A History of Roman Literature by Charles Thomas Cruttwell
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Charles Thomas Cruttwell >> A History of Roman Literature
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In the year 17 B.C. Augustus found an opportunity of testifying his regard
for Horace. The secular games, which were celebrated in that year,
included the singing of a hymn to Apollo and Diana by a chorus of 27 boys
and the same number of girls, selected from the highest families in the
state. The composition of this hymn was intrusted to Horace, much to his
own legitimate pride, and to our instruction and pleasure, for not only is
it a poem of high intrinsic excellence, but it is the only considerable
extant specimen of the lyrical part of Roman worship. Some scholars
include under it besides the _Carmen Saeculare_ proper, various other
odes, some of which unquestionably bear on the same subject, though, there
is no direct evidence of their having been sung together. [34] Whether
Horace had any Roman models in this style before him is not very clear. We
have seen that Livius Andronicus was selected to celebrate the victory of
Sena, [35] and there is an ode of Catullus [36] which seems to refer to
some similar occasion. Doubtless the main lines in which the composition
moved were indicated by custom; but the treatment was left to the
individual genius of the poet. In this case we observe the poet's happy
choice of a metre. Of all the varied lyric rhythms none, at least to our
ears, lends itself so readily to a musical setting as the Sapphic; and the
many melodies attached to odes in this metre by the monks of the Middle
Ages attest its special adaptability to choir-singing. Augustus was highly
pleased with the poet's performance, and two years' afterwards he
commanded him to celebrate the victory of his step-sons Drusus and
Tiberius over the Rhaeti and Vindelici. [37] This circumstance turned his
attention once more to lyric poetry, which for six years he had quite
discontinued. [38] It is not conclusively proved that he wrote all the
odes which compose the fourth book at this period; two or three bear the
impress of an earlier date, and were doubtless improved by re-writing or
revision, but the majority were the production of his later years, and
present to us the fruits of his matured judgment and taste. They show no
diminution of lyric power, but the reverse; nor is there any ode in the
first three books which surpasses or even equals the fourth poem in this
collection. Horace's attention was, during the last few years of his life,
given chiefly to literary subjects; the treatise on poetry and the epistle
to Julius Florus were written probably between 14 and 11 B.C. That to
Augustus is the last composition that issued from his pen; we may refer it
to 10 B.C. two years before his death.
Horace's health had long been the reverse of strong. Whether from early
delicacy, or from exposure to hardships in Asia, his constitution was
never able to respond to the demands made upon it by the society of the
capital. The weariness he expresses was often the result of physical
prostration. The sketch he has left of himself [39] suggests a physique
neither interesting nor vigorous. He was at 44 short, fat, and good-
natured looking (rallied, we learn, by Augustus on his obesity), blear-
eyed, somewhat dyspeptic, and prematurely grey; and ten years, we may be
sure, had not improved the portrait. In the autumn of 8 B.C. Maecenas, who
had long been himself a sufferer, succumbed to the effects of his devoted
and arduous service. His last message confided Horace to the Emperor's
care: "_Horatii flacci ut mei esto memor_." But the legacy was not long a
burden. The prophetic anticipations of affection that in death the poet
would not be parted from his friend [40] were only too faithfully
realised. Within a month of Maecenas's death Horace was borne to his rest,
and his ashes were laid beside those of his patron on the Esquiline
(November 29, 8 B.C.).
As regards the date of publication of his several books, several theories
have been propounded, for which the student is referred to the many
excellent editions of Horace that discuss the question. We shall content
ourselves with assigning those dates which seem to us the most probable.
All agree in considering the first book of the Satires to have been his
earliest effort. This may have been published in 34 B.C.; and in 29 B.C.
the two books of Satires together, and perhaps the _Epodes_. In 24 B.C.
probably appeared the first two books of Odes, which open and close with a
dedication to Maecenas, and in 23 B.C. the three books of Odes complete;
though some suppose that all appeared at once and for the first time in
this later year. In 21 B.C. perhaps, but more probably in 20, the first
book of the Epistles was published; in 14 B.C. the fourth book of the
Odes, though it is possible that the last ode of that book was written at
a later date. The second book of Epistles, in which may have been included
the _Ars Poetica_, could not have appeared before 10 B.C. It is clear that
the latter poem is not complete, but whether Horace intended to finish it
more thoroughly it is impossible to say.
In approaching the criticism of Horace, the first thing which strikes us
is, that in him we see two different poets. There is the lyricist winning
renown by the importation of a new kind of Greek song; and there is the
observant critic and man of the world, entrusting to the tablets, his
faithful companions, his reflections on men and things. The former poet
ran his course through the _Epodes_ to the graceful pieces which form the
great majority of his odes, and culminated in the loftier vein of lyric
inspiration that characterises his political odes. The latter began with a
somewhat acrimonious type of satire, which he speedily deserted for a
lighter and more genial vein, and finally rested in the sober, practical,
and healthy moralist and literary critic of the _Epistles_. It was in the
former aspect that he assumed the title of poet; with characteristic
modesty he relinquishes all claim to it with regard to his _Epistles_ and
_Satires_. We shall consider him briefly under these two aspects.
No writer believed so little in the sufficiency of the poetic gift by
itself to produce a poet. Had he trusted the maxim _Poeta nascitur, non
fit_, he would never have written his _Odes_. Looking back at his early
attempts at verse we find in them few traces of genuine inspiration. Of
the _Epodes_ a large number are positively unpleasing; others interest us
from the expression of true feeling; a few only have merits of a high
order. The fresh and enthusiastic, though somewhat diffuse, descriptions
of country enjoyments in the second and sixteenth Epodes, and the vigorous
word-painting in the fifth, bespeak the future master; and the patriotic
emotion in the seventh, ninth, and sixteenth, strikes a note that was to
thrill with loftier vibrations in the Odes of the third and fourth books.
But as a whole the _Epodes_ stand far below his other works. Their
bitterness is quite different from the genial irony of the _Satires_, and,
though occasionally the subjects of them merited the severest handling,
[41] yet we do not like to see Horace applying the lash. It was not his
proper vocation, and he does not do it well. He is never so unlike himself
as when he is making a personal attack. Nevertheless to bring himself into
notice, it was necessary to do something of the kind. Personal satire is
always popular, and Horace had to carve his own way to fame. It is evident
that the series of sketches of which Canidia is the heroine, [42] were
received with unanimous approval by the _beau monde_. This wretched woman,
singled out as the representative of a class which was gaining daily
influence in Rome, [43] he depicts in colours detestable and ignominious,
which do credit to his talent but not to his courteous feeling. Horace has
no true respect for woman. Nothing in all Latin poetry is so unpleasant as
his brutal attacks on those _hetaerae_ (the only ladies of whom he seems
to have had any knowledge) whose caprice or neglect had offended him. [44]
This is the one point in which he did not improve. In all other respects
his constant self-culture opened to him higher and ever widening paths of
excellence.
The glimpses of real feeling which the _Epodes_ allow us to gain are as a
rule carefully excluded from the _Odes_. This is at first sight a matter
for surprise. Our idea of a lyric poem is that of a warm and passionate
outpouring of the heart. Such are those of Burns; such are those of nearly
all the writers who have gained the heart of modern times. In the grand
style of dithyrambic song, indeed, the bard is rapt into an ideal world,
and soars far beyond his subjective emotions or desires; but to this
Pindaric inspiration Horace made no pretension. He was content to be an
imitator of Alcaeus and Sappho, who had attuned to the lyre their own
hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of their own chequered life. But in
imitating their form he has altogether changed their spirit. Where they
indulged feeling, he has controlled it; what they effect by intensity of
colour, he attains by studied propriety of language. He desires not to
enlist the world to sympathy with himself, but to put himself in sympathy
with the world. Hence the many-sidedness, the culture, the broad human
stand-point after which he ceaselessly strives. If depth must be
sacrificed to attain this, he is ready to sacrifice it. He finds a field
wide enough in the network of aims, interest, and feelings, which give
society its hold on us, and us our union with society. And he feels that
the writer who shall make his poem speak with a living voice to the
largest number of these, will meet with most earnest heed, and be doing
best the poet's true work. At the same time we must not forget that
Horace's public was not our public. The unwieldy mass of labouring
millions, shaken to its depths by questionings of momentous interest,
cannot be drawn to listen except by an emotion vast as its own; but the
society for whom Horace wrote was homogeneous in tone, limited in number,
cultivated in intellect, and deeply absorbed in a race of ambition, some
of whose prizes, at least, each might hope to win. He was, has been, and
intended himself to be, the poet of men of the world.
Among such men at all times, and to an immeasurably greater extent in
antiquity than now, staunch friendship has been considered one of the
chief of virtues. Whatever were Horace's relations to the other sex, no
man whom he had once called a friend had any cause to complain. Admirable
indeed in their frankness, their constancy, their sterling independence,
are the friendships it has delighted him to record. From the devoted,
almost passionate tribute to Maecenas--
"Ibimus ibimus
Uteunque praecedes supremum
Carpere iter comites parati,"
to the raillery so gracefully flung at an Iccius or Xanthias, for whom yet
one discerns the kindest and tenderest feeling, these memorials of Roman
intercourse place both giver and receiver in a truly amiable light. We can
understand Augustus's regret that he had not been honoured with a regard
of which he well knew the value. For the poet was rich who could dispense
gifts like these.
Interspersed with the love-odes, addresses to friends and _pieces de
circonstance_, we observe, even in the earlier books, lyrics of a more
serious cast. Some are moral and contemplative, as the grand ode to
Fortune [45] and that beginning
"Non ebur neque aureum
Mea renidet in domo lacunar." [46]
Others are patriotic or political, as the second, twelfth, and thirty-
seventh of Book I. (the last celebrating the downfall of Cleopatra), and
the fifteenth of Book II. which bewails the increase of luxury. In these
Horace is rising to the truly Roman conception that poetry, like other
forces, should be consecrated to the service of the state. And now that he
could see the inevitable tendency of things, could gauge the emperor's
policy and find it really advantageous, he arose, no longer as a half-
unwilling witness, but as a zealous co-operator to second political by
moral power. The first six and the twenty-fourth Odes of the third book
show us Horace not indeed at his best as a poet, but at his highest as a
writer. They exhibit a more sustained manliness of tone than is perhaps to
be found in any passages of equal length from any other author. Heathen
ethics have no nobler portrait than that of the just man tenacious of his
purpose, with which the third ode begins; and Roman patriotism no grander
witness than the heart-stirring narrative of Regulus going forth to
Carthage to meet his doom. Whether or not the third ode was written to
dissuade Augustus from his rumoured project of transferring the seat of
empire from Rome to Troy, it expresses most strongly the firm conviction
of those best worth consulting, and, if the emperor really was in doubt,
must, in conjunction with Virgil's emphatic repetition of the same
sentiment, [47] have effectually turned him from his purpose. For these
odes carried great authority. In them the poet appears as the authorised
voice of the state, dispensing _verba et voces_ [48] "the charm of poesy"
to allay the moral pestilence that is devouring the people.
No one can read the odes without being struck with certain features
wherein they differ from his other works. One of these is his constant
employment of the Olympian mythology. Whatever view we may hold as to
their appearance in the _Aeneid_, there can he no doubt that in the _Odes_
these deities have a purely fictitious character. With the single
exception of Jupiter, the eternal Father, without second or equal even
among the Olympian choir, [49] whom he is careful not to name, none of his
allusions imply, but on the contrary implicitly disown, any belief in
their existence. In the satires and epistles he never employs this
conventional ornament. The same thing is true of his language to Augustus.
Assuming the poet's license, he depicts him as the son of Maia, [50] the
scion of kindly deities, [51] and a living denizen of the ethereal
mansions. [52] But in the epistles he throws off this adulatory tone, and
accosts the Caesar in a way befitting their mutual relations; for in
declaring that altars are raised to him and men swear by his name, [53] he
is not using flattery, but stating a fact. Another point of difference is
his fondness in the Odes for commonplaces, _e.g._ the degeneracy of the
age, [54] the necessity of enjoying the moment, [55] which he enforces
with every variety of illustration. Neither of these was the result of
genuine conviction. On the former he gives us his real view (a very noble
and rational one) in the third Satire of the first book, [56] and in the
_Ars Poetica_, as different as possible from the desponding pessimism of
ode and epode. And the Epicurean maxims which in them he offers as the sum
of wisdom, are in his _Epistles_ exchanged for their direct opposites:
[56]
"Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum,
Sperne voluptates; nocet empta dolore voluptas."
It is clear then that in the _Odes_, for the most part, he is an artist
not a preacher. We must not look to them for his deepest sentiments, but
for such, and such only, as admitted an effective lyric treatment.
As regards their form, we observe that they are moulded strictly upon the
Greek, some of those on lighter themes being translations or close
imitations. But in naturalising the Greek metres, he has accommodated them
with the rarest skill to the harmonies of the Latin tongue. The Virgilian
movement differs not more from the Homeric, than does the Horatian sapphic
or alcaic from the same metres as treated by their Greek inventors. The
success of Horace may be judged by comparing his stanzas with the sapphics
of Catullus on the one hand, and the alcaics of Statius on the other. The
former struggle under the complicated shackles of Greek prosody; the
latter move on the stilts of school-boy imitation. In language he is
singularly choice without being a purist; agreeably to their naturalised
character he has interspersed the odes with Greek constructions, some
highly elegant, others a little forced and bordering upon experiments on
language. [57] The poetry of his language consists not so much in its
being imaginative, as in its employing the fittest words in the fittest
places. Its general level is that of the best epistolary or oratorical
compositions, according to the elevation of the subject. He loves not to
soar into the empyrean, but often checks Pegasus by a strong curb, or by a
touch of irony or an incongruous allusion prevents himself or his reader
being carried away. [58] This mingling of irony and earnest is thoroughly
characteristic of his genius. To men of realistic minds it forms one of
the greatest of its charms.
Among the varied excellences of these gems of poetry, we shall select
three, as those after which Horace most evidently sought. They are
brevity, ease, life. In the first he is perhaps unequalled. It is not only
that what he says is terse; in what he omits we recognise the master hand.
He knows precisely what to dwell on, what to hint at, what to pass by. He
is on the best understanding with his reader. He knows the reader is a
busy man, and he says--"Read me! and, however you may judge my work, you
shall at least not be bored." We recollect no instance in which Horace is
prolix; none in which he can be called obscure; though there are many
passages that require weighing, and many abrupt transitions that somewhat
task thought. In condensed simplicity he is the first of Latin poets. Who
that has once heard can forget such phrases as _Nil desperandum, splendide
mendax, non omnis moriar, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_, and a
hundred others? His brevity is equalled by his ease. By this must not be
understood either spontaneity of invention or rapidity of execution. We
know that he was a slow, nay, a laborious workman.[59] But he has the _ars
celare artem_. What can be more natural than the transition from the
praises of young Nero to Hannibal's fine lament? [60] from those of
Augustus to the speech of Juno? [61] Yet these are effected with the most
subtle skill. And even when the digression appears more forced, as in the
well-known instances of Europa [62] and the Danaides, [63] the incongruity
is at once removed by supposing that the legend in each case forms the
main subject of the poem, and that the occasional introductions are a
characteristic form of preamble, perhaps reflected from Pindar. And once
more as to his liveliness. This is the highest excellence of the _Odes_.
It never flags. If the poet does not rise to an exalted inspiration, he at
least never sinks into heaviness, never loses life. To cite but one ode,
in an artistic point of view, perhaps, the jewel of the whole collection--
the dialogue between the poet and Lydia; [64] here is an entire comedy
played in twenty-four lines, in which the dialogue never becomes insipid,
the action never flags. Like all his love odes it is barren of deep
feeling, for which reason, perhaps, they have been compared to scentless
flowers. But the comparison is most unjust. Aroma, _bouquet:_ this is
precisely what they do _not_ lack. Some other metaphor must be sought to
embody the deficiency. At the same time the want is a real one; and
exquisite as are the _Odes_, no one knew better than their author himself
that they have no power to pierce the heart, or to waken those troubled
musings which in their blending of pain and pleasure elevate into
something that it was not before, the whole being of him that reads them.
The _Satires_ and _Epistles_ differ somewhat in form, in elaboration, and
in metrical treatment, but on the whole they have sufficient resemblance
to be considered together. The Horatian satire is _sui generis_. In the
familiar modern sense it is not satire at all. The censorious spirit that
finds nothing to praise, everything to ridicule, is quite alien to Horace.
Neither Persius nor Juvenal, Boileau nor Pope, bears any real resemblance
to him. The two former were satirists in the modern sense; the two latter
have caught what we may call the _town_ side of Horace, but they are
accomplished epigrammatists and rhetoricians, which he is not, and they
entirely lack his strong love for the simple and the rural. Horace is
decidedly the least rhetorical of all Roman poets. His taste is as free
from the contamination of the basilica [65] as it is from that of
Alexandrinism. As in lyric poetry he went straight to the fountain-head,
seeking models among the bards of old Greece, so in his _prose-poetry_, as
he calls the _Satires_, [66] he draws from the well of real experience,
departing from it neither to the right hand nor to the left. This is what
gives his works their lasting value. They are all gold; in other words,
they have been dug for. Refined gold all certainly are not, many of them
are strikingly the reverse; for all sorts of subjects are treated by them,
bad as well as good. The poet professes to have no settled plan, but to
wander from subject to subject, as the humour or the train of thought
leads him; as Plato says--
_opae an o logos agoi, tautae iteon_.
Without the slightest pretence of authority or the right to dictate, he
contrives to supply us with an infinite number of sound and healthy moral
lessons, to reason with us so genially and with so frank an admission of
his own equal frailty, that it is impossible to be angry with him,
impossible not to love the gentle instructor. He has been accused of
tolerance towards vice. That is, we think, a great error. Horace knew men
too well to be severe; his is no trumpet-call, but a still small voice,
which pleads but does not accuse. He was no doubt in his youth a lax
liver; [67] he had adopted the Epicurean creed and the loose conduct that
follows it. But he was struggling towards a purer ideal. Even in the
_Satires_ he is only half an Epicurean; in the _Epistles_ he is not one at
all: and in proportion as he has outlived the hot blood of youth, his
voice becomes clearer and his faith in virtue stronger. The _Epistles_ are
to a great extent reflective; he has examined his own heart, and depicts
his musings for our benefit. Many of them are moral essays filled with
precepts of wisdom, the more precious as having been genuinely thought out
by the writer for himself. Less dramatic, less vigorous, perhaps, than the
_Satires_, they embody in choicest language the maturest results of his
reflection. Their poetical merits are higher, their diction more chaste,
their metre more melodious. With the _Georgics_ they are ranked as the
most perfect examples of the modulation of hexameter verse. Their movement
is rippling rather than flowing, and satisfies the mind rather than the
ear, but it is a delicious movement, full of suggestive grace. The
diction, though classical, admits occasional colloquialisms. [68]
Several of the _Satires_, [69] and the three Epistles which form the
second book, are devoted to literary criticism, and these have always been
regarded as among the most interesting of Horace's compositions. His
opinions on previous and contemporary poetry are given with emphasis, and
as a rule ran counter to the opinion of his day. The technical dexterity
in versification which had resulted from the feverish activity of the last
forty years, had produced a disastrous consequence. All the world was
seized with the mania for writing poetry:
"Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim."
The young Pisos were among the number. To them the poet gave this friendly
counsel, to lock up their creations for nine years, and then publish, or
as we may shrewdly suspect he meant--destroy them. Poetry is the one thing
that, if it is to be done at all, must be done well:
"Mediocribus esse poetis
Non di, non homines, non concessere columnae."
In Horace's opinion none of the old poetry came up to this standard. When
he quotes two lines of Ennius [70] as defying all efforts to make prose of
them, we cannot help fancying he is indulging his ironical vein. He never
speaks seriously of Ennius. In fact he thoroughly disliked the array of
"old masters" that were at once confronted with him whenever he expressed
a predilection. It was not only the populace who yawned over Accius's
tragedies, or the critics who lauded the style of the Salian hymn, that
moved his resentment. These he could afford to despise. It was rather the
antiquarian prepossessions of such men as Virgil, Maecenas, and Augustus,
that caused him so earnestly to combat the love of all that was old. In
his zeal there is no doubt he has outrun justice. He had no sympathy for
the untamed vigour of those rough but spirited writers; his fastidious
taste could make no allowance for the circumstances against which they had
to contend. To reply that the excessive admiration lavished by the
multitude demanded an equally sweeping condemnation, is not to excuse
Horace. One who wrote so cautiously would never have used exaggeration to
enforce his words. The disparaging remarks must be regarded as expressing
his real opinion, and we are not concerned to defend it.
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