The Roman Poets of the Republic Part 22

[Footnote 62: For a list of these cp. the edition of the Mostellaria by the late Professor Ramsay.]

[Footnote 63: E.g. Mellitus, ocelle, mea anima, medullitus amare.]

[Footnote 64: 'Don't threaten me; I know that the cross will be my tomb: there lie my ancestors, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather: but your threats can't dig these eyes out of my head.'--Mil. Glor. 372-5.]

[Footnote 65: The conclusion of the Aulularia is lost, but the play seems to have ended with the old man's consigning his treasure into the hands of his son-in-law and daughter.]

[Footnote 66: 'The G.o.ds only are rich: great wealth and high connexions are for the G.o.ds; but we, poor creatures, are but a tiny spark of life, and so soon as that is gone, the beggar and the richest man, when dead, are rated alike by the sh.o.r.es of Acheron.'--Trin. 490-4.]

[Footnote 67:

Non vidisse undas me maiores censeo.--Rudens, 167.

Atque ut nunc valide fluctuat mare, nulla n.o.bis spes est.

--Ib. 303.]

[Footnote 68: Cf.

Atque hoc scelesti [illi] in animum induc.u.n.t suum Iovem se placare posse donis, hostiis: Et operam et sumptum perdunt; id eo fit quia Nihil ei accemptumst a periuris supplici, etc.--22-5.]

[Footnote 69: 9-12.]

[Footnote 70: 280, 1.]

[Footnote 71: 694, etc.]

[Footnote 72: 'O Gripus, Gripus! in the life of man are laid many snares, by which they are trapped; and for the most part a bait is laid on them, and whoso in his greed greedily craves for it, by reason of his greed he is caught in the trap. But whoso warily, wisely, craftily takes heed, to him it is given long to enjoy what has been well earned. That prize of yours, I fancy, will be so made prize of, as to bring a larger dower in going from us than when it came to us. To fancy that I should be capable of keeping secret possession of what I know to be another's property! Far will that be from our friend Daemones. It is the absolute duty of a wise man to be on his guard against ever being privy to any wrong done by his own people. I never would care for any gain, except when I am in the game.'--Rudens, 1235-48.]

[Footnote 73: 'Provided it be not for wrong done, let me perish, I care not. If I shall perish here, while he returns not, as he promised, yet even after death this will be a memorable act, that I restored my master from captivity and his enemies to his father and his home, and chose rather to emperil my own life here than that he should perish.'--Captivi, 682-8.]

[Footnote 74: 'So it befell my mistress this day: for when she calls the powers of travail to her aid, lo! there ensues a rumbling, rattling noise, loud uproar and a peal of thunder--all of a sudden how fast, how mightily it thundered!

At the crash each one fell on the spot where he stood. Then some one, I know not who, exclaims in a loud voice, "Alcmena, be not afraid; help is at hand: the dweller in the skies draweth nigh with kindly intent to thee and thine. Arise ye who from the dread inspired by me have fallen down in alarm."

As I lay, I rose up: methought the house was all on fire, so brightly did it shine.'--Amphitruo, 1060-67.]

[Footnote 75: 'I call not that which is named my dower, my true dower, but chast.i.ty and modesty, and pa.s.sion subdued, fear of the G.o.ds, affection to my parents, amity with my kinsmen, a will to yield to thee, to be bountiful to the good, of service to the worthy.'--Amphitruo, 839-42.]

[Footnote 76: 86.]

[Footnote 77: Captivi, 280.]

[Footnote 78: Pseud. 666.]

[Footnote 79: Captivi, 310.]

[Footnote 80: Pseud. 677.]

[Footnote 81: Cf. Aul. iii. 5. 4-8:--

Nam, meo quidem animo, si idem faciant ceteri, Opulentiores pauperiorum filias Ut indotatas ducant uxores domum, Et multo fiat civitas concordior, Et invidia nos minore utamur, quam utimur.]

[Footnote 82: Curculio, 33-8.]

[Footnote 83: 'I was a fine gentleman, a nice fellow--a good or respectable man I never was nor will be.'--Capt. 956-7.]

[Footnote 84: Cp. the winding up of the Mostellaria, Casina, Cistellaria.]

[Footnote 85: 'Look there, if you please, how he has taken up his post, with serious brow pondering, meditating; now he taps his breast with his fingers. I fancy he is going to summon his heart outside: look, he turns away; now his left hand is leaning on his left thigh; with his right hand he is making a calculation on his fingers; his right thigh burns, such a violent blow he has struck it; his scheme does not come easily to him:--he cracks his fingers: he is at a loss; he often changes his position: look, there he nods his head: he does not like this new idea. Whatever it is, he will not bring it out till it is ready: he'll serve it up well done. Look again, he is busy building: he props up his chin with a pillar. Away with it! I don't like that kind of building: for I have heard that a foreign poet has his face thus pillared, beside whom two sentinels are every hour on watch. Bravo! by Hercules, now he is in a fine att.i.tude, like a slave, or a man in a play.--Mil. Glor. 201-14.]

[Footnote 86: Pseud. 1246.]

[Footnote 87: 'Hear me, ye bolts, ye bolts, gladly I greet you, I love you, I am fond of you; I beg you, I beseech you, most amiably now comply with the desire of me a lover. For my sake become like foreign dancers; spring up, I beseech you, and send her forth, who now is drinking up the life-blood of me her lover. Mark how these vilest bolts are still asleep, and do not stir one whit on my account.'--Curculio, 147-154.]

[Footnote 88: Pseud. 132-238.]

[Footnote 89: 'See that when I return from the Forum, I find everything ready, the floor swept, sprinkled, polished, the couches covered; the plate all clean and arranged: for this is my birthday: this you must all join in keeping: I want to entertain some great people sumptuously, that they may think I am well to do.'--Pseud. 159-62.]

[Footnote 90: 'A red-haired fellow, pot-bellied, with thick legs, darkish, with a big head, keen eyes, a red face, and enormous feet.']

[Footnote 91: 'By Pollux he is of the mushroom sort: he hides himself with his head: he looks like an Illyrian: he is got up like one;'--

'I should be surprised if he be not either some dreaming fellow (?al. house-breaker) or a cutpurse: he takes a good look of the ground, gazes about him, takes note of the house.'--Trinum. 850-862.]

[Footnote 92: Bacchid. 289.]

[Footnote 93: Curculio, 337, etc.]

[Footnote 94: Cp. the proverbial 'taking the breeches off a Highlander,' and the lines in one of Burns' earliest songs--

'And then there's something in her gait Gars ony dress look weel.']

CHAPTER VII.

TERENCE AND THE COMIC POETS SUBSEQUENT TO PLAUTUS.

The names of five or six comic dramatists are known, who fill the s.p.a.ce of eighteen years between the death of Plautus and the representation of the earliest play of Terence, the 'Andria.' From one of these, Aquilius, some verses are quoted, which Varro did not hesitate to attribute to Plautus, and which Gellius characterises as 'Plautinissimi.' They are the words of a parasite, complaining of the invention of sun-dials as inconveniently r.e.t.a.r.ding the dinner hour. Among these writers the most famous was Caecilius Statius, an Insubrian Gaul, first a slave, and afterwards a freedman of a member of the Caecilian house. He is said to have lived on terms of great intimacy with Ennius. His poetic career very nearly coincides with that of the epic and tragic poet, and he only survived him by one year. Some Roman critics ranked him above even Plautus as a comic poet. The line of Horace--

Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte--

probably indicates the ground of their preference. He is said also to have been careful in the construction of his plots[1]. Cicero, who often quotes from him, speaks of him as having written a bad style[2].

He is also mentioned among those poets who 'powerfully moved the feelings.'

He composed about forty plays. Most of them had Greek t.i.tles, and a considerable number of these are identical with the t.i.tles of comedies by Menander. Two of the longest of his fragments express with more bitterness and less humour the feelings which husbands in Plautus entertain towards their wives. In one of these pa.s.sages he has adapted his Greek original to the coa.r.s.er Roman taste with even less fastidiousness than Plautus generally shows[3]. Another pa.s.sage, from the Synephebi, is more in the spirit of Terence than of Plautus. It is one in which a young lover complains that the 'good nature' (commoditas) of his father made it impossible to cheat him with an easy conscience.

Occasionally we find specimens of those short maxims which probably led the Augustan critics to attribute to him the character of _gravitas_, such as the