There is the hurrying throng of the streets of Rome with all its dangers and discomforts:
nobis properantibus opstat unda prior, magno populus premit agmine lumbos qui sequitur; ferit hic cubito, ferit assere duro alter, at hic tignum capiti incutit, ille metretam. pinguia crura luto, planta mox undique magna calcor et in digito clavus mihi militis haeret. nonne vides quanto celebretur sportula fumo? centum convivae, sequitur sua quemque culina. Corbulo vix ferret tot vasa ingentia, tot res inpositas capiti, quas recto vertice portat servulus infelix et cursu ventilat ignem. scinduntur tunicae sartae modo, longa coruscat serraco veniente abies, atque altera pinum plaustra vehunt, nutant alte populoque minantur (iii. 243).
The press before him stops the client's pace;The crowd that follows crush his panting sides,And trip his heels; he walks not but he rides.One elbows him, one jostles in the shoal,A rafter breaks his head or chairman's pole;Stockinged with loads of fat town dirt he goes,And some rogue-soldier with his hob-nailed shoesIndents his legs behind in bloody rows.See, with what smoke our doles we celebrate!A hundred guests invited walk in state;A hundred hungry slaves with their Dutch-kitchens wait:Huge pans the wretches on their heads must bear,Which scarce gigantic Corbulo could rear;Yet they must walk upright beneath the load,Nay run, and running blow the sparkling flames abroad,Their coats from botching newly brought are torn.Unwieldy timber-trees in waggons borne,Stretched at their length, beyond their carriage lie,That nod and threaten ruin from on high.DRYDEN.
Even in the later satires, where with the advance of age this pictorial gift begins to fail him and he tends to rely rather on brilliant rhetorical treatment of philosophical commonplaces, there are still flashes of the old power. The well-known description of the fall of Sejanus in the tenth satire is in his best manner, while even the humbler picture of the rustic family of primitive Rome in the fourteenth satire shows the same firmness of touch, the same eye for vivid and direct representation:
saturabat glaebula talis patrem ipsum turbamque casae, qua feta iacebat uxor et infantes ludebant quattuor, unus vernula, tres domini, sed magnis fratribus horum a scrobe vel sulco redeuntibus altera cena amplior et grandes fumabant pultibus ollae (166).
For then the little glebe, improved with care,Largely supplied with vegetable fare,The good old man, the wife in childbed laid,And four hale boys, that round the cottage played,Three free-born, one a slave: while, on the board,Huge porringers, with wholesome pottage stored,Smoked for their elder brothers, who were now,Hungry and tired, expected from the plough.GIFFORD.
His handling of the essential weapons of satire, scathing epigram, and impetuous rhetoric, contribute equally to his success. He has the capacity of branding a character with eternal shame in a few terse trenchant lines. Who can forget the Greek adventurer of the third satire?—
grammaticus rhetor geometres pictor aliptes augur schoenobates medicus magus, omnia novit Graeculus esuriens; in caelum miseris, ibit (iii. 76);
A cook, a conjurer, a rhetorician,A painter, pedant, a geometrician,A dancer on the ropes and a physician;All things the hungry Greek exactly knows,And bid him go to heaven, to heaven he goes.DRYDEN.
or the summary of Domitian's reign with which he dates the story of the gigantic turbot?—
cum iam semianimum laceraret Flavius orbemultimus et calvo serviret Roma Neroni (iv. 37);
When the last Flavius, drunk with fury, toreThe prostrate world, which bled at every pore,And Rome beheld, in body as in mind,A bald-pate Nero rise to curse mankind.GIFFORD.
or the curse upon the legacy-hunter Pacuvius?—
vivat Pacuvius quaeso vel Nestora totum, possideat quantum rapuit Nero, montibus aurum exaequet, nec amet quemquam nec ametur ab ullo (xii. 128).
Health to the man! and may he thus get moreThan Nero plundered! pile his shining storeHigh, mountain high: in years a Nestor prove,And, loving none, ne'er know another's love!GIFFORD.
Not less mordant in a different way is the savage and sceptical melancholy of the conclusion of the second satire, where he contrasts the degenerate Roman, tainted by the foulest lusts, with the noble Romans of the past, and even with the barbarians, newly conquered, on the confines of empire (149):
esse aliquos manes et subterranea regna et contum et Stygio ranas in gurgite nigras atque una transire vadum tot milia cumba nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum aere lavantur. sed tu vera puta: Curius quid sentit et ambo Scipiadae, quid Fabricius manesque Camilli, quid Cremerae legio et Cannis consumpta iuventus, tot bellorum animae, quotiens hinc talis ad illos umbra venit? cuperent lustrari, si qua darentur sulpura cum taedis et si foret umida laurus. illic heu miseri traducimur. arma quidem ultra litora Iuvernae promovimus et modo captas Orcadas ac minima contentos nocte Britannos, sed quae nunc populi fiunt victoris in urbe, non faciuut illi quos vicimus.
That angry Justice formed a dreadful hell,That ghosts in subterranean regions dwell,That hateful Styx his sable current rolls,And Charon ferries o'er unbodied souls,Are now as tales or idle fables prized;By children questioned and by men despised.Yet these, do thou believe. What thoughts, declare,Ye Scipios, once the thunderbolts of war!Fabricius, Curius, great Camillus' ghost!Ye valiant Fabii, in yourselves an host!Ye dauntless youths at fatal Cannae slain!Spirits of many a brave and bloody plain!What thoughts are yours, whene'er with feet unblest,An unbelieving shade invades your rest?Ye fly, to expiate the blasting view;Fling on the pine-tree torch the sulphur blue,And from the dripping bay dash round the lustral dew.And yet—to these abodes we all must come,Believe, or not, these are our final home;Though now Ierne tremble at our sway,And Britain, boastful of her length of day;Though the blue Orcades receive our chain,And isles that slumber in the frozen main.But why of conquest boast? the conquered climesAre free, O Rome, from thy detested crimes.GIFFORD.
In the same bitter spirit, Umbricius is made to cry:
quid Romae faciam? mentiri nescio; librum, si malus est, nequeo laudare et poscere; motus astrorum ignoro; funus promittere patris nec volo nec possum; ranarum viscera numquam inspexi; ferre ad nuptam quae mittit adulter, quae mandat, norunt alii; me nemo ministro fur erit, atque ideo nulli comes exeo tamquam mancus et extinctae, corpus non utile, dextrae (iii. 41).
What's Rome to me, what business have I there?I who can neither lie nor falsely swear?Nor praise my patron's undeserving rhymes,Nor yet comply with him nor with his times?Unskilled in schemes by planets to foreshow,Like canting rascals, how the wars will go;I neither will nor can prognosticateTo the young gaping heir his father's fate;Nor in the entrails of a toad have pried,Nor carried bawdy presents to a bride:For want of these town-virtues, thus aloneI go conducted on my way by none;Like a dead member from the body rent,Maimed and unuseful to the government.DRYDEN.
This bitterness Juvenal seasons at times with saturnine jests of a type that is all his own. Virro gives rancid oil to his poor guests as dressing to their salad:
illud enim vestris datur alveolis quod canna Micipsarum prora subvexit acuta, propter quod Romae cum Boccare nemo lavatur, quod tutos etiam facit a serpentibus atris (v. 88).
Such oil to you is thrown,Such rancid grease, as Afric sends to town;So strong that when her factors seek the bath,All wind and all avoid the noisome path.GIFFORD.
When the blinddelator, Catullus Messalinus, is summoned to give his advice concerning the gigantic turbot:
nemo magis rhombum stupuit; nam plurima dixit in laevom conversus, at illi dextra iacebat belua. sic pugnas Cilicis laudabat et ictus et pegma et pueros inde ad velaria raptos (iv. 119).
None dwelt so largely on the turbot's size,Or raised with such applause his wondering eyes;But to the left (O treacherous want of sight)He poured his praise;—the fish was on the right.Thus would he at the fencer's matches sit,And shout with rapture at some fancied hit;And thus applaud the stage machinery, whereThe youths were rapt aloft and lost in air.GIFFORD.
Grimmest of all is the jest on the mushrooms set before Virro:
vilibus ancipites fungi ponentur amicis, boletus domino, sed quales Claudius edit ante illum uxoris, post quem nihil amplius edit (v. 146).
You champ on spongy toadstools, hateful treat!Fearful of poisons in each bit you eat:He feasts secure on mushrooms, fine as thoseWhich Claudius for his special eating chose,Till one more fine, provided by his wife,Finished at once his feasting and his life!GIFFORD.
But Juvenal is not always bitter, nor always angry. His indignation is never absent, but takes at times a graver and a nobler tone. At times he preaches virtue directly, instead of doing so indirectly through the denunciation of vice. He has no new secret of morality to reveal, no fresh lights to throw upon problems of conduct; his advice is obvious and straightforward; neither in form nor matter is there anything paradoxical. He was no student of philosophy,[730] though naturally familiar with the more important philosophic creeds and disposed by temperament to fall in with the views of the stern Stoic school. The conclusion of the tenth satire quoted above owes much to the Stoics. 'Leave the ordering of your fortunes to the powers above. Man is dearer to them than to himself. The wise man is free from all desire, all anger and all fear of death.'[731] 'Revenge is an unworthy and degrading passion.'[732] 'Fate[733] and the revolution[734] of the stars in heaven rule all with unchanging law.' All these maxims have their counterpart in the Stoic creed. But there is no need of the philosophy of the schools to guide man to the paths of virtue.
numquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit (xiv. 321).
Nature and wisdom never are at strife.GIFFORD.
Philosophy has its value, but the good man is no less good for not being a philosopher:
magna quidem, sacris quae dat praecepta libellis, victrix fortunae sapientia, ducimus autem hos quoque felices, qui ferre incommoda vitae nec iactare iugum vita didicere magistra (xiii. 19).
Wisdom, I know, contains a sovereign charm,To vanquish fortune or at least disarm:Blest they who walk in her unerring rule!Nor those unblest who, tutored in life's school,Have learned of old experience to submit,And lightly bear the yoke they cannot quit.GIFFORD.
He agrees with the Stoics just because their practical teaching harmonizes so entirely with the oldvirtus Romana, that is his ideal.
No more profound are his religious views: he hates the alien cults that work as insidious poison in the life of Rome; he rejects the picturesque legends of the afterworld, bred of the fertile imagination of the Greeks. But he is no unbeliever:
separat hoc nos a grege mutorum, atque ideo venerabile soli sortiti ingenium divinorumque capaces atque exercendis pariendisque artibus apti sensum a caelesti demissum traximus arce, cuius egent prona et terram spectantia. mundi principio indulsit communis conditor illis tantum animas, nobis animum quoque, mutuus ut nos adfectus petere auxilium et praestare iuberet (xv. 142).
This marks our birthThe great distinction from the beasts of earth!And therefore—gifted with superior powersAnd capable of things divine—'tis oursTo learn and practise every useful art;And from high heaven deduce that better part,That moral sense, denied to creatures proneAnd downward bent, and found with man alone!—For He, who gave this vast machine to roll,Breathed life in them, in us a reasoning soul:That kindred feelings might our state improve,And mutual wants conduct to mutual love.GIFFORD.
God is over all and guides and guards the world, and has ordained torment of conscience and slow retribution for sin.[735] Yet Juvenal does not definitely reject the gods of his native land; nor do these exalted beliefs cause him to refuse sacrifice to Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and his household gods.[736] It is the creed, not of a theologian, but of a man with high ideals, a staunch patriotism, and a deep reverence for the past.
But this lack of profundity and philosophical training does not, as may be inferred from passages already quoted, prevent him from being intensely effective as a moral teacher. His platitudes are none the worse for not having a Stoic label and all the better for their simplicity and directness of expression. They do not reveal the hunger and thirst after righteousness that breathe from the lines of Persius, but they have at least an equal appeal to the plain man, and they are matchlessly expressed. His pleading against revenging the wrong done, if not on the very highest moral plane, possesses a grave dignity and beauty that brings it straight home to the heart:
at vindicta bonum vita iucundius ipsa. nempe hoc indocti, quorum praecordia nullis interdum aut levibus videas flagrantia causis. * * * * * Chrysippus non dicet idem nec mite Thaletis ingenium dulcique senex vicinus Hymetto, qui partem acceptae saeva inter vincla cicutae accusatori nollet dare. plurima felix paulatim vitia atque errores exuit omnes, prima docet rectum sapientia. quippe minuti semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas ultio. continuo sic collige, quod vindicta nemo magis gaudet quam femina. cur tamen hos tu evasisse putes, quos diri conscia facti mens habet attonitos et surdo verbere caedit occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum? poena autem vehemens ac multo saevior illis quas et Caedicius gravis invenit et Rhadamanthus, nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem (xiii. 180).
'Revenge,' they say, and I believe their words,'A pleasure sweeter far than life affords.'Who say? The fools, whose passions prone to ireAt slightest causes or at none take fire.… … … Chrysippus said not so;Nor Thales, to our frailties clement still;Nor that old man, by sweet Hymettus' hill,Who drank the poison with unruffled soul,And, dying, from his foes withheld the bowl.Divine philosophy! by whose pure lightWe first distinguish, then pursue the right,Thy power the breast from every error freesAnd weeds out every error by degrees:—Illumined by thy beam, revenge we findThe abject pleasure of an abject mind,And hence so dear to poor, weak womankind.But why are those, Calvinus, thought to 'scapeUnpunished, whom in every fearful shapeGuilt still alarms, and conscience ne'er asleepWounds with incessant strokes 'not loud but deep',While the vexed mind, her own tormentor, pliesA scorpion scourge, unmarked by human eyes?Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign,Can match the fierce, the unutterable painHe feels, who night and day, devoid of rest,Carries his own accuser in his breast.GIFFORD.
The same characteristics mark his praise of nobility of character as opposed to nobility of birth:
tota licet veteres exornent undique cerae atria, nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus. Paulus vel Cossus vel Drusus moribus esto, hos ante effigies maiorum pone tuorum, praecedant ipsas illi te consule virgas. prima mihi debes anima bona. sanctus haberi iustitiaeque tenax factis dictisque mereris? adgnosco procerem; salve Gaetulice, seu tu Silanus, quocumque alio de sanguine, rarus civis et egregius patriae contingis ovanti (viii. 19).
Fond man, though all the heroes of your lineBedeck your halls, and round your galleries shineIn proud display: yet take this truth from me,'Virtue alone is true nobility.'Set Cossus, Drusus, Paulus, then, in view,The bright example of their lives pursue;Let these precede the statues of your race,And these, when consul, of your rods take place,O give me inborn worth! Dare to be just,Firm to your word and faithful to your trust.Then praises hear, at least deserve to hear,I grant your claim and recognize the peer.Hail from whatever stock you draw your birth,The son of Cossus or the son of Earth,All hail! in you exulting Rome espiesHer guardian power, her great Palladium rise.GIFFORD.
This is rhetoric, but rhetoric of the noblest kind. Of pure poetry there is naturally but little in Juvenal. Neither his temperament nor his subject would admit it. He had too keen an eye for the hideous and the grotesque, too strong a passion for the declamatory style. Hence it is rather his brilliant sketches of a vicious society, his fiery outbursts of rhetoric, his strikingsententiaethat primarily impress the reader:
expende Hannibalem: quot libras in duce summo invenies? (x. 147).
Great Hannibal within the balance lay,And count how many pounds his ashes weigh.DRYDEN.
finem animae quae res humanas miscuit olim, non gladii, non saxa dabunt nec tela, sed ille Cannarum vindex et tanti sanguinis ultor anulus. i demens et saevas curre per Alpes, ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias (x. 163).
What wondrous sort of death has heaven designedFor so untamed, so turbulent a mind?Nor swords at hand, nor hissing darts afar,Are doomed to avenge the tedious bloody war;But poison drawn through a ring's hollow plate,Must finish him—a sucking infant's fate.Go, climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool,To please the boys, and be a theme at school.DRYDEN.
nemo repente fuit turpissimus (ii. 83).
For none become at once completely vile.GIFFORD.
summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudoriet propter vitam vivendi perdere causas (viii. 83).si natura negat, facit indignatio versum (i. 79).
Think it a crime no tears can e'er efface,To purchase safety with compliance base,At honour's cost a feverish span extend,And sacrifice for life, life's only end!GIFFORD.
It is lines such as these that first rise to the mind at the mention of Juvenal. But he was no mere declaimer. Here and there we may find phrases of the purest poetry and of the most perfect form. Far above all others come the wonderful lines of the ninth satire:
festinat enim decurrere velox flosculus angustae miseraeque brevissima vitae portio; dum bibimus, dum serta unguenta puellas poscimus, obrepit non intellecta senectus (ix. 126).
For youth, too transient flower! of life's short dayThe shortest part, but blossoms—to decay.Lo! while we give the unregarded hourTo revelry and joy in Pleasure's bower,While now for rosy wreaths our brow to twine,While now for nymphs we call, and now for wine,The noiseless foot of time steals swiftly by,And, ere we dream of manhood, age is nigh!GIFFORD.
Of a very different character, but of a beauty that is nothing less than startling in its sombre surroundings, is the blessing that he invokes on the good men of old who 'enthroned the teacher in the revered parent's place'.
di maiorum umbris tenuem et sine pondere terram spirantesque crocos et in urna perpetuum ver, qui praeceptorem sancti voluere parentis esse loco (vii. 207).
Shades of our sires! O sacred be your rest,And lightly lie the turf upon your breast!Flowers round your urns breathe sweets beyond compare,And spring eternal shed its influence there!You honoured tutors, now a slighted race,And gave them all a parent's power and place.GIFFORD.
The sensuous appeal of the 'fragrant crocus and the spring that dies not in the urn of death' is unique in Juvenal. This slender stream of definitely poetic imagination reveals itself suddenly and unexpectedly in strange forms and circumstances. At the close of the passage in the third satire describing the perils of the Roman streets, Juvenal imagines the death of some householder in a street accident. All is bustle and business at home in expectation of his return:
domus interea secura patellas iam lavat et bucca foculum excitat et sonat unctis striglibus et pleno componit lintea guto. haec inter pueros varie properantur, at ille iam sedet in ripa taetrumque novicius horret porthmea nec sperat caenosi gurgitis alnum infelix nec habet quem porrigat ore trientem (iii. 261).
Meantime, unknowing of their fellow's fate,The servants wash the platter, scour the plate,Then blow the fire with puffing cheeks, and layThe rubbers and the bathing-sheets display,And oil them first, each handy in his way.But he for whom this busy care they take,Poor ghost! is wandering by the Stygian lake;Affrighted by the ferryman's grim face,New to the horrors of the fearful place,His passage begs, with unregarded prayer,And wants two farthings to discharge his fare.DRYDEN.
Out of the grotesque there gradually looms the horror of death and the friendless ghost sitting lost and homeless by the Stygian waters.
That there is small scope in his work for such distinctively poetic imagination is not Juvenal's fault, nor can we complain of its absence. But in technical accomplishment he shows himself a writer of the first rank. His treatment of the hexameter exactly suits his declamatory type of satire. The conversational verse of Horace, with its easy-going rambling gait, was unsuitable for the thunders of Juvenal's rhetoric. Something more massive in structure, more vigorous in movement, was needed as the vehicle of so much rhetoric and invective. The delicate tripping hexameter of contemporary epic was equally unsuitable.
Unlike the majority of post-Augustan poets, Juvenal is almost untouched by the Ovidian influence. As far as his metre has any ancestry, it is descended from the Vergilian hexameter, though with the licence of satire it claims greater liberty in its treatment of pauses and of elision. The post-Augustan poet with whom in this respect Juvenal has greatest affinity is Persius. For vigour and variety he far surpasses all other poets of the age; while even Persius, although at his best and in his more declamatory passages he is at least Juvenal's equal, does not maintain the same level of excellence, and his more frequent employment of the traditional dialogue of satire gives him fewer opportunities for striking metrical effect.
As regards his diction Juvenal is equally remarkable. He has suffered little from the schools of rhetoric and has gained much. He is pointed and clear, without being either obscure[737] or mechanical. There is no vain striving after antithesis and no epigram for epigram's sake. Grotesque he is not seldom, but the grotesqueness is deliberate and effective, and no mere affectation.
His one serious weakness is his lack of constructive power and his incapacity to preserve due proportion between the parts of his satires. The most glaring instances of this failing are to be found in the fourth, twelfth, and fourteenth satires, but except the third there is hardly a satire that can be regarded as wholly successful in point of construction. This defect, it may be admitted, is less serious in satire than in almost any other branch of literature. Such discursiveness was justified by the tradition and by the inherent nature of satire. But Juvenal offends in this respect beyond due reason, and only his extraordinary merits in other directions save him from the penalties of this failing.
Juvenal is the last of the poets of the Silver Age, and the only one of them to whom the epithet 'great' can reasonably be applied. He is no faultless writer, but he has genius and power, and has risen superior to the besetting sins of the age. He is a rhetorician, it is true, but he chose a form of literature where his rhetoric could have legitimate play. But he is no plagiarist or imitator; though, as in any other poet, we may find in him many traces and even echoes of his predecessors, he is in the best sense original. He is never a mere juggler in words and phrases, he is a true artist. Form and matter are indissolubly welded and interfused one with another. And this is because, unlike other writers of the age, he has something to say. He is poet by inspiration, not by profession. His excessive pessimism, his tendency to bias and exaggeration, cannot on the worst estimate obscure his merits either as artist or moralist. His picture of society has large elements of truth, and we can no more blame him for his tendency to caricature than we can blame Hogarth. Satire, especially the satire of declamatory invective, must be one-sided, and the satirist must select the features of life which he desires to denounce. And if this leads us at times into unpleasant places and among unpleasant people unpleasantly described, that does not justify us in denouncing the satirist. It must be remembered that the true satirist is not likely to be a man of perfect character. He must have seen much and experienced much; if his character has in the process become not merely unduly embittered, but perhaps somewhat smirched, these failings may be redeemed by other qualities. And in the case of Juvenal they are so redeemed.
He has not the lucid judgement of Horace nor the pure fervour of Persius. He is more positive than the former, more negative than the latter. But he has lived in a sense in which Persius never had, and possesses the gift of direct and lucid expression; therefore, when he strikes, he strikes home. He cannot, like Horace, 'play about the hearts of men,' he will have nothing of compromise, he cannot and will not adapt himself to his environment. The doctrine of [Greek: m_eden agan], theaurea mediocritas, have no attractions for him. Hence his ideal is often unpractical; 'the times were out of joint,' and Juvenal was not precisely the man to 'set them right'. But at least he sets forth an ideal, that any honest man must admit to be noble. It is precisely because he is no casuist, because he hits hard and unsparingly, and is translucently honest, and because his weapon is the most fervid and trenchant rhetoric, that Juvenal is the most quoted and one of the most popular of Latin poets. He has contributed little to the thought of the world, but he has taught men to hate iniquity. He does not rise to the height of such an immortal saying as
virtutem videant intabescantque relicta;
he is no philosopher, and his ideals have neither the exaltation nor the stimulating power of the Stoic ideal. But he unveils vice and folly, so that men may fly from their utter hideousness, in such burning words as it has fallen to few poets to utter. He is 'dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn'; had he possessed also the 'love of love', he might have reached greater heights of pure poetry, but he would not have been Juvenal, and the world would have been the loser.
Abascantus 205n, 299n.Accius 12, 71, 89.Aeschylus 207n, 212n, 216n.Aetna 140-6, 156.Afranius 12, 25.Agrippina 25, 74, 76.Antimachus 207n, 209, 210.Antistius Sosianus 163n, 164.Apollonius Rhodius 182 sqq.Aquilius Regulus 256.Arria 81, 275.Arrius Antoninus 173n.Arulenus Rustieus 168.Asellius Sabinus 3.Asinius Pollio 18.Atedius Melior 205n, 230, 256, 272.Attalus 32.Attius Labeo 160.Ausonius 174, 175.
Bassus, Caesius 80-2, 163-5.Bassus, Saleius 19, 168, 169.Bathyllus 27.
Caecilius 12.Caesar, C. Julius 103 sqq., 263.Caesennia 163.Calenus 175.Caligula 4, 5, 31, 163.Callimachus 207.Calpurnius Piso 35, 99, 152, 156-9, 251.Calpurnius Siculus 137, 150-9, 245.Calpurnius Statura 80.Calvinus 289.Carinas Secundus 4.Cassius Rufus 256.Cato 37, 38, 58, 101, 103 sqq., 262.Catullus, C. Valerius 2, 123n, 176, 260, 261, 263.Catullus (writer of mimes) 24.Catullus (friend of Juvenal) 289, 297.Cicero 58, 172, 238.Claudia 204.Claudianus 174.Claudius 5, 25, 32, 36, 63.Claudius Agathurnus 80.Claudius Augustalis 146.Claudius Etruscus 205n, 231, 256, 299n.Clutorius Priscus 3.Codrus 291.Columella 137, 146-9, 180.Cornelius Severus 144.Cornutus 6, 79-82, 94, 95, 97, 267.Cremutius Cordus 2, 101.Crispinus (1) 205n.—— (2) 294.Curiatius Maternus 30.
Decianus 257, 264.Demosthenes 128.Domitianus 19, 21, 25, 168, 176, 181, 203, 204, 228,229, 252, 271, 287, 293, 296, 303, 305.
Earinus 229.Einsiedeln Fragments 151, 156, 157.Ennius 12, 23.Epictetus 70, 238.Erotion 272.Euphorion 3.Euripides 45, 46, 74, 127, 207n, 212n, 216n.
Faustus 30.Flaccilla 251, 272.Flaccus (father of Persius) 79.Flaccus of Patavium 180, 281.Fronto (rhetorician) 35.Fronto (father of Martial) 251, 272.Fulgentius 134, 135.Fulvia Sisennia 79.
Gaetulicus 163, 259, 261.Galba 25.Gallio L. Iunius 31.Glaucias 230, 272.
Hadrianus 290, 291, 294, 296.Hecato 43n.Helvidius Priscus 168.Herennius Senecio 168.Hesiod 12.Homer 4, 12, 160, 161, 188, 221, 227.Horatius 10-12, 71, 83, 84, 89, 91, 92, 123n, 171, 191, 241, 244,284, 293, 317, 320.Hyperides 128.
Ilias Latina 22, 160-3.Italicus, Babius 163.Iulius Martialis 257, 264, 265, 270.Iuvenalis 21, 22, 91, 92,121,168,169, 170, 174, 236, 245, 256, 260,261, 263, 275, 278, 279, 287-320.
Labienus 4.Latro 15n.Lentulus Sura 256.Livilla 32, 33.Livius Andronicus 160.Livius, T. 4, 239, 242, 245.Lucanus 7, 8, 20-2, 28, 31, 80, 94, 97-124, 132, 179, 180, 187, 192,221n, 226, 229, 233, 235, 238, 239, 243, 244. 251, 260, 275.Lucian 27.Lucilius Iunior 144, 163n.Lucilius (satirist) 10, 83, 89, 293.Lucinianus Maternus 256.Lucretius 123n, 140, 143.Lynceus 207n.
Macrinus 80, 82.Marcella 255.Marius Priscus 287.Marsus, Domitius 259, 261, 281.Martialis 8n, 134, 139, 163, 167, 169, 173-6,180, 204, 238, 243, 250, 251-86, 289.Matius, Cn. 160.Maximus Vibius 204, 205.Mela, M. Annaeus 31, 36, 97.Meliboeus 152, 156-9.Memor, Scaevus 30.Menander 12.Messala, Vipstanus 16, 126.Montanus, Curtius 163n.Mummius 24n.Musonius Rufus 8.
Naevius 12.Nero 6-8, 19, 20, 28, 33, 41, 43, 74-6, 89n, 97, 98, 101, 102, 119,125-7, 131n, 132, 144, 151, 236, 251, 290, 291, 302.Nerva 21, 169, 170, 255, 296.Ninnius Crassus 160.Norbanus 256.Novatus, M. Annaeus 31, 30.Novius Vindex 205n.
Octavia 40, 41, 74-8. Ovidius 11, 12, 17n, 29, 46, 71, 112, 123n, 143, 144, 161, 192, 207, 221n, 226, 259, 260, 263.
Paccius 30.Pacuvius 12, 23, 71, 89.Paris, 28, 203, 291.Parthenius 8.Passennus Paulus Propertius Blaesus 170, 171.Passienus, Crispus 36.Patronius Aristocrates 80.Pedo, Albinovanus 259n, 261.Persicus 289.Persius 20-2, 79-96, 160, 164, 191, 236, 267, 293, 318, 319.Pervigilium Veneris 174.Petronius Arbiter 16n, 20, 103, 125-39, 239, 259.Phaedrus 3.Pindar 127.Piso,seeCalpurnius.Pisonem, Panegyricus in 156-9.Plato 127.Plautus 12, 23.Plinius (the younger) 20, 25, 163, 170-3, 232, 236, 245, 255, 268, 305.Plotius Grypus 205n.Plutarch 94.Polla, Argentaria 100, 205n.Pollius 231, 268.Polybius 4, 32, 161.Pompeius 37, 101, 102 sqq.Pomponius Bassulus 25, 170.Pomponius Secundus 29.Ponticus 207n.Probus 79.Propertius 139, 170, 171.Pudens (friend of Martial) 257Pudens L. Valerius (boy-poet) 14n.Pylades (1) 27.—— (2) 291.
Quintilianus 12, 16, 20, 25, 29, 35, 116, 164, 167-9, 179, 180, 251,252, 256.Quintus Ovidius 257.
Remmius Palaemon 17n, 79.Rhianus 3.Rubrenus Lappa 30.Rutilius Gallicus 205n.Rutilius Namatianus 174.
Sappho 176.Scaurus, Mamercus 2.Seneca (the elder) 15, 31, 97.Seneca (the younger) 4, 5, 20, 31-78, 93, 94, 97, 115, 124, 132,134, 144, 145, 161, 164, 179, 180, 185-7, 207n, 221n, 236,251, 259, 260.Sentius Augurinus 170, 171.Serranus 168, 169.Servilius Nonianus 80.Severus, Cassius 4.Silius Italicus 20, 102, 123_n_, 145, 156, 163, 168, 179, 191,236-50, 256.Silvinus 146.Sophocles 47n, 127, 207n, 216n.Sotion 32.Statius (the elder) 169, 202, 203.Statius (the younger) 8n, 20, 22, 28, 100, 123n, 164, 167-9,179, 191, 192, 202-35, 240, 260, 268, 270-2.Stella, Arruntius 169, 205n,256, 280.Stertinius Avitus 256.Sulpicia (the elder) 174.Sulpicia (the younger) 174-8.Sulpicius Maximus 14n.
Tacitus 20, 21, 121, 125, 127, 168, 169, 170, 179, 243, 275.Terentius 23.Theocritus 150, 268.Thrasea 34, 80, 168.Thucydides 128.Tiberianus 174.Tiberius 2-4, 25, 102.Tibullus 174.Titus 167, 181, 252.Traianus 21, 127, 169, 170, 256, 290, 291, 296.Triarius 15n.Turnus 30, 169.
Umbricius 289, 293, 294.
Vacca 97.Vagellius 163n.Valerius Flaccus 20, 123n,167, 168, 179-201, 212n,220, 226,235, 236.Varius 29.Varro (Atacinus) 183.Varro (Reatinus) 127.Varus 257.Vergilius Maro 4, 11, 12, 17n,20, 101, 102, 115, 123n,130,143, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 153, 161, 179, 186, 187, 191,193, 194, 198, 207n,210, 211, 220n,221, 226, 227, 237,238-40, 243-5, 281.Vergilius Romanus 25, 170.Verginius Flavus 7.Verginius Rufus 169.Vespasianus 144, 166, 169, 170, 180.Vestricius Spurinna 169.Vopiscus 231.
1. See Teuffel and Schwabe, § 272.
2. Cf. Tac.Ann. i. 1. Velleius Paterculus is a good example of the servile historian. For an example of servile oratory of. Tac.Ann. xvi. 28.
3. Suet,Tib. 21.
4. Dion. 1 vii. 22; Tac.Ann. vi. 39; iv. 31.
5. Tac.Ann. iv. 34.
6. Dion. lviii. 24 [Greek: math_on oun touto ho Tiberios, eph' eaut_oi tote to epos eir_esthai eph_e, Atreus dia t_en miaiphonian einai prospoi_esamenos.] Tac.Ann. vi. 29.
7. 'Pulsi tum Italia histriones,' Tac.Ann. iv. 14.
8. III Prol. 38 sqq., Epil. 29 sqq.
9. Suet.Tib. 42.
10. Tac.Ann. iii. 49; Dion. lvii. 20.
11. Suet.Tib. 70
12. Suet.Tib. 71
13. Suet.Tib. 61
14. Suidas, s.v. [Greek: Kaisar Tiberios].
15. Suet.Tib. 70.
16. Suet.Tib. 70.
17. Suet.Cal. 53.
18. Suet.Cal. 53.
19. Suet.Cal. 16.
20. Dion.lix. 20.
21. Suet.Cal. 27.
22. Dion.lix. 19.
23. Suet.Cal.34 'nullius ingenii minimaeque doctrinae'.
24. Suet.Cal. 20.
25. For his writings generally of. Suet.Claud. 41, 42.
26. Tac.Ann. xiii. 43.
27. Suet.Claud. 33.
28. For his writings generally of. Suet.Claud. 41, 42.
29. SuetClaud. 11.
30. Suet. _Claud. 41. This is borne out by the fragments of the speech delivered at Lyons on the Gallic franchise.C.I. L. 13, 1668.
31. Suet.Claud. 28.
32. Sc. in theApocolocyntosis.
33. Suet.Ner. 52.
34. Suet.Ner. 49'qualis artifex pereo!'
35. Suet.Ner. 52; Tac.Ann. xiii. 3.
36. Tac.Ann. xiv. 16.
37. Suet.Domit. 1; Tac.Ann. xv. 49; Suet.Ner. 24.
38. Mart, ix. 26. 9; Plin.N. H. xxxvii. 50.
39. Persius is sometimes said to quote from the Bacchae. Cf. Schol. Pers.Sat. i. 93-5, 99-102. But see ch. in, p. 89.
40. Juv. viii. 221; Serv. Verg.Georg. iii. 36, Aen. v. 370.
41. Dion. lxii. 29.
42. Dion. lxii. 18; Suet.Ner. 38; Tac.Ann. xv. 39. For fragments of his work see Baehrens,Poet. Rom. Fragm., p. 368.
43. Suet, Ner. 10, 21.
44. Philostr.vit. Apoll. iv. 39 [Greek: ad_on ta tou Ner_onos mel_e … ep_ege mel_e ta men ex Oresteias, ta d' ex Antigon_es, ta d' opothenoun t_on prag_odoumen_on aut_o kai _odas ekampten oposas Ner_on elugize te kai kak_os estrephen].
45. Suet.vita Lucani; see chapter on Lucan, p. 97.
46. See chapter on Lucan, p. 98.
47. Suet.Luc.; Tac.Ann. xv. 49.
48. Suet.Ner. 39.
49. It may be urged that the damage lies not in the loss of poetry suppressed by the Emperor, but in the generation of a type of court poetry, examples of which survive in their most repulsive form in theSilvaeof Statius and the epigrams of Martial. The objection has its element of truth, but only affects a very small and comparatively unimportant portion of the poetry of the age.
50. See Tacitus,Dial.28 sqq. on the moral training of a young Roman of his day. Also Juv. xiv.
51. After the death of the great Augustan authors Alexandrian erudition becomes yet more rampant. It was a great assistance to men of second-rate poetical talent.
52. Quint, i. 1. 12.
53. Quint, i. 8. 3; Plin.Ep.ii. 14.
54. Quint, i. 9. 2; Cic.Ep. ad Fam.vi. 18. 5; Quint. i. 8. 6; Stat.Silv.ii. 1. 114; Ov.Tr.ii. 369.
55. Cp. Wilkins,Rom. Education, p. 60.
56. Op. Juv. vii. 231-6; Suet.Tib.70. The result of this type of instruction is visible throughout the poets of the age, whereas Vergil and the best of the Greek Alexandrians had a true appreciation of the sensuous charm of proper names and legendary allusions, as in our literature had Marlowe, Milton, Keats, and Tennyson. Cp. Milton,Paradise Lost, Bk. 1:
What resoundsIn fable or romance of Uther's sonBegirt with British and Armoric knights;And all who since, baptised or infidel,Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban,Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond,Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore,When Charlemain with all his peerage fellBy Fontarabia.
Or compare Tennyson's use of the names of Arthur's battles, 'AgnedCathregonion' and the 'waste sand-shore of Trath Treroit.'
57. Wilkins,Roman Education, p. 72.
58. See Wilkins, op. cit, p. 74.
59. Wilkins,Roman Education, p. 75.
60. The most striking instances of this precocity are Q. Sulpicius Maximus, who at the age of twelve and a half won the prize for Greek verse at the Agon Capitolinus A.D. 94 (cp. Kaibel,Epigr. Gr. 618), and L. Valerius L. F. Pudens, aged thirteen, who won the prize for Latin verse in A.D. 106. Cp.C.I.L.ix. 286.
61. For the importance attached to imitation sec Quint, x. 2.
62. The Greek rhetoricians of this period lay great stress on the importance of avoiding declamatory rhetoric. They belong to the Attic revival. But the Attic revival never really 'caught on' at Rome; by the time of Quintilian the mischief was done.
63. Sen.Suas. 3.
64. Ib. 7.
65. Ib. 2. I subjoin the text of the last. The author is Triarius.' 'Non pudet Laconas ne pugna quidem hostium, sed fabula vinci? Magnum est alumnum virtutis nasci et Laconem: ad certam victoriam omnes remansissent: ad certam mortem tantum Lacones. Non est Sparta lapidibus circumdata: ibi muros habet ubi viros. Melius revocabimus fugientes trecenos quam sequemur. Sed montes perforat, maria contegit. Nunquam solido stetit superba felicitas et ingentium imperiorum magna fastigia oblivione fragilitatis humanae conlapsa sunt. Scias licet non ad finem pervenisse quae ad invidiam porducta sunt. Maria terrasque, rerum naturam statione immutavit sua: moriamur trecenti, ut hic primum invenerit quod mutare non posset. Si tam demens placiturum consilium erat, cur non potius in turba fuginius?'
66. Latro is the author of the following treatment of the theme. 'Hoc exspectastis ut capite demisso verecundia se ipsa antequam impelleretur deiceret? id enim decrat ut modestior in saxo esset quam in sacrario fuerat. Constitit et circumlatis in frequentiam oculis sanctissimum numen, quasi parum violasset inter altaria, coepit in ipso quo vindicabatur violare supplicio: hoc alterum damnatae incestum fuit, damnata est quia incesta erat, deiceta est quia damnata erat, repetenda est quia et incesta et damnata et deiceta est, dubitari potest quin usque eo deicienda sit, donec efficiatur propter quod deiecta est? patrocinium suum vocat pereundi infelicitatem. Quid tibi, importuna mulier, precor nisi ut ne vis quidem deiceta pereas? "Invocavi," inquit, "deos", statuta in illo saxo deos nominasti, et miraris si te iterum deici volunt? si nihil aliud, loco incestarum stetisti.' Sen.Cont. i. 3.
67. e.g. Sen.Cont. i. 7 'Liberi parentes alant aut vinciant: quidam alterum fratrem tyrannum occidit, alterum in adulterio deprehensum deprecante patre interfecit. A piratis captas scripsit patri de redemptione. Pater piratis epistolam scripsit, si praecidissent manus, duplam se daturum. Piratae illum dimiserunt: patrem egentem non alit.'
68. For a brilliant description of the evils of the Roman system of education see Tac.Dial. 30-5. See also p. 127 for the very similar criticism of Petronius.
69. ce. 28-30. Cp. also Quint, i. 2 1-8.
70. The schoolmaster was not infrequently, it is to be feared, of doubtful character. Cp. the case of the famous rhetorician Remmius Palaemon. Cp. also Quint, i. 3. 13.
71. c. 35.
72. Tac.Dial. 26.
73. The influence of rhetoric was of course large in the Augustan age. Vergil and still more Ovid testify to this fact. But the tone of rhetoric was saner in the days of Vergil. Ovid, himself no inconsiderable influence on the poetry of the Silver Age, begins to show the effects of the new and meretricious type of rhetoric that flourished under the anti-Ciceronian reaction, when the healthy influence of the great orators of a saner age began to give way before the inroads of the brilliant but insincere epigrammatic style. This latter style was fostered largely by the importance assigned to thecontroversiaandsuasoriaas opposed to the more realistic methods of oratorical training during the last century of the republic.
74. See Mayor on Juv. iii. 9.
75. Cp. Juv. i. 1 sqq., iii. 9. For the enormous part played in social life by recitations cp. Plin.Ep. i. 13, ii. 19, iv. 5, 27, v. 12, vi. 2, 17, 21, viii. 21.
76. Cp. especially the speeches of Lucan.
77. For some very just criticism on this head cp. Quint, viii. 5. 25 sqq.
78. For amusing instances of rudeness on the part of members of the audience ep. Sen.Ep.cxxii. 11; Plin.Ep.vi. 15.
79. Petr. 83, 88-91, 115. Mart. iii. 44. 10 'et stanti legis et legis cacanti. | in thermas fugio: sonas ad aurem. | piscinam peto: non licet natare. | ad cenam propero: tenes euntem. | ad cenam venio: fugas sedentem. | lassus dormio: suscitas iacentem.' Cp. also 3, 50 and passim. Plin.Ep.vi. 13; Juv. i. 1-21; iii. 6-9; vii. 39 sqq.
80. Plin.Ep.viii. 12.
81. Suet.Dom.4.
82. Tac.Dial. 35
83. See ch. v.
84. There had always, it may be noted, existed an archaistic section of literary society. Seneca (Ep.cxiv. 13), Persius (i. 76), and Tacitus (Dial.23) decide the imitators of the early poets of the republic. But virtually no trace of pronounced imitation of this kind is to be observed in the poetry that has survived. Novelty and what passed for originality were naturally more popular than the resuscitation of the dead or dying past.
85. Boissier,L'Opposition sous les Césars, p. 238.
86. Macrobius (Sat.10. 3) speaks of a revival of the Atellan by a certain Mummius, but gives no indication of the date.
87. Juv. viii. 185.
888. Suet.Calig.57; Joseph.Ant.xix. 1. 13; Juv. viii. 187.
89. Mart.de Spect.7.
90. Plutarch,de Sollert. Anim.xix. 9.
91. Suet.Tib. 45.
92. ib.Ner. 39.
93. Ib.Galb. 13.
94. Ib.Dom. 10.
95. Ib.Calig. 27;Nero, I. c.; Tac.Ann. iv. 14.
96.C. I. L. ix. 1165.
97.Ep. vi. 21.
98. Suet.Ner. II.
999. Quint, xi. 3. 178.
100. Juv. iii. 93.
101. x. 1, 99.
102. Lucian,de Salt. 27.
103. Suet.Ner. 24.
104. Lucian,de Salt. 79.
105. Suet.ap. Hieronym. (Roth, p. 301, 25).
106. Plut.Qu. Conv. vii. 8. 3; Sen.Contr. 3. praef. 10.
107. Lucian, op. cit., 37-61.
108. Plut,Qu. Conv. iv. 15. 17; Libanius (Reiske) iii, p. 381.
109. Lucian, op. cit., 69 sqq.
110. e.g. Pasiphae, Cinyras and Myrrha, Jupiter and Leda. Lucian, 1. c.; Joseph.Ant. Iud. xix. 1. 13; Juv. vi. 63-6.
111. For the effect of such dancing cp. the interesting stories told by Lucian, op. cit., 63-6. Cp. also Liban., in, p. 373. For the importance attached to gesture in ancient times see Quint. xi. 3. 87 sqq.
112. Story of Turnus; Suet,Ner. 54. Dido; Macrob. Sat. v. 17. 15.
113. See p. 100.
114. Juv. vii. 92.
115. For the general history of the pantomimus see Friedländer,Sittengeschicht,II. in. 3, and Lucian,de Saltatione.
116. Dion. liv. 17; Tac.Ann. i. 54 and 77; Dion. lvii. 14.
117. Suet.Ner. 46.
118. There is no clear proof of the performance on the Roman stage of any tragedy in the strict sense of the word during the Silver Age. The words used e.g. in Dio Chrys. (19, p. 261: 23, p. 396), Lucian (Nigrin. 8), Libanius (iii, p. 265, Reiske) may refer merely to the performance of isolated scenes. See note on Vespasian's attitude to the theatre, p. 166.
119. Pliny the elder wrote his life. Plin.Ep. iii. 5. Cp. also Tac.Ann. v. 8; xii. 28; Plin.N.H. xiii. 83.
120. Ribbeck,Trag. Rom. Fr. p. 268, fr. 1; p. 331 (ed. 3).
121.Ann. xi. 13.
122. Charis,Gr. Lat. i. p. 125, 23; p. 137, 23.
123. Tac.Dial. II.
124. Ib. 2, 3.
125. Ib. 3.
126. Ib. 3.
127. Ib. II.
128. Juv. vii. 12.
129. Juv. vii. 12.
130. Ib. vii. 72.
131. He flourished in reign of Domitian. Schol. Vall. luv. i. 20; Mart. xi. 9 and 10; Donat.Gramm. Lat. iv. p. 537, 17; Apollin. Sid. ix. 266.
132. In the fragment preserved by Donatus (Ribbeck,Trag. Rom. Fr. p. 269) the chorus address Hecuba under the name Cisseis. 'Fulgentius expos. serm. antiq. 25 (p. 119, 5, Helm) saysMemos(Schopen emends toMemor)in tragoedia Herculis ait: ferte suppetias optimi comites.'
133. xi. 2. 8.
134. Mart.i.61, 7;Poet. Lat. Min.iv. p. 62, 19, Bachrens.
135. Tac.Ann.xv. 73; xvi. 17.
136. Tac.Ann.xv. 73; xvi. 17.
137. Sen.ad Helv. de Cons.xix. 2.
138. Sen.ad Helv.1. c.;Ep.lxxviii. 1. Dion. Cass. lix. 19.
139. 5 Dion. Cass. 1. c.
140. Suet.Calig.53. See ch. i. p. 4.
141.Ep.cviii. 17 sqq.; Hioronym.ad ann.2029. That he knew and never lost his respect for the teaching of Pythagoras is shown by the frequency with which he quotes him in the letters.
142.Ep.cviii. 3 sqq.
143. Cp. the speech of Suillius, Tac.Ann.xiii. 42; Dion. Cass. lxi. 10.
144.ad Helv. de Cons.6 sqq.
145.ad Polyb. de Cons.
146. TheApocolocyntosis—almost undoubtedly by Seneca—hardly falls within the scope of this work. Such intrinsic importance as it possesses is due to the prose portions. In point of form it is an example of theMenippean Satire, that strange medley of prose and verse. The verse portions form but a small proportion of the whole and are insipid and lacking in interest.
147. He was forbidden by Agrippina to give definite philosophical instruction. Cp. Suet.Nero, 52.
148. Cp.ad Ner. de Clem.ii. 2; Henderson,Life of Nero, Notes, p. 459.
149. For what may be regarded as an academicapologia pro vita sua, cp.Ep.5; 17: 20;de Ira, in. 33;de Const. Sap.1-4, 10-13;de Vit. Beat.17-28, &c.
150. Dion. Cass. lxi. 4. 5.
151. Tac.Ann. xvi. 28.
152. This is Dion's view, lxi. 10. For an ingenious view of Seneca's character see Ball,Satire of Sen. on apotheosis of Claudius, p. 34. 'It may be that Seneca cared less for the realization of high ideals in life than for the formulation of the ideals as such. Sincerity and hypocrisy are terms much less worth controversy in some minds than others.'
153. Tac.Ann.xv. 61-4.
154. Quint, x. 1. 125-9.
155. Fronto, p. 155, N.
156. Quint, x. 1. 129. Over and above his writings on moral philosophy we possess seven booksad Lucilium naturalium quaestionum.
157.Patruos duosmore naturally, however, refers to Gallio and Mela, in which case Marcus is the son of Seneca himself.
158. Cp.P.L.M.iv. 15, 8; Plin.N.H.xvi. 242.
159. For these cp.Ep.xiv. 13; ib. civ. 29.
160. e.g. 7l 'de Atho monte', 57 'de Graeciae ruina', 50 'de bono quietae vitae', 47, 48 'morte omnes aequari', 25 'de spe'.
161. There is, in fact, direct evidence that he wrote such verses. Plin.Ep.v. 3. 5.
162. Cp. p. 263.
163. Cp. the not dissimilar situation in Sen.Oed. (936), where Oedipus meditates in very similar style, as to how he may expiate his guilt. The coupletvivere si poteris, &c., is nothing if not Senecan.
164. Quint, viii. 3. 31 ('memini iuvenis admodum inter Pomponium ac Senecam etiam praefationibus esse tractatum, an "gradus eliminet" in tragoedia dici oportuisset') shows Seneca as critic of dramatic diction; there is no evidence to show what thesepraefationeswere, but theymayhave been prefaces to tragedies. TheMedea(453) is cited by Quintilian ix. 2. 8. For later quotations from the tragedies, cp. Diomedes,gr. Lat. i. p. 511, 23; Terentianus Maurus, ibid. vi. p. 404, 2672; Probus, ibid. iv. p. 229, 22, p. 246, 19; Priscian, ibid. ii. p. 253, 7 and 9; Tertullian,de An. 42,de Resurr. 1; Lactantius,Schol. Stat. Theb. iv. 530.
165. Cp. also the iambic translation of Cleanthes,Ep. cvii. 11:—
duc, o parens celsique dominator poli, quocunque placuit: nulla parendi mora est. adsum impiger. fac nolle, comitabor gemens malusque patiar, facere quod licuit bono. ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.
166. Some of the more remarkable parallels have been collected by Nisard (Études sur les poètes latins de la décadence, i. 68-91), e.g.Med. 163 'qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil'.Ep. v. 7 'desines timere, si sperare desieris'.Oed. 705 'qui sceptra duro saevus imperio regit, timet timentes: metus in auctorem redit'.Ep. cv. 4 'qui timetur, timet: nemo potuit terribilis esse secure'. de Ira_, ii. 11 'quid quod semper in auctores redundat timor, nec quisquam metuitur ipse securus?'-Oed. 980 sqq.;de Prov. v. 6 sqq.;Phoen. 146, 53;Ep. xii. 10;de Prov. vi. 7;Herc. F. 463, 464;Ep. xcii. 14.
167. The arguments against the Senecan authorship are of little weight. It has been urged (a) that the MSS. assign the author apraenomenMarcus. No Marcus Seneca is known, though Marcus was thepraenomenof both Gallio and Mela, and of Lucan. Mistakes of this kind are, however, by no means rare (cp. the 'Sextus Aurelius Propertius Nauta' of many MSS. of that poet: both 'Aurelius' and 'Nauta' are errors), (b) Sidonius Apollinaris (ix. 229) mentions three Senecas, philosopher, tragedian, and epic writer (i.e. Lucan). But Sidonius lived in the fifth century A.D., and may easily have made a mistake. Such a mistake actually occurs (S. A. xxiii. 165) where he seems to assert that Argentaria Polla, Lucan's faithful widow, subsequently married Statius. The mistake as regards Seneca is probably due to a misinterpretation of Martial i. 61 'duosque Senecas unicumque Lucanum facunda loquitur Corduba'. Not being acquainted with the works of the elder Seneca the rhetorician, Sidonius invented a new author, Seneca the tragedian.
168. See ch. on Octavia, p.78.
169. Leo,Sen. tragoed.i. 89-134.
170. It is not even necessary to suppose with Leo that these were the earliest of the plays and that these metrical experiments were youthful indiscretions which failed and were not repeated. Leo, i. p. 133.
171. For a detailed treatment see Leo, i. p. 48. Melzer,de H. Oetaeo Annaeano, Chemnitz, 1890;Classical Review, 1905, p. 40, Summers.
172. See p. 39 on relation of epigrams to dramas.
173.Ann. xiv. 52.
174. See also note on p. 42 for Leo's ingenious, but inconclusive theory for the dates of theAgamemnonandOedipus.
175. There is but one passage that can be held to afford the slightest evidence for a later date,Med. 163 'qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil' seems to be an echo ofEp. v. 7 'sed ut huius quoque diei lucellum tecum communicem, apud Hecatonem nostrum inveni … "desines", inquit, "timere, si sperare desieris".' This aphorism is quoted as newly found. The letters were written 62-5 A.D. This passage would therefore suggest a very late date for theMedea. But Seneca had probably been long familiar with the works of Hecato, and the epigram is not of such profundity that it might not have occurred to Seneca independently.
176. For comparative analyses of Seneca's tragedies and the corresponding Greek dramas see Miller'sTranslation of the Tragedies of Seneca, p. 455.
177. ThePhaedraof Seneca is interesting as being modelled on the lostHippolytus Veiledof Euripides. Phaedra herself declares her passion to Hippolytus, with her own lips reveals to Theseus the pretended outrage to her honour, and slays herself only on hearing of the death of Hippolytus. Cp. Leo,Sen. Trag. i. 173. ThePhoenissaepresents a curious problem. It is far shorter than any of the other plays and has no chorus. It falls into two parts with little connexion. I. (a) 1-319. Oedipus and Antigone are on their way to Cithaeron. Oedipus meditates suicide and is dissuaded by Antigone. (b) 320-62. An embassy from Thebes arrives begging Oedipus to return and stop the threatened war between his sons. He refuses, and declares the intention of hiding near the field of battle and listening joyfully to the conflict between his unnatural sons. II. The remaining portion, on the other hand, seems to imply that Oedipus is still in Thebes (553, 623), and represents a scene between Jocasta and her sons. It lacks a conclusion. These two different scenes can hardly have belonged to one and the same play. They may be fragments of two separate plays, anOedipus Coloneusand aPhoenissae, or may equally well be two isolated scenes written for declamation without ever having been intended for embodiment in two completed dramas. Cp. Ribbeck,Gesch. Röm. Dichtung, iii. 70.
178.Sen. Trag.i. 161.
179. Leo, op. cit., i. 166 sqq.
180. 530-658. TheOedipusis based on theO. Rexof Sophocles, but is much compressed, and the beautiful proportions of the Greek are lost. In Seneca out of a total of 1,060 lines 330 are occupied by the lyric measures of the chorus, 230 by descriptions of omens and necromancy.
181. It is also to be noted that the nurse does not make use of this device till after Hippolytus has left the stage, although to be really effective her words should have been uttered while Hippolytus held Phaedra by the hair. The explanation is, I think, that the play was written for recitation, not for acting. Had the play been acted, the nurse's call for help and her accusation of Hippolytus could have been brought in while Hippolytus was struggling with Phaedra. But being written for recitation by a single person there was not room for the speech at the really critical moment, and therefore it was inserted afterwards—too late. See p. 73.
182. Similarly, Medea, being a sorceress, must be represented engaged in the practice of her art. Hence lurid descriptions of serpents, dark invocations, &c. (670-842).
183. Seneca never knows when to stop. Undue length characterizes declamations and lyrics alike.
184. As a whole theTroadesfails, although, the play being necessarily episodic, the deficiencies of plot are less remarkable. But compared with the exquisiteTroadesof Euripides it is at once exaggerated and insipid.
185. Cp. Apul.Met. x. 3, where a step-mother in similar circumstances defends her passion with the words, 'illius (sc. patris) enim recognoscens imaginem in tua facie merito te diligo.'
186. This speech is closely imitated by Racine in hisPhèdre.
187. 2: Cp. esp. 995-1006: theagnosco fratremof Thyestes is perhaps the most monstrous stroke of rhetoric in all Seneca. Better, but equally revolting, are ll. 1096-1112 from the same play.
188. For other examples of dialogue cp. esp.Medea, 159-76, 490-529 (perhaps the most effective dialogue in Seneca),Thyestes, 205-20; H. F. 422-38. for which see p. 62.
189.Pro M. 61 'Fuit enim quidam summo ingenio vir, Zeno, cuius inventorum aemuli Stoici nominantur: huius sententia et praecepta huiusmodi: sapientem gratia nunquam moveri, nunquam cuiusquam delicto ignoscere; neminem misericordem esse nisi stultum et levem: viri non esse neque exorari neque placari: solos sapientes esse, si distortissimi sint, formosos, si mendicissimi, divites, si servitutem serviant reges.' &c. He goes on to put a number of cases where the Stoic rules break down.
190. Cp. Eurip.Andr. 453 sqq.
191. For still greater exaggeration cp.Phoen. 151 sqq,;Oed. 1020 sqq.
192. Cp. Sen.Contr. ii. 5; ix. 4.
193. Cp. Sen.de Proc. iv. 6 'calamitas virtutis occasio est'.