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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BOOK III.
THE DECLINE.
_FROM THE ACCESSION OF TIBERIUS TO THE DEATH OF M. AURELIUS_ (14-180 A.D.)
CHAPTER I
THE AGE OF TIBERIUS (14-37 A.D.).
Augustus was not more unlike his gloomy successor than were the writers
who flourished under him to those that now come before us. The history of
literature presents no stronger contrast than between the rich fertility
of the last epoch and the barrenness of the present one. The age of
Tiberius forms an interval of silence during which the dead are buried,
and the new generation prepares itself to appear. Under Nero it will have
started forth in all its panoply of tinsel armour; at present the seeds
that will produce it are being sown by the hand of despotism. [1]
The sudden collapse of letters on the death of Augustus is easily
accounted for. As long as the chief of the state encouraged them labourers
in every field were numerous. When his face was withdrawn the stimulus to
effort was removed. Thus, even in Augustus's time, when ill health and
disappointment had soured his nature and disposed him to arbitrary
actions, literature had felt the change. The exile of Ovid was a blow to
the muses. We have seen how it injured his own genius, a decline over
which he mourns, knowing the cause but impotent to overcome it. [2] We
have seen also how it was followed up by other harsh measures, stifling
the free voice of poets and historians. And when we reflect how the
despotism was entwining itself round the entire life of the nation,
gathering by each new enactment food for future aggression, and only
veiled as yet by the mildness or caution of a prince whose one object was
to found a dynasty, our surprise is lessened at the spectacle of
literature prostrate and dumb, threatened by the hideous form of tyranny
now no longer in disguise, offering it with brutal irony the choice
between submission, hypocrisy, and death. Tiberius (whose portrait drawn
by Tacitus in colours almost too dark for belief, is nevertheless rendered
credible by the deathlike silence in which his reign was passed) had in
his youth shown both taste and proficiency in liberal studies. He had
formed his style on that of Messala, but the gloomy bent of his mind led
him to contract and obscure his meaning to such a degree that, unlike most
Romans, he spoke better extempore [3] than after preparation. In the art
of perplexing by ambiguous phrases, of indicating intentions without
committing himself to them, he was without a rival. In point of language
he was a purist like Augustus; but unlike him he mingled archaisms with
his diction. While at Rhodes he attended the lectures of Theodorus; and
the letters or speeches of his referred to by Tacitus indicate a nervous
and concentrated style. Poetry was alien from his stern character.
Nevertheless, Suetonius tells us he wrote a lyric poem and Greek
imitations of Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius; but it was the minute
questions of mythology that chiefly attracted him, points of useless
erudition like those derided by Juvenal: [4]
"Nutricem Anchisae, nomen patriamque novercae
Anchemoli, dicat quot Acestes vixerit annos,
Quot Siculus Phrygibus vini donaverit urnas."
In maturer life he busied himself with writing memoirs, which formed the
chief, almost the only study of Domitian, and of which we may regret that
time has deprived us. The portrait of this arch dissembler by his own able
hand would be a good set off to the terrible indictment of Tacitus.
Besides the above he was the author of funeral speeches, and, according to
Suidas, of a work on the art of rhetoric.
With these literary pretensions it is clear that his discouragement of
letters as emperor was due to political reasons. He saw in the free
expression of thought or fancy a danger to his throne. And as the
abominable system of _delations_ made every chance expression penal, and
found treason to the present in all praise of the past, the only resource
open to men of letters was to suppress every expression of feeling, and,
by silent brooding, to keep passion at white heat, so that when it speaks
at last it speaks with the concentrated intensity of a Juvenal or a
Tacitus.
We might ask how it was that authors did not choose subjects outside the
sphere of danger. There were still forms of art and science which had not
been worked out. The _Natural History_ of Pliny shows how much remained to
be done in fields of great interest. Neither philosophy nor the lighter
kinds of poetry could afford matter for provocation. But the answer is
easy. The Roman imagination was so narrow, and their constructive talent
so restricted, that they felt no desire to travel beyond the regular
lines. It seemed as if all had been done that could be done well. History,
national and universal, [5] science [6] and philosophy, [7] Greek poetry
in all its varied forms, had been brought to perfection by great masters
whom it was hopeless to rival. The age of literary production seemed to
have been rounded off, and the self-consciousness that could reflect on
the new era had not yet had time to arise. Rhetoric, as applied to the
expression of political feeling, was the only form which literature cared
to take, and that was precisely the form most obnoxious to the government.
Thus it is possible that even had Tiberius been less jealously repressive
letters would still have stagnated. The severe strain of the Augustan age
brought its inevitable reaction. The simultaneous appearance of so many
writers of the first rank rendered necessary an interval during which
their works were being digested and their spirit settling down into an
integral constituent of the national mind. By the time thought reawakens,
Virgil, Horace, and Livy are already household words, and their works the
basis of all literary culture.
In reading the lives of the chief post-Augustan writers we are struck by
the fact that many, if not most of them, held offices of state. The desire
for peaceful retirement, characteristic of the early Augustans, the
contentment with lettered leisure that signalises the poetry of the later
Augustans, have both given place to a restless excitement, and to a
determination to make the most of literature as an aid to a successful
career. Hitherto we have observed two distinct classes of writers, and a
corresponding double relation of politics and literature. The early poets,
and again those of Augustus's era, were not men of affairs, they belonged
to the exclusively literary class. The great prose writers on the contrary
rose to political eminence by political conduct. Literature was with them
a relaxation, and served no purpose of worldly aggrandisement. Now,
however, an unhealthy confusion between the two provinces takes place. A
man rises to office through his poems or rhetorical essays. The
acquirements of a professor become a passport to public life. Seneca and
Quintilian are striking and favourable instances of the school door
opening into the senate:
"Si fortuna volet fies de rhetore consul." [8]
But nearly all the chief writers carried their declamatory principles into
the serious business of life. This double aspect of their career produced
two different types of talent, under one or other of which the great
imperial writers may be ranged. Excluding men of the second rank, we have
on the one side Lucan, Juvenal, and Tacitus, all whose minds have a strong
political bias, the bias of old Rome, which makes them the most powerful
though the most prejudiced exponents of their times. Of another kind are
Persius, Seneca, and Pliny the elder. Their genius is contemplative and
philosophical; and though two of them were much mixed in affairs, their
spirit is cosmopolitan rather than national, and their wisdom, though
drawn from varied sources, cannot be called political. These six are the
representative minds of the period on which we are now entering, and
between them reflect nearly all the best and worst features of their age.
Quintilian, Statius, and Pliny the younger, represent a more restricted
development; the first of them is the typical rhetorician, but of the
better class; the second is the brilliant improvisatore and ingenious
word-painter; the third the cultivated and amiable but vain, common-place,
and dwarfed type of genius which under the Empire took the place of the
"fine gentlemen" of the free Republic.
Writers of this last stamp cannot be expected to show any independent
spirit. They are such as in every age would adopt the prevalent fashion,
and theorise within the limits prescribed by respectability. While a bad
emperor reigns they flatter him; when a good emperor succeeds they flatter
him still more by abusing his predecessor; at the same time they are
genial, sober, and sensible, adventuring neither the safety of their necks
nor of their intellectual reputation.
Such an author comes before us in M. VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, the court
historian of Tiberius. This well-intentioned but loquacious writer gained
his loyalty from an experience of eight years' warfare under Tiberius in
various parts of Europe, and the flattery of which he is so lavish was
probably sincere. His birth may perhaps be referred to 18 B.C., since his
first campaign, under M. Vinicius, to whose son he dedicated his work,
took place in the year 1 B.C. Tiberius's sterling qualities as a soldier
gained him the friendship of many of his legati, and Velleius was
fortunate enough to secure that of Tiberius in return. By his influence he
rose through the minor offices to the praetorship (14 A.D.), and soon
after set himself to repair the deficiencies of a purely military
education by systematic study. The fruit of this labour is the _Abridgment
of Roman History_, in two books, a mere rapid survey of the early period,
becoming more diffuse as it nears his own time, and treating the life of
Tiberius and the events of which he was the centre with considerable
fulness. The latter part is preserved entire; of the first book, which
closes with the destruction of Carthage, a considerable portion has been
lost. As, however, he is not likely to have followed in it any authorities
inaccessible to us, the loss is unimportant. For his work generally the
authorities he quotes are good--Cato's _Origines_, the _Annales_ of
Hortensius, and probably Atticus's abridgment; Cornelius Nepos, and Trogus
for foreign, Livy and Sallust (of whom he was a great admirer) for
national, history. As a recipient and expectant of court favour, he
naturally echoed the language of the day. Brutus and Cassius are for him
parricides; Caesar, the divine founder of an era which culminates in the
divine Tiberius. [9] So full was he of his master's praises that he
intended to write a separate book on the subject, but was prevented by his
untimely death. This took place in 31 A.D., when the discovery of
Sejanus's conspiracy caused many suspected to be put to death, and it
seems that Velleius was among the number.
His blind partisanship naturally obscures his judgment; but, making
allowance for a defect which he does not attempt to conceal, the reader
may generally trust him for all matters of fact. His studies were not as a
rule deep; but an exception must be made in the case of his account of the
Greek colonies in Italy, the dates at which they were founded, and their
early relations with Rome. These had never been so clearly treated by any
writer, at least among those with whom we are familiar. His mind is not of
a high order; he can neither sift evidence nor penetrate to causes; his
talents lie in the biographical department, and he has considerable
insight into character. His style is not unclassical so far as the
vocabulary goes, but the equable moderation of the Golden Age is replaced
by exaggeration, and like all who cultivate artificial brilliancy, he
cannot maintain his ambitious level of poetical and pretentious ornament.
The last year referred to in the book is 30 A.D. The dearth of other
material gives him additional value. As a historian he takes a low rank;
as an abridger he is better, but best of all as a rhetorical anecdotist
and painter of character in action.
A better known writer (especially during the Middle Ages) is VALERIUS
MAXIMUS, author of the _Facta et Dicta Memorabilia_, in nine books,
addressed to Tiberius in a dedication of unexampled servility, [10] and
compiled from few though good sources. The object of the work is stated in
the preface. It was to save labour for those who desired to fortify their
minds with examples of excellence, or increase their knowledge of things
worth knowing. The methodical arrangement by subjects, _e.g._, religion,
which is divided into religion observed and religion neglected, and
instances of both given, first from Roman, then from foreign, history, and
so on with all the other subjects, makes Teuffel's suggestion extremely
probable, namely, that it was intended for the use of young declaimers,
who were thus furnished with instances for all sorts of themes. The
constant tendency in the imperial literature to exhaust a subject by a
catalogue of every known instance may be traced to these pernicious
rhetorical handbooks. If a writer praises temperance, he supplements it by
a list of temperate Romans; if he describes a storm, he _puts down_ all he
knows about the winds. Uncritical as Valerius is, and void of all thought,
he is nevertheless pleasant enough reading for a vacant hour, and if we
were not obliged to rate him by a lofty standard, would pass muster very
well. But he is no fit company for men of genius; our only wonder is he
should have so long survived. His work was a favourite school-book for
junior classes, and was epitomised or abridged by Julius Paris in the
fourth or fifth century. At the time of this abridgment the so-called
tenth book must have been added. Julius Paris's words in his preface to it
are, _Liber decimus de praenominibus et similibus_: but various
considerations make it certain that Valerius was not the author. [11] Many
interesting details were given in it, taken chiefly from Varro; and it is
much to be regretted that the entire treatise is not preserved. Besides
Paris one Titius Probus retouched the work in a still later age, and a
third abstract by Januarius Nepotianus is mentioned. This last writer cut
out all the padding which Valerius had so largely used ("_dum se ostentat
sententiis, locis iactat, fundit excessibus_"), and reduced the work to a
bare skeleton of facts.
A much more important writer, one of whose treatises only has reached us,
was A. CORNELIUS CELSUS. He stood in the first rank of Roman scientists,
was quite encyclopaedic in his learning, and wrote, like Cato, on
eloquence, law, farming, medicine, and tactics. There is no doubt that the
work on medicine (extending over Books VI.-XIII. of his Encyclopaedia)
which we possess, was the best of his writings, but the chapters on
agriculture also are highly praised by Columella.
At this time, as Des Etangs remarks, nearly all the knowledge and practice
of medicine was in the hands of Greek physicians, and these either
freedmen or slaves. Roman practitioners seem to have inspired less
confidence even when they were willing to study. Habits of scientific
observation are hereditary; and for centuries the Greeks had studied the
conditions of health and the theory of disease, as well as practised the
empirical side of the art, and most Romans were well content to leave the
whole in their hands.
Celsus tried to attract his countrymen to the pursuit of medicine by
pointing out its value and dignity. He commences his work with a history
of medical science since its first importation into Greece, and devotes
the rest of Book I. to a consideration of dietetics and other
prophylactics of disease; the second book treats of general pathology, the
third and fourth of special illnesses, the fifth gives remedies and
prescriptions, the sixth, seventh, and eighth--the most valuable part of
the book--apply themselves chiefly to surgical questions. The value of his
work consists in the clear, comprehensive grasp of his subject, and the
systematic way in which he expounds its principles. The main points of his
theory are still valid; very few essentials need to be rejected; it might
still be taken as a popular handbook on the subject. He writes for Roman
citizens, and is therefore careful to avoid abstruse terms where plain
ones will do, and Greek words where Latin are to be had. The style is
bare, but pure and classical. An excellent critic says [12]--"Quo saepius
eum perlegebam, eo magis me detinuit cum dicendi nitor et brevitas tum
perspicacitas iudicii sensusque vorax et ad agendum accommodatus, quibus
omnibus genuinam repraesentat nobis civis Romani imaginem." The text as we
have it depends on a single MS. and sadly needs a careful revision; it is
interpolated with numerous glosses, both Greek and Latin, which a skilful
editor would detect and remove. Among the other treatises in his
_Encyclopaedia_, next to that on farming, those on rhetoric and tactics
were most popular. The former, however, was superseded by Quintilian, the
latter by Vegetius. In philosophy he did not so much criticise other
schools as detail his own views with concise eloquence. These views were
almost certainly Eclectic, though we know on Quintilian's authority that
he followed the two Sextii in many important points. [13]
The other branches of prose composition were almost neglected in this
reign. Even rhetoric sank to a low level; the splendid displays of men
like Latro, Arellius, and Ovid gave place to the flimsy ostentation of
REMMIUS PALAEMON. This dissolute man, who combined the professions of
grammarian and rhetorician, possessed an extraordinary aptitude for fluent
harangue, but soon confined his attention to grammatical studies, in which
he rose to the position of an authority. Suetonius says he was born a
slave, and that while conducting his young master to school he learnt
something of literature, was liberated, and set up a school in Rome, where
he rose to the top of his profession. Although infamous for his abandoned
profligacy, and stigmatized by Tiberius and Claudius as utterly unfit to
have charge of the young, he managed to secure a very large number of
pupils by his persuasive manner, and the excellence of his tutorial
method. His memory was prodigious, his eloquence seductive, and a power of
extempore versification in the most difficult metres enhanced the charm of
his conversation. He is referred to by Pliny, Quintilian, and Juvenal, and
for a time superintended the studies of the young satirist Persius.
Oratory, as may easily be supposed, had well nigh ceased. VOTIENUS
MONTANUS, MAMERCUS SCAURUS, and P. VITELLIUS, all held high positions in
the state. Scaurus, in particular, was also of noble lineage, being the
great-grandson of the celebrated chief of the senate. His oratory was
almost confined to declamation, but was far above the general level of the
time. Careless, and often full of faults, it yet carried his hearers away
by its native power and dignity. [14] ASINIUS GALLUS, the son of Pollio,
so far followed his father as to take a strong interest in politics, and
with filial enthusiasm compared him favourably with Cicero. DOMITIUS AFER
also is mentioned by Tacitus as an able but dissolute man, who under a
better system might have been a good speaker. A writer of some mark was
CREMUTIUS CORDUS, whose eloquent account of the rise of the Empire cost
him his life: in direct defiance of the fashionable cant of the day he had
called Cassius "the last of the Romans." The higher spirits seemed to take
a gloomy pleasure in speaking out before the tyrant, even if it were only
with their last breath; more than one striking instance of this is
recorded by Tacitus; and though he questions the wisdom of relieving
personal indignation by a vain invective, which must bring death and ruin
on the speaker and all his family, and in the end only tighten the yoke it
tries to shake, yet the intractable pride of these representatives of the
old families has something about it to which, human as we are, we cannot
refuse our sympathy. The only other prose-writer we need mention is
AUFIDIUS BASSUS, who described the Civil Wars and the German expeditions,
and is mentioned with great respect by Tacitus.
Poetry is represented by the fifth book of Manilius, by Phaedrus's
_Fables_, and perhaps by the translation of Aratus ascribed to GERMANICUS,
the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius. This translation, which is both
elegant and faithful, and superior to Cicero's in poetical inspiration,
has been claimed, but with less probability, for Domitian, who, as is well
known, affected the title of Germanicus. [15] But the consent of the most
ancient critics tends to restore Germanicus Drusus as the author, the
title _genitor_ applied to Tiberius not being proof positive the other
way.
The only writer who mentions PHAEDRUS is Martial, [16] and he only in a
single passage. The Aesopian beast-fable was a humble form of art
peculiarly suited to a period of political and literary depression. Seneca
in his _Consolatio ad Polybium_ implies that that imperial favourite had
cultivated it with success. Apparently he did not know of Phaedrus; and
this fact agrees with the frequent complaints that Phaedrus makes to the
effect that he is not appreciated. Of his life we know only what we can
gather from his own book. He was born in Pieria, and became the slave of
Augustus, who set him free, and seems to have given him his patronage. The
poet was proud of his Greek birth, but was brought to Rome at so early an
age as to belong almost equally to both nationalities. His poverty [17]
did not secure him from persecution, Sejanus, ever suspicious and
watchful, detected the political allusions veiled beneath the disguise of
fable, and made the poet feel his auger. The duration of Phaedrus's career
is uncertain. The first two books were all that he published in Tiberius's
reign; the third, dedicated to Eutychus, and the fourth to Particulo,
Claudius's favourite, clearly show that he continued to write over a
considerable time. The date of Book V. is not mentioned, but it can hardly
be earlier than the close of Claudius's reign. Thus we have a period of
nearly thirty years during which these five short books were produced.
Like all who con over their own compositions, Phaedrus had an unreasonably
high opinion of their merit. Literary reputation was his chief desire, and
he thought himself secure of it. He echoes the boast so many greater men
have made before him, that he is the first to import a form of Greek art;
but he limits his imitation to the general scope, reserving to himself the
right to vary the particular form in each fable as he thinks fit. [18] The
careful way in which he defines at what point his obligations to Aesop
cease and his own invention begins, shows him to have had something of the
trifler and a great deal of the egotist. His love of condensation is
natural, for a fabulist should be short, trenchant, and almost proverbial
in his style; but Phaedrus carries these to the point of obscurity and
enigma. It seems as if at times he did not see his drift himself. To this
fault is akin the constant moralising tone which reflects rather than
paints, enforces rather than elicits its lesson. He is himself a small
sage, and all his animals are small sages too. They have not the life-like
reality of those of Aesop; they are mere lay figures. His technical skill
is very considerable; the iambic senarius becomes in his hands an
extremely pleasing rhythm, though the occurrence of spondees in the second
and fourth place savours of archaic usage. His diction is hardly varied
enough to admit of clear reference to a standard, but on the whole it may
be pronounced nearer to the silver than the golden Latinity, especially in
the frequent use of abstract words. His confident predictions of
immortality were nearly being falsified by the burning, by certain
zealots, of an abbey in France, where alone the MS. existed (1561 A.D.);
but Phaedrus, in common with many others, was rescued from the worthy
Calvinists, and has since held a quiet corner to himself in the temple of
fame.
A poet whose misfortunes were of service to his talent, was POMPONIUS
SECUNDUS. His friendship with Aelius Gallus, son to Sejanus, caused him to
be imprisoned during several years. While in this condition he devoted
himself to literature, and wrote many tragedies which are spoken well of
by Quintilian: "Eorum (tragic poets) quos viderim longe princeps Pomponius
Secundus." [19] He was an acute rhetorician, and a purist in language. The
extant names of his plays are _Aeneas_, and perhaps _Armorum Judicium_ and
_Atreus_, but these last two are uncertain. Tragedy was much cultivated
during the imperial times; for it formed an outlet for feeling not
otherwise safe to express, and it admitted all the ornaments of rhetoric.
Those who regard the tragedies of Seneca as the work of the father, would
refer them to this reign, to the end of which the old man's activity
lasted, though his energies were more taken up with watching and guiding
the careers of his children than with original composition. When Tiberius
died (37 A.D.) literature could hardly have been at a lower ebb; but even
then there were young men forming their minds and imbibing new canons of
taste, who were destined before long--for almost all wrote early--to
redeem the age from the charge of dulness, perhaps at too great a
sacrifice.
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