The most facile and brilliant of the elegiac poets and the least serious in tone and spirit is P. Ovidius Naso or Ovid (43B.C.-A.D.18). As an amatory poet he is the poet of pleasure and intrigue rather than of tender sentiment orOvid.absorbing passion. Though he treated his subject in relation to himself with more levity and irony than real feeling, yet by his sparkling wit and fancy he created a literature of sentiment and adventure adapted to amuse the idle and luxurious society of which the elder Julia was the centre. His power of continuous narrative is best seen in theMetamorphoses, written in hexameters to which he has imparted a rapidity and precision of movement more suited to romantic and picturesque narrative than the weighty self-restrained verse of Virgil. In hisFastihe treats a subject of national interest; it is not, however, through the strength of Roman sentiment but through the power of vividly conceiving and narrating stories of strong human interest that the poem lives. In his latest works—theTristiaandEx Ponto—he imparts the interest of personal confessions to the record of a unique experience. Latin poetry is more rich in the expression of personal feeling than of dramatic realism. In Ovid we have both. We know him in the intense liveliness of his feeling and the human weakness of his nature more intimately than any other writer of antiquity, except perhaps Cicero. As Virgil marks the point of maturest excellence in poetic diction and rhythm, Ovid marks that of the greatest facility.
The Augustan age was one of those great eras in the world like the era succeeding the Persian War in Greece, the Elizabethan age in England, and the beginning of the 19th century in Europe, in which what seems a new springLivy.of national and individual life calls out an idealizing retrospect of the past. As the present seems full of new life, the past seems rich in glory and the future in hope. The past of Rome had always a peculiar fascination for Roman writers. Virgil in a supreme degree, and Horace, Propertius and Ovid in a less degree, had expressed in their poetry the romance of the past. But it was in the great historical work of T. Livius or Livy (59B.C.-A.D.17) that the record of the national life received itsmost systematic exposition. Its execution was the work of a life prolonged through the languor and dissolution following so soon upon the promise of the new era, during which time the past became glorified by contrast with the disheartening aspect of the present. The value of the work consists not in any power of critical investigation or weighing of historical evidence but in the intense sympathy of the writer with the national ideal, and the vivid imagination with which under the influence of this sympathy he gives life to the events and personages, the wars and political struggles, of times remote from his own. He makes us feel more than any one the majesty of the Roman state, of its great magistracies, and of the august council by which its policy was guided. And, while he makes the wordssenatus populusque Romanusfull of significance for all times, no one realizes with more enthusiasm all that is implied in the wordsimperium Romanum, and the great military qualities of head and heart by which that empire was acquired and maintained. The vast scale on which the work was conceived and the thoroughness of artistic execution with which the details are finished are characteristically Roman. The prose style of Rome, as a vehicle for the continuous narration of events coloured by a rich and picturesque imagination and instinct with dignified emotion, attained its perfection in Livy.
Fourth Period: The Silver Age, fromA.D.17 to about 130.
For more than a century after the death of Augustus Roman literature continues to flow in the old channels. Though drawing from the provinces, Rome remains the centre of the literary movement. The characteristics of the greatCharacteristics of post-Augustan age.writers are essentially national, not provincial nor cosmopolitan. In prose the old forms—oratory, history, the epistle, treatises or dialogues on ethical and literary questions—continue to be cultivated. Scientific and practical subjects, such as natural history, architecture, medicine, agriculture, are treated in more elaborate literary style. The old Romansaturais developed into something like the modern prose novel. In the various provinces of poetry, while there is little novelty or inspiration, there is abundance of industry and ambitious effort. The national love of works of large compass shows itself in the production of long epic poems, both of the historic and of the imitative Alexandrian type. The imitative and rhetorical tastes of Rome showed themselves in the composition of exotic tragedies, as remote in spirit and character from Greek as from Roman life, of which the only extant specimens are those attributed to the younger Seneca. The composition of didactic, lyrical and elegiac poetry also was the accomplishment and pastime of an educated dilettante class, the only extant specimens of any interest being some of theSilvaeof Statius. The only voice with which the poet of this age can express himself with force and sincerity is that of satire and satiric epigram. We find now only imitative echoes of the old music created by Virgil and others, as in Statius, or powerful declamation, as in Lucan and Juvenal. There is a deterioration in the diction as well as in the music of poetry. The elaborate literary culture of the Augustan age has done something to impair the native force of the Latin idiom. The language of literature, in the most elaborate kind of prose as well as poetry, loses all ring of popular speech. The old oratorical tastes and aptitudes find their outlet in public recitations and the practice of declamation. Forced and distorted expression, exaggerated emphasis, point and antithesis, an affected prettiness, are studied with the view of gaining the applause of audiences who thronged the lecture and recitation rooms in search of temporary excitement. Education is more widely diffused, but is less thorough, less leisurely in its method, derived less than before from the purer sources of culture. The precocious immaturity of Lucan’s career affords a marked contrast to the long preparation of Virgil and Horace for their high office. Although there are some works of this so-called Silver Age of considerable and one at least of supreme interest, from the insight they afford into the experience of a century of organized despotism and its effect on the spiritual life of the ancient world, it cannot be doubted that the steady literary decline which characterized the last centuries of paganism was beginning before the death of Ovid and Livy.
The influences which had inspired republican and Augustan literature were the artistic impulse derived from a familiarity with the great works of Greek genius, becoming more intimate with every new generation, the spell of Rome over the imagination of the kindred Italian races, the charm of Italy, and the vivid sensibility of the Italian temperament. These influences were certainly much less operative in the first century of the empire. The imitative impulse, which had much of the character of a creative impulse, and had resulted in the appropriation of the forms of poetry suited to the Roman and Italian character and of the metres suited to the genius of the Latin language, no longer stimulated to artistic effort. The great sources of Greek poetry were no longer regarded, as they were by Lucretius and Virgil, as sacred, untasted springs, to be approached in a spirit of enthusiasm tempered with reverence. We have the testimony of two men of shrewd common sense and masculine understanding—Martial and Juvenal—to the stale and lifeless character of the art of the Silver Age, which sought to reproduce in the form of epics, tragedies and elegies the bright fancies of the Greek mythology.
The idea of Rome, owing to the antagonism between the policy of the government and the sympathies of the class by which literature was favoured and cultivated, could no longer be an inspiring motive, as it had been in the literature of the republic and of the Augustan age. The spirit of Rome appears only as animating the protest of Lucan, the satire of Persius and Juvenal, the sombre picture which Tacitus paints of the annals of the empire. Oratory is no longer an independent voice appealing to sentiments of Roman dignity, but the weapon of the “informers” (delatores), wielded for their own advancement and the destruction of that class which, even in their degeneracy, retained most sympathy with the national traditions. Roman history was no longer a record of national glory, stimulating the patriotism and flattering the pride of all Roman citizens, but a personal eulogy or a personal invective, according as servility to a present or hatred of a recent ruler was the motive which animated it.
The charm of Italian scenes still remained the same, but the fresh and inspiring feeling cf nature gave place to the mere sensuous gratification derived from the luxurious and artificial beauty of the country villa. The idealizing poetry of passion, which found a genuine voice in Catullus and the elegiac poets, could not prolong itself through the exhausting licence of successive generations. The vigorous vitality which gives interest to the personality of Catullus, Propertius and Ovid no longer characterizes their successors. The pathos of natural affection is occasionally recognized in Statius and more rarely in Martial, but it has not the depth of tenderness found in Lucretius and Virgil. The wealth and luxury of successive generations, the monotonous routine of life, the separation of the educated class from the higher work of the world, have produced their enervating and paralysing effect on the mainsprings of poetic and imaginative feeling.
New elements, however, appear in the literature of this period. As the result of the severance from the active interests of life, a new interest is awakened in the inner life of the individual. The immorality of Roman society notNew literary elements.only affords abundant material to the satirist, but deepens the consciousness of moral evil in purer and more thoughtful minds. To these causes we attribute the pathological observation of Seneca and Tacitus, the new sense of purity in Persius called out by contrast with the impurity around him, the glowing if somewhat sensational exaggeration of Juvenal, the vivid characterization of Martial. The literature of no time presents so powerfully the contrast between moral good and evil. In this respect it is truly representative of the life of the age. Another new element is the influence of a new race. In the two preceding periods the rapid diffusion of literary culture following the Social War and the first Civil War was seen to awaken into new life the elements of original genius in Italy and Cisalpine Gaul. In the first century of the empire a similarresult was produced by the diffusion of that culture in the Latinized districts of Spain. The fervid temperament of a fresh and vigorous race, which received the Latin discipline just as Latium had two or three centuries previously received the Greek discipline, revealed itself in the writings of the Senecas, Lucan, Quintilian, Martial and others, who in their own time added literary distinction to the Spanish towns from which they came. The new extraneous element introduced into Roman literature draws into greater prominence the characteristics of the last great representatives of the genuine Roman and Italian spirit—the historian Tacitus and the satirist Juvenal.
On the whole this century shows, in form, language and substance, the signs of literary decay. But it is still capable of producing men of original force; it still maintains the traditions of a happier time; it is still alive to the value of literary culture, and endeavours by minute attention to style to produce new effects. Though it was not one of the great eras in the annals of literature, yet the century which produced Martial, Juvenal and Tacitus cannot be pronounced barren in literary originality, nor that which produced Seneca and Quintilian devoid of culture and literary taste.
This fourth period is itself subdivided into three divisions: (1) from the accession of Tiberius to the death of Nero, 68—the most important part of it being the Neronian age, 54 to 68; (2) the Flavian era, from the death of Nero to the death of Domitian, 96; (3) the reigns of Nerva and Trajan and part of the reign of Hadrian.
1. For a generation after the death of Augustus no new original literary force appeared. The later poetry of the Augustan age had ended in trifling dilettantism, for the continuance of which the atmosphere of the courtPeriod from Tiberius to Nero.was no longer favourable. The class by which literature was encouraged had become both enervated and terrorized. The most remarkable poetical product of the time is the long-neglected astrological poem of Manilius which was written at the beginning of Tiberius’s reign. Its vigour and originality have had scanty justice done to them owing to the difficulty of the subject-matter and the style, and the corruptions which still disfigure its text. Very different has been the fate of theFablesof Phaedrus. This slight work of a Macedonian freedman, destitute of national significance and representative in its morality only of the spirit of cosmopolitan individualism, owes its vogue to its easy Latinity and popular subject-matter. Of the prose writers C. Velleius Paterculus, the historian, and Valerius Maximus, the collector of anecdotes, are the most important. A. Cornelius Celsus composed a series of technical handbooks, one of which, upon medicine, has survived. Its purity of style and the fact that it was long a standard work entitle it to a mention here. The traditional culture was still, however, maintained, and the age was rich in grammarians and rhetoricians. The new profession of thedelatormust have given a stimulus to oratory. A high ideal of culture, literary as well as practical, was realized in Germanicus, which seems to have been transmitted to his daughter Agrippina, whose patronage of Seneca had important results in the next generation. The reign of Claudius was a time in which antiquarian learning, grammatical studies, and jurisprudence were cultivated, but no important additions were made to literature. A fresh impulse was given to letters on the accession of Nero, and this was partly due to the theatrical and artistic tastes of the young emperor. Four writers of the Neronian age still possess considerable interest,—L. Annaeus Seneca, M. Annaeus Lucanus, A. Persius Flaccus and Petronius Arbiter. The first three represent the spirit of their age by exhibiting the power of the Stoic philosophy as a moral, political and religious force; the last is the most cynical exponent of the depravity of the time. Seneca (c.5B.C.-A.D.65) is less than Persius a pure Stoic, and more of a moralist and pathological observer of man’s inner life. He makes the commonplaces of a cosmopolitan philosophy interesting by his abundant illustration drawn from the private and social life of his contemporaries. He has knowledge of the world, the suppleness of a courtier, Spanish vivacity, and theingenium amoenumattributed to him by Tacitus, the fruit of which is sometimes seen in the “honeyed phrases” mentioned by Petronius—pure aspirations combined with inconsistency of purpose—the inconsistency of one who tries to make the best of two worlds, the ideal inner life and the successful real life in the atmosphere of a most corrupt court. ThePharsaliaof Lucan (39-65), with Cato as its hero, is essentially a Stoic manifesto of the opposition. It is written with the force and fervour of extreme youth and with the literary ambition of a race as yet new to the discipline of intellectual culture, and is characterized by rhetorical rather than poetical imagination. The six shortSatiresof Persius (34-62) are the purest product of Stoicism—a Stoicism that had found in a contemporary, Thrasea, a more rational and practical hero than Cato. But no important writer of antiquity has less literary charm than Persius. In avoiding the literary conceits and fopperies which he satirizes he has recourse to the most unnatural contortions of expression. Of hardly greater length are the seven eclogues of T. Calpurnius Siculus, written at the beginning of the reign of Nero, which are not without grace and facility of diction. Of the works of the time that which from a human point of view is perhaps the most detestable in ancient literature has the most genuine literary quality, the fragment of a prose novel—theSatyricon—of Petronius (d. 66). It is most sincere in its representation, least artificial in diction, most penetrating in its satire, most just in its criticism of art and style.
2. A greater sobriety of tone was introduced both into life and literature with the accession of Vespasian. The time was, however, characterized rather by good sense and industry than by original genius. Under VespasianAge of Domitian.C. Plinius Secundus, or Pliny the elder (compiler of theNatural History, an encyclopaedic treatise, 23-79), is the most important prose writer, and C. Valerius Flaccus Setinus Balbus, author of theArgonautica(d.c. 90), the most important among the writers of poetry. The reign of Domitian, although it silenced the more independent spirits of the time, Tacitus and Juvenal, witnessed more important contributions to Roman literature than any age since the Augustan,—among them theInstitutesof Quintilian, thePunic Warof Silius Italicus, the epics and theSilvaeof Statius, and theEpigramsof Martial. M. Fabius Quintilianus, or Quintilian (c.35-95), is brought forward by Juvenal as a unique instance of a thoroughly successful man of letters, of one not belonging by birth to the rich or official class, who had risen to wealth and honours through literature. He was well adapted to his time by his good sense and sobriety of judgment. His criticism is just and true rather than subtle or ingenious, and has thus stood the test of the judgment of after-times. The poem of Ti. Catius Silius Italicus (25-101) is a proof of the industry and literary ambition of members of the rich official class. Of the epic poets of the Silver Age P. Papinius Statius (c.45-96) shows the greatest technical skill and the richest pictorial fancy in the execution of detail; but his epics have no true inspiring motive, and, although the recitation of theThebaidcould attract and charm an audience in the days of Juvenal, it really belongs to the class of poems so unsparingly condemned both by him and Martial. In theSilvae, though many of them have little root in the deeper feelings of human nature, we find occasionally more than in any poetry after the Augustan age something of the purer charm and pathos of life. But it is not in theSilvae, nor in the epics and tragedies of the time, nor in the cultivated criticism of Quintilian that the age of Domitian lives for us. It is in theEpigramsof M. Valerius Martialis or Martial (c. 41-104) that we have a true image of the average sensual frivolous life of Rome at the end of the 1st century, seen through a medium of wit and humour, but undistorted by the exaggeration which moral indignation and the love of effect add to the representation of Juvenal. Martial represents his age in hisEpigrams, as Horace does his in hisSatiresandOdes, with more variety and incisive force in his sketches, though with much less poetic charm and serious meaning. We know the daily life, the familiar personages, the outward aspect of Rome in the age of Domitianbetter than at any other period of Roman history, and this knowledge we owe to Martial.
3. But it was under Nerva and Trajan that the greatest and most truly representative works of the empire were written. TheAnnalsandHistoriesof Cornelius Tacitus (54-119), with the supplementaryLife of Agricolaand thePeriod of Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian.Germania, and theSatiresof D. Iunius Iuvenalis or Juvenal (c.47-130), sum up for posterity the moral experience of the Roman world from the accession of Tiberius to the death of Domitian. The generous scorn and pathos of the historian acting on extraordinary gifts of imaginative insight and characterization, and the fierce indignation of the satirist finding its vent in exaggerating realism, doubtless to some extent warped their impressions; nevertheless their works are the last voices expressive of the freedom and manly virtue of the ancient world. In them alone among the writers of the empire the spirit of the Roman republic seems to revive. TheLettersof C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus or Pliny the Younger (61-c.115), though they do not contradict the representation of Tacitus and Juvenal regarded as an exposure of the political degradation and moral corruption of prominent individuals and classes, do much to modify the pervadingly tragic and sombre character of their representation.
With the death of Juvenal, the most important part of whose activity falls in the reign of Trajan, Latin literature as an original and national expression of the experience, character, and sentiment of the Roman state and empire, and as one of the great literatures of the world, may be considered closed.
Later Writers.
What remains to describe is little but death and decay. Poetry died first; the paucity of writings in verse is matched by their insignificance. For two centuries after Juvenal there are no names but those of Q. Serenus Sammonicus, with his pharmacopoeia in verse (c.225), and M. Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus, who wrote a few feeble eclogues and (283) a dull piece on the training of dogs for the chase. Towards the middle of the 4th century we have Decimus Magnus Ausonius, a professor of Bordeaux and afterwards consul (379), whose style is as little like that of classical poetry as is his prosody. HisMosella, a detailed description of the river Moselle, is the least unattractive of his works. A little better is his contemporary, Rufius Festus Avienus, who made some free translations of astronomical and geographical poems in Greek. A generation later, in what might be called the expiring effort of Latin poetry, appeared two writers of much greater merit. The first is Claudius Claudianus (c.400), a native of Alexandria and the court poet of the emperor Honorius and his minister Stilicho. ClaudianClaudian.may be properly styled the last of the poets of Rome. He breathes the old national spirit, and his mastery of classical idiom and versification is for his age extraordinary. Something of the same may be seen in Rutilius Namatianus, a Gaul by birth, who wrote in 416 a description of his voyage from the capital to his native land, which contains the most glowing eulogy of Rome ever penned by an ancient hand. Of the Christian “poets” only Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (c.348-410) need be mentioned. He was well read in the ancient literature; but the task of embodying the Christian spirit in the classical form was one far beyond his powers.
The vitality of the prose literature was not much greater though its complete extinction was from the nature of the case impossible. The most important writer in the age succeeding Juvenal was the biographer C. Suetonius TranquillusSuetonius.(c.75-160), whose work is more valuable for its matter than its manner. His style is simple and direct, but has hardly any other merit. A little later the rise of M. Cornelius Fronto (c.100-175), a native of Cirta, marks the beginning of an African influence. Fronto, a distinguished orator and intimate friend of the emperor M. Aurelius, broke away from the traditional Latin of the Silver and Golden ages, and took as his models the pre-classical authors. The reaction was short-lived; but the same affectation of antiquity is seen in the writings of Apuleius, also an African, who lived a little later than Fronto and was a man of much greater natural parts. In hisMetamorphoses,Apuleius.which were based upon a Greek original, he takes the wonderful story of the adventures of Lucius of Madaura, and interweaves the famous legend of Cupid and Psyche. His bizarre and mystical style has a strange fascination for the reader; but there is nothing Roman or Italian about it. Two epitomists of previous histories may be mentioned: Justinus (of uncertain date) who abridged the history of Pompeius Trogus, an Augustan writer; and P. Annius Florus, who wrote in the reign of Hadrian a rhetorical sketch based upon Livy. TheHistoria Augusta, which includes the lives of the emperors from Hadrian to Numerianus (117-284), is the work of six writers, four of whom wrote under Diocletian and two under Constantine. It is a collection of personal memoirs of little historical importance, and marked by puerility and poverty of style. Ammianus Marcellinus (c.330-400) had a higher conception of the historian’s function. His narrative of the years 353-378 (all that now remains) is honest and straightforward, but his diction is awkward and obscure. The last pagan prose writer who need be mentioned is Q. Aurelius Symmachus (c.350-410), the author of some speeches and a collection of letters. All the art of his ornate and courtly periods cannot disguise the fact that there was nothing now for paganism to say.
It is in Christian writers alone that we find the vigour of life. The earliest work of Christian apologetics is theOctaviusor Minucius Felix, a contemporary of Fronto. It is written in pure Latin and is strongly tinged by classicalChristian writers.influences. Quite different is the work of “the fierce Tertullian,” Q. Septimius Florens Tertullianus (c. 150-230), a native of Carthage, the most vigorous of the Latin champions of the new faith. His style shows the African revolt of which we have already spoken, and in its medley of archaisms, Graecisms and Hebraisms reveals the strength of the disintegrating forces at work upon the Latin language. A more commanding figure is that of Aurelius Augustinus or St Augustine (354-430), bishop of Hippo, who for comprehensiveness and dialectical power stands out in the same way as Hieronymus or St Jerome (c. 331 or 340-420), a native of Stridon in Dalmatia, does for many-sided learning and scholarship.
The decline of literature proper was attended by an increased output of grammatical and critical studies. From the time of L. Aelius Stilo Praeconinus, who was the teacher of Varro and Cicero, much interest had been taken inGrammarians.literary and linguistic problems at Rome. Varro under the republic, and M. Verrius Flaccus in the Augustan age, had busied themselves with lexicography and etymology. The grammarian M. Valerius Probus (c.A.D.60) was the first critical editor of Latin texts. In the next century we have Velius Longus’s treatiseDe Orthographia, and then a much more important work, theNoctes Atticaeof Aulus Gellius, and (c. 200) a treatise in verse by Terentianus, an African, upon Latin pronunciation, prosody and metre. Somewhat later are the commentators on Terence and Horace, Helenius Acro and Pomponius Porphyrio. The tradition was continued in the 4th century by Nonius Marcellus and C. Marius Victorinus, both Africans; Aelius Donatus, the grammarian and commentator on Terence and Virgil, Flavius Sosipater Charisius and Diomedes, and Servius, the author of a valuable commentary on Virgil. Ambrosius Macrobius Theodosius (c. 400) wrote a treatise on Cicero’sSomnium Scipionisand seven books of miscellanies (Saturnalia); and Martianus Capella (c. 430), a native of Africa, published a compendium of the seven liberal arts, written in a mixture of prose and verse, with some literary pretensions. The last grammarian who need be named is the most widely known of all, the celebrated Priscianus, who published his text-book at Constantinople probably in the middle of the 5th century.
In jurisprudence, which may be regarded as one of the outlying regions of literature, Roman genius had had some of its greatest triumphs, and, if we take account of the “codes,” was active to the end. The most distinguished of the early jurists (whoseJurists.works are lost) were Q. Mucius Scaevola, who died in 82B.C., and following him Ser. Sulpicius Rufus, who died in 43B.C.In the Augustan age M. Antistius Labeo and C. Ateius Capito headed two opposing schools in jurisprudence, Labeo being an advocate of method and reform, and Capito being a conservative and empiricist. The strife, which reflects the controversy between the “analogists” and the “anomalists” in philology, continued long after their death. Salvius Julianus was entrusted by Hadrian with the task of reducing into shape the immense mass of law which had grown up in the edicts of successive praetors—thus taking the first step towards a code. Sex. Pomponius, a contemporary, wrote an important legal manual of which fragments are preserved. The most celebrated handbook, however, is theInstitutionesof Gaius, who lived under Antonius Pius—a model of what such treatises should be. The most eminent of all the Roman jurists was Aemilius Papinianus, the intimate friend of Septimius Severus; of his works only fragments remain. Other considerable writers were the prolific Domitius Ulpianus (c.215) and Julius Paulus, his contemporary. The last juristical writer of note was Herennius Modestinus (c.240). But though the line of great lawyers had ceased, the effects of their work remained and are clearly visible long after in the “codes”—the code of Theodosius (438) and the still more famous code of Justinian (529 and 533), with which is associated the name of Tribonianus.
Bibliography.—The most full and satisfactory modern account of Latin literature is M. Schanz’sGeschichte der römischen Litteratur.The best in English is the translation by C. C. Warr of W. S. Teuffel and L. Schwabe’sHistory of Roman Literature. J. W. Mackail’s shortHistory of Latin Literatureis full of excellent literary and aesthetic criticisms on the writers. C. Lamarre’sHistoire de la littérature latine(1901, with specimens) only deals with the writers of the republic. W. Y. Sellar’sRoman Poets of the Republic and Poets of the Augustan Age, and R. Y. Tyrrell’sLectures on Latin Poetry, will also be found of service. A concise account of the various Latin writers and their works, together with bibliographies, is given in J. E. B. Mayor’sBibliographical Clue to Latin Literature(1879), which is based on a German work by E. Hübner. See also the separate bibliographies to the articles on individual writers.
Bibliography.—The most full and satisfactory modern account of Latin literature is M. Schanz’sGeschichte der römischen Litteratur.The best in English is the translation by C. C. Warr of W. S. Teuffel and L. Schwabe’sHistory of Roman Literature. J. W. Mackail’s shortHistory of Latin Literatureis full of excellent literary and aesthetic criticisms on the writers. C. Lamarre’sHistoire de la littérature latine(1901, with specimens) only deals with the writers of the republic. W. Y. Sellar’sRoman Poets of the Republic and Poets of the Augustan Age, and R. Y. Tyrrell’sLectures on Latin Poetry, will also be found of service. A concise account of the various Latin writers and their works, together with bibliographies, is given in J. E. B. Mayor’sBibliographical Clue to Latin Literature(1879), which is based on a German work by E. Hübner. See also the separate bibliographies to the articles on individual writers.
(W. Y. S.; J. P. P.)
1Latine loqui elegantissime.
1Latine loqui elegantissime.
LATINUS,in Roman legend, king of the aborigines in Latium, and eponymous hero of the Latin race. In Hesiod (Theogony, 1013) he is the son of Odysseus and Circe, and ruler of the Tyrsenians; in Virgil, the son of Faunus and the nymph Marica, a national genealogy being substituted for the Hesiodic, which probably originated from a Greek source. Latinus was a shadowy personality, invented to explain the origin of Rome and its relations with Latium, and only obtained importance in later times through his legendary connexion with Aeneas and the foundation of Rome. According to Virgil (Aeneid, vii.-xii.), Aeneas, on landing at the mouth of the Tiber, was welcomed by Latinus, the peaceful ruler whose seat of government was Laurentum, and ultimately married his daughter Lavinia.
Other accounts of Latinus, differing considerably in detail, are to be found in the fragments of Cato’sOrigines(in Servius’s commentary on Virgil) and in Dionysius of Halicarnassus; see further authorities in the article by J. A. Hild, in Daremberg and Saglio,Dictionnaire des antiquités.
Other accounts of Latinus, differing considerably in detail, are to be found in the fragments of Cato’sOrigines(in Servius’s commentary on Virgil) and in Dionysius of Halicarnassus; see further authorities in the article by J. A. Hild, in Daremberg and Saglio,Dictionnaire des antiquités.
LATITUDE(Lat.latitudo,latus, broad), a word meaning breadth or width, hence, figuratively, freedom from restriction, but more generally used in the geographical and astronomical sense here treated. The latitude of a point on the earth’s surface is its angular distance from the equator, measured on the curved surface of the earth. The direct measure of this distance being impracticable, it has to be determined by astronomical observations. As thus determined it is the angle between the direction of the plumb-line at the place and the plane of the equator. This is identical with the angle between the horizontal planes at the place and at the equator, and also with the elevation of the celestial pole above the horizon (seeAstronomy). Latitude thus determined by the plumb-line is termedastronomical. Thegeocentric latitudeof a place is the angle which the line from the earth’s centre to the place makes with the plane of the equator.Geographical latitude, which is used in mapping, is based on the supposition that the earth is an elliptic spheroid of known compression, and is the angle which the normal to this spheroid makes with the equator. It differs from the astronomical latitude only in being corrected for local deviation of the plumb-line.
The latitude of a celestial object is the angle which the line drawn from some fixed point of reference to the object makes with the plane of the ecliptic.
Variability of Terrestrial Latitudes.—The latitude of a point on the earth’s surface, as above defined, is measured from the equator. The latter is defined by the condition that its plane makes a right angle with the earth’s axis of rotation. It follows that if the points in which this axis intersects the earth’s surface,i.e. the poles of the earth, change their positions on the earth’s surface, the position of the equator will also change, and therefore the latitudes of places will change also. About the end of the 19th century research showed that there actually was a very minute but measurable periodic change of this kind. The north and south poles, instead of being fixed points on the earth’s surface, wander round within a circle about 50 ft. in diameter. The result is a variability of terrestrial latitudes generally.
To show the cause of this motion, let BQ represent a section of an oblate spheroid through its shortest axis, PP. We may consider this spheroid to be that of the earth, the ellipticity being greatly exaggerated. If set in rotation around its axis of figure PP, it will continue to rotate around that axis for an indefinite time. But if, instead of rotating around PP, it rotates around some other axis, RR, making a small angle, POR, with the axis of figure PP; then it has been known since the time of Euler that the axis of rotation RR, if referred to the spheroid regarded as fixed, will gradually rotate round the axis of figure PP in a period defined in the following way:—If we put C = the moment of momentum of the spheroid around the axis of figure, and A = the corresponding moment around an axis passing through the equator EQ, then, calling one day the period of rotation of the spheroid, the axis RR will make a revolution around PP in a number of days represented by the fraction C/(C − A). In the case of the earth, this ratio is 1/0.0032813 or 305. It follows that the period in question is 305 days.
To show the cause of this motion, let BQ represent a section of an oblate spheroid through its shortest axis, PP. We may consider this spheroid to be that of the earth, the ellipticity being greatly exaggerated. If set in rotation around its axis of figure PP, it will continue to rotate around that axis for an indefinite time. But if, instead of rotating around PP, it rotates around some other axis, RR, making a small angle, POR, with the axis of figure PP; then it has been known since the time of Euler that the axis of rotation RR, if referred to the spheroid regarded as fixed, will gradually rotate round the axis of figure PP in a period defined in the following way:—If we put C = the moment of momentum of the spheroid around the axis of figure, and A = the corresponding moment around an axis passing through the equator EQ, then, calling one day the period of rotation of the spheroid, the axis RR will make a revolution around PP in a number of days represented by the fraction C/(C − A). In the case of the earth, this ratio is 1/0.0032813 or 305. It follows that the period in question is 305 days.
Up to 1890 the most careful observations and researches failed to establish the periodicity of such a rotation, though there was strong evidence of a variation of latitude. Then S. C. Chandler, from an elaborate discussion of a great number of observations, showed that there was really a variation of the latitude of the points of observation; but, instead of the period being 305 days, it was about 428 days. At first sight this period seemed to be inconsistent with dynamical theory. But a defect was soon found in the latter, the correction of which reconciled the divergence. In deriving a period of 305 days the earth is regarded as an absolutely rigid body, and no account is taken either of its elasticity or of the mobility of the ocean. A study of the figure will show that the centrifugal force round the axis RR will act on the equatorial protuberance of the rotating earth so as to make it tend in the direction of the arrows. A slight deformation of the earth will thus result; and the axis of figure of the distorted spheroid will no longer be PP, but a line P′P′ between PP and RR. As the latter moves round, P′P′ will continually follow it through the incessant change of figure produced by the change in the direction of the centrifugal force. Now the rate of motion of RR is determined by the actual figure at the moment. It is therefore less than the motion in an absolutely rigid spheroid in the proportion RP′ : RP. It is found that, even though the earth were no more elastic than steel, its yielding combined with the mobility of the ocean would make this ratio about 2 : 3, resulting in an increase of the period by one-half, making it about 457 days. Thus this small flexibility is evengreater than that necessary to the reconciliation of observation with theory, and the earth is shown to be more rigid than steel—a conclusion long since announced by Kelvin for other reasons.
Chandler afterwards made an important addition to the subject by showing that the motion was represented by the superposition of two harmonic terms, the first having a period of about 430 days, the other of one year. The result of this superposition is a seven-year period, which makes 6 periods of the 428-day term (428d× 6 = 2568d= 7 years, nearly), and 7 periods of the annual term. Near one phase of this combined period the two component motions nearly annul each other, so that the variation is then small, while at the opposite phase, 3 to 4 years later, the two motions are in the same direction and the range of variation is at its maximum. The coefficient of the 428-day term seems to be between 0.12″ and 0.16″; that of the annual term between 0.06″ and 0.11″. Recent observations give smaller values of both than those made between 1890 and 1900, and there is no reason to suppose either to be constant.
The present state of the theory may be summed up as follows:—
1. The fourteen-month term is an immediate result of the fact that the axes of rotation and figure of the earth do not strictly coincide, but make with each other a small angle of which the mean value is about 0.15″. If the earth remained invariable, without any motion of matter on its surface, the result of this non-coincidence would be the revolution of the one pole round the other in a circle of radius 0.15″, or about 15 ft., in a period of about 429 days. This revolution is called theEulerian motion, after the mathematician who discovered it. But owing to meteorological causes the motion in question is subject to annual changes. These changes arise from two causes—the one statical, the other dynamical.
2. The statical causes are deposits of snow or ice slowly changing the position of the pole of figure of the earth. For example, a deposit of snow in Siberia would bring the equator of figure of the earth a little nearer to Siberia and throw the pole a little way from it, while a deposit on the American continent would have the opposite effect. Owing to the approximate symmetry of the American and Asiatic continents it does not seem likely that the inequality of snowfall would produce an appreciable effect.
3. The dynamical causes are atmospheric and oceanic currents. Were these currents invariable their only effect would be that the Eulerian motion would not take place exactly round the mean pole of figure, but round a point slightly separated from it. But, as a matter of fact, they are subject to an annual variation. Hence the motion of the pole of rotation is also subject to a similar variation. The annual term in the latitude is thus accounted for.
Besides Chandler, Albrecht of Berlin has investigated the motion of the pole P. The methods of the two astronomers are in some points different. Chandler has constructed empirical formulae representing the motion, with the results already given, while Albrecht has determined the motion of the pole from observation simply, without trying to represent it either by a formula or by theory. It is noteworthy that the difference between Albrecht’s numerical results and Chandler’s formulae is generally less than 0.05″.
When the fluctuation in the position of the pole was fully confirmed, its importance in astronomy and geodesy led the International Geodetic Association to establish a series of stations round the globe, as nearly as possible on the same parallel of latitude, for the purpose of observing the fluctuation with a greater degree of precision than could be attained by the miscellaneous observations before available. The same stars were to be observed from month to month at each station with zenith-telescopes of similar approved construction. This secures a double observation of each component of the polar motion, from which most of the systematic errors are eliminated. The principal stations are: Carloforte, Italy; Mizusawa, Japan; Gaithersburg, Maryland; and Ukiah, California, all nearly on the same parallel of latitude, 39° 8′.
The fluctuations derived from this international work during the last seven years deviate but slightly from Chandler’s formulae though they show a markedly smaller value of the annual term. In consequence, the change in the amplitude of the fluctuation through the seven-year period is not so well marked as before 1900.
Chandler’s investigations are found in a series of papers published in theAstronomical Journal, vols. xi. to xv. and xviii. Newcomb’s explanation of the lengthening of the Eulerian period is found in theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societyfor March 1892. Later volumes of theAstronomical Journalcontain discussions of the causes which may produce the annual fluctuation. An elaborate mathematical discussion of the theory is by Vito Volterra: “Sulla teoria dei movimenti del Polo terrestre” in theAstronomische Nachrichten, vol. 138; also, more fully in his memoir “Sur la théorie des variations des latitudes,”Acta Mathematica, vol. xxii. The results of the international observations are discussed from time to time by Albrecht in the publications of the International Geodetic Association, and in theAstronomische Nachrichten(see alsoEarth, Figure of).
Chandler’s investigations are found in a series of papers published in theAstronomical Journal, vols. xi. to xv. and xviii. Newcomb’s explanation of the lengthening of the Eulerian period is found in theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societyfor March 1892. Later volumes of theAstronomical Journalcontain discussions of the causes which may produce the annual fluctuation. An elaborate mathematical discussion of the theory is by Vito Volterra: “Sulla teoria dei movimenti del Polo terrestre” in theAstronomische Nachrichten, vol. 138; also, more fully in his memoir “Sur la théorie des variations des latitudes,”Acta Mathematica, vol. xxii. The results of the international observations are discussed from time to time by Albrecht in the publications of the International Geodetic Association, and in theAstronomische Nachrichten(see alsoEarth, Figure of).
(S. N.)
LATIUM,1in ancient geography, the name given to the portion of central Italy which was bounded on the N.W. by Etruria, on the S.W. by the Tyrrhenian Sea, on the S.E. by Campania, on the E. by Samnium and on the N.E. by the mountainous district inhabited by the Sabini, Aequi and Marsi. The name was, however, applied very differently at different times. Latium originally means the land of the Latini, and in this sense, which alone is in use historically, it was a tract of limited extent; but after the overthrow of the Latin confederacy, when the neighbouring tribes of the Rutuli, Hernici, Volsci and Aurunci, as well as the Latini properly so called, were reduced to the condition of subjects and citizens of Rome, the name of Latium was extended to comprise them all. It thus denoted the whole country from the Tiber to the mouth of the Savo, and just included the Mons Massicus, though the boundary was not very precisely fixed (see below). The change thus introduced, though already manifest in the composition of the Latin league (see below) was not formally established till the reign of Augustus, who formed of this larger Latium and Campania taken together the first region of Italy; but it is already recognized by Strabo (v. 3. 2. p. 228), as well as by Pliny, who terms the additional territory thus incorporatedLatium Adjectum, while he designates the original Latium, extending from the Tiber to Circeii, asLatium Antiquum.
1.Latium Antiquumconsisted principally of an extensive plain, now known as the Campagna di Roma, bounded towards the interior by the Apennines, which rise very abruptly from the plains to a height of between 4000 and 5000 ft. Several of the Latin cities, including Tibur and Praeneste, were situated on the terrace-like underfalls of these mountains,2while Cora, Norba and Setia were placed in like manner on the slopes of the Volscian mountains (Monti Lepini), a rugged and lofty limestone range, which runs parallel to the main mass of the Apennines, being separated from them, however, by the valley of the Trerus (Sacco), and forms a continuous barrier from there to Terracina. No volcanic eruptions are known to have taken place in these mountains within the historic period, though Livy sometimes speaks of it “raining stones in the Alban hills” (i. 31, xxxv. 9—on the latter occasion it even did so on the Aventine). It is asserted, too, that some of the earliest tombs of the necropolis of Alba Longa (q.v.) were found beneath a stratum of peperino. Earthquakes (not of a violent character within recent centuries, though the ruin of the Colosseum is probably to be ascribed to this cause) are not unknown even at the present day in Rome and in the Alban Hills, and a seismograph has been established at Rocca di Papa. The surface is by no means a uniform plain, but is a broad undulating tract, furrowed throughout by numerous depressions, with precipitous banks, serving as water-courses, though rarely traversed by any considerable stream. As the general level of the plain rises gradually, though almost imperceptibly, to the foot of the Apennines, these channels by degrees assume the character of ravines of a formidable description.