The Roman Poets of the Republic Part 24

After the death of Terence the only writer of _palliatae_ of any name was s.e.xtus Turpilius, who died about the end of the second century B.C. No new element seems to have been contributed by him to the Roman Stage. After the decline of the Comoedia palliata, the Comoedia togata, which professed to represent the Roman and Italian life of the middle cla.s.ses, first obtained popular favour. The princ.i.p.al writers of this branch of comedy were T. Quintius Atta and L. Afranius. The latter was regarded as the Roman Menander:--

Dicitur Afrani toga convenisse Menandro.

The admiration which he expressed for Terence, whom he regarded as the foremost of all the Roman comic poets, is in keeping with this criticism. From the testimony of Quintilian[25] we may infer that the change of scene from Athens to Rome and the provincial towns of Italy did not improve the morality of the Roman stage. A further decline both in intellectual interest and in moral tendency appeared in the resuscitation in a literary form of the Fabulae Atellanae, the chief writers of which were L. Pomponius and Novius. A still further degradation was witnessed in the later days of the Republic and under the Empire in the rise of the 'Mimus,' as a recognised branch of dramatic literature. If the influence of the comic stage, when its chief representatives were Plautus and Terence, is to be regarded as only of a mixed character, it is difficult to a.s.sociate any idea of intellectual pleasure with the gross buffooneries of the Atellan farce, when it had pa.s.sed from the spontaneous hilarity of primitive times into the conditions of an artistic performance, and still less with the 'mimi,' which were intended to gratify the lowest propensities of the spectators. The rapid degeneracy of the ma.s.s of the people from the characteristic virtues of the older Republic is testified as much by the popularity of such spectacles as by the pa.s.sionate delight excited by the gladiatorial combats.

[Footnote 1: 'In argumento Caecilius poscit palmam,' quoted from Varro.]

[Footnote 2: Ep. ad Attic. vii. 3; Brutus, 74.]

[Footnote 3: Cf. Mommsen, vol. ii. p. 435, English Translation.]

[Footnote 4: 'Consulari utroque ac poeta.' Life of Terence, by Suetonius.]

[Footnote 5: Cf. Prologue to the Hecyra.]

[Footnote 6: Ritschl reads 'ingressus,' which would make him a year younger.]

[Footnote 7: Prol. Andria, l. 20.]

[Footnote 8: Eunuchus, Prologue, l. 22, etc.]

[Footnote 9: Prol. to Phormio, l. 5, etc.]

[Footnote 10: Prol. Adelph. 15-21.]

[Footnote 11: The Phormio is taken from Apollodorus.]

[Footnote 12: We have one or two Latin puns. Such as the play of words in _amentium_ and _amantium_, _verba_ and _verbera_; one or two cases of alliteration and asyndeton, e.g.--

Hic est victus, vetus, veternosus senex,--

and

Profundat, perdat, pereat, etc.;

but such mannerisms, which abound in Plautus, are extremely rare in the younger poet.]

[Footnote 13: In the Heauton Timorumenos.]

[Footnote 14: 'This act was not worthy of you, Chaerea: for even if it is quite fitting that I should receive such an insult, all the same it was not fitting that it should come from you.']

[Footnote 15: 'I am not so wanting in natural feeling or so unschooled in its ways as not to know what love is capable of.']

[Footnote 16: E.g. Andria, 115-136; 282-298; Heauton Timorumenos, 273-301.]

[Footnote 17: The original of such expressions as--Appone lucro; Dulce est desipere in loco; Rimosa quae deponuntur in aure; Qua parte debacchentur ignes; Cena dubia; Paucorum hominum et mentis bene sanae; Quam sapere et ringi; Quid non ebrietas designat?--and others, are to be found in Terence.]

[Footnote 18: Eunuch. A. i. 1; cf. Hor. Sat. ii. 3, 260, etc.]

[Footnote 19: 414, etc.]

[Footnote 20: 'Then I bid him look into the lives of men as into a mirror, and to form for himself an example from others.' 'Do this.' _Sy._ 'Quite right.' _De._ 'Avoid this.'

_Sy._ 'Cleverly said.' _De._ 'This is honourable.' _Sy._ 'That is it.' _De._ 'This is discreditable.']

[Footnote 21: Cf. Ep. ad Fam. i. 9. 19; Phil. ii. 15.]

[Footnote 22: Ep. ad Att. vii. 3. 10.]

[Footnote 23: Essays of Montaigne, Cotton's Translation, ch.

lxvii.]

[Footnote 24: By E. Negrette, in his Histoire de la Litterature Latine.]

[Footnote 25: Quint. x. 1, 100.]

CHAPTER VIII.

EARLY ROMAN SATIRE--C. LUCILIUS, DIED 102 B.C.

Poetical satire, as a branch of cultivated literature, arose out of the social and political circ.u.mstances, and the moral and literary conditions of Roman life in the last half of the second century B.C.

The tone by which that form of poetry has been characterised, in ancient and modern times, is derived from the genius and temper of a remarkable man, belonging to that era, and from the spirit in which he regarded the world. C. Lucilius invented satire, by first imparting a definite purpose to an inartistic kind of metrical composition, in which miscellaneous topics had been treated in accordance with the occasional mood or interests of the writer. Although the satire of Lucilius was rude and unfinished, and evidently retained much of the vague general character belonging to the satura of Ennius, yet he was undoubtedly the first Roman writer who used his materials with the aim and in the manner which poetical satire has permanently a.s.sumed.

The indigenous satura existing at Rome before the rise of regular literature had been merged partly in the Latin comedy of Naevius, Plautus, Caecilius, etc., partly in the metrical miscellanies of Ennius and Pacuvius, which, though not written for the stage, retained the name of the old scenic medley. The new satire differed from Latin comedy in form and style, and in the personal and national aims which it set before itself. The satire of Lucilius, and even that of Horace, retained many features in common with the desultory medley which Ennius had formed out of the older satura. But the latter was the parent of no permanent form of literary art. The miscellanies of Varro, the most famous work produced on this model, were composed partly in prose and partly in verse, and were never ranked by the Romans among their poetical works. The former, on the other hand, was the parent of the satire of Horace, of Persius, and of Juvenal, and, through that, of the poetical satire of modern times. The spirit of censorious criticism, in which Lucilius treated the politics and morals, the social manners and the literary taste of his age, has become the essential characteristic of that form of literature which derived its name from the old Italian satura.

Of all the forms of Roman poetry, satire was least indebted to the works of the Greeks. Quintilian claims it altogether for his countrymen--'satira tota nostra est.' Horace characterises it as 'Graecis intacti carminis.' While the names by which they are known at once betray the Greek invention of the other great forms of poetic art, the name of satire alone indicates a Roman origin. It is true that Lucilius, like every educated man of his time, was acquainted with the Greek language and literature. It is true also that the critical spirit in Greece had found vent for itself in the works of the early iambic writers, Archilochus, Simonides of Amorgos, and Hipponax, of the great authors of the old political comedy of Athens, and apparently in later writings such as the satiric discourses of Bion of Borysthenes, mentioned in Horace's line--

Ille Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro.

But Roman satire sprang up and flourished independently of any of those kinds of composition. In national spirit and moral purpose it was unlike the personal lampoons of the Greek satirists. It was perhaps not less personal, but was more ethical; it professed at least to be animated not by private enmity but by public spirit. It embraced also a much greater variety of topics. Horace finds a closer parallel to the satire of Lucilius in the old Athenian comedy. These two kinds of literature have this in common, that they are the expression of public, not of personal feeling. But though Lucilius probably, like Horace after him, studied the old comic poets 'Eupolis, Cratinus and Aristophanes,' to catch something of their spirit and manner in his satire, Roman satire was not an imitation of Greek comedy. Where Roman literature professes to be an imitation of Greek, it is the form and the metre much more than the spirit and matter that are reproduced.

Greek comedy and Roman satire were the independent results of freedom of speech and criticism in different ages and countries. Their difference in form arose out of fundamental differences in the character as well as in the genius of the two nations. Although Roman speakers and writers exercised a license of speech and of personal criticism equal to that which prevailed in the Athenian democracy, and beyond what the spirit of personal honour tolerates in modern times, yet the exposure of public men to ridicule on the stage was utterly repugnant to the instincts of an aristocratic republic in which one of the great bonds of union was respect for outward authority[1]. The tendency of the Roman mind to reduce all things to rule and to express itself in abstract comments on life, rather than to represent human nature in living forms, also favoured the a.s.sumption by Lucilius of a mode of literature addressing itself to the understanding of readers, and not to the curiosity of spectators.

The spirit by which satire is animated was native to Italy. The germ out of which it was developed was the _Fescennina licentia_, or, as it is called by Dionysius, the [Greek: kertomos kai satyrike paidia], peculiar to the Italian people. But in a.s.suming a regular literary form, this native raillery was tempered by the serious spirit and vigorous understanding of Rome, and liberalised by the tastes and ideas derived from a Greek education. The age in which satire arose,--the age of the Gracchi,--was one of social discontent, of political excitement, of intellectual activity, of moral and religious unsettlement: and all these conditions exercised a powerful influence on its character. As addressed not to the imagination but to the practical understanding, it was in a peculiar manner the literary product of a people 'rebus natus agendis.' It combined the practical philosophy of the 'abnormis sapiens,' expressing itself in proverbial sayings, anecdotes, and homely ill.u.s.trations; the keen perceptions, the criticism, and vivacity of a circle, educated, well-bred, and versed in affairs; the serious purpose of a moral censor; and the knowledge of life, which results from the mixed study of men and books. Their circ.u.mstances, temper, and pursuits, united these various elements, in different proportions, first in Lucilius, and after him in Horace. By writing what interested themselves, in accordance with their own natural bent, they satisfied the practical and social tastes of their countrymen. While the higher poetical imagination was a rare and exceptional gift among Roman authors, and was appreciated only by a limited cla.s.s of readers, there was in Roman satire a true popular ring and a close adaptation to the national character, understanding, and circ.u.mstances. Martial writes in his day--

Nescis heu, nescis dominae fastidia Romae: Crede mihi nimium Martia turba sapit: Maiores nusquam rhonchi; iuvenesque senesque Et pueri nasum rhinocerotis habent[2].--i. 4. 2-6.

As the most genuine product of actual Roman life, satire was, if not so luxuriant, a more vigorous plant than any other species of Roman poetry. It is seen growing up in hardy vigour under the free air of the Republic, attaining to mature perfection amid the rich intellectual life of the Augustan age, and still fresh and vital in the general intellectual languor and corruption of the Empire.

The Roman character of satire is attested also by the fact that other Roman poets and authors, besides those who professed to follow in the footsteps of Lucilius, have exhibited the satiric spirit. The caustic sense of Ennius, the generous scorn of Lucretius, the license of Catullus, attest their affinity, in some elements of character, to the Roman satirists. There may be remarked also in the best modern works of poetical satire,--such as the Absalom and Achitophel, the Prologue to Pope's Satires, the Vanity of Human Wishes,--a conscious or unconscious echo of that vigorous sense and nervous speech, which accompanied the great practical energy of the Romans.

Satire was not only national in its intellectual and moral characteristics, but it played a part in public life at Rome. Even under the Empire, when free speech and comment on the government were no longer possible, the Roman satirists claimed to perform an office similar in spirit to that which the Republic in its best days had devolved on its most honourable magistracy. But the satire of the Republic, besides performing this magisterial office, played an active part in the politics of the day. It combined the freedom of a tribune with the severity of a censor. It held up to public criticism the delinquencies of leading politicians, and of the ma.s.s of the people in their elective divisions,--

Primores populi arripuit populumque tributim.

Nor was it confined to aggressive criticism: it was used also as an instrument of political partisanship, to paint the virtues of Scipio as well as the vices of his antagonists. It thus performed something of the same kind of public office as the political pamphlet of an earlier time, and the newspaper of the present day.