos extendit regula mores, Et premitur ratione animus vincique laborat, Artificemque tuo ducit sub pollice vultum."

Moulded by the counsels of this good "doctor," Persius adopted philosophy with enthusiasm. In an age of licentiousness he preserved a maiden purity.

Though possessing in a pre-eminent degree that gift of beauty which Juvenal declares to be fatal to innocence, Persius retained until his death a moral character without a stain. But he had a n.o.bler example even than Cornutus by his side. He was tenderly loved by the great Thrasea, [9]

whose righteous life and glorious death form perhaps the richest lesson that the whole imperial history affords. Thrasea was a Cato in justice, but more than a Cato in goodness, inasmuch as his lot was harder, and his spirit gentler and more human. Men like these clenched the theories of philosophy by that rare consistency which puts them into practice; and Persius, with all his literary faults, is the sole instance among Roman writers of a philosopher whose life was in accordance with the doctrines he professed.

Yet on opening his short book of satires, one is strongly tempted to ask, What made the boy write them? He neither knew nor cared to know anything of the world, and, we fear, cannot he credited with a philanthropic desire to reform it. The answer is given partly by himself, that he was full of petulant spleen, [10]--an honest confession,--partly is to be found in the custom then becoming general for those who wished to live well to write essays on serious subjects for private circulation among their friends, pointing out the dangers that lay around, and encouraging them to persevere in the right path. Of this kind are several of Seneca's treatises, and we have notices of many others in the biographers and historians. And though Persius may have intended to publish his book to the world, as is rendered probable by the prologue, this is not absolutely certain. At any rate it did not appear until after his death, when his friend Caesius Ba.s.sus [11] undertook to bring it out; so that we may fairly regard it as a collection of youthful reflections as to the advisability of publishing which the poet had not yet made up his mind, and perhaps had he lived would have suppressed.

Crabbed and loaded with obscure allusions as they are to a degree which makes most of them extremely unpleasant reading, they obtained a considerable and immediate reputation. Lucan is reported to have declared that his own works were bagatelles in comparison. [12] Quintilian says that he has gained much true glory in his single book; [13] Martial, that he is oftener quoted than Domitius Marsus in all his long _Amazonis_. [14]

He is affirmed by his biographer to have written seldom and with difficulty. All his earlier attempts were, by the advice of Cornutus, destroyed. They consisted of a _Praetexta_, named _Vescia_, of one book of travels, and a few lines to the elder Arria. Among his predecessors his chief admiration was reserved for Horace, whom he imitates with exaggerated fidelity, recalling, but generally distorting, nearly a hundred well-known lines. The six poems we possess are not all, strictly speaking, satires. The first, with the prologue, may be so considered. It is devoted to an attack upon the literary style of the day. Persius sees that the decay of taste is intimately joined with the decay of morals, and the subtle connections he draws between the two const.i.tute the chief merit of the effusion. Like Horace, but with even better reason, he bewails the antiquarian predilections of the majority of readers. Accius and Pacuvius still hold their ground, while Virgil and Horace are considered rough and lacking delicacy! [15] If this last be a true statement, it testifies to the depraved criticism of a luxurious age which alternates between meretricious softness and uncouth disproportion, just as in life the idle and effeminate, who shrink from manly labour, take pleasure in wild adventure and useless fatigue. In this satire, which is the most condensed of all, the literary defects of the author are at their height. His moral taste is not irreproachable; in his desire not to mince matters he offends needlessly against propriety. [16] The picture he draws of the fashionable rhetorician with languishing eyes and throat mellowed by a luscious gargle, warbling his drivelling ditties to an excited audience, is powerful and lifelike. From a.s.semblies like these he did well to keep himself. We can imagine the effect upon their used-up emotions of a fresh and fiery spirit like that of Lucan, whose splendid presence and rich enthusiasm threw to the winds these tricks of the reciter's art.

The second, third, and fourth poems are declamatory exercises on the dogmas of stoicism, interspersed with dramatic scenes. The second has for its subject the proper use of prayer. The majority, says Persius, utter _buying_ pet.i.tions (_prece emaci_), and by no means as a rule innocent ones. Few dare to acknowledge their prayers (_aperto vivere voto_). After sixty lines of indignant remonstrance, he closes with a n.o.ble apostrophe, in which some of the thoughts rise almost to a Christian height--"O souls bent to earth, empty of divine things! What boots it to import these morals of ours into the temples, and to imagine what is good in G.o.d's sight from the a.n.a.logies of this sinful flesh?... Why do we not offer Him something which Messala's blear-eyed progeny with all his wealth cannot offer, a spirit at one with justice and right, holy in its inmost depths, and a heart steeped in n.o.bleness and virtue? Let me but bring these to the altar, and a sacrifice of meal will be accepted!" In the third and fourth Satires he complains of the universal ignorance of our true interests, the ridicule which the world heaps on philosophy, and the hap-hazard way in which men prepare for hazardous duties. The contemptuous disgust of the brawny centurion at the (to him) unmeaning problems which philosophy starts, is vigorously delineated; [17] but some of his _tableaux_ border on the ridiculous from their stilted concision and over-drawn sharpness of outline. The undeniable virtue of the poet irritates as much as it attracts, from its pert precocity and obtrusiveness. What he means for pathos mostly chills instead of warming: "Ut nemo in se curat descendere, nemo!" [18] The poet who penned this line must surely have been tiresome company. Persius is at his best when he forgets for a moment the icy peak to which as a philosopher he has climbed, and suns himself in the valley of natural human affections--a reason why the fifth and sixth Satires, which are more personal than the rest, have always been considered greatly superior to them. The last in particular runs for more than half its length in a smooth and tolerably graceful stream of verse, which shows that Persius had much of the poetic gift, had his warped taste allowed him to give it play.

We conclude with one or two instances of his language to justify our strictures upon it. Horace had used the expression _naso suspendis adunco_, a legitimate and intelligible metaphor; Persius imitates it, _excusso populum suspendere naso_, [19] thereby rendering it frigid and weak. Horace had said _clament periisse pudorem Cuncti paene patres_; [20]

Persius caricatures him, _exclamet_ Melicerta _perisse_ Frontem _de rebus_. [21] Horace had said _si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipsi tibi_; [22] Persius distorts this into _plorabit qui me volet_ incurva.s.se _querela_. [23] Other expressions more remotely modelled on him are _iratum Eupoliden praegrandi c.u.m sene palles_, [24] and perhaps the very harsh use of the accusative, _linguae quantum sitiat canis_, [25] "as long a tongue as a thirsty dog hangs out."

Common sense is not to be looked for in the precepts of so immature a mind. Accordingly, we find the foolish maxim that a man not endowed with reason (_i.e._ stoicism) cannot do anything aright: [26] that every one should live up to his yearly income regardless of the risk arising from a bad season; [27] extravagant paradoxes reminding us of some of the less educated religious sects of the present day; with this difference, that in Rome it was the most educated who indulged in them. A good deal of the obscurity of these Satires was forced upon the poet by the necessity of avoiding everything that could be twisted into treason. We read in Suetonius that Nero is attacked in them; but so well is the battery masked that it is impossible to find it. Some have detected it in the prologue, others in the opening lines of the first Satire, others, relying on a story that Cornutus made him alter the line--

"Auriculas asini Mida rex habet,"

to _quis non habet_? have supposed that the satire lies there. But satire so veiled is worthless. The poems of Persius are valuable chiefly as showing a good _naturel_ amid corrupt surroundings, and forming a striking comment on the change which had come over Latin letters.

Another Stoic philosopher, probably known to Persius, was C. MUSONIUS RUFUS, like him an Etruscan by birth, and a successful teacher of the young. Like almost all independent thinkers he was exiled, but recalled by t.i.tus in his old age. The influence of such men must have extended far beyond their personal acquaintance; but they kept aloof from the court.

This probably explains the conspicuous absence of any allusion to Seneca in Persius's writings. It is probable that his stern friends, Thrasea and Sora.n.u.s disapproved of a courtier like Seneca professing stoicism, and would show him no countenance. He was not yet great enough to compel their notice, and at this time confined his influence to the circle of Nero, whose tutor he was, and to those young men, doubtless numerous enough, whom his position and seductive eloquence attracted by a double charm. Of these by far the most ill.u.s.trious was his nephew Lucan.

M. ANNAEUS LUCa.n.u.s, the son of Annaeus Mela and Acilia, a Spanish lady of high birth, was born at Corduba, 39 A.D. His grandfather, therefore, was Seneca the elder, whose rhetorical bent he inherited. Legend tells of him, as of Hesiod, that in his infancy a swarm of bees settled upon the cradle in which he lay, giving an omen of his future poetic glory. Brought to Rome, and placed under the greatest masters, he soon surpa.s.sed all his young compet.i.tors in powers of declamation. He is said, while a boy, to have attracted large audiences, who listened with admiration to the ingenious eloquence that expressed itself with equal ease in Greek or Latin. His uncle soon introduced him to Nero; and he at once recognised in him a congenial spirit. They became friendly rivals. Lucan had the address to conceal his superior talent behind artful flattery, which Nero for a time believed sincere. But men, and especially young men of genius, cannot be always prudent. And if Lucan had not vaunted his success, Rome at least was sure to be less reticent. Nero saw that public opinion preferred the young Spaniard to himself. The mutual ill-feeling that had already long smouldered was kindled into flame by the result of a poetical contest, at which Lucan was declared victorious. [28] Nero, who was present, could not conceal his mortification. He left the hall in a rage, and forbade the poet to recite in public, or even to plead in his profession. Thus debarred from the successes which had so long flattered his self-love, Lucan gave his mind to worthier subjects. He composed, or at least finished, the _Pharsalia_ in the following year (65 B.C.); but with the haste and want of secrecy which characterised him, not only libelled the emperor, but joined the conspiracy against him, of which Piso was the head. This gave Nero the opportunity he desired. In vain the unhappy young man abased himself to humble flattery, to piteous entreaty, even to the incrimination of his own mother, a base proceeding which he hoped might gain him the indulgence of a matricide prince. All was useless. Nero was determined that he should die, and he accordingly had his veins opened, and expired amid applauding friends, while reciting those verses of his epic which described the death of a brave centurion. [29]

The genius and sentiments of Lucan were formed under two different influences. Among the adherents of Caesarism, none were so devoted as those provincials or freedmen who owed to it their wealth and position.

Lucan, as Seneca's nephew, naturally attached himself from the first to the court party. He knew of the Republic only as a name, and, like Ovid, had no reason to be dissatisfied with his own time. Fame, wealth, honours, all were open to him. We can imagine the feverish delight with which a youth of three and twenty found himself recognised as prince of Roman poets. But Lucan had a spirit of truthfulness in him that pined after better things. At the lectures of Cornutus, in the company of Persius, he caught a glimpse of this higher life. And so behind the showy splendours of his rhetoric there lurks a sadness which tells of a mind not altogether content, a brooding over man's life and its apparent uselessness, which makes us believe that had he lived till middle life he would have struck a lofty vein of n.o.ble and earnest song. At other times, at the banquet or in the courts, he must have met young men who lived in an altogether different world from his, a world not of intoxicating pleasures but of gloomy indignation and sullen regret; to whom the Empire, grounded on usurpation and maintained by injustice, was the quintessence of all that was odious; to whom Nero was an upstart tyrant, and Brutus and Ca.s.sius the watchwords of justice and right. Sentiments like these could not but be remembered by one so impressionable. As soon as the sunshine of favour was withdrawn, Lucan's ardent mind turned with enthusiasm towards them. The _Pharsalia_, and especially the closing books of it, show us Lucan as the poet of liberty, the mourner for the lost Republic. The expression of feeling may be exaggerated, and little consistent with the flattery with which the poem opens; yet even this flattery, when carefully read, seems fuller of satire than of praise: [30]