of the Romans was derived from the Greeks, or was of their own invention. The former opinion has been maintained by the elder Scaliger380, Heinsius381, Vulpius382, and, among the most recent German critics, by Blankenburg383, Conz, and Flogel384; the latter theory, which seems to have been that of the Romans themselves, particularly of Horace and Quintilian385, has been supported by Diomedes386, Joseph Scaliger, Casaubon387, Spanheim388, Rigaltius389, Dacier390, and Dryden, and by Koenig391, and Manso, among the Germans. Those who suppose that satire descended directly from the Greeks to the Romans, derive the word from Satyrus, the well-known mythological compound of a man and goat. Casaubon, on the other hand, and most of those who have followed him, deduce it from the adjective Satura, a Sabine word, originally signifying a medley, and, afterwards,—full or abundant. To [pg 233]this word the substantive Lanx was understood, which meant the platter or charger whereon the first fruits of the earth were offered to Bacchus at his festivals,—
The term Satura thus came to be applied to a species of composition, originally written in various sorts of verse, and comprehending a farrago of all subjects,—
In the same way, laws were called Leges Saturæ, when they consisted of several heads and titles: and Verrius Flaccus calls a dish, which I suppose was a sort of olla podrida—Satura:—“Satura cibi genus ex variis rebus conditum.” Dacier, however, though he agrees with Casaubon as to the Latin origin of satire, derives the term from Saturn; as he believes that it was at festivals in honour of that ancient god of Italy that those rustic impromptus, which gave rise to satire, were first recited.
Flogel, in his German History of Comic Literature, attempts to show, at considerable length, that Casaubon has attributed too much to the derivation of the word satire; since, though the term may be of Latin origin, it does not follow that the thing was unknown to the Greeks,—and that he also relies too much on the argument, that the satiric plays of the Greeks were quite different from the satire of the Romans, which may be true; while, at the same time, there are other sorts of Greek compositions, as the lyric satires of Archilochus and the Silli, which have a much nearer resemblance to the Latin didactic satire than any satirical drama.
In fact, the whole question seems to depend on what constitutes a sufficient alteration or variety from former compositions, to give a claim to invention. Now it certainly cannot be pretended, so far as we know, that any satiric productions of the Greeks had much resemblance to those of the Romans. The Greek satires, which are improperly so termed, were divided into what were called tragic and comic. The former were dramatic compositions, which had their commencement, like the regular tragedy, in rustic festivals to the honour of [pg 234]Bacchus; and in which, characters representing Satyrs, the supposed companions of that god, were introduced, imitating the coarse songs and fantastic dances of rural deities. In their rude origin, it is probable that only one actor, equipped as a Satyr, danced or sung. Soon, however, a chorus appeared, consisting of the bearded and beardless Satyrs, Silenus, and Pappo Silenus; and Histrions, representing heroic characters, were afterwards introduced. The satiric drama began to flourish when the regular tragedy had become too refined to admit of a chorus, or accompaniment of Satyrs, but while these were still remembered with a sort of fondness, which rendered it natural to recur to the most ancient shape of the drama. In this state of the progress of the Greek stage, the satire was performed separately from the tragedy; and out of respect to the original form of tragedy, was often exhibited as a continuation or parody of the tragic trilogy, or three serious plays,—thus completing what was called the tetralogia. The scene of these satires was laid in the country, amid woods, caves, and mountains, or other such places as Satyrs were supposed to inhabit; and the subjects chosen were those in which Satyrs might naturally be feigned to have had a share or interest. High mythological stories and fabulous heroes were introduced, as appears from the names preserved by Casaubon, who mentions the Hercules of Astydamas, the Alcmæon and Vulcan of Achæus,—each of which is denominated σατυρικος. These heroic characters, however, were generally parodied, and rendered fantastic, by the gross railleries of Silenus and the Fauns. The Cyclops of Euripides, which turns on the story of Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus, is the only example entirely extant of this species of composition. Some fragments, however, remain of the Lytiersa of Sositheus, an author who flourished about the 130th Olympiad, which was subsequent to the introduction of the new Greek comedy. Lytiersa, who gives name to this dramatic satire, lived in Phrygia. He used to receive many guests, who flocked to his residence from all quarters. After entertaining them at sumptuous banquets, he compelled them to go out with him to his fields, to reap his crop or cut his hay; and when they had performed this labour, he mowed off their heads, with a scythe. The style of entertainment, it seems, did not prevent his house from being a place of fashionable resort. Hercules, however, put an end to this mode of wishing a good afternoon, by strangling the hospitable landlord, and throwing his body into the Mæander. It is evident, from the subject of this play, and of the Cyclops, that the tragic satires were a sort of fee-fa-fum performance, like [pg 235]our after-pieces founded on the stories of Blue Beard and Jack the Giant Killer. They were generally short and simple in their plan: They contained no satire or ridicule against the fellow-citizens of the author, or any private individuals whatever; but there was a good deal of jeering by the characters at each other, and much buffoonery, revelling, and indecency, among the satiric persons of the chorus.
The Comic Satire began later than the Tragic, subsisted for some time along with it, and finally survived it. In Greece it was chiefly popular after the time of Alexander, and it also flourished in the court of the Egyptian Ptolemies. It was quite different from the Tragic Satire; the action being laid in cities, or at least not always amid rustic scenes. Private individuals were often satirized in it, and not unfrequently the tyrants or rulers of the state. When a mythic story was adopted, the affairs of domestic life were conjoined with the action, and it never was of the same enormous or bloody nature as the fables employed in the tragic satire, but such subjects were usually chosen as that of Amphitryon, Apollo feeding the flocks of Admetus, &c. Satyrs were not essential characters, and when they were introduced, private individuals were generally intended to be ridiculed, under the form of these rustic divinities. Gluttony, to judge from some fragments preserved by Athenæus, was one of the chief topics of banter and merriment. Timocles, who lived about the 114th Olympiad, was the chief author of comic satires. Lycophron, better known by his Cassandra, also wrote one called Menedemus, in which the founder of the Eretric school of philosophy was exposed to ridicule, under the character of Silenus, and his pupils under the masks of Satyrs.
Besides their dramatic satires, the Greeks had another species of poem called Silli, which were patched up like the Cento Nuptialis of Ausonius from the verses of serious writers, and by such means turned to a different sense from what their original author intended. Thus, in the Silli attributed to Timon, a sceptic philosopher and disciple of Pyrrho, who lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the lines are copied from Homer and the tragic poets, but they are satirically applied to certain customs and systems of philosophy, which it was his object to ridicule. Some specimens of the Silli may be found in Diogenes Laertius; but the longest now extant is a passage preserved in Dio Chrysostom, exposing the mad attachment of the inhabitants of Alexandria to chariot races. To these Silli may be added the lyric or iambic satires directed against individuals, like those of Archilochus against Lycambes.
The Roman didactic satire had no great resemblance to [pg 236]any of these sorts of Greek satire. It referred, as every one knows, to the daily occurrences of life,—to the ordinary follies and vices of mankind. With the Greek tragic satire it had scarce any analogy whatever; for it was not in dialogue, and contained no allusion to the mythological Satyrs who formed the chorus of the Greek dramas. To the comic satire it had more affinity; and those writers who have maintained the Greek origin of Roman satire have done little justice to their argument by not attending to the distinction between these two sorts of dramatic satire, and treating the whole question as if it depended on the resemblance to the tragic satire. In the comic satire, as we have seen, Satyrs were not always nor necessarily introduced. The subject was taken from ordinary life; and domestic vice or absurdity was stigmatized and ridiculed, as it was in the Roman satire, particularly during its earliest ages. Still, however, there was no incident or plot evolved in a Roman satire; nor was it written in dialogue, except occasionally, for the sake of more lively sarcasm on life and manners.
But though the Roman satire took a different direction, it had something of the same origin as the satiric drama of the Greeks. As the Grecian holidays were celebrated with oblations to Bacchus and Ceres, to whose bounty they owed their wine and corn, in like manner the ancient Italians propitiated their agricultural or rustic deities with appropriate offerings,
but as they knew nothing of the Silenus, or Satyrs of the Greeks, a chorus of peasants, fantastically disguised in masks cut out from the barks of trees, danced or sung to a certain kind of verse, which they called Saturnian:—
These festivals had usually the double purpose of worship and recreation; and accordingly the verses often digressed from the praises of Bacchus to mutual taunts and railleries, like those in Virgil’s third eclogue, on the various defects and vices of the speakers.
Such rude lines, originally sung or recited in the Tuscan and Latian villages, at nuptials or religious festivals, were first [pg 237]introduced at Rome by Histrions, who, as already mentioned, were summoned from Etruria, in order to allay the pestilence which was depopulating the city. These Histrions being mounted on a stage, like our mountebanks, performed a sort of ballet, by dancing and gesticulating to the sound of musical instruments. The Roman youth thus learned to imitate their gestures and music, which they accompanied with railing verses delivered in extemporary dialogue.
The jeering, however, which had been at first confined to inoffensive raillery, at length exceeded the bounds of moderation, and the peace of private families was invaded by the unrestrained license of personal invective:—
This exposure of private individuals, which alarmed even those who had been spared, was restrained by a salutary law of the Decemvirs.—“Si quis occentassit malum carmen, sive condidisit, quod infamiam faxit flagitiumve alteri, fuste ferito.”
Ennius, perceiving how much the Romans had been delighted with the rude satires poured forth in extemporary dialogue, thought it might be worth his pains to compose satires not to be recited but read. He preserved in them, however, the groundwork of the ancient pleasantry, and the venom of the ancient raillery, on individuals, as well as on general vices. His satires related to various subjects, and were written in different sorts of verses—hexameters being mingled with iambic and trochaic lines, as fancy dictated.
The satires of Ennius, which have already been more particularly mentioned, were imitated by Pacuvius, and from his time the word satire came to be applied at Rome only to poems containing either a playful or indignant censure on manners. This sort of composition was chiefly indebted for its improvement to
A Roman knight, who was born in the year 605, at Suessa, a town in the Auruncian territory. He was descended of a good family, and was the maternal granduncle of Pompey the Great. In early youth he served at the siege of Numantia, in the same camp with Marius and Jugurtha, under the younger Scipio Africanus397, whose friendship and protection he had the good fortune to acquire. On his return to Rome from his Spanish campaign, he dwelt in a house which had been built at the public expense, and had been inhabited by Seleucus Philopater, Prince of Syria, whilst he resided in his youth as an hostage at Rome398. Lucilius continued to live on terms of the closest intimacy with the brave Scipio and wise Lælius,
These powerful protectors enabled him to satirize the vicious without restraint or fear of punishment. In his writings he drew a genuine picture of himself, acknowledged his faults, made a frank confession of his inclinations, gave an account of his adventures, and, in short, exhibited a true and spirited representation of his whole life. Fresh from business or pleasure, he seized his pen while his fancy was yet warm, and his passions still awake,—while elated with success or depressed by disappointment. All these feelings, and the incidents which occasioned them, he faithfully related, and made his remarks on them with the utmost freedom:—
Unfortunately, however, the writings of Lucilius are so mutilated, that few particulars of his life and manners can be gleaned from them. Little farther is known concerning him, than that he died at Naples, but at what age has been much disputed. Eusebius and most other writers have fixed it at 45, [pg 239]which, as he was born in 605, would be in the 651st year of the city. But M. Dacier and Bayle401 assert that he must have been much older, at the time of his death, as he speaks in his satires of the Licinian law against exorbitant expenditure at entertainments, which was not promulgated till 657, or 658.
Satire, more than any other species of poetry, is the offspring of the time in which it has its birth, and which furnishes it with the aliment whereon it feeds. The period at which Lucilius appeared was favourable to satiric composition. There was a struggle existing between the old and new manners, and the freedom of speaking and writing, though restrained, had not yet been totally checked by law. Lucilius lived amidst a people on whom luxury and corruption were advancing with fearful rapidity, but among whom some virtuous citizens were still anxious to stem the tide which threatened to overwhelm their countrymen. The satires of Lucilius were adapted to please these staunch “laudatores temporis acti,” who stood up for ancient manners and discipline. The freedom with which he attacked the vices of his contemporaries, without sparing individuals,—the strength of colouring with which his pictures were charged,—the weight and asperity of the reproaches with which he loaded those who had exposed themselves to his ridicule or indignation,—had nothing revolting in an age when no consideration compelled to those forbearances necessary under different forms of society or government402. By the time, too, in which Lucilius began to write, the Romans, though yet far from the polish of the Augustan age, had become familiar with the delicate and cutting irony of the Greek comedies of which the more ancient Roman satirists had no conception. Lucilius chiefly applied himself to the imitation of these dramatic productions, and caught, it is said, much of their fire and spirit:
The Roman language, likewise, had grown more refined in the age of Lucilius, and was thus more capable of receiving the Grecian beauties of style. Nor did Lucilius, like his prede[pg 240]cessors, mix iambic with trochaic verses. Twenty books of his satires, from the commencement, were in hexameter verse, and the rest, with exception of the thirtieth, in iambics or trochaics. His object, too, seems to have been bolder and more extensive than that of his precursors, and was not so much to excite laughter or ridicule, as to correct and chastise vice. Lucilius thus bestowed on satiric composition such additional grace and regularity, that he is declared by Horace to have been the first among the Romans who wrote satire in verse:—
But although Lucilius may have greatly improved this sort of writing, it does not follow that his satires are to be considered as altogether of a different species from those of Ennius—a light in which they have been regarded by Casaubon and Ruperti; “for,” as Dryden has remarked, “it would thence follow, that the satires of Horace are wholly different from those of Lucilius, because Horace has no less surpassed Lucilius in the elegance of his writing, than Lucilius surpassed Ennius in the turn and ornament of his.”
The satires of Lucilius extended to not fewer than thirty books; but whether they were so divided by the poet himself, or by some grammarian who lived shortly after him, seems uncertain: He was a voluminous author, and has been satirized by Horace for his hurried copiousness and facility:—
Of the thirty books there are only fragments extant; but these are so numerous, that though they do not capacitate us to catch the full spirit of the poet, we perceive something of his manner. His merits, too, have been so much canvassed by ancient writers, who judged of them while his works were yet entire, that their discussions in some measure enable us to appreciate his poetical claims. It would appear that he had great vivacity and humour, uncommon command of language, intimate knowledge of life and manners, and considerable acquaintance with the Grecian masters. Virtue appeared in his draughts in native dignity, and he exhibited his distinguished friends, Scipio and Lælius, in the most amiable light. At the same time it was impossible to portray [pg 241]anything more powerful than the sketches of his vicious characters. His rogue, glutton, and courtezan, are drawn in strong, not to say coarse colours. He had, however, much of the old Roman humour, that celebrated but undefined urbanitas, which indeed he possessed in so eminent a degree, that Pliny says it began with Lucilius in composition405, while Cicero declares that he carried it to the highest perfection406, and that it almost expired with him407. But the chief characteristic of Lucilius was his vehement and cutting satire. Macrobius calls him “Acer et violentus poeta408;” and the well-known lines of Juvenal, who relates how he made the guilty tremble by his pen, as much as if he had pursued them sword in hand, have fixed his character as a determined and inexorable persecutor of vice. His Latin is admitted on all hands to have been sufficiently pure409; but his versification was rugged and prosaic. Horace, while he allows that he was more polished that his predecessors, calls his muse “pedestris,” talks repeatedly of the looseness of his measure, “Incomposito pede currere versus,” and compares his whole poetry to a muddy and troubled stream:—
Quintilian does not entirely coincide with this opinion of Horace; for, while blaming those who considered him as the greatest of poets, which some persons still did in the age of Domitian, he says, “Ego quantum ab illis, tantum ab Horatio dissentio, qui Lucilium fluere lutulentum, et esse aliquid quod tollere possis, putat410.” The author of the books Rhetoricorum, addressed to Herennius, and which were at one time attributed to Cicero, mentions, as a singular awkwardness in the construction of his lines, the disjunction of words, which, according to proper and natural arrangement, ought to have been placed together, as—
Nay, what is still worse, it would appear from Ausonius, that [pg 242]he had sometimes barbarously separated the syllables of a word—
As to the learning of Lucilius, the opinions of antiquity were different; and even those of the same author appear somewhat contradictory on this point. Quintilian says, that there is “Eruditio in eo mira.” Cicero, in his treatise De Finibus, calls his learning mediocris; though, afterwards, in the person of Crassus, in his treatise De Oratore, he twice terms him Doctus412. Dacier suspects that Quintilian was led to consider Lucilius as learned, from the pedantic intermixture of Greek words in his compositions—a practice which seems to have excited the applause of his contemporaries, and also of his numerous admirers in the Augustan age, for which they have been severely ridiculed by Horace, who always warmly opposed himself to the excessive partiality entertained for Lucilius during that golden period of literature—
It is not unlikely that there may have been something of political spleen in the admiration expressed for Lucilius during the age of Augustus, and something of courtly complaisance in the attempts of Horace to counteract it. Augustus had extended the law of the 12 tables respecting libels; and the people, who found themselves thus abridged of the liberty of satirizing the Great by name, might not improbably seek to avenge themselves by an overstrained attachment to the works of a poet, who, living as they would insinuate, in better times, practised, without fear, what he enjoyed without restraint413.
Some motive of this sort doubtless weighed with the Romans in the age of Augustus, since much of the satire of Lucilius must have been unintelligible, or at least uninteresting to them. Great part of his compositions appears to have been rather a series of libels than legitimate satire, being occupied with virulent attacks on contemporary citizens of Rome—
[pg 243]Douza, who has collected and edited all that remains of the satires of Lucilius, mentions the names of not fewer than sixteen individuals, who are attacked by name in the course even of these fragments, among whom are Quintus Opimius, the conqueror of Liguria, Cæcilius Metellus, whose victories acquired him the sirname of Macedonianus, and Cornelius Lupus, at that time Princeps Senatus. Lucilius was equally severe on contemporary and preceding authors; Ennius, Pacuvius, and Attius, having been alternately satirized by him415. In all this he indulged with impunity416; but he did not escape so well from a player, whom he had ventured to censure, and who took his revenge by exposing Lucilius on the stage. The poet prosecuted the actor, and the cause was carried on with much warmth on both sides before the Prætor, who finally acquitted the player417.
The confidence of Lucilius in his powerful patrons, Scipio and Lælius, inspired this freedom; and it appears, in fact, to have so completely relieved him from all fear or restraint, that he boldly exclaims—
It is chiefly to such support that the unbridled license of the old Roman satirists may be ascribed—
The harsh and uncultivated spirit of the ancient Romans also naturally led to this species of severe and personal castigation; and it was not to be expected that in that age they should have drawn their pictures with the delicacy and generality which Horace has given to Offellus.
Lucilius, however, did not confine himself to invectives on vicious mortals. In the first book of his satires, he appears to have declared war on the false gods of Olympus, whose plurality he denied, and ridiculed the simplicity of the people, who bestowed on an infinity of gods the venerable name of father, which should be reserved for one. Near the com[pg 244]mencement of this book he represents an assembly of the gods deliberating on human affairs:
And, in particular, discussing what punishment ought to be inflicted on Rutilius Lupus, a considerable man in the Roman state, but noted for his wickedness and impiety, and so powerful that it is declared—
Jupiter expresses his regret that he had not been present at a former council of the gods, called to deliberate on this topic—
Jupiter having concluded, the subject is taken up by another of the gods, who, as Lactantius informs us, was Neptune419; but being puzzled with its intricacy, this divinity declares it could not be explained, were Carneades himself (the most clear and eloquent of philosophers) to be sent up to them from Orcus:
The only result of the solemn deliberations of this assembly is a decree, that each god should receive from mortals the title of father—
The third book contains an account of the inconveniences and amusements of a journey, performed by Lucilius, along the rich coast of Campania, to Capua and Naples, and thence all the way to Rhegium and the Straits of Messina. He appears particularly to have described a combat of gladiators, and the manifold distresses he experienced from the badness of the roads—
Horace, in the fifth satire of his first book, has, in imitation of Lucilius, comically described a journey from Rome to Brundusium, and like him has introduced a gladiatorial combat. The fourth satire of Lucilius stigmatizes the luxury and vices of the rich, and has been imitated by Persius in his third book. Aulus Gellius informs us, that in part of his fifth satire he exposed, with great wit and power of ridicule, those literary affectations of using such words in one sentence as terminate with a similar jingle, or consist of an equal number of syllables. He has shown how childish such affectations are, in that passage wherein he complains to a friend that he had neglected to visit him while sick. In the ninth satire he ridicules the blunders in orthography, committed by the transcribers of MSS., and gives rules for greater accuracy. Of the tenth book little remains; but it is said to have been the perusal of it which first inflamed Persius with the rage of writing satires. The eleventh seems to have consisted chiefly of personal invectives against Quintus Opimius, Lucius Cotta, and others of his contemporaries, whose vices, or rivalship with his patron Scipio, exposed them to his enmity and vengeance. The sixteenth was entitled Collyra, having been chiefly devoted to the celebration of the praises of Collyra, the poet’s mistress420. Of many of the other books, as the 12th, 13th, 18th, 21st, and four following, so small fragments remain, that it is impossible to conjecture the subject; for although we may see the scope of insulated lines, their matter may have been some incidental illustration, and not the principal subject of the satire. Even in those books, of which there are a greater number of fragments extant, they are so disjoined that it is as difficult to put them legibly together as the scattered leaves of the Sibyl; and the labour of Douza, who has been the most successful in arranging the broken lines, so as to make a connected sense, is by many considered as but a conjectural and philological sport. Those few passages, however, which are in any degree entire, show great force of satire; as for example, the following account of the life led by the Romans:—
The verses in which our poet bitterly ridicules the superstition of those who adored idols, and mistook them for true gods, are written in something of the same spirit—
On this passage Lactantius remarks, that such superstitious fools are much more absurd than the children to whom the satirist compares them, as the latter only mistake statues for men, the former for gods. There are two lines in the 26th book, which every nation should remember in the hour of disaster—
But the most celebrated and longest passage we now have from Lucilius, is his definition of Virtus—
Lactantius has cavilled at the different heads of this definition424, and perhaps some of them are more applicable to what we call wisdom, than to our term virtue, which, as is well known, does not precisely correspond to the Latin Virtus.
If we possessed a larger portion of the writings of Lucilius, I have no doubt it would be found that subsequent Latin poets, particularly the satirists, have not only copied various passages, but adopted the plan and subjects of many of his satires. It has already been mentioned, that Horace’s journey to Brundusium is imitated from that of Lucilius to Capua. His severity recommended him to Persius and Juvenal, who both mention him with respect. Persius, indeed, professes to follow him, but Juvenal seems a closer imitator of his manner. The jingle in the two following lines, from an uncertain book of Lucilius—
seems to have suggested Persius’ line—
The verses, “Cujus non audeo dicere nomen,” &c. quoted above, are copied by Juvenal in his first satire, but with evident allusion to the works of his predecessor. A line in the first book—
has been imitated by Persius in the very commencement of his satires—
Virgil’s phrase, so often quoted, “Non omnia possumus omnes,” is in the fifth book of Lucilius—
Were the whole works of Lucilius extant, many more such imitations might be discovered and pointed out. It is not on [pg 248]this account, however, that their loss is chiefly to be deplored. Had they remained entire, they would have been highly serviceable to philological learning. They would have informed us also of many incidents of Roman history, and would have presented us with the most complete draught of ancient Roman manners, and genuine Roman originals, which were painted from life, and at length became the model of the inimitable satires of imperial Rome.
Besides satirizing the wicked, under which category he probably classed all his enemies, Lucilius also employed his pen in praise of the brave and virtuous. He wrote, as we learn from Horace, a panegyric on Scipio Africanus, but whether the elder or younger is not certain:—
Lucilius was also author of a comedy entitled Nummularia, of which only one line remains; but we are informed by Porphyrion, the scholiast on Horace, that the plot turned on Pythias, a female slave, tricking her master, Simo, out of a sum of money, with which to portion his daughter.
Lucilius was followed in his satiric career by Sævius Nicanor, the grammarian, who was the freedman of one Marcius, as we learn from the only line of his poetry which is extant, and which has been preserved by Suetonius, or whoever was the author of the work De Illustribus Grammaticis:—
Publius Terentius Varro, sirnamed Atacinus, from the place of his birth, also attempted the Lucilian satire, but with no great success as we learn from Horace:—
He was more fortunate, it is said, in his geographical poems, and in that De Bello Sequanico426.
We may range among the satires of this period, the Diræ of the grammarian, Valerius Cato, who, being despoiled of his patrimony, especially his favourite villa at Tusculum, during the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, in order to make way for the soldiery, avenged himself, by writing poetical imprecations on his lost property. This poem is sometimes inscribed [pg 249]Diræ in Battarum, which is inaccurate, as it gives an idea that Battarus is the name of the person who had got possession of the villa, and on whom the imprecations were uttered. There is not, however, a word of execration against any of those who had obtained his lands, except in so far as he curses the lands themselves, praying that they may become barren—that they may be inundated with rain—blasted with pestiferous breezes, and, in short, laid waste by every species of agricultural calamity. Joseph Scaliger thinks that Battarus was a river, and Nic. Heinsius that it was a hill. It seems evident enough from the poem itself, that Battarus was some well known satiric or invective bard, whom the author invokes, in order to excite himself to reiterated imprecations427:—
The concluding part of the Diræ, as edited by Wernsdorff428, is a lamentation for the loss of a mistress, called Lydia, of whom the unfortunate poet had likewise been deprived. This, however, has been regarded by others as a separate poem from the Diræ. Cato was also author of a poem called Diana, and a prose work entitled Indignatio, in which he related the history of his misfortunes. He lived to an advanced age, but was oppressed by extreme poverty, and afflicted with a painful disease, as seems to be implied in the lines of his friend Furius Bibaculus, preserved in the treatise De Illustribus Grammaticis:—
The stream of Roman poetry appears to have suffered a temporary stagnation during the period that elapsed from the destruction of Carthage, which fell in 607, till the death of Sylla, in 674. Lucilius, with whose writings we have been engaged, was the only poet who flourished in this long interval. The satirical compositions which he introduced were not very generally nor successfully imitated. The race of dramatists had become almost extinct, and even the fondness for regular comedy and tragedy had greatly diminished. This [pg 250]was a pause, (though for a shorter period,) like that which was made in modern Italy, from the death of Petrarch till the rise of its bright constellation of poets, at the end of the 15th century. But the taste for literature which had been excited, and the luminous events which occurred, prevented either nation from being again enveloped in darkness. The ancient Romans could not be electrified by the fall of Carthage as their descendants were by the capture of Constantinople. But even the total subjugation of Greece, and extended dominion in Asia, were slower, at least in their influence on the efforts of poetry, than might have been anticipated from what was experienced immediately after the conquest of Magna Græcia. Any retrograde movement, however, was prevented by the more close and frequent intercourse which was opened with Greece. There, Athens and Rhodes were the chief allies of the Roman republic. These states had renounced their freedom, for the security which flattery and subservience obtained for them; but while they ceased to be considerable in power, they still continued pre eminent in learning. A number of military officers and civil functionaries, whom their respective employments carried to Greece—a number of citizens, whom commercial speculations attracted to its towns, became acquainted with and cherished Grecian literature. That contempt which the ancient and severe republicans had affected for its charms, gave place to the warmest enthusiasm. The Roman youth were instructed by Greeks, or by Romans who had studied in Greece. A literary tour in that country was regarded as forming an essential part in the education of a young patrician. Rhodes, Mitylene, and Athens, were chiefly resorted to, as the purest fountains from which the inspiring draughts of literature could be imbibed. This constant intercourse led to a knowledge of the philosophy and finest classical productions of Greece. It was thus that Lucretius was enabled to embody in Roman verse the whole Epicurean system, and Catullus to imitate or translate the lighter amatory and epigrammatic compositions of the Greeks. Both these poets flourished during the period on which we are now entering, and which extended from the death of Sylla to the accession of Augustus. The former of them,