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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Trajan's reply, brief, clear, and to the point, as all his letters are, is
as follows:--
"I entirely approve of your conduct with regard to those Christians of
whom you had received information. We can never lay down a universal
rule, as if circumstances were always the same. They are not to be
searched for; but if they are reported and convicted, they must be
punished. But if any denies his Christianity and proves his words by
sacrificing to our divinity, even though his former conduct may have
laid him under suspicion, he must be allowed the benefit of his
recantation. No weight whatever should be attached to anonymous
communications; they are no Roman way of dealing, and are altogether
reprehensible."
Pliny died in 113. He shone in nearly every department of literature, and
thought himself no inelegant poet. His vanity has led him to record some
of his verses, but they only show that he had little or no talent in this
direction. His long and prosperous life was marked by no reverse. Popular
among his equals, splendid in his political successes, in his vast wealth,
and his friendship wife, the emperor, Pliny is almost a perfect type of a
refined pagan gentleman. In some ways he reminds us of Xenophon. He was in
complete harmony with his age; he had neither the harassing thoughts of
Seneca, nor the querulousness of his uncle, nor the settled gloom of
Tacitus, to overcast his bright and happy disposition. Few works in all
antiquity are more pleasing than his friendly correspondence. We learn
from it the names of a large number of orators and other distinguished
literary men, of whom, indeed, Rome was full. VOCONIUS ROMANUS, [7]
SALVIUS LIBERALIS, [8] C. FANNIUS, [9] and CLAUDIUS POLLIO, [10] were
among the most renowned. They are mentioned as possessing every gift that
could contribute to the highest eloquence; but as Pliny's good nature
leads him to praise all his friends indiscriminately, we cannot lay much
stress on his opinion. In jurisprudence we meet with PRISCUS NERATIUS,
JUVENTIUS CELSUS, and JAVOLENUS PRISCUS. The two former were men of mark,
and obtained the consulate. The last was less distinguished, and had the
misfortune to offend Pliny by an ill-timed jest. [11] Once, when Statius
had given a reading, and had just left the hall, the audience asked
Passienus Paulus, who had a manuscript ready, to take his place. Paulus
was somewhat diffident, but finally consented, and began his poem with the
words, "You bid me, Priscus...," on which Javolenus, who was sitting near,
called out, "You mistake! I do not bid you!" The audience greeted this
sally with a laugh, and so put an end to the unlucky Paulus's recitation.
Pliny contemptuously remarks that it is doubtful whether Javolenus was
quite sane, but admits that there are people imprudent enough to trust
their business to him. [12] We may think a single jest is somewhat scanty
evidence of _dementia_.
Grammar was in this reign actively pursued. FLAVIUS CAPER was the author
of a treatise on orthography, and another "on doubtful words," both of
which we possess. He seems to have been a learned man, and is often quoted
by the grammarians of the fourth and fifth centuries. VELIUS LONGUS also
wrote on orthography, and, as we learn from Gellius, a treatise _De Usu
Antiquae Lectionis_. All the chief grammarians now exercised themselves on
the interpretation of Virgil, who was fast rising into the position of an
oracle in nearly every department of learning, an elevation which, in the
time of Macrobius, he had completely attained. Of scientific writers we
possess in part the works of three; that of HYGINUS on munitions, and
another on boundaries (if indeed this last be his), which are based on
good authorities; that of BALBUS _On the Elementary Notions of Geometry_;
and perhaps that of SICULUS FLACCUS, _De Condidonibus Agrorum_, all of
which are of importance towards a knowledge of Roman surveying. It is
doubtful whether Flaccus lived under Trajan, but in any case he cannot be
placed later than the beginning of Hadrian's reign.
The only poet of the time of Trajan who has reached us, but one of the
greatest in Roman literature, is D. JUNIUS JUVENALIS (46-130? A.D.). He
was born during the reign of Claudius, and thus spent the best years of
his life under the regime of the worst emperors. His parentage is
uncertain, but he is said to have been either the son or the adopted son
of a rich freedman, and a passage in the third Satire [13] seems to point
to Aquinum as his birth-place. We have unfortunately scarcely any
knowledge of his life, a point to be the more regretted, as we might then
have pronounced with confidence on his character, which in the _Satires_
is completely veiled. An inscription placed by him in the temple of Ceres
Helvina, at Aquinum (probably in the reign of Domitian), has been
published by Mommsen. It contains one or two biographical notices, which
show that he held positions of considerable importance. [14] We have also
a memoir of him, attributed to Suetonius by some, but to Probus by Valla,
which tells us that until middle life he practised declamation as an
amateur, neither pleading at the bar nor opening a rhetorical school. We
are informed also that under Domitian he wrote a satire on the pantomime
Paris, which was so highly approved by his friends that he determined to
give himself to poetry. He did not, however, publish until the reign of
Trajan. It was in the time of Hadrian that some of his verses on an actor
[15] were recited, probably, by the populace in a theatre, in consequence
of which the poet, now eighty years of age, was exiled under the specious
pretext of a military command, the emperor's favourite player having taken
offence at the allusion. From a reference to Egypt in one of his later
satires, [16] the scholiast came to the conclusion that this was the place
of his exile. But it is more likely to have been Britain, though in this
case the relegation would have taken place under Trajan. [17] He appears
to have died soon after from disgust, though here the two accounts differ,
one bringing him back to Rome, and making him survive until the time of
Antoninus Pius. The obvious inference from all this is that we know very
little about the matter. In default of external evidence we might turn to
the _Satires_ themselves, but here the most careful sifting can find
nothing of importance. The great vigour of style, however, which is
conspicuous in the seventh Satire makes it clear that it was not the work
of the poet's old age. Hence the Caesar referred to cannot be Hadrian. He
must, therefore, be some earlier emperor, and there can be little doubt it
is Trajan. Under Trajan, then, we place the maturity of Juvenal's genius
as it is displayed in the first ten Satires. The four following ones show
a falling off in concentration and dramatic power, and are no doubt later
productions, when years of good government had softened his asperity of
mind. The fifteenth, sixteenth, and to a certain extent the twelfth, show
unmistakable signs of senility. The fifteenth contains evidence of its
date. The consulship of Juncus (127 A.D.) is mentioned as recent. [18] We
may therefore safely place the Satire within the two following years. The
sixteenth, which treats of the privileges of military service, a very
promising subject, has often been thought spurious, but without sufficient
reason. The poet speaks of himself as a civilian, appearing to have no
goodwill towards the camp, and as Juvenal had been in the army, it is
argued that he would scarcely have written so. But to this it may be
replied that Juvenal chose the subject for its literary capabilities, not
from any personal feeling. As an expert rhetorician, he could not fail to
see the humorous side of the relations between militaire and civilian. The
feebleness of the style, and certain differences from the diction usual
with the author, are not sufficient to found an argument upon, and have
besides been much exaggerated. They would apply equally, and even with
greater force, to the fifteenth.
The words "_ad mediam fere aetatem declamavit_," as Martha has justly
remarked, form the key to Juvenal's literary position. He is the very
quintessence of a declaimer, but a declaimer of a most masculine sort.
Boileau characterises him in two epigrammatic lines:
"Juvenal eleve dans les cris de l'ecole
Poussa jusqu'a l'exces son mordant hyperbole."
Poet in the highest sense of the word he certainly is not. The love of
beauty, which is the touchstone of the poetic soul, is absent from his
works. He rather revels in depicting horror and ugliness. But the other
qualification of the poet, viz. a mastery of words, [19] he possesses to a
degree not surpassed by any Roman writer, and in intensity and terseness
of language is perhaps superior to all. Not an epithet is wasted, not a
synonym idle. As much is pressed into each verse as it can possibly be
made to bear, so that fully to appreciate the _Satires_ it is necessary to
have a commentary on every line. Even now, after the immense erudition
that has been expended on him, many passages remain obscure, not only in
respect to allusions, but even in matters of language. [20] The tension of
his style, which is never relaxed, [21] represents not only great effort,
but long-matured and late-born thought. In the angry silence of forty
years had been formed that fierce and almost brutal directness of
description which paints, as has been well said, with a vividness truly
horrible. In preaching virtue, he first frightens away modesty. There is
scarce one of his poems that does not shock even where it rebukes. And
three of them are so hideous in their wonderful power that it is
impossible to read them with any pleasure, though one of these (the sixth)
is perhaps the most vigorous piece of writing in the entire Latin
language. For compressed power it may he compared to the first chorus of
the _Agamemnon_ of Aeschylus, but here the likeness ceases. While the
Athenian, even among dreadful scenes, rises to notes of sweet and almost
divine pathos, the Roman's dark picture is not relieved by one touch of
the beautiful, or one reminiscence of the ideal.
The question naturally arises, What led Juvenal to write poetry after
being so long content with declamation? He partly answers us in his first
Satire, where he tells us that it is in revenge for the poetry that has
been inflicted on himself:
"Semper ego auditor tantum nunquamne reponam?"
But it arises also from a higher motive--
"Facit indignatio versum
Qualemcunque potest, quales ego vel Cluvienus."
These two qualities, vexation (_vexatus toties_, i. 2) and indignation,
are the salient characteristics of Juvenal. How far the vexation was
righteous, the indignation sincere, is a question hard to answer. There is
no denying the power with which they are expressed. But to submit to this
power is one thing, to sift its author's heart is another. After a long
and careful study of Juvenal's poems, we confess to being able to make
nothing of Juvenal himself. We cannot get even a glimpse of him. He never
doffs the iron mask, the "_rigidi censura cachinni_;" he has so long
hidden his face that he is afraid to see it himself or to let it be seen.
Some have thought that in the eleventh and twelfth Satires they can find
the man, and have been glad to figure him as genial, simple, and kind. But
it is by no means certain that even these are not mere rhetorical
exercises, modelled on the Horatian epistles, but themselves having no
relation to any actual event. The fifteenth, again, represents a softer
view of life, the thirteenth and fourteenth a higher faith in providence;
in these, it has been thought, appears the true nature, which had allowed
itself to lie hid among the denunciations of the earlier satires. But, in
truth, the character of Juvenal must be one of the _incognita_ of
literature. It is a retaliation on Satire's part for the intimate
knowledge she had allowed us to gain of Horace and Persius through their
works. [22]
In manner Juvenal is the most original of poets; in matter he is the
glorifier of common-place. His strength lies in his prejudices. He is not
a moralist, but a _Roman_ moralist; the vices he lashes are not lashed as
vices _simpliciter_, but as vices that Roman ethics condemn. This one-
sided patriotism is the key to all his ideas. In an age which had seen
Seneca, Juvenal can revert to the patriotism of Cato. The burden of his
complaints is given in the third Satire:
"Non possum ferre Quintes Graecam Urbem." [23]
While the Greeks lead fashion, the old Roman virtues can never be
restored. If only men could be disabused of their strange reverence for
all that is Greek, society might be reconstructed. The keen satirist
scents a real danger; in half a century from his death Rome had become a
Greek city.
In estimating the political character of Juvenal's satire we must not
attach too much weight to his denunciation of former tyrants. In the first
place "_tyrannicide_" was a common-place of the schools: [24] Xerxes,
Periander, Phalaris, and all the other despots of history, had been
treated in rhetoric as they had treated others in reality; Juvenal's
tirade was nothing new, but it was something much more powerful than had
yet been seen. In the second place the policy of Trajan encouraged abuse
of his predecessors. He could hardly claim to restore the Republic unless
he showed how the Republic had been overthrown. Pliny, the courtly
flatterer, is far more severe on Domitian than Juvenal; and in truth such
severity was only veiled adulation. When Juvenal ridicules the senate of
Domitian, [25] we may believe that he desired to stimulate to independence
the senate of his day; and when he speaks of Trajan, it is in language of
enthusiastic praise. [26] Flattery it is not, for Juvenal is no sycophant,
nor would Trajan have liked him better if he had been one. Indeed, with
all his invective he keeps strictly to truth; his painting of the emperors
is from the life. It is highly coloured, but not out of drawing. Juvenal's
Domitian is nearer to history than Tacitus's Tiberius.
It is in his delineations of society that Juvenal is at his greatest.
There is nothing ideal about him, but his pictures of real life, allowing
for their glaring lights, have an almost overpowering truthfulness. Every
grade of society is made to furnish matter for his dramatic scenes. The
degenerate noble is pilloried in the eighth, the cringing parasite in the
fifth, the vicious hypocrite in the second, the female profligate in the
sixth. It is rarely that he touches on contemporary themes. His genius was
formed in the past and feeds on bitter memories. As he says, he "kills the
dead." [27] To attack the living is neither pleasant nor safe. Still, in
the historic incidents he resuscitates, a piercing eye can read a
reference to the present. Hadrian's favourite actor saw himself in Paris.
Freedmen and upstarts could read their original in Sejanus. [28] Frivolous
noblemen could feel their follies rebuked in the persons of Lateranus and
Damasippus. [29] Even an emperor might find his lesson in the gloomy
pictures of Hannibal and Alexander. [30] So constant is this reference to
past events that Juvenal's writings may be called historic satire, as
those of Tacitus satiric history.
The exaggeration of Juvenal's style if employed in a different way might
have led us to suspect him of less honesty of purpose than he really has.
As it is, the very violence of his prejudices betrays an earnestness
which, if his views had been more elevated, we might have thought feigned.
A man might pretend to enthusiasm for truth, or holiness; he would hardly
pretend to enthusiasm for national exclusiveness, [31] or for the dignity
of his own profession. [32] When Juvenal attacks the insolent parvenu,
[33] the Bithynian or Cappadocian knight, [34] the Greek adventurer who
takes everything out of the Roman's hands, [35] the Chaldean impostor,
[36] we may be sure he means what he says.
It is true that all his accusations are not thus limited in their scope.
Some are no doubt inspired by moral indignation; and the language in which
they are expressed is noble and well deserves the praise universally
accorded to it. But in other instances his patriotism obscures his moral
sense. For example, the rich upstarts against whom he is perpetually
thundering, are by no means all worthy of blame. Very many of them have
obtained their wealth by honourable commerce, which the nobles were too
proud to practise, and the rewards of which they yet could not see reaped
without envy and scorn. [37] The increasing importance of the class of
_libertini_, so far from being an unmixed evil, as Juvenal thinks it, was
productive of immense good. It was the first step towards the breaking
down of the party-wall of pride which, if persisted in, must have caused
the premature ruin of the Empire. It familiarised men's minds with ideas
of equality, and prepared the way for the elevation to the citizenship of
those vast masses of slaves who were fast becoming an anachronism.
Popular feeling was ahead of men like Juvenal and Tacitus in these
respects. In all cases of disturbance the senate and great literary men
sided with the old exclusive views. The emperors, as a rule, interfered
for the benefit of the slave: and this helps us to understand the
popularity of some even of the worst of their number.
Juvenal, then, was not above his age, as Cicero and Seneca had been. He
does protest against the cruel treatment of slaves by the Roman ladies;
but he nowhere exerts his eloquence to advocate their rights as men to
protection and friendship. Nor does he enter a protest against the
gladiatorial shows, which was the first thing a high moralist would have
impugned, and which the Christians attacked with equal enthusiasm and
courage. We observe, however, with pleasure, that as Juvenal advanced in
years his tone became gentler and purer, though his literary powers
decayed. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth Satires evince a kindly
vein which we fail to find in the earlier ones. Some have fancied that in
the interval he became acquainted with the teaching of Christianity. But
this is a supposition as improbable as it is unsupported.
On the style of Juvenal but little need be added. Its force, brevity, and
concision have already been noticed, At the same time they do not seem to
have been natural to him. Where he writes more easily he is diffuse and
even verbose. The twelfth and fifteenth Satires are conspicuous examples
of this. One is tempted to think that the fifteenth, had he written it
twenty years earlier, would have been compressed into half its length. The
diction is classical; but like that of Tacitus, it is the classicality of
the Silver Age. It shows, however, no diminution of power, and the gulf
between it and that of Fronto and Apuleius in the next age is immense.
Juvenal's language is based on a minute study of Virgil; [38] his rhythm
is based rather on that of Lucan, with whom in other respects he shows a
great affinity. His verse is sonorous and powerful; he is fond of the
break after the fourth foot. Though monotonous, its weight makes it very
impressive; it is easily retained in the memory, and stands next to that
of Virgil and Lucretius as a type of what the language can achieve.
The resentment that goaded Juvenal to write satire seems also to have
inspired the pen of C. CORNELIUS TACITUS. [39] He was born 54 A.D., or,
according to Arnold, 57 A.D., probably in Rome. His father was perhaps the
same who is alluded to by Pliny [40] as procurator of Belgian Gaul. It is,
at any rate, certain that the historian came of a noble and wealthy stock;
his habit of thought, prejudices, and tastes all reflect these of the
highest and most exclusive society. He began the career of honours under
Vespasian [41] by obtaining his quaestorship, and, some years later, the
aedileship. The dates of both these events are uncertain--another instance
of the vagueness with which writers of this time allude to the
circumstances of their own lives. We know that at twenty-one he married
the daughter of Cn. Julius Agricola, and that he was praetor ten years
afterwards. He was also quindecimvir at the secular games under Domitian
(88 A.D.). For some years he held a military command abroad, perhaps in
Germany. On his return he was constant in his senatorial duties [42] and
we find him joined with Pliny in the accusation of Marius Priscus, which
was successful but unavailing. Under Nerva (97 A.D.) he was made consul;
but soon retired from public life, and dedicated the rest of his days to
literature, having sketched out a vast plan of Roman history the greater
part of which he lived to fulfil. The year of his death is uncertain.
Brotier, followed by Arnold, thinks he was prematurely cut off before the
close of Trajan's reign, but it is possible he lived somewhat longer,
perhaps until 118 A.D.
The first remark one naturally makes on reading the life of Tacitus, is
that he was admirably fitted by his distinguished military and political
career for the duties of a historian. Gibbon said that his year in the
yeomanry had been of more service to him in describing battles than any
closet study could have been; and Tacitus has this great advantage over
Livy that he had helped to make history as well as to relate it. His
elevation to the rank of senator enabled him to understand the iniquity of
Domitian's government in a way that would otherwise have been impossible;
and of the complicity shown by the servile fathers in their ruler's acts
of crime, he speaks in the _Agricola_ with something like the shame of
repentance. His character seems to have been naturally proud and
independent, but unequal to heroism in action. Like almost all literary
minds he shrunk from facing peril or discomfort, and tried to steer a
course between the harsh self-assertion of a Thrasea [43] and the cringing
servility of the majority of senators. This led him to become dissatisfied
with himself, with the world, and with Divine Providence, [44] and has
left a stamp of profound and rebellious melancholy on all his works.
As a young man he had studied rhetoric under Aper Secundus, [45] and
perhaps Quintilian. He pleaded with the greatest success, and Pliny gives
it as his own highest ambition to be ranked next, he dare not say second,
to Tacitus. [46] Nor was his deliberative eloquence inferior to his
judicial. We learn, from Pliny again, that there was a peculiar solemnity
in his language, which gave to all he uttered the greatest weight. The
panegyric he pronounced on Virginius Rufus, the man who twice refused the
chance of empire, "the best citizen of his time," was celebrated as a
model of that kind of oratory. [47]
The earliest work of his that has reached us is the _Dialogus de caussis
corruptae Eloquentiae_, composed under Titus, or early under Domitian. It
attributes the decay of eloquence to the decay of freedom; but believes in
a future development of imperial oratory under the mild sway of just
princes, founded not on feeble and repining imitation of the past, but on
a just appreciation of the qualifications attainable in the present
political conditions and state of the language. The argument is conducted
throughout with the greatest moderation, but the conclusion is decided in
favour of the modern style, if kept within proper bounds. The time of the
dialogue is laid in 75 A.D.; the speakers are Curiatius Maternus, Aper
Secundus, and Vipstanus Messala. The point of debate is one frequently
discussed in the schools of rhetoric, and the work may be considered as a
literary exercise; but the author must have outgrown youth when he wrote
it, and its ability is such as to give promise of commanding eminence in
the future. The style is free and flowing, and full of imitations of
Cicero. This has caused some of the critics to attribute it to other
authors, as Pliny the younger and Quintilian, [48] who were known to be
Ciceronianists. But independently of the fact that it is distinctly above
the level of these writers, we observe on looking closely many indications
of Tacitus's peculiar diction. [49] The most striking personal notice
occurs in the thirteenth chapter, where the author announces his
determination to give up the life of ambition, and, like Virgil, to be
content with one of literary retirement. This seems at first hard to
reconcile with the known career of Tacitus; but as the dialogue bears all
the marks of early manhood, the resolve, though real, may have been a
passing one only; or, in comparison with what he felt himself capable of
doing, the activity actually displayed by him may have seemed as nothing,
and to have merited the depreciatory notice he here bestows upon it.
The work next in order of priority is the _Agricola_, a biography of his
father-in-law, composed near the commencement of Trajan's reign, about 98
A. D. The talent of the author has now undergone a change; he is no longer
the bright flowing spirit of the _Dialogus_, who acknowledged the decline
while making the most of the excellences of his time; he has become the
stern, back-looking moralist, the burning panegyrist, whose very pictures
of virtue are the most withering rebukes of vice. This treatise represents
what Teuffel calls his _Sallustian_ epoch; _i.e._, a phase or period of
his mental development, in which his political and moral feeling, as well
as his literary aspirations, led him to recall the manner of the great
rhetorical biographer. The short preface, in which occurs a fierce protest
against the wickedness of the time just past, reminds us of the more
verbose but otherwise not dissimilar introduction to the _Catiline_: and
the subordination of general history to the main subject of the
composition is earned out in Sallust's way, but with even greater
completeness. At the same time the Silver Age is betrayed by the extremely
high colouring of the rhetoric, especially in the last chapters, where an
impassioned outpouring of affection and despair seems by its prophetic
eloquence to summon forth the genius that is to be. Already, in this work,
[50] we find that Tacitus has conceived the design of his _Historiae_, to
which, therefore, the _Agricola_ must be considered a preliminary study.
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