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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It is questionable whether Pliny ever had any originality. If he had, it
was stamped out long before he began his book by the weight of his
cumbrous erudition. He cannot compare his materials, nor select them, nor
analyse them, nor make them explain themselves by lucid arrangement. Nor
has his review of human knowledge taught him the great truth that science
is progressive, that each age corrects the errors of the past, and
prepares the way for the improvements of the next. Seneca, with all his
affected contempt for science, learnt the lesson of it better than Pliny.
He has in the first place no fixed canon of truth. One thing does not seem
to him more probable than another. A statement has only to come forward
under the testimony of a respectable ancient, and it is at once put down
as a fact. Here, however, we must make a distinction, for fear of
invalidating Pliny's authority beyond what is just. It is only in strictly
scientific matters that this credulity and lack of penetration is found.
Where he deals with historical, biographical, or agricultural questions,
he is a competent, and for the most part trustworthy, compiler. His work
is a most valuable storehouse for the antiquarian or historian of ancient
literature or art, and generally for the current opinions on nearly every
topic. Though genuinely devoted to learning, he has still enough of the
"old Adam" of rhetoric about him to complain of the dryness of his
material, and its unsuitableness for ornamental treatment; but this cannot
surprise us, when we remember that even Tacitus with infinitely less
reason bewailed the monotony of the events he had taken upon him to
record.
What partly accounts for Pliny's uncritical credulity is the
unsatisfactory theory of the universe which he adopts, and with
commendable candour sets before us at the outset. [7] He is a
materialistic pantheist. The world is for him deity, self-created and
eternal, incomprehensible by man, moving ceaselessly without reference to
him. So far there is nothing unscientific, except the hypothesis of self-
creation; but he goes on to imply that the laws of its action, being
incomprehensible, need not be regular, at any rate, as we consider
regularity. The things which militate against our experience may be the
result of other laws, or of chance contingencies of which no account can
be given. Hence he never rejects a fact on the ground of its being
marvellous. The most ludicrous and inconceivable monstrosities find an
easy place in his system. He does not attach any superstitious meaning to
them; on the contrary, he ridicules the idea that omens or portents are
sent by the gods, but he has no touchstone by which to test the rare but
possible results of real experience as distinguished from the figments of
the imagination or ordinary travellers' stories. In the zoological part he
gives the reins to his love of the marvellous; all kinds of absurdities
are narrated with the utmost gravity; and his accounts descended through
the mediaeval period as the accredited authority on the subject. In the
literature of Prester John will be seen many a reflection from the
writings of Pliny; in the fables of the _Arabian Nights_ many more, with
characteristic additions equally creditable to human weakness or
ingenuity. It is truly lamentable to reflect that while the rational and
on the whole truthful descriptions of Aristotle and Theophrastus were
extant and accessible, Pliny's nonsense should in preference have gained
the ear of mankind.
As a stylist Pliny recalls two very different writers, Seneca and Cato. In
those parts where he speaks as a moralist (and they are extremely
numerous), he strives to reproduce the point of Seneca; in those where he
treats of husbandry, which are perhaps the most naturally written in the
work, his stern brevity often recalls the old censor. Like Seneca, he
considers physical science as food for edification; continually he deserts
his theme to preach a sermon on the folly or ignorance of mankind. And
like Cato he is never weary of extolling the wisdom and virtues of the
harsh infancy of the Republic, and blaming the degeneracy of its feeble
and luxurious descendants who refuse to till the soil, and add acre to
acre of their overgrown estates.
Pliny has a strong vein of satire, and its effect is increased by a
certain sententious quaintness which gives a racy flavour to many
otherwise dull enumerations of facts. But his satire is not of a pleasing
type; it is built too much on despair of his kind; his whole view of the
universe is querulous, and shows a mind unequal to cope with the knowledge
it has acquired.
He was considered the most learned man of his day, and with reason. He at
least knew the value of first-hand acquaintance with the original
authorities, instead of drawing a superficial culture from manuals and
abridgments, or worse still, the empty declamations of the rhetorical
schools. And after all it is his age which must bear the blame of his
failure rather than himself. For while he was not great enough to rise
above his surroundings and investigate, compare, and conclude on a method
planned by himself, he was just the man who would have profited to the
full by being trained in a sound public system of education, and perhaps,
had he lived in the Ciceronian period, would have risen to a much higher
place as a permanent contributor to the journal of human knowledge.
Among the younger contemporaries of Pliny, the most celebrated is M.
FABIUS QUINTILIANUS (35-95 A.D.), [8] a native of Calagurris in Spain, but
educated in Rome, and long established there as a popular and influential
public professor of eloquence. He was intrusted by Domitian with the
education of his two grand-nephews, an honour to which he owed his
subsequent elevation to the consulship. His time had been so fully
occupied with lecturing as to allow no leisure for publishing anything
until the closing years of his career. This gave him the great advantage
of being a ripe writer before he challenged the judgment of the world;
and, in truth, Quintilian's knowledge and love of his subject are thorough
in the highest degree. His first essay was a treatise on the causes of the
decay of eloquence, [9] and the last (which we still possess) a work in
twelve books on the complete training of an orator. [10] This celebrated
work, to which Quintilian devoted the assiduous labour of two whole years,
interrupted only by the lessons given to his royal pupils, represents the
maturest treatment of the subject which we possess. The author was modest
enough to express a strong unwillingness to write it, either fearing to
come forward as an author so late in life, or judging the ground
preoccupied already. However, it was produced at last, and no sooner known
than it at once assumed the high position that has been accorded to it
ever since. The treatment is exhaustive; as much more thorough than the
popular treatises of Cicero as it is more attractive than the purely
technical one of Cornificius. At the same time it has the defects
inseparable from the unreal age in which its author lived. While minutely
providing for all the future orator's formal requirements, it omits the
material one without which the finished rhetorician is but a tinkling
cymbal, how to _think_ as an orator. No one knew better than Quintilian
that this comes from zest in life, not from rules of art. There will be
more stimulus given to one who pants for distinction in the delightful
pages of Cicero's _Brutus_, than in all that Quintilian and such as he
ever wrote or ever will write. But this is not the fault of the man; as a
formal rhetorician of good principle, sound orthodoxy, and love for his
art, Quintilian stands high in the list of classical authors.
He begins his orator's training from the cradle. He rightly ascribes the
greatest importance to early impressions, even the very earliest;
illustrating his position by the influence of Cornelia who trained her
sons to eloquence from childhood, and other similar cases known to Roman
history. A good nurse must be selected; an _eloquent_ one would,
doubtless, be hard to find. The boy who is destined to greatness has now
outgrown the nursery, and the great question arises, Is he to be sent to
school? With the Romans as with us this difficulty admitted of two
solutions. The lad might be educated at home under tutors, or he might be
sent to learn the world at a public school. Those who at the present day
shrink from sending their children to school generally profess to base
their unwillingness on a fear lest the influence of bad example may
corrupt the purity of youth; Quintilian on the very same ground, strongly
recommends a parent to send his son to school. By this means, he says,
_his tender years will be saved from the daily contamination which the
scenes of home life afford_. A sad commentary on the state of Roman
society and the pernicious effects of slave-labour!
After school, the youth is to attend the lectures of a rhetorician. This
is of course a matter of great importance, and in the second book the
writer handles its various bearings with excellent judgment. Having
described the duties of the professor and his pupil, and the various tasks
which will be gone through, he proceeds in the next book to discuss the
different departments of oratory. In this great subject he follows
Aristotle, here, as always, going back to the most established
authorities, and adapting them with signal tact to the changed
requirements of a later age and a different nation. The points connected
with this, the central theme of the treatise, carry us through the five
next books. They are the most technical in the work, and not adapted for
general reading. The eighth begins the interesting topic of style, which
is continued in the ninth, where trope, metaphor, amplification, and other
_figurae orationis_ are illustrated at length. Throughout these books
there are a large number of quotations, and continual references to the
practice of celebrated masters in the art, besides frequent introduction
of passages from the poets and historians. But it is in the tenth book
that these are concentrated into one focus. To acquire a "firm facility"
(_exis_) of speech it is necessary to have read widely and with
discernment. This leads him to enumerate the Greek and Roman authors
likely to be most useful to an orator. The criticisms he offers on the
salient qualities of almost all the great classics may seem to us trite
and common-place. They certainly are not remarkable for brilliancy, but
they are just and sober, and have stood the test of ages, and perhaps
their apparent dulness results from their having been always familiar
words. Their utility to the student of literature is so considerable, that
we have thought it worth while to append a translation of them to the
present chapter. [11]
The eleventh book chiefly turns on memory, which the Romans cultivated
with extreme diligence, and several remarkable instances of which have
been noticed in the course of this work. It was to them a much more vital
excellence than to us, who have adopted the practice of using rough notes
or other assistance to it. Delivery, too, is in the eleventh book fully
discussed; and these chapters will be read with interest as showing the
extreme and minute care bestowed by the Romans on the smallest details of
action as means of producing effect. Generally, their oratory was of a
vehement type. Gesture was freely used, and the voice raised to its
fullest pitch. Trachalus had such a noisy organ that it drowned the
pleaders in the other courts. Even after the decay of freedom the fiery
gestures that had been once its language were not discarded; at the same
time perfect modulation and symmetry were aimed at, so that even in the
most _empresse_ passages decorum was not violated. The systematized
rhetorical training at present general in France, and practised by all who
aspire to arouse the feeling of an assembly, is probably the nearest,
though it may be but a faint, equivalent of the vigorous action of the
Roman courts. The twelfth book treats of the moral qualifications
necessary for a great speaker. Quintilian insists strongly on these. The
good orator must be a good man. The highest talents are nothing if
distorted by evil thoughts. We thus see that he took a worthy view of his
profession, and would never have degraded it to be the instrument of
tyranny or a means of saturating the ears of the idle with seductive and
complaisant theories of life, by which a spurious popularity is so cheaply
obtained. He was a high-minded man "_quantum licuit_;" _i.e._, as far as a
debased age allowed of high-mindedness. His domestic life was clouded by
sorrow. His first wife died at the early age of nineteen, leaving him two
sons, the younger of whom only lived to the age of seven, and the elder
(for whose instruction he wrote the book, and whose precocious talent and
goodness of disposition he recounts with pardonable pride) only survived
his brother about four years. His death was an irremediable blow, which
the orator bewails in the preface to his sixth book. The passage is
instructive as revealing the taste of the day. The paternal regret clothes
itself in such a profusion of antithesis, trope, and hyperbole, that, did
we not know from other sources the excellence of his heart, we might fancy
he was exercising his talents in the sphere of professional
_advertisement_. Before his endowment as professor, which appears to have
brought him about L800 a year, he had occasionally pleaded in the courts;
he appears to have written declamations in various styles, but those now
current under his name are improperly ascribed to him.
Among his pupils was the younger Pliny, who alludes to him with gratitude
in one of his letters; [12] he was well thought of during his life, and is
frequently mentioned by Statius, Martial, and Juvenal, both as the
cleverest of rhetoricians, and the best and most trusted of teachers; [13]
by Juvenal also as a bright instance of good fortune very rare among the
brethren of the craft. [14]
The style of Quintilian is modelled on that of Cicero, and is intended to
be a return to the usages of the best period. He had a warm love for the
writers of the republican age, above all for Cicero, whom he is never
tired of praising; and he preached a crusade against the tinsel ornaments
of the new school whose viciousness, he thought, consisted chiefly in a
corrupt following of Seneca. It was necessary, therefore, to impugn the
authority of his brilliant compatriot, and this he appears to have done
with such warmth as to give rise to the opinion that he had a personal
grudge against him. Some critics have noticed that Quintilian, even when
blaming, often falls into the pointed antithetical style of his time. This
is true. But it was unavoidable; for no man can detach himself from the
mode of speaking common to those with whom he lives. It is sufficient if
he be aware of its worse faults, point out their tendency, and strive to
avoid them. This undoubtedly Quintilian did.
Among prose writers of less note we may mention LICINIUS MUCIANUS, CLUVIUS
RUFUS, who both wrote histories; and VIPSTANUS MESSALA, an orator of the
reactionary school, who, like Quintilian, sought to restore a purer taste,
and devoted some of his time to historical essays on the events he had
witnessed. M. APER and JULIUS SECUNDUS are important as being two of the
speakers introduced into Tacitus's dialogue on oratory, the former taking
the part of the modern style, the latter mediating between the two extreme
views, but inclining towards the modern. All these belonged to the reigns
of Vespasian and Titus, and lived into the first years of Domitian.
An important writer for students of ancient applied science is SEX. JULIUS
FRONTINUS, whose career extends from about 40 A.D. to the end of the first
century. He was praetor urbanus 70 A.D., and was employed in responsible
military posts in Gaul and Britain. In the former country he reduced the
powerful tribe of the Lingones, in Britain, as successor to Petilius
Cerealis, he distinguished himself against the Silures, showing, says
Tacitus, qualities as great as it was safe to show at that time. He was
thrice consul, once under Domitian, again under Nerva (97 A.D.), and
lastly under Trajan (100 A.D.), when he had for colleague the emperor
himself. He died 103 A.D. or perhaps in the following year. Pliny the
younger knew him well, and has several notices of him in his letters.
Throughout his active life he was above all things a man of business:
literature and science, though he was a proficient in both, were made
strictly subservient to the ends of his profession. His character was
cautious but independent, and he is the only contemporary writer we
possess who does not flatter Domitian. The work on gromatics, which
originally contained two books, has descended to us only in a few short
excerpts, which treat _de agrorum gualitate, de controversiis, de
limitibus, de controversiis aquarum_. This was written early in the reign
of Domitian. Another work of the same period was a theoretical treatise on
tactics, alluded to in the more popular work which we possess, and quoted
by Vegetius who followed him. In this he examined Greek theories of
warfare as well as Roman, and apparently with discrimination; for Aelian,
in his account of the Greek strategical writers, assigns Frontinus a high
place. The comprehensive manual called _Strategematon_ (_sollertia ducum
facta_) is intended for general reading among those who are interested in
military matters. The books are arranged according to their subjects, but
in the distribution of these there is no definite plan followed. Many
interpolations have been inserted, especially in the fourth and last book
which is a kind of appendix, adding general examples of strategic sayings
and doings (_strategematica_) to the specifically-selected instances of
the strategic art which are treated in the first three. Its introduction,
as Teuffel remarks, is written in a boastful style quite foreign to
Frontinus, and the arrangement of anecdotes under various moral headings
reminds us of a rhetorician like Valerius Maximus, rather than of a man of
affairs. The entire fourth book appears to be an accretion, perhaps as
early as the fourth century. The last treatise by Frontinus which we
possess is that _De Aquis Urbis Romae_, or with a slightly different
title, _De Aquaeductu_, or _De Cura Aquarum_, published under Trajan soon
after the death of Nerva. In an admirable preface he explains that his
invariable custom when intrusted with any work was to make himself
thoroughly acquainted with the subject in all its bearings before
beginning to act; he could thus work with greater promptitude and
despatch, and besides gained a theoretical knowledge which might have
escaped him amid the multitude of practical details. Frontinus's account
of the water-supply of Rome is complete and valuable: recent explorers
have found it thoroughly trustworthy, and have been aided by it in
reconstructing the topography of the ancient city. [15] The architecture
of Rome has been reproached with some justice for bestowing its finest
achievements on buildings destined for amusement, or on mere private
dwellings. But if from the amphitheatres, the villas, the baths, we turn
to the roads, the sewers, and the aqueducts, we shall agree with Frontinus
in deeply admiring so grand a combination of the artistic with the useful.
A practical recognition of some of the great sanitary laws seem to have
early prevailed at Rome, and might well excite our wonder, if such things
had not been as a rule passed by in silence by historians. Recent
discoveries are tending to set the early civilisation of Rome on a far
higher level than it has hitherto been able to claim.
The style of Frontinus is not so devoid of ornament as might be expected
from one so much occupied in business; but the ornament it has is of the
best kind. He shuns the conceits of the period, and goes back to the
republican authors, of whom (and especially of Caesar's _Commentaries_)
his language strongly reminds us. We observe that the very simplicity
which Quintilian sought in vain from a lifelong rhetorical training is
present unsought in Frontinus; a clear proof that it is the occupation of
life and the nature of the man, not the varnish of artistic culture,
however elaborately laid on, that determines the main characteristics of
the writer.
No other prose authors of any name have come down to us from this epoch. A
vast number of persons are flatteringly saluted by Statius and Martial as
orators, historians, jurists, &c.; but these venal poets had a stock of
complimentary phrases always ready for any one powerful enough to command
them. When we read therefore that Tutilius, Regulus, Flavius Ursus,
Septimius Severus, were great writers, we must accept the statement only
with considerable reductions. Victorius Marcellus, the friend to whom
Quintilian dedicates his treatise, was probably a person of some real
eminence; his juridical knowledge is celebrated by Statius. The _Silvae_
of Statius and the letters of Pliny imply that there was a very active and
generally diffused interest in science and letters; but it is easy to be
somebody where no one is great. Among grammarians AEMILIUS ASPER deserves
notice. [16] He seems to have been living while Suetonius composed his
biography of grammarians, since he is not included in it. He continued the
studies of Cornutus and Probus of Berytus, and was best known for his
_Quaestiones Virgilianae_ (of which several fragments still remain), and
his commentaries on Terence and Sallust. LARGUS LICINIUS, the author of
_Ciceromastix_, may perhaps be referred to this time. The reiterated
commendation of Cicero occurring in Quintilian may have roused the
modernising party into active opposition, and drawn out this _brochure_.
History and philosophy both sunk to an extremely low ebb; no writers on
these subjects worthy of mention are preserved.
APPENDIX.
_Quintilian's Account of the Roman Authors._
We subjoin a translation of Quintilian's criticism of the chief Roman
authors as very important for the student of Latin literature, premising,
however, that he judged them solely as regards their utility to one who is
preparing to become an orator. The criticism, although thus special, has a
permanent value, as embracing the best opinion of the time, temperately
stated (Inst. Or. xi. 85-131):--"The same order will be observed in
treating the Roman writers. As Homer among the Greeks, so _Virgil_ among
our own authors will best head the list; he is beyond doubt the second
epic poet of either nation. I will use the words I heard Domitius Afer use
when I was a boy. When I asked him who he considered came nearest to
Homer, he replied, 'Virgil is the second, but he is nearer the first than
the third;' and in truth, while Rome cannot but yield to that celestial
and deathless genius, yet we can observe more care and diligence in
Virgil; for this very reason, perhaps, that he was obliged to labour more.
And so it is that we make up for the lack of occasional splendour by
consistent and equable excellence. All the other epicists will follow at a
respectful distance. _Macer_ and _Lucretius_ are indeed worth reading, but
are of no value for the phraseology, which is the main body of eloquence.
Each is good in his own subject; but the former is humble, the latter
difficult. _Varro Atacinus_, in those works which have gained him fame,
appears as a translator by no means contemptible, but is not rich enough
to add to the resources of eloquence. _Ennius_ let us reverence as we
should groves of holy antiquity, whose grand and venerable trees have more
sanctity than beauty. Others are nearer our own day, and more useful for
the matter in hand. _Ovid_ in his heroics is as usual wanton, and too fond
of his own talent, but in parts he deserves praise. _Cornelius Severus_,
though a better versifier than poet, would still claim the second place,
if only he had written all his _Sicilian War_ as well as the first book.
But his early death did not allow his genius to be matured. His boyish
works show a great and admirable talent, and a desire for the best style
rare at that time of life. We have lately lost much in _Valerius Flaccus_.
The inspiration of _Salcius Bassus_ was vigorous and poetical, but old age
never succeeded in ripening it. _Rabirius_ and _Pedo_ are worth reading,
if you have time. _Lucan_ is ardent, earnest, and full of admirably
expressed sentiments, and, to give my real opinion, should be classed with
orators rather than poets. We have named these because Germanicus Augustus
(Domitian) has been diverted from his favourite pursuit by the care of the
world, and the gods thought it too little for him to be the first of
poets. Yet what can be more sublime, learned, matchless in every way, than
the poems in which, giving up empire, he spent the privacy of his youth?
Who could sing of wars so well as he who has so successfully waged them?
To whom would the goddesses who watch over studies listen so propitiously?
To whom would Minerva, the patroness of his house, more willingly reveal
the mysteries of her art? Future ages will recount these things at greater
length. For now this glory is obscured by the splendour of his other
virtues. We, however, who worship at the shrine of letters will crave your
indulgence, Caesar, for not passing the subject by in silence, and will at
least bear witness, as Virgil says,
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