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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The _Heroides_ or love-letters from mythological heroines to their
(mostly) faithless spouses, are declared by Ovid to be an original
importation from Greece. [39.] They are erotic _suasoriae_, based on the
declamations of the schools, and are perhaps the best appreciated of all
his compositions. They present the Greek mythology under an entirely new
phase of treatment. Virgil had complained [40] that its resources were
used up, and in Propertius we already see that allusive way of dealing
with it which savours of a general satiety. But in Ovid's hands the old
myths became young again, indeed, younger than ever; and people wonder
they could ever have lost their interest. His method is the reverse of
Virgil's or Livy's. [41] They take pains to make themselves ancient; he,
with wanton effrontery, makes the myths modern. Jupiter, Juno, the whole
circle of Olympus, are transformed into the _hommes et femmes galantes_ of
Augustus's court, and their history into a _chronique scandaleuse_. The
immoral incidents, round which a veil of poetic sanctity had been cast by
the great consecrator time, are here displayed in all their mundane
pruriency. In the _Metamorphoses_ Jupiter is introduced as smitten with
the love of a nymph, Dictynna; some compunctions of conscience seize him,
and the image of Juno's wrath daunts him, but he finally overcomes his
fear with these words--
"Hoc furtum certe coniux mea nesciet (inquit);
Aut si rescierit, sunt O sunt iurgia tanti?"
So, in the _Heroides_, the idea of the desolate and love-lorn Ariadne
writing a letter from the barren isle of Naxos is in itself ridiculous,
nor can all the pathos of her grief redeem the irony. Helen wishes she had
had more practice in correspondence, so that she might perhaps touch her
lover's chilly heart. Ovid using the language of mythology, reminds us of
those heroes of Dickens who preface their communications by a wink of
intelligence.
His next venture was of a more compromising character. Intoxicated with
popularity, he devoted three long poems to a systematic treatment of the
_Art of Love_, on which he lavished all the graces of his wayward talent,
and a combination of mythological, literary, and social allusion, that
seemed to mark him out for better things. He is careful to remark at the
outset that this poem is not intended for the virtuous. The frivolous
gallants, whose sole end in life is dissipation, with the objects of their
licentious passion, are the readers for whom he caters. But he had
overshot his mark; The _Amores_ had been tolerated, for they had followed
precedent. But even they had raised him enemies. The _Art of Love
_produced a storm of indignation, and without doubt laid the foundations
of that severe displeasure on the part of Augustus, which found vent ten
years later in a terrible punishment. For Ovid was doing his best to
render the emperor's reforms a dead letter. It was difficult enough to get
the laws enforced, even with the powerful sanction of a public opinion
guided by writers like Horace and Virgil. But here was a brilliant poet
setting his face right against the emperor's will. The necessity of
marriage had been preached with enthusiasm by two unmarried poets; a law
to the same effect had been passed by two unmarried consuls; [42] a moral
_regime_ had been inaugurated by a prince whose own morals were or had
been more than dubious. All this was difficult; but it had been done. And
now the insidious attractions of vice were flaunted in the most glowing
colours in the face of day. The young of both sexes yielded to the charm.
And what was worse, the emperor's own daughter, whom he had forced to stay
at home carding wool, to wear only such garments as were spun in the
palace, to affect an almost prudish delicacy, the proud and lovely Julia,
had been detected in such profligacy as poured bitter satire on the old
monarch's moral discipline, and bore speaking witness to the power of an
inherited tendency to vice. The emperor's awful severity bespoke not
merely the aggrieved father but the disappointed statesman. Julia had
disgraced his home and ruined his policy, and the fierce resentment which
rankled in his heart only waited its time to burst forth upon the man who
had laboured to make impurity attractive. [43] Meanwhile Ovid attempted,
two years later, a sort of recantation in the _Remedia Amoris_, the
frivolity of which, however, renders it as immoral as its predecessor
though less gross; and he finished his treatment of the subject with the
_Medicamina Faciei_, a sparkling and caustic quasi-didactic treatise, of
which only a fragment survives. [44] During this period (we know not
exactly when) was composed the tragedy of _Medea_, which ancient critics
seem to have considered his greatest work. [45] Alone of his writings it
showed his genius in restraint, and though _we_ should probably form a
lower estimate of its excellence, we may regret that time has not spared
it. Among other works written at this time was an elegy on the death of
Messala (3. A.D.), as we learn from the letters from Pontus. [46] Soon
after he seems, like Prince Henry, to have determined to turn over a new
leaf and abandon his old acquaintances. Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, were
dead; there was no poet of eminence to assist the emperor by his pen. Ovid
was beyond doubt the best qualified by his talent, but Augustus had not
noticed him. He turned to patriotic themes in order to attract favourable
notice, and began his great work on the national calendar. Partly after
the example of Propertius, partly by his own predilection, he kept to the
elegiac metre, though he is conscious of its betraying him into occasional
frivolous or amatory passages where he ought to be grave. [47] "Who would
have thought (he says) that from a poet of love I should have become a
patriotic bard?" [48] While writing the _Fasti_ he seems to have worked
also at the _Metamorphoses_, a heroic poem in fifteen books, entirely
devoted to mythological stories, mostly of transformations caused by the
love or jealousy of divine wooers, or the vengeance of their aggrieved
spouses. There are passages in this long work of exceeding beauty, and a
prodigal wealth of poetical ornament, which has made it a mine for modern
poets. Tasso, Ariosto, Guarini, Spenser, Milton, have all drunk deep of
this rich fountain. [49] The skill with which the different legends are
woven into the fabric of the composition is as marvellous as the frivolous
dilettantism which could treat a long heroic poem in such a way. The
_Metamorphoses_ were finished before 7 A.D.; the _Fasti_ were only
advanced to the end of the sixth book, when all further prosecution of
them was stopped by the terrible news, which struck the poet like a
thunderbolt, that he was ordered to leave Rome forever. The cause of his
exile has been much debated. The ostensible ground was the immorality of
his writings, and especially of the _Art of Love_, but it has generally
been taken for granted that a deeper and more personal reason lay behind.
Ovid's own hints imply that his eyes had been witness to something that
they should not, which he calls a _crimen_ (_i.e._ a crime against the
emperor). [50] The most probable theory is that Augustus took advantage of
Ovid's complicity in the younger Julia's misconduct to wreak the full
measure of his long-standing indignation against the poet, whose evil
counsels had helped to lead astray not only her but his daughter also. He
banished him to Tomi, an inhospitable spot not far from the mouth of the
Danube, and remained deaf to all the piteous protestations and abject
flatteries which for ten years the miserable poet poured forth.
This punishment broke Ovid's spirit. He had been the spoilt child of
society, and he had no heart for any life but that of Rome. He pined away
amid the hideous solitudes and the barbarous companionship of Goths and
Sarmatians. His very genius was wrecked. Not a single poem of merit to be
compared with those of former times now proceeded from his pen.
Nevertheless he continued to write as fluently as before. Now that he was
absent from his wife--for he had been thrice married--this very undomestic
poet discovered that he had a deep affection for her. He wrote her
endearing letters, and reminded her of their happy hours. As she was a
lady of high position and a friend of the Empress Livia, he no doubt hoped
for her good offices. But her prudence surpassed her conjugal devotion.
Neither she, nor the noble and influential friends [51] whom he implored
in piteous accents to intercede for him, ever ventured to approach the
emperor on a subject on which he was known to be inexorable. And when
Augustus died and Tiberius succeeded, the vain hopes that had hitherto
buoyed up Ovid seem to have quite faded away. From such a man it was idle
to expect mercy. So, for two or three years the wretched poet lingered on,
still solacing himself with verse, and with the kindness of the natives,
who sought by every means to do him honour and soothe his misfortune, and
then, in the sixtieth year of his age, 17 A.D., he died, and was buried in
the place of his dreary exile.
Much as we may blame him, the severity of his punishment seems far too
great for his offence, since Ovid is but the child of his age. In praising
him, society praised itself; as he says with natural pride, "The fame that
others gain after death, I have known in my lifetime." He was of a
thoroughly happy, thoughtless, genial temper; before his reverse he does
not seem to have known a care. His profligacy cost him no repentance; he
could not see that he had done wrong; indeed, according to the lax notions
of the time, his conduct had been above rather than below the general
standard of dissipated men. The palliations he alleges in the second book
of the _Tristia_, which is the best authority for his life, are in point
of fact, unanswerable. To regard his age as wicked or degenerate never
entered into his head. He delighted in it as the most refined that the
world had ever known; "It is," he says jokingly, "the true Golden Age, for
every pleasure that exists may be got for gold." So wedded was he to
literary composition that he learnt the Sarmatian language and wrote poems
in it in honour of Augustus, the loss of which, from a philological point
of view, is greatly to be regretted. His muse must be considered as at
home in the salons find fashionable coteries of the great. Though his
style is so facile, it is by no means simple. On the contrary, it is one
of the most artificial ever created, and could never have bea attained at
all but by a natural aptitude, backed by hard study, amid highly-polished
surroundings from childhood. These Ovid had, and he wielded his brilliant
instrument to perfection. What euphuism was to the Elizabethan courtiers,
what the _langue galante_ was to the court of Louis XIV., the mythological
dialect was to the gay circles of aristocratic Rome. [5]
It was select, polished, and spiced with a flavour of profanity. Hence,
Ovid could never be a popular poet, for a poet to be really popular must
be either serious or genuinely humorous; whereas Ovid is neither. His
irony, exquisitely ludicrous to those who can appreciate it, falls flat
upon less cultivated minds, and the lack of strength that lies beneath his
smooth exterior [53] would unfit him, even if his immorality did not stand
in the way, for satisfying or even pleasing the mass of mankind.
The _Ibis_ and _Halieuticon_ were composed during his exile; the former is
a satiric attack upon a person now unknown, the latter a prosaic account
of the fish found in the neighbourhood of Tomi.
Appended to Ovid's works are several graceful poems which have put forward
a claim to be his workmanship. His great popularity among the schools of
the rhetoricians both in Rome and the provinces, caused many imitations to
be circulated under his name. The most ancient of these is the _Nux
elegia_, which, if not Ovid's, must be very shortly posterior to him; it
is the complaint of a walnut tree on the harsh treatment it has to suffer,
sometimes in very difficult verse, [54] but not inelegant. Some of the
_Priapeia_ are also attributed to him, perhaps with reason; the
_Consolatio ad Liviam_, on the death of Drusus, is a clever production of
the Renaissance period, full of reminiscences of Ovid's verse, much as the
_Ciris_ is filled with reminiscences of Virgil. [55]
Ovid was the most brilliant figure in a gay circle of erotic and epic
poets, many of whom he has handed down in his _Epistles_, others have
transmitted a few fragments by which we can estimate their power. The
eldest was PONTICUS, who is also mentioned by Propertius as an epic writer
of some pretensions. Another was MACER, whose ambition led him to group
together the epic legends antecedent and subsequent to those narrated in
the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. There was a Pompeius Macer, an excellent man,
who with his son committed suicide under Tiberius, [56] his daughter
having been accused of high treason, and unable to clear herself. The son
is probably identical with this friend of Ovid's. SABINUS, another of his
intimates, who wrote answers to the _Heroides_, was equally conspicuous in
heroic poetry. The title of his poem is not known. Some think it was
_Troezen_; [57] but the text is corrupt. Ovid implies [58] that his
rescripts to the _Heroides_ were complete; it is a misfortune that we have
lost them. The three poems that bear the title of _A. Sabini Epistolae_,
and are often bound with Ovid's works, are the production of an Italian
scholar of the fifteenth century. TUTICANUS, who was born in the same year
with Ovid, and may perhaps have been the author of Tibullus's third book,
is included in the last epistle from Pontus [59] among epic bards.
CORNELIUS SEVERUS, a better versifier than poet, [60] wrote a _Sicilian
War_, [61] of which the first book was extremely good. In it occurred the
verses on the death of Cicero, quoted by the elder Seneca [62] with
approbation:
Oraque magnanimum spirantia paene virorum
In rostris iacuere suis: sed enim abstulit omnis,
Tanquam sola foret, rapti Ciceronis imago.
Tunc redeunt animis ingentia consulis acta
Iurataeque manus deprensaque foedera noxae
Patriciumque nefas extinctum: poena Cethegi
Deiectusque redit votis Catilina nefandis.
Quid favor aut coetus, pleni quid honoribus anni
Profuerant? sacris exculta quid artibus aetas?
Abstulit una dies aevi decus, ictaque luctu
Conticuit Latiae tristis facundia linguae.
Unica sollicitis quondam tutela salusque,
Egregium semper patriae caput, ille senatus
Vindex, ille fori, legum ritusque togaeque,
Publica vox saevis aeternum obmutuit armis.
Informes voltus sparsamque cruore nefando
Canitiem sacrasque manus operumque ministras
Tantorum pedibus civis proiecta superbis
Proculcavit ovans nec lubrica fata deosque
Respexit. Nullo luet hoc Antonius aevo.
Hoc nec in Emathio mitis victoria Perse,
Nec te, dire Syphax, non fecerat hoste Philippo;
Inque triumphato ludibria cuncta Iugurtha
Afuerant, nostraeque cadens ferus Hannibal irae
Membra tamen Stygias tulit inviolata sub umbras.
From these it will be seen that he was a poet of considerable power.
Another epicist of some celebrity, whom Quintilian thought worth reading,
was PEDO ALBINOVANUS; he was also an epigrammatist, and in conversation
remarkable for his brilliant wit. There is an Albinus mentioned by
Priscian who is perhaps intended for him. Other poets referred to in the
long list which closes the letters from Pontus are RUFUS, LARGUS, probably
the perfidious friend of Gallus so mercilessly sketched by Bekker,
CAMERINUS, LUPUS, and MONTANUS. All these are little more than names for
us. The references to them in succeeding writers will be found in Teuffel.
RABIRIUS is worth remarking for the extraordinary impression he made on
his contemporaries. Ovid speaks of him as _Magni Rabirius oris_, [63] a
high compliment; and Velleius Paterculus goes so far as to couple him with
Virgil as the best representative of Augustan poetry! His _Alexandrian
War_ was perhaps drawn from his own experience, though, if so, he must
have been a very young man at the time.
From an allusion in Ovid [64] we gather that GRATIUS [65] was a poet of
the later Augustan age. His work on the chase (_Cynegetica_) has come down
to us imperfect. It contains little to interest, notwithstanding the
attractiveness of its subject: but in truth all didactic poets after
Virgil are without freshness, and seem depressed rather than inspired by
his success. After alluding to man's early attempts to subdue wild beasts,
first by bodily strength, then by rude weapons, he shows the gradual
dominion of reason in this as in other human actions. Diana is also made
responsible for the huntsman's craft, and a short mythological digression
follows. Then comes a description of the chase itself, and the implements
and weapons used in it. The list of trees fitted for spearshafts (128-
149), one of the best passages, will show his debt to the _Georgics_--more
than half the lines show traces of imitation. Next we have the different
breeds of dogs, their training, their diseases, and general supervision
discussed, and after a digression or two--the best being a catalogue of
the evils of luxury--the poem (as we possess it) ends with an account of
the horses best fitted for hunting. The technical details are carefully
given, and would probably have had some value; but there is scarcely a
trace of poetic enthusiasm, and only a moderate elevation of style.
The last Augustan poet we shall notice is M. MANILIUS, whose dry subject
has caused him to meet with very general neglect. His date was considered
doubtful, but Jacob has shown that he began to write towards the close of
Augustus's reign. The first book refers to the defeat of Varus [66] (7
A.D.), to which, therefore, it must be subsequent, and the fourth book
contemplates Augustus as still alive, [67] though Tiberius had already
been named as his successor. [68] The fifth book must have appeared after
the interval of Augustus's death; and from one passage which seems to
allude to the destruction of Pompey's theatre, [69] Jacob argues that it
was written as late as 22 A.D. The danger of treating a subject on which
the emperor had his own very decided views [70] may have deterred Manilius
from completing his work. Literature of all kinds was silent under the
tyrant's gloomy frown, and the weak style of this last book seems to
reflect the depressed mind of its author.
The birth and parentage of Manilius are not known. That he was a foreigner
is probable, both from the uncouthness of his style at the outset, and
from the decided improvement in it that can be traced through succeeding
books. Bentley thought him an Asiatic; if so, however, his lack of florid
ornament would be strange. It is more likely that he was an African. But
the question is complicated by the corrupt state of his text, by the
obscurity of his subject, and by the very incomplete knowledge of it
displayed by the author. It was not considered necessary to have mastered
a subject to treat of it in didactic verse. Cicero expressly instances
Aratus [71] as a man who, with scarce any knowledge of astronomy,
exercised a legitimate poetical ingenuity by versifying such knowledge as
he had. These various causes make Manilius one of the most difficult of
authors. Few can wade through the mingled solecisms in language and
mistakes in science, the empty verbiage that dilates on a platitude in one
place, and the jejune abstract that hurries over a knotty argument in
another, without regretting that so unreadable a poet should have been
preserved. [72]
And yet his book is not altogether without interest. The subject is called
_Astronomy_, but should rather be called _Astrology_, for more than half
the space is taken up with these baseless theories of sidereal influence
which belong to the imaginary side of the science. But in the exordia and
perorations to the several books, as well as in sundry digressions, may be
found matter of greater value, embodying the poet's views on the great
questions of philosophy. [73] On the whole he must be reckoned as a Stoic,
though not a strictly dogmatic one. He begins by giving the different
views as to the origin of the world, and lays it down that on these points
truth cannot be attained. The universe, he goes on to say, rests on no
material basis, much less need we suppose the earth to need one. Sun,
moon, and stars, whirl about without any support; earth therefore may well
be supposed to do the same. The earth is the centre of the universe, whose
motions are circular and imitate those of the gods. [74] The universe is
not finite as some Stoics assert, for its roundness (which is proved by
Chrysippus) implies infinity. Lucretius is wrong in denying antipodes;
they follow naturally from the globular shape, from which also we may
naturally infer that seas bind together, as well as separate, nations.
[75] All this system is held together by a spiritual force, which he calls
God, governing according to the law of reason. [76] He next describes the
Zodiac and enumerates the chief stars with their influences. Following the
teaching of Hegesianax, [77] he declares that those which bear human names
are superior to those named after beasts or inanimate things. The study of
the stars was a gift direct from heaven. Kings first, and after them
priests, were guided to search for wisdom, and now Augustus, who is both
supreme ruler and supreme pontiff, follows his divine father in
cultivating this great science. Mentioning some of the legends which
recount the transformations of mortals into stars, he asserts that they
must not be understood in too gross a sense. [78] Nothing is more
wonderful than the orderly movement of the heavenly bodies. He who has
contemplated this eternal order cannot believe the Epicurean doctrine.
Human generations pass away, but the earth and the stars abide for ever.
Surely the universe is divine. Passing on to the milky way, he gives two
fanciful theories of its origin, one that it is the rent burnt by Phaethon
through the firmament, the other that it is milk from the breast of Juno.
As to its consistency, he wavers between the view that it is a closely
packed company of stars, and the more poetical one that it is formed by
the white-robed souls of the just. This last theory leads him to recount
in a dull catalogue the well-worn list of Greek and Roman heroes. Comets
are mysterious bodies, whose origin is unknown. The universe is full of
fiery particles ever tending towards conglomeration, and perhaps their
impact forms comets. Whether natural or supernatural, one thing is
certain--they are never without effect on mankind.
In the second book he begins by a complaint that the list of attractive
subjects is exhausted. This incites him to essay an untried path, from
which he hopes to reap no stolen laurels [79] as the bard of the universe!
[80] He next expounds the doctrine of an ever-present spirit moving the
mass of matter, in language reflected from the sixth Aeneid. Men must not
seek for mathematical demonstration. Considerations of analogy are enough
to awaken conviction. The fact that, _e.g._, shell-fish are affected by
the moon, and that all land creatures depend on solar influence, should
forbid us to dissociate earth from heaven, or man's activity from the
providence of the gods. How could man have any knowledge of deity unless
he partook of its nature? The rest of the book gives a catalogue of the
different kinds of stars, their several attributes, and their astrological
classification, ending with the _Dodecatemorion_ and _Oclotopos_.
The third book, after a short and offensively allusive description of the
labours of preceding poets, sketches the twelve _athla_ or accidents of
human life, to each of which is assigned its special guardian influence.
It then passes to the horoscope, which it treats at length, giving minute
and various directions how to draw it. The extreme importance attached to
this process by Tiberius, and the growing frequency with which, on every
occasion, Chaldeans and Astrologers were now consulted, made the poet
specially careful to treat this subject with clearness and precision. It
is accordingly the most readable of all the purely technical parts of the
work. The account of the tropics, with which the book closes, is
singularly inaccurate, but contains some rather elegant descriptions: [81]
at the tropic of Cancer summer always reigns, at Capricorn there is
perpetual winter. The book here breaks off quite abruptly; apparently he
intended to compose the epilogue at some future time, but had no
opportunity of doing it.
The exordium to the fourth book, which sometimes rises into eloquence,
glorifies fate as the ultimate divine power, but denies it either will or
personality. He fortifies his argument, according to his wont, by a
historical catalogue, which exemplifies the harshness that, except in
philosophical digressions, rarely leaves his style. Then follow the
horoscopic properties of the Zodiacal constellations, the various reasons
for desiring to be born under one star rather than another, a sort of
horoscopico-zodiacal account of the world, its physical geography, and the
properties of the zones. These give occasion for some graphic touches of
history and legend; the diction of this book is far superior to that of
the preceding three, but the wisdom is questionable which reserves the
"good wine" until so late. Passing on to the ecliptic, he drags in the
legends of Deucalion, Phaethon, and others, which he treats in a
rhetorical way, and concludes the book with an appeal to man's reason, and
to the necessity of allowing the mental eye free vision. Somewhat
inconsistently with the half-religious attitude of the first and second
books, he here preaches once more the doctrine of irresistible fate, which
to most of the Roman poets occupies the place of God. The poem practically
ends here. He himself implies at the opening of Book V., that most poets
would not have pursued the theme further; apparently he is led on by his
interest in the subject, or by the barrenness of his invention which could
suggest no other. The book, which is unfinished, contains a description of
various stars, with legends interspersed in which a more ambitious style
appears, and a taste which, though rhetorical and pedantic, is more
chastened than in the earlier books.
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