VI.The almost exclusive devotion to poetry on the part of the meanest as well as the greatest writers of the Augustan Age seems to demand some explanation. The natural genius of Rome was more adapted to oratory, history, and didactic exposition than to any of the great forms of poetry. In the previous generation prose literature had reached the highest degree of perfection. The style of Cicero is one of the most admirable and effective vehicles for the varied purposes of passionate invective or persuasive oratory, of familiar correspondence, and of popularising the results of ethical, political, and religious reflection. In Caesar and Sallust the record of great events in the national life had at last found a power of clear, terse, and chastened diction, superior as a vehicle of simple narrative to the style of the two great historians of later times, if not so rich and varied in colouring and in poetical and reflective suggestion. Of the prose literature of the Augustan Age we possess only one great monument, the extant parts of ‘the[pg 55]colossal master-work of Livy;’ and that was the product of the later and least brilliant period of this epoch.The cause of the sudden and permanent decline of Roman oratory was the extinction of political life. Public speech could no longer be, as it had been for nearly two centuries, a great power in the commonwealth. Under the vigilant and judicious administration of Augustus there was not scope even for that kind of oratory which flourished under his successors, and became a very formidable weapon in the hands of the ‘delatores,’—that, namely, which is employed in the prosecution and defence of men charged with grave offences against the State. Neither was there scope or inclination for philosophical or historical composition. Such freedom of enquiry as Cicero allowed himself in his treatises De Legibus and De Republica would scarcely have been tolerated under the monarchy; and the world was in no mood for any severe strain of thought or any questioning of the first principles of things. The new era desired ease, an escape from care and the perplexities of thought, as well as peace and material well-being. The spirit of the age was announced in the pastoral strain, which celebrated its commencement in the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, ‘amat bonus otia Daphnis.’ Nor would it have been possible for any one to have composed or at least to have published a candid history of the times; and it may have been the discovery of this impossibility that induced Asinius Pollio to leave his work unfinished. It would indeed have been a gain for all time had a Roman Thucydides recorded the ‘movement in the State’ from the Consulship of Metellus till the battle of Actium with the accuracy and impartiality, the graphic condensation, the sober dignity, the sensitive perception of the varying phases of passion and character in states and individuals, the philosophical discernment of great political principles destined to act in the same way ‘so long as the nature of man remains the same,’ and the deep tragic pathos which make, even at the present day, the record of ‘the twenty-seven years’ war of the Peloponnesians and Athenians’ the most[pg 56]vividly interesting and permanently instructive historical work which the world possesses. But even had the genius of Rome been capable of producing a Thucydides, the circumstances of the time would have reduced him to silence. Tacitus regards the establishment of the Empire as equally fatal to the genius of the historian, as it was to the genius of the orator:—‘Postquam bellatum apud Actium atque omnem potentiam ad unum conferri pacis interfuit, magna illa ingenia cessere. Simul veritas pluribus modis infracta, primum inscitia rei publicae ut alienae, mox libidine assentandi85.’On the other hand, many circumstances contributed to give a great stimulus to poetical literature in its most trivial and transitory as well as its noblest and most enduring manifestations. It is remarked by a recent French writer86, that poetry is the last form of literature to wither under a despotism. But it suffers from it most irretrievably in the end. The poetic imagination is able to deceive itself by turning away from what is painful and repulsive in the world, and by appearing to extract the element of good, of vivid life, or impressive grandeur out of things evil and fatal in their ultimate effects. Thus it is able to glorify the pomp and state of imperialism, just as it is able to glorify the charm to the senses or the attraction to the social nature afforded by the life of passion and pleasure. But, in the long run, the decay in the higher energies arising either from the loss of liberty or the loss of self-control is more fatal to the nobler forms of art and poetry than to any other products of intelligence.Again, the mechanical difficulties of the art had been to a great extent overcome, in the previous age. The discovery of the new and rich ore of the Latin language, revealed and wrought into shapes of massive beauty and delicate grace by[pg 57]Lucretius and Catullus, awakened and kept alive in the great writers of this age the desire to perfect the work commenced by their predecessors, and to develope all the majesty, beauty, and harmony of which their native speech was capable. The education in grammar, rhetoric, and Greek literature, which in the later years of the Republic had trained men for the contests of public life, prepared them to recognise and appreciate the perfection of style and of rhythm which was now for the first time attained. But the attainment of this perfection was a stumbling block to writers of an inferior order, and to all the poets who came afterwards. The Augustan poets left to their successors, what they had not themselves received, the fatal legacy of an established poetical diction. The resources of the language for the highest purposes of poetry seem to have been exhausted by the supreme effort of this epoch. The golden perfection of the Augustan style gave place to the forced rhetoric and the sensational extravagance of the Neronian age and to the soberer but tamer imitations of the Flavian era.In its inner inspiration, as well as its outward expression, the Augustan poetry was the maturest development of the national mind. The inspiring influences of Latin poetry were the idea of Rome, the appreciation of Greek art, the genial Italian life. We have seen how the first establishment of the Empire gave to the national idea a temporary importance and prominence which it had not had since Ennius first awoke his countrymen to the consciousness of their destiny. It was only in the Augustan Age, or during the few years preceding it, that the taste of the Romans was sufficiently educated to appreciate the perfect art of the Greeks. The whole of Italy was now for the first time united in one nation. A new generation had been born and grown to manhood since the Social War. The pride in Rome and the love of the whole land might now be felt by all men born between the Alps and the Straits of Sicily. The districts far removed from the capital, ‘by the sounding Aufidus’ or ‘the slow-winding Mincius,’ still kept[pg 58]alive the traditions of a severer morality and the habits of a simpler and happier life87. They were still able to nourish the susceptible mind of childhood with poetic fancies88. In the following generation the idea of the empire was one no longer of inspiring novelty, but rather of a dull oppression. The taste for Greek literature had lost its freshness and quickening power. The natural enjoyment of life, the susceptibility to beauty in art and nature, the love of simplicity, were no longer possible to minds enervated and hearts deadened by the unrelieved monotony of luxurious living.
VI.The almost exclusive devotion to poetry on the part of the meanest as well as the greatest writers of the Augustan Age seems to demand some explanation. The natural genius of Rome was more adapted to oratory, history, and didactic exposition than to any of the great forms of poetry. In the previous generation prose literature had reached the highest degree of perfection. The style of Cicero is one of the most admirable and effective vehicles for the varied purposes of passionate invective or persuasive oratory, of familiar correspondence, and of popularising the results of ethical, political, and religious reflection. In Caesar and Sallust the record of great events in the national life had at last found a power of clear, terse, and chastened diction, superior as a vehicle of simple narrative to the style of the two great historians of later times, if not so rich and varied in colouring and in poetical and reflective suggestion. Of the prose literature of the Augustan Age we possess only one great monument, the extant parts of ‘the[pg 55]colossal master-work of Livy;’ and that was the product of the later and least brilliant period of this epoch.The cause of the sudden and permanent decline of Roman oratory was the extinction of political life. Public speech could no longer be, as it had been for nearly two centuries, a great power in the commonwealth. Under the vigilant and judicious administration of Augustus there was not scope even for that kind of oratory which flourished under his successors, and became a very formidable weapon in the hands of the ‘delatores,’—that, namely, which is employed in the prosecution and defence of men charged with grave offences against the State. Neither was there scope or inclination for philosophical or historical composition. Such freedom of enquiry as Cicero allowed himself in his treatises De Legibus and De Republica would scarcely have been tolerated under the monarchy; and the world was in no mood for any severe strain of thought or any questioning of the first principles of things. The new era desired ease, an escape from care and the perplexities of thought, as well as peace and material well-being. The spirit of the age was announced in the pastoral strain, which celebrated its commencement in the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, ‘amat bonus otia Daphnis.’ Nor would it have been possible for any one to have composed or at least to have published a candid history of the times; and it may have been the discovery of this impossibility that induced Asinius Pollio to leave his work unfinished. It would indeed have been a gain for all time had a Roman Thucydides recorded the ‘movement in the State’ from the Consulship of Metellus till the battle of Actium with the accuracy and impartiality, the graphic condensation, the sober dignity, the sensitive perception of the varying phases of passion and character in states and individuals, the philosophical discernment of great political principles destined to act in the same way ‘so long as the nature of man remains the same,’ and the deep tragic pathos which make, even at the present day, the record of ‘the twenty-seven years’ war of the Peloponnesians and Athenians’ the most[pg 56]vividly interesting and permanently instructive historical work which the world possesses. But even had the genius of Rome been capable of producing a Thucydides, the circumstances of the time would have reduced him to silence. Tacitus regards the establishment of the Empire as equally fatal to the genius of the historian, as it was to the genius of the orator:—‘Postquam bellatum apud Actium atque omnem potentiam ad unum conferri pacis interfuit, magna illa ingenia cessere. Simul veritas pluribus modis infracta, primum inscitia rei publicae ut alienae, mox libidine assentandi85.’On the other hand, many circumstances contributed to give a great stimulus to poetical literature in its most trivial and transitory as well as its noblest and most enduring manifestations. It is remarked by a recent French writer86, that poetry is the last form of literature to wither under a despotism. But it suffers from it most irretrievably in the end. The poetic imagination is able to deceive itself by turning away from what is painful and repulsive in the world, and by appearing to extract the element of good, of vivid life, or impressive grandeur out of things evil and fatal in their ultimate effects. Thus it is able to glorify the pomp and state of imperialism, just as it is able to glorify the charm to the senses or the attraction to the social nature afforded by the life of passion and pleasure. But, in the long run, the decay in the higher energies arising either from the loss of liberty or the loss of self-control is more fatal to the nobler forms of art and poetry than to any other products of intelligence.Again, the mechanical difficulties of the art had been to a great extent overcome, in the previous age. The discovery of the new and rich ore of the Latin language, revealed and wrought into shapes of massive beauty and delicate grace by[pg 57]Lucretius and Catullus, awakened and kept alive in the great writers of this age the desire to perfect the work commenced by their predecessors, and to develope all the majesty, beauty, and harmony of which their native speech was capable. The education in grammar, rhetoric, and Greek literature, which in the later years of the Republic had trained men for the contests of public life, prepared them to recognise and appreciate the perfection of style and of rhythm which was now for the first time attained. But the attainment of this perfection was a stumbling block to writers of an inferior order, and to all the poets who came afterwards. The Augustan poets left to their successors, what they had not themselves received, the fatal legacy of an established poetical diction. The resources of the language for the highest purposes of poetry seem to have been exhausted by the supreme effort of this epoch. The golden perfection of the Augustan style gave place to the forced rhetoric and the sensational extravagance of the Neronian age and to the soberer but tamer imitations of the Flavian era.In its inner inspiration, as well as its outward expression, the Augustan poetry was the maturest development of the national mind. The inspiring influences of Latin poetry were the idea of Rome, the appreciation of Greek art, the genial Italian life. We have seen how the first establishment of the Empire gave to the national idea a temporary importance and prominence which it had not had since Ennius first awoke his countrymen to the consciousness of their destiny. It was only in the Augustan Age, or during the few years preceding it, that the taste of the Romans was sufficiently educated to appreciate the perfect art of the Greeks. The whole of Italy was now for the first time united in one nation. A new generation had been born and grown to manhood since the Social War. The pride in Rome and the love of the whole land might now be felt by all men born between the Alps and the Straits of Sicily. The districts far removed from the capital, ‘by the sounding Aufidus’ or ‘the slow-winding Mincius,’ still kept[pg 58]alive the traditions of a severer morality and the habits of a simpler and happier life87. They were still able to nourish the susceptible mind of childhood with poetic fancies88. In the following generation the idea of the empire was one no longer of inspiring novelty, but rather of a dull oppression. The taste for Greek literature had lost its freshness and quickening power. The natural enjoyment of life, the susceptibility to beauty in art and nature, the love of simplicity, were no longer possible to minds enervated and hearts deadened by the unrelieved monotony of luxurious living.
VI.The almost exclusive devotion to poetry on the part of the meanest as well as the greatest writers of the Augustan Age seems to demand some explanation. The natural genius of Rome was more adapted to oratory, history, and didactic exposition than to any of the great forms of poetry. In the previous generation prose literature had reached the highest degree of perfection. The style of Cicero is one of the most admirable and effective vehicles for the varied purposes of passionate invective or persuasive oratory, of familiar correspondence, and of popularising the results of ethical, political, and religious reflection. In Caesar and Sallust the record of great events in the national life had at last found a power of clear, terse, and chastened diction, superior as a vehicle of simple narrative to the style of the two great historians of later times, if not so rich and varied in colouring and in poetical and reflective suggestion. Of the prose literature of the Augustan Age we possess only one great monument, the extant parts of ‘the[pg 55]colossal master-work of Livy;’ and that was the product of the later and least brilliant period of this epoch.The cause of the sudden and permanent decline of Roman oratory was the extinction of political life. Public speech could no longer be, as it had been for nearly two centuries, a great power in the commonwealth. Under the vigilant and judicious administration of Augustus there was not scope even for that kind of oratory which flourished under his successors, and became a very formidable weapon in the hands of the ‘delatores,’—that, namely, which is employed in the prosecution and defence of men charged with grave offences against the State. Neither was there scope or inclination for philosophical or historical composition. Such freedom of enquiry as Cicero allowed himself in his treatises De Legibus and De Republica would scarcely have been tolerated under the monarchy; and the world was in no mood for any severe strain of thought or any questioning of the first principles of things. The new era desired ease, an escape from care and the perplexities of thought, as well as peace and material well-being. The spirit of the age was announced in the pastoral strain, which celebrated its commencement in the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, ‘amat bonus otia Daphnis.’ Nor would it have been possible for any one to have composed or at least to have published a candid history of the times; and it may have been the discovery of this impossibility that induced Asinius Pollio to leave his work unfinished. It would indeed have been a gain for all time had a Roman Thucydides recorded the ‘movement in the State’ from the Consulship of Metellus till the battle of Actium with the accuracy and impartiality, the graphic condensation, the sober dignity, the sensitive perception of the varying phases of passion and character in states and individuals, the philosophical discernment of great political principles destined to act in the same way ‘so long as the nature of man remains the same,’ and the deep tragic pathos which make, even at the present day, the record of ‘the twenty-seven years’ war of the Peloponnesians and Athenians’ the most[pg 56]vividly interesting and permanently instructive historical work which the world possesses. But even had the genius of Rome been capable of producing a Thucydides, the circumstances of the time would have reduced him to silence. Tacitus regards the establishment of the Empire as equally fatal to the genius of the historian, as it was to the genius of the orator:—‘Postquam bellatum apud Actium atque omnem potentiam ad unum conferri pacis interfuit, magna illa ingenia cessere. Simul veritas pluribus modis infracta, primum inscitia rei publicae ut alienae, mox libidine assentandi85.’On the other hand, many circumstances contributed to give a great stimulus to poetical literature in its most trivial and transitory as well as its noblest and most enduring manifestations. It is remarked by a recent French writer86, that poetry is the last form of literature to wither under a despotism. But it suffers from it most irretrievably in the end. The poetic imagination is able to deceive itself by turning away from what is painful and repulsive in the world, and by appearing to extract the element of good, of vivid life, or impressive grandeur out of things evil and fatal in their ultimate effects. Thus it is able to glorify the pomp and state of imperialism, just as it is able to glorify the charm to the senses or the attraction to the social nature afforded by the life of passion and pleasure. But, in the long run, the decay in the higher energies arising either from the loss of liberty or the loss of self-control is more fatal to the nobler forms of art and poetry than to any other products of intelligence.Again, the mechanical difficulties of the art had been to a great extent overcome, in the previous age. The discovery of the new and rich ore of the Latin language, revealed and wrought into shapes of massive beauty and delicate grace by[pg 57]Lucretius and Catullus, awakened and kept alive in the great writers of this age the desire to perfect the work commenced by their predecessors, and to develope all the majesty, beauty, and harmony of which their native speech was capable. The education in grammar, rhetoric, and Greek literature, which in the later years of the Republic had trained men for the contests of public life, prepared them to recognise and appreciate the perfection of style and of rhythm which was now for the first time attained. But the attainment of this perfection was a stumbling block to writers of an inferior order, and to all the poets who came afterwards. The Augustan poets left to their successors, what they had not themselves received, the fatal legacy of an established poetical diction. The resources of the language for the highest purposes of poetry seem to have been exhausted by the supreme effort of this epoch. The golden perfection of the Augustan style gave place to the forced rhetoric and the sensational extravagance of the Neronian age and to the soberer but tamer imitations of the Flavian era.In its inner inspiration, as well as its outward expression, the Augustan poetry was the maturest development of the national mind. The inspiring influences of Latin poetry were the idea of Rome, the appreciation of Greek art, the genial Italian life. We have seen how the first establishment of the Empire gave to the national idea a temporary importance and prominence which it had not had since Ennius first awoke his countrymen to the consciousness of their destiny. It was only in the Augustan Age, or during the few years preceding it, that the taste of the Romans was sufficiently educated to appreciate the perfect art of the Greeks. The whole of Italy was now for the first time united in one nation. A new generation had been born and grown to manhood since the Social War. The pride in Rome and the love of the whole land might now be felt by all men born between the Alps and the Straits of Sicily. The districts far removed from the capital, ‘by the sounding Aufidus’ or ‘the slow-winding Mincius,’ still kept[pg 58]alive the traditions of a severer morality and the habits of a simpler and happier life87. They were still able to nourish the susceptible mind of childhood with poetic fancies88. In the following generation the idea of the empire was one no longer of inspiring novelty, but rather of a dull oppression. The taste for Greek literature had lost its freshness and quickening power. The natural enjoyment of life, the susceptibility to beauty in art and nature, the love of simplicity, were no longer possible to minds enervated and hearts deadened by the unrelieved monotony of luxurious living.
VI.The almost exclusive devotion to poetry on the part of the meanest as well as the greatest writers of the Augustan Age seems to demand some explanation. The natural genius of Rome was more adapted to oratory, history, and didactic exposition than to any of the great forms of poetry. In the previous generation prose literature had reached the highest degree of perfection. The style of Cicero is one of the most admirable and effective vehicles for the varied purposes of passionate invective or persuasive oratory, of familiar correspondence, and of popularising the results of ethical, political, and religious reflection. In Caesar and Sallust the record of great events in the national life had at last found a power of clear, terse, and chastened diction, superior as a vehicle of simple narrative to the style of the two great historians of later times, if not so rich and varied in colouring and in poetical and reflective suggestion. Of the prose literature of the Augustan Age we possess only one great monument, the extant parts of ‘the[pg 55]colossal master-work of Livy;’ and that was the product of the later and least brilliant period of this epoch.The cause of the sudden and permanent decline of Roman oratory was the extinction of political life. Public speech could no longer be, as it had been for nearly two centuries, a great power in the commonwealth. Under the vigilant and judicious administration of Augustus there was not scope even for that kind of oratory which flourished under his successors, and became a very formidable weapon in the hands of the ‘delatores,’—that, namely, which is employed in the prosecution and defence of men charged with grave offences against the State. Neither was there scope or inclination for philosophical or historical composition. Such freedom of enquiry as Cicero allowed himself in his treatises De Legibus and De Republica would scarcely have been tolerated under the monarchy; and the world was in no mood for any severe strain of thought or any questioning of the first principles of things. The new era desired ease, an escape from care and the perplexities of thought, as well as peace and material well-being. The spirit of the age was announced in the pastoral strain, which celebrated its commencement in the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, ‘amat bonus otia Daphnis.’ Nor would it have been possible for any one to have composed or at least to have published a candid history of the times; and it may have been the discovery of this impossibility that induced Asinius Pollio to leave his work unfinished. It would indeed have been a gain for all time had a Roman Thucydides recorded the ‘movement in the State’ from the Consulship of Metellus till the battle of Actium with the accuracy and impartiality, the graphic condensation, the sober dignity, the sensitive perception of the varying phases of passion and character in states and individuals, the philosophical discernment of great political principles destined to act in the same way ‘so long as the nature of man remains the same,’ and the deep tragic pathos which make, even at the present day, the record of ‘the twenty-seven years’ war of the Peloponnesians and Athenians’ the most[pg 56]vividly interesting and permanently instructive historical work which the world possesses. But even had the genius of Rome been capable of producing a Thucydides, the circumstances of the time would have reduced him to silence. Tacitus regards the establishment of the Empire as equally fatal to the genius of the historian, as it was to the genius of the orator:—‘Postquam bellatum apud Actium atque omnem potentiam ad unum conferri pacis interfuit, magna illa ingenia cessere. Simul veritas pluribus modis infracta, primum inscitia rei publicae ut alienae, mox libidine assentandi85.’On the other hand, many circumstances contributed to give a great stimulus to poetical literature in its most trivial and transitory as well as its noblest and most enduring manifestations. It is remarked by a recent French writer86, that poetry is the last form of literature to wither under a despotism. But it suffers from it most irretrievably in the end. The poetic imagination is able to deceive itself by turning away from what is painful and repulsive in the world, and by appearing to extract the element of good, of vivid life, or impressive grandeur out of things evil and fatal in their ultimate effects. Thus it is able to glorify the pomp and state of imperialism, just as it is able to glorify the charm to the senses or the attraction to the social nature afforded by the life of passion and pleasure. But, in the long run, the decay in the higher energies arising either from the loss of liberty or the loss of self-control is more fatal to the nobler forms of art and poetry than to any other products of intelligence.Again, the mechanical difficulties of the art had been to a great extent overcome, in the previous age. The discovery of the new and rich ore of the Latin language, revealed and wrought into shapes of massive beauty and delicate grace by[pg 57]Lucretius and Catullus, awakened and kept alive in the great writers of this age the desire to perfect the work commenced by their predecessors, and to develope all the majesty, beauty, and harmony of which their native speech was capable. The education in grammar, rhetoric, and Greek literature, which in the later years of the Republic had trained men for the contests of public life, prepared them to recognise and appreciate the perfection of style and of rhythm which was now for the first time attained. But the attainment of this perfection was a stumbling block to writers of an inferior order, and to all the poets who came afterwards. The Augustan poets left to their successors, what they had not themselves received, the fatal legacy of an established poetical diction. The resources of the language for the highest purposes of poetry seem to have been exhausted by the supreme effort of this epoch. The golden perfection of the Augustan style gave place to the forced rhetoric and the sensational extravagance of the Neronian age and to the soberer but tamer imitations of the Flavian era.In its inner inspiration, as well as its outward expression, the Augustan poetry was the maturest development of the national mind. The inspiring influences of Latin poetry were the idea of Rome, the appreciation of Greek art, the genial Italian life. We have seen how the first establishment of the Empire gave to the national idea a temporary importance and prominence which it had not had since Ennius first awoke his countrymen to the consciousness of their destiny. It was only in the Augustan Age, or during the few years preceding it, that the taste of the Romans was sufficiently educated to appreciate the perfect art of the Greeks. The whole of Italy was now for the first time united in one nation. A new generation had been born and grown to manhood since the Social War. The pride in Rome and the love of the whole land might now be felt by all men born between the Alps and the Straits of Sicily. The districts far removed from the capital, ‘by the sounding Aufidus’ or ‘the slow-winding Mincius,’ still kept[pg 58]alive the traditions of a severer morality and the habits of a simpler and happier life87. They were still able to nourish the susceptible mind of childhood with poetic fancies88. In the following generation the idea of the empire was one no longer of inspiring novelty, but rather of a dull oppression. The taste for Greek literature had lost its freshness and quickening power. The natural enjoyment of life, the susceptibility to beauty in art and nature, the love of simplicity, were no longer possible to minds enervated and hearts deadened by the unrelieved monotony of luxurious living.
The almost exclusive devotion to poetry on the part of the meanest as well as the greatest writers of the Augustan Age seems to demand some explanation. The natural genius of Rome was more adapted to oratory, history, and didactic exposition than to any of the great forms of poetry. In the previous generation prose literature had reached the highest degree of perfection. The style of Cicero is one of the most admirable and effective vehicles for the varied purposes of passionate invective or persuasive oratory, of familiar correspondence, and of popularising the results of ethical, political, and religious reflection. In Caesar and Sallust the record of great events in the national life had at last found a power of clear, terse, and chastened diction, superior as a vehicle of simple narrative to the style of the two great historians of later times, if not so rich and varied in colouring and in poetical and reflective suggestion. Of the prose literature of the Augustan Age we possess only one great monument, the extant parts of ‘the[pg 55]colossal master-work of Livy;’ and that was the product of the later and least brilliant period of this epoch.
The cause of the sudden and permanent decline of Roman oratory was the extinction of political life. Public speech could no longer be, as it had been for nearly two centuries, a great power in the commonwealth. Under the vigilant and judicious administration of Augustus there was not scope even for that kind of oratory which flourished under his successors, and became a very formidable weapon in the hands of the ‘delatores,’—that, namely, which is employed in the prosecution and defence of men charged with grave offences against the State. Neither was there scope or inclination for philosophical or historical composition. Such freedom of enquiry as Cicero allowed himself in his treatises De Legibus and De Republica would scarcely have been tolerated under the monarchy; and the world was in no mood for any severe strain of thought or any questioning of the first principles of things. The new era desired ease, an escape from care and the perplexities of thought, as well as peace and material well-being. The spirit of the age was announced in the pastoral strain, which celebrated its commencement in the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, ‘amat bonus otia Daphnis.’ Nor would it have been possible for any one to have composed or at least to have published a candid history of the times; and it may have been the discovery of this impossibility that induced Asinius Pollio to leave his work unfinished. It would indeed have been a gain for all time had a Roman Thucydides recorded the ‘movement in the State’ from the Consulship of Metellus till the battle of Actium with the accuracy and impartiality, the graphic condensation, the sober dignity, the sensitive perception of the varying phases of passion and character in states and individuals, the philosophical discernment of great political principles destined to act in the same way ‘so long as the nature of man remains the same,’ and the deep tragic pathos which make, even at the present day, the record of ‘the twenty-seven years’ war of the Peloponnesians and Athenians’ the most[pg 56]vividly interesting and permanently instructive historical work which the world possesses. But even had the genius of Rome been capable of producing a Thucydides, the circumstances of the time would have reduced him to silence. Tacitus regards the establishment of the Empire as equally fatal to the genius of the historian, as it was to the genius of the orator:—‘Postquam bellatum apud Actium atque omnem potentiam ad unum conferri pacis interfuit, magna illa ingenia cessere. Simul veritas pluribus modis infracta, primum inscitia rei publicae ut alienae, mox libidine assentandi85.’
On the other hand, many circumstances contributed to give a great stimulus to poetical literature in its most trivial and transitory as well as its noblest and most enduring manifestations. It is remarked by a recent French writer86, that poetry is the last form of literature to wither under a despotism. But it suffers from it most irretrievably in the end. The poetic imagination is able to deceive itself by turning away from what is painful and repulsive in the world, and by appearing to extract the element of good, of vivid life, or impressive grandeur out of things evil and fatal in their ultimate effects. Thus it is able to glorify the pomp and state of imperialism, just as it is able to glorify the charm to the senses or the attraction to the social nature afforded by the life of passion and pleasure. But, in the long run, the decay in the higher energies arising either from the loss of liberty or the loss of self-control is more fatal to the nobler forms of art and poetry than to any other products of intelligence.
Again, the mechanical difficulties of the art had been to a great extent overcome, in the previous age. The discovery of the new and rich ore of the Latin language, revealed and wrought into shapes of massive beauty and delicate grace by[pg 57]Lucretius and Catullus, awakened and kept alive in the great writers of this age the desire to perfect the work commenced by their predecessors, and to develope all the majesty, beauty, and harmony of which their native speech was capable. The education in grammar, rhetoric, and Greek literature, which in the later years of the Republic had trained men for the contests of public life, prepared them to recognise and appreciate the perfection of style and of rhythm which was now for the first time attained. But the attainment of this perfection was a stumbling block to writers of an inferior order, and to all the poets who came afterwards. The Augustan poets left to their successors, what they had not themselves received, the fatal legacy of an established poetical diction. The resources of the language for the highest purposes of poetry seem to have been exhausted by the supreme effort of this epoch. The golden perfection of the Augustan style gave place to the forced rhetoric and the sensational extravagance of the Neronian age and to the soberer but tamer imitations of the Flavian era.
In its inner inspiration, as well as its outward expression, the Augustan poetry was the maturest development of the national mind. The inspiring influences of Latin poetry were the idea of Rome, the appreciation of Greek art, the genial Italian life. We have seen how the first establishment of the Empire gave to the national idea a temporary importance and prominence which it had not had since Ennius first awoke his countrymen to the consciousness of their destiny. It was only in the Augustan Age, or during the few years preceding it, that the taste of the Romans was sufficiently educated to appreciate the perfect art of the Greeks. The whole of Italy was now for the first time united in one nation. A new generation had been born and grown to manhood since the Social War. The pride in Rome and the love of the whole land might now be felt by all men born between the Alps and the Straits of Sicily. The districts far removed from the capital, ‘by the sounding Aufidus’ or ‘the slow-winding Mincius,’ still kept[pg 58]alive the traditions of a severer morality and the habits of a simpler and happier life87. They were still able to nourish the susceptible mind of childhood with poetic fancies88. In the following generation the idea of the empire was one no longer of inspiring novelty, but rather of a dull oppression. The taste for Greek literature had lost its freshness and quickening power. The natural enjoyment of life, the susceptibility to beauty in art and nature, the love of simplicity, were no longer possible to minds enervated and hearts deadened by the unrelieved monotony of luxurious living.