With the extinction of the Claudian dynasty we enter on a new literary epoch. The reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian produced a series of writers who all show the same characteristics, though necessarily modified by the tyranny of Domitian's reign as contrasted with the clemency of those of his two predecessors. Under Vespasian and Titus authors might say what they chose; both these princes disdained to curb freedom of speech or to punish it even when it clamoured for martyrdom. Yet such was the reaction from the excitement of the last epoch, that no writer of genius appeared, and only one of the first eminence in learning. There now comes into Roman literature an unmistakable evidence of reduced talent as well as of decayed taste. Hitherto power at least has not been wanting; but for the future all is on a weaker scale. Only the two great names of Juvenal and Tacitus redeem the ninth century of Rome from total want of creative genius. All other writers move in established grooves, and, as a rule, imitate or feebly rival some of the giants of the past. Learning was still cultivated with assiduity if not with enthusiasm; but the grand hopeful spirit, sure of discovering truth, which animates the erudition of a better age, has now given place to a querulous depreciation even of the labour to which the authors have devoted their lives. This is conspicuous from the first in the otherwise noble pages of the elder PLINY, and is the secret of that want of critical insight which, in a mind so capaciously stored, strikes us at first as inexplicable.
This laborious and interesting writer was born at Como [1] in the year 23 A.D. He came, it is not known exactly when, to Rome and studied under the rhetorical grammarian Apion, whom Tiberius in mockery of his sounding periods had called "the drum" (tympanum). Till his forty-sixth year Pliny's genius remained unknown. An allusion in his work to Lollia Paulina has given rise to the opinion that he was admitted to the court of Caligula, but the grounds for this conclusion are manifestly insufficient. His nephew states that he composed his treatiseOn Doubtful Words[2] to escape the jealousy of Nero, who suspected him of less unambitious pursuits. But the evidence of the younger Pliny serves better to establish facts than motives; he is always anxious to swell the importance of his friends; and it is far more likely from Pliny's own silence that he remained in comparative obscurity until Nero's death. At the age of twenty-two he served his first campaign in Africa, and soon after in Germany under Lucius Pomponius, who gave him a cavalry troop, and seems to have befriended him in various other ways. His promotion was perhaps due to the treatiseOn Javelin-throwing[3] which be wrote about this time. He showed his gratitude towards Pomponius at a later date by writing his life.
Pliny had always felt a strong interest in science, and determined as soon as opportunity offered to make its advancement the object of his life. With this end in view he made careful observations of all the countries he visited, and used his military position to secure information that otherwise might have been hard to obtain. He inspected the source of the Danube and travelled among the Chauci on the shores of the German Ocean. He visited the mouths of the Eber and Weser, the North Sea and the Cimbrian Chersonese, and spent some time among the Roman provinces west of the Rhine. While in Germany he had a vision in which he saw or thought he saw the shade of Drusus, which appeared to him by night and bade him tell the history of all the German wars. Accordingly, he collected materials with industry, and worked them up into a large volume, which is now unfortunately lost. At twenty-nine he left the army and returned to Rome, where he studied for the bar. But his talents were not suitable for forensic display, and he found a more lucrative field in teaching grammar and rhetoric. At what time he was sent out as procurator to Spain is uncertain, but when he returned he found Vespasian on the throne. Pliny, who had known him in Germany, and had been on intimate terms with his son Titus, was now received with the greatest favour. Every morning before day-break, when the busy Emperor rose to finish his correspondence before the work of the day began, he called Pliny to his side, and the two friends chatted awhile together in the plain, homely fashion that Vespasian much preferred to the measured style of court etiquette. Nor was his favour confined to familiar intercourse. He made him admiral of the fleet stationed at Misenum and charged with guarding the Mediterranean ports. It was while here that news was brought him of the eruption of Vesuvius. He sailed to Resina determined to investigate the phenomenon, and, as his nephew in a well-known letter tells us, paid the price of his scientific curiosity with his life. The letter is so charming, and affords so good an example of Pliny the younger's style, that we may be excused for inserting: it here. [4]
"He was at Misenum in command of the fleet. On the 24th August (79 A.D.), about 1 P.M., my mother pointed out to him a cloud of unusual size and shape. He had then sunned himself, had his cold bath, tasted some food, and was lying down reading. He at once asked for his shoes, and mounted a height from which the best view might be obtained. The cloud was rising from a mountain afterwards ascertained to have been Vesuvius; its form was more like a pine-tree than anything else. It was raised into the air by what seemed its trunk, and then branched out in different directions; the reason probably was that the blast, at first irresistible, but afterwards losing strength or unable to counteract gravity, spent itself by spreading out on either side. The cloud was either bright, or dark and spotty, according as earth or ashes were thrown up. As a man of science he determined to inspect the phenomenon more closely. He ordered a light vessel to be prepared, and offered to take me with him. I replied that I would rather study; as it happened, he himself had set me something to write. He was just starting, when a letter was brought from Rectina imploring aid for Naseus who was in imminent danger; his villa lay below, and no escape was possible except by sea. He now changed his plan, and what he had begun, from scientific enthusiasm he carried out with self-sacrificing courage. He launched some quadriremes, and embarked with the intention of succouring not only Rectina but others who lived on that populous and picturesque coast. Thus he hurried to the spot from which all others were flying, and steered straight for the danger, so absolutely devoid of fear that he dictated an account with full comments of all the movements and changing shapes of the phenomenon, each as it presented itself. Ashes were now falling on the decks, and became hotter and denser as the vessel approached. Scorched and blackened pumice-stones and bits of rock split by fire were mingled with them. The sea suddenly became shallow, and fragments from the mountain filled the coast seeming to bar all further progress. He hesitated whether to return; but on the master strongly advising it, he cried, 'Fortune favours the brave: make for Pomponianus's house.' This was at Stabiae, and was cut off from the coast near Vesuvius by an inlet, which had been gradually scooped out by encroachments of the sea. The owner was in sight, intending, should the danger (which was visible, but not immediate) approach so near as to be urgent, to escape by ship. For this purpose he had embarked all his effects and was waiting for a change of wind. My uncle, whom the breeze favoured, soon reached him, and, embracing him with much affection, tried to console his fears. To show his own unconcern he caused himself to be carried to a bath; and having washed, sat down to dinner with cheerfulness or (what is equally creditable to him) with the appearance of it. Meanwhile from many parts of the mountain broad flames burst forth; the blaze shone back from the sky, and a dark night enhanced the lurid glare. To soothe his friend's terror he declared that what they saw was only the deserted villages which the inhabitants in their flight had set on fire. Then he retired to rest, and there can be no doubt that he slept, since the sound of his breathing (which a broad chest made deep and resonant), was clearly heard by those watching at the door. Soon the court which led to the chamber was so choked with cinders and stones that longer delay would have made escape impossible. He was aroused from sleep, and went to Pomponianus and the rest who had sat up all night. They debated whether to stay indoors or to wander about in the open. For on the one hand constant shocks of earthquake made the houses rock to and fro, and loosened their foundations; while on the other, the open air was rendered dangerous by the fall of pumice- stones, though these were light and very porous. On the whole they preferred the open air, but what to the rest had been a weighing of fears had to him been a balancing of reasons. They tied cushions over their heads to guard them from the falling stones. Though it was now day elsewhere it was here darker than the darkest night, though the gloom was broken by torches and other lights. They next walked to the sea to try whether it would admit of vessels being launched, but it was still a waste of raging waters. He then spread a linen cloth, and, reclining on it, asked several times for water, which he drank; soon, however, the flames and that sulphurous vapour which preceded them put his companions to flight and compelled him to arise. He rose by the help of two slaves, but immediately fell down dead. His death no doubt arose from suffocation by the dense vapour, as well as from an obstruction of his stomach, apart which had been always weak and liable to inflammation and other discomforts. When daylight returned,i.e.after three days, his body was found entire, just as it was, covered with the clothes in which he had died; his appearance was that of sleep rather than of death."
This interesting letter, which was sent to Tacitus for insertion in his history, gives a fine description of the eruption. Another, still more graphic, is given in a later letter of the same book. [5] A third [6] informs us of the extraordinary studiousness and economy of time practised by the philosopher, which enabled him in a life by no means long to combine a very active business career with an amount of reading and writing only second to that of Varro. Pliny's admiration for his uncle's unwearied diligence makes him delight to dwell on these particulars:
"After the Vulcanalia (the 23d of August) he always began work at dead of night, in winter at 1 A.M., never later than 2 A.M., often at midnight. He was most sparing of sleep; at times it would catch him unawares while studying. After his interview with Vespasian was over, he went to business, then to study for the rest of the day. After a light meal, which like our ancestors he ate by day, he would in summer, if he had any leisure, lie in the sun, while some one read to him and he made notes or extracts. He never read without making extracts; no book, he said, was so bad but that something might be gained from it. After sunning himself he would take a cold bath, then a little food, then a short nap. Then, as if it were a new day, he studied till supper. During this meal a book was read, he all the while making notes. I remember once, when the reader mispronounced a word, that one of our friends compelled him to repeat it. My uncle asked him if he had not understood the word. On his replying, yes, my uncle said sharply, 'Then why did you interrupt him? we have lost more than ten lines;' so frugal was he of his time. He rose from supper before dark in summer, before 7 P.M. in winter; and this habit was law to him. Such was his life in town; but in the country his one and only interruption from study was the bath. I mean the actualbathing; for while he was being rubbed he always either dictated, or listened to reading. On a journey, having nothing else to do, he gave himself wholly to study; at his side was an amanuensis, who in winter wore gloves, that his master's work might not be interrupted by the cold. Even in Rome he always travelled in a sedan. I remember his chiding me for taking a walk, saying, "you might have saved those hours"—for every moment not given to study he thought lost time. By this application he contrived to compose that vast array of volumes which we possess, besides bequeathing to me 160 rolls of selected notes, each roll written on both sides and in the smallest possible hand, which practically doubles their number. To call myself studious with his example before me is absurd; compared with him, I am an idle vagabond."
In the earlier part of this letter, Pliny gives a list of his uncle's works. Besides those mentioned in the text, we find a treatise on eloquence calledStudiosus, and a continuation of the history of Aufidius Bassus in thirty books, dedicated to the emperor Titus. TheNatural History, in thirty-seven books, is the sole monument of Pliny's industry that has descended to us. The fortunes of this portentous work have greatly varied; while in the Middle Ages it was reverenced as a kind of encyclopaedia of all secular knowledge, in our own day, except to antiquarians, it is an unknown book. Many who know Virgil almost by heart have never read through its tiresome and conceited preface. Yet there is an immensity of interesting matter discussed in the work. Independently of its vast learning, for it contains, according to its author's statement, twenty thousand facts, and excerpts or redactions from two thousand books or treatises, its range of subjects is such as to include something attractive to every taste. Strictly speaking, many topics enter which do not belong to natural history at all,e.g., the account of the use made of natural substances in the applied sciences and the useful or fine arts; but as these are decidedly the best-written parts of the work, and full of chatty, pleasant anecdotes, we should be much worse off if they had been omitted. The confused arrangement also, which mars its utility as a compendium of knowledge, may be due in great measure to the indefinite state of science at the time, to the gaps in its affinities which the discovery of so many new sciences has helped to fill up, and the consequent mingling together of branches which are separate and distinct.
It is questionable whether Pliny ever had any originality. If he had, it was stamped out long before he began his book by the weight of his cumbrous erudition. He cannot compare his materials, nor select them, nor analyse them, nor make them explain themselves by lucid arrangement. Nor has his review of human knowledge taught him the great truth that science is progressive, that each age corrects the errors of the past, and prepares the way for the improvements of the next. Seneca, with all his affected contempt for science, learnt the lesson of it better than Pliny. He has in the first place no fixed canon of truth. One thing does not seem to him more probable than another. A statement has only to come forward under the testimony of a respectable ancient, and it is at once put down as a fact. Here, however, we must make a distinction, for fear of invalidating Pliny's authority beyond what is just. It is only in strictly scientific matters that this credulity and lack of penetration is found. Where he deals with historical, biographical, or agricultural questions, he is a competent, and for the most part trustworthy, compiler. His work is a most valuable storehouse for the antiquarian or historian of ancient literature or art, and generally for the current opinions on nearly every topic. Though genuinely devoted to learning, he has still enough of the "old Adam" of rhetoric about him to complain of the dryness of his material, and its unsuitableness for ornamental treatment; but this cannot surprise us, when we remember that even Tacitus with infinitely less reason bewailed the monotony of the events he had taken upon him to record.
What partly accounts for Pliny's uncritical credulity is the unsatisfactory theory of the universe which he adopts, and with commendable candour sets before us at the outset. [7] He is a materialistic pantheist. The world is for him deity, self-created and eternal, incomprehensible by man, moving ceaselessly without reference to him. So far there is nothing unscientific, except the hypothesis of self- creation; but he goes on to imply that the laws of its action, being incomprehensible, need not be regular, at any rate, as we consider regularity. The things which militate against our experience may be the result of other laws, or of chance contingencies of which no account can be given. Hence he never rejects a fact on the ground of its being marvellous. The most ludicrous and inconceivable monstrosities find an easy place in his system. He does not attach any superstitious meaning to them; on the contrary, he ridicules the idea that omens or portents are sent by the gods, but he has no touchstone by which to test the rare but possible results of real experience as distinguished from the figments of the imagination or ordinary travellers' stories. In the zoological part he gives the reins to his love of the marvellous; all kinds of absurdities are narrated with the utmost gravity; and his accounts descended through the mediaeval period as the accredited authority on the subject. In the literature of Prester John will be seen many a reflection from the writings of Pliny; in the fables of theArabian Nightsmany more, with characteristic additions equally creditable to human weakness or ingenuity. It is truly lamentable to reflect that while the rational and on the whole truthful descriptions of Aristotle and Theophrastus were extant and accessible, Pliny's nonsense should in preference have gained the ear of mankind.
As a stylist Pliny recalls two very different writers, Seneca and Cato. In those parts where he speaks as a moralist (and they are extremely numerous), he strives to reproduce the point of Seneca; in those where he treats of husbandry, which are perhaps the most naturally written in the work, his stern brevity often recalls the old censor. Like Seneca, he considers physical science as food for edification; continually he deserts his theme to preach a sermon on the folly or ignorance of mankind. And like Cato he is never weary of extolling the wisdom and virtues of the harsh infancy of the Republic, and blaming the degeneracy of its feeble and luxurious descendants who refuse to till the soil, and add acre to acre of their overgrown estates.
Pliny has a strong vein of satire, and its effect is increased by a certain sententious quaintness which gives a racy flavour to many otherwise dull enumerations of facts. But his satire is not of a pleasing type; it is built too much on despair of his kind; his whole view of the universe is querulous, and shows a mind unequal to cope with the knowledge it has acquired.
He was considered the most learned man of his day, and with reason. He at least knew the value of first-hand acquaintance with the original authorities, instead of drawing a superficial culture from manuals and abridgments, or worse still, the empty declamations of the rhetorical schools. And after all it is his age which must bear the blame of his failure rather than himself. For while he was not great enough to rise above his surroundings and investigate, compare, and conclude on a method planned by himself, he was just the man who would have profited to the full by being trained in a sound public system of education, and perhaps, had he lived in the Ciceronian period, would have risen to a much higher place as a permanent contributor to the journal of human knowledge.
Among the younger contemporaries of Pliny, the most celebrated is M. FABIUS QUINTILIANUS (35-95 A.D.), [8] a native of Calagurris in Spain, but educated in Rome, and long established there as a popular and influential public professor of eloquence. He was intrusted by Domitian with the education of his two grand-nephews, an honour to which he owed his subsequent elevation to the consulship. His time had been so fully occupied with lecturing as to allow no leisure for publishing anything until the closing years of his career. This gave him the great advantage of being a ripe writer before he challenged the judgment of the world; and, in truth, Quintilian's knowledge and love of his subject are thorough in the highest degree. His first essay was a treatise on the causes of the decay of eloquence, [9] and the last (which we still possess) a work in twelve books on the complete training of an orator. [10] This celebrated work, to which Quintilian devoted the assiduous labour of two whole years, interrupted only by the lessons given to his royal pupils, represents the maturest treatment of the subject which we possess. The author was modest enough to express a strong unwillingness to write it, either fearing to come forward as an author so late in life, or judging the ground preoccupied already. However, it was produced at last, and no sooner known than it at once assumed the high position that has been accorded to it ever since. The treatment is exhaustive; as much more thorough than the popular treatises of Cicero as it is more attractive than the purely technical one of Cornificius. At the same time it has the defects inseparable from the unreal age in which its author lived. While minutely providing for all the future orator's formal requirements, it omits the material one without which the finished rhetorician is but a tinkling cymbal, how tothinkas an orator. No one knew better than Quintilian that this comes from zest in life, not from rules of art. There will be more stimulus given to one who pants for distinction in the delightful pages of Cicero'sBrutus, than in all that Quintilian and such as he ever wrote or ever will write. But this is not the fault of the man; as a formal rhetorician of good principle, sound orthodoxy, and love for his art, Quintilian stands high in the list of classical authors.
He begins his orator's training from the cradle. He rightly ascribes the greatest importance to early impressions, even the very earliest; illustrating his position by the influence of Cornelia who trained her sons to eloquence from childhood, and other similar cases known to Roman history. A good nurse must be selected; aneloquentone would, doubtless, be hard to find. The boy who is destined to greatness has now outgrown the nursery, and the great question arises, Is he to be sent to school? With the Romans as with us this difficulty admitted of two solutions. The lad might be educated at home under tutors, or he might be sent to learn the world at a public school. Those who at the present day shrink from sending their children to school generally profess to base their unwillingness on a fear lest the influence of bad example may corrupt the purity of youth; Quintilian on the very same ground, strongly recommends a parent to send his son to school. By this means, he says,his tender years will be saved from the daily contamination which the scenes of home life afford. A sad commentary on the state of Roman society and the pernicious effects of slave-labour!
After school, the youth is to attend the lectures of a rhetorician. This is of course a matter of great importance, and in the second book the writer handles its various bearings with excellent judgment. Having described the duties of the professor and his pupil, and the various tasks which will be gone through, he proceeds in the next book to discuss the different departments of oratory. In this great subject he follows Aristotle, here, as always, going back to the most established authorities, and adapting them with signal tact to the changed requirements of a later age and a different nation. The points connected with this, the central theme of the treatise, carry us through the five next books. They are the most technical in the work, and not adapted for general reading. The eighth begins the interesting topic of style, which is continued in the ninth, where trope, metaphor, amplification, and otherfigurae orationisare illustrated at length. Throughout these books there are a large number of quotations, and continual references to the practice of celebrated masters in the art, besides frequent introduction of passages from the poets and historians. But it is in the tenth book that these are concentrated into one focus. To acquire a "firm facility" (exis) of speech it is necessary to have read widely and with discernment. This leads him to enumerate the Greek and Roman authors likely to be most useful to an orator. The criticisms he offers on the salient qualities of almost all the great classics may seem to us trite and common-place. They certainly are not remarkable for brilliancy, but they are just and sober, and have stood the test of ages, and perhaps their apparent dulness results from their having been always familiar words. Their utility to the student of literature is so considerable, that we have thought it worth while to append a translation of them to the present chapter. [11]
The eleventh book chiefly turns on memory, which the Romans cultivated with extreme diligence, and several remarkable instances of which have been noticed in the course of this work. It was to them a much more vital excellence than to us, who have adopted the practice of using rough notes or other assistance to it. Delivery, too, is in the eleventh book fully discussed; and these chapters will be read with interest as showing the extreme and minute care bestowed by the Romans on the smallest details of action as means of producing effect. Generally, their oratory was of a vehement type. Gesture was freely used, and the voice raised to its fullest pitch. Trachalus had such a noisy organ that it drowned the pleaders in the other courts. Even after the decay of freedom the fiery gestures that had been once its language were not discarded; at the same time perfect modulation and symmetry were aimed at, so that even in the mostempressépassages decorum was not violated. The systematized rhetorical training at present general in France, and practised by all who aspire to arouse the feeling of an assembly, is probably the nearest, though it may be but a faint, equivalent of the vigorous action of the Roman courts. The twelfth book treats of the moral qualifications necessary for a great speaker. Quintilian insists strongly on these. The good orator must be a good man. The highest talents are nothing if distorted by evil thoughts. We thus see that he took a worthy view of his profession, and would never have degraded it to be the instrument of tyranny or a means of saturating the ears of the idle with seductive and complaisant theories of life, by which a spurious popularity is so cheaply obtained. He was a high-minded man "quantum licuit;"i.e., as far as a debased age allowed of high-mindedness. His domestic life was clouded by sorrow. His first wife died at the early age of nineteen, leaving him two sons, the younger of whom only lived to the age of seven, and the elder (for whose instruction he wrote the book, and whose precocious talent and goodness of disposition he recounts with pardonable pride) only survived his brother about four years. His death was an irremediable blow, which the orator bewails in the preface to his sixth book. The passage is instructive as revealing the taste of the day. The paternal regret clothes itself in such a profusion of antithesis, trope, and hyperbole, that, did we not know from other sources the excellence of his heart, we might fancy he was exercising his talents in the sphere of professionaladvertisement. Before his endowment as professor, which appears to have brought him about £800 a year, he had occasionally pleaded in the courts; he appears to have written declamations in various styles, but those now current under his name are improperly ascribed to him.
Among his pupils was the younger Pliny, who alludes to him with gratitude in one of his letters; [12] he was well thought of during his life, and is frequently mentioned by Statius, Martial, and Juvenal, both as the cleverest of rhetoricians, and the best and most trusted of teachers; [13] by Juvenal also as a bright instance of good fortune very rare among the brethren of the craft. [14]
The style of Quintilian is modelled on that of Cicero, and is intended to be a return to the usages of the best period. He had a warm love for the writers of the republican age, above all for Cicero, whom he is never tired of praising; and he preached a crusade against the tinsel ornaments of the new school whose viciousness, he thought, consisted chiefly in a corrupt following of Seneca. It was necessary, therefore, to impugn the authority of his brilliant compatriot, and this he appears to have done with such warmth as to give rise to the opinion that he had a personal grudge against him. Some critics have noticed that Quintilian, even when blaming, often falls into the pointed antithetical style of his time. This is true. But it was unavoidable; for no man can detach himself from the mode of speaking common to those with whom he lives. It is sufficient if he be aware of its worse faults, point out their tendency, and strive to avoid them. This undoubtedly Quintilian did.
Among prose writers of less note we may mention LICINIUS MUCIANUS, CLUVIUS RUFUS, who both wrote histories; and VIPSTANUS MESSALA, an orator of the reactionary school, who, like Quintilian, sought to restore a purer taste, and devoted some of his time to historical essays on the events he had witnessed. M. APER and JULIUS SECUNDUS are important as being two of the speakers introduced into Tacitus's dialogue on oratory, the former taking the part of the modern style, the latter mediating between the two extreme views, but inclining towards the modern. All these belonged to the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, and lived into the first years of Domitian.
An important writer for students of ancient applied science is SEX. JULIUS FRONTINUS, whose career extends from about 40 A.D. to the end of the first century. He was praetor urbanus 70 A.D., and was employed in responsible military posts in Gaul and Britain. In the former country he reduced the powerful tribe of the Lingones, in Britain, as successor to Petilius Cerealis, he distinguished himself against the Silures, showing, says Tacitus, qualities as great as it was safe to show at that time. He was thrice consul, once under Domitian, again under Nerva (97 A.D.), and lastly under Trajan (100 A.D.), when he had for colleague the emperor himself. He died 103 A.D. or perhaps in the following year. Pliny the younger knew him well, and has several notices of him in his letters. Throughout his active life he was above all things a man of business: literature and science, though he was a proficient in both, were made strictly subservient to the ends of his profession. His character was cautious but independent, and he is the only contemporary writer we possess who does not flatter Domitian. The work on gromatics, which originally contained two books, has descended to us only in a few short excerpts, which treatde agrorum gualitate, de controversiis, de limitibus, de controversiis aquarum. This was written early in the reign of Domitian. Another work of the same period was a theoretical treatise on tactics, alluded to in the more popular work which we possess, and quoted by Vegetius who followed him. In this he examined Greek theories of warfare as well as Roman, and apparently with discrimination; for Aelian, in his account of the Greek strategical writers, assigns Frontinus a high place. The comprehensive manual calledStrategematon(sollertia ducum facta) is intended for general reading among those who are interested in military matters. The books are arranged according to their subjects, but in the distribution of these there is no definite plan followed. Many interpolations have been inserted, especially in the fourth and last book which is a kind of appendix, adding general examples of strategic sayings and doings (strategematica) to the specifically-selected instances of the strategic art which are treated in the first three. Its introduction, as Teuffel remarks, is written in a boastful style quite foreign to Frontinus, and the arrangement of anecdotes under various moral headings reminds us of a rhetorician like Valerius Maximus, rather than of a man of affairs. The entire fourth book appears to be an accretion, perhaps as early as the fourth century. The last treatise by Frontinus which we possess is thatDe Aquis Urbis Romae, or with a slightly different title,De Aquaeductu, orDe Cura Aquarum, published under Trajan soon after the death of Nerva. In an admirable preface he explains that his invariable custom when intrusted with any work was to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the subject in all its bearings before beginning to act; he could thus work with greater promptitude and despatch, and besides gained a theoretical knowledge which might have escaped him amid the multitude of practical details. Frontinus's account of the water-supply of Rome is complete and valuable: recent explorers have found it thoroughly trustworthy, and have been aided by it in reconstructing the topography of the ancient city. [15] The architecture of Rome has been reproached with some justice for bestowing its finest achievements on buildings destined for amusement, or on mere private dwellings. But if from the amphitheatres, the villas, the baths, we turn to the roads, the sewers, and the aqueducts, we shall agree with Frontinus in deeply admiring so grand a combination of the artistic with the useful. A practical recognition of some of the great sanitary laws seem to have early prevailed at Rome, and might well excite our wonder, if such things had not been as a rule passed by in silence by historians. Recent discoveries are tending to set the early civilisation of Rome on a far higher level than it has hitherto been able to claim.
The style of Frontinus is not so devoid of ornament as might be expected from one so much occupied in business; but the ornament it has is of the best kind. He shuns the conceits of the period, and goes back to the republican authors, of whom (and especially of Caesar'sCommentaries) his language strongly reminds us. We observe that the very simplicity which Quintilian sought in vain from a lifelong rhetorical training is present unsought in Frontinus; a clear proof that it is the occupation of life and the nature of the man, not the varnish of artistic culture, however elaborately laid on, that determines the main characteristics of the writer.
No other prose authors of any name have come down to us from this epoch. A vast number of persons are flatteringly saluted by Statius and Martial as orators, historians, jurists, &c.; but these venal poets had a stock of complimentary phrases always ready for any one powerful enough to command them. When we read therefore that Tutilius, Regulus, Flavius Ursus, Septimius Severus, were great writers, we must accept the statement only with considerable reductions. Victorius Marcellus, the friend to whom Quintilian dedicates his treatise, was probably a person of some real eminence; his juridical knowledge is celebrated by Statius. TheSilvaeof Statius and the letters of Pliny imply that there was a very active and generally diffused interest in science and letters; but it is easy to be somebody where no one is great. Among grammarians AEMILIUS ASPER deserves notice. [16] He seems to have been living while Suetonius composed his biography of grammarians, since he is not included in it. He continued the studies of Cornutus and Probus of Berytus, and was best known for hisQuaestiones Virgilianae(of which several fragments still remain), and his commentaries on Terence and Sallust. LARGUS LICINIUS, the author ofCiceromastix, may perhaps be referred to this time. The reiterated commendation of Cicero occurring in Quintilian may have roused the modernising party into active opposition, and drawn out thisbrochure. History and philosophy both sunk to an extremely low ebb; no writers on these subjects worthy of mention are preserved.
Quintilian's Account of the Roman Authors.
We subjoin a translation of Quintilian's criticism of the chief Roman authors as very important for the student of Latin literature, premising, however, that he judged them solely as regards their utility to one who is preparing to become an orator. The criticism, although thus special, has a permanent value, as embracing the best opinion of the time, temperately stated (Inst. Or. xi. 85-131):—"The same order will be observed in treating the Roman writers. As Homer among the Greeks, soVirgilamong our own authors will best head the list; he is beyond doubt the second epic poet of either nation. I will use the words I heard Domitius Afer use when I was a boy. When I asked him who he considered came nearest to Homer, he replied, 'Virgil is the second, but he is nearer the first than the third;' and in truth, while Rome cannot but yield to that celestial and deathless genius, yet we can observe more care and diligence in Virgil; for this very reason, perhaps, that he was obliged to labour more. And so it is that we make up for the lack of occasional splendour by consistent and equable excellence. All the other epicists will follow at a respectful distance.MacerandLucretiusare indeed worth reading, but are of no value for the phraseology, which is the main body of eloquence. Each is good in his own subject; but the former is humble, the latter difficult.Varro Atacinus, in those works which have gained him fame, appears as a translator by no means contemptible, but is not rich enough to add to the resources of eloquence.Enniuslet us reverence as we should groves of holy antiquity, whose grand and venerable trees have more sanctity than beauty. Others are nearer our own day, and more useful for the matter in hand.Ovidin his heroics is as usual wanton, and too fond of his own talent, but in parts he deserves praise.Cornelius Severus, though a better versifier than poet, would still claim the second place, if only he had written all hisSicilian Waras well as the first book. But his early death did not allow his genius to be matured. His boyish works show a great and admirable talent, and a desire for the best style rare at that time of life. We have lately lost much inValerius Flaccus. The inspiration ofSalcius Bassuswas vigorous and poetical, but old age never succeeded in ripening it.RabiriusandPedoare worth reading, if you have time.Lucanis ardent, earnest, and full of admirably expressed sentiments, and, to give my real opinion, should be classed with orators rather than poets. We have named these because Germanicus Augustus (Domitian) has been diverted from his favourite pursuit by the care of the world, and the gods thought it too little for him to be the first of poets. Yet what can be more sublime, learned, matchless in every way, than the poems in which, giving up empire, he spent the privacy of his youth? Who could sing of wars so well as he who has so successfully waged them? To whom would the goddesses who watch over studies listen so propitiously? To whom would Minerva, the patroness of his house, more willingly reveal the mysteries of her art? Future ages will recount these things at greater length. For now this glory is obscured by the splendour of his other virtues. We, however, who worship at the shrine of letters will crave your indulgence, Caesar, for not passing the subject by in silence, and will at least bear witness, as Virgil says,
'That ivy wreathes the laurels of your crown.'
"In elegy, too, we challenge the Greeks. The tersest and most elegant author of it is in my opinionTibullus. Others preferPropertius.Ovidis more luxuriant,Gallusharsher, than either. Satire is all our own. In thisLuciliusfirst gained great renown, and even now has many admirers so wedded to him, as to prefer him not only to all other satirists but to all other poets. I disagree with them as much as I disagree with Horace, who thinks Lucilius flows in a muddy stream, and that there is much that one would wish to remove. For there is wonderful learning in him, freedom of speech with the bitterness that comes therefrom, and an inexhaustible wit.Horaceis far terser and purer, and without a rival in his sketches of character.Persiushas earned much true glory by his single book. There are men now living who are renowned, and others who will be so hereafter. That earlier sort of satire not written exclusively in verse was founded byTerentius Varro, the most learned of the Romans. He composed a vast number of extremely erudite treatises, being well versed in the Latin tongue as well as in every kind of antiquarian knowledge; he will, however, contribute much more to science than to oratory.
"The iambus is not much in vogue among the Romans as a separate form of poetry; it is more often interspersed with other rhythms. Its bitterness is found inCatullus,Bibaculus, andHorace, though in the last the epode breaks its monotony.
"Of lyricistsHoraceis, I may say, the only one worth reading; for he sometimes rises, and he is always full of sweetness and grace, and most happily daring in figures and expressions. If any one else be added, it must be Caesius Bassus, whom we have lately seen, but there are living lyricists far greater than he.
"Of the ancient tragediansAcciusandPacuviusare the most renowned for the gravity of their sentiments, the weight of their words, and the dignity of their characters. But brilliancy of touch and the last polish in completing their work seems to have been wanting, not so much to themselves as to their times. Accius is held to be the more powerful writer; Pacuvius (by those who wish to be thought learned) the more learned. Next comes theThyestesofVarius, which may be compared with any of the Greek plays. TheMedeaofOvidshows what that poet might have achieved if he had but controlled instead of indulging his inspiration. Of those of my own dayPomponius Secundusis by far the greatest. The old critics, indeed, thought him wanting in tragic force, but they confessed his learning and brilliancy.
"In comedy we halt most lamentably. It is true that Varro declares (after Aelius Stilo) that the muses, had they been willing to talk Latin, would have used the language of Plautus. It is true also that the ancients had a high respect for Caecilius, and that they attributed the plays of Terence to Scipio—plays that are of their kind most elegant, and would be even more pleasing if they had kept within the iambic metre. We can scarcely reproduce in comedy a faint shadow of our originals, so that I am compelled to believe the language incapable of that grace, which even in Greek is peculiar to the Attic, or at any rate has never been attained in any other dialect.Afraniusexcels in the national comedy, but I wish he had not defiled his plots by licentious allusions.
"In history at all events, I would not yield the palm to Greece. I should have no fear in matchingSallustagainst Thucydides, nor would Herodotus disdain to be compared withLivy—Livy, the most delightful in narration, the most candid in judgment, the most eloquent in his speeches that can be conceived. Everything is perfectly adapted both to the circumstances and personages introduced. The affections, and, above all, the softer ones, have never (to say the least) been more persuasively introduced by any writer. Thus by a different kind of excellence he has equalled the immortal rapidity of Sallust.Servilius Nonianuswell said to me: 'They are not like, but they are equal.' I used often to listen to his recitations; a man of lofty spirit and full of brilliant sentiments, but less condensed than the majesty of history demands. This condition was better fulfilled byAufidius Bassus, who was a little his senior, at any rate in his books on the German War, in which the author was admirable in his general treatment, but now and then fell below himself. There still survives and adorns the literary glory of our age a man worthy of an immortal record, who will be named some day, but now is only alluded to. He has many to admire, none to imitate him, as if freedom, though he clips her wings, had injured him. But even in what he has allowed to remain you can detect a spirit full lofty, and opinions courageously stated. There are other good writers; but at present we are tasting, as it were, the samples, not ransacking the libraries.
"It is the orators who more than any have made Latin eloquence a match for that of Greece. For I could boldly pitch Cicero against any of their champions. Nor am I ignorant how great a strife I should be stirring up (especially as it is no part of my plan), were I to compare him with Demosthenes. This is the less necessary, since I think Demosthenes should be read (or rather learnt by heart) above every one else. Their excellences seem to me to be very similar; there is the same plan, order of division, method of preparation, proof, and all that belongs to invention. In the oratorical style there is some difference. The one is closer, the other more fluent; the one draws his conclusion with more incisiveness, the other with greater breadth; the one always wields a weapon with a sharp edge, the other frequently a heavy one as well; from the one nothing can be taken, to the other nothing can be added; the one shows more care, the other more natural gift. In wit and pathos, both important points, Cicero is clearly first. Perhaps the custom of his state did not allow Demosthenes to use the epilogue, but then neither does the genius of Latin oratory allow us to employ ornaments which the Athenians admire. In their letters, of which both have left several, there can be no comparison; nor in their dialogues, of which Demosthenes has not left any. In one point we must yield: Demosthenes came first, and of course had a great share in making Cicero what he was. For to me Cicero seems in his intense zeal for imitating the Greeks to have united the force of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the sweetness of Isocrates. Nor has he only acquired by study all that was best in each, but has even exalted the majority if not the whole of their excellences by the inexpressible fertility of his glorious talent. For, as Pindar says, he does not collect rain-water, but bursts forth in a living stream; born by the gift of providence that eloquence might put forth and test all her powers. For who can teach more earnestly or move more vehemently? to whom was such sweetness ever given? The very concessions he extorts you think he begs, and while by his swing he carries the judge right across the course, the man seems all the while to be following of his own accord. Then in everything he advances there is such strength of assertion that one is ashamed to disagree; nor does he bring to bear the eagerness of an advocate, but the moral confidence of a juryman or a witness; and meanwhile all those graces, which separate individuals with the most constant care can hardly obtain, flow from him without any premeditation; and that eloquence which is so delicious to listen to seems to carry on its surface the most perfect freedom from labour. Wherefore his contemporaries did right to call him 'king of the courts;' and posterity to give him such renown that Cicero stands for the name not of a man but of eloquence itself. Let us then fix our eyes on him; let his be the example we set before us; let him who loves Cicero well know that his own progress has been great. InAsinius Polliothere is much invention, much, according to some, excessive, diligence; but he is so far from the brilliancy and sweetness of Cicero that he might be a generation earlier. ButMessalais polished and open, and in a way carries his noble birth into his style of eloquence, but he lacks vigour. IfJulius Caesarhad only had leisure for the forum, he would be the one we should select as the rival of Cicero. He has such force, point, and vehemence of style, that it is clear he spoke with the same mind that he warred. Yet all is covered with a wondrous elegance of expression, of which he was peculiarly studious. There was much talent inCaelius, and in accusations chiefly he showed a great urbanity; he was a man worthy of a better mind and a longer life. I have found those who preferCalvusto any orator; I have found others who thought with Cicero that by too strict criticism of himself he lost real power; but his style is weighty and noble, guarded, and often vehement. He was an enthusiastic atticist, and his early death may be considered a misfortune, if we can believe that a longer life would have added something to his over concise manner.Servius Sulpiciushas earned considerable fame by his three speeches.Cassius Severuswill give many points for imitation if he be read judiciously; if he had added colour and weight to his other good qualities of style, he would be placed extremely high. For he has great talent and wonderful power of satire. His urbanity, too, is great, but he gave himself up to passion rather than reason. And as his wit is always bitter, so the very bitterness of it sometimes makes it ludicrous. I need not enumerate the rest of this long list. Of my own contemporariesDomitius AferandJulius Africanusare far the greatest; the former in art and general style, the latter in earnestness, and the sorting of words, which sorting, however, is perhaps excessive, as his arrangements are lengthy and his metaphors immoderate. There have been lately some great masters in this line.Trachaluswas often sublime, and very open in his manner, a man to whom you gave credit for good motives; but he was much greater heard than read. For he had a beauty of voice such as I have never known in any other, an articulation good enough for the stage, and grace of person and every other external advantage were at their height in him.Vibius Crispuswas neat, elegant, and pleasing, better for private than public causes. HadJulius Secunduslived longer, his renown as an orator would be first-rate. For he would have added, as indeed he had already began to add, all the desiderata for the highest ideal. He would have been more combative, and more attentive to the subject, even to an occasional neglect of the manner. Cut off as he was, he nevertheless merits a high place; such is his facility of speech, his charm in explaining what he has to say; his open, gentle, and specious style, his perfect selection of words, even those which are adopted on the spur of the moment; his vigorous application of analogies extemporaneously suggested. My successors in rhetorical criticism will have a rich field for praising those who are now living. For there are now great talents at work who do credit to the bar, both finished patrons, worthy rivals of the ancients, and industrious youths, following them in the path of excellence.
"There remain the philosophers, few of whom have attained to eloquence.Cicero, here as ever, is the rival of Plato.Brutusstands in this department much higher than as an orator; he suffices for the weight of his matter; you can see he feels what he says.Cornelius Celsus, following theSextii, has written a good deal with point and elegance.Plancusamong the Stoics is useful for his knowledge. Among Epicureans,Catiusthough a light is a pleasant writer. I have purposely deferredSenecauntil the end, because of the false report current that I condemn him, and even personally dislike him. This results from my endeavour to recal to a severer standard a corrupt and effeminate taste. When I began my crusade, Seneca was almost the only writer in the hands of the young. Nor did I try to 'disestablish' him altogether, but only to prevent his being placed above better men, whom he continually attacked, from a consciousness that his special talents would never allow him to please in the way they pleased. And then his pupils loved him better than they imitated him, and in their imitations fell as much below him as he had fallen below the ancients. I only wish they could have been equals or seconds to such a man. But he pleased them solely through his faults; and it was to reproduce these that they all strove with their utmost efforts, and then, boasting that they spoke in his style, they greatly injured his fame. He, indeed, had many and great excellences; an easy and fertile talent, much study, much knowledge, though in this he was often led astray by those he employed to 'research' for him. He treated nearly the whole cycle of knowledge. For he has left speeches, poems, letters, and dialogues. In philosophy he was not very accurate, but he was a notable rebuker of vice. Many brilliant apophthegms are scattered through his works; much, too, may be read with a moral purpose. But from the point of view of eloquence his style is corrupt, and the more pernicious because he abounds in pleasant faults. One could wish he had used his own talent and another person's judgment. For had he despised some modes of effect, had he not striven after others (partem), if he had not loved all that was his own, if he had not broken the weight of his subjects by his short cut- up sentences, he would be approved by the consent of the learned rather than by the enthusiasm of boys. For all this, he should be read, but only by those who are robust and well prepared by a course of stricter models; and for this object, to exercise their judgment on both sides. For there is much that is good in him, much to admire; only it requires picking out, a thing he himself ought to have done. A nature which could always achieve its object was worthy of having striven after a better object than it did."
The poet is usually credited with a genius more independent of external circumstances than any other of nature's favourites. His inspiration is more creative, more unearthly, more constraining, more unattainable by mere effort. He seems to forget the world in his own inner sources of thought and feeling. As circumstances cannot produce him, so they do not greatly affect his genius. He is the product of causes as yet unknown to the student of human progress; he is a boon for which the age that has him should be grateful, a sort ofaerii mellis caelestia dona. Modern literature is full of this conception. The poet "does but speak because he must; he sings but as the linnets sing." Never has the sentiment been expressed with deeper pathos than by Shelley's well-known lines:
"Like a poet hiddenIn the light of thought,Singing hymns unbidden,Till the world is wroughtTo sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not."
The idea that the poet can neither be made on the one hand, nor repressed if he is there, on the other, has become deeply rooted in modern literary thought. And yet if we look through the epochs that have been most fertile of great poets, the instances of such self-sufficing hardiness are rare. In Greek poetry we question whether there is one to be found. In Latin poetry there is only Lucretius. In modern times, it is true, they are more numerous, owing to the greater complexity of our social conditions, and the greater difficulty for a strongly sensuous or deeply spiritual poetic nature to be in harmony with them all. Putting aside these solitary voices we should say on the whole that poetry, at least in ancient times, was the tenderest and least hardy of all garden flowers. It needed, so to say, a special soil, constant care, and shelter from the rude blast. It could blossom only in the summer of patronage, popular or imperial; the storms of war and revolution, and the chill frost of despotism, were equally fatal to its tender life. Where its supports were strong its own strength came out, and that with such luxuriance as to hide the props which lay beneath; but when once the inspiring consciousness of sympathy and aid was lost, its fair head drooped, its fragrance was forgotten, and its seeds were scattered to the waste of air.
If Lucan's claim to the name of poet be disputed, what shall we say to the so-called poets of the Flavian age? to Valerius Flaccus, Silius, Statius, and Martial? In one sense they are poets certainly; they have a thorough mastery over the form of their art, over the hackneyed themes of verse. But in the inspiration that makes the bard, in the grace that should adorn his mind, in the familiarity with noble thoughts which lends to thePharsaliaan undisputed greatness, they are one and all absolutely wanting. None of them raise in the reader one thrill of pleasure, none of them add one single idea to enrich the inheritance of mankind. The works of Pliny and Quintilian cannot indeed be ranked among the masterpieces of literature. But in elegant greatness they are immeasurably superior to the works of their brethren of the lyre. Science can seek a refuge in the contemplation of the material universe; if it can find no law there, no justice, no wisdom, no comfort, it at least bows before unchallenged greatness. Rhetoric can solace its aspirations in a noble though hopeless effort to rekindle an extinct past. Poetry, that should point the way to the ideal, that should bear witness if not to goodness at least to beauty and to glory, grovels in a base contentment with all that is meanest and shallowest in the present, and owns no source of inspiration but the bidding of superior force, or the insulting bribe of a despot's minion which derides in secret the very flattery it buys.
These poets need not detain us long. There is little to interest us in them, and they are of little importance in the history of literature. The first of them is C. VALERIUS FLACCUS SETINUS BALBUS. [1] He was born not, as his name would indicate, at Setia, but at Patavium. [2] We gather from a passage in his poem [3] that he filled the office ofQuindecimvir sacris faciundis, and from Quintilian [4] that he was cut off by an early death. The date of this event may be fixed with probability to the year 88 A.D. [5] Dureau de la Malle has disputed this, and thinks it probable that he lived until the reign of Trajan; but this is in itself unlikely, and inconsistent with the obviously unfinished state of the poem. The legend of the Argonauts which forms its subject was one that had already been treated by Varro Atacinus apparently in the form of an imitation or translation from the same writer, Appollonius Rhodius, whom Valerius also chose as his model. But whereas Varro's poem was little more than a free translation, that of Valerius is an amplification and study from the original of a more ambitious character. It consists of eight books, of which the last is incomplete, and in estimating its merits or demerits we must not forget the immaturity of its author's talent.
The opening dedication to Vespasian fixes its composition under his reign. Its profane flattery is in the usual style of the period, but lacks the brilliancy, the audacity, and the satire of that of Lucan. From certain allusions it is probable that the poem was written soon after the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus [6] (A.D. 70). There is considerable learning shown, but a desire to compress allusions into a small space and to suggest trains of mythological recollection by passing hints, interfere with the lucidity of the style. In other respects the diction is classical and elegant, and both rhythm and language are closely modelled on those of Virgil. Licences of versification are rare. The spondaic line, rarely used by Ovid, almost discarded by Lucan, but which reappears in Statius, is sparingly employed by Valerius. Hiatus is still rarer, but the shortening of finalooccurs in verbs and nominatives, such asJuno, Virgo, whenever it suits the metre. His speeches are rhetorical but not extravagant, some,e.g., that of Helle to Jason, are very pretty. In descriptive power he rises to his highest level; some of his subjects are extremely vivid and might form subjects for a painting. [7] During the time that he was writing the eruption of Vesuvius occurred, and he has described it with the zeal of a witness. [8]
"Sic ubi prorupti tonuit cum forte VeseviHesperiae letalis apex; vixdum ignea montemTorsit hiems, iamque Eoas einis induit urbes."
But in this, as in all the descriptive pieces, however striking and elaborate, of the period of the decline, are prominently visible the strained endeavour to be emphatic, and the continual dependence upon book reminiscence instead of first-hand observation. Valerius is no exception to the rule. Nor is the next author who presents himself any better in this respect, the voluptuary and poetaster C. SILIUS ITALICUS.
This laborious compiler and tasteless versifier was born 25 A.D., or according to some 24 A.D., and died by his own act seventy-six years later. He is known to us as a copyist of Virgil; to his contemporaries he was at least as well known as a clever orator and luxurious virtuoso. His early fondness for Virgil's poetry may be presumed from the dedication of Cornutus's treatise on that subject to him, but he soon deserted literature for public life, in which (68 A.D.) he attained the highest success by being nominated consul. He had been a personal friend of Vitellius and of Nero; but now, satisfied with his achievements, he settled down on his estates, and composed his poem on the Punic Wars in sixteen books. Most of the information we possess about him is gathered from the letter [9] in which Pliny narrates his death. We translate the most striking passages for the reader's benefit.
"I have just heard that Silius has closed his life in his Neapolitan villa by voluntary abstinence. The cause of his preferring to die was ill-health. He suffered from an incurable tumour, the trouble arising from which determined him with singular resolution to seek death as a relief. His whole life had been unvaryingly fortunate, except that he had lost the younger of his two sons. On the other hand, he had lived to see his elder and more promising son succeed in life and obtain the consulship. He had injured his reputation under Nero. It was believed he had acted as an informer. But afterwards, while enjoying Vitellius's friendship, he had conducted himself with courtesy and prudence. He had gained much credit by his proconsulship in Asia, and had since by an honourable leisure wiped out the blot which stained the activity of his former years. He ranked among the first men in the state, but he neither retained power nor excited envy. He was saluted, courted; he received levees often in his bed, always in his chamber, which was crowded with visitors, who came attracted by no considerations of his fortune. When not occupied with writing, he passed his days in learned discourse. His poems evince more diligence than talent: he now and then by reciting challenged men's opinions upon them. Latterly, owing to advancing years, he retired from Rome and remained in Campania, nor did even the accession of a new emperor draw him forth. To allow this inactivity was most liberal on the emperor's part, to have the courage to accept it was equally honourable to Silius. He was a virtuoso, and was even blamed for his propensities for collecting. He owned several country-houses in the same district, and was always so taken with each new house he purchased as to neglect the old for it. All of them were well stocked with books, statues, and busts of great men. These last he not only treasured but revered, above all, that of Virgil, whose birthday he kept more religiously than his own. He preferred celebrating it at Naples, where he visited the poet's tomb as if it had been a temple. Amid such complete tranquillity he passed his seventy-fifth year, not exactly weak in body, but delicate."
To this notice of Pliny's we might add several by Martial; but as these refer to the same facts, adding beside only fulsome praises of the wealthy and dignified littérateur, they need not be quoted here. Quintilian does not mention him. But his silence is no token of disrespect; it is merely an indication that Silius was still alive when the great critic wrote.
There is little that calls for remark in his long and tedious work. He is a poet only by memory. Timid and nerveless, he lacks alike the vigorous beauties of the earlier school, and the vigorous faults of the later. He pieces together in the straggling mosaic of his poem hemistichs from his contemporaries, fragments from Livy, words, thoughts, epithets, and rhythms from Virgil; and he elaborates the whole with a pre-Raphaelite fidelity to details which completely destroys whatever unity the subject suggested.
This subject is not in itself a bad one, but the treatment he applies to it is unreal and insipid in the highest degree. He cannot perceive, for instance, that the divine interventions which are admissible in the quarrel of Aeneas and Turnus are ludicrous when imported into the struggle between Scipio and Hannibal. And this inconsistency is the more glaring, since his extreme historical accuracy (an accuracy so strict as to make Niebuhr declare a knowledge of him indispensable to the student of the Punic Wars) gives to his chronicle a prosaic literalness from which nothing is more alien than the caprices of an imaginary pantheon. Who can help resenting the unreality, when at Saguntum Jupiter guides an arrow into Hannibal's body, which Juno immediately withdraws? [10] or when, at Cannae, Aeolus yields to the prayer of Juno and blinds the Romans by a whirlwind of dust? [11] These are two out of innumerable similar instances. Amid such incongruities it is no wonder if the heroes themselves lose all body and consistency, so that Scipio turns into a kind of Paladin, and Hannibal into a monster of cruelty, whom we should not be surprised to see devouring children. Silius in poetry represents, on a reduced scale, the same reactionary sentiments that in prose animated Quintilian. So far he is to be commended. But if we must choose a companion among the Flavian poets, let it be Statius with all his faults, rather than this correct, only because completely talentless, compiler.
To him let us now turn. With filial pride he attributes his eminence to the example and instruction of his father, P. PAPENIUS STATIUS, who was, if we may believe his son, a distinguished and extremely successful poet. [12] He was born either at Naples or at Selle; and the doubt hanging over this point neither the father nor the son had any desire to clear up; for did not the same ambiguity attach to the birthplace of Homer? At any rate he established himself at Naples as a young man, and opened a school for rhetoric and poetry, engaging in the quinquennial contests himself, and training his pupils to do the same. It is not certain that he ever settled at Rome; his modest ambition seems to have been content with provincial celebrity. What the subjects of his prize poetry were we have no means of ascertaining, but we know that he wrote a short epic on the wars between Vespasian and Vitellius and contemplated writing another on the eruption of Vesuvius. His more celebrated son, P. PAPINIUS STATIUS the younger, was born at Naples 61 A.D., and before his father's death had carried off the victory in the Neapolitan poetical games by a poem in honour of Ceres. [13] Shortly after this he returned to Rome, where it is probable he had been educated as a boy, and in his twenty-first year married a young widow named Claudia (whose former husband seems to have been a singer or harpist), [14] and their mutual attachment is a pleasing testimony to the poet's goodness of heart, a quality which the habitual exaggeration of his manner ineffectually tries to conceal.
Domitian had instituted a yearly poetical contest at the Quinquatria, in honour of Minerva, held on the Alban Mount. Statius was fortunate enough on three separate occasions to win the prize, his subject being in each case the praises of Domitian himself. [15] But at the great quinquennial Capitoline contest, in which apparently the subject was the praises of Jupiter, [16] Statius was not equally successful. [17] This defeat, which he bewails in more than one passage, was a disappointment he never quite overcame, though some critics have inferred from another passage [18] that on a subsequent occasion he came off victor; but this cannot be proved. [19]
Statius had something of the true poet in him. He had the love of nature and of those "cheap pleasures" of which Hume writes, the pleasures of flowers, birds, trees, fresh air, a country landscape, a blue sky. These could not be had at Rome for all the favours of the emperor. Statius pined for a simpler life. He wished also to provide for his step-daughter, whom he dearly loved, and whose engaging beauty while occupied in reciting her father's poems, or singing them to the music of the harp, he finely describes. Perhaps at Naples a husband could be found for her? So to Naples he went, and there in quiet retirement passed the short remainder of his days, finishing hisopus magnumtheThebaid, and writing the fragment that remains of his still more ambitiousAchilleid. The year of his death is not certain, but it may be placed with some probability in 98 A.D.
Statius was not merely a brilliant poet. He was a still more brilliantimprovisator. Often he would pour forth to enthusiastic listeners, as Ovid had done before him,
"His profuse strains of unpremeditated art."
Improvisation had long been cultivated among the Greeks. We know from Cicero's oration on behalf of Archias that it was no rare accomplishment among the wits of that nation. And it was not unknown among the Romans, though with them also it was more commonly exercised in Greek than in Latin. The technicalities of versification had, since Ovid, ceased to involve any labour. Not an aspirant of any ambition but was familiar with every page of theGradus ad Parnassum, and could lay it under contribution at a moment's notice. Hence to write fluent verses was no merit at all; to write epigrammatic verses was worth doing; but to extemporize a poem of from one to two hundred lines, of which every line should display a neat turn or abon mot, this was the most deeply coveted gift of all; and it was the possession of this gift in its most seductive form that gave Statius unquestioned, though not unenvied, pre- eminence among thebeaux espritsof his day. HisSilvae, which are trifles, but very charming ones, were most of them written within twenty- four hours after their subjects had been suggested to him. Their elegant polish is undeniable; the worst feature about them is the base complaisance with which this versatile flatterer wrote to order, without asking any questions, whatever the eunuchs, pleasure-purveyors, or freedmen of the emperor desired. They are full of interest also as throwing light on the manners and fashions of the time and disclosing the frivolities which in the minds of all the members o£ the court had quite put out of sight the serious objects of life. They contain many notices of the poet and his friends, and we learn that when they were composed he was at work on theThebaid. He excuses these shortjeux d'espritby alleging the example of Homer'sBattle of the Frogs and Miceand Virgil'sCulex. "I hardly know," he says, "of one illustrious poet who has not prefaced his nobler triumphs of song by some prelude in a lighter strain." [20] The short prose introductions in which he describes the poems that compose each book are well worth reading. The first book is addressed to his friend ARRUNTIUS STELLA, who was, if we may believe Statius and Martial, himself no mean poet, and in his littleColumba, an ode addressed to his mistress's dove, rivalled, if he did not surpass, the famous "sparrow-poem" of Catullus. He wrote also several other love poems, and perhaps essayed a heroic flight in celebrating the Sarmatian victories of Domitian. [21]
TheSilvaewere for the most part read or recited in public. We saw in a former chapter [22] that Asinius Pollio first introduced these readings. His object in doing so is uncertain. It may have been to solace himself for the loss of a political career, or it may have been a device for ascertaining the value of new works before granting them a place in his public library. The recitations thus served the purpose of the modern reviews. They affixed to each new work the critic's verdict, and assigned to it its place among the list of candidates for fame. No sooner was the practice introduced than it became popular. Horace already complains of it, and declares that he will not indulge it: [23]
"Non recito cuiquam nisi amicis, idque coactus,Non ubivis coramve quibuslibet."
He with greater wisdom read his poems to some single friend whose judgment and candour he could trust—some Quinctilius Varus, or Maecius Tarpa—and he advised his friends the Pisos to do the same; but his advice was little heeded. Even during his lifetime the vain thirst for applause tempted many an author to submit his compositions to the hasty judgment of a fashionable assembly, and (fond hope!) to promise himself an immortality proportioned to their compliments. Ovid's muse drew her fullest inspiration from the excitements of the hall, and the poet bitterly complains in exile that now this stimulus to effort is withdrawn he has lost the power and even the desire to write. [24] Nor was it only poetry that was thus criticised; grave historians read their works before publishing them, and it is related of Claudius that on hearing the thunders of applause which were bestowed on the recitations of Servilius Nonianus, he entered the building and seated himself uninvited among the enthusiastic listeners. Under Nero, the readings, which had hitherto been a custom, became a law, that is, were upheld by legal no less than social obligations. The same is true of Domitian's reign. This ill-educated prince wished to feign an interest in literature, the more so, since Nero, whom he imitated, had really been its eager votary. Accordingly, he patronised the readings of the principal poets, and above all, of Statius. This was the golden time of recitations, orostentationes, as they now with sarcastic justice began to be called, and Statius was their chief hero. As Juvenal tells us, he made the whole city glad when he promised a day. [25] His recitations were often held at the houses of his great friends, men like Abascantius or Glabrio, adventurers of yesterday, who had come to Rome with "chalked feet," and now had been raised by Caesar to a height whence they looked with scorn upon the scattered relics of nobility. It is these men that Statius so adroitly flatters; it is to them that he looks for countenance, for patronage, for more substantial rewards; and yet so wretched is the recompense even of the highest popularity, that Statius would have to beg his bread if he did not find a better employer in the actor and manager, Paris, who pays him handsomely for the tragedies that at each successive exhaustion of his exchequer he is fain to write for the taste of a corrupt mob. [26] But at last Statius began to see the folly of all this. He grew tired of hiring himself out to amuse, of practising the affectation of a modesty, an inspiration, an emotion he did not feel, of hearing the false plaudits of rivals who he knew carped at his verses in his absence and libelled his character, of running hither and thither over Parnassus dragging his poor muse at the heels of some selfish freedman; he was man enough and poet enough to wish to write something that would live, and so he left Rome to con over his mythological erudition amid a less exciting environment, and woo the genius of poesy where its last great master had been laid to rest.