The Roman Poets of the Republic Part 13

From the fact that early Roman tragedy left no literary heir, it is more difficult to discern its original features and character than those of the epic or satiric poetry of the period. A further difficulty arises out of the very nature of dramatic fragments.

Isolated pa.s.sages in a drama afford scanty grounds for judging of the conduct of the action, or the force and consistency with which the leading characters are conceived. There is, moreover, very slight direct evidence bearing on the dramatic genius of the early tragic poets. Roman critics seem to have paid little attention to, or had little perception of this kind of excellence. They quote with admiration the fervid sentiment and morality--'the rugged maxims hewn from life'--expressed on the Roman stage; but they have not preserved the memory of any great typical character, or of any dramatic plot creatively conceived or powerfully sustained.

The Roman drama was confessedly a reproduction or adaptation of the drama of Athens. The t.i.tles of the great majority of Roman tragedies indicate that they were translated or copied from Greek originals, or were at least founded on the legends of Greek poetry and mythology.

The _Medea_ of Ennius and the _Antiope_ of Pacuvius are known, on the authority of Cicero, to have been directly translated from Euripides.

Other dramas were more or less close adaptations from his works, or from those of the other Attic tragedians. All of the Roman tragic poets indeed produced one or more plays founded on Roman history or legend: but, with the exception of the Brutus of Accius, none of these seem to have been permanently popular. This failure to establish a national drama seems to imply a want of dramatic invention in the conduct of a plot and the exhibition of character on the part of the poets. As their own history was of supreme interest to the Romans at all times, it is difficult on any other supposition to explain the failure of the 'fabula praetextata' in gaining the public ear. There is, however, distinct evidence that in their adaptations from the Greek the Roman poets in some cases departed considerably from their originals. Something of a Roman stamp was perhaps unconsciously impressed on the Greek personages who were represented. Many of the extant fragments seem to breathe the spirit of Rome more than of Athens. They are expressed not with the subtlety and reflective genius of Greece, but in the plain and straightforward tones of the Roman Republic. The long-continued popularity of Roman tragedy implies also that it was something more than an inartistic copy of the masterpieces of Athenian genius. Mere imitations of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides might possibly have obtained some favour with a few men of literary education, but could never have been listened to with applause, for more than a century and a half, by miscellaneous audiences.

The following questions suggest themselves as of most interest in connexion with the general character of early Roman tragedy:--How far may it have reproduced not the materials and form only, but the spirit and ideas of the Greek drama? What was its bearing on the actual circ.u.mstances of Roman life, and what were the grounds of the favour with which it was received? What cause can be a.s.signed for the cessation of this favour with the fall of the Republic?

The materials or substance of Roman tragedy were almost entirely Greek. The stories and characters represented were, save in the few exceptional cases referred to above, directly derived from the Greek tragedians or from Homer and the cyclic poets. In point of form also and some of the metres employed, Roman tragedy endeavoured to imitate the models on which it was founded, with probably as little perception of the requirements of dramatic art as of refinement in expression and harmony in rhythm. But while generally conforming to their models, the early Roman poets departed in some important respects from their practice. Thus they banished the Chorus from the orchestra, a.s.signing to it merely a subsidiary part in the dialogue. Although some simple lyrical metre, accompanied with music, continued to be employed in the more rapid and impa.s.sioned parts of the dialogue, there was no scope, on the Roman stage, for the great lyrical poetry of the Greek drama, and for the n.o.bler functions of the chorus. On the other hand, there seems to have been more opportunity both for action and for oratorical declamation. The acting of a Roman play must have been more like that on a modern stage than the stately movement and the statuesque repose of the Greek theatre. Again, in imitating the iambic and trochaic metres of the Greek drama, the Roman poets were quite indifferent to the laws by which their finer harmony is produced. Any of the feet admissible in an iambic line might occupy any place in the line, with the exception of the last. There is thus little metrical harmony in the fragments of Roman tragedy; but, on the other hand, it may be remarked that the order of the words in these fragments appears more natural and direct than in the more elaborate metres of the later Roman poets.

But it was as impossible for the Roman drama to reproduce the inner spirit of the n.o.blest type of Greek tragedy as to rival its artistic excellence. Greek tragedy, in its mature glory, was not only a purely Greek creation, but was the artistic expression of a remarkable phase through which the human mind has once pa.s.sed;--a phase in which the vivid fancies and emotions of a primitive age met and combined with the thought, the art, the social and political life of the greatest era of ancient civilisation. The Athenian dramatists, like the great dramatists of other times, imparted a new and living interest to ancient legends; but this was but one part, perhaps not the most important part, of their functions. They represented before the people the destiny and sufferings of national heroes and demiG.o.ds, sanctified by long a.s.sociation in the feelings of many generations, still honoured by a vital worship, and appealed to as a present help in danger. Thus a highly idealised and profoundly religious character was imparted to the tragic representation of human pa.s.sion and destiny on the Athenian stage. This view of life, represented and contemplated with solemnity of feeling in the age of Pericles, would have been altogether unmeaning to a Roman of the age of Ennius. Such a one would understand the natural heroism of a strong will, but not the new force and elevation imparted to the will by reliance on the hidden powers and laws overruling human affairs. He might be moved to sympathy with the sufferers or actors on the scene; but he would be altogether insensible to the higher consolation which overcomes the natural sorrow for the mere earthly catastrophe in a great dramatic action.

The inward strength and dignity of a Roman senator might enable him to appreciate the magnanimity and kingly nature of Oedipus; but the deeper interest of the great dramas founded on the fortunes of the Theban king, especially the interest arising from his trust in final righteousness, his sense of communion with higher powers, from the thought of his elevation out of the lowest earthly state into perpetual sanct.i.ty and honour, was widely remote from the tangible objects of a Roman's desire, and the direct motives of his conduct.

Or perhaps a Roman would have a fellow-feeling with the proud and soldierly bearing of Ajax; but he would be blind to the inward lesson of self-knowledge and self-mastery, which Sophocles represents as forced upon the spirit of the Greek hero through the stern visitation of Athene. Equally remote from the ordinary experience and emotions of a Roman would be the feeling of awe, gloom, and mystery, diffused through the great thoughts and imaginations of Aeschylus. Both in Aeschylus and in Sophocles the light and the gloom cast over the human story are not of this world. But in the fragments of the Roman tragedians, though there is often found the expression of magnanimous and independent sentiment, and of a very dignified and manly morality, there is little trace of any sense of the relation of the individual to a Divine power; and there are some indications not only of a scorn for common superst.i.tion, but also of disbelief in the foundations of personal religion. The thought of the insecurity of life, of the vicissitudes of human affairs, and of the impotence of man to control his fate, which forced the Greek poets and historians of the fifth century B.C. into deeper speculations on the question of Divine Providence, was utterly alien to the natural temperament of Rome, and to the confidence inspired by uniform success during the long period succeeding the Second Punic War.

The contemplative and religious thought of Greek tragedy was thus as remote from the practical spirit of the Romans as the political license and the personal humours of the old Athenian comedy were from the earnestness of public life and the dignity of government in the great aristocratic Republic. And thus it happened that, as the comic poets of Rome reproduced the new comedy of Athens, which portrayed the pa.s.sions of private not of political life, and the manners rather of a cosmopolitan than of a purely Greek civilisation, so the tragic poets found the art of Euripides and of his less ill.u.s.trious successors more easy to imitate than that of Aeschylus and Sophocles. The interest of tragedy, as treated by Euripides, turns upon the catastrophes produced by human pa.s.sion: the religious meaning has, in a great measure, pa.s.sed out of it; the characters have dwindled from their heroic stature to the proportions of ordinary life; his thought is the result of the a.n.a.lysis of motives, and the study of familiar experience. He has more affinity with the ordinary thoughts and moods of men than either of the older poets. The older and the later Greek writers have a nearer relation to the spirit of other eras of the world's history than those who represent Athenian civilisation in its maturity. It requires a longer familiarity with the mind and heart of antiquity to realise and enjoy the full meaning of Sophocles, Thucydides, or Aristophanes, than of Homer, Euripides, or Theocritus. Homer is indeed one of the truest, if not the truest, representative of the genius of Greece,--the representative also of the ancient world in the same sense as Shakspeare is of the modern world,--but he is, at the same time, directly intelligible and interesting to all countries and times from his being the most natural and powerful exponent of the elementary feelings and forces of human nature. The later poets, on the other hand, such as Euripides and the writers of the new comedy, were not indeed more truly human, but were less distinctively Greek than their immediate predecessors. They had advanced beyond them in the a.n.a.lytic knowledge of human nature; but, with the decay of religious belief and political feeling, they had lost much of the genius and sentiment by which the old Athenian life was characterised.

Both their gain and their loss bring them more into harmony with later modes of thought and feeling. Thus it happened that, while the influence of Aeschylus and Sophocles, of Thucydides and Aristophanes, is scarcely perceptible in Roman literature, Homer and the early lyrical poets who flourished before Greek civilisation exhibited its most special type, and Euripides who, though a contemporary of Sophocles and Aristophanes, yet belonged in spirit and tone to a younger generation, the writers of the new comedy, and the Alexandrine poets who flourished when the purely Greek ideas and character were being merged in a cosmopolitan civilisation, exercised a direct influence on Roman taste and opinion in every age of their literature.

The early tragic poets of Rome could not rival or imitate the dramatic art, the pathetic power, the clear and fluent style, the active and subtle a.n.a.lysis of Euripides; but they could approach nearer to him than to any of his predecessors, by treating the myths and personages of the heroic time apart from the sacred a.s.sociations and ideal majesty of earlier art, and as a vehicle for inculcating the lessons and the experience of familiar life.

The primary attraction, by means of which the tragic drama established itself at Rome, must have been the power of scenic representations to convey a story, and to produce novel impressions on a people to whom reading was quite unfamiliar. In Homer, the cyclic poets, and the Attic dramatists, there existed for the Romans of the second century B.C. a new world of incident and human interest quite different from the grave story of their own annals. This new world, which was becoming gradually familiar to their eyes through the works of plastic and pictorial art, was made more living and intelligible to them in the representations of their tragic poets. It cannot be supposed that these poets attempted to reproduce the antique h.e.l.lenic character of the legends on which they founded their dramas. In this early stage of literary culture, the harmonious cadences of rhythm, the fine and delicate shades of expression, the main requirements of dramatic art,--such as the skilful construction of a plot, the consistent keeping of a character, the evolution of a tragic catastrophe through the meeting of pa.s.sion and outward accident,--would have been lost upon the unexacting audiences who thronged the temporary theatres on occasional holidays. The fragments of the lost dramas indicate that the matter was presented in a straightforward style, little differing in sound and meaning from the tone of serious conversation. Although little can be known or conjectured as to the general conduct of the action in a Roman drama, yet there are indications that in some cases a series of adventures, instead of one complete action, were represented[1]. But while failing, or not attempting to reproduce the Greek spirit and art of their originals, the Roman poets seem to have animated the outlines of their foreign story and of their legendary characters with something of the spirit of their own time and country.

They imparted to their dramas a didactic purpose and rhetorical character which directly appealed to Roman tastes. The fragments quoted from their works, the testimonies of later Roman writers, and the natural inference to be drawn from the moral and intellectual characteristics of the people, all point to the conclusion that the long-sustained popularity of tragedy rested mainly on the satisfaction which it afforded to the ethical sympathies, and to the oratorical tastes of the audience.

The evidence for this popularity is chiefly to be found in Cicero; and it is mainly, though not solely, to the popularity which the tragic drama enjoyed in his own age that he testifies. The loss of the earlier writings renders it impossible to adduce contemporary evidence of the immediate success of this form of literature. But the activity with which tragedy was cultivated for about a century, and the favour with which Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, were regarded by the leading men in the State, suggest the inference that the popularity of the drama in the age of Cicero, after the writers themselves had pa.s.sed away, and when more exciting spectacles occupied public attention, was only a continuation of the general favour which these poets enjoyed in their lifetime. Cicero in many places mentions the great applause with which the expression of feeling in different dramas was received, and speaks of the great crowds ('maximus consessus' or 'magna frequentia'), including women and children, attending the representation. Varro states that, in his time, 'the heads of families had gradually gathered within the walls of the city, having quitted their ploughs and pruning-hooks, and that they liked to use their hands in the theatres and circus better than on their crops and vineyards[2].' The large fortunes ama.s.sed and the high consideration enjoyed by the actors Aesopus and Roscius afford further evidence of the favour with which the representation of tragedy and comedy was received in the age of Cicero.

According to his testimony, these lively demonstrations of popular approbation were chiefly called out by the moral significance or the political meaning attached to the words, and by the oratorical fervour and pa.s.sion with which the actor enforced them. Thus Laelius is represented, in the treatise _De Amicitia_, as testifying to the applause with which the mutual devotion of Pylades and Orestes, as represented in a play of Pacuvius, was received by the audience[3]: 'What shouts of applause were heard lately through the whole body of the house, on the representation of a new play of my familiar friend, M. Pacuvius, when, the king being ignorant which of the two was Orestes, Pylades maintained that it was he, while Orestes persisted, as was indeed the case, that he was the man! They stood up and applauded at this imaginary situation.' Again, in his speech in defence of Sestius[4], the same author says, 'amid a great variety of opinions uttered, there never was any pa.s.sage in which anything said by the poet might seem to bear on our time, which either escaped the notice of the people, or to which the actor did not give point.' In a letter to Atticus (ii. 19) he states that the actor Diphilus had applied to Pompey the phrase 'Miseria nostra tu es magnus,' and that he was compelled to repeat it a thousand times amid the shouts of the whole theatre. He mentions further, in the speech in defence of Sestius[5] that the actor Aesopus had applied to Cicero himself a pa.s.sage from a play of Accius (the Eurysaces), in which the Greeks are reproached for allowing one who had done them great public service to be driven into exile; and that the same actor, in the Brutus, had referred to him by name in the words, 'Tullius qui libertatem civibus stabiliverat'; he adds that these words 'were _encored_ over and over again,' 'millies revocatum est.' These and similar pa.s.sages testify primarily to the intense political excitement of the time at which they were written, but also to the meaning which was looked for by the audience in the words addressed to them on the stage, and which was enforced by the emphasis given to them by the actor.

Besides these and other pa.s.sages in Cicero, the fragments themselves of Roman tragedy testify to its moral and didactic tone, and its occasional appeal to national and political feeling.

In so far as it served any political end we may infer from the personal relations of the poets, from the approving testimony of Cicero, and from the personages and the nature of the situations represented, that, unlike the older comedy of Naevius and Plautus, it was in sympathy with the spirit of the dominant aristocracy. The 'boni' or 'optimates' regarded themselves as the true guardians of law and liberty, and it would be to their partisans that the resistance to, and denunciations of tyrannical rule, expressed in such plays as the Atreus, the Tereus, and the Brutus of Accius, must have been most acceptable. Members of the aristocracy, eminent in public life and accomplished as orators, became themselves authors of tragedies. Of these two are mentioned by Cicero, C. Julius Caesar, a contemporary and friend of the orator Cra.s.sus, and C. t.i.tius, a Roman Eques, also distinguished as an orator[6]. These instances, and the comments Cicero makes upon them, indicate the close affinity of Roman tragedy to the training and accomplishments which fitted men for public life at Rome.

Pa.s.sages already referred to, and others which will be brought forward later, imply also that the audience were easily moved by the dramatic art and the elocution of the actor. We hear of the pains which the best actors took to perfect themselves in their art, and of the success which they attained in it. Cicero specifies among the accomplishments of an orator, the 'voice of a tragedian, the gestures and bearing of a consummate actor.' The stage may be said to have been to the Romans partly a school of practical life, partly a school of oratory. Spirited declamation, the expression, by voice and gesture, of vehement pa.s.sion, of moral and political feeling, and of practical wisdom, would gratify the same tastes that were fostered by the discussions and harangues of the Forum[7].

The testimony of later writers points to the conclusion that the early Roman tragedy, like Roman oratory, was characterised both by great moral weight and dignity, and also by fervid and impa.s.sioned feeling.

The latter quality is suggested by the line of Horace,

Nam spirat tragic.u.m satis et feliciter audet;

and also by the epithets 'altus' and 'animosus' applied by him and Ovid to the poet Accius. Quintilian describes the ancient tragedies as superior to those of his own time in the management of their plots ('oeconomia'), and adds that 'manliness and solemnity of style'

('virilitas et sanct.i.tas')[8], were to be studied in them. He states also that Accius and Pacuvius were distinguished by 'the earnestness of their thought, the weight of their language, the commanding bearing of their personages[9].' The fragments of all the tragic poets bear further evidence to the union of these qualities in their thought and style.

These considerations may afford some explanation of the fact, that the early Roman tragedy, although having less claim to originality, and less capacity of development than any other branch of Roman literature, yet exercised a more immediate and more general influence than either the epic, lyrical, or satiric poetry of the Republic. For more than a century new tragedies were written and represented at the various public games, and afforded the sole kind of serious intellectual stimulus and education to the ma.s.s of the people. During the lifetime of the old dramatists, there was no regular theatre, but merely structures of wood raised for each occasion. A magnificent stone theatre was at last built by Pompey from the spoils of the Mithridatic War; but this, instead of giving a new impulse to dramatic art, was fatal to its existence. The attraction of a gorgeous spectacle superseded that afforded by the works of the older dramatists; and dancers like Bathyllus soon obtained the place in popular favour which had been enjoyed by the 'grave Aesopus and the accomplished Roscius.' The composition of tragedy pa.s.sed from the hands of popular poets, and became a kind of literary and rhetorical exercise of accomplished men. We hear that Quintus Cicero composed four tragedies in sixteen days, and in the Augustan age Virgil and Horace eulogise the dramatic talent of their friend and patron Asinius Pollio. The 'Ars Poetica' implies that the composition of tragedy was the most fashionable form of literary pursuit among the young aspirants to poetic honour at that time, and the Thyestes of Varius and the Medea of Ovid enjoyed a great literary reputation. These were, however, futile attempts to impart artificial life to a withered branch. Though praised by literary critics, they obtained no general favour. Of all forms of poetry the drama is most dependent on popular sympathy and intelligence. With the loss of contact with public feeling the Roman drama lost its vital power. One cause of the change in public taste was the pa.s.sion for more frivolous and coa.r.s.er excitement, such as was afforded by the mimes and by gladiatorial combats and shows of wild beasts to a soldiery brutalised by constant wars, and to the civic ma.s.ses degraded by idleness and by intermixture from all quarters of the world. Other causes may have acted on the poets themselves, such as the exhaustion of the mine of ancient stories fit for dramatic purposes, and the truer sense, acquired through culture, of the bent of Roman genius. But another cause was the loss of mutual sympathy between the poet and the people, arising from the decay and final extinction of political life. In ancient, as occasionally also in modern times, the contests and interests of politics were the means of affording the highest intellectual stimulus of which they were capable to the large cla.s.ses on whom literary influences act only indirectly. So long as the old republican sense of citizenship remained, there was a bond of common feelings, ideas, and sympathies between the body of the people and some of the foremost and most highly educated men in Rome. There was an immediate sympathy between the political orator and his audiences within the Senate or in the public a.s.semblies; there was a sympathy, more remote, but still active, between the poet of the Republic, who had the strong feelings of a Roman citizen, and the great body of his countrymen. With the overthrow of free government, this bond of union between the educated and the uneducated cla.s.ses was destroyed. The former became more refined and fastidious, but lost something in breadth and genuine strength by the want of any popular contact. The latter became more debased, coa.r.s.er, and more servile. Poetic works were more and more addressed to a small circle of men of rank and education, sharing the same opinions, tastes, and pleasures. They thus became more finished as works of art, but had less direct bearing on the pa.s.sions and great public interests of their time.

The origin and the earliest stage of the Roman drama have been examined in a previous chapter. For about a century after the close of the Second Punic War new tragedies continued to be represented at Rome with little interruption, first by Ennius, afterwards by his nephew Pacuvius and by Accius. They devoted themselves more exclusively than any of their predecessors to the composition of tragedy. While the fame of Ennius chiefly rested on his epic poem[10], Pacuvius and Accius are cla.s.sed together as representatives of the tragic poetry of the Republic. Though in point of age there was a difference of fifty years between them, yet Cicero mentions, on the authority of Accius himself, that they had brought out plays under the same Aediles, when the one was eighty years of age and the other thirty.

M. Pacuvius, nephew, by the mother's side, of Ennius, was born at Brundusium, in the south of Italy, about 219 B.C., and died at Tarentum about 129 B.C., at the age of ninety. He obtained some distinction as a painter[11], and he is supposed to have written his tragedies late in life. Jerome records of him, 'picturam exercuit et fabulas vendidit.' Cicero represents Laelius as speaking of him as a friend, 'amici et hospitis mei.' A pleasing anecdote is told by Aulus Gellius[12] of his intercourse with his younger rival, L. Accius.

'When Pacuvius, at a great age, and suffering from disease of long standing, had retired from Rome to Tarentum, Accius, at that time a considerably younger man, on his journey to Asia, arrived at that town, and stayed with Pacuvius. And being kindly entertained, and constrained to stay for several days, he read to him, at his request, his tragedy of Atreus. Then, as the story goes, Pacuvius said, that what he had written appeared to him sonorous and elevated but somewhat harsh and crude. "It is just as you say," replied Accius; "and in truth I am not sorry for it, for I hope that I shall write better in future. For, as they say, the same law holds good in genius as in fruit. Fruits which are originally harsh and sour afterwards become mellow and pleasant; but those which have a soft and withered look, and are very juicy at first, become soon rotten without ever becoming ripe. It appears, accordingly, that there should be left something in genius also for the mellowing influence of years and time."' This anecdote, while giving a pleasing impression of the friendly relation subsisting between the older and younger poets, seems to add some corroboration to the opinion that the Romans valued more the oratorical style than the dramatic art of their tragedies. It affords support also to the testimony of Horace and Quintilian in regard to the distinction which the admirers of the old poetry drew between the excellence of Pacuvius and Accius:--

Ambigitur quoties uter utro sit prior, aufert Pacuvius docti famam senis, Accius alti.

Aulus Gellius quotes the epitaph of Pacuvius, written by himself to be inscribed on his tombstone, with a tribute of admiration to 'its modesty, simplicity, and fine serious spirit'--'Epigramma Pacuvii verecundissimum et purissimum dignumque ejus elegantissima gravitate.'

Adolescens, tametsi properas, te hoc saxum rogat, Ut se aspicias, deinde quod scriptum est, legas, Hic sunt poetae Pacuvi Marci sita Ossa. Hoc volebam nescius ne esses. Vale[13].

With its quiet and modest simplicity of tone this inscription is still significant of that dignified self-consciousness which characterised all the early Roman poets, though the feeling may have been displayed with more prominence by Naevius and Plautus, by Ennius, Accius, and Lucilius, than by Pacuvius.

Among the testimonies to his literary qualities the best known is that of Horace, quoted above. Cicero, in speaking of the age of Laelius as that of the purest Latinity, does not allow this merit to Pacuvius and to the comic poet Caecilius. He says of them, 'male locutos esse[14].'

Pacuvius seems to have attempted to introduce new forms of words, such as 'temeritudo,' 'geminitudo,' 'vanitudo,' 'concorditas,' 'unose'; and also to have carried to a greater length than any of the older poets the tendency to form such poetical compounds as 'tardigradus,'

'flexanimus,' 'flexidicus,' 'cornifrontis'--a tendency which the Latin language continued more and more to repudiate in the hands of its most perfect masters. One line is quoted in which the tendency probably reached the extremest limits it ever did in any Latin author,--

Nerei repandirostrum incurvicervic.u.m pecus.

We find also such inflexions as 'tetinerim,' for 'tenuerim,' 'pegi'

for 'pepigi,' 'cluentur' for 'cluent.' These peculiarities are ridiculed in the fragments of Lucilius, and also in a pa.s.sage of Persius. Another author[15] contrasts the _sententiae_ of Ennius with the _periodi_ of Pacuvius,--a distinction probably connected with the progress of oratory in the interval between the poets. Persius applies the term 'verrucosa' (an epithet not inapplicable to his own style) to the Antiope of Pacuvius, which, on the other hand, was much admired by Cicero[16]. Lucilius refers to this harshness of style in the line,

Verum tristis contorto aliquo ex Pacuviano exordio.

Pacuvius is known to have been the author of about twelve tragedies, founded on Greek subjects; and of one, _Paulus_, founded on Roman history. Among these, the _Antiope_ was perhaps the most famous and most admired. It was, like the Medea of Ennius, a translation from Euripides. The princ.i.p.al characters in it were the brothers Zethus and Amphion, the one devoted to hunting, the other to music. Their dispute as to the respective advantages of music and philosophy is referred to by Cicero and Horace, and by other authors. The Zethus of Pacuvius is described by Cicero[17] as one who made war on all philosophy; and the author of the treatise addressed to Herennius describes their controversy as beginning about music, and ending about philosophy and the use of virtue. Two dramas, the _Dulorestes_ and the _Chryses_, the latter being a continuation of the first, represented the adventures of Orestes in his wanderings with his friend Pylades, after the murder of his mother. The former play, in which Orestes was represented as on the point of being sacrificed by his sister Iphigenia, contained the pa.s.sage already referred to, in which Pylades and Orestes contend as to which should suffer for the other. The Chryses was founded on their subsequent adventures, and the t.i.tle of the play was apparently taken from the old Homeric priest of Apollo, Chryses, who bore a prominent part in it. Another of the plays of Pacuvius, the _Niptra_, was founded on, though not translated from, one of Sophocles[18]; and the t.i.tle seems to have been suggested by the story of the recognition of Ulysses by his nurse, Eurycleia, told at Odyssey xix. 386, etc.

The subjects of his other dramas may be inferred from their t.i.tles:--_Armorum Judicium_, _Atalanta_, _Hermione_, _Ilione_, _Io_, _Medus_ (son of Medea), _Pentheus_, _Periboea_, _Teucer_.

The fragments of Pacuvius amount to about four hundred lines. Many of these are single lines, preserved by grammarians in ill.u.s.tration of old forms and usages of words, and thus are of little value in the way of ill.u.s.trating his poetical or dramatic power. Several of them, however, are interesting, from the light which they throw on his mode of thought, his moral spirit, and his artistic faculty.

A remarkable pa.s.sage is quoted from the Chryses, showing the growth of that interest in physical philosophy, which was first expressed in the Epicharmus of Ennius, and which continued to have a powerful attraction for many of the Roman poets:--

Hoc vide, circ.u.m supraque quod complexu continet Terram Solisque exortu capessit candorem, occasu nigret, Id quod nostri caelum memorant, Graii perhibent aethera: Quidquid est hoc, omnia animat, format, alit, auget, creat, Sepelit recipitque in sese omnia, omniumque idem est pater, Indidemque eadem quae oriuntur, de integro aeque eodem incidunt[19].

The following fragment ill.u.s.trates the dawning interest in ethical speculation, which became much more active in the age of Cicero, under the influence of Greek studies:--

Fortunam insanam esse et caecam et brutam perhibent philosophi Saxoque instare in globoso praedicant volubili: Insanam autem esse aiunt, quia atrox, incerta, instabilisque sit: Caecam ob eam rem esse iterant, quia nil cernat quo sese adplicet: Brutam quia dignum atque indignum nequeat internoscere.

Sunt autem alii philosophi, qui contra fortunam negant Esse ullam, sed temeritate res regi omnis autumant.

Id magis veri simile esse usus reapse experiundo edocet: Velut Orestes modo fuit rex, factu'st mendicus modo[20].

These lines again from the Chryses show that Pacuvius, like Ennius, exposed and ridiculed the superst.i.tion of his time--

Nam isti qui linguam avium intelligunt Plusque ex alieno jecore sapiunt quam ex suo, Magis audiendum quam auscultandum censeo[21];

and this is to the same effect--

Nam si qui, quae eventura sunt, provideant, aequiparent Jovi.

This tendency to physical and ethical speculation may be the reason for which Horace applies to Pacuvius the epithet 'doctus.'

The fragments of Pacuvius show not only the cast of understanding, but also the grave and dignified tone of morality, which was found to be one of the most Roman characteristics of Ennius. They indicate also a similar humanity of feeling. The moral n.o.bleness of the situation, in which Pylades and Orestes contend which should sacrifice himself for the other, has already been noticed: 'stantes plaudebant in re ficta.'

Again, in the Tusculan Disputations (ii. 21), Cicero commends Pacuvius for deviating from Sophocles, who had represented Ulysses, in the Niptra, as utterly overcome by the power of his wound; while, in Pacuvius, those who are supporting him, 'personae gravitatem intuentes,' address this reproof to him, 'leviter gementi':--

Tu quoque Ulysses, quanquam graviter Cernimus ictum, nimis paene animo es Molli, qui consuetu's in armis Aevom agere[22]!

The strong tones of Roman fort.i.tude are heard in this grave rebuke; and the lines in which Ulysses, at the point of death, reproves the lamentations of those around him, have the unstudied directness that may be supposed to have characterised the serious speech of the time:--

Conqueri fortunam adversam, non lamentari decet: Id viri est officium, fletus muliebri ingenio additus[23].