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 discernment, the 'stili nasus' or 'emunctae nares' attributed to him by Pliny and Horace.

The criticism of Lucilius was not only aggressive, but also directly didactic. In the ninth book he discussed, at considerable length, disputed questions of orthography; and a passage is quoted from the same book, in which a distinction is drawn out between 'poëma' and 'poësis.' Under the first he ranks—

under the second, whole poems, such as the Iliad, or the Annals of Ennius. The only interest attaching to these fragments is that, like the didactic works of Accius, they testify to the crude critical effort that accompanied the creative activity of the earlier Roman poets.

As specimens of his continuous style the two following passages may be given. The first exemplifies the serious moral spirit with which ancient satire was animated; the second vividly represents and rebukes one of the most prevalent pursuits of the age—

If there is no great originality of thought nor rhetorical grace of expression in this passage, it proves that Lucilius judged of questions of right and wrong from his own point of view. To him, as to Ennius, common sense and a just estimate of life were large ingredients in virtue. To be a good hater as well as a staunch friend, and to choose one's friends and enemies according to their characters, is another quality of his virtuous man. With him, as with the best Romans of every age, love of country, family, and friends, were the primary motives to right action. The next passage, written in language equally plain and forcible, gives a graphic picture of the growing taste for forensic oratory—

These passages are probably not unfavourable specimens of the author's continuous style. At its best that style appears to be sincere, serious, rapid, and full of vital force, but careless, redundant, and devoid of all rhetorical point and subtle suggestiveness. Even to these passages the censure of Horace applies,—

If we regard these passages as on the ordinary level of his style we cannot hesitate to recognise his immense inferiority to Terence in elegance and finish⁴⁶, and to Plautus in rich and humorous exuberance of expression. There is scarcely a trace of imaginative power, or of susceptibility to the grandeur and pathos of human life, or to the beauty and sublimity of Nature in the thousand lines of his remains. We find a few vivid touches, as in this half-line—

but we fail to recognise not only the 'disjecti membra poetae,' but even the elements of the rhetorician, or of the ironical humourist—

Thus it is difficult to understand what Cicero means when he speaks of the 'Romani veteres atque urbani sales' as being 'salsiores' than those of the true masters of Attic wit, such as were Aristophanes, Plato, and Menander.

But these passages are simple, direct, and clear, compared with many of the single lines or longer passages, already quoted in illustration of the substance of his satire. These leave an impression not only of a total want of the 'limae labor,' but of an abnormal harshness and difficulty, beyond what we find in the fragments of Pacuvius, Accius, or Ennius. The fragments of his trochaics and iambics are much simpler, 'much less depart from the natural order of the words,' than those of his hexameters: a fact which reminds us of the great advance made by Horace in adapting the heroic measure to the familiar experience of life. Lucilius is moreover a great offender against not only the graces but the decencies of language. Lines are found in his fragments as coarse as the coarsest in Catullus or Juvenal: nor could he urge the extenuating plea of having forgotten the respect due to his readers from the necessity of relieving his wounded feelings or of vindicating morality.

Yet it is undoubted that, notwithstanding the most glaring faults and defects in form and style, he was one of the most popular among the Roman poets. The testimony of Cicero, Persius, Juvenal, Quintilian, Tacitus, and Gellius, confirms on this point the more ample testimony of Horace. If, as Mr. Munro thinks, Horace may have expressed, in deference to the prevailing taste of his time, a less qualified admiration for him than he really felt, this only shows how strong a hold his writings had over the reading public in the Augustan age. But Horace shows by no means the same deference to the admirers of Plautus and Ennius. To Lucilius he pays also the sincerer tribute of frequent imitation. He made him his model, in regard both to form and substance, in his satires; and even in his epistles he still acknowledges the guidance of his earliest master. In reading both the Satires and Epistles we are continually coming upon the vestiges of Lucilius, in some turn of expression, some personal or illustrative allusion. Similar vestiges are found, imbedded in the harsh and jagged diction of Persius, and though not to the same extent, in the polished rhetoric of Juvenal. Nor was his literary influence confined to Roman satirists. Lucretius, Catullus, and even Virgil, have not disdained to adopt his thoughts or imitate his manner⁴⁷.

But if we cannot altogether account for, we may yet partially understand the admiration which his countrymen felt for Lucilius. In every great literature, while there are some works which appeal to the imagination of the whole world, there are others which seem to hit some particular mood of the nation to which their author belongs, and are all the more valued from the prominence they give to this idiosyncracy. Every nation which has had a literature seems to have valued itself on some peculiar humour or vein of observation and feeling, which it regards as specially allotted to itself, over and above its common inheritance of the sense of the ludicrous, which it shares with other races. Those writers who have this last in unusual measure become the favourite humourists of the world. But their own countrymen often prefer those endowed with the narrower domestic type; and of this type Lucilius seems to have been a true representative. The 'antiqua et vernacula festivitas,' attributed to him, seems to have been more combative and aggressive than genial and sympathetic. The 'Italum acetum' was employed by the Romans as a weapon of controversy with the view of damaging an adversary and making either himself or the cause he represented appear ridiculous and contemptible. The dictum of a modern humourist, that to laugh at a man properly you must first love him, would have seemed to an ancient Roman a contradiction in terms. When Horace writes—

he means that men are more likely to be made better by the fear of contempt than of moral reprobation.

But Lucilius had much more than this power of personal raillery, exercised with the force supplied and under the restraints imposed by an energetic social and political life. He is spoken of not only as 'comis et urbanus,' but also as 'doctus' and 'sapiens.' Even his fragments indicate that he was a man of large knowledge of 'books and men.' Horace testifies to the use which he made of the old comic poets of Athens:—

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, Archilochus, Euripides, and Aesop. His habit of building up his Latin lines with the help of Greek phrases illustrates the first powerful influence of the new learning before the Roman mind was able thoroughly to assimilate it, but when it was in the highest degree stimulated and fascinated by it. The mind of Lucilius was susceptible to the novelty of the new thoughts and new impressions, but like that of his contemporaries was insensible to the grace and symmetry of Greek art. Terence is the only writer in the ante-Ciceronian period who had the sense of artistic form. But all this foreign learning was, in the mind of Lucilius, subsidiary to the freshest observation and most discerning criticism of his own age. He was a spectator of life more than an actor in it, but he yet had been present at one of the most important military events of the time, and he had lived in the closest intimacy with the greatest soldier and most prudent statesman of his age. His satire had thus none of the limitation and unreality which attaches to the work of a student and recluse, such as Persius was. To the writings of Lucilius more perhaps than to those of any other Roman would the words of Martial apply—

It is his strong realistic tendency both in expression and thought that seems to explain his antagonism to the older poets who treated of Greek heroes and heroines in language widely removed from that employed either in the forum or in the social meetings of educated men. The popularity of Lucilius among the Romans may thus be explained on much the same grounds as that of Archilochus among the Greeks. He first introduced the literature of the understanding as distinct from that either of the graver emotions or of humorous and sentimental representation. And, while writing with the breadth of view and wealth of illustration derived from learning, he did not, like the poets of later times, write for an exclusive circle of critical readers, but rather, as he himself said, 'for Tarentines, Consentini, and Sicilians⁴⁸.' There was nothing about him of the fastidiousness and shyness of a too refined culture. Every line almost of his fragments attests his possession of that quality which, more than any other, secures a wide, if not always a lasting, popularity, great vitality and its natural accompaniment, boldness and confidence of spirit. While he saw clearly, felt keenly, and judged wisely the political and social action of his time, he reproduced it vividly in his pages. Whatever other quality his style may want, it is always alive. And the life with which it is animated is thoroughly healthy. There is a singular sincerity in the ring of his words, the earnest of a mind, absolutely free from cant and pretence, not lashing itself into fierce indignation as a stimulant to rhetorical effect, nor forcing itself to conform to any impracticable scheme of life, but glowing with a hearty scorn for baseness, and never shrinking from its exposure in whatever rank and under whatever disguise he detected it⁴⁹, and ever courageously 'upholding the cause of virtue and of those who were on the side of virtue'—

It was by the rectitude and manliness of his character, as much as by his learning, his quick and true discernment, his keen raillery and vivid portraiture, that he became the favourite of his time and country, and, alone among Roman writers, succeeded in introducing a new form of literature into the world.

¹   Bernhardy quotes the following words from Cicero, de Rep. iv. ap. Augustin. C. D. ii. 9:—

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.

²   'You know not, ah you know not the airs of 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.'

³   Vell. Paterc. ii. 9. The service of Lucilius in Spain seems to be confirmed by a line in one of his Satires:—

⁴   Hor. Sat. ii. I. 71-5.

⁵   Cf. L. Müller's edition of the Fragments.

⁶  

The comment of Festus shows that these words were addressed by Lucilius to Scipio.

⁷   Cic. de Fin. i. 3.

⁸   Journal of Philology, vol. viii. 16.

⁹  

One of many lines imitated and almost reproduced by Horace.

¹⁰   'I will tell you how I am, though you don't ask 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.

¹¹   Imitated by Horace in the lines:—

¹²

¹³   Hor. Sat. ii. 2. 46:—

¹⁴

¹⁵

¹⁶

Cf. Hor. Ep. i. 7. 36:—

¹⁷

¹⁸

¹⁹

²⁰

²¹

Among the friends of Lucilius, besides Scipio and Laelius, were Aelius Stilo, Albinus, and Granius, whom Cicero quotes for his wit.

²²

²³

²⁴

²⁵

²⁶

Cf. Vitaque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu.

²⁷   Cf. Virtus, Albine, etc. Infra, p. 240.

²⁸  

²⁹  

³⁰   Cf. Cic. De Or. 1. 16: Sed ut solebat C. Lucilius saepe dicere, homo tibi (i.e. Scaevolae) subiratus, mihi propter eam causam minus quam volebat familiaris, sed tamen et doctus et perurbanus.

Hor. Sat. ii. 1. 67:—

Pers. i. 115:—

³¹   Fuit autem inter P. Africanum et Q. Metellum sine acerbitate dissensio.

³²   Cf. Diversisque duobus vitiis, avaritia et luxuria civitatem laborare.—Livy, xxxiv. 4.

³³   'O Publius Gallonius, thou whirlpool of excess; 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:—

And

³⁴   Cf.

³⁵  

³⁶   'Who has neither beast, nor slave, nor 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.'

³⁷   Cp. the speech of Cato (Livy, xxxiv. 4) in support of the Oppian law: 'An blandiores in publico quam in privato, et alienis quam vestris estis?'

³⁸   'These bugbears and goblins from the days of 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.' Cf. Horace, Ep. ii. 2. 208:—

³⁹   De Fin. i. 3.

⁴⁰   'You preferred, Albucius, to be called a Greek, 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.'

⁴¹   Et Pacuvius, et Pacuvio iam sene Accius, clariorque tunc in poematis corum obtrectandis Lucilius fuit.

⁴²   E.g.

⁴³   In the same spirit is the following line:—

And this from another book of Satires:—

Among the phrases of Ennius at which Lucilius carped was one which Virgil did not disdain to adopt. The passage of the old poet,—

parodied by the Satirist in the form 'horret et alget,' was justified by being reproduced in the Virgilian phrase,

⁴⁴   'Virtue, Albinus, consists in being able to give 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.'

⁴⁵   'But now from morning till night, on holiday and 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.'

⁴⁶   Cp. Mr. Monro's criticism in the Journal of Philology.

⁴⁷   Passages of Lucilius apparently imitated by Lucretius:—

Virgil's 'rex ipse Phanaeus' is said by Servius to be imitated from the Χῖός τε δυναστής of Lucilius. Other imitations are pointed out in Macrobius and in Servius. An apparent imitation by Catullus has been already noticed.

⁴⁸   Cic. De Fin. i. 3.

⁴⁹  

CHAPTER IX.

Review of the First Period.

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 Republic were Lucilius and Afranius. Half a century from the death of Lucilius elapsed before the appearance of the poems of Lucretius and Catullus, which come next to be considered. But before passing on to this more familiar ground, a few pages may be devoted to a retrospect of some general characteristics marking the earlier period, and to a consideration of the social and intellectual conditions under which literature first established itself at Rome.

With striking individual varieties of character, the poets whose works have been considered present something of a common aspect, distinct from that of the literary men of later times. They were placed in different circumstances, and lived in a different manner from either the poets who adorned the last days of the Republic or those who flourished in the Augustan age. The spirit animating their works was the result of the forces acting on the national life, and the form and style in which they were composed were determined by the stage of culture which the national mind had reached, and the stage of growth through which the Latin language was passing under the stimulus of that culture.

Like nearly all the literary men of later times, these poets were of provincial or foreign birth and origin. They were thus born under circumstances more favourable to, or at least less likely to repress, the expansion of individual genius, than the public life and private discipline of Rome. Their minds were thus more open to the reception of new influences; and their position as aliens, by cutting them off from an active public career, served to turn their energies to literature. Their provincial birth and Greek education did not, however, check their Roman sympathies, or prevent them from stamping on their writings the impress of a Roman character.

While, like many of the later poets, they came originally as strangers to Rome, unlike them, they seem to have in later years resided habitually within the city. The taste for country life prevailing in the days of Cicero and of Horace was not developed to any great extent in the times of Ennius or Lucilius. The great Scipio, indeed, retired to spend the last years of his life at Liternum; and Cicero mentions the boyish delight of Laelius and the younger Africanus in escaping from the public business and the crowded streets of Rome to the pleasant sea-shore of Caieta¹. 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 exclusively into contact with the life and business of the city; and their works were consequently more distinguished by their strong sense and understanding than by the passionate or contemplative susceptibility which characterises the great eras of Latin literature.

It is remarkable that nearly all the early poets lived to a great age, and maintained their intellectual vigour unabated to their latest years; while of their successors none reached the natural term of human life, and some among them, like many great modern poets, were cut off prematurely before their promise was fulfilled. The finer sensibility and more passionate agitation of the poetic temperament appear, in some cases, to exhaust prematurely the springs of life; while, in natures more happily balanced, or formed by more favourable circumstances, the gifts of genius are accompanied by stronger powers of life, and thus maintain the freshness of youth unimpaired till the last. The length of time during which Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, and probably Lucilius, exercised their art suggests the inference, either that they were men of firmer fibre than their successors, or that they were braced to a more enduring strength by the action of their age. As the work of men writing in the fulness of their years, the serious poetry of the time appealed to the mature sympathies of manhood; and even the comic poetry of Plautus deals with the follies of youth in a genial spirit of indulgence, tempered by the sense of their absurdity, such as might naturally be entertained by one who had outlived them.

But perhaps the most important condition determining the original scope of Roman poetry was the predominance in that era of public over personal interests. Like Virgil and Horace, most of the early poets were men born in comparatively a humble station; yet by their force of intellect and character they became the familiar friends of the foremost men in the State. But while the poets of the Augustan age owed the charm of their existence to the patronage of the great, the earlier poets depended for their success mainly on popular favour. The intimacy subsisting between the leaders of action and of literature during the second century b.c. arose from the mutual attraction of greatness in different spheres. The chief men in the Republic obtained their position by their services to the State, and thus the personal attachment subsisting between them and men of letters was a bond connecting the latter with the public interest. The early poetry of the Republic is not the expression of an educated minority keeping aloof from public life. If it is animated by a strong aristocratic spirit, the reason is that the aristocratic spirit was predominant in the public life of Rome during that century.

In this era, more than in any later age, the poetry of Rome, like that of Greece in its greatest eras, addressed itself to popular and national, not to individual tastes. The crowds that witnessed and applauded the representations of tragedy as well as comedy, afford a sufficient proof that the reproduction of Greek subjects and personages could be appreciated without the accomplishment of a Greek education. The popularity of the poem of Ennius is attested by his own language, as well as by the evidence of later writers. The honour of a public funeral awarded to Lucilius, implies the general appreciation with which his contemporaries enjoyed the verve, sense, and moral strength which secured for his satire the favour of a more refined and critical age.

This general popularity is an argument in favour of the original spirit animating this early literature. It implies the power of embodying some sentiment or idea of national or public interest. Thus Roman tragedy appears to have been received with favour, chiefly in consequence of the grave Roman tone of its maxims, and the Roman bearing of its personages. The epic poetry of the age did not, like the Odyssey, relate a story of personal adventure, but unfolded the annals of the State in continuous order, and appealed to the pride which men felt, as Romans, in their history and destiny. The satire of Lucilius was not intended merely to afford amusement by ridiculing the follies of social life, but played a part in public affairs by political partisanship and antagonism, and maintained the traditional standard of manners and opinions against the inroads of foreign 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 comedy of Plautus abounded in the humour congenial to the Italian race, and owed much of its popularity to the strong Roman colouring spread over the Greek outlines of his representations.

The national character of this poetry is attested also by the spirit and character which pervades it. Among all the authors who have been reviewed, Ennius alone possessed in a large measure that peculiar vein of imaginative feeling which is the most impressive element in the great poets of a later age. The susceptibility of his mind to the sentiment that moulded the institutions and inspired the policy of the Imperial Republic, entitles him to rank as the truest representative of the genius of his country, notwithstanding his apparent inferiority to Plautus in creative originality. The glow of moral passion, which is another great characteristic of Latin literature, as it was of the best types of the Latin race, reveals itself in the remains of all the serious writers of the age. The struggle between the old Roman self-respect and the new modes of temptation, is exemplified in the antagonistic influence exercised by the tragic, epic, and satiric poetry on the one hand, and the comedy of Plautus and Terence on the other. The more general popularity of comedy was a symptom of the facility with which the severer standard of life yielded to the new attractions. The graver writers, equally with the writers of comedy, shared in the sceptical spirit, or the religious indifference, which was one of the dissolving forces of social and political life during this age. The strong common sense which characterised all the writers of the time, could not fail to bring them into collision with the irrational formalism of the national religion; while the distaste for speculative philosophy which Ennius and Plautus equally express, and the strong hold which they all have on the immediate interests of life, explain the absence of any, except the most superficial, reflections on the more mysterious influences which in the belief of the great Greek poets moulded human destiny.

The political condition of Rome in the second century b.c. is reflected in the changes through which her literature passed. For nearly two-thirds of that century, Roman history seems to go through a stage of political quiescence, as compared at least with the vigorous life and stormy passions of its earlier and later phases. But under the surface a great change was taking place, both in the government and the social condition of the people, the effects of which made themselves sufficiently manifest during the last century of the existence of the Republic. The outbreak of the long gathering forces of discontent and disorder is as distinctly marked in Roman history, as the outbreak of the revolutionary forces in modern Europe. The year 133 b.c., the date of the first tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus, has the same kind of significance as the year 1789 A.D. Nor is it a mere coincidence that about the same time a great change takes place in the spirit of Roman literature. The comedies of Plautus, written in the first years of the century, while they reflect the political indifference of the mass of the people, are yet indicative of their general spirit of contentment, and their hearty enjoyment of life. The epic of Ennius, written a little later, proclaims the undisputed ascendency of an aristocracy, still moulded by its best traditions, and claiming to lead a united people. The remains of Roman tragedy breathe the high spirit of the governing class, and attest the severer virtue still animating its best representatives. The comedies of Terence seem addressed to the taste of a younger generation of greater refinement, but of a laxer moral fibre than their fathers, and of a class becoming separated by more elaborate culture from ordinary Roman citizens. Expressions in his prologues², however, show that there was as yet no division between classes arising from political discontent. But in the satire of Lucilius we read the protest of the better Roman spirit against the lawless arrogance of the nobles, their incapacity in war, their corrupt administration of justice, their iniquitous government of the provinces; against the ostentatious luxury of the rich; the avarice of the middle classes; the venality of the mob, and the profligacy of their leaders; and against the insincerity and animosities fostered among the educated classes by the contests of the forum and the law-courts.

In passing from the substance and spirit of this early literature to its form and style, we can see by the rudeness of the more original ventures which the Roman spirit made, how slowly it was educated by imitative effort to high literary accomplishment. The only writer who aimed at perfection of form was Terence, and his success was due to his close adherence to his originals. But as some compensation for their artistic defects, these early writers display much greater productiveness than their literary successors. They were like the settlers in a new country, who are spared the pains of exact cultivation owing to the absence of previous occupation of the soil, and the large extent of ground thus open to their industry. The 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 long, hearty, active, and useful life, with the small volume which still preserves the flower of a few passionate years, as fresh as when the young poet sent it forth:—