human
Can you write me a poem about euripides and sophocles?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem about euripides and sophocles:
  Recent change in the estimate of Roman Poetry
Want of originality
As compared with Greek Poetry
"       "   with Roman Oratory and History
The most complete literary monument of Rome
Partly imitative, partly original
Imitative in forms
"     in metres
Imitative element in diction
"        "    in matter
Original character, partly Roman, partly Italian
National spirit
Imaginative sentiment
Moral feeling
Italian element in Roman Poetry
Personal element in Roman Poetry
Character of each
Niebuhr's theory of a Ballad-Poetry
The Saturnian metre
Prophetic verses
Fescennine verses
Gnomic verses
Commemorative verses
Inferences as to their character
"      from early state of the language
No public recognition of Poetry
Roman story result of tradition and reflection
Inferences from the nature of Roman religion
"      from the character and pursuits of the people
Roman Poetry of Italian rather than Roman origin
Contact with Greece after capture of Tarentum
First period of Roman literature
Forms of Poetry during this period
Cn. Naevius, his life
Epic poem
Notices of his life
Influences affecting his career
Italian birth-place
Greek education
Service in Roman army
Historical importance of his age
Intellectual character of his age
Personal traits
Description of himself in the Annals
Intimacy with Scipio
His enthusiastic temperament
Religious spirit and convictions
Miscellaneous works
Idea by which it is animated
Artistic defects
Roman character of the work
Contrast with the Greek Epic
Contrast in its personages
Contrast in supernatural element
Description and imagery
Rhythm and diction
Chief literary characteristics of Ennius
Energy of conception
Patriotic and imaginative sentiment
Moral emotion
Practical understanding
Estimate in ancient times
Disparaging criticism of Niebuhr
Popularity of early Roman Tragedy
Partial adaptation of Athenian drama
Inability to reproduce its pure Hellenic character
Nearer approach to the spirit of Euripides than of Sophocles
Grounds of popularity of Roman Tragedy
Moral tone and oratorical spirit
Causes of its decline
M. Pacuvius, notices of his life
Ancient testimonies
His dramas
Passages illustrative of his thought
"        "       of his moral and oratorical spirit
Descriptive passages
Drama on a Roman subject
L. Accius, notices of his life
His various works
Fragments illustrative of his oratorical spirit
"        "        of his moral fervour
"        "        of his sense of natural beauty
Conclusion as to character of Roman Tragedy
How far any claim to originality?
Disparaging judgment of later Roman critics
Connection with earlier Saturae
Naevius and Plautus popular poets
Facts in the life of Plautus
Attempt to fill up the outline from his works
Familiarity with town-life
Traces of maritime adventure
Life of the lower and middle classes represented in his plays
Love of good living
Love of money
Artistic indifference
Influence of the spirit of his age
Dramas adaptations of outward conditions of Athenian New Comedy
Manner and spirit, Roman and original
Indications of originality in his language
"     "  in his Roman allusions and national characteristics
Favourite plots of his plays
Mode of dealing with his characters
Moral and political indifference of his plays
Value as a poetic artist
Power of expression by action, rhythm, diction
Comedy between the time of Plautus and Terence
Conflicting accounts of life of Terence
Order in which his Plays were produced
His 'prologues' as indicative of his individuality
Epicurean 'humanity' chief characteristic
Sentimental motive of his pieces
Minute delineations of character
Diction and rhythm
Influence on the style and sentiment of Horace
Modern estimates of Terence
Independent origin of Roman satire
Essentially Roman in form and spirit
"          "   in its political and censorial function
Personal and miscellaneous character of early satire
Critical epoch at which Lucilius appeared
Question as to the date of his birth
Fragments chiefly preserved by grammarians
Miscellaneous character and desultory treatment of subjects
Traces of subjects treated in different books
Impression of the author's personality
Political character of Lucilian satire
Social vices satirised in it
Intellectual peculiarities
Literary criticism
His style
Grounds of his popularity
Common aspects in the lives of poets in the second century B.C.
Popular and national character of their works
Political condition of the time reflected in its literature
Defects of the poetic literature in form and style
Other forms of literature cultivated in that age
Oratory and history
Familiar letters
Critical and grammatical studies
Summary of character of the first period
Dearth of poetical works during the next half century
Literary taste confined to the upper classes
Great advance in Latin prose writing
Influence of this on the style of Lucretius and Catullus
Closer contact with the mind and art of Greece
Effects of the political unsettlement on the contemplative life
and thought
"     on the life of pleasure, and the art founded on it
The two representatives of the thought and art of the time
Little known of him from external sources
Examination of Jerome's statement
Inferences as to his national and social position
Impression of the author to be traced in his poem
Influence produced by the action of his age
Minute familiarity with Nature and country life
Spirit in which he wrote his work
His consciousness of power and delight in his task
His polemical spirit
Influence of other Greek writers
His interests speculative, not national
His Roman temperament
Three aspects of the poem
General scope of the argument
Analysis of the poem
Question as to its unfinished condition
What is the value of the argument?
Weakness of his science
Power of scientific reasoning, observation, and expression
Connecting links between his philosophy and poetry
"  of change
"  of the infinite
"  of the individual
"  of the subtlety of Nature
"  of Nature as a living power
General character of Greek epicureanism
Prevalence at Rome in the last age of the Republic
New type of epicureanism in Lucretius
Forms of evil against which his teaching was directed
Fear of death
Passion of love
Limitation of his ethical views
His literary power as a moralist
Artistic defects of the work
"        arising from the nature of the subject
"        from inequality in its execution
Intensity of feeling pervading the argument
Cumulative force in his rhythm
Qualities of his style
Freshness and sincerity of expression
Imaginative suggestiveness and creativeness
Use of analogies
Pictorial power
Poetical interpretation of Nature
Energy of movement in his descriptions
Poetic aspect of Nature influenced by his philosophy
Poetical interpretation of life
Modern interest of his poem
Contrast to the poetry of Lucretius
The poetry of youth
Accidental preservation of the poems
Principle of their arrangement
Vivid personal revelation afforded by them
Uncertainty as to the date of his birth
Birth-place and social standing
Influences of his native district
Poems written between 61 and 57 B.C.
Poems connected with his Bithynian journey
Poems written between 56 and 54 B.C.
Character of his poems, founded on the passion of love
"        "         "       on friendship and affection
His short satirical pieces
Other poems expressive of personal feeling
Qualities of style in these poems
"     of rhythm
"     of form
His longer and more purely artistic pieces
The longer elegiac poems
Rank of Catullus among the poets of the world
invective. Perhaps no other writers, during so long a period,
recognised under the foreign forms and metres in which these
autodidaktos d' eimi, theos de moi en phresin oimas
pantoias enephysen.]
of private life, in the ages immediately before and after the
in the forms of composition and the metres which they employed;
characters, acting and reacting upon one another, enlivens the
divinely-appointed action of the Aeneid, only in such exceptional
The Romans, as a race, were wanting in speculative capacity; and
a character and perfection of their own. The Aeneid, with many
was made to embrace within its province the treatment of a great
philosophical argument, and of a great and ancient form of human
fluent and varied brilliancy of style, and often with a graceful
tenderness and sincerity of feeling, unborrowed from any foreign
source. It may thus be generally affirmed that the Roman poets,
although adding little to the great discoveries or inventions
in literature, and although not equally successful in all their
as unsuited to the gravity of his greatest work, the Roman poets
the Odyssey, and the stately and weighty march of the Aeneid.
poetry,--such as the Lucretian and the Virgilian hexameter, and
the Horatian alcaic,--are distinguished by a grave, orderly, and
the heroic tones of Homer in his epic, and the mellow cadences of
learned, from the study of Greek poetry, to feel the graceful
combinations and the musical power of expression, and were thus
Quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem;
the stateliness and chastened splendour of Virgil, and the subtle
the personages of Greek poetry; the familiar manners of a late
civilisation appear in unnatural association with the idealised
Cetera, quae vacuas tenuissent carmine mentes,
Omnia jam vulgata.
was to be; so, in the Augustan poets, there is a retrospective
utterance to the patriotic spirit, the dignified and commanding
attributes, and the moral strength of the Imperial Republic. But
unproductive and incomplete. The pure Roman temperament was too
elevation of higher ideals, tended to degenerate into licentious
character are most happily combined with susceptibility to the
apparently most opposed to the tendencies of the higher Roman
his libertinism, displays his vigorous and ardent vitality. The
indifference of Tibullus and Propertius to the graver duties and
Republic, Naevius and Lucilius were animated by political as well
exercised over the mind of Virgil by the ancient memories and the
The poets of the latest age of the Republic alone express little
Ut satius multo jam sit parere quietum
Quam regere imperio res velle et regna tenere.
flavour in his careless satire; and he retained to the last, and
boldly asserted, what was the earliest, as well as the latest,
Roman poetry is pervaded also by a peculiar vein of imaginative
treasures of the world, and left to her more fortunate sons ample
The love of natural scenery and of country life is certainly more
his household and his intimate friends. This desire for rest and
retirement was one great element in the Roman taste for country
betrayed in Roman poetry. But, as the practice of spending the
by greater leisure and finer cultivation, a genuine love of
on the common aspects of the world,--such as the sea-shore, fresh
Molle atque facetum
Vergilio annuerunt gaudentes rure camenae.
Roman poetry is also interesting as the revelation of personal
experience and character. The biographies of ancient authors are,
writings that the actual men of antiquity are brought into close
contact with the modern world. Few men of any age or country are
so well known to us as Horace; and it is from his own writings,
Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris: neque si male cesserat, unquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
Vita senis.
Nor are these indications of individual character confined to the
resolute and successful effort; while the Greeks enjoy that happy
Ennius, and Pacuvius, and the assertion of their own originality
personality, and of the importance of the task on which they were
brother-poets of Rome.
in their case to determine how far they have expressed their real
It thus appears that, over and above their higher and finer
standard of conduct, their personal worth, and their strength of
The poetry of each of these periods is distinctly marked in form,
remains of the annals of Ennius to the stately proportions and
the educated; they gave expression not to any public or national
Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.
Catullus, dying only a few years before the extinction of popular
This review of Roman poetry will bring before us the origin and
progressive growth of a branch of literature, moulded, indeed, on
nostris poetae vel cogniti vel recepti. At contra oratorem
celeriter complexi sumus: nec cum primo eruditum, aptum tamen
ad dicendum.]
secret thoughts to his books, as to trusty friends; it was to
them only he turned in evil fortune or in good; and thus it
is, that the whole life of the old poet lies before our eyes,
as if it were portrayed on a votive picture.'--Sat. ii. 1.
Painters, vol. iii. p. 194) between an ancient Greek and 'a
good, conscientious, but illiterate Scotch Presbyterian Border
farmer of a century or two back,' becomes intelligible if we
regard Hesiod as a normal type of the Greek mind.]
Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes
Intulit agresti Latio.
before a Roman audience, a drama translated or imitated from the
But it has been maintained, in recent times, that this was but
the second birth of Roman poetry, and that a golden age of native
Sic horridus ille
Defluxit numerus Saturnius, et grave virus
Munditiae pepulere.
Quum neque musarum scopulos quisquam superarat
Nec dicti studiosus erat.
The irregularity of the metre may be inferred from a saying of an
Nec non Ausonii, Troja gens missa, coloni
Versibus incomptis ludunt risuque soluto.
Enos, Lases, juvate.
Ne veluerve, Marmar, sins incurrere in pleores.
Satur fu, fere Mars.
Limen sali.
Sta berber.
Semunis alternis advocapit conctos.
Enos, Marmar, juvato.
Triumpe, triumpe, triumpe, triumpe, triumpe.
The address to Mars 'Satur fu,' or, according to another reading,
the early kings. The hymn is characterised by Horace, among other
From the extreme antiquity of these ceremonial chants it may be
inferred that metrical expression among the Romans, as among the
Greeks and other ancient nations, owed its origin to a primitive
religious worship. But while the early Greek hymns or chants in
honour of the Gods soon assumed the forms of pleasant tales of
If these hymns stand in any relation to Latin literature, they
may perhaps be regarded as springing from the same vein of public
allusion to the poem of Naevius, in the lines,
Scripsere alii rem,
Versibu' quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant,
Amnem Trojugena Cannam Romane fuge, etc.,
suggest no more idea of poetical inspiration than the occasional
imaginative inspiration among the early inhabitants of Latium.
Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem
Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit;
Libertasque recurrentes accepta per annos
Lusit amabiliter, donec jam saevus apertam
In rabiem coepit verti jocus et per honestas
Ire domos impune minax. Doluere cruento
Dente lacessiti; fuit intactis quoque cura
Conditione super communi; quin etiam lex
Poenaque lata, malo quae nollet carmine quemquam
Describi; vertere modum, formidine fustis
Ad bene dicendum delectandumque redacti.
testimony of Horace, to have been in metrical dialogue. This rude
unmistakably this primitive coarseness.
etymology of the word _satura_ connects it in origin with the
extemporaneous, and from the drama, in being without a connected
plot. The origin of this composition is traced by Livy to the
illustrious deeds of their ancestors, in order to stimulate the
youth to imitate them.' Passages are quoted also from Horace,
Besides the odes sung or recited at banquets, there were certain
funeral poems, called _Naeniae_, originally chanted by the female
pieces, and not long narrative poems. As they were sung at great
banquets and funerals, it seems probable that, like the custom of
The fact, however, remains, that the Romans did possess, in early
memorial--could have entirely disappeared, under any foreign
poetical language necessarily accompanies the growth of poetical
While, therefore, it appears that the actual notices of the early
himself the Greek name of _poeta_,--
Flerent divae Camenae Naevium poetam.
The commemorative odes appear to have been recited or sung at
to the preservation of tradition than the lively social life, the
to the national ideal of character. The most impressive of these
legendary stories illustrate the primitive virtues of the Roman
exercise of parental authority. There is certainly no internal
imaginative power which shaped the great mythologies of different
introduced into Roman religion was due not to imagination but to
and the family, as actually realised in experience. Their orderly
new territory, formed the character to solid strength and steady
had learned, through long years of war and subsequent dependence,
alterni advocate cunctos. Nos, Mamers, juvato. Tripudia.
'Help us, Lares. Suffer not, Mamers, pestilence to fall on
the people. Be satisfied, fierce Mars. Leap on the threshold.
Cease beating it. Call, in turn, on all the demigods. Help us,
Mamers.'--Mommsen, Roem. Geschichte, vol. i. ch. xv.]
At rex sollicitus monstris oracula Fauni,
Fatidici genitoris, adit.]
arose and poured forth rustic banter in responsive verse; the
spirit of freedom, made welcome, as the season came round,
first played its part genially; but soon the jests grew cruel,
then changed into sheer fury, and began, with impunity, to
threaten and assail honourable households. Men smarted
under the sharp edge of its cruel tooth: even those who were
unassailed felt concern for the common weal. A law was passed,
and a penalty enforced, forbidding any one to be lampooned
in scurrilous verses. Thus they changed their style, and were
brought back to a kindly and pleasant tone, under fear of a
infamiam faxsit flacitiomque alterei, fuste feritor.]
sive ideo dicti quia fascinum putabantur arcere. It seems
more natural to connect the name of these verses, which
were especially characteristic of the Latin peasantry, with
fascinum (the phallic symbol) than with any particular town
of Etruria, though the name of that town may perhaps have the
same origin.]
full men' ('saturi'), does not seem to meet with general
acceptance.]
time attached to minstrels in Scotland.]
aetiological, but the human interest even in these was
probably drawn originally from actual incidents and personages
of the Early Republic. Some of the aetiological myths, such as
that of Attus Navius the augur, have no human interest, though
they have an historical interest in connexion with early Roman
religion or institutions.]
The historical event which first brought the Romans into familiar
till the successful close of that war, and the commencement of
Serus enim Graecis admovit acumina chartis;
Et post Punica bella quietus quaerere coepit,
Quid Sophocles et Thespis et Aeschylus utile ferrent.
higher classes. Thus many Roman citizens were prepared, by their
The earliest period of Roman poetry extends from the close of the
sentiment. Many of them are valuable from their own intrinsic
The two earliest authors who fill a period of forty years in the
ou gar egoge ti phemi kakoteron allo thalasses
andra ge syncheuai, ei kai mala karteros eie],
are thus rendered:--
Namque nilum pejus
Macerat hemonem, quamde mare saevom, viris quoi
Sunt magnae, topper confringent importunae undae.
direction which Roman poetry long followed, and to awaken a new
Phoenician settlements in the west of Sicily. The origin of the
belief in the mythical connexion of Aeneas and his Trojans with
the foundation of Rome may probably be attributed to the Sicilian
witness, if it did not originate, gave a living interest to the
mythical origin of that antagonism in the relations of Aeneas and
Fato Metelli Romae fiunt consules;
Dabunt malum Metelli Naevio poetae.
prison, he composed two plays (the _Hariolus_ and _Leon_), which
contained some retractation of his former attacks, and he was
'diligentissimus investigator antiquitatis,' believed that he was
a passage in Cicero, that his poem on the First Punic War was
The best known of all the fragments of Naevius, and the most
favourable specimen of his style, is his epitaph:--
Mortales immortales flere si foret fas,
Flerent divae Camenae Naevium poetam,
Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro,
Obliti sunt Romae loquier Latina lingua.
Vos, qui regalis corporis custodias
Agitatis, ite actutum in frundiferos locos,
Ingenio arbusta ubi nata sunt, non obsita.
He composed a number of comedies, and also some original plays,
Quasi pila
In choro ludens datatim dat se, et communem facit:
Alii adnutat, alii adnictat, alium amat, alium tenet;
Alibi manus est occupata, alii percellit pedem;
Alii spectandum dat annulum; a labris alium invocat;
Cum alio cantat, attamen dat alii digito literas.
Cicero refers to a passage in one of his plays (_ut est in Naevii
destroyed your great commonwealth?' the pregnant answer is given,
Proveniebant oratores novi, stulti adolescentuli.
Quae ego in theatro hic meis probavi plausibus,
Ea nunc audere quemquam regem rumpere?
Quanto libertatem hanc hic superat servitus?
and this also:--
Semper pluris feci potioremque ego
Libertatem habui multo quam pecuniam.
Uxores noctu Troiade exibant capitibus
Opertis, flentes abeuntes lacrimis cum multis.
Transit Melitam Romanus exercitus, insulam integram
Urit, populatur, vastat, rem hostium concinnat.
the dialogue 'De Oratore,' he represents Crassus as comparing
the idiomatic purity which distinguished the conversation of his
majores.' Expressions from his plays were, from their weight and
compact brevity, quoted familiarly in the days of Cicero, such as
so many other pithy Latin sayings, is still in use to express a
distinction that could not be characterised in happier or shorter
Our knowledge of Naevius is thus, of necessity, very limited and
language. But the conception of his epic poem seems to imply some
'On a patriotic passage of the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus.']
to Utica till after it fell into the possession of the
hasten straightway to the leafy places, where the copsewood is
of nature's growth, not planted by man.']
about from one to another, and is at home with all. To one she
nods, to another winks; she makes love to one, clasps another.
Her hand is busy here, her foot there. To one she gives a ring
to look at, to another blows a kiss; with one she sings, with
another corresponds by signs.']
given by Munk.]
Etiam qui res magnas manu saepe gessit gloriose,
Cujus facta viva nunc vigent, qui apud gentes solus praestat,
Eum suus pater cum pallio ab amica abduxit uno.]
the applause given to me, to think that any of these great
people should now dare to interfere with! How much better
thing is the slavery _here_' (_i.e._ represented in this
play), 'than the liberty we actually enjoy?']
and a better thing than money.' The reading is that given by
poem, the action is generally represented in the _present
mother-in-law, Laelia (for women more easily preserve the pure
idiom of antiquity, because, from their limited intercourse
with the world, they retain always their earlier impressions),
in listening, I say to her, I fancy that I am listening to
Plautus or Naevius. The very tones of her voice are so natural
and simple, that she seems absolutely free from affectation or
imitation; from this I gather that her father spoke, and
her ancestors all spoke, in the very same way.'--Cicero, De
The fragments of Ennius will repay a more minute examination than
metrical conditions of Greek poetry; and he was the first fully
to elicit the deeper veins of sentiment latent in the national
resided at Rome, 'living,' according to the statement of Jerome,
Nos sumu' Romani qui fuvimus ante Rudini.
Ibant aequati numero regemque canebant.
This claim to royal descent indicates that the poet was a member
of the better class of families in his native district; and the
consciousness of old lineage, which prompted the claim, probably
Calabris in montibus ortus--
and in the phrase of Silius,--
Hispida tellus
Miserunt Calabri; Rudiae genuere vetustae,
the poet owed the 'Italian heart,' the virtue of a race still
uncorrupted and unsophisticated, the buoyant energy and freshness
Tarentum, since its capture by the Romans, had lost its political
district had ceased to be at war with Rome, he grew up to manhood
Omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu
Horrida contremuere sub altis aetheris oris;
In dubioque fuere utrorum ad regna cadendum
Omnibus humanis esset terraque marique.
Though during that struggle the loyalty of some of the Italian
by whom these armies were led. There is a strong realism in the
Ennius entered on his career as a writer at a time when the long
strain of a great struggle was giving place to the confidence and
Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte,
Poenico bello secundo Musa pinnato gradu
Intulit se bellicosam in Romuli gentem feram.
men's deepest convictions. Though the definite tenets of Stoicism
of Menander. All these tendencies of the time acted on Ennius,
Sicut fortis equus, spatio qui saepe supremo
Vicit Olimpia, nunc senio confectu' quiescit.
In none of his fragments is there any trace of that melancholy
Ennius ipse pater nunquam, nisi potus, ad arma
Prosiluit dicenda;
and from the poet's own confession,
Nunquam poetor, nisi si podager,
to have drawn his own portrait, under an imaginary description of
Haece locutu' vocat quocum bene saepe libenter
Mensam sermonesque suos rerumque suarum
Congeriem partit, magnam cum lassu' diei
Partem fuisset de summis rebu' regendis
Consilio, indu foro lato sanctoque senatu:
Cui res audacter magnas parvasque jocumque
Eloqueretur, cuncta simul malaque et bona dictu
Evomeret, si qui vellet, tutoque locaret.
Quocum multa volup ac gaudia clamque palamque!
Ingenium cui nulla malum sententia suadet
Ut faceret facinus levis aut malu', doctu', fidelis,
Scitu', secunda loquens in tempore, commodu', verbum
Paucum, multa tenens antiqua sepulta, vetustas
Quem fecit mores veteresque novosque tenentem,
Multorum veterum leges divumque hominumque;
Prudenter qui dicta loquive tacereve possit.
Hunc inter pugnas Servilius sic compellat.
There are many touches in this picture, which suggest the kind of
assurance that he was a man in whom learning and the ardent
Nobilior with allowing himself to be accompanied by a poet in his
Ennius is his intimate friendship with the greatest Roman of the
age, and the conqueror of the greatest soldier of antiquity. It
the present day, in the august simplicity of their monumental
inscriptions.
achievements. He has left also two short inscriptions, written in
Hic est ille situs cui nemo civi' neque hostis
Quivit pro factis reddere opis pretium;
and this also,
A sole exoriente supra Maeoti' paludes
Nemo est qui factis me aequiperare queat.
Si fas endo plagas caelestium ascendere cuiquam est,
Mi soli caeli maxima porta patet.
With many marked differences, which distinguish a man of active,
Nil tamen hoc habuisse viro praeclarius in se,
Nec _sanctum_ magis, et mirum carumque videtur.
The inscription which Ennius composed for his own bust directly
Aspicite, O cives, senis Enni imagini' formam,
Hic vestrum panxit maxima facta patrum.
Nemo me lacrimis decoret nec funera fletu
Faxit. Cur? Volito vivu' per ora virum.
Two lines from one of his satires--
Enni poeta salve qui mortalibus
Versus propinas flammeos medullitus,
Some of the greatest of modern poets, such as Dante, Milton, and
Scripsere alii rem
Versibu', quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant,
Quum neque Musarum scopulos quisquam superarat
Nec dicti studiosus erat.
Another point in which there is some affinity between Ennius and
disbelief of the superstition of their time. They both apply the
Ego deum genus esse semper dixi et dicam caelitum,
Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus;
Nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis, quod nunc abest:
Quo neque permaneant animae neque corpora nostra
Sed quaedam simulacra modis pallentia miris,
displayed not only the fervent sympathies and active faculty of
composition.
One of his works in verse was a treatise on good living, called
found, have been preserved by Apuleius. The lines are curious as
exemplifying that tone of half-serious enthusiasm, which all who
treat, either in prose or verse, of the pleasures of eating seem
naturally to adopt, as for instance the Catius of Horace in his
discourse on gastronomy. The language in which the _scarus_, a
Quid turdum, merulam, melanurum umbramque marinam
Praeterii, atque scarum, cerebrum Jovi' paene supremi?
Nestoris ad patriam hic capitur magnusque bonusque.
He wrote also a philosophical poem in trochaic septenarian verse,
preserved from this poem. They speak of the four elements or
Istic est is Jupiter quem dico, quem Graeci vocant
Aerem: qui ventus est et nubes; imber postea
Atque ex imbre frigus: ventus post fit, aer denuo,
Haece propter Jupiter sunt ista quae dico tibi,
Quoniam mortalis atque urbes beluasque omnis juvat.
Saturae, or Miscellanies, under which title Ennius composed four,
Nunquam poetor, nisi si podager.
Hoc erit tibi argumentum semper in promptu situm:
Nequid expectes amicos, quod tute agere possies.
Nam qui lepide postulat alterum frustrari,
Quom frustrast, frustra illum dicit frustra esse.
Nam qui se frustrari quem frustra sentit,
Qui frustratur frustrast, si ille non est frustra.
O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tiranne tulisti,
quoted from the Annals. Many of his fragments show indeed that he
The general character of Roman tragedy, so far as it can be
the sequel, along with passages from the Annals, as important
contributions to our estimate of the poet's genius and intellect.
celebration of the Ludi Apollinares, shortly before the poet's
_Hecuba_, _Iphigenia_, _Phoenix_, _Telamo_. One at least of his
oida gar pollous broton
semnous gegotas, tous men ommaton apo
tous d' en thyraiois],
being thus rendered in Latin,--
Multi suam rem bene gessere et publicam patria procul.
Utinam ne in nemore Pelio securibus
Caesa cecidisset abiegna ad terram trabes,
Neve inde navis inchoandae exordium
Coepisset, quae nunc nominatur nomine
Argo, quia Argivi in ea dilecti viri
Vecti petebant pellem inauratam arietis
Colchis, imperio regis Peliae, per dolum;
Nam nunquam era errans mea domo ecferret pedem
Medea, animo aegra, amore saevo saucia.
soldierly character. Cicero adduces the wounded Eurypylus as an
In the former of these scenes Cassandra, under the influence of
Adest, adest fax obvoluta sanguine atque incendio:
Multos annos latuit: cives ferte opem et restinguite.
Iamque mari magno classis cita
Texitur: exitium examen rapit.
Advenit, et fera velivolantibus
Navibus complevit manus litora.
the dead. In these and similar passages we note the power of
In scaenam missos cum magno pondere versus;
and this slow and weighty movement seems to have been the general
In two of his dramas, the Sabinae and Ambracia, he made use of
materials supplied by the early legendary history of Rome, and by
Hic vestrum panxit maxima facta patrum:
and again, apparently at the opening of the poem, he wrote,--
Latos per populos terrasque poemata nostra
Clara cluebunt.
At its conclusion, he claimed for his old age the repose due to a
Multa tenens, antiqua, sepulta,
The poem was written in eighteen books. Of these books about six
Quum veter occubuit Priamus sub marte Pelasgo,
to the death and deification of Romulus;
Romulus in caelo cum dis genitalibus aevum
Quam prisci casci populi tenuere Latini.
Fecerat et viridi fetam Mavortis in antro
Procubuisse lupam: geminos huic ubera circum
Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem
Impavidos; illam tereti cervice reflexam
Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua,--
Servius says 'Sane totus hic locus Ennianus est.' The second and
At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu, etc.
Ostia munita est; idem loca navibu' pulchris
Munda facit; nautisque mari quaesentibu' vitam.
This line also
Postquam lumina sis oculis bonus Ancu' reliquit
is familiar from its reappearance in one of the most impressive
passages of Lucretius.
Scripsere alii rem, etc.
Flos delibatus populi suadaeque medulla,
and the lines in honour of Q. Fabius Maximus,
Insece Musa manu Romanorum induperator
Quod quisque in bello gessit cum rege Philippo,
treated of the Macedonian war, and of the deeds of T. Quintius
Fulvius Nobilior, of the exploits of L. Caecilius Denter and his
instead of being limited to a few days or months, extended over
many generations. Nor could the poem terminate with any critical
catastrophe, as its object was to unfold the continuous, still
itself under the old kingly dynasty and the long line of
maintained and manifested in its line of kings. In the spirit
conditions than the _Pharsalia_ of Lucan, or the _Punic Wars_ of
Silius Italicus--in being the work of an age to which the past
had come down as popular tradition, not as recorded history. The
imagination was fired and his sympathies keenly interested by
execution of a work of art. Even from the extant fragments the
late popularity may have been due in part to antiquarian zeal or
affectation, but some degree of it, as well as the favour of the
age in which the poem was written, must have been founded on more
Audire est operae pretium procedere recte
Qui rem Romanam Latiumque augescere vultis,
and this other line which Cicero compared to the utterance of an
Moribus antiquis stat res Romana virisque.
the memories, the hopes, and the impulses which acted upon his
contemporaries, living his own life happily and vigorously in the
of Rome, if without the accomplished art, yet with something of
the native force and spirit of early Greece; to fix in language
Quem fecit mores veteresque novosque tenentem.
and the Roman poet in their modes of representing human life and
Roman people is thereby enhanced: finally all those Maximi,
Fulvii, Marcelli, are celebrated with a glory in which we all
participate.' This portraiture of the kings and heroes of the
personal in them seems merged in the traditional pictures which
life-like representation of the eager, capricious, and passionate
Unus erit quem tu tolles in caerula caeli
they are introduced as debating, 'tectis bipatentibus,' on the
Romanis coepit Juno placata favere.
It may be remarked, as a strong proof of the hold which their
system of religious belief, cannot separate themselves from its
influence and associations in their poetry. But it is not to be
pronounces its decrees; the parts assigned to Juno and Venus, in
thwarting and advancing these decrees, seem to be an artistic
Pellitur e medio sapientia, vi geritur res:
Spernitur orator bonus, horridu' miles amatur:
Haut doctis dictis certantes, sed maledictis
Miscent inter sese inimicitiam agitantes;
Non ex jure manu consertum, sed magi' ferro
Rem repetunt, regnumque petunt, vadunt solida vi.
and worthy of the race of the Aeacidae.' This fragment, although
Nec mi aurum posco, nec mi pretium dederitis:
Non cauponantes bellum, sed belligerantes,
Ferro non auro vitam cernamus utrique.
Vosne velit an me regnare era quidve ferat Fors,
Virtute experiamur. Et hoc simul accipe dictum:
Quorum virtutei belli fortuna pepercit,
Eorundem libertati me parcere certum est.
Dono ducite, doque volentibu' cum magnis dis.
Quo vobis mentes rectae quae stare solebant
Antehac, dementes sese flexere viai?
indu foro lato sanctoque senatu.
Flumina amem silvasque inglorius.
Yet both in his illustrative imagery and in his narrative, he
His imagery is sometimes borrowed from that of Homer; as, for
Et tum sic ut equus, qui de praesepibu' fartus,
Vincla suis magnis animis abrupit, et inde
Fert sese campi per caerula laetaque prata
Celso pectore, saepe jubam quassat simul altam,
Spiritus ex anima calida spumas agit albas.
Other illustrations are taken from circumstances likely to have
Expectant vel uti consul cum mittere signum
Volt, omnes avidi spectant ad carceris oras,
Quam mox emittat pictis e faucibu' currus.
expression, which has been adopted by Virgil, 'stellis ingentibus
Vertitur interea caelum cum ingentibu' signis.
In the description of the auspices of Romulus, the scene is
Et ripas raptare locosque novos;
Quod per amoenam urbem leni fluit agmine flumen;
Jupiter hic risit tempestatesque serenae
Riserunt omnes risu Jovis omnipotentis.
the Annals. Yet the very rudeness of that work is significant of
Corde capessere: semita nulla pedem stabilibat.
Poste recumbite vestraque pectora pellite tonsis.
Miscent inter sese inimicitiam agitantes.
The quantity of syllables and the inflexions of words were so far
Partem fuisset de summis rebu' regendis;
and this,
Noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem;
Cives Romani tunc facti sunt Campani;
and this
Appius indixit Karthaginiensibu' bellum;
Floralemque Falacrem et Pomonalem fecit
Hic idem.
mind and the grandeur of his metre.' Something of this sonorous
Incedunt arbusta per alta, securibu' caedunt,
Percellunt magnas quercus, exciditur ilex,
Fraxinu' frangitur, atque abies consternitur alta.
Pinus proceras pervortunt: omne sonabat
Arbustum fremitu siluai frondosai.
The diction also of the Annals is generally fresh and forcible,
Noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem:
Ergo plusque magisque viri nunc gloria claret.
These lines leave on the mind the same impression of antique
language of Lucretius.
a commander in the crisis of a battle (probably that of
Aspectabat virtutem legioni' suai,
Expectans, si mussaret, quae denique pausa
Pugnandi fieret, aut duri fini' laboris.
Musae quae pedibus magnum pulsatis Olympum.
Transnavit cita per teneras caliginis auras.
Postquam discordia taetra
Belli ferratos postes portasque refregit.
Quem super ingens
Porta tonat caeli.
Spiritus austri imbricitor. Naves velivolae, etc. etc.
Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno
Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,
Per gentes Italas hominum quae clara clueret;
and in the signs of the careful study of the Annals which may be
traced in the elaborate workmanship of the Aeneid.
Excita cum tremulis anus attulit artubu' lumen,
Talia commemorat lacrimans, exterrita somno.
Eurudica prognata, pater quam noster amavit,
Vires vitaque corpu' meum nunc deserit omne.
Et ripas raptare locosque novos; ita sola
Postilla, germana soror, errare videbar
Corde capessere: semita nulla pedem stabilibat.
Exin compellare pater me voce videtur
His verbis: 'O gnata, tibi sunt ante ferendae
Aerumnae, post ex fluvio fortuna resistet.'
Haec ecfatu' pater, germana, repente recessit
Nec sese dedit in conspectum, corde cupitus,
Quanquam multa manus ad caeli caerula templa
Tendebam lacrimans et blanda voce vocabam:
Vix aegro cum corde meo me somnu' reliquit.
Agit ipse furentem
In somnis ferus Aeneas: semperque relinqui
Sola sibi, semper longam incomitata videtur
Ire viam, et Tyrios deserta quaerere terra.
Another of the most impressive passages in the early books of the
passionate situations.
Among the modes of imaginative sentiment by which the poetry of
affinity to Virgil in ancient, and to Scott in modern times. He
Pectora ... tenet desiderium, simul inter
Sese sic memorant, O Romule, Romule die
Qualem te patriae custodem di genuerunt!
O pater, O genitor, O sanguen dis oriundum!
Tu produxisti nos intra luminis oras.
Teque pater Tiberine tuo cum flumine sancto.
and also in this fragment--
Postquam consistit fluvius qui est omnibu' princeps
Qui sub caeruleo.
The enumeration of the great warlike races in the line
Marsa manus, Peligna cohors, Vestina virum vis,
places renowned for their fame in story, or their picturesque
environment. This fond use of proper names recalling old
It was seen in the introductory chapter that the Roman mind was
appears in such expressions as these--
Magnum pulsatis Olympum. Indu mari magno.
Litora lata sonant.
Latos per populos terrasque.
Magnae gentes opulentae.
Quis potis ingentis oras evolvere belli?
Vertitur interea caelum cum ingentibu' signis;
and again in the following--
Indu foro lato sanctoque senatu.
Augusto augurio postquam incluta condita Roma est.
Omnibu' cura viris uter esset induperator,
and in the epithet which Cicero quotes as applied to cities--
Urbes magnas atque _imperiosas_.
O pater, O patria, O Priami domus,
Saeptum altisono cardine templum!
Vidi ego te, astante ope barbarica,
Tectis caelatis, lacuatis,
Auro ebore instructum regifice!
While his peculiar poetical feeling is present chiefly in the
fragments of the Annals, the moral elements of his poetry may be
of Cassandra, and the sorrow of Andromache, he reveals also much
hardships of the war with Pyrrhus--
Ast animo superant atque aspera prima
Volnera belli dispernunt;
Ego cum genui tum morituros scivi, et ei rei sustuli:
Praeterea ad Trojam cum misi ob defendendam Graeciam,
Scibam me in mortiferum bellum, non in epulas mittere.
Eo ego ingenio natus sum,
Aeque inimicitiam atque amicitiam in frontem promptam gero.
ridiculed by the purism of Seneca:--
Is dictus 'st ollis popularibus olim
Qui tum vivebant homines, atque aevum agitabant,
Flos delibatus populi suadaeque medulla.
saves the State, rather than the impetuous valour which achieves
a barren glory; the sincerity and simplicity which are stronger
than art, yet that know when to speak and when to be silent; the
Otioso in otio animus nescit quid velit;
Hic itidem est: enim neque domi nunc nos neque militiae sumus,
Imus huc, illuc hinc, cum illuc ventum est, ire illinc lubet;
Incerte errat animus: praeter propter vitam vivitur,--
a fragment which might be compared with certain passages in the
Exit saepe foras magnis ex aedibus ille
Esse domi quem pertaesum 'st subitoque revertit,
Quippe domi nihilo melius qui sentiat esse, etc.
or control the future. The tone in which Ennius writes of such
professions reminds us of Milton's grim contempt for
Eremites and friars
White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.
Thus, in a fragment of Book xi. of the Annals, the fears excited
by the prophets and diviners at the commencement of the war with
Antiochus are encountered with the pertinent question--
Satin' vates verant aetate in agenda?
Quod est ante pedes nemo spectat: caeli scrutantur plagas.
Sed superstitiosi vates, impudentesque arioli,
Aut inertes aut insani, aut quibus egestas imperat,
Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam,
Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab eis drachmam ipsi petunt.
Philosophari est mihi necesse, at paucis: nam omnino haut placet.
philosophical truths; they are expressed neither with the pointed
Such appear to be the chief attributes of genius and imaginative
religionem,' expresses a sentiment of traditional reverence as
indirectly, acknowledge their admiration. The strong testimony of
Ennius, ingenio maximus, arte rudis.
Ennius et sapiens et fortis et alter Homerus,
Quo promissa cadant et somnia Pythagorea,
and his friends are supposed to have introduced the new taste and
ministerio.]
Ad patrios montes et ad incunabula nostra,
which is quoted by Cicero in a letter to Atticus, and which
Vahlen attributed to Ennius, is now generally assigned to
Cicero himself.]
sides to the conflict, and all things, beneath high heaven,
confounded by the hurry and tumult of war, shook with alarm:
and men were in doubt to which of the two the empire of the
whole world, by land and sea, should fall.'--Lucret. iii.
Ennius in his account of the critical moment in the Battle
of Munda:--'Hic, ut ait Ennius, "pes pede premitur, armis
Quid contraxistis frontem, quia tragoediam
Dixi futuram hanc?]
Ennium de semet ipso haec scripsisse, picturamque istam morum
et ingenii ipsius Q. Ennii factam esse.'--Gell. xii. 4.]
often, and right gladly, he shared his table, his talk, and
the whole weight of his business, when weary with debate,
throughout the day, on high affairs of state, within the wide
Forum and the august Senate,--one to whom he could frankly
speak out serious matters, trifles, and jest; to whom he could
pour forth and safely confide, if he wanted to confide in any
one, all that he cared to utter, good or bad; with whom,
in private and in public, he had much entertainment and
enjoyment,--a man of that nature which no thought ever prompts
to baseness through levity or malice: a learned, honest,
pleasant man, eloquent, contented, and cheerful, of much tact,
speaking well in season; courteous and of few words; with much
old buried lore; whom length of years had made versed in old
and recent ways; in the laws of many ancients, divine and
human; one who knew when to speak and when to be silent. Him,
during the battle, Servilius thus addresses.']
exarai boulomenos phesi monon an Homeron epaxious epainous
eipein Skipionos.]--Aelian, as quoted by Suidas, vol. i. p.
countryman or enemy, has been able to pay a due meed for his
marsh, there is no one who in actions can vie with me. If it
is lawful for any one to ascend to the realms of the gods, to
me alone the vast gate of heaven is opened!']
(the island of Sicily) seem to have contained, nor aught more
holy, nor more wonderful and beloved.']
Ennius. He penned the record of your fathers' mighty deeds.
Let no one pay to me the meed of tears, nor weep at my
funeral. And why? because I still live, as I speed to and fro,
through the mouths of men.']
fiery verse from thy inmost marrow.']
which in days of old the Fauns and bards used to sing, before
any one had climbed the cliffs of the Muses, or gave any care
of heaven exist, but I think that they heed not the conduct of
mankind; for, if they did, it would be well with the good and
ill with the bad; and it is not so now.']
Cor jubet hoc Enni, postquam destertuit esse
Maeonides, Quintus pavone ex Pythagoreo.
Pythagoreans had extracted from the writings of the old
Sicilian comedian, Epicharmus of Megara, or rather had, at
least for the most part, circulated under cover of his name,
regarded the Greek gods as natural substances, Zeus as
the atmosphere, the soul as a particle of Sun-dust, and so
which the Greeks call the air; it is first wind and clouds;
afterwards rain, and after rain, cold; next it becomes wind,
then air again. All those things which I mention to you are
Jupiter, because it is he who supports mortals and cities and
all animals.']
of the greed of a parasite, occupies the ground common to
Roman comedy and to Roman satire:--
Quippe sine cura laetus lautus cum advenis
Insertis malis, expedito bracchio
Alacer, celsus, lupino expectans impetu,
Mox cum alterius obligurias bona,
Quid censes domino esse animi? pro divum fidem!
Ille tristis cibum dum servat, tu ridens voras.]
than this, that the man who tries to 'sell' another, and
fails, is himself 'sold.']
Eith' ophel' Argous me diaptasthai skaphos
Kolchon es aian kyaneas Symplegadas,
med' en napaisi Peliou pesein pote
tmetheisa peuke, med' eretmosai cheras
andron aristeon, hoi to panchryson deros
Pelia metelthon; ou gar an despoin' eme
Medeia pyrgous ges epleus' Iolkias
eroti thymon ekplageis' Iasonos.]]
affecting!'--De Div. i. 31. 'What a great poet, though he is
despised by those admirers of Euphorion. He understands that
sudden and unlooked-for calamities are more grievous. A noble
poem,--pathetic in its matter, language, and music.'--Tusc.
and blood. Many years it hath lain hid; help, citizens, and
extinguish it. For now, on the great sea, a swift fleet is
gathering. It hurries along a host of calamities. They come: a
fierce host lines the shores with sail-winged ships.' Exitium
= exitiorum; cf. Cic. Orator. 46, Itaque idem poeta, qui
inusitatius contraxerat 'Patris mei meum factum pudet' pro
'meorum factorum' et 'Texitur: exitium examen rapit' pro
This statement he is supposed to have derived from the
rules the day: the good orator is despised, the rough soldier
loved; striving, not with words of learning, but with words of
hate, they get embroiled in feuds, and stir up enmity one with
another. They challenge not their adversaries to contend by
forms of law, but claim their rights by the sword, and aim at
sovereign power, and make their way by sheer force.']
to me a ransom. Let us wage the war, not like hucksters, but
like soldiers--with the sword, not with gold, putting our
lives to the issue. Whether our mistress Fortune wills that
you or I should reign, or what her purpose be, let us prove by
valour. And hearken too to this saying,--The brave men, whom
the fortune of battle spares, their liberty I have resolved to
spare. Take my offer, as I grant it, under favour of the great
wont to stand firm, madly swerved from the straight course?']
vi. 506) will show that Ennius, while reproducing much, though
not all, of the force and life of Homer's image, has added
also some touches of his own:--
hos d' hote tis statos hippos, akostesas epi phatne,
desmon aporrhexas theie pedioio kroainon,
eiothos louesthai eurrheios potamoio,
kydioon; hypsou de kare echei, amphi de chaitai
omois aissontai; ho d' aglaiephi pepoithos,
rhimpha he gouna pherei meta t' ethea kai nomon hippon.]
Qualis ubi abruptis fugit praesepia vinclis
Tandem liber equus, campoque potitus aperto
Aut ille in pastus armentaque tendit equarum,
Aut adsuetus aquae perfundi flumine noto
Emicat, arrectisque fremit cervicibus alte
Luxurians, luduntque jubae per colla, per armos.]
the signal, all look eagerly to the barrier, to see how soon
he may start the chariots from the painted entrance.']
Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum
Voltu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat.--Aen. i. 254.]
epainein axion phesi.... delon de hos etethepei tou poietou
ten megalonoian kai ton metron to megaleion kai axiagaston.]
Itur in antiquam silvam, stabula alta ferarum,
Procumbunt piceae, sonat icta securibus ilex,
Fraxineaeque trabes cuneis et fissile robur
Scinditur, advolvunt ingentis montibus ornos.]
commonwealth. He cared not for what men said of him, as
compared with our safety: therefore now his fame waxeth
brighter day by day.']
any murmur should arise for some pause to the long battle,
some rest from their weary toil.']
from beautiful Helicon a chaplet of unfading leaf, the fame
of which should be bruited loud through the nations of Italian
limbs had brought the light, thus she (Ilia), roused in
terror from her sleep, with tears tells her tale: "Daughter of
Eurydice, whom our father loved, my strength and life now fail
me through all my frame. For methought that a goodly man was
bearing me off through the pleasant willow-groves, by the
river-banks, and places strange to me. Thereafter, O my
sister, I seemed to be wandering all alone, and with slow
steps to track my way, to be seeking thee, and to be unable
to find thee near; no footpath steadied my step. Afterwards
methought I heard my father address me in these
words--'Daughter, trouble must first be borne by thee;
afterwards thy fortune shall rise up again from the river.'
With these words, O sister, he suddenly departed, nor gave
himself to my sight, though my heart yearned to him, though I
kept eagerly stretching my hands to the blue vault of heaven,
weeping, and calling on him with loving tones. With pain and
weary heart at last sleep left me."']
thus they say to one another, O Romulus, God-like Romulus, how
great a guardian of our country did the gods create in thee! O
father, author of our being, O blood sprung from the gods!
it is thou that hast brought us forth within the realms of
Quique altum Praeneste viri, quique arva Gabinae
Junonis gelidumque Anienem et roscida rivis
Hernica saxa colunt, quos dives Anagnia pascit,
palace, closing on high-sounding hinge, I have seen thee,
guarded by a barbaric host, with carved and deep-fretted roof,
with ivory and gold royally adorned.']
first sharp wounds of war.']
and to that end I bred them. Besides, when I sent them to Troy
to fight for Greece, I was well aware that I was sending them,
not to a feast, but to a deadly war.']
equally I bear stamped on my forehead.']
a communi ordine verborum.'--Orator, 11.]
who flourished then and enjoyed their day, the chosen flower
of the people, and the marrow of persuasion.']
Istrian war:--
'Undique conveniunt velut imber, tela tribuno,' etc.]
'Ita sapere opino esse optimum, ut pro viribus
Tacere ac fabulare tute noveris;'
'Ea libertas est quae pectus purum et firmum gestitat.']
This is now our case. We are neither now at home nor
abroad. We go hither, back again to the place from which we
came,--when we have reached it we desire to leave it again.
Our mind is all astray--existence goes on outside of real
fortune-tellers, idle fellows, or madmen, or the victims of
want, who cannot discern the path for themselves, yet point
the way out to others, and ask a drachma from the very persons
to whom they promise a fortune.']
a certain public reader, an accomplished man, with a very
well-trained and musical voice, read the Annals of Ennius
publicly in the theatre. Let us go, says he, to hear this
"Ennianista," whoever he is,--for by that name he chose to be
called.'--Aulus Gellius, xviii. 5.
The following line of Martial (v. 10. 7) implies also his
popularity under the Empire--
'Ennius est lectus, salvo tibi, Roma, Marone.']
from their antiquity, in which the great and ancient
oak-trees are invested not so much with beauty as with sacred
Homer, as his critics will have it, seems to care little for
the issue of all his promises and Pythagorean dreams.'--Epist.
than those of the epic or satiric poetry of the period. A further
had little perception of this kind of excellence. They quote with
Euripides might possibly have obtained some favour with a few men
audiences.
The following questions suggest themselves as of most interest in
cessation of this favour with the fall of the Republic?
The materials or substance of Roman tragedy were almost entirely
ancient legends; but this was but one part, perhaps not the most
honoured by a vital worship, and appealed to as a present help in
the thought of his elevation out of the lowest earthly state into
The contemplative and religious thought of Greek tragedy was thus
passed out of it; the characters have dwindled from their heroic
in the analytic knowledge of human nature; but, with the decay of
lyrical poets who flourished before Greek civilisation exhibited
character which directly appealed to Roman tastes. The fragments
frequentia'), including women and children, attending the
vineyards.' The large fortunes amassed and the high consideration
represented, in the treatise _De Amicitia_, as testifying to the
applauded at this imaginary situation.' Again, in his speech in
occasional appeal to national and political feeling.
In so far as it served any political end we may infer from the
personal relations of the poets, from the approving testimony of
Cicero, and from the personages and the nature of the situations
success which they attained in it. Cicero specifies among the
discussions and harangues of the Forum.
Nam spirat tragicum satis et feliciter audet;
and less capacity of development than any other branch of Roman
Mithridatic War; but this, instead of giving a new impulse to
dramatic art, was fatal to its existence. The attraction of a
feeling the Roman drama lost its vital power. One cause of the
stories fit for dramatic purposes, and the truer sense, acquired
refined and fastidious, but lost something in breadth and genuine
The origin and the earliest stage of the Roman drama have been
M. Pacuvius, nephew, by the mother's side, of Ennius, was born
at Brundusium, in the south of Italy, about 219 B.C., and died at
distinction as a painter, and he is supposed to have written his
some corroboration to the opinion that the Romans valued more the
Ambigitur quoties uter utro sit prior, aufert
Pacuvius docti famam senis, Accius alti.
Adolescens, tametsi properas, te hoc saxum rogat,
Ut se aspicias, deinde quod scriptum est, legas,
Hic sunt poetae Pacuvi Marci sita
Ossa. Hoc volebam nescius ne esses. Vale.
Nerei repandirostrum incurvicervicum pecus.
ridiculed in the fragments of Lucilius, and also in a passage of
Persius. Another author contrasts the _sententiae_ of Ennius with
Verum tristis contorto aliquo ex Pacuviano exordio.
the author of the treatise addressed to Herennius describes their
founded on, though not translated from, one of Sophocles; and the
The subjects of his other dramas may be inferred from their
attraction for many of the Roman poets:--
Hoc vide, circum supraque quod complexu continet
Solisque exortu capessit candorem, occasu nigret,
Id quod nostri caelum memorant, Graii perhibent aethera:
Quidquid est hoc, omnia animat, format, alit, auget, creat,
Sepelit recipitque in sese omnia, omniumque idem est pater,
Indidemque eadem quae oriuntur, de integro aeque eodem incidunt.
Fortunam insanam esse et caecam et brutam perhibent philosophi
Saxoque instare in globoso praedicant volubili:
Insanam autem esse aiunt, quia atrox, incerta, instabilisque sit:
Sunt autem alii philosophi, qui contra fortunam negant
Esse ullam, sed temeritate res regi omnis autumant.
Id magis veri simile esse usus reapse experiundo edocet:
Velut Orestes modo fuit rex, factu'st mendicus modo.
Nam isti qui linguam avium intelligunt
Plusque ex alieno jecore sapiunt quam ex suo,
Magis audiendum quam auscultandum censeo;
and this is to the same effect--
Nam si qui, quae eventura sunt, provideant, aequiparent Jovi.
in Pacuvius, those who are supporting him, 'personae gravitatem
intuentes,' address this reproof to him, 'leviter gementi':--
Tu quoque Ulysses, quanquam graviter
Cernimus ictum, nimis paene animo es
Molli, qui consuetu's in armis
Aevom agere!
Conqueri fortunam adversam, non lamentari decet:
Id viri est officium, fletus muliebri ingenio additus.
Ego odi homines ignava opera et philosopha sententia.
There are other fragments the significance of which is political
rather than ethical, as for instance the following:--
Omnes qui tam quam nos severo serviunt
Imperio callent dominum imperia metuere.
Men' servasse ut essent qui me perderent?
Other passages again appear to be fragments of spirited dialogue,
Cicero quotes from the Teucer of Pacuvius the reproach of
Segregare abs te ausu's aut sine illo Salamina ingredi,
Neque paternum aspectum es veritus, quom aetate exacta indigem
Liberum lacerasti orbasti extinxti, neque fratris necis
Neque ejus gnati parvi, qui tibi in tutelam est traditus--?
Profectione laeti piscium lasciviam
Intuentur, nec tuendi capere satietas potest.
Interea prope jam occidente sole inhorrescit mare,
Tenebrae conduplicantur, noctisque et nimbum occaecat nigror,
Flamma inter nubes coruscat, caelum tonitru contremit,
Grando mista imbri largifico subita praecipitans cadit,
Undique omnes venti erumpunt, saevi existunt turbines,
Fervit aestu pelagus.
There are also, in the same style, these rough and graphic lines,
Armamentum stridor, flictus navium,
Strepitus fremitus clamor tonitruum et rudentum sibilus.
Insequitur clamorque virum, stridorque rudentum.
The effect of alliteration and assonance may be illustrated by a
Cedo tamen pedem tuum lymphis flavis flavum ut pulverem
Manibus isdem quibus Ulixi saepe permulsi abluam,
Lassitudinemque minuam manuum mollitudine.
Animaeque magnae
Prodigum Paulum, superante Poeno,
or his more fortunate son who conquered the Macedonians at Pydna,
interest, than that he should recall a great calamity of a past
and character as may be formed of Naevius, Ennius, and Lucilius.
L. Accius (or Attius) was born in the year 170 B.C., of parentage
speaks of the oratorical and literary accomplishment of D. Junius
The meeting of the old tragic poet and of the great orator is
soldiers, was in that age one of familiar intimacy rather than of
Lucretius. The journey of Accius to Asia shows the beginning of
in one or two of his fragments. He possessed apparently all the
He was much the most productive among the early tragic poets. The
Sedigitus, written in trochaic and septenarian verse, show the
attention which was given about this time by Roman authors to the
Disce puer virtutem ex me verumque laborem,
Fortunam ex aliis,
Virtuti sis par, dispar fortunis patris.
The address of Latinus to Turnus--
O praestans animi juvenis, quantum ipse feroci
Virtute exsuperas, tanto me impensius aequum est
Consulere atque omnis metuentem expendere casus,
Quanto magis te istius modi esse intelligo,
Tanto, Antigona, magis me par est tibi consulere ac parcere.
Tereus indomito more atque animo barbaro
Conspexit in eam amore vecors flammeo,
Depositus: facinus pessimum ex dementia
He gives expression also to great strength of will and to that
Abducite intro; nam mihi miseritudine
Commovit animum excelsa aspecti dignitas;
Nam huius demum miseret, cuius nobilitas miserias
Scin' ut quem cuique tribuit fortuna ordinem,
Nunquam ulla humilitas ingenium infirmat bonum.
Erat istuc virile, ferre advorsam fortunam facul.
Nam si a me regnum fortuna atque opes
Eripere quivit, at virtutem non quit.
Nullum est ingenium tantum, neque cor tam ferum,
Quod non labascat lingua, mitiscat malo.
Nil credo auguribus, qui auris verbis divitant
Alienas, suas ut auro locupletent domos.
Rex, quae in vita usurpant homines, cogitant, curant, vident,
Quaeque agunt vigilantes agitantque, ea si cui in somno accidunt
Minus mirum est.
Besides the characteristics already exemplified, one or two
Tanta moles labitur
Fremebunda ex alto, ingenti sonitu et spiritu:
Prae se undas volvit, vortices vi suscitat:
Ruit prolapsa, pelagus respergit, reflat.
Sub axe posita ad stellas septem, unde horrifer
Aquilonis stridor gelidas molitur nives.
Forte ante Auroram, radiorum ardentum indicem,
Cum e somno in segetem agrestis cornutos cient,
Ut rorulentas terras ferro rufidas
Proscindant, glebasque arvo ex molli exsuscitent.
contemplating the common aspects of Nature. Several other short
Saxum id facit angustitatem, et sub eo saxo exuberans
Scatebra fluviae radit ripam.
The early expression of this kind of emotion seems to have been
Hac ubi curvo litore latratu
Unda sub undis labunda sonit.
The following lines, quoted by Cicero (Tusc. Disp. i. 28) without
Caelum nitescere, arbores frondescere,
Vites laetificae pampinis pubescere,
Rami bacarum ubertate incurviscere,
Segetes largiri fruges, florere omnia,
Fontes scatere, herbis prata convestirier.
We note also many instances of plays on words, alliteration, and
asyndeton, reminding us of similar modes of conveying emphasis in
Pari dyspari, si impar esses tibi, ego nunc non essem miser.
Pro se quisque cum corona clarum cohonestat caput.
Egredere, exi, ecfer te, elimina urbe.
It remains to sum up the most important results as to the early
'Quid noster hic Caesar nonne novam quandam rationem attulit
orationis et dicendi genus induxit prope singulare? Quis
unquam res praeter hunc tragicas paene comice, tristes
remisse, severas hilare, forenses scaenica prope venustate
tractavit atque ita, ut neque iocus magnitudine rerum
excluderetur nec gravitas facetiis minueretur.']
poetis cerni licet quibus est proxima cognatio cum oratoribus
quam sint inter sese Ennius, Pacuvius, Acciusque dissimiles.']
iis petenda est, quando nos in omnia deliciarum vitia dicendi
quoque ratione defluximus.'--Quintil. Inst. Or. i. 8. 9.]
et Ennium summum epicum poetam si cui ita videtur, et Pacuvium
tragicum, et Caecilium fortasse comicum.']
stone entreats thee to regard it, and then read what is
written:--Here are laid the bones of the poet Marcus Pacuvius.
This I desired to be not unknown to thee. Farewell.']
qui Ennii Medeam aut Antiopam Pacuvii spernat aut rejiciat,
quod se eisdem Euripidis fabulis delectari dicat?'--Cic. De
encompasseth the earth, and puts on brightness at the rising
of the sun, becomes dark at his setting; that which our people
call Heaven, and the Greeks Aether. Whatever this is, it is
to all things the source of life, form, nourishment, growth,
existence; it is the grave and receptacle of all things, and
the parent, too, of all things: all things which arise from
it equally lapse into it again.' Compare with this passage
'Denique caelesti sumus omnes semine oriundi,' etc.
Both may be traced to a fragment of the Chrysippus of
Euripides, quoted by Ribbeck, Roem. Trag. p. 257; and also by
Munro, Lucret. p. 455, third edition.]
and senseless, and represent her as set on a round rolling
stone. They say that she is mad, because she is harsh, fickle,
untrustworthy; blind, for this reason, that she can see
nothing to which to attach herself; senseless, because she
cannot distinguish between the worthy and unworthy. Other
philosophers again deny the existence of Fortune, but hold
that all things are ruled by chance. That this is more
probable, common experience proves, as Orestes was but the
other day a king, and is now a beggar.']
birds, and have more wisdom from examining the liver of other
beings than from their own (i.e. understanding), I think
should be heard rather than listened to.']
wounded, art yet almost too much cast down; thou, who hast
been used to pass thy life in arms!']
not to lament over it. The one is the act of a man; it is a
woman's part to weep.']
or to enter Salamis without him; and didst thou not fear to
see thy father's face, when in his old age, bereft of his
children, thou hast torn him with anguish, robbed, crushed
him; nor didst thou feel for thy brother's death, and his
child, who was trusted to thy protection--?']
of the fish, and are never weary of watching them. Meanwhile,
nearly at sunset, the sea grows rough, darkness gathers, the
blackness of night and of the storm-clouds hides the world,
the lightning flashes between the clouds, the heaven is shaken
with the thunder, hail mixed with torrents of rain dashes
down in sudden showers; from all quarters all the winds burst
forth, the wild whirlwinds arise, the sea boils with the
surging waters.'--Quoted partly from Cic. De Div. i. 14;
partly from De Orat. iii. 39.]
dashing together of the ships, the uproar, the crash, the
rattle of the thunder, and the whistling of the ropes.']
I may wash away the brown dust with those hands with which
I have often rubbed gently the feet of Ulysses, and with my
hands' softness soothe your weariness.']
generals: hence it is evident that at least it wanted the
unity of time of the Greek tragedy; that it was a history like
imperator, Accii, amicissimi sui, carminibus templorum ac
monumentorum aditus exornavit suorum.'--Chap. 11.]
L. Accium poetam in Camenarum aede maxima forma statuam sibi
posuisse, cum brevis admodum fuisset.']
gazed upon her, maddened with burning passion, quite
desperate; in his madness, he resolves a cursed deed.']
his aspect has moved my mind to compassion.']
distinction to his misery.']
has assigned to a man, no meanness of station ever weakens a
fine nature?']
wealth, it cannot strip me of my virtue.']
which is not shaken by words, does not melt at misfortune.']
of others with their words, that they may enrich their own
houses with gold.' There is of course a pun on the _auris_ and
think about, care about, see,--their pursuits and occupations,
when awake,--if these occur to any one in sleep, it is not
the deep with a mighty rushing noise; it rolls the waves
before it, forces through the eddies, plunges forward, throws
up and dashes back the sea.'--Quoted in Cic. De Nat. Deor. ii.
whence the blustering roar of the north-wind drives before it
the chill snows.']
rays, when the husbandmen bring forth the oxen from their rest
into the fields, that they may break the red, dew-sprinkled
soil with the plough, and turn up the clods from the soft
beneath that rock a spring gushing out sweeps past the river's
The era in which Roman epic and tragic poetry arose was also the
Ea tempestate flos poetarum fuit
Qui nunc abierunt hinc in communem locum.
there were other competitors for public favour whose names were
unknown to a later generation. In the Ciceronian age the works of
Nam spirat tragicum satis et feliciter audet.
The rhetorical character of Roman education and the rhetorical
tendencies of the Roman mind secured favour for this kind of
improvised 'Saturae'--'dramatic medleys or farces with musical
'Cantica,' which were accompanied by music and gesticulation, and
Quantus sit Dossennus edacibus in parasitis.
evidence of his desire to use his position as a popular poet for
interest in Plautus is that he flourished before this separation
sentiment in his countrymen, so long as they retained anything of
movement, thus enjoyed by the early comedy, is the most obvious
How far are we able to fill up this meagre outline by personal
indications of the poet left on his works? In the case of any
expressive of more withering contempt than the term 'philosophe.'
of his prologues deprives us of the kind of knowledge of his
We find one reference to his birthplace, in the form of a bad pun
He mentions other districts or towns in Italy in the tone of
half-humorous, half-contemptuous indifference, which a Londoner
of last, or a Parisian of the present century, might adopt to the
Praeneste were especially regarded as butts by the wits of Rome.
the city, but very few are indicative of familiarity with rustic
occupations. There is no breath of the poetry of rural nature in
their minds,' had marked with humorous observation many varieties
Neptune. The colloquial use of Greek phrases in many of his
maritime speculation:--
Navibus magnis mercaturam faciam: aput reges rex perhibebor.
Post animi causa mihi navem faciam atque imitabor Stratonicum,
Oppida circumvectitabor, ubi nobilitas mea erit clara,
Oppidum magnum conmoenibo: ei ego urbi Gripo indam nomen.
He shows much greater familiarity with the life of the lower and
Pernam callum glandium sumen, etc.
find no place in the more fastidious gastronomy of our own times,
pleasures; and the important part which the preparation for the
Callidamates in the Mostellaria, the manner in which Pseudolus
celebrates his triumph over Ballio, and Sagarinus and Stichus the
attributes to the old women in his pieces, as to Staphyla in the
Ennius ipse pater numquam nisi potus ad arma
Prosiluit dicenda,
Narratur et prisci Catonis
Saepe mero caluisse virtus,
Another criticism of Horace upon Plautus--
Gestit enim nummum in loculos demittere--
Balzac, and, to a certain extent, even Shakspeare. To the poets
of Nature, or of the higher thought and emotions of men, the pure
Securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo;--
artist like Terence, studying either finish of style, perfect
consistency in the development of his characters, or the working
out of his plots to a harmonious conclusion. It was owing to the
compare himself to the poet who creates out of nothing--
Set quasi poeta, tabulas quom cepit sibi,
Quaerit quod nusquamst gentium, reperit tamen;
and he speaks of the pleasure which he took in his play
'Epidicus.' Cicero also testifies to the joy which he derived
from two of the works of his old age, the Pseudolus and the
Truculentus. But his delight was that of a vigorous creator, not
of a painstaking artist.
Many allusions in his plays attest his acquaintance with works of
form. Yet the knowledge he betrays is that which a man of
he seems to claim this indulgence as the natural concomitant of
Postremo in magno populo, in multis hominibus,
Re placida atque otiosa, victis hostibus,
Amare oportet omnes, qui quod dent habent.
With this new sense of freedom and of fullness of life, the old
restraints of religion and of the morality bound up with it were
increased contact with the mind and life of the Greeks powerfully
Desidiose agere aetatem lustrisque perire.
of the young men is almost entirely a life of pleasure, varied
last was a more formidable element in society than a Gelasimus or
Viscera magnarum domuum dominique futuri.
Aebutius and the freedwoman Hispala Fecenia bring to mind those
the invariable reference to Greek money, perhaps the actual scene
Greek word--such as Archidemides or Epidamnus,--show their
expressions of courtesy, and the like. The very fluency,
case at law,--to the times of vacation from business,--to
the emancipation of slaves,--peculiar to the Romans. The special
such as Jupiter Capitolinus, Laverna, the Lar Familiaris, are
inflicted on the Campanians after the Second Punic War, the
importation of Syrian slaves after the war with Antiochus, the
introduction of foreign luxuries at the same time, the extreme
laws, such as the lex alearia, probably passed about this time
Non matronarum officium est, sed meretricium,
Viris alienis, mi vir, subblandirier--
may serve as a comment on the arguments with which Cato opposed
the repeal of the law: 'Qui hic mos est in publicum procurrendi,
et obsidendi vias, et viros alienos appellandi?... An blandiores
in publico quam in privato, et alienis quam vestris estis?' The
Again, the great fertility of Plautus and his many-sided contact
passage for instance is freshly coloured with all the recent
experience of the Hannibalian war:--
Viden hostis tibi adesse, tuoque tergo obsidium? Consule,
Coge in obsidium perduellis, nostris praesidium para.
Interclude conmeatum inimicis, tibi moeni viam,
Qua cibatus conmeatusque ad te et legionis tuas
Tuto possit pervenire. Hanc rem age: res subitariast.
The exuberant use of terms of endearment and of abuse in Plautus
humour, remind us of the passionate use of similar phrases in
to the race who enjoyed the spectacles of the amphitheatre. The
slaves, tells of a people not especially cruel, but practically
We are less able to speak of his originality in the selection of
or 'wiping the nose' of, his antagonist in the game: there is no
have objected to the celebration by Pseudolus of his triumph, as
a grotesque excrescence: but it serves to bring out the sensual
Hi senes nisi fuissent nihili iam inde ab adulescentia,
Non hodie hoc tantum flagitium facerent canis capitibus,
away by the apparition of his wife, and the wrathful and scornful
Hic senex siquid clam uxorem suo animo fecit volup'
Neque novom neque mirum fecit nec secus quam alii solent.
Ballio, or Labrax, or Cleaereta,--the worst of his 'lenones' and
'lenae,'--excite more unmitigated disgust than Stalino in the
The 'Miles Gloriosus' and the 'Mostellaria' are much less
objectionable in point of morality, or at least good taste, than
either the 'Bacchides' or the 'Asinaria.' They are among the most
Noli minitari: scio crucem futuram mihi sepulchrum:
Ibi mei sunt maiores siti, pater, avos, proavos, abavos.
Non possunt tuis minaciis hisce oculi mi ecfodiri.
Securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo,--
is peculiarly applicable. No less suitable 'Deus ex machina' than
Several other plays turn upon similar 'frustrationes.' Two of the
imaginative efforts of his genius. The 'Aulularia,' 'Trinummus,'
'Menaechmi,' 'Rudens,' 'Captivi,' and 'Amphitryo,' are much more
human and original; and though nothing can be more complete than
the hypochondriacal possession which his one idea has over his
The 'Trinummus,' if less amusing than most of the other plays of
thoroughly respectable young man lively and entertaining. But the
Di divites sunt, deos decent opulentiae
Et factiones: verum nos homunculi
Scintillula animae, quam quom extemplo emisimus,
Aequo mendicus atque ille opulentissimus
Censetur censu ad Acheruntem mortuos,--
undistinguishable resemblance to one another, are natural and
These three plays show Plautus at his best in regard to the
feeling and genius, and to at least some sympathy with the more
desolation of the two shipwrecked women wandering about among the
Quist imperator divom atque hominum Iuppiter,
Is nos per gentis hic alium alia disparat,
Hominum qui facta, mores, pietatem et fidem
Noscamus, ut quemque adiuvet opulentia.
Manus mihi date, exurgite a pedibus ambae,
Misericordior nulla mest feminarum;
Tibi auscultamus et, Venus alma, ambae te opsecramus
Aram amplexantes hanc tuam lacrumantes, genibus nixae,
In custodelam nos tuam ut recipias et tutere, etc.
Even the moral sentiment expressed is of a finer quality than the
Isto tu's pauper, quom nimis sancte piu's--
the answer is in a higher strain than that familiar to ancient
O Gripe Gripe, in aetate hominum plurimae
Fiunt transennae, [illi] ubi decipiuntur dolis.
Atque edepol in eas plerumque esca inponitur,
Quam siquis avidus poscit escam avariter,
Decipitur in transenna avaritia sua.
Ille qui consulte, docte atque astute cavet,
Diutine uti ei bene licet partum bene.
Mi istaec videtur praeda praedatum irier,
Maiore ut cum dote abeat hinc quam advenerit.
Egone ut quod ad me adlatum esse alienum sciam
Celem? minume istuc faciet noster Daemones.
Semper cavere hoc sapientes aequissumum'st,
Ne conscii sint ipsi maleficii suis.
Ego nisi quom lusim nil morer ullum lucrum.
Dum ne ob malefacta, peream: parvi id aestimo.
Si ego hic peribo, ast ille, ut dixit, non redit,
At erit mi hoc factum mortuo memorabile,
Me meum erum captum ex servitute atque hostibus
Reducem fecisse liberum in patriam ad patrem,
Meumque potius me caput periculo
Hic praeoptavisse quam is periret ponere--
enable us to feel that some of the glory of the older and nobler
Quam non adstricto percurrat pulpita socco,
Ita erae meae hodie contigit: nam ubi partuis deos sibi invocat,
Strepitus, crepitus, sonitus, tonitrus: subito ut propere,
ut valide tonuit.
Ubi quisque institerat, concidit crepitu: ibi nescio quis maxuma
Voce exclamat: 'Alcumena, adest auxilium, ne time:
Et tibi et tuis propitius caeli cultor advenit.
Exurgite' inquit 'qui terrore meo occidistis prae metu.'
Ut iacui, exurgo: ardere censui aedis: ita tum confulgebant.
Nor is there, perhaps, anywhere in ancient literature a nobler
realisation of the virtue of womanhood than in the indignant
vindication of herself by Alcmena,--
Non ego illam mihi dotem esse duco, quae dos dicitur,
Set pudicitiam et pudorem et sedatum cupidinem,
Deum metum et parentum amorem et cognatum concordiam,
Tibi morigera atque ut munifica sim bonis, prosim probis.
Non ventus fuit, verum Alcumena Euripidi.
Was the Greek writer partly parodying, in accordance with the
tradition of the old comedy, partly reproducing a tragedy of
As in the case of other productive writers there is no absolute
agreement as to which are the best of the Plautine plays. Without
a great humourist, revelling in the mirth, the absurdities, the
Salva res est: philosophatur quoque iam, non mendax modo'st
Sed iam satis est philosophatum
of Pseudolus. Yet to Tyndarus he attributes a sense of religious
trust befitting both his character and situation--
Est profecto deus, qui quae nos gerimus auditque et videt, etc.,
Centum doctum hominum consilia sola haec devincit dea,
Fortuna, etc.
Probably the truth is that living in an age of active enjoyment
and energy, he troubled himself very little about the 'problem of
imperiousness of the 'dotatae uxores' seems to imply further his
The first aspect of many of his plays certainly produces the
intended to have more relation to the ordinary life of work and
Nemo hinc prohibet nec vetat
Quin quod palamst venale, si argentumst, emas.
Nemo ire quemquam puplica prohibet via,
Dum ne per fundum saeptum faciat semitam:
Dum ted apstineas nupta vidua virgine
Iuventute et pueris liberis, ama quod lubet.
that their death might enable them to treat their mistresses more
Fui ego bellus, lepidus,--bonus vir nunquam neque frugi bonae
Neque ero unquam.
But the life of careless freedom and strong animal spirits which
Plautus shaped with prodigal power into humorous scenes and
representations for the holiday amusements of the mass of his
Postquam est mortem aptus Plautus, comoedia luget,
Scaena est deserta, dein risus, ludu' iocusque
Et numeri innumeri simul omnes conlacrumarunt.
artistic treatment. The criticisms of Horace on this subject are
perfectly true. If the line--
Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi
But the largest endowment of Plautus, the truest note of his
mobility of temperament made the Italians admirable mimics: and
the favour which the plays of Plautus continued to enjoy with the
bring out the meaning of the poet may be gathered from the lively
Illuc sis vide
Quem ad modum astitit severo fronte curans, cogitans.
Pectus digitis pultat: cor credo evocaturust foras.
Ecce avortit: nisam laevo in femine habet laevam manum.
Dextera digitis rationem conputat: fervit femur
Dexterum, ita vehementer icit: quod agat, aegre suppetit.
Concrepuit digitis: laborat, crebro conmutat status.
Eccere autem capite nutat; non placet quod repperit.
Quidquid est, incoctum non expromet, bene coctum dabit.
Ecce autem aedificat: columnam mento suffigit suo.
Apage, non placet profecto mihi illaec aedificatio:
Nam os columnatum poetae esse indaudivi barbaro,
Quoi bini custodes semper totis horis occubant.
Euge, euscheme hercle astitit et dulice et comoedice.
of Pseudolus when well drunken after celebrating his triumph over
Quid hoc? sicine hoc fit? pedes, statin an non?
An id voltis ut me hinc jacentem aliqui tollat? etc.
His temptation was to exaggerate in this, as in other elements of
It is characteristic of the liveliness of Plautus' temperament,
that the lyrical and recitative parts of his plays occupy a place
Multas res simitu in meo corde vorso,
Multum in cogitando dolorem indipiscor.
Egomet me coquo et macero et defatigo.
Pessuli, heus pessuli, vos saluto lubens,
Vos amo vos volo vos peto atque obsecro,
Gerite amanti mihi morem amoenissumi:
Fite caussa mea ludii barbari,
Sussulite, obsecro, et mittite istanc foras,
Quae mihi misero amanti exbibit sanguinem.
Hoc vide ut dormiunt pessuli pessumi
Nec mea gratia conmovent se ocius.
exchanged for septenarian or octonarian iambics. Of the rapid
Haec, quom ego a foro revortar, facite ut offendam parata,
Vorsa sparsa tersa strata lauta structaque omnia ut sint.
Nam mi hodiest natalis dies: cum decet omnis vos concelebrare.
Magnifice volo me viros summos accipere, ut rem mi esse reantur.
execration, or bantering endearment. The mannerisms of his style,
deviates from his Greek models, are not laboured efforts, but the
is a Rabelaisian ebullition, stimulated by the novel contact with
Rufus quidam, ventriosus, crassis suris, subniger,
Magno capite, acutis oculis, ore rubicundo, admodum
Magnis pedibus;
Cum hirquina barba;
Adulescentem strenua facie, rubicundum, fortem;
Harpax, in the same play,
Recalvom ac silonem senem, statutum, ventriosum
Tortis superciliis, contracta fronte, etc.--
in such a way as to show how real they were to his imagination in
manner of his personages by some graphic touch, as that of the
disguised sycophant of the Trinummus,--
Pol hic quidem fungino generest: capite se totum tegit.
Illurica facies videtur hominis: eo ornatu advenit;
and later--
Mira sunt
Loca contemplat, circumspectat sese, atque aedis noscitat.
Ubi portu eximus, homines remigio sequi,
Neque aves neque venti citius, etc.,
or the account which Curculio gives of his encounter with the
soldier, tersely, rapidly, and vividly, as if he were recalling
'virtute formae id evenit te ut deceat quidquid habeas,' in the
'Nugas theatri: verba quae in comoediis
Solent lenoni dici, quae pueri sciunt.'
style of Catullus, and perhaps in the sentiment of the passage
in Lucretius, iv. 1121, etc.; and that of Terence also in
Catullus, and in the Satires, Epistles, and some of the Odes
made an attempt to produce an artistic revival of the old
comedy in the Augustan age, as Pollio, Varius, Ovid and others
did of the old tragic drama, but with no permanent success.]
of Naevius and Plautus with his criticism on the style of
Caecilius and Pacuvius. Terence was the only foreigner who
attained perfect idiomatic purity of speech, but he must have
been brought to Rome when quite a child.]
from the American Journal of Philology, referred to supra page
'Ut vobis victi Poeni poenas sufferant.'
The 'Didascalia' to the Stichus is one of the few preserved.
From it we learn that the play was acted P. Sulpicio, C.
seats in the theatre, which were not introduced till 155 B.C.
In the Prologue to the Casina it is said that only the older
men present could remember the first production of that play
in the life-time of the poet. The Prologues to the Aulularia,
Trinummus, and Rudens, are probably genuine, and also the
speech of _Auxilium_ in the Cistellaria.]
Spectavi ego pridem comicos ad istum modum
Sapienter dicta dicere atque is plaudier,
Quom illos sapientis mores monstrabant poplo.
Set quom inde suam quisque ibant divorsi domum
Nullus erat illo pacto ut illi iusserant.]
Quid tu per barbaricas urbes iuras? _Erg._ Quia enim item
asperae Sunt ut tuum victum autumabas esse.--Captiv. 884-5.]
Quid tibi, malum, hic ante aedis clamitatiost?
An ruri censes te esse? apscede ab aedibus.--Most. 6. 7.]
of princes I shall be styled a prince. Afterwards for my
amusement I shall build a ship and imitate Stratonicus; I
shall visit towns in my voyages: when I shall have become
famous, I'll build a big town, and call it Gripus.'--Rudens,
Quantus sit Dossennus edacibus in parasitis.]
Horum causa haec agitur spectatorum fabula,
Hi sciunt qui hic adfuerunt; vobis post narravero.]
techinae, prothyme, basilicus, etc., etc.]
as spurious. But whether written by Plautus or not it is
in the spirit of the Plautine comedy. In a passage of the
Poenulus (Act iii. 1. 21) another reference is made to the
sense of security enjoyed since their victory:--
Praesertim in re populi placida, atque interfectis hostibus,
Non decet tumultuari.]
Set sumne ego stultus, qui rem curo publicam,
Ubi sint magistratus, quos curare oporteat?
and that of the parasite in the Captivi, 'that only those
who were unable to procure invitations to luncheon should be
expected to attend public meetings and elections'; and such
jokes as 'Plebiscitum non est scitius.']
Menander, is completely non-political.]
clients, show a certain spirit of independence. Cf. Act iii.
Et tu vale.
Iniuriam illic insignite postulat:
Nostro sibi servire nos censet cibo.
Verum ita sunt omnes isti nostri divites:
Si quid bene facias, levior pluma est gratia;
Si quid peccatum est, plumbeas iras gerunt.]
Quom mi ipsum nomen eius Archidemides
Clamaret dempturum esse si quid crederem.--Bacchid. 285.
Propterea huic urbi nomen Epidamno inditumst
Quia nemo ferme sine damno huc devortitur.--Menaech. 264.
Cf. also the play on Chrysalus and Crucisalus; and the
following may serve as a specimen of his perpetual puns:--
Non enim es in senticeto, eo non sentis.--Captivi, 857.]
vinctus. Cottabi crebri crepent. Laetus, lubens, laudes ago.
Collus collari caret.
Atque mores hominum moros et morosos efficit, etc., etc.
Laudem, lucrum, ludum, iocum, festivitatem, ferias.
Vorsa, sparsa, tersa, strata, lauta, structaque omnia ut sint,
These are not occasional, but constantly recurring
characteristics of his style. The thought and matter
they express must, in a great measure, be due to his own
invention.]
verbis. Quod bonum, felix, faustum, fortunatumque sit. Ut
gesserit rempublicam ductu, imperio, auspicio suo, etc., etc.]
Inter saxum et sacra. Vae victis. Ad incitas redactust, etc.,
Num quid vis? etc.]
Sarsina, etc.]
Trigemina, Porta Metia; and compare the long passage in the
Curculio (462), which directly refers to Rome.]
Quid ego cesso Pseudolum
Facere ut det nomen ad Molas coloniam.--Pseud. 1082.]
ubi res prolatae sunt.]
Set, spectatores, vos nunc ne miremini
Quod non triumpho: pervolgatumst, nil moror.
Verum tamen accipientur mulso milites.]
malis vetita legibus alea.]
and that your back will soon be invested? Quick! seize some
help and succour: it must be done speedily, not quietly. Get
before them somehow; lead round your forces by some pass or
other. Invest the enemy; bring relief to our own troops; cut
off the enemy's supplies; make a road for yourself, by which
provisions or supplies may reach yourself or your legions
safely: give your whole heart to the business--it is a sudden
This is the 'patriotic passage' which Mr. West discusses in
the paper previously referred to. He holds that 'The passage,
keeping steadily within the limits so rigidly imposed by Roman
Stage-censorship, is written from the stand-point of sympathy
with the _plebs_ in favour of Scipio's assuming command
against Hannibal, and reflects very brightly and completely
those features of the Second Punic War which were prominent
The end of many of the prologues also shows that they were
addressed to a people constantly engaged in war.]
indidem (Mil. Glor. 234); locare argentum; fenerato.
Mihi quod credideris, sumes ubi posiueris.--Trinum. 145.
Nequaquam argenti ratio comparet tamen.--Ib. 418.
Bene igitur ratio accepti atque expensi inter nos
Mostellaria by the late Professor Ramsay.]
be my tomb: there lie my ancestors, father, grandfather,
great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather: but your threats
can't dig these eyes out of my head.'--Mil. Glor. 372-5.]
the play seems to have ended with the old man's consigning his
treasure into the hands of his son-in-law and daughter.]
connexions are for the Gods; but we, poor creatures, are but
a tiny spark of life, and so soon as that is gone, the beggar
and the richest man, when dead, are rated alike by the shores
Non vidisse undas me maiores censeo.--Rudens, 167.
Atque ut nunc valide fluctuat mare, nulla nobis spes est.
Iovem se placare posse donis, hostiis:
Et operam et sumptum perdunt; id eo fit quia
Nihil ei accemptumst a periuris supplici, etc.--22-5.]
many snares, by which they are trapped; and for the most part
a bait is laid on them, and whoso in his greed greedily craves
for it, by reason of his greed he is caught in the trap. But
whoso warily, wisely, craftily takes heed, to him it is given
long to enjoy what has been well earned. That prize of yours,
I fancy, will be so made prize of, as to bring a larger dower
in going from us than when it came to us. To fancy that I
should be capable of keeping secret possession of what I know
to be another's property! Far will that be from our friend
Daemones. It is the absolute duty of a wise man to be on his
guard against ever being privy to any wrong done by his own
people. I never would care for any gain, except when I am in
perish, I care not. If I shall perish here, while he returns
not, as he promised, yet even after death this will be a
memorable act, that I restored my master from captivity and
his enemies to his father and his home, and chose rather
to emperil my own life here than that he should
she calls the powers of travail to her aid, lo! there ensues
a rumbling, rattling noise, loud uproar and a peal of
thunder--all of a sudden how fast, how mightily it thundered!
At the crash each one fell on the spot where he stood. Then
some one, I know not who, exclaims in a loud voice, "Alcmena,
be not afraid; help is at hand: the dweller in the skies
draweth nigh with kindly intent to thee and thine. Arise ye
who from the dread inspired by me have fallen down in alarm."
As I lay, I rose up: methought the house was all on fire, so
true dower, but chastity and modesty, and passion subdued,
fear of the Gods, affection to my parents, amity with my
kinsmen, a will to yield to thee, to be bountiful to the good,
Nam, meo quidem animo, si idem faciant ceteri,
Opulentiores pauperiorum filias
Ut indotatas ducant uxores domum,
Et multo fiat civitas concordior,
Et invidia nos minore utamur, quam utimur.]
or respectable man I never was nor will be.'--Capt. 956-7.]
his post, with serious brow pondering, meditating; now he taps
his breast with his fingers. I fancy he is going to summon
his heart outside: look, he turns away; now his left hand is
leaning on his left thigh; with his right hand he is making
a calculation on his fingers; his right thigh burns, such a
violent blow he has struck it; his scheme does not come easily
to him:--he cracks his fingers: he is at a loss; he often
changes his position: look, there he nods his head: he does
not like this new idea. Whatever it is, he will not bring it
out till it is ready: he'll serve it up well done. Look again,
he is busy building: he props up his chin with a pillar. Away
with it! I don't like that kind of building: for I have heard
that a foreign poet has his face thus pillared, beside whom
two sentinels are every hour on watch. Bravo! by Hercules,
now he is in a fine attitude, like a slave, or a man in a
you, I love you, I am fond of you; I beg you, I beseech you,
most amiably now comply with the desire of me a lover. For my
sake become like foreign dancers; spring up, I beseech you,
and send her forth, who now is drinking up the life-blood of
me her lover. Mark how these vilest bolts are still asleep,
and do not stir one whit on my account.'--Curculio, 147-154.]
everything ready, the floor swept, sprinkled, polished, the
couches covered; the plate all clean and arranged: for this
is my birthday: this you must all join in keeping: I want to
entertain some great people sumptuously, that they may think I
legs, darkish, with a big head, keen eyes, a red face, and
enormous feet.']
himself with his head: he looks like an Illyrian: he is got up
'I should be surprised if he be not either some dreaming
fellow (?al. house-breaker) or a cutpurse: he takes a good
look of the ground, gazes about him, takes note of the
Highlander,' and the lines in one of Burns' earliest songs--
'And then there's something in her gait
Gars ony dress look weel.']
The names of five or six comic dramatists are known, who fill
the space of eighteen years between the death of Plautus and the
Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte--
feelings.'
_gravitas_, such as the
Serit arbores quae alteri saeclo prosint,
quoted by Cicero in the Tusculan Questions, and this line--
Saepe est etiam sub palliolo sordido sapientia.
With Terence Roman literature enters on a new stage of its
educated from their boyhood in Greek accomplishments. The leading
of native force and popular sympathies. Recognising the immense
Latin spoken in the best Roman houses. By birth a Phoenician, by
intellectual education a Greek, by the associations of his daily
life a foreigner living in Rome, he was more in sympathy with the
training of the Romans make the absence of these last qualities
Our knowledge of the life of Terence is derived chiefly from a
fragment of the lost work of Suetonius, _De viris illustribus_,
quotes or refers to the works of various grammarians and
Exemplum statuite in me ut _adulescentuli_
Vobis placere studeant potius quam sibi,
containing a number of new plays which he had translated from
As his art is purely dramatic and also imitative, for any further
his prologues in which he speaks in his own person. They give the
'malevolus vetus poeta,' whose name is said to have been Luscius
detractor. He recriminates on his adversary as one who, by his
distinctions in varying specimens of the same type, that he gains
Terence is, accordingly, in substance and form, a 'dimidiatus
of that life, as it was shaped by Menander for dramatic
elevation of the speculative and scientific curiosity which gave
to appreciate this charm, and assimilate its influence in their
intercourse with one another. The Greek comedy of Menander was a
might be taken as its motto. The idea of 'human nature,' in its
weakness and in its sympathy with weakness, may be said to be the
contrasted with the stricter view of the obligations of life,
entertained by an earlier generation, and always in favour of the
'To step aside is human.'--
Love, generally in the form of pathetic sentiment rather than of
the suggestion of Gnatho, which, in its union of mercenary with
personality which they had to the poet himself is implied in the
language of gentlemen and men of the world.
Non te dignum, Chaerea,
Fecisti: nam si ego digna hac contumelia
Sum maxume, at tu indignus qui faceres tamen;
Non adeo inhumano ingenio sum, Chaerea,
Neque ita imperita, ut quid amor valeat, nesciam.
credibility. Parmeno and Phaedria are natural embodiments of the
analysis, though with less vigour than those of Pseudolus and
himself a type of the parasite, as distinct from Gnatho, as he is
often-quoted sayings, such as
Hinc illae lacrimae. Amantium irae amoris integratiost.
Quot homines, tot sententiae.
Tacent: satis laudant.
Nosse omnia haec salus est adulescentulis.
Cantilenam eandem canis--laterem lavem,--etc. etc.
him to correct his own faults by observing other men must have
been suggested by the conversation between Demea and Syrus in the
Inspicere tamquam in speculum in vitas omnium
Iubeo atque ex aliis sumere exemplum sibi.
Again, the remonstrance of Micio to Demea,
Sineres nunc facere, dum per aetatem licet,
passages in his plays to his own circumstances, and refers to his
Liquidus puroque simillimus amni.
He speaks of 'his fine expression, elegancy, and quaintness,' and
quotes Fenelon and Addison, 'deux esprits polis et doux, de la
meme famille litteraire,' as expressing their admiration for the
est sur ses levres; on croirait aisement qu'il naquit sur le mont
Dicitur Afrani toga convenisse Menandro.
less with the 'mimi,' which were intended to gratify the lowest
from Varro.]
year younger.]
of words in _amentium_ and _amantium_, _verba_ and _verbera_;
one or two cases of alliteration and asyndeton, e.g.--
Hic est victus, vetus, veternosus senex,--
Profundat, perdat, pereat, etc.;
but such mannerisms, which abound in Plautus, are extremely
rare in the younger poet.]
even if it is quite fitting that I should receive such an
insult, all the same it was not fitting that it should come
unschooled in its ways as not to know what love is capable
lucro; Dulce est desipere in loco; Rimosa quae deponuntur
in aure; Qua parte debacchentur ignes; Cena dubia; Paucorum
hominum et mentis bene sanae; Quam sapere et ringi; Quid non
ebrietas designat?--and others, are to be found in Terence.]
as into a mirror, and to form for himself an example from
is it.' _De._ 'This is discreditable.']
The indigenous satura existing at Rome before the rise of regular
Ennius had formed out of the older satura. But the latter was the
Varro, the most famous work produced on this model, were composed
Of all the forms of Roman poetry, satire was least indebted to
the works of the Greeks. Quintilian claims it altogether for his
countrymen--'satira tota nostra est.' Horace characterises it as
critical spirit in Greece had found vent for itself in the works
Ille Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro.
But Roman satire sprang up and flourished independently of any of
difference in form arose out of fundamental differences in the
and ideas derived from a Greek education. The age in which satire
practical understanding, it was in a peculiar manner the literary
Nescis heu, nescis dominae fastidia Romae:
Crede mihi nimium Martia turba sapit:
Maiores nusquam rhonchi; iuvenesque senesque
Et pueri nasum rhinocerotis habent.--i. 4. 2-6.
of the Republic, attaining to mature perfection amid the rich
unconscious echo of that vigorous sense and nervous speech, which
Satire was not only national in its intellectual and moral
Primores populi arripuit populumque tributim.
It endeavoured also, by acting on individual character, to effect
legislation. The various sumptuary laws of that age, and the
increase of luxury and the affectation of Greek manners among his
Detrahere et pellem, nitidus qua quisque per ora
Cederet, introrsum turpis.
expresses his opinions and feelings in the form sometimes of a
Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim, etc.,
implies that Lucilius used his satire as a natural vehicle for
of the topics treated by him, and the frankness of his personal
Among the poets of the Republic, whose works have reached us only
characteristics and literary position can be inferred with nearly
The time at which he appeared was one of the most critical epochs
fragments of the contemporary satirist are highly to be prized.
at Naples and received the honour of a public funeral. The chief
difficulty in accepting these dates arises from the statement of
Velleius that Lucilius served as an 'eques' under Scipio in the
Numantine War, and from the fact, attested by Horace and other
authorities, of his great intimacy with both Scipio and Laelius.
Attamen et iustum poteras et scribere fortem
Scipiadem ut sapiens Lucilius--;
the Satires appear to be parts of a letter written by Lucilius to
Percrepa pugnam Popilli, facta Corneli cane,
contrasts the defeat of M. Popillius Laenas in 138 B.C. with the
Quo fit ut omnis
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
lose their point, unless _senis_ is to be understood in its usual
Mueller. A more probable explanation of the error in the date was
be thirty-seven or thirty-nine.' It may be added against the
His birth-place was Suessa Aurunca in Campania. Juvenal calls him
His satires were written in thirty Books. The remaining fragments
Garrulus atque piger scribendi ferre laborem,
Quo me habeam pacto, tametsi non quaeri', docebo,
Quando in eo numero mansti, quo in maxima nunc est
Pars hominum,
Ut periise velis quem visere nolueris, cum
Debueris. Hoc nolueris et debueris te
Si minu' delectat, quod [Greek: technion] Isocratium est,
Non operam perdo.
Mantica cantheri costas gravitate premebat--
earliest in the order of composition), were largely filled with
to speak of any single book as composed on a definite plan, or as
The fragments however, when read collectively, bring out the main
censorious criticism on politics, morals, and literature.
of the joy of escaping from the storms of life into a quiet haven
and immunity from envy, and the superiority of plain living to
something of a valetudinarian, and to have had much of the
self-consciousness which accompanies that condition. On the whole
the exercise of his art,--a warm friend and partisan, and a bold
and uncompromising enemy,--not professing any austerity of life,
of public duty and personal honour.
limping Hostilius and Manius,' and in the war against Viriathus.
Among those assailed by him on political grounds, L. Hostilius
reputable names of Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus and Mucius
Scaevola are also mentioned among the objects of his satire.
Personal motives--and especially his devotion to Scipio--may
and self-restraint, and, through this accumulated vital force,
satirised by Lucilius. Such passages as these--
Cenasti in vita numquam bene, quom omnia in ista
Consumis squilla atque acipensere quum decumano.
Hoc fit item in cena, dabis ostrea millibu' nummum
Occidunt, Lupe, saperdae te et iura siluri.
Vivite lurcones, comedones, vivite ventres.
Illum sumina ducebant atque altilium lanx
Hunc pontes Tiberinu' duo inter captu' catillo.
Purpureo tersit tunc latas gausape mensas, etc.
show the proportions already assumed by a form of sensuality the
The other extreme of unceasing activity in getting, and sordid
meanness in hoarding money, and the discontent produced among all
Milia dum centum frumenti tolli medimnum,
Vini mille cadum.--
Denique uti stulto nihil est satis, omnia cum sint.--
Rugosi passique senes eadem omnia quaerunt.--
Mordicus petere aurum e flamma expediat, e caeno cibum.--
Aquam te in animo habere intercutem.
The following description of a miser seems to have suggested the
beginning of one of Catullus' lampoons:--
Cui neque iumentumst nec servos nec comes ullus,
Bulgam et quidquid habet nummum secum habet ipse,
Cum bulga cenat, dormit, lavit; omnis in unast
Spes homini bulga. Bulga haec devincta lacertost.
In other passages he inculcates the lessons of good sense and
moderation in the use of money, or urges, in the person of an
The extravagance, airs, and vices of women, are another theme of
Cum tecum'st, quidvis satis est: visuri alieni
Sint homines, spiras, pallam, redimicula promit.
Another fragment--
Homines ipsi hanc sibi molestiam ultro atque aerumnam offerunt,
to provide for the continued well-being of the world than for our
family life, which appears so conspicuously among the cultivated
Terriculas Lamias, Fauni quas Pompiliique
Instituere Numae, tremit has, hic omnia ponit;
Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena
Vivere, et esse homines; et sic isti omnia ficta
Vera putant, credunt signis cor inesse in ahenis;
Pergula pictorum, veri nihil, omnia ficta.
His attitude to philosophy, like his attitude to superstitious
terrors, was not unlike that of Horace. We find mention in his
fragments of the 'Socratici charti,' of the 'eidola atque atomus
Paenula, si quaeris, canteriu', servu', segestre,
Utilior mihi, quam sapiens;
Nondum etiam, qui haec omnia habebit,
Formosus, dives, liber, rex solu' feretur,
Graecum te, Albuci, quam Romanum atque Sabinum,
Praeclarorum hominum ac primorum signiferumque,
Maluisti dici. Graece ergo praetor Athenis,
Id quod maluisti, te, cum ad me accedi', saluto:
Chaere, inquam, Tite. Lictores turma omni' cohorsque
Chaere, Tite. Hinc hostis mi, Albucius, hinc inimicus.
We learn from Cicero's account of the orators antecedent to, and
expressed by the Roman satirist. Like the similar practice in the
The satire of Lucilius, besides its political, moral, and social
function, assumed the part of a literary critic and censor. The
testimony of Horace on this point,--
Nil comis tragici mutat Lucilius Acci?
Non ridet versus Enni gravitate minores,
Cum de se loquitur non ut maiore reprensis?
confirmed by that of Gellius, is amply borne out by extant
criticisms in the sneer of Persius,--
Est nunc Briseis quem venosus liber Acci,
Sunt quos Pacuviusque et verrucosa moretur
Antiopa, aerummis cor luctificabile fulta.
The antagonism displayed by Lucilius to the more ambitious style
of the tragic and epic poets was perhaps as much due to his
own deficiency in poetical imagination, as to his keen critical
Distichum, epistula item quaevis non magna;
Virtus, Albine, est pretium persolvere verum,
Queis in versamur, queis vivimu' rebu', potesse:
Virtus est hominis, scire id quod quaeque habeat res.
Virtus scire homini rectum, utile, quid sit honestum;
Quae bona, quae mala item, quid inutile, turpe, inhonestum;
Virtus quaerendae rei finem scire modumque:
Virtus divitiis pretium persolvere posse:
Virtus id dare quod re ipsa debetur honori:
Hostem esse atque inimicum hominum morumque malorum,
Contra defensorem hominum morumque bonorum,
Hos magnifacere, his bene velle, his vivere amicum;
Commoda praeterea patriae sibi prima putare,
Deinde parentum, tertia jam postremaque nostra.
If there is no great originality of thought nor rhetorical grace
of expression in this passage, it proves that Lucilius judged of
Nunc vero a mane ad noctem, festo atque profesto,
Toto itidem pariterque die, populusque patresque
Iactare indu foro se omnes, decedere nusquam,
Uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti,
Verba dare ut caute possint, pugnare dolose,
Blanditia certare, bonum simulare virum se
Insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes.
serious, rapid, and full of vital force, but careless, redundant,
At dixi fluere hunc lutulentum.
in elegance and finish, and to Plautus in rich and humorous
Terra abit in nimbos imbresque,
Parcentis viribus atque
Extenuantis eas consulto.
frequent imitation. He made him his model, in regard both to form
But if we cannot altogether account for, we may yet partially
controversy with the view of damaging an adversary and making
either himself or the cause he represented appear ridiculous and
Ridiculum acri
Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res,
But Lucilius had much more than this power of personal raillery,
Hinc omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus.
His fragments show familiarity with Homer, with the works of the
Greek physical and ethical philosophers, with the systems of the
rhetoricians, and some acquaintance with the writings of Plato,
Hominem pagina nostra sapit.
but rather, as he himself said, 'for Tarentines, Consentini, and
Sicilians.' There was nothing about him of the fastidiousness and
Scilicet uni aequus virtuti atque eius amicis.
Etsi eiusmodi cives (scil. Cleonem, Cleophontem, Hyperbolum)
a censore melius est, quam a poeta notari ... iudiciis enim
magistratuum, disceptationibus legitimis propositam vitam, non
poetarum ingeniis habere debemus; nec probrum audire nisi ea
lege ut respondere liceat et iudicio defendere.]
Imperial Rome: believe me the people of Mars is too critical:
nowhere are there greater sneers; young men and old and even
boys have the nose of a rhinoceros.']
Spain seems to be confirmed by a line in one of his Satires:--
Publiu' Pavu' mihi [        ] quaestor Hibera
In terra fuit, lucifugus, nebulo, id genu' sane.]
Quo facetior videare et scire plus quam caeteri
Pertisum hominem, non pertaesum dices.
The comment of Festus shows that these words were addressed by
Iucundasque puer qui lamberat ore placentas.
One of many lines imitated and almost reproduced by Horace.]
me, since you are of the fashion of most men now, and would
rather that the man whom you did not choose to visit, when
you ought, had died. If you don't like this "nolueris"
and "debueris," because it is the trick of Isocrates, and
altogether nonsensical and puerile, I don't waste my time on
the matter.' This passage illustrates two characteristics of
Lucilius--his habit of mixing Greek with Latin words, and the
attention he bestowed on technical rules of style.]
Nunc mihi curto
Ire licet mulo, vel, si libet, usque Tarentum,
Mantica cui lumbos onere ulceret, atque eques armos.]
Promontorium remis superamu' Minervae.--
Hinc media remis Palinurum pervenio nox.--
Tertius hic mali superat decumanis fluctibus--carchesia summa.]
Haud ita pridem
Galloni praeconis erat acipensere mensa
Quo fit ut omnis
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
Vita senis.]
Secuit Lucilius urbem--
Primores populi arripuit populumque tributim--
Non ridet versus Enni gravitate minores--?]
Mihi quidem non persuadetur publiceis mutem meos.
Publicanu' vero ut Asiae fiam scriptuarius
Pro Lucilio, id ego nolo, et uno hoc non muto omnia.
Otia divitiis Arabum liberrima muto.]
Quodque te in tranquillum ex saevis transfers tempestatibus.]
Nam si quod satis est homini, id satis esse potisset,
Hoc sat erat; nam cum hoc non est, qui credimu' porro
Divitias ullas animum mi explere potisse.]
Nulli me invidere: non strabonem fieri saepius
Deliciis me istorum.]
O lapathe, ut iactare nec es sati cognitu' qui sis--
Quod sumptum atque epulas victu praeponis honesto.]
Munifici comesque amicis nostris videamur viri--
Sic amici quaerunt animum, rem parasiti ac ditias.
Among the friends of Lucilius, besides Scipio and Laelius,
were Aelius Stilo, Albinus, and Granius, whom Cicero quotes
for his wit.]
Querquera consequitur capitisque dolores
Infesti mihi.--
Si tam corpu' loco validum ac regione maneret.
Scriptoris quam vera manet sententia cordi.]
Verum haec ludus ibi susque omnia deque fuerunt,
Susque et deque fuere, inquam, omnia ludu' iocusque.]
Et saepe quod ante
Optasti, freta Messanae, Regina videbis
Quantum haurire animus Musarum ec fontibu' gestit.]
Cum sciam nil esse in vita proprium mortali datum
Iam qua tempestate vivo chresin ad me recipio.
Cf. Vitaque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu.]
Peccare impune rati sunt
Posse et nobilitate procul propellere iniquos.]
Hostiliu' contra
Pestem permitiemque catax quam et Maniu' nobis.]
mihi propter eam causam minus quam volebat familiaris, sed
tamen et doctus et perurbanus.
Aut laeso doluere Metello
Famosisque Lupo cooperto versibus?
Secuit Lucilius urbem,
Te Lupe, te Muci, et genuinum fregit in illis.]
sine acerbitate dissensio.]
luxuria civitatem laborare.--Livy, xxxiv. 4.]
thou art a miserable man, says he; never in thy life hast thou
supped well, since thou spendest all thy substance in that
lobster of thine and that monstrous sturgeon.'
'This too is the case at dinner, you will give oysters, bought
at a thousand sesterces.'
'Sardines and fish-sauce are your death, O Lupus.'
'Long live, ye gluttons, gourmands, belly-gods.'
'One was attracted by sow-teats and a dish of fatted fowls;
another by a gourmandising pike caught between the two
bridges.'
'Then he wiped the ample table with a purple cloth.'
The two last passages are reproduced by Horace in the lines:--
Unde datum sentis, lupus hic Tiberinus, an alto
Captus hiet, pontesne inter iactatus, an amnis
Gausape purpureo mensam pertersit.--Ib. ii. 8. 11.]
Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops, etc.]
Furei cui neque servus est neque arca, etc.]
attendant; he carries about him his purse and all his money;
with his purse he sleeps, dines, bathes--his whole hopes
centre in his purse; this purse is fastened to his arm.']
support of the Oppian law: 'An blandiores in publico quam in
privato, et alienis quam vestris estis?']
the Fauni and Numa Pompilius fill him with terror; he believes
anything of them. As children suppose that statues of brass
are real and living men, so they fancy all these delusions to
be real: they believe that there is understanding in brazen
images: mere painter's blocks, no reality, all a delusion.'
Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
Nocturnos lemures portentaque Thessala rides?]
rather than a Roman or Sabine, a fellow-countryman of the
Centurions, Pontius, Tritannius, excellent, first-rate men,
and our standard-bearers. Accordingly, I, as praetor of
Athens, when you approach me, greet you, as you wished to be
greeted. "Chaere," I say, Titus; my lictors, escort, staff,
address you with "Chaere." Hence you are to me a public and
private enemy.']
clariorque tunc in poematis corum obtrectandis Lucilius fuit.]
Ego enim contemnificus fieri et fastidire Agamemnona.--
Di monerint meliora, amentiam averruncassint tuam.--
Hic cruciatur fame,
Frigore, inluvie, inperfundie, inbalnite, incuria.--
Nunc ignobilitas his mirum, taetrum, ac monstrificabile--
Dividant, differant, dissipent, distrahant.]
Verum tristis contorto aliquo ex Pacuviano exordio.
And this from another book of Satires:--
Ransuro tragicus qui carmina perdit Oreste.
Among the phrases of Ennius at which Lucilius carped was one
which Virgil did not disdain to adopt. The passage of the old
Hastis longis campus splendet et horret,--
parodied by the Satirist in the form 'horret et alget,' was
justified by being reproduced in the Virgilian phrase,
Tum late ferreus hastis
Horret ager.]
their true worth to the things on which we are engaged, among
which we live. The virtue of a man is to understand the real
meaning of each thing: to understand what is right, useful,
honourable for him; what things are good, what bad, what is
unprofitable, base, dishonourable; to know the due limit and
measure in making money; to give its proper worth to wealth;
to assign what is really due to office; to be a foe and enemy
of bad men and bad principles; to stand by good men and good
principles; to extol the good, to wish them well, to be their
friend through life. Lastly, it is true worth to look on our
country's weal as the chief good; next to that, the weal of
our parents; third and last, our own weal.']
work-day, the whole day alike, common people and senators
are bustling about within the Forum, never quitting it--all
devoting themselves to the same practice and trick of wary
word-fencing, fighting craftily, vying with each other in
politeness, assuming airs of virtue, plotting against each
other as if all were enemies.']
(1) Quantum haurire animus Musarum ec fontibu' gestit.
(2) Cum sciam nil esse in vita proprium mortali datum
Iam qua tempestate vivo, chresin ad me recipio.
(3) Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena
Vivere et esse homines, sic istic omnia ficta
Vera putant.
Virgil's 'rex ipse Phanaeus' is said by Servius to be imitated
from the [Greek: Chios te dynastes] of Lucilius. Other
imitations are pointed out in Macrobius and in Servius. An
apparent imitation by Catullus has been already noticed.]
Detrahere et pellem nitidus qua quisque per ora
cederet, introrsum turpis.]
The poetic literature reviewed in the last five chapters is the
product of the second century B.C. The latest writers of any
importance belonging to the earlier period of the poetry of the
Like nearly all the literary men of later times, these poets were
off from an active public career, served to turn their energies
pleasant sea-shore of Caieta. Accius seems to have possessed
a country farm, and Lucilius showed something of a wandering
disposition, and possessed the means to gratify it. But most of
these writers were men of moderate means; nor had it then become
the practice of the patrons of literature to bestow farms or
country-houses on their friends. By their circumstances, as well
as the general taste of their time, they were thus brought almost
sense and understanding than by the passionate or contemplative
It is remarkable that nearly all the early poets lived to a great
But perhaps the most important condition determining the original
In this era, more than in any later age, the poetry of Rome, like
This general popularity is an argument in favour of the original
spirit animating this early literature. It implies the power of
influences. Latin comedy, indeed, was a more purely cosmopolitan
product. The plays of Terence especially would affect those who
listened to them simply as men and not as Roman citizens. But the
of life, explain the absence of any, except the most superficial,
The political condition of Rome in the second century B.C. is
reflected in the changes through which her literature passed. For
the first years of the century, while they reflect the political
productiveness than their literary successors. They were like
the settlers in a new country, who are spared the pains of exact
contrast between the standard aimed at, and the results attained
by the sincerest literary force in two different eras of Roman
literature, is brought home to the mind by contrasting the rude
fragments of the lost works of Ennius, embodying the results of a
Arido modo pumice expolitum.
The style of the early poets was marked by haste, harshness, and
redundance, occasionally by verbal conceits and similar errors of
literature was cultivated to beguile the tedium of compulsory
the natural deficiency of the Romans in the higher dramatic and
speculative genius, the rhetorical element entered largely into
of oratory, such as the fierce invective, the lashing ridicule,
Historical composition also took its rise at Rome at this period.
metrical Epistles of Horace.
This era also saw the beginning of the critical and grammatical
its literary development, that reflection on the principles of
composition, efforts to form the language into a more certain and
The accomplished art of the last age of the Republic and of the
Quom illis placet,
Qui vobis univorsis et populo placent,
Quorum opera in bello, in otio, in negotio
Suo quisque tempore usust sine superbia.]
Ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias.]
An interval of nearly half a century elapsed between the death of
Lucretius. The first attempts to introduce the erotic poetry of
Alexandria, in the form of epigrams and short lyrical poems,
also belong to this period. The writers of this new kind of
poetry,--Valerius Aedituus, Q. Lutatius Catulus (the Colleague of
author of Erotopaegnia, have significance only as indicating the
his townsman Marius. His hexameters show considerable advance in
is not to be ranked among the poets of Rome. He merely practised
The period of nearly half a century, from 102 till about 60 B.C.,
growth of culture and with the increasing bitterness of political
pleasure--it had the merit of being the sincere expression of men
the peculiarity of Latin literature that this perfection or high
accomplishment was reached in prose sooner than in poetry. The
oppidis, et hic Romae propter tranquillitatem reipublicae non
contact of the Greek with the Roman mind came about, not as the
literature, to make the individual more conscious of himself, and
admiration of a particular manner of writing fostered the spirit
of literary coteries as distinct from the spirit of a national
Carmina, picturas, et daedala signa;
Musaea mele per chordas organici quae
Mobilibus digitis expergefacta figurant.
The delicate appreciation of the paintings, statues, gems, vases,
calling forth the ideal of literary form, realised in some of the
As the bent given to philosophical and literary studies developed
the pleasures of the contemplative life began to exercise a novel
beyond anything which had yet found expression in literature of
the fellow-feeling which unites man not only to humanity but to
all sentient existence. The taste, so congenial to the Italian,
The dissolution of traditional beliefs and of the old loyalty to
Catullus, on the other hand, was the most successful among a band
being 'referta contumeliis Caesarum.' Among others to whom he was
Saecli incommoda, pessimi poetae,--
While so much of the literature of that age has perished, we are
and passionate ardour of the Italian temperament and of its vivid
Commentary on Lucretius, illustrates this relation of the work
of the poet to this youthful production of Cicero.]
Et cycnea mele Phoebeaque daedala chordis
Carmina consimili ratione oppressa silerent.
These lines point to the union of music and lyrical poetry.]
Lactantius, etc. by W.S. Teuffel, Wagner's Translation, p.
with Volusius from the passage in Seneca, Ep. 93. 11,
'Annales Tanusii scis quam ponderosi sint et quid vocentur,'
There is, however, this further difficulty in identifying them,
that there is no apparent reason why Catullus should in his case
have deviated from his invariable practice of speaking of the
objects of his satire by their own names. Cf. Schmidt, Catullus,
Prolegomena, p. xlvi.]
It is in keeping with the isolated and independent position which
prevented his speaking of himself and telling his own history, as
The well-known statement of Jerome is to this effect,--'The poet
Lucretius was born in the year 94 B.C. He became mad from the
be interested in his fate, the sensational character of the story
credulity than with experience. The supposition that the poem, or
it would have been quite in accordance with the principles of his
the mind by apparitions seen in dreams and waking visions. 'The
a love-philtre. The coincidence in these recorded cases may imply
any considerable portion of the poem was written 'per intervalla
insaniae,' or that the disorder from which the poet suffered was
actually the effect of a love-philtre.
Euphorionis_ (Tusc. III. 45). Their _ars_ seemed to Cicero almost
Sed tua me virtus tamen et sperata voluptas
Suavis amicitiae--.
While Lucretius pays the tribute of admiration to the literary
Republic this tone could only be assumed to a member of the
year 57 B.C., the poets Helvius Cinna and Catullus, on his staff
Nec Memmi clara propago
Talibus in rebus communi deesse saluti--
This relation to Memmius is the only additional fact which an
in absorption in his subject. But his strong personal force and
Quae belle tangere possunt
Auris et lepido quae sunt fucata sonore.
The tone of many passages in the poem clearly indicates that
Sanguine civili rem conflant, etc.--
recall the thought and spectacle of crime and bloodshed vividly
presented to him in the impressible years of his youth. Other
be suggested by the action of what is sometimes called the first
triumvirate. The lines--
Si non forte tuas legiones per loca campi, etc.--
have been noted as a probable allusion to the position actually
Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
Noctes atque dies niti praestante labore
Ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri,--
have a resemblance to words directly applied by Cicero to Caesar,
action and social pleasure, deliberately chose the life of
stage by the awnings of the theatre, of the works of art adorning
observed by himself or at least had been verified in his own
Palantis comites cum montis inter opacos
Quaerimus et magna dispersos voce ciemus,--
Nam loca declarat sursum ventosa patere
Res ipsa et sensus, montis cum ascendimus altos.
Propter aquae rivum sub ramis arboris altae,--
'Is fraught too deep with pain,'
'And thou hast pleasures too to share
With those who come to thee,
Balms floating on thy mountain air
And healing sights to see.'
medicine of his philosophy into the minds and hearts of unwilling
by man, that impart to his words the peculiar tone of impassioned
Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
Trita solo--
moved Virgil less powerfully in speaking of his humbler theme--
Sed me Parnassi deserta per ardua dulcis
Raptat amor;
and inspired the English poet in his great invocation:--
'I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
The sense of difficulty and the joy of overcoming it meet us with
Ardua dum metuunt amittunt vera viai.
Without disowning the passion for fame,--'laudis spes magna,' so
Conquisita diu dulcique reperta labore
Digna tua pergam disponere carmina cura:
Nunc age dicta meo dulci quaesita labore
Tuisque ex, inclute, chartis,
Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,
Omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta.
Multaque de rerum mixtura dicere callent
Et sibi proporro quae sint primordia quaerunt;
Nos agere hoc autem et naturam quaerere rerum
Semper et inventam patriis exponere chartis.
ends, the emancipation and elevation of human life. The life of
'The human heart by which we live.'
His high intellectual confidence, based on his firm trust in his
Clarus ob obscuram linguam magis inter inanis
Quamde gravis inter Graios qui vera requirunt.
Deus ille fuit, deus, inclute Memmi.
He speaks of his master throughout not only with the affection of
sacred associations, most passionate longings, and profoundest
affections.
Nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus unquam,
was obviously taken from the lines of the old poem [Greek: peri
ek tou gar me eontos amechanon esti genesthai
to t' eon exollysthai anenyston kai aprekton.]
Nil tamen hoc habuisse viro praeclarius in se
Nec sanctum magis et mirum carumque videtur.
Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris eius
Vociferantur et exponunt praeclara reperta,
Ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus.
thinker in modern as in ancient days:--
pauron de zoes abiou meros athresantes
hokymoroi, kapnoio diken arthentes apeptan,
auto monon peisthentes, hoto prosekursen hekastos,
pantos' elaunomenoi; to d' oulon epeuchetai heurein
autos. out' epiderkta tad' andrasin out' epakousta
oute noo perilepta.]
Miscetur funere vagor
Quem pueri tollunt visentis luminis oras:
Nec nox ulla diem neque noctem aurora secutast
Quae non audierit mixtos vagitibus aegris
Ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri.
Besides Epicurus and Empedocles Lucretius mentions Democritus and
and truth than the Pythia from the tripod and laurel of Apollo.'
expression and musical verse.
Adde repertores doctrinarum atque leporum,
Adde Heliconiadum comites; quorum unus Homerus
Sceptra potitus eadem aliis sopitu' quietest.
The passages in which Lucretius imitates him show how clearly
he recognised his exact vision of outward things, and his true
writers of the great days of Greece, and acknowledges no debt to
temperament and genius he bore a certain resemblance. Many lines,
Per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret,--
Lumina sis oculis etiam bonus Ancu' reliquit,--
inde super terras fluit agmine dulci,--
Scipiadas, belli fulmen, Carthaginis horror,--
Nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo,--
'Power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence.'
But while by his silence on the subject of national glory and his
of men. In his fortitude, his superiority to human weakness, his
absolute sincerity and his unswerving devotion to truth. He
Schmidt's Catullus, attempts to show by an examination of the
dates assigned for the birth of Lucretius, that he was born in
we have is that he died on the day in which Virgil assumed
the _toga virilis_, and that was in the second consulship of
Pompey and Crassus, i.e. 55 B.C. Besides both tradition and
internal evidence lead to the conclusion that his poem was not
given to the world till after his death, and it certainly had
been read by both the Ciceros early in 54 B.C. F. Marx in the
Rheinisches Museum, 'de aetate Lucretii,' holds that he was
born in 97 B.C., and died in his 42nd year, B.C. 55. He makes
a more important contribution to the controversy in the remark
'acceptissima vero Enniana Lucretii poesis fuisse putanda est
Ciceroni.' Whether Lucretius died in his 44th or 42nd year
cannot be of much consequence to anybody; and, in the
general uncertainty of Jerome's dates, it seems impossible to
determine it one way or other.]
of 'Epicureanism' writes, in reference to the way in which
Epicurus himself was regarded in a later age, 'And the
maladies of Epicurus are treated as an anticipatory judgment
of Heaven upon him for his alleged impieties.'--Epicureanism,
of his essays.]
Atque eadem nobis vigilantibus obvia mentes
Terrificant atque in somnis, cum saepe figuras
Contuimur miras simulacraque luce carentum,
Quae nos horrifice languentis saepe sopore
Excierunt, ne forte animas Acherunte reamur
Effugere aut umbras inter vivos volitare.]
September, 1878, on 'Hallucination of the Senses,' suggests
a possible explanation of the mental condition of Lucretius,
during the composition of some part of his work. The writer
speaks of the power of calling these hallucinations up as
being quite consistent with perfect sanity of mind, but as
sometimes inducing madness. He goes on, 'Or, if the person
does not go out of his mind, he may be so distressed by the
persistence of the apparition which he has created, as to fall
into melancholy and despair, and even to commit suicide.']
was the editor may possibly be true. He dabbled in poetry
himself, and he was more nearly of the same age as Lucretius,
and thus perhaps more likely to have been a friend of his.
The fact that Cicero's remark is in answer to one of his might
suggest the opinion that the poem had been read by him before
it became known to the older brother, and perhaps been sent
by him to Cicero. But if Q. Cicero was the editor, Jerome must
here also have copied his authorities carelessly. In the
time of Jerome the familiar name of Cicero must have been
understood as applying to the great orator and philosophic
writer, not to his comparatively obscure brother. The only
certain inference which can be drawn from this mention of the
poem is that it had been read, shortly after its appearance,
in the beginning of the year 54 B.C., by both brothers. Yet
the consideration of the whole case does not lead to the
rejection of the statement that M. Cicero was the editor as
incredible, or even as highly improbable. If it was he, he
must have performed his task very perfunctorily. Possibly, as
Mr. Munro suggests, all that he may have been asked to do was
to introduce the work to the public by the use of his name.
The actual revision and arrangement of the poem may have been
made by one of the 'librarii' of Atticus.]
sentence--'Quae quidem cogitans soleo saepe admirari non
nullorum insolentiam philosophorum qui naturae cognitionem
admirantur, eiusque inventori et principi gratias exultantes
agunt eumque venerantur ut deum.']
same' is not uncommon in the colloquial language of Terence,
which the language of Cicero's familiar letters closely
resembles.]
of age--the same age as Lucretius, if, as is most probable, he
xunethesan epi to prosagogoteron te akroasei e
At non multa virum sub signis milia ducta
Una dies dabat exitio, etc.--
might well be a reminiscence of the great massacre at the
Colline gate.]
fuisset, si eum magnitudo contentionis, studium gloriae,
praestans animus, excellens nobilitas aliquo impulisset.'--In
observation, he uses such expressions as _memorant_;
Ardua dum metuunt amittunt vera viai,
Avia Pieridum peragro loca.]
of things, and enquire moreover, what are their own first
earnestly, to be enquiring into Nature, and explaining my
discoveries in writings in my native tongue.' This is one of
those passages which seem to indicate an unhealthy overstrain
which may have been the precursor of the final disturbance of
'his power to shape.']
expressions occur.]
suggested by a passage in the Laws:--[Greek: gennontas te kai
ektrephontas paidas, kathaper lampada ton bion paradidontas
allois ex allon]--and the lines which recur several times,
etc. 'Nam veluti pueri trepidant,' which Mr. Munro aptly
compares with the words in the Phaedo (77), [Greek: isos eni
tis kai en hemin pais, hostis ta toiauta phobeitai.]]
His ibi me rebus quaedam divina voluptas
Percipit adque horror.]
to have possessed, nor aught more holy, more wonderful, or
more beloved. Yea, too, strains of divine genius proclaim
aloud and make known his great discoveries, so that he seems
that is indeed no life, speedily fulfilling their doom, they
vanish away like a smoke, convinced of that only which each
hath met in his own experience, as they were buffeted about to
and fro. Vainly doth each boast to have discovered the whole.
The eye cannot behold it, nor the ear hear it, nor the mind of
man comprehend it.']
of infants newly born into the light. And no night hath ever
followed day, no morning dawned on night, but hath heard the
mingled sounds of feeble infant wailings and of lamentations
that follow the dead and black funeral train.'--ii. 576-80.]
age was saturated with cant.' Perhaps, to that condition of
the age we, in part, owe one of the sincerest protests
against cant, and unreality of every kind, ever written.
Both speculatively and practically Cicero appears at a great
disadvantage when compared with Lucretius in these respects.]
in verse. The prosaic title of the poem, 'De rerum natura,'--a
Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus et artis
Religionum animum nodis exsolvere pergo,
Deinde quod obscura de re tam lucida pango
Carmina, musaeo contingens cuncta lepore.
We have, accordingly, to examine the poem in three different
grandeur to the interpretation of Nature and of human life, on
which the permanent value of the poem depends. Thus, although the
only slowly been revealed to the patient labours and combined
investigations of many generations of enquirers.
special applications of that doctrine, which formed part of the
human life, and, especially, to emancipate it from the terrors of
constitution and condition of our souls and bodies, of the means
knowledge in the room of ignorance on these questions, it is
Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest
Non radii solis neque lucida tela diei
Discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans,--
the cause of ignorance, degradation, and misery,--are vividly
personified and presented in close contrast with one another. The
theories are discussed. Lucretius, following Epicurus, adopts the
substances were the 'atoms and the void'--[Greek: atoma kai
kenon]. After the invocation and the address to Memmius, and the
representation of the universal tyranny exercised by superstition
Nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus unquam.
The apprehension of this principle--a principle common to all the
capricious. The regularity of Nature subsists--
Materies quia rebus reddita certast
Gignundis e qua constat quid possit oriri.
Corporibus caecis igitur natura gerit res.
Ergo praeter inane et corpora tertia per se
Nulla potest rerum in numero natura relinqui.
All material bodies are either elemental substances or compounded
Sunt igitur solida primordia simplicitate
Quae minimis stipata cohaerent partibus arte,
Non ex illarum conventu conciliata,
Sed magis aeterna pollentia simplicitate,
Unde neque avelli quicquam neque deminui iam
Concedit natura reservans semina rebus.
The argument starts anew at line 920, and it is shown that the
The second book opens with an impressive passage, in which the
Unde ubi qua vi et quo pacto congressa coibunt
Materiae tanto in pelago turbaque aliena?
Sic aequo geritur certamine principiorum
Ex infinito contractum tempore bellum.
Further, the great diversity in Nature is to be accounted for by
existing things differ from one another in consequence of the
Immortalia si volumus subiungere rebus
Fundamenta quibus nitatur summa salutis;
Ne tibi res redeant ad nilum funditus omnes.
Further, although they are the origin of all living and sentient
are capable only of certain combinations with one another. These
combinations have been brought about by perpetual motion, through
The third book treats of the nature of the mind, and of the vital
The mind and the vital principle are parts of the man as much as
the hands, feet, or any other members. The mind is the directing
Quod simul atque hominem leti secura quies est
Indepta atque animi natura animaeque recessit,
Nil ibi libatum de toto corpore cernas
Ad speciem, nil ad pondus: mors omnia praestat
Vitalem praeter sensum calidumque vaporem.
imagining the state of the soul as existing independently of the
origin of the universal belief in the existence of the souls of
Non modo enim ratio ruat omnis, vita quoque ipsa
Concidat extemplo, nisi credere sensibus ausis.
Images that are too fine to act on the senses sometimes directly
Morte obita quorum tellus amplectitur ossa,--
appear, and give rise to the belief in the existence of ghosts.
Nil ideo quoniam natumst in corpore ut uti
Possemus, sed quod natumst id procreat usum.
The object of the fifth book is to explain the formation of our
As the parts of our system,--earth, water, air, and heat,--are
perishable, and constantly passing through processes of decay and
an end. There must at last be an end of the long war between the
contending elements.
The world came into existence as the result not of design, but
of every variety of combination in the elemental atoms throughout
self-preservation against others, or were useful to man, and so
Et Venus inminuit viris puerique parentum
Blanditiis facile ingenium fregere superbum.
The last source of superstition is our ignorance of the causes of
Praesertim rebus in illis
Quae supera caput aetheriis cernuntur in oris.
account of the blessed state of the Gods than that given at iii.
The practical purpose of the poem--the overthrow of
Tu mihi supremae praescribta ad candida calcis, etc.
Usque adeo largos haustus e fontibu' magnis
Lingua meo suavis diti de pectore fundet;--
It was also part of the author's design to enunciate his deepest
thoughts on the Gods, on Nature, and on human life in more highly
places which he designed them to occupy. Such are, especially,
the introductions to the first, second, and third books, and the
didactic poem of Lucretius and the Aeneid of Virgil were left
The poem, though incomplete in regard to the arrangement of its
illustrious modern critic has said, that 'the greatest didactic
poem in any language was written in defence of the silliest and
ancient science, it enables us to appreciate the disinterested
premises, method, and results.
Invenies primis ab sensibus esse creatam
Notitiam veri neque sensus posse refelli.
But besides the direct action of outward things on the senses, he
apprehension or intuition of the mind (iniectus animi) into
things beyond the cognisance of sense. Thus there is no
actual inconsistency with his principles in claiming the power of
Omnis enim longe nostris ab sensibus infra
Primorum natura iacet.
difficulty is encountered at the outset of this as of all other
Nam cur tam variae res possint esse requiro,
Ex uno si sunt igni puroque creatae.
by the help of the atoms of Democritus, as by the watery element
'genitalia corpora,' really indicate a creative capacity in these
At primordia gignundis in rebus oportet
Naturam clandestinam caecamque adhibere.
In his statement of the doctrine of the _Clinamen_, or slight
themselves in order, or how from their negative properties all
he trusts too implicitly to their guidance through all his daring
imagination, as through the 'lucida tela' of the reason.
Undique quandoquidem per caulas aetheris omnis
Et quasi per magni circum spiracula mundi
Exitus introitusque elementis redditus extat.
Of the growth of plants and herbage it is said--
Ut pluma atque pili primum saetaeque creantur
Quadripedum membris et corpore pennipotentum,
Sic nova tum tellus herbas virgultaque primum
Sustulit, inde loci mortalia saecla creavit.
Tam magis expressus salsus de corpore sudor
Augebat mare manando camposque natantis.
Quoniam nec venae perpetiuntur
Quod satis est neque quantum opus est natura ministrat.
As a necessary result of a system of natural philosophy based on
assumptions, largely illustrated indeed, but not corroborated by
Namque alid ex alio clarescet nec tibi caeca
Nox iter eripiet quin ultima naturai
Pervideas: ita res accendent lumina rebus,
conclusions. The science which satisfied Epicurus was on
astronomical and meteorological questions behind that attained by
the resources of experiment and of scientific method built upon
experiment.
or Anaxagoras, escapes our notice in the more familiar studies
of classical literature. The work of Lucretius reminds us of the
intensity of thought and feeling, the clearness and minuteness of
carried on. In some respects the general ignorance of the times
supplants the place of previous error or ignorance, and can be
a rigorous study of its details. He does not, like Virgil, merely
To the general reader there is another aspect, in which it is
vitally affecting the position of man in the world, which are
Impia te rationis inire elementa viamque
Indugredi sceleris,
Immortalia mortali sermone notantes.
The views of Lucretius as to the natural origin of life, and the
and consequent denial of immortality,--and his utilitarianism in
morals,--all present striking parallels to the opinions of one of
Scilicet haec aliis praedae lucroque iacebant
Indupedita suis fatalibus omnia vinclis,
Donec ad interitum genus id natura redegit.
The attempt to trace the origin of all supernatural belief to the
But altogether apart from the truth and falsehood, the right and
the 'vivida vis animi.' The freshness of feeling and vividness of
Mente vigenti
Avia Pieridum peragro loca,
are as remarkable in the processes of his intellect as of his
imagination.
the capacity of unfolding it and marshalling all his arguments in
This vigour of understanding is displayed in many processes of
His system cannot be called either purely inductive or purely
deductive, though it is more of the former than of the latter. He
The vigour with which he reasons from known to unknown facts and
qualities, such as beauty, strength, and power of mind, in the
the effect of various combinations of the same letters in forming
E thuris glaebis evellere odorem
Haud facile est quin intereat natura quoque eius.
immensity of the universe led him to contemplate the largest and
Denique fluctifrago suspensae in litore vestes
curiosity of a naturalist, as well as the sympathetic feeling and
Errant saepe canes itaque et vestigia quaerunt.
How happily their characteristics are struck off in the line--
At levisomna canum fido cum pectore corda.
The various cries and habits of birds are often observed and
described, as--
Et validis cycni torrentibus ex Heliconis
Cum liquidam tollunt lugubri voce querellam;
and again--
Parvus ut est cycni melior canor ille gruum quam
Clamor in aetheriis dispersus nubibus austri.
The description of sea-birds,
Mergique marinis
Fluctibus in salso victum vitamque petentes,
tanyglossoi te koronai
einaliai tesin te thalassia erga memelen.]
His lively personal observation and active interest in the casual
Cum lubrica serpens
Exuit in spinis vestem; nam saepe videmus
Illorum spoliis vepres volitantibus auctas.
madness that overtakes the mind--
Adde furorem animi proprium atque oblivia rerum,
Adde quod in nigras lethargi mergitur undas;
the bodily waste, produced by long-continuous speaking--
Perpetuus sermo nigrai noctis ad umbram
Aurorae perductus ab exoriente nitore;
observation of a physician, as well as the profound thought of a
moralist.
The 'vivida vis' of his understanding is apparent also in the
clearness and consecutiveness of his philosophical style. His
Quam Grai memorant nec nostra dicere lingua
Concedit nobis patrii sermonis egestas.
Lucretius has occasionally to meet the first difficulty by the
of contemplation, which were hidden from the mass of their
(1) In the philosophy of Lucretius the world is conceived as
absolutely under the government of law. The starting-point of his
Nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus unquam,
Unde refert nobis victor quid possit oriri,
Quid nequeat, finita potestas denique cuique
Quanam sit ratione atque alte terminus haerens.
Following on his steps the poet himself professes to teach--
Quo quaeque creata
Foedere sint, in eo quam sit durare necessum,
Nec validas valeant aevi rescindere leges.
In another place he says--
Et quid quaeque queant per foedera naturai
Quid porro nequeant, sancitum quandoquidem extat.
Certum ac dispositumst ubi quicquit crescat et insit.
majesty and order of the universe. The doctrine proclaimed by
Lucretius was, that creation was no result of a capricious or
benevolent exercise of power, but of certain processes extending
are opposed to the 'foedera fati.' The idea of law in Nature, as
understood by Lucretius, is not, necessarily, inconsistent with
Libera continuo dominis privata superbis.
Illud in his rebus videor firmare potesse,
Usque adeo naturarum vestigia linqui
Parvola, quae nequeat ratio depellere nobis
Ut nil inpediat dignam dis degere vitam.
From these high places of his philosophy,--'the "templa serena"
well-bulwarked by the learning of the wise' he derives not only a
Haud igitur penitus pereunt quaecumque videntur,
Quando alid ex alio reficit natura nec ullam
Rem gigni patitur nisi morte adiuta aliena?
Sic aequo geritur certamine principiorum
Ex infinito contractum tempore bellum.
and life, support the existing creation in unceasing harmony. The
Nunc hinc nunc illic superant vitalia rerum,
Et superantur item.
the [Greek: eris] and [Greek: philia] which to the imagination of
Cedit enim rerum novitate extrusa vetustas.
'New nations wax strong, while the old are waning away; the
Inque brevi spatio mutantur saecla animantum
Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.
Sic alid ex alio numquam desistet oriri
Vitaque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu.
Hinc alitur porro nostrum genus atque ferarum,
Hinc laetas urbes pueris florere videmus,
Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas.
stream along the channel first formed for them--
Inde super terras fluit agmine dulci
Qua via secta semel liquido pede detulit undas.
Denique tantopere inter se cum maxima mundi
Pugnent membra, pio nequaquam concita bello,
Nonne vides aliquam longi certaminis ollis
Posse dari finem? vel cum sol et vapor omnis
Omnibus epotis umoribus exsuperarint;
Quod facere intendunt, neque adhuc conata patrantur.
Et videas caelum summai totius unum
Quam sit parvula pars et quam multesima constet
Atque omne immensum peragravit mente animoque.
Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi
Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas.
Degitur hoc aevi quodcumquest,
It rather elevates him and fortifies him to suppress all personal
number, they are also varied in kind and powerful in solid
Invenies tamen inter se differre figuris.
creative forces most powerfully active. The varied loveliness of
more general conception of Nature. What then is involved in this
atheistic. But the sense of will, freedom, individual life, is so
This new and more vital conception which supersedes the old
Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas,
The mysterious power there addressed is identified with the Alma
poetry,--the concrete and passionate conception of the beauty and
Caeli subter labentia signa
Quae mare navigerum quae terras frugiferentis
She is not only omnipresent, but all-creative,--
Per te quoniam genus omne animantum
and all-regulative--
Quae quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas, etc.
Quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem.
and by the gift of a Power which he cannot command. Like Goethe,
But still true to his philosophy, and remembering the Empedoclean
Tibi rident aequora ponti
Placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum;--
But this puissant and joy-giving energy, personified in the 'Alma
rather in the position of a task-mistress than of a beneficent
Omnia suppeditat porro Natura,--
Quando omnibus omnia large
Tellus ipsa parit Naturaque daedala rerum.
Denique si vocem rerum Natura repente, etc.
Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam
Opterit et pulchros fascis saevasque secures
Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur.
It is this large conception of Nature which seems to bring the
abstract doctrines of Lucretius into harmony with his poetical
feelings and his human sensibilities. The poetry of the living
world is thus breathed into the dry bones of the Atomic system of
omnipotence,'--in the world. As the imagination of Lucretius is
immeasurably more poetical, so is his spirit immeasurably more
reverential than that of Epicurus. If by the analysis of his
argument, and because I set the mind free from the close-drawn
bonds of superstition; and next because, on so dark a theme, I
compose such lucid verse, touching every point with the grace
associated, very little is known.]
darkness must be dispelled, not by the rays of the sun or the
bright shafts of day, but by the outward aspect and harmonious
singleness, composed of the smallest particles in close and
compact union, not kept together by any meeting of these
particles, but rather powerful by their eternal singleness,
from which nature allows no loss by violence or decay, storing
substance, at the basis of all things, on which the safety of
the whole universe rests, lest you find creation resolved into
upon a man, and the mind and the life have departed from him,
there is no loss in his whole frame to be perceived, either in
appearance or in weight. Death still presents everything that
was before, except the vital sense and the warm heat.'--iii.
even life itself would immediately be overthrown, unless you
in order that we might be able to put it to use, but what has
by their coaxing ways, easily broke down the proud temper of
In quae corpora si nullus tibi forte videtur
Posse animi iniectus fieri, procul avius erras.--ii. 739-40.]
act of creation, should exercise some secret, invisible
of aether, and, as it were, all round through the
breathing-places of the mighty world, a free exit and entrance
formed on the limbs of beasts and the bodies of birds, so the
young earth then first bore herbs and plants, afterwards gave
birth to the generations of living things.'--v. 788-91.]
salt body, increased the sea and the moving watery plains by
nourishment, nor does Nature supply what is needful.'--ii.
nor shall the darkness of night make thee lose thy way, before
thou seest, to the full, the furthest secrets of Nature: so
shall all things throw light one on the other.'--i. 1115-17.]
of others, unable to break through the bonds of fate by
which they were confined, until Nature caused that species to
Professor Wallace (Epicureanism, p. 114) in commenting on this
passage adds, 'Of course in this there is no implication of
the peculiarly Darwinian doctrine of descent, or development
of kind from kind, with structure modified and complicated to
meet changing circumstances.']
swans raise their liquid wailing with doleful voice.'--iv.
cry of the cranes, far-scattered among the south-wind's skiey
skin among the thorns; for often we notice the briers, with
their light airy spoils hanging to them.'--iv. 60-2.]
and forgetfulness of things; consider its sinking into the
of dawn till the shadows of the dark night.'--iv. 537-38.]
Anaxagoras, as the Greeks call it, though the poverty of
our native speech does not admit of its being named in our
us tidings of what may and what may not come into existence:
on what principle, in fine, the power of each thing is
determined and the deeply-fixed limit of its being.'--i.
been created, what necessity there is that they abide by it,
and how they may not annul the mighty laws of the ages.'--v.
can and what it cannot do by the conditions of nature.'--i.
establish, that such faint traces of our native elements are
left beyond the powers of our reason to dispel, that nothing
prevents us from leading a life worthy of the gods.'--iii.
another, and life is given to no man as a possession, to all
of the forest are fed; hence we see cities glad with the
flower of their children, and the leafy woods on all sides
engaged in no holy warfare, so mightily contend with one
another, see'st thou not that some end may be assigned to
their long conflict, either when the sun and every mode of
heat, having drunk up all the moisture, shall have gained
the day, which they are ever tending to do but do not yet
firmament is of the whole sum of things, how small a fraction
it is, not even so much in proportion as a single man is to
with a guiding hand the mighty reins of immensity?'--ii.
pictures or stories from the ancient mythology, as at ii.
symbolising some facts of Nature or human life. Occasionally,
as at v. 14, etc., he deals with them in the spirit of
Euhemerism. He never uses them, as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid
do, merely as materials for artistic representation.]
for the denial of the doctrines of Divine Providence and of the
immortality of the soul. But there is a wide difference between
influence of ideas derived from the philosophy of Democritus.
comfortable and intelligible philosophy. Pleasure was the obvious
truths. The philosophy of pleasure thus makes its appeal to the
'The longing for confirmed tranquillity
Inward and outward.'
advocate of all the tenets of this philosophy, and denies the
foundations of religious belief with a zeal more like religious
At bene non poterat sine puro pectore vivi.
Nonne videre
Nil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi ut, cui
Corpore seiunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur
Iucundo sensu cura semotu' metuque?
etc.,--yet he expresses or implies an independence of all the
feeling was for the first time poured into the shallow channel of
demands which the other made of all who would live worthily.
This difference in the spirit, rather than the letter, of their
Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, etc.
existence of the Gods. Epicureanism appears here in antagonism to
The evils of life, for the cure of which Lucretius considers his
philosophy available, appeared to him to spring not out of man's
relation to Nature, but out of the weakness of his reason and the
Intellegit ibi vitium vas efficere ipsum
Omniaque illius vitio corrumpier intus,
Quae conlata foris et commoda cumque venirent;
Partim quod fluxum pertusumque esse videbat,
Ut nulla posset ratione explerier umquam;
Partim quod taetro quasi conspurcare sapore
Omnia cernebat, quaecumque receperat, intus.
Omnia suffundens mortis nigrore.
protest against the religious errors of antiquity. At occasional
Quid undas
Arguit et liquidam molem camposque natantis?
depths of his heart than in the lines--
O genus infelix humanum, talia divis
Cum tribuit facta atque iras adiunxit acerbas!
Quantos tum gemitus ipsi sibi, quantaque nobis
Volnera, quas lacrimas peperere minoribu' nostris!
Nec pietas ullast velatum saepe videri
Vertier ad lapidem atque omnis accedere ad aras
Nec procumbere humi prostratum et pandere palmas
Ante deum delubra nec aras sanguine multo
Spargere quadrupedum nec votis nectere vota,
Sed mage pacata posse omnia mente tueri.
The terrors of the popular mythology are denounced as a violation
Nec delubra deum placido cum pectore adibis,
Nec de corpore quae sancto simulacra feruntur
In mentes hominum divinae nuntia formae
Suscipere haec animi tranquilla pace valebis.
This passage and others in the poem imply that Lucretius both
Apparet divum numen sedesque quietae
Quas neque concutiunt venti nec nubila nimbis
Aspergunt neque nix acri concreta pruina
Cana cadens violat semperque innubilus aether
Integit, et large diffuso lumine rident.
They reveal themselves to man in dreams and waking visions by
At, credo, in tenebris vita ac maerore iacebat,
Donec diluxit rerum genitalis origo.
Si non ipsa dedit specimen natura creandi?
Against the old argument from final causes he opposes that drawn
earth,--the malign influences of climate and the seasons,--the
and symbols of Paganism. A sense of religious awe,--a sympathetic
men,--is expressed, for instance, in the lines which describe the
world. While guarding himself against the pollution of a base
idolatry, he yet acknowledges not only the power of religious
associations to entwine themselves with human affections, but the
followers of his own school as from their adversaries.
The same strength of heart and mind characterises that passage of
Non si terra mari miscebitur et mare caelo.
Nec radicitus e vita se tollit et eicit
Sed facit esse sui quiddam super inscius ipse.
Nec quisquam expergitus exstat,
Frigida quem semel est vitai pausa secuta.
of Tityus, of Sisyphus, and the Danaides, are but symbols of the
blind cowardice and superstition, of the craving passions, of the
or the projections into futurity of the experiences of earthly
punishment.'
alla, philos, thane kai su; tie olophyreai houtos?
katthane kai Patroklos, hoper seo pollon ameinon]--
Frigida quem semel est vitai pausa secuta;--
Cum summo gelidi cubat aequore saxi;--
Urgerive superne obtritum pondere terrae,--
Iam iam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor
Optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
Praeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent,
Ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis,
of the regal state of kings and mighty potentates--
Inde alii multi reges rerumque potentes
Occiderunt, magnis qui gentibus imperitarunt,
Sic alid ex alio nunquam desistet oriri.
The practical use of the study of Nature, according to Lucretius,
superstitious fear of supernatural power; and, secondly, to show
certainty, and peace--
Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere
Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,
Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre
Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae,
Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
Noctes atque dies niti praestante labore
Ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri.
Yet to be the master of armies and of navies, or to be clothed in
Quod si ridicula haec ludibriaque esse videmus,
Re veraque metus hominum curaeque sequaces
Nec metuunt sonitus armorum nec fera tela,
Audacterque inter reges rerumque potentis
Versantur neque fulgorem reverentur ab auro
Nec clarum vestis splendorem purpureai,
Quid dubitas quin omni' sit haec rationi' potestas?
Omnis cum in tenebris praesertim vita laboret.
The desire of power and station leads to the shame and misery of
most sacred ties of Nature. While failure in the struggle is
degradation, success is often only the prelude to the most sudden
Quandoquidem sapiunt alieno ex ore petuntque
Res ex auditis potius quam sensibus ipsis.
appliances of wealth, and their inability to give real enjoyment
Praesertim cum tempestas adridet et anni
Tempora conspergunt viridantis floribus herbas.
With fervid sincerity he announces the truth that 'to the man who
Quod siquis vera vitam ratione gubernet,
Divitiae grandes homini sunt vivere parce
Aequo animo.
Moderation, independence, and self-control are the virtues which
Horace derives from his philosophy. He knew how to enjoy both the
worthily inculcated.
Aeternumque daret matri sub pectore volnus;--
or such pictures, as that at iii. 469, of friends and relatives
surrounding the bed of one who has sunk into a deep lethargy--
Ad vitam qui revocantes
Circumstant lacrimis rorantes ora genasque,--
show how strong and real was his regard for the great elemental
Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo
Omnia suffendens mortis nigrore neque ullam
Esse voluptatem liquidam puramque reliquit.
the experience of the modern world gives a still more startling
significance to the words--
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum,--
into the fear of death, and that again into the dread of eternal
punishment.
The limitation of his philosophy is also apparent in his want of
sympathy with the active duties and pursuits of life. He can see
only different modes of evil in the busy interests of the world.
Sed mage pacata posse omnia mente tueri--
he regards as the only true religion for man: the 'mute and
of the human spirit which to Plato, Cicero, and Virgil appeared
the witnesses of immortality. The inability to form the definite
Yet a modern reader, without accepting the conclusions of his
The same 'vivida vis' with which he observes natural phenomena
characterises his insight into human character and passion. He
Aut cum conscius ipse animus se forte remordet
Desidiose agere aetatem lustrisque perire,
Aut quod in ambiguo verbum iaculata reliquit
Quod cupido adfixum cordi vivescit ut ignis,
Aut nimium iactare oculos aliumve tueri
Quod putat in voltuque videt vestigia risus:
Exit saepe foras magnis ex aedibus ille,
Esse domi quem pertaesumst, subitoque revertit,
Quippe foris nilo melius qui sentiat esse.
Currit agens mannos ad villam praecipitanter,
Auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans;
Oscitat extemplo, tetigit cum limina villae,
Aut abit in somnum gravis atque oblivia quaerit,
Aut etiam properans urbem petit atque revisit.
pointed out by M. Martha) is the explanation of the pathetic
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.--
Cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis?--
Vitaque mancipio nulli datur omnibus usu.--
Surgit amari aliquit quod in ipsis floribus augat.--
Nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo
Eiciuntur et eripitur persona, manet res.--
Divitiae grandes homini sunt vivere parce
Aequo animo.
nervous energy, not without flashes of the vigorous wit, of Roman
Cur etiam loca sola petunt frustraque laborant?
Nam tibi praeterea quod machiner inveniamque,
Quod placeat, nil est: eadem sunt omnia semper,--
Quantum Epicure tibi parvis suffecit in hortis.]
the causes why we choose or avoid anything, and banishing
those opinions which cause the greatest trouble in the soul.']
caused the evil, and that all external gains and blessings
whatsoever were vitiated within through its fault, partly
because he saw that it was so unsound and leaky that it could
never be filled in any way, partly because he discerned that
it tainted inwardly everything which it had received as it
the Gods such acts as these, and ascribed to them also angry
passions. What sorrow did they then prepare for themselves,
what deep wounds for us, what tears for our descendants. For
there is no holiness in being often seen, turning round with
head veiled, in presence of a stone, and in drawing nigh to
every altar; nor in lying prostrate in the dust, and uplifting
the hands before the temples of the Gods; nor in sprinkling
altars with the blood of beasts, and in ever fastening up
new votive offerings, but rather in being able to look at all
their peaceful dwelling-places, which neither the winds beat
upon, nor the clouds bedew with rain; nor does snow, gathered
in flakes by keen frost, and falling white, invade them; ever
the cloudless ether enfolds them, and they are radiant with
the solemn procession of Cybele may be illustrated by the
following passage, quoted by Mr. Morley in his Life of
Diderot, vol. ii. p. 65: 'Absurd rigorists do not know the
effect of external ceremonies on the people: they can never
have seen the enthusiasm of the multitude at the procession of
the Fete Dieu, an enthusiasm that sometimes even gains me. I
have never seen that long file of priests in their vestments,
those young acolytes clad in their white robes, with broad
blue sashes engirdling their waists, and casting flowers on
the ground before the Holy Sacrament, the crowd, as it goes
before and follows after them, hushed in religious silence,
and so many with their faces bent reverently to the ground: I
have never heard the grave and pathetic chant, as it is led
by the priests and fervently responded to by an infinity of
voices of men, of women, of girls, of little children, without
my inmost heart being stirred, and tears coming into my eyes.
There is in it something, I know not what, that is grand,
solemn, sombre, and mournful.']
glad welcome, nor thy true wife, nor thy dear children run
to snatch the first kiss, touching thy heart with silent
aloft the tranquil abodes, well bulwarked by the learning of
the wise, whence thou mayest look down on other men, and see
them wandering every way, and lost in error, seeking the road
of life; mayest mark the strife of genius, the rivalries of
rank, the struggle night and day with surpassing effort to
reach the highest place, and be master of the State.'--ii.
a mockery, and, in real truth, the fears of men and their
dogging cares dread not the clash of arms nor the fierce
weapons of warfare, and boldly mix with kings and potentates,
nor fear the splendour of gold or the bright glare of purple
robes, canst thou doubt that it is the force of reason on
which all this depends, especially since all our life is in
others, and pursue their object in accordance rather with what
they hear than with what they really feel.'--v. 1133-4.]
shows that these terrors did appeal to the imagination in
ancient times, and thus might powerfully affect the happiness
of persons of specially impressible natures, although they do
not seem to have often interfered with the actual enjoyment of
Vidi ego multa saepe picta quae Acherunti fierent
Cruciamenta: verum enimvero nulla adaequest Acheruns
Atque ubi ego fui in lapicidinis.
Professor Wallace in his 'Epicureanism' (p. 109) writes,
'Whatever may have been the case in earlier ages of Greece,
there is no doubt that in the age of Epicurus, the doctrine of
a judgment to come, and of a hell where sinners were punished
for their crimes, made a large part of the vulgar creed....
Orphic and other religious sects had enhanced the terrors of
the world below,' etc. Cicero, however, is a better witness
than Lucretius of the actual state of opinion among his
educated contemporaries. The exaggerated sense entertained by
Lucretius of the influence of such terrors among the class
for whom his poem was written is a confirmation of his having
acted on the maxim [Greek: lathe biosas].']
consciousness that he is wasting his life in sloth, and
ruining himself in wantonness; or because from the shafts of
her wit she has left in him some word of double meaning, which
seizes on his passionate heart and burns there like a fire; or
because he fancies that she casts about her eyes too much
or gazes at another, and marks the traces of a smile on her
spacious mansion issues forth abroad, and suddenly returns,
feeling that it is no better with him abroad. Driving his
horses, he speeds in hot haste to his country house, as if his
house were on fire and he was hurrying to bring assistance.
Straightway he begins to yawn, so soon as he has reached
his threshold, or sinks heavily into sleep and seeks
forgetfulness, or even with all haste returns to the
Ergo hominum genus incassum frustraque laborat
Semper et in curis consumit inanibus aevom,
Nimirum quia non cognovit quae sit habendi
Finis et omnino quoad crescat vera voluptas.]
knowledge in a systematic form. The conception of Nature was no
Quoniam haec ratio plerumque videtur
Tristior esse quibus non est tractata, retroque
Volgus abhorret ab hac.
And the unattractiveness of much of his theme is not diminished
compelling, as Virgil, Dante, and Milton have done, a subject,
suggestive of the labour of the workman, not of the finished
Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, etc.;--
and again the lines in the introduction to Book iii.:--
Apparet divum numen sedesque quietae, etc.
Again, although his rhythm, even at its best, falls far short of
In caeloque deum sedes et templa locarunt,
Per caelum volvi quia nox et luna videtur,
Luna dies et nox et noctis signa severa
Noctivagaeque faces caeli flammaeque volantes,
Nubila sol imbres nix venti fulmina grando
Et rapidi fremitus et murmura magna minarum.
Urgerive superne obtritum pondere terrae,--
at ii. 569-580, by the sad and solemn movement of the close,
Ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri,--
and at i. 101, by the line of cardinal significance, which ends a
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
The music of Lucretius is altogether his own. As he was the first
The poetical style of Lucretius is, like his rhythm, a true and
Usque adeo largos haustus e fontibu' magnis
Lingua meo suavis diti de pectore fundet.
in his poem and his abundant use of compound words, such as
the national literature. Thus his language never became trite and
Thus although the poetical style of Lucretius shows the traces of
Caeli subter labentia signa
Quae mare navigerum quae terras frugiferentis
Denique per maria ac montis fluviosque rapacis
Frondiferasque domos avium camposque virentis.
Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas.
Nam saepe in colli tondentes pabula laeta
Lanigerae reptant pecudes quo quamque vocantes
Invitant herbae gemmantes rore recenti.
Nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentis
Fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis.
Quam fluitans circum magnis anfractibus aequor
Ionium glaucis aspargit virus ab undis.
Severa silentia noctis
Undique cum constent.
Ut nubes facile interdum concrescere in alto
Cernimus et mundi speciem violare serenam
Aera mulcentes motu.
Pars etiam glebarum ad diluviem revocatur
Imbribus et ripas radentia flumina rodunt.
The changing face of Nature is to his spirit so full of power and
subtlety of reflexion nor grandeur of illustrative imagery could
Morte obita quorum tellus amplectitur ossa,
Ossa dedit terrae proinde ac famul infimus esset.
Ergo cum primum magnas invecta per urbis
Munificat tacita mortalis muta salute.
derived from the revelation of great truths--imprint themselves
Aeternumque daret matri sub pectore volnus,--
tacito mussabat medicina timore,--
tacita pectus dulcedine tangent--
His ibi me rebus quaedam divina voluptas
Percipit adque horror.--
His language has the further power of producing a vague sense of
Altitonans Volturnus et auster fulmine pollens.
Nec fulmina nec minitanti
Murmure compressit caelum.
Murmura magna minarum, etc.
Impendent atrae formidinis ora superne.
Sustentata ruet moles et machina mundi.
Aut cecidisse urbis magno vexamine mundi.
Non si terra mari miscebitur et mare caelo.
Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
Trita solo;
Volvere curarum tristis in pectore fluctus,
Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae.
What life and energy again are imparted to external things and
iaculando contulit omne'; 'vagos imbris tempestatesque volantes';
Sed quasi naufragiis magnis multisque coortis
Disiectare solet magnum mare transtra guberna
Antemnas proram malos tonsasque natantis,
Per terrarum omnis oras fluitantia aplustra
Ut videantur et indicium mortalibus edant,
Infidi maris insidias virisque dolumque
Ut vitare velint, neve ullo tempore credant,
Subdola cum ridet placidi pellacia ponti,
Sic tibi si finita semel primordia quaedam
Constitues, aevom debebunt sparsa per omnem
Disiectare aestus diversi materiari,
Numquam in concilium ut possint compulsa coire
Nec remorari in concilio nec crescere adaucta.
Although few of his descriptions from Nature are capable of being
Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans.
Quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans.
So, too, in his vivid account of the orderly procession of the
It ver et Venus, et veris praenuntius ante
Pennatus graditur zephyrus, vestigia propter
Flora quibus mater praespargens ante viai
Cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet.
active and moral energies of man. He shows the same sympathy with
Quod in magnis bacchatur montibu' passim,--
In the descriptions of Lucretius, as in those of Homer, there is
Nec validi possunt pontes venientis aquai
Vim subitam tolerare: ita magno turbidus imbri
Molibus incurrit validis cum viribus amnis.
quoted,--and again, in these lines--
Denique nota vagi silvestria templa tenebant
Nympharum, quibus e scibant umori' fluenta
Lubrica proluvie larga lavere umida saxa,
Umida saxa, super viridi stillantia musco,
Et partim plano scatere atque erumpere campo.
In this representation of the sea-shore--
Concharumque genus parili ratione videmus
Pingere telluris gremium, qua mollibus undis
Litoris incurvi bibulam pavit aequor harenam,--
There is the same sense of active life in all his pictures of the
Primum aurora novo cum spargit lumine terras
Et variae volucres nemora avia pervolitantes
Aera per tenerum liquidis loca vocibus opplent,
Quam subito soleat sol ortus tempore tali
Convestire sua perfundens omnia luce,
Omnibus in promptu manifestumque esse videmus.
Aurea cum primum gemmantis rore per herbas
Matutina rubent radiati lumina solis
Exhalantque lacus nebulam fluviique perennes,
Ipsaque ut interdum tellus fumare videtur;
Omnia quae sursum cum conciliantur, in alto
Corpore concreto subtexunt nubila caelum.
'Upon the dark materials of the storm.'
scenery. The lines at ii. 352-366, describing the cow searching
Noscit humi pedibus vestigia pressa bisulcis;--
Nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentes
Fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis;
Nam saepe in colli tondentes pabula laeta, etc.;
Praeterea magnae legiones cum loca cursu
Camporum complent belli simulacra cientes,
Fulgor ibi ad caelum se tollit totaque circum
Aere renidescit tellus supterque virum vi
Excitur pedibus sonitus clamoreque montes
Icti reiectant voces ad sidera mundi
Et circumvolitant equites mediosque repente
Tramittunt valido quatientes impete campos.
The truth and fulness of life in this passage are immediately
Et tamen est quidam locus altis montibus unde
Stare videntur et in campis consistere fulgor.
Summa etiam cum vis violenti per mare venti
Induperatorem classis super aequora verrit
Cum validis pariter legionibus atque elephantis,
Non divom pacem votis adit ac prece quaesit
Ventorum pavidus paces animasque secundas, etc.
Tum porro puer, ut saevis proiectus ab undis
Navita, nudus humi iacet, infans, indigus omni
Vitali auxilio, cum primum in luminis oras
Nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit,
Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut aecumst
Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum.
Iamque caput quassans grandis suspirat arator
Crebrius incassum manuum cecidisse labores,
Et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert
Praeteritis, laudat fortunas saepe parentis
Et crepat, anticum genus ut pietate repletum
Perfacile angustis tolerarit finibus aevom,
Cum minor esset agri multo modus ante viritim.
mixtos vagitibus aegris
Ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri.
imagination.
His imagination, which depicts so forcibly the intimations of
extra flammantia moenia mundi--
and to behold the dawn of creation, and even the blank desolation
His excellences are so different from those of Virgil that the
antiquity. He has proclaimed with more power than any other the
countrymen, felt so strongly the mystery of man's being, or have
ancient poetry. In the union of poetical feeling with scientific
passion he has anticipated the most elevated mode of the study of
of the gods in the heavens, because it is through the heavens
that the night and the moon are seen to sweep--the moon, the
day, and night, and the stern constellations of night, the
torches of heaven wandering through the night, and flying
meteors, the clouds, the sun, the rains, the snow, the winds,
lightning, hail, the rapid rattle, the threatening peals and
Quaerentem dictis quibus et quo carmine demum
Clara tuae possim praepandere lumina menti
Res quibus occultas penitus convisere possis.
many and mighty shipwrecks, the mighty sea is wont to drive in
all directions the rowers' benches, rudders, sailyards, prows,
masts, and floating oars, so that along all the coasts of land
there may be seen the tossing flag-posts of ships, to warn
mortals that they shun the wiles, and force, and craft of the
faithless sea, nor ever trust the treacherous alluring smile
of the calm ocean; so if once you will suppose any finite
number of elements, you will find that the many surging forces
of matter must disperse and drive them apart through all time,
so that they never can meet and gather into union, nor stay in
harbinger of Spring steps on before them, the winged Zephyr;
and near their footsteps, Mother Flora, scattering her
treasures before her, fills all the way with glorious colours
pleasurable and open in the life of Nature; for him she is
the _Alma Parens_: his expression has, therefore, more than
Guerin's, something genial, outward, and sensuous. Guerin has
above all a sense of what there is adorable and secret in
the life of Nature; for him she is the _Magna Parens_; his
expression has, therefore, more than Keats', something mystic,
inward, and profound.' _Essays in Criticism_, by M. Arnold, p.
force of the rushing water: in such wise, swollen by heavy
rain, the stream with mighty force dashes upon the piers.'--i.
dwelling in the familiar woodland grottoes of the nymphs,
from which they marked the rills of water laving the dripping
rocks, made slippery with their abundant flow,--dripping
rocks, with drops oozing out above the green moss,--and
gushing forth and forcing their way over the level plain.'--v.
of the earth, where with its soft waves the sea beats on the
the earth, and birds of every kind, flying over the pathless
woods through the delicate air, fill all the land with their
clear notes, the suddenness with which the risen sun then
clothes and steeps the world in his light, is clear and
bright sun glow all golden through the grass gemmed with dew,
and a mist arises from meres and flowing streams; and as even
the earth itself is sometimes seen to steam; then all these
vapours gather together above, and taking shape, as clouds on
'The appearance, instantaneously disclosed,' etc.]
with their rapid movement, raising the pageantry of warfare,
the splendour rises up to heaven, and all the land around is
bright with the glitter of brass, and beneath from the
mighty host of men the sound of their tramp arises, and the
mountains, struck by their shouting, re-echo their voices
to the stars of heaven, and the horsemen hurry to and fro on
either flank, and suddenly charge across the plains, shaking
mountains whence they appear to be all still, and to rest as a
is sweeping the admiral of some fleet over the seas, along
with his mighty legions and elephants, does he not court the
protection of the Gods with vows, and in his terror pray for a
by the cruel waves, lies naked on the ground, speechless,
in need of every aid to life, when first nature has cast him
forth by great throes from his mother's womb; and he fills the
air with his piteous wail, as befits one whose doom it is to
laments, with a sigh, that the toil of his hands has often
come to naught; and, as he compares the present with the past
time, he extols the fortune of his father, and harps on this
theme, how the good old race, full of piety, bore the burden
of their life very easily within narrow bounds, when the
portion of land for each man was far less than now.'--ii.
Lucretius and Catullus were regarded by their contemporaries as
the greatest poets of the last age of the Republic. They alone
represent the poetry of that time to the modern world. Although
born into the same social rank, and acted upon by the dissolving
escaping, from time to time, for a brief interval to his country
hedera iuvenalia vinctus
Quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem.
The ultimate preservation of his poems depended on a single copy,
Namque tu solebas
Meas esse aliquid putare nugas, etc.--
This collection consists of about 116 poems, written in various
age, when the knowledge of the circumstances of Catullus and the
intelligent appreciation of his poems was lost.
in many different moods,--in joy and grief, in the ecstasy and
the despair of love, in the frank outpouring of affection and the
admiration for genius or wit in man, grace in woman, or beauty in
speech of his friend Calvus, delivered in August 54 B.C. against
Vatinius. A line in the poem, immediately preceding that
containing the allusion to the speech of Calvus,--
Per consulatum perierat Vatinius,--
was, till the appearance of Schwabe's 'Quaestiones Catullianae,'
accepted as a proof that Catullus had actually witnessed the
Quid est Catulle? quid moraris emori?
Jerome, 'as so often happens with him, has blundered somewhat in
have been if born in 87 B.C. Between the age of twenty and thirty
poems, yet from the fact of his possessing, in his father's
Veronae mater amata meae;
he speaks of one of his fellow-townsmen, as--
Quendam municipem meum.
Besides spending his early youth there, we find him, on three
different occasions, retiring thither from Rome, and making a
Salve, o venusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude;
Gaudete vosque o vividae lacus undae--
shows that he derived keen enjoyment from the familiar loveliness
impression made unconsciously on his imagination by the mountain
scenery of Northern Italy.
His native district afforded scope for the culture, which was the
lines quoted by Suetonius as
Qui solus legit ac facit poetas,--
Cornelius Nepos, the friend who early recognised the genius of
Sapphica puella
Musa doctior,--
an indication that, not only in Rome but even in the northern
province, the finest literary taste and culture was shared by
the mouth of the Po. The strength of the impulse first given to
Tempore quo primum vestis mihi tradita pura'st,
Iucundum cum aetas florida ver ageret,
Multa satis lusi: non est dea nescia nostri,
Quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem.
shown, by the lines in c:--
Cui faveam potius? Caeli, tibi, nam tua nobis
Per facta exhibita'st unica amicitia,
Cum vesana meas torreret flamma medullas,
Aufilena, at an earlier stage of her career.
by his mention in the same place of other Roman ladies, who
were celebrated by their poet-lovers,--Ticidas, Tibullus, and
Splendidaque a docto fama refulget avo.
Lesbius est pulcher: quidni? quem Lesbia malit
Quam te cum tota gente, Catulle, tua.
Ille mi par esse deo videtur;
and again,
Quo mea se molli candida diva pedem
is like the rapture of a lover acknowledging the gracious
condescension of a superior, as well as the delight of passion
Republic and in the early Empire, did sink as low.
That the intrigue was carried on and had even reached its second
stage--that of the 'amantium irae'--in the life-time of Metellus,
Lesbia mi praesente viro mala plurima dicit, etc.
Sed furtiva dedit mira munuscula nocte,
Ipsius ex ipso dempta viri gremio--
clearly imply that these meetings occurred after the return of
Nam unguentum dabo, quod meae puellae
seem to admit of no other explanation than that they were written
Visam te incolumem audiamque Hiberum
Narrantem loca, facta, nationes--
Macedonia, it seems a not unwarranted conjecture that they were
similarly engaged at this earlier time, and had gone to Spain in
The first hint of any rift in the loves of Catullus and Clodia
is contained in the 68th poem, written in the form of a letter to
Quare, quod scribis Veronae turpe Catullo, etc.
Catullus had retired to Verona on hearing of the death of his
Etsi me adsiduo confectum cura dolore
Sevocat a doctis, Ortale, virginibus, etc.
In his letter to Manlius, in which he excuses himself on the same
somewhat later to Allius,--
Non possum reticere deae qua me Allius in re, etc.--
Quae tamen etsi uno non est contenta Catullo
Rara verecundae furta feremus erae.
tenderness. Afterwards, even though his passion from time to time
terrible _oxymoron_ of 'Clytemnestra quadrantaria.' Her widowhood
The poems representing the second and third stage--that in which
passion and scorn strive with one another--of the relations to
scholar. His severance from his recent associations and from the
O dulces comitum valete coetus.--
brother's tomb in the Troad,--greeting his beloved Sirmio and the
Varus me meus ad suos amores
Visum duxerat e foro otiosum--
Disertissime Romuli nepotum
Quot sunt quotque fuere, Marce Tulli--
Tanto pessimus omnium poeta
Quanta tu optimus omnium patronus--
seems to point to some exercise of Cicero's special talent as an
Sestius, Licinius Calvus, Memmius, etc.; and they heartily hated
The poems written in the last two years of the poet's life do not
Caesar and Mamurra, the poems referring to some of his Veronese
amours, those addressed to Juventius, and the reckless,
unalloyed by any taint of bitterness. Two other poems, the final
Maestius lacrimis Simonideis.
The lines--
Malest, me hercule, et est laboriose,
Et magis magis in dies et horas--
Peliaco quondam prognatae, etc.--
Zmyrna mei Cinnae nonam post denique messem
Quam coepta'st nonamque edita post hiemem,--
Sed postquam tellus scelere est imbuta nefando, etc.--
But although longer life might have brought to Catullus a still
He presents his own simple experience and emotions, uncoloured by
'Odi et amo,' till at last he obtains his emancipation by the
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Quaeris, quot mihi basiationes, etc.,--
written in the very height of his short-lived happiness, in the
wildest tumult and most reckless abandonment of passion, when the
Miser, Catulle, desinas ineptire--
in which he recalls the bright days of the past--
Fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,--
wounds, which had been partially healed, had broken out afresh,--
Si qua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas, etc.;
Furi et Aureli comites Catullo,--
in which scornful irony is combined with an imaginative power and
tender but burning lines of the 'Acme and Septimius.' His own
Si quicquam mutis gratum acceptumque sepulchris
Accidere a nostro Calve dolore potest,
Quo desiderio veteres renovamus amores
Atque olim missas flemus amicitias
Certe non tanto mors immatura dolori est
Quintiliae, quantum gaudet amore tuo.
Poetae tenero, meo sodali
Velim Caecilio papyre dicas,--
Venistine domum ad tuos Penates
Fratresque unanimos anumque matrem?
Venisti. O mihi nuntii beati.
Sed contra accipies meros amores
Seu quid suavius elegantiusve.
Haec amem necessest
Ut Veraniolum meum et Fabullum.
Certe tute iubebas animam tradere, inique, me
Inducens in amorem, quasi tuta omnia mi forent.
Inde nunc retrahis te ac tua dicta omnia factaque
Ventos irrita ferre ac nebulas aerias sinis.
These, and other poems, show that Catullus was quick to feel any
coldness or neglect on the part of his friends, and exceedingly
expresses against those from whom he had experienced malice or
Pauca nuntiate meae puellae
Non bona dicta.
Si qua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas
Est homini, cum se cogitat esse pium,
Nec sanctam violasse fidem, nec foedere in ullo
Divum ad fallendos numine abusum homines, etc.
and to the duty of thinking of others.
Another, and less admirable, side of the nature of Catullus is
Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati,
Nisi impudicus et vorax et alco, etc.--
and in the less vigorous but much more offensive 57th poem.
Catullus in these poems expresses the animosity which the 'boni'
Et ille nunc superbus et superfluens
Perambulabit omnium cubilia, etc.
Irascere iterum meis iambis
Inmerentibus, unice imperator,--
imputations contained in them, which Suetonius did two hundred
have looked upon the imputations of the 57th poem as a mere angry
Nam castum esse decet pium poetam
Ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est.
imagination. It is only in his careless moods, when he looks on
pieces in which these characteristics are exposed are marked by
keen observation, a lively sense of absurdity, and sometimes by
a boisterous spirit of fun. They are expressed with vigour and
O Colonia, quae cupis ponte ludere magno,--
which has some touches of graceful poetry as well as of humorous
extravagance. It is directed against the dulness and stolid
Quoi cum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella
(Et puella tenellulo delicatior haedo,
Asservanda nigerrimis diligentius uvis),--
Munus hoc mihi maximi da, Colonia, risus--
Chommoda dicebat, si quando commoda vellet
Dicere, et insidias Arrius hinsidias, etc.
Just as the ears of men had recovered from this infliction--
Subito affertur nuntius horribilis,
Ionios fluctus, postquam illuc Arrius isset,
Iam non Ionios esse, sed Hionios.
Like fastidious and irritable poets of other times (Horace, Pope,
Dii magni, horribilem ac sacrum libellum.
Plenam veneni et pestilentiae.
About one half of the shorter poems, and more than half of the
epigrams, are to be classed among his personal lampoons or light
freedom of speech, the open expression of which was soon to be
this youthful freshness of feeling. Three of these are especially
Iam ver egelidos refert tepores,--
Phaselus ille quem videtis, hospites,--
Iam mens praetrepidans avet vagari,
with which a cultivated mind forecasts the pleasure of travelling
Aut quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox,
Furtivos hominum vident amores,--
and this, written with the feeling and with the application which
Velut prati
Ultimi flos, praetereunte postquam
Tactus aratro est;--
Nec sapit pueri instar
Bimuli, tremula patris dormientis in ulna,--
Et puella tenellulo delicatior haedo,
Adservanda nigerrimis diligentius uvis.
Miser Catulle desinas ineptire,--
feeling to the commoner interests and experiences of life.
Alexandrine poets for his models. But in these shorter poems, so
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,--
Acmen Septimius suos amores,--
Verani, omnibus e meis amicis,--
Iam ver egelidos refert tepores,--
Paene insularum Sirmio insularumque,--
Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,--
we apprehend through a perfectly pure medium, and by a single
example in ancient times. Neither was he one, who, like Burns,
Minister vetuli puer Falerni
Inger mi calices amariores, etc.
and beneficent attributes of the Roman Diana. Yet no confusion or
too full of human interest to allow him to devote his art to the
considered.
'In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.'
Ne diu taceat procax
Fescennina locutio--
Quos Hamadryades deae
Ludicrum sibi roscido
Nutriunt humore,--
Alba parthenice velut
Luteumve papaver--
the symbol of maidens--
'Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale.'
Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis, he compares Ariadne in her
Quales Eurotae progignunt flumina myrtos
Aurave distinctos educit verna colores.
Viden ut faces
Splendidas quatiunt comas?
The two pictures, further on in the poem, of a peaceful old age
prolonged to the utmost limit of human life--
Usque dum tremulum movens
Cana tempus anilitas
Omnia omnibus annuit,--
and of infancy, awakening into consciousness and affection,--
Torquatus volo parvulus
Matris e gremio suae
Porrigens teneras manus,
Dulce rideat ad patrem
Semihiante labello;
Sit suo similis patri
Manlio et facile insciis
Noscitetur ab omnibus,
Et pudicitiam suae
Matris indicet ore;
are drawn with the truest and most delicate hand.
and thoughts natural to the young men and maidens are alternately
contact. The idea in the concluding lines of the simile--
Idem cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
Nulli illum pueri, nullae optavere puellae,--
may probably have been suggested by a passage in Sappho, of which
hoian tan hyakinthon en oresi poimenes andres
possi katasteiboisi, chamai de te porphyron anthos.]
'Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness;'
Iam iam contingit summum radice flagellum,--
natural man, more especially a Greek or Roman, would feel in the
of former days. A few touches in the poem--as, for instance, the
The effect of the whole drama of human passion and agony is
Sed ubi oris aurei Sol radiantibus oculis
Lustravit aethera album, sola dura, mare ferum,
Pepulitque noctis umbras vegetis sonipedibus.
Everything is seen in those sharply-defined forms, which imprint
translating, any particular work of these poets, or that his
comparison of the imagery of this poem with that of the earlier
Catullus. It may be doubted whether any Alexandrine poet, except
poem may have been suggested by some Alexandrine model. The more
Sed postquam tellus scelerest imbuta nefando, etc.,
by pointing the contrast between a love calm and happy from the
and baseness of the actual present, that intention was probably
specimen of narrative. There is scarcely any story to tell in
belonging to an ideal foretime,--
O nimis optato saeclorum tempore nati
Heroes, saluete, deum genus.
flower of Greek warriors, 'broke the silence of the seas'
(Illa rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten),
and when the Gods and Goddesses of Olympus, the mysterious Powers
Emersere feri candenti e gurgite vultus
Aequoreae monstrum Nereides admirantes,--
Quam tum saepe magis fulgore expalluit auri,--
and again, looking on the distant fleet--
Saxea ut effigies bacchantis,--
of the advent of Bacchus--
Cum thiaso Satyrorum et Nysigenis Silenis,--
a passage which has inspired one of the masterpieces of modern
art,--of Prometheus--
Extenuata gerens veteris vestigia poenae--
of the aged Parcae--
infirmo quatientes corpora motu--
Idomeneosne petam montes? a gurgite lato
Discernens ponti truculentum ubi dividit aequor?
brought with him from the plains and vast mountain chains and
river-banks of Thessaly--
Nam quoscumque ferunt campi, quos Thessala magnis
Montibus ora creat, quos propter fluminis undas
Aura parit flores tepidi fecunda Favoni,
Hos indistinctis plexos tulit ipse corollis,
Quo permulsa domus iucundo risit odore;
Tempe quae silvae cingunt super inpendentes,--
planted before the vestibule of the palace.
Peliaco quondam prognatae vertice pinus,--
Aut tereti tenues tinnitus aere ciebant,--
Putridaque infirmis variabant pectora palmis.--etc., etc.
As in the Attis we find such word-formations as _sonipedibus_,
Frigidulos udo singultus ore cientem,
Languidulosque paret tecum coniungere somnos.
But there are many peculiarities of style which are scarcely, if
Vos ego saepe meo vos carmine compellabo;--
Cui Iupiter ipse
Ipse suos divom genitor concessit amores;--
Sicine me patriis avectam, perfide, ab oris,
Perfide, deserto liquisti in litore Theseu?
Sicine discedens neglecto numine divom;--
Nulla fugae ratio, nulla spes; omnia muta
Omnia sunt deserta, ostentant omnia mortem, etc.
The phrases are to a much greater extent cast in a Greek mould.
The words follow one another in a less natural order. Ornamental
each line, and thus the lines, when read continuously, produce an
The four longer elegiac pieces which follow add little to
our impression of the art of Catullus. In the 'Epistle to
His selection of the 'Coma Berenices' as a task in translation,
Quo tibi tum casu pulcherrima Laudamia,
Ereptum est vita dulcius atque anima
There is an exquisite picture of his own stolen meetings with his
Et longe ante omnes mihi quae me carior ipse'st,
Lux mea qua viva vivere dulce mihi'st.
In this poem too, although the application of the image is an
incongruous adaptation of an old Homeric simile, we meet with a
Qualis in aerii perlucens vertice montis
Rivos muscoso prosilit e lapide
Qui cum de prona praeceps est valle volutus
Per medium sensim transit iter populi,
Dulce viatori lasso in sudore levamen,
Cum gravis exustos aestus hiulcat agros.
of that estimate. Others, who think that the work accomplished by
Catullique mortem multo elegantissimum poetam nostram tulisse
aetatem vere videor posse contendere.'--Corn. Nep. Vit. Att.
context shows that the 'lusi,'--like Horace's 'lusit
Anacreon,'--refers to the composition of amatory poetry
founded on his own experience. It was for this kind of poetry
that Manlius had applied to him, and he pleads his grief as an
excuse for his inability to write any at that time, although
he had written much in his earliest youth.]
Sic forsan tener ausus est Catullus
Magno mittere passerem Maroni.
Donabo tibi passerem Catulli.]
we now have it was made after books were generally written in
parchment. His whole collected poems would thus be more easily
enclosed in a single volume, than when written on the old
papyrus rolls.]
Catullus,--those between xvii and xxi,--are now omitted from
all editions. On the other hand, one poem, lxviii, must, in
all probability, be divided into two, and possibly some lines
now attached to others are parts of separate poems.]
parsimoniam patrum suis sumptibus sustentaret.' Cic. Pro M.
Caelio, 16, 38. Gellius, another of her lovers, was probably
about the same age, or a year or two younger than Caelius. Cf.
B.C., and that he must have been born in 82 B.C. The reasons
he assigns for this belief are not convincing. He thinks that
it was unlikely that Catullus should have been reconciled to
Julius Caesar in the winter of 55-54 B.C., so soon after the
offence was committed, which must have been after the first
invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar in the summer and autumn
of 55. He shows that the reconciliation could not have
taken place in the winter of 54-3, as Caesar was absent in
Transalpine Gaul. He supposes therefore that it must have
taken place in the winter of 53-2. He thinks it probable that
Catullus' reconciliation must have taken place about the same
time or subsequently to that of Calvus, who was likely to have
influenced Catullus' political action, and that Calvus could
not have desired to be reconciled till after the autumn of
suppose that a considerable time must have elapsed between the
offence and the apology of Catullus. If Catullus was in Verona
in the winter of 55-4, and in his father's house, and Julius
Caesar was then, as was his habit, living on intimate terms
with and enjoying the hospitality of the father of Catullus,
that of itself affords an explanation of their meeting and
reconciliation. If Catullus required to be induced by any
one to make an apology, it is more likely that his father's
influence moved him to do so than the example and influence of
Ceu pulsae ventorum flamine nubes,
Aerium nivei montis liquere cacumen.
And this most characteristic feature of Alpine
Qualis in aerii perlucens vertice montis
Rivos muscoso prosilit e lapide, etc.]
neoteroi] cf. Schmidt, Prolegomena, p. lxii.]
Brescia; Prol. lxiii; but he does not there give his reason
for his belief.]
At Volusi Annales Paduam morientur ad ipsam.]
written at Rome, as he was not of sufficient importance
to have made an impression on the people of Verona. The
accusation of C. Cornelius, which excited odium against him,
was made in 65 B.C. But it does not follow that the poem
was written by Catullus at that time. He may have become
acquainted with him later, and avenged some private pique by
reference to the unpopularity formerly excited by him. There
is no direct reference to the trial of Cornelius in the poem,
which appears among others referring to a much later date.]
author of the 'Istrian War.']
not M. Caelius Rufus, but a Veronese friend and confidant of
'Flos Veronensum ... iuvenum.'
Caesar, Bell. Civ. i. 2, mentions M. Caelius Rufus simply as
M. Rufus, Cicero in his epistles addresses him as 'mi Rufe.']
Lesbia (xxxvi) throws light on her literary taste and
accomplishment.]
It has been argued on the other side that public opinion
would not have tolerated the publicity given to an adulterous
intrigue, especially one with a Roman matron so high in rank
as the wife of Metellus Celer. But the state of public opinion
in the last years of the Republic is not to be gauged either
by that of an earlier time, or by that existing during the
stricter censorship of the Augustan _regime_. Catullus himself
(cxiii) testifies to what is known from other sources, the
extreme laxity with which the marriage tie was regarded in the
interval between 'the first and second consulships of Pompey.'
Perhaps, however, if Metellus Celer had survived Catullus,
the Lesbia-poems might never have been publicly given to the
world. After his death Clodia by her manner of life forfeited
all claim to the immunities of a Roman matron.]
Quod mihi fortuna casuque oppressus acerbo--
was addressed to Manlius just after Catullus had heard of his
brother's death, i.e. probably late in the year 60, or early
in the year 59 B.C. Manlius was himself suffering then from
a great and sudden sorrow. The expressions in lines 1, 5, 6,
'casu acerbo,' 'sancta Venus,' 'desertum in lecto caelibe,'
make it at least highly probable that this sorrow was the
premature death of his young bride. If this generally accepted
opinion is true, the Epithalamium must have been written some
to a later date, 56 B.C., when he thinks that Veranius and
Fabullus were with some otherwise unknown Piso in the Province
of Hispania Citerior, and that the poems xxviii,
Pisonis comites, cohors inanis,
and xlvii,
Porci et Socration, duae sinistrae
Pisones, etc.,
belong to the same period.
But not to speak of the fact that the character imputed
to Piso, in the phrase 'duae sinistrae,' and in the words
'vappa,' 'verpa,' 'verpus,' applied to him, are in exact
accordance with that ascribed to him in the virulent invective
of Cicero (In L. Calpurnium Pisonem Oratio), it is difficult
to see how the words in xxviii,
Satisne cum isto
Vappa frigoraque et famem tulistis?
could apply to either the climate or the condition of Hispania
Citerior at that time. But they closely coincide with the
words of Cicero applied to the government by Piso of his
province of Macedonia (17-40), 'An exercitus nostri interitus
ferro, _fame_, _frigore_, pestilentia?' On the other hand, the
words in ix,
Visam te incolumem audiamque Hiberum
Narrantem loca, facta, nationes,
would be applicable to the adventures and dangers of Julius
Caesar in further Spain in 61 B.C. There is no difficulty
in supposing that the two young friends went together on two
different occasions on the staff of two different provincial
governors. The tone of the two different sets of poems is
so different, the one set so bright and happy, the other so
savage and bitter, that it is almost inconceivable that they
belong to the same time and the same circumstances.]
letter is written is the same as the Allius of lxviii^b; that
the lines beginning
Non possum reticere
are a continuation of what used to be thought a separate poem,
Quod mihi fortuna, etc.,
that Manlius was the praenomen of Allius, and that he is
addressed in the first part of the poem by the praenomen,
in the latter by the gentile name. But the letter to Manlius
clearly indicates the recent loss of his bride, or some
distress connected with his marriage (lines 1, 5, 6), whereas
at the end of the letter to Allius he says, 'Sitis felices et
tu simul et tua vita;' lxviii. 155.]
and interpretation of the lines (lxviii. 15-19). The most
generally accepted view is that Manlius had written to let
Catullus know that several fashionable rivals were supplanting
him in his absence. Mr. Munro supposes that the letter was
written from Baiae, and that the _hic_ is so to be explained.
Another view of the passage is that Manlius had, without any
reference to Clodia, merely rallied Catullus on leading a dull
and lonely life at Verona, a place quite unsuitable for the
pleasures of a man of fashion.]
recently been given to this poem (Schmidt, Prolegomena, xxxix,
etc.). It is supposed not to be complimentary, but bitterly
sarcastic. It is said that Catullus could not, except in
irony, have described himself as
'pessimus omnium poeta;'
and if those words applied to himself as a poet are irony,
so must the words applied in strong contrast to Cicero as an
advocate (tanto--quanto) be equally ironical. In that case the
_omnium_ in the last line must not be taken in connexion with
optimus, but with patronus. Cicero's readiness to be 'omnium
patronus' is sarcastically commented on with immediate
reference to his defence of Vatinius, which startled some of
his best friends among the constitutional party. The formal
address 'Marce Tulli' is also ironical. (If that is so,
probably also the 'Romuli nepotum' is used in mock heroic
irony, like the 'Remi nepotum' in lviii.) What then is
the favour for which Catullus writes these ironically
complimentary thanks? Schmidt supposes that Cicero had
expressed either publicly or privately a very poor opinion
of Catullus' poems, and that Catullus revenges himself by
professing to agree with him, to be most grateful for the
criticism (gratias tibi maximas Catullus agit), and to repay
it by heaping ironical coals on his head.
It is just possible that the poem might have been so
understood in the set to which Catullus belonged, if we were
certain that it was written at the time when Cicero defended
Vatinius. But the general public could hardly have understood
it so, and it is not surprising that it never occurred to any
one to understand it in that sense till within the last year
or two. It is not in keeping with Catullus' straightforward,
outspoken vituperation, nor with the manners of the time (as
shown in Cicero's speeches), to write an epigram which would
leave the object of it in doubt whether it was written in
earnest or derision. No doubt Catullus did not seriously think
himself 'the worst of living poets,' worse for instance than
Volusius. But there is an irony of modest self-depreciation,
as that of Virgil when he applies to himself the words
'argutos inter strepere anser olores,' as well as of insulting
banter. The change in the construction of the 'omnium' in
the two consecutive lines would be at least startling. That
Catullus, a young man, not intimate with Cicero, should
address him as Marce Tulli is not perhaps more remarkable than
that a young poet of the present day should in writing to a
man of great eminence, twenty years his senior, address him as
Mr. ----. Cicero writes banteringly and good-naturedly to one
of his correspondents, Volumnius, probably a much younger
man (Fam. vii. 32): 'Quod sine praenomine familiariter, ut
debebas, ad me epistolam misisti, primum addubitavi, num a
Volumnio senatore esset, quorum mihi est magnus usus.'
There is no reason for supposing that Cicero ever passed any
criticism favourable or unfavourable on Catullus, though in
his letters he twice uses his phrases; and if he did, it was
not in Catullus' way to retaliate without making it perfectly
clear what he was retaliating for. Cicero was constantly in
the way of doing kindnesses to all sorts of people, in the
law-courts or by recommending them to some of his influential
friends. He especially says that he had always done what he
could to foster the genius of poets. He was attracted to young
men like Catullus (he was not of the 'grex Catilinae'); and of
his friend Calvus he writes with genuine appreciation. It is
more natural as well as more pleasant to think of these two
men of genius, in so far as they came in contact, having
agreeable relations with one another, than to believe that
the poet wrote these apparently straightforward, kindly
appreciative lines in revenge for some real or fancied
disparagement of his verses.]
allude to his antagonism to Vatinius, which went on actively
between the years 56 and 54 B.C. In none of them is there any
allusion to Lesbia, who was never out of Catullus, thoughts or
his verse till after his Bithynian journey.]
('Ceae retractes munera neniae') with the lighter poetry
of love.]
Nunc te cognovi: quare etsi impensius uror,
Multo mi tamen es vilior et levior.
Qui potis est? inquis. Quia amantem iniuria talis
Cogit amare magis, set bene velle minus.]
'Calvus, if those now silent in the tomb
Can feel the touch of pleasure in our tears
For those we loved, who perished in their bloom,
And the departed friends of former years:
Oh then, full surely thy Quintilia's woe,
For the untimely fate that bade ye part,
Will fade before the bliss she feels to know
How very dear she is unto thy heart.'--Martin.]
compliment which he heard in the crowd paid to the speech of
Calvus against Vatinius--
Dii magni, salaputium disertum.]
etc.), shows that the whole point of the poem consists in the
contrast drawn between the 'Zmyrna' of Cinna and the 'Annals
of Volusius.' Baehrens admits the reading 'Hortensius' into
the text, but adds in a note on the word, _vox corrupta est_.]
Neu me odisse putes hospitis officium.]
et agrum Campanum perisse et adoptatum patricium a plebeio,
Gaditanum a Mytilenaeo, et Labieni divitiae et Mamurrae
placent et Balbi horti et Tusculanum.']
the same name, who stayed away from Rome in order 'that he
might pass whole days discussing philosophy with Cicero at
Formiae.' The Arrius of this poem is supposed to be Q. Arrius,
Praetor in 73 B.C., whom Cicero speaks of as having been in
the habit of acting as a kind of Junior Counsel along with
Crassus ('qui fuit M. Crassi quasi secundarum'), and having,
though a man of the lowest origin and without either culture
or natural ability, got into a considerable practice. The
words 'Hoc misso in Syriam' are supposed to imply that he was
sent as a legatus to join Crassus in his Syrian province. The
poem would thus be written about the end of 55 B.C. Schmidt.]
Quintilio si quid recitares, Corrige, sodes,
Hoc aiebat et hoc.
Schmidt supposes him to be the Alphenus Varus, the Jurist, to
whom the 30th poem, written in a tone of tender reproach, is
addressed. Catullus does not seem to address the same person
by different names, unless Manius and Allius are the same.
Thus M. Caelius Rufus is addressed as Rufus, the Caelius
addressed in other poems being a native of Verona. As both
Alphenus Varus and Quintilius Varus were natives of Cremona,
Catullus was likely to have known both.]
Litus ut longe resonante Eoa
Tunditur unda.]
unconsciously betrayed in such phrases as 'Romuli nepotum,' in
the lines addressed to Cicero.]
Quam mater prope Deliam
Deposivit olivam,
Montium domina ut fores
Silvarumque virentium
Saltuumque reconditorum
Amniumque sonantum.]
'Soon my eyes shall see, mayhap,
Of his mother, as he stands
Stretching out his tiny hands,
And his little lips the while
Half open on his father's smile.
'And oh! may he in all be like
Manlius his sire, and strike
Strangers when the boy they meet
As his father's counterfeit,
And his face the index be
Of his mother's chastity.'--Martin.]
Neque Alexandrina beluata conchyliata tapetia.
Mr. Ellis, in his Commentary on Catullus, p. 226, mentions
that both the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, and the legend
of Ariadne, were common subjects of ancient art. He points out
also that the idea of the quilt on which the Ariadne story was
represented was borrowed from Apollonius, i. 730-66.]
'Whate'er of loveliest decks the plain, whate'er
The giant mountains of Thessalia bear,
Whate'er beneath the west's warm breezes blow,
Where crystal streams by flowery margents flow,
These in festoons or coronals inwrought
Of undistinguishable blooms he brought,
Whose blending odours crept from room to room,
Till all the house was gladdened with perfume.'--Martin.]
innuptarum'--'funera nec funera,' etc., etc. Mr. Ellis's
commentary largely illustrates the influence exercised by the
phraseology of the Greek poets,--especially Homer, Euripides,
Apollonius--on the poetical diction of Catullus in this poem.]
is, in a great degree, the result of the coincidence of the
accent and rhythmical ictus in the last three feet of the
explanation of the principle on which the various parts of the
poem are arranged and connected with one another.]
worst style of learned Alexandrinism.]
'As some clear stream, from mossy stone that leaps,
Far up among the hills, and, wimpling down
By wood and vale, its onward current keeps
To lonely hamlet and to stirring town,
Cheering the wayworn traveller as it flows
When all the fields with drought are parched and bare.'
referred to by Mr. Munro in his 'Criticisms and Elucidations,'