The Achilleis has much the same good and bad qualities as the Thebais, and is less wearisome only because it is less long. The Achilleis and the Silvæ. In the Silvæ Statius shows to better advantage. These occasional poems were evidently written for the most part in haste. In fact Statius says in his preface to the first book that none of the poems contained in it occupied him more than two days, and one of these poems contains 277 lines. The poems were written chiefly to please some noble or wealthy patron, and the subjects are in many cases trivial, such as a parrot, a fine bath-house, or a beautiful tree belonging to the person addressed. Such works call for little poetic fervor, but merely for skill in writing verses, and that Statius possessed in remarkable measure. Nearly all the poems are in hexameters, only six, among them one in celebration of Lucan’s birthday, being in other metres. There is more or less padding in the poems; invocations of the Muses or of gods take up considerable space, and mythological allusions are needlessly multiplied; but these things are excusable in a poet who writes to order to please a patron. Of all the poems of Statius the most pleasing is one of only nineteen lines addressed to Sleep, the “youth, most gentle of the gods.” The wakeful poet begs Sleep to come, but does not ask him to spread all his wings over his eyes, but merely to touch him with his wand, or pass lightly over him. The Thebais and the Achilleis attained immediate popularity, and continued to be much read and admired in the Middle Ages; but modern times have reversed the former judgment, and such admiration as is still accorded to Statius is given him on account of the Silvæ.

The epics of Saleius Bassus and of Statius’s father, both of whom wrote under Vespasian, have disappeared, as have the tragedies and orations of Curiatius Maternus, who lived at the same time. Other poets. The lyric poet, Arruntius Stella, and the poetess, Sulpicia, wrote under Domitian, but their works also are lost, for the extant short poem attributed to Sulpicia is a product of a later time. The only Flavian poet, besides Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus, and Statius, whose works remain, is Martial.

Marcus Valerius Martialis was born at Bilbilis, in the northeastern part of Spain, on the first of March, about 40 A. D. Martial. His parents, Fronto and Flacilla, gave him the usual grammatical and rhetorical education at Bilbilis, or some neighboring town, and in 64 A. D. he went to Rome, where he became a client or hanger-on of the family of Seneca, and some other important families. He may have practised law for a time, but lived chiefly from the bounty of his patrons. The ius trium liberorum granted him by Titus, was ratified by Domitian. He received the title of tribune, which carried with it equestrian rank. He owned a small country estate near Nomemtum, perhaps a gift from Argentaria Polla, Lucan’s widow; and at one time he had a house of his own at Rome and kept some slaves. Still he can never have been rich, for he complains constantly of poverty. In 98 A. D. he returned to Spain, and died in his native place not later than 104 A. D., for the younger Pliny, in a letter written about that date, speaks of his recent death.

Martial’s poems comprise fourteen books of epigrams, the last two books of which, consisting of lines intended to accompany xenia and apophoreta, gifts which it was customary to present to friends at the Saturnalia, were not published as books by their author. One book of Spectacula celebrates the theatrical performances and other shows in which the Romans delighted; the remaining books are Epigrammata, each book revised and published with an introduction by the author. The longest poem contains fifty-one lines, the shortest consists of one hexameter. Most of the poems are in elegiac verse, but many are in hendecasyllables, and a few other metres occur. Martial is the master of epigram. His verses are sententious and to the point, often bitter, not infrequently indecent, but never stilted, dull, or unnatural. In an age of many imitative poets, Martial was original. This does not mean that no traces of imitation are to be found in his poems, for his obligations to Catullus are evident and frankly acknowledged, while the influence of Virgil, Ovid, and Juvenal is plainly to be seen; but his pointed wit, his candor, and his sententious brevity are his own. He has no lofty poetic inspiration, and exhibits no greater height of character than what is needed to let him see and acknowledge his own limitations. In spite of the bitterness of many of his verses, he seems to have been a man of genial nature. He was a friend of Silius Italicus, Quintilian, the younger Pliny, and Juvenal, but does not mention Statius by name, though his sneers at epic poets are probably directed against him. The younger Pliny says of him: “He was a talented, acute, and spirited man, whose writings are full of wit and gall, and not less candor.”97

Martial is not to be ranked among great poets, but his ability to express well-defined thoughts in brief, sententious, pointed words, has made his epigrams the models for all later times. The following lines commemorate the death of Arria, who, when her husband Pætus was ordered to kill himself, showed him the way:

Another brief epigram is on some fishes, supposed to be the work of the great sculptor Phidias:

These lines also refer to a work of art:

The daily life of Rome is described in the following lines:

Among the many learned writers of this period the most important is the elder Pliny. Pliny the elder. Gaius Plinius Secundus was born at Novum Comum, in northern Italy, in 23 A. D. At an early age he went to Rome, where he came under the influence of Pomponius Secundus, whose example may have led him to combine public service with diligent study and authorship. Pliny’s life was passed in the service of the state. He was an officer in the cavalry, serving in Germany and perhaps also in Syria; he was a trusted counsellor and agent of Vespasian, and held at different times the important post of procurator or governor in several provinces. His nephew mentions especially his procuratorship in Spain. These various and important official duties did not, however, withdraw Pliny’s mind from his studies. When he was carried in the litter through the streets in the evening, after his official duties were performed, while he was bathing, and at his meals, he read or was read to constantly. He believed that no book was so poor as not to contain something worth recording, and therefore he took notes of all he read. At his death he left one hundred and sixty rolls of manuscript notes, closely written on both sides. With all this reading Pliny was not a mere bookworm, but a practical man of affairs and an interested observer of men and things about him. His zeal for knowledge cost him his life; for when the great eruption of Vesuvius took place, in 79 A. D., Pliny, who was in command of the fleet at Misenum, went in a war galley to the neighborhood of the volcano to investigate the strange phenomenon and to aid those in peril, landed, and finally succumbed to the ashes and noxious gases. The description of this event is the most interesting of the letters of his nephew, the younger Pliny.

The result of Pliny’s diligence is seen in his great encyclopædic work, the Natural History, in thirty-seven books. In this he undertakes to describe the whole realm of nature in a systematic way. The first book consists of a table of contents with a list of the authors consulted. The Natural History. Then follow in order the general mathematical and physical description of the universe, geography and ethnology, anthropology, zoology, botany, and mineralogy. Under mineralogy the uses of metals and stones are described, and this leads to a valuable history of painting and sculpture. The Natural History is written for the most part in a simple, straightforward style, though with occasional lapses from good taste, but it is not a great work of literature. Its importance lies in the information it contains. In the first book, Pliny mentions nearly five hundred authors from whom his information is derived, but as he also speaks of one hundred chosen ones whose works he consulted, it is evident that his authorities fall into two classes. Apparently he really consulted about one hundred, but recorded in the first book the names of other writers to whom his real authorities referred. Pliny is almost the only ancient writer who tries to give much information about the sources of his knowledge, but it is often difficult, if not impossible, even in his case to be sure from what source a particular statement is derived. In general, it is clear that Pliny was a careful worker, and his statements can, as a rule, be accepted as true. The great work was ready for publication in 77 A. D. and was sent to Titus with an interesting preface. But even after this, Pliny continued to add the results of further reading or observation. His death came upon him in the midst of his work. Pliny’s other works. Pliny was also the author of several other works, the most important of which were the History of the German Wars, in twenty books, and a history From the End of the History of Aufidius Bassus, in thirty-one books. Just what period this work embraced is not certain, but the suggestion that each book treated of one year and that the whole was a history of the years 41-71 A. D. is not improbable. These works, as well as Pliny’s lesser writings, are lost, but they served at least to supply material to Tacitus, who cites the German Wars, and to other historians.

Of the technical writings of this period only two now exist: the Stratagems (Strategemata) and the treatise on the Roman aqueducts (De Aquis Urbis Romæ Libri II), by Sextius Julius Frontinus, a man of some distinction, who was prætor in 70 A. D., consul several times, and was appointed Curator Aquarum, or overseer of the water supply of Rome, in 97 A. D. Frontinus. Various writers. His writings belong rather to the history of technical studies than to that of literature. The names of several authors of memoirs of travels, legal treatises, speeches, histories, and technical writings of various kinds are known to us, but their works are lost or only partially preserved as unsatisfactory fragments. The schools of grammar and rhetoric continued to exist, and many teachers of these subjects enjoyed considerable reputation. The greatest among them, and the only one whose work has survived to modern times, is Quintilian, the last, and in some respects the greatest, of the Spanish writers of Rome.

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was born at Calagurris, in Spain, about 35 A. D. He was educated at Rome under the most distinguished teachers of the time, and when his education was completed returned to his native place. Quintilian. But in 68 A. D., Galba, who had been governor in Spain before he became emperor, called Quintilian to Rome. Here he became a teacher of rhetoric, and received a salary from the imperial treasury. At the same time he was a prominent barrister, but published only one speech, though others were published without his authority from shorthand reports. He was a man of great influence, and was even raised to the consulship by Domitian, who had appointed him tutor of his grandnephews. After teaching for twenty years he gave up his school and devoted himself to the composition of his great work, the Institutio Oratoria. This was published about 93 A. D. An earlier work, On the Reasons for the Decay of Oratory (De Causis Corruptæ Eloquentiæ), is lost. Quintilian’s private life was not free from trouble. He married at an advanced age, but his wife died when only eighteen years old, his younger son soon after at the age of five, and his elder son after a brief interval at the age of nine. When Quintilian died is not known, but he can hardly have lived long after 100 A. D.

The title Institutio Oratoria, given by Quintilian to his work, designates it as a text-book of oratory. Institutio Oratoria. But it is no mere technical treatise on the art of speaking. Quintilian was an enthusiastic lover of his profession, and believed that oratory was the highest expression of human thought and human life. Like Cato, he demanded that the orator be not merely a good speaker, but also, and first of all, a good man. He must also have a general literary education before proceeding to the technical study of oratory.

Owing to this large conception of the qualities of the orator, Quintilian’s great work became a general and very important treatise on education. Its arrangement is as follows: the first book treats of the elements of education and contains many interesting observations upon family life; the fundamental principles of rhetoric are treated in the second book, which carries on the discussion of the purposes and methods of education; the next five books (III-VII) deal exhaustively with the matter of oratory under the main heads of invention and disposition or arrangement, and are for the most part strictly technical; four books (VIII-XI) treat of expression and all that is included in the word style with a discussion of memorizing and delivery; and the last book (XII), now that the theory of oratory is expounded, reverts to the orator himself, and discusses the moral qualities and the continuous self-discipline which alone can make the orator great.

The technical part of the Institutio Oratoria, is now, since the study of formal rhetoric is no longer an important part of a liberal education, of little interest except to those who make a special study of Roman style and educational theories. Yet even in these books are many wise utterances of permanent value, such as “the price of a laugh is too high when it is purchased at the expense of virtue”;102 or, “a joke at the expense of the wretched is inhuman”;103 or, “it is the spirit and the force of mind that make men eloquent.”104 Such remarks, admirably expressed and inserted in fitting places, make the more technical books of Quintilian’s work even now well worth reading. But the chief interest for the modern reader lies in those parts of the work which have less to do with the special training of the orator, and are more general in their scope—the discussion of elementary education in the first book, the treatise on the larger and broader education of mature life in the last book, and the brief critical survey of Greek and Latin literature in the first chapter of the tenth book.

The theory of education as presented by Quintilian is the result of serious thought. The theory of education. It shows a breadth of view, a reasonableness, and at the same time a loftiness of conception that give its author at once an important position among educational writers. The ethical or moral element in education is especially emphasized. Quintilian, like many others in his day, felt that the standard of morals, of literature, and of oratory was lower than in the days of the republic. But instead of mourning over the decay of

Roman virtue and taste, Quintilian, seeing that the only cure lay in right education, undertook to show the way to a restoration of the ancient excellence. Tacitus, in his essay on oratory, mentions carelessness of parents and bad education as the chief reason for the decay of eloquence; the same ground had apparently been taken by Quintilian himself in his lost essay on the Decay of Oratory, and in the Institutio Oratoria the attempt is made to show how deterioration may be stopped and the old virtue restored. That others besides Quintilian were seriously interested in reform there is no doubt, and if their efforts met with little success, it is probably in part because they tried to restore the excellence of a time that was past and were unable to regulate the active forces of the present.

As a literary critic Quintilian exhibits the same sanity that characterizes his educational theory. Literary criticism. Since a knowledge of the best literature is necessary for the orator, Quintilian passes in review the chief Greek and Latin writers, and it is interesting to observe that he regards the latter as the equals of the Greeks. He has decided preferences, and gives to Cicero, whom he regards as the equal of Demosthenes, the foremost place among the Romans. Yet he recognizes the merits even of those authors, such as Seneca, whose style he least admires. In brief and admirably expressive words he characterizes the style of the chief writers of Greece and Rome, and his judgment has, in almost every case, remained the judgment of later ages. It is interesting also to note that the works of nearly all those writers whom he mentions as the best have been preserved to our own time, which is an additional proof that the extant works have been preserved for the most part not by mere chance but on account of their intrinsic merit. Quintilian’s admiration for Cicero is evident in his own style. Statius had reverted to the style of Virgil, and Quintilian goes back to Cicero, discarding the rhetorical excrescences of Seneca and his school. Style. His Latin is classical and beautiful, sometimes equal to that of Cicero himself. He is the foremost representative of the classical reaction of his time. But the reversion to an earlier style, whether in literature or art, has never been permanent, and Quintilian’s influence, great as it undoubtedly was, could not stop the course of that change and decay which was in the end destined to transform the Latin language and bring into being the Romance tongues of modern times.

CHAPTER XV

NERVA AND TRAJAN

Nerva, 96-98 A. D.—Trajan, 98-117 A. D.—Tacitus, about 55 to about 118 A. D.—Juvenal, 55 (?) to about 135 A. D.—Pliny the younger, 61 or 62 to 112 or 113 A. D.—Other writers.

Under Nerva (96-98 A. D.) and Trajan (98-117 A. D.) freedom of speech and literary utterance, which had been banished under the tyranny of Domitian, were restored. Nerva and Trajan. Nerva and Trajan were educated men. Nothing remains of Nerva’s poems, which led Martial to call him “the Tibullus of our times,” and Trajan’s history of the Dacian War is also, unfortunately, lost. Trajan’s replies to the letters of the younger Pliny show that he could write in a clear, concise, and business-like manner, but exhibit no further literary qualities. He paid attention to the education of the young and founded the Ulpian library, but was not a man of marked literary tastes. Under Nerva and Trajan literature was allowed to take its own course without hindrance and also without that imperial patronage which sometimes stifles free utterance quite as effectually as severity or intimidation. Nevertheless there was little literary production of any importance. There were many writers, but most of them have left not even their names to posterity. The only authors of literary importance under these emperors are Tacitus, Juvenal, and the younger Pliny.

Cornelius Tacitus105 was born, according to such evidence as exists, in 55 or 56 A. D. Tacitus. The place of his birth is not recorded, and nothing certain is known of his family; but his education, his career, and his marriage to the daughter of Agricola all combine to indicate that he belonged to a family of some importance. His marriage took place in 78 A. D., one year after the consulship of Agricola. Tacitus began his official career under Vespasian, continued it under Titus, and reached the rank of prætor under Domitian, in 88 A. D. Under Trajan, in 97 A. D., he was appointed consul suffectus, and about 112-116 A. D. he was proconsul of Asia. His death took place probably not long after 117 A. D. He had a great reputation as a public speaker, as is evident from the fact that in 97 or 98 A. D. he delivered the funeral oration over Verginius Rufus, and it was probably due in great measure to his eloquence that in 100 A. D. he and Pliny accomplished the conviction of Marius Priscus, proconsul of Africa, for extortion. It was not without knowledge of public affairs that Tacitus turned to the writing of history, nor was it without practical knowledge of oratory that he wrote the dialogue De Oratoribus.

The works of Tacitus in the order of composition are the Dialogue on Orators (Dialogus de Oratoribus), the dramatic date of which is 75 A. D., while the date of composition is uncertain; the Germania, published in 98 A. D.; the Agricola, written early in the reign of Trajan, probably in 98 A. D.; the Histories, written under Trajan, and apparently not completed much before 110 A. D.; and the Annals, published between 115 and 117 A. D. The Dialogue on Orators is an inquiry into the causes of the decay of oratory. Works of Tacitus.
The Dialogus. In form it is an imitation of Cicero’s famous dialogue De Oratore, and the style also imitates that of Cicero. In this respect the dialogue is so unlike the later works of Tacitus that his authorship has been denied by many scholars. It must, however, be remembered that this is his earliest work, and that the Ciceronian style was taught in the school of Quintilian and no doubt in other schools at Rome, so that an imitation of Cicero was a natural beginning for a young author. Moreover, there are in the dialogue traces of the later style of Tacitus, which is distinguished for its epigrammatic utterances and its frequent use of innuendo. The work may therefore be unhesitatingly ascribed to Tacitus. It is an interesting and attractive dialogue, in which the quiet life of the poet is contrasted with the more active career of the orator before the real subject—the reasons for the decay of oratory—is discussed. The conclusion is reached that oratory has declined partly on account of the faulty rhetorical education in vogue, but still more because the orator no longer has under the imperial government the influence and power that belonged to his predecessors in the days of the republic.

The Agricola (De Vita et Moribus Iulii Agricolæ) is a biography and panegyric of Gnæus Julius Agricola, Tacitus’s father-in-law. The Agricola. In the introduction Tacitus gives his reasons for having written nothing during the reign of Domitian. The passage deserves to be quoted, not only as a specimen of Tacitus’s style, but because it places in a clear light his view of the imperial government in the first century. Throughout the Histories and the Annals his attitude is the same, and his genius has imposed his view upon all later times. Under Domitian two eminent Stoics, Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Priscus, had been put to death and their works publicly burned. Tacitus mentions this and then expresses himself as follows:

They thought forsooth that in that fire the voice of the Roman people and the freedom of the senate and the conscience of the human race were being consumed, especially since the teachers of philosophy had been banished and every good profession driven into exile, that nothing honorable might offend them. We have indeed given a great proof of our patience; and just as the ancient time saw the utmost limit of liberty, so we have seen the utmost limit of servitude, when even the intercourse of speech and hearing was taken away by the inquisitions. And with our speech we should have lost even our very memory, if we had been as able to forget as to keep silent. Now at last our courage has returned, but although ... Trajan is daily adding to the blessedness of the times, ... and the state has gained confidence and strength, nevertheless by the nature of human weakness remedies are slower than diseases; and just as our bodies grow slowly, but are quickly destroyed, so you can oppress genius and learning more quickly than you can revive them. For the charm of sloth also comes over us, and the inactivity we hated at first grows dear at last. Throughout fifteen years, a great part of the life of man, many have fallen through chance mishaps, and all the most energetic ones by the cruelty of the emperor, and a few of us are left, so to speak, as survivors not only of the others, but even of ourselves, since there have been taken out of our lives so many years, in which we who were youths have passed to old age and as old men have almost reached the limit of life itself without a word.106

Agricola was not a great man either in intellect or in force of character. Moreover, he had lived through the reign of Domitian in safety by not opposing the will of the tyrant. Naturally it was hard to write a panegyric on such a man which should interest and please the public. But Tacitus, by laying the chief stress upon Agricola’s successful administration in Britain, which is prefaced by an account of the country and of the previous Roman expeditions thither, made of his panegyric a genuine bit of history with Agricola, the most prominent person in it. Thus the reader’s interest is kept alive and the writer’s purpose accomplished. The work closes with an eloquent and beautiful apostrophe to Agricola.

When he wrote the Agricola, Tacitus was already planning a great history of his own times, for which he had at least begun to accumulate materials. The Germania. In the Germania (De Origine Situ Moribus ac Populis Germaniæ) the material collected to serve as introductory to the account of the wars in Germany is published as a separate work. The little treatise is interesting as the earliest extant connected account of the country and inhabitants of northern Europe. A few of the statements contained in it are manifestly incorrect, but for the most part, what Tacitus tells us agrees with and supplements what we know from other sources. The essay is a compilation from various earlier works, among which Pliny’s History of the German Wars was no doubt the most important, though Tacitus probably consulted the works of Cæsar, Velleius Paterculus, and others, besides obtaining information from some of the many Romans who had served in the army in Germany. There is no indication that Tacitus was ever in Germany himself. As a literary production the Germania is far inferior to the Agricola, though written at about the same time. In the Agricola Tacitus expresses his own feelings for his father-in-law, whom he evidently loved and respected, while in the Germania there is little room for feeling of any sort, and none for emotion. Yet, with all the difference in literary merit, the two works show the style of Tacitus at the same stage. There are still some remnants of Ciceronian smoothness, but these are evidently survivals. The tendency to use concise, even abbreviated phrases, to add point to expressions by verbal antithesis or by inversion of order, and to make his sentences imply more than the words actually express, is characteristic of Tacitus’s mature style and is evident, though not yet fully developed, in the Agricola and the Germania alike.

At least as early as 98 A. D. Tacitus planned to write a history of his own times. His original purpose was to begin with the accession of Galba and continue in chronological order. But after completing the history of the period from Galba to the death of Domitian (68-96 A. D.) he went back to the death of Augustus, and wrote the history of the time to the accession of Galba (14-68 A. D.). The great history. He intended to write the history of the reigns of Nerva and Trajan, but never did so. The part of the work first completed, treating of the events of the author’s own lifetime, is entitled Histories (Historiæ); the part written later, but treating of the earlier period, is usually called the Annals (Annales), though its proper title is Ab Excessu Divi Augusti, in imitation of the title of Livy’s history, Ab Urbe Condita. The two together consisted of thirty books, of which fourteen belong to the Histories and sixteen to the Annals. Of the Annals, the following parts are preserved: Books I-IV and the beginning of Book V, from the death of Augustus to the year 29 A. D., Book VI, with the exception of the beginning, carrying on the story to the death of Tiberius, and Books XI-XVI, from 47-66 A. D., though this long fragment is mutilated at the beginning and the end. The account of the reign of Caligula is lost, as is that of the first seven years of the reign of Claudius, and of somewhat more than two years at the end of the reign of Nero. Of the Histories only the first four books and part of the fifth remain, and this important fragment is preserved in only one manuscript. It contains the history of little more than one year, the memorable year 68-69 A. D., in which Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, in quick succession, gained the imperial power and lost their lives, to be followed by Vespasian.

In the Annals, dealing with a period before his own recollection, Tacitus treats the history of Rome and the empire as if it were directed by the wishes, the whims, and caprices of a few individuals. He depicts the character of Tiberius and the court of Nero in vivid and lurid colors. The Annals. The court intrigues, the judicial and private murders, the licentiousness and corruption of the capital are spread before us with all the power of his brilliant and incisive style. These things appear as the most important matters in the history of the time. Modern scholars have, with the aid of inscriptions, found that the Roman empire was, throughout this period, ably and peaceably administered by permanent officials, and was little affected by the terror that reigned in the capital. But for Tacitus, Rome was the empire. The provinces were in the dim distance and had in his eyes little historical importance. That his view of history is narrow and distorted is clear; yet his genius has made it for centuries the only accepted view of Roman history under the early emperors. In the Histories, dealing with his own times, he sees things more clearly. The uprising of the Batavians under Civilis and the war in Palestine are treated with as much detail as the sanguinary struggles in Rome, though here also the influence of the characters and acts of individuals upon the irresistible course of history is overrated. This view of history, which makes events depend too much upon individuals, joined with a pessimism which sees hidden motives behind even innocent or indifferent acts, is the great defect of Tacitus as an historian. His information is carefully collected, though, as a rule, he neglects all mention of his authorities. In preparing his account of the Jews in the fifth book of the Histories he relied apparently upon hearsay and upon other untrustworthy sources of information, without referring to the Septuagint or to Josephus, but similar carelessness can not be proved in other parts of his work.

His style is impregnated with the words and phrases of the classical writers, especially of Virgil, and with the rhetorical teaching of the Silver Age, and yet it is thoroughly individual. Style of Tacitus. It is concise, sharp, and cutting, but often grandly poetic in its eloquence; it is apparently straightforward, yet somehow often reveals a half-hidden meaning; it is carefully elaborated, yet it affects the reader with rugged earnestness. Such a style is almost inimitable, whether by writers of Latin or by translators. It has been compared to that of Carlyle, and the comparison is worth mentioning, though it should not be pushed too far. Few prose works contain more epigrammatic sentences than those of Tacitus. Examples are: “Traitors are hated, even by those whom they advance”;107 “None grieve more ostentatiously than those who are most delighted in their hearts”;108 “Princes are mortal, the state eternal”;109 “When the state was most corrupt the laws were most numerous”;110 “New men rather than new measures”;111 “Vices will exist as long as men”;112 “Fame does not always err; sometimes it chooses.”113 Endowed, as he was, with striking stylistic ability, writing, in fact, in a style which could not fail to arouse the interest and hold the attention of his readers, it is no wonder that Tacitus succeeded in imposing upon the world his views of history, which can be only partially corrected by the careful study and interpretation of fragmentary records.

Juvenal can hardly be separated from Tacitus. Both depict the life of Rome in the same lurid light, and the picture presented by each agrees with that of the other. Juvenal. Juvenal’s diatribes seem to illustrate the statements of Tacitus, and Tacitus shows that Juvenal’s violence is justified by the facts. Of Juvenal’s life little is known. His full name is given in some manuscripts as Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis. One vita or life gives the date of his birth as 55 A. D., which may be correct, though there is no especial reason to regard it as exact. He was born at Aquinum, a town of the Volscians, where he held the offices of duumvir quinquennalis and of flamen Divi Vespasiani. He was also at one time a military tribune, serving with the first Dalmatian cohort, perhaps in Britain. This military service probably belongs to his youth, and the local offices to his later life. He evidently received a good education, and he appears to have practised oratory for some years. Martial, who mentions him several times, speaks of him as eloquent, not as poetic or satirical. The lives agree in stating that he was banished, but not in regard to the time or place of his banishment. He came to Rome about 90 A. D., was still there in 101 A. D., and probably spent part of some of the later years in the capital. At Rome he lived in the Subura, the plebeian quarter, but had access to the houses of rich nobles. His satires were written between 100 and 127 A. D., and he died about 135 A. D.

Juvenal is the harshest and most violent of the four great Roman satirists. The Satires. Lucilius was outspoken and sometimes bitter, but aimed to correct while he rebuked the follies of his time; Horace soon lost all bitterness and expressed good-humored raillery; Persius derived his themes from books and preached Stoic doctrines; but Juvenal attacks Roman society in fierce and biting verses, shrinking from no gruesome or indecent detail, showing no humor save of the grimmest and harshest sort, and with no hope of correcting the evils he depicts. He has all the variety of phrase of the accomplished rhetorician, and his lines have a rolling grandeur almost Virgilian. He shows, indeed, the influence of Virgil more than of any other previous writer, though traces of Homer, Herodotus, Plato, nearly all the Roman poets, and among Roman prose writers Cicero, Valerius Maximus, and Seneca are found in his satires. The violence of his satires is, however, not directed against his contemporaries. He seems to have in mind rather the Rome of Domitian than that of Trajan or Hadrian, under whose rule he wrote. The sixteen satires are divided into five books. Book I (Satires i-v) not earlier than 100 A. D., and Book II (Satire vi) not before 116 A. D. These are the most powerful, most violent, and least agreeable books. Book III (Satires vii-ix) was written about 120, Book IV (Satires x-xii) about 125, and Book V (Satires xiii-xvi) in 127 A. D. In these three books there is less virulence, but also less power than in the first two. Old age brought with it a loss at once of fierceness and of strength.

In the first satire, Juvenal gives his reasons for writing as he does. Contents of the Satires. He is tired of listening to endless epics, and the corruptions of the time are such that “it is difficult not to write satire,”114 and “indignation makes verse.”115 The evils to be attacked are enumerated in a series of rapidly sketched pictures, and the poet declares that “all that men do, their hope, fear, wrath, pleasure, joys, and gaddings make up the medley of my book.”116 And in the following satires the faults of men, the dangers of the city, the court of Domitian, the pride of wealth, the crimes of women, the lack of honor paid to intellect, the worthlessness of noble birth without virtue, unnatural lust, the shortsightedness of human wishes, the wrong of setting children a bad example, and other striking features of the life of Rome are vividly presented and ruthlessly attacked. One of the most interesting satires is the third, in which the dangers of the city are described. A man who is leaving Rome for a small country town gives reasons for his departure:

The dirty streets, the water dripping from the aqueduct, the risk from falling tiles or household vessels, the drunken brawls in the streets, the rich man escorted home by clients and slaves with flaming torches, the danger from robbers—these and many other details of the ill regulated capital are set before us. This satire is imitated by Johnson in his London, which has rightly been called one of the finest modern imitations of an ancient poem, and the same author’s poem on The Vanity of Human Wishes is a less accurate, though not less admirable, imitation of Juvenal’s tenth satire. The closing passage of the tenth satire, in which the poet tells what are the proper objects of prayer, is a lofty utterance of human wisdom. The most savage of all the satires is, on the other hand, the sixth, in which the crimes of women are held up to execration.

It is not easy for the modern reader to enjoy Juvenal. His satires are full of allusions to unknown persons and things at Rome; they abound also in mythological references and literary reminiscences, and finally the savage tone of the earlier books is disagreeable. Yet the power of invective, the clearness and vividness of description, the variety of diction, and the beauty of versification have combined to make Juvenal a much read author. That he is also much quoted is due to the epigrammatic and pointed form of many of his phrases. Mens sana in corpore sano,118 Rara avis,119 Panem et circenses,120 Hoc volo, sic iubeo,121 Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?122 are among the most familiar Latin quotations, and many other almost equally familiar expressions are derived from Juvenal. Some of these are distinguished for their significance quite as much as for their form. Such are, for instance: “And for the sake of life give up life’s only end123 and “The greatest reverence is due a child.”124 It is not without reason that Juvenal has exerted great influence on human thought.

Tacitus and Juvenal resemble each other in their originality and vigor of thought and expression, their severe judgment of men and manners, and their pessimism. Pliny the younger. The younger Pliny contrasts with them in all these respects, and his letters give us an idea of Roman life very different from that which we derive from them. Gaius Plinius Cæcilius Secundus was the son of Lucius Cæcilius Cilo, a wealthy nobleman of Comum, but was adopted by will by his uncle, the elder Pliny. He therefore changed his name, which was originally Publius Cæcilius Secundus, and took that of his uncle, retaining his original family name, Cæcilius, only for legal and formal use. He was born in 61 or 62 A. D., for he was in his eighteenth year when the eruption of Vesuvius took place, August 24, 79 A. D. Cilo had died when Pliny was young, and the boy had become the ward of Verginius Rufus, which fact did not, however, diminish the paternal interest of his uncle, with whom he was at the time of the eruption. Pliny began his career as an advocate in 80 or 81 A. D. He held various offices, was military tribune, quæstor in 89-90 A. D., tribune of the people in 90-91 A. D., prætor in 93 A. D., was one of the prefects in charge of the war treasury and also of the general treasury, became consul in 100 A. D., and succeeded Sextus Julius Frontinus in the college of augurs in 103 or 104 A. D. He was governor of Pontus and Bithynia either in 111-112 or 112-113 A. D., and died before 114 A. D., either in his province or soon after his return to Italy. His life was passed chiefly in the service of the government, and for the most part at Rome. He was married three times, but had no children. He was an orator of some importance, delivering most of his speeches in inheritance cases, though he was employed five times in important criminal suits. He recited his speeches before delivering them in public, and after delivery he published them, sometimes with corrections. He was interested in poetry, and wrote poems of various kinds, but these, as well as his speeches, with the exception of his panegyric on Trajan, are lost.

Pliny’s extant works consist of nine books of letters to various persons, written between 97 and 109 A. D., a panegyric on the Emperor Trajan, delivered in 100 A. D. when Pliny was made consul, and seventy-two letters to Trajan, written between 98 and 106, and from September, 111, to January, 113 A. D. Pliny’s letters. Trajan’s replies to fifty-one of these letters are published which exhibit his firm judgment and practical common sense in striking contrast to Pliny’s indecision and lack of independence. Pliny’s other letters are more interesting. He describes the scenes in the Roman courts, the gatherings where the audience was bored by authors who recited their works, he gives detailed descriptions of his Laurentine125 and Tuscan126 villas, in two letters127 to Tacitus he gives an account of the eruption of Vesuvius, his uncle’s death, and his own feelings. Incidentally he throws much light upon the social and family life of the time. His own character is also clearly portrayed. What a young prig he must have been who refused his uncle’s invitation to accompany him to see, from a nearer point of view, the great eruption, preferring to spend his time over his books, and who even continued to make extracts when awakened by the terrible quaking of the earth—and this at seventeen years of age! His vanity is beautifully exhibited in another letter to Tacitus,128 in which he tells a story to his own credit, and hopes that Tacitus will insert it in the Histories, and in still another,129 where he says to the most original and inimitable of all Roman writers since the Augustan times, “You, such is the similarity of our natures, always seemed to me most easy to imitate and most to be imitated. Wherefore I am the more pleased that, if there is any talk about literature, we are mentioned together, that I occur at once to those who are speaking of you.” Other qualities appear no less clearly. Vain he was and fond of praise, but at the same time kind to his slaves, affectionate to his friends, gentle, and conscientious. He seldom speaks unkindly of any one; and when he utters a sharp criticism, he almost always avoids mentioning the name of the person criticized. The love of nature was fashionable at Rome, and Pliny may be only following the fashion when he writes of natural scenery, but it is quite as probable that he really felt its charms. He had a great admiration for Cicero, and it was doubtless owing, in part, at least, to this admiration that Pliny, like Cicero, published his letters. There is, however, a great difference between the two collections. Cicero’s letters were collected and published by others, whereas Pliny’s were from the beginning intended for publication and were published at various times by Pliny himself. They are therefore not unpremeditated utterances, but carefully prepared writings for the perusal of the public. Nevertheless the epistolary style is well preserved, though not without some pedantic elegance, and the letters give us the same insight into Roman life under Trajan as do those of Cicero into the life of the last years of the republic.

The Panegyric on Trajan was delivered as the official expression of thanks on the part of Pliny and his colleague Cornutus Tertullus for their elevation to the consulate. After the speech was delivered it was revised and enlarged. It is therefore in its extant form neither a speech nor an historical essay, but a mixture of the two. The Panegyric.After an introduction, Trajan’s acts before his entrance into Rome are recounted, then his entrance into the city, and his many political, municipal, and financial measures for the good of the state. Trajan’s personal qualities are praised in the most fulsome manner and those of Domitian set forth in the most hateful light. Then comes an account of Trajan’s second and third consulships, his care for the provinces, and his judicial acts, with traits of his private life. The speech or treatise ends with the expression of thanks from Pliny and his colleague. The Panegyric is not an attractive production, but it is the chief source of information concerning the history of the earlier years of Trajan’s rule.

Though not a great man nor a great writer, Pliny was a cultivated gentleman and a useful citizen. Other writers. His letters make us acquainted with Roman life from a side that Tacitus and Juvenal leave practically untouched. They are therefore not only interesting, but, as historical documents of great importance. Besides Tacitus, Juvenal, and Pliny, there are no writers of the time of Trajan who deserve more than passing mention. The names of numerous poets are preserved, chiefly in Pliny’s letters, but their works are lost, and we have no reason to believe that they merited preservation. Orators, jurists, and grammarians continued speaking and writing, and some among them attained eminence, but their works are lost for the most part, and the technical treatises on grammar which are preserved possess little interest for the student of literature. The same remark applies to the treatises on surveying and on the fortification of camps by Hyginus, on geometry by Balbus, and on surveying by Siculus Flaccus. The literature of the period between the death of Domitian and the accession of Hadrian is contained in the works of Tacitus, Juvenal, and Pliny.

CHAPTER XVI

THE EMPERORS AFTER TRAJAN—SUETONIUS—OTHER WRITERS

Hadrian, 117-138 A. D.—Antoninus Pius, 138-161 A. D.—Marcus Aurelius, 161-180 A. D.—Commodus, 180-192 A. D.—Septimius Severus, 193-211 A. D.—Alexander Severus, 222-235 A. D.—Gordian I, 238 A. D.—Gallienus, 260-268 A. D.—Aurelian, 270-275 A. D.—Tacitus, 275 A. D.—Suetonius, about 70 or 75 to about 150 A. D.—Florus, time of Hadrian—Justin, time of Hadrian (?)—Liciniauus, time of Antoninus Pius—Ampelius, time of Antoninus Pius (?)—Salvius Julianus, time of Hadrian—Sextus Pomponius, time of Antoninus Pius—Gaius, about 110-180 A. D.—Quintus Cervidius Scævola, time of Antoninus and M. Aurelius—Papinianus, time of Commodus and Septimius Severus—Terentius Scaurus, time of Hadrian—Terentianus Maurus and Juba, before 200 A. D.—Aero, about 200 A. D.—Porphyrio, about 200 A. D.—Festus, early in the third century.

It was not until the fourth century after Christ that a new capital of the Roman empire was founded at Constantinople; but long before that time the real centre of gravity of the empire was shifting toward the east. Latin literature after Trajan. In Asia, Egypt, and Africa, were the great sources of wealth and the great masses of population. While Rome was growing from the position of a small Italian town to that of the ruler of the world, and even for some time after the establishment of the empire, the Romans had possessed a strong national feeling, and Roman literature, although it began with imitation of the works of the Greeks, had been a national literature. But with the second century a change, which had been in preparation since the days of Augustus, became apparent. Rome was no longer the centre of the world in all things, though still the seat of government. Men of distinction spent at least a great part of their time in the smaller towns of Italy, and the leaders of thought and creators of literature no longer found it necessary to take up their residence at Rome. Then too, the progress of Christianity brought with it a new literature which was not national, but Christian. These causes, with others less obvious, but perhaps no less potent, led to the rapid decay of the national literature. It is our task from this point to trace the progress of this decay, and at the same time to record the rise of Christian literature in the Latin language. Works of great literary importance are few in this period, and the history of literature can be treated in less detail than heretofore.

The Emperor Hadrian (117-138 A. D.) was a man of singular versatility. Hadrian. He delivered and published speeches and wrote an autobiography, works on grammar, and even poems. He was equally familiar with Greek and Latin, and it is probably in part due to this fact that the literary revival during his rule was less Latin than Greek. He spent a great part of his time away from Rome, and wherever he went his path was marked by the erection of buildings for use and ornament. He lived for three years at Athens, where he added a new quarter to the ancient city. Greek, which had for centuries been familiar to the literary men of Rome, became now, more than ever before, the literary language of the empire. It is hardly to be wondered at that Latin literature has under Hadrian no greater representative than Suetonius.

Hadrian’s successor, Antoninus Pius (138-161 A. D.), was no writer, but showed his interest in literary and intellectual matters by granting salaries and privileges to philosophers and rhetors. Marcus Aurelius (161-180 A. D.) was carefully instructed by Greek and Roman teachers. The Antonines. While still a mere boy he was greatly interested in the Stoic philosophy; but the famous orator and teacher Fronto (see page 235) obtained such great influence over him, that for a number of years he devoted himself to rhetoric. The correspondence of Fronto with Marcus Aurelius shows how great was the affection that existed between teacher and pupil, and also how petty were the rhetorical teachings and investigations in which Fronto passed his life and to which he hoped his pupil would devote his intellect. Fronto was, however, doomed to disappointment, for when Marcus Aurelius was in his twenty-fifth year he turned again to philosophy. The correspondence with Fronto is conducted in Latin similar to Fronto’s own, plentifully adorned with obsolete expressions taken from writers of the republican period. The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius, those ethical maxims and moral reflections which make the Stoic doctrines seem so much like Christianity, are written in Greek. That Marcus Aurelius regarded Greek as the proper language of culture, or at least of philosophy, is shown by the fact that he established the schools of philosophy at Athens with regularly salaried professors. Lucius Verus, the colleague of Marcus Aurelius until 169 A. D., was also a pupil of Fronto, and in his letters to his teacher shows the same faults of style exhibited by Marcus Aurelius. He had no influence upon Latin literature, and Commodus (180-192 A. D.) had ho interest in literature of any sort.

Pertinax had literary tastes, but his brief reign gave him no opportunity to influence the course of the national literature, while his successor Didius Julianus, who bought the empire from the prætorian guards, found after sixty-six days of nominal power that his purchase brought him ruin and death. Later emperors. Septimius Severus (193-211 A. D.), although his native tongue was probably Punic, was well educated in Greek and Latin and wrote an autobiography, but there is no indication that he exercised any marked influence upon Roman literature. Among the later emperors were few whose literary interests were strong, and still fewer who appear as authors. In the third century Alexander Severus (222-235 A. D.) was seriously interested in Greek and Latin literature and encouraged literary production by all the means in his power; Gordian I (238 A. D.) wrote a metrical history of the Antonines in thirty books, besides various other works in prose and verse, but these are lost, and his brief reign did not enable him to give imperial encouragement to literature; the poems and speeches of Gallienus (260-268 A. D.) and the historical writings of Aurelian (270-275 A. D.) were of little importance. The Emperor Tacitus (275 A. D.) exerted himself to spread abroad the works of his ancestor the historian, and it may be due to him that those works are in part preserved. Those among the still later emperors who had literary interests made their influence felt rather upon Greek than Latin literature.

The most important writer in the reign of Hadrian is Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. He was born apparently between 70 and 75 A. D. Suetonius. He was a friend of the younger Pliny, who mentions him in his letters. Pliny obtained for him a military tribuneship, which he passed on to a relative. Pliny also assisted him in the purchase of a small estate and encouraged him to publish some of his writings. Under Hadrian he held a position as secretary, from which he was dismissed in 121 A. D. Of his later life nothing is known, but he probably devoted himself to his literary labors, and as his works were numerous, we may assume that he lived to an advanced age.

Only two works of Suetonius are preserved, the first entire, but for a small part at the beginning, and of the second only a part, and that much mutilated. The Lives of the Cæsars. The Lives of the Twelve Cæsars (De Vita Cæsarum), in eight books, contains the lives of Julius Cæsar (Book I), Augustus (Book II), Tiberius (Book III), Caligula (Book IV), Claudius (Book V), Nero (Book VI), Galba, Otho, Vitellius (Book VII), Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian (Book VIII). The work is dedicated to Septicius Clarus, to whom Pliny the younger dedicated his letters, and was published between 119 and 121 A. D., for Clarus is addressed as præfectus prætorio, an office which he held only during those years. The beginning is lost, for the life of Cæsar begins at the point when Cæsar was sixteen years old. Suetonius is a careful and conscientious writer and makes use of various sources of information, not only published histories and biographies, but also public documents, autograph letters of the emperors, and apparently oral tradition. He lacks, however, the critical insight necessary for a good historian and the understanding of character needed by a good biographer. He collected his material with impartiality, avoiding neither what was friendly nor what was hostile to the emperors whose lives he records, and arranged this material as best he could, with no apparent endeavor to trace the development of character, or even to determine in all cases the chronological sequence of events. Dates are seldom given, and the work as a whole presents rather the material for history than real history. But this material is interesting, and the style is simple, straightforward, and clear. Although he wrote at a time when affectations of style were fashionable, Suetonius had the good taste to keep himself free from them.

The second work of Suetonius, entitled De Viris Illustribus (On Illustrious Men), was a series of philosophers, grammarians, and rhetoricians. De Viris Illustribus. The section on orators began with Cicero, that on historians with Sallust. The greater part of the section on grammarians and rhetoricians is extant, as are the lives of Terence, Horace, and Lucan from the section on poets, and that of Pliny the elder from the section on historians. Extracts from other parts of the work are preserved by Jerome and in the scholia on various writers. Each section contained a list of the authors discussed, a brief account of their branch of literature, and short lives of the authors arranged chronologically. In this work also the style is simple and clear, but brevity is sought at the expense of literary excellence.

Other works by Suetonius, some of which were much used by later writers as sources of information, were on Greek Games, Roman Games, the Roman Year, Critical Marks in Books, Cicero’s Republic, Dress, Imprecations, and Roman Laws and Customs. Other works. Some of theses were doubtless included in a work entitled Prata, a sort of encyclopædia in ten books, which dealt also with philology and natural science. The works on Greek Games and on Imprecations were apparently written in Greek, the rest in Latin. Suetonius was not a great writer, but was a diligent compiler of interesting information. His extant works are valuable as sources of information rather than as literary productions, though their freedom from the affectations of the age entitles their author to some praise even from a literary point of view.

To the time of Hadrian belongs a brief history of Rome by Annius or Annæus Florus. Florus. This is not a mere epitome of Livy, as it is entitled in one of the manuscripts, but rather a panegyric on the Roman people. Florus personifies the Roman people, speaks of its childhood under the rule of the kings, its youth while Rome was conquering Italy, its manhood from the conquest of Italy to the time of Augustus, and then instead of going on to tell of its old age, he says the emperor restored it to youth. Florus writes in a flowery, rhetorical style, and pays little attention to any part of history except wars and battles. For these reasons, and also because of its brevity, the work was a popular text-book in the Middle Ages. This Florus is probably identical with a poet who is reported to have joked with Hadrian, and who has left two rather attractive specimens of verse, one of five lines on spring, the other of twenty-six lines on the quality of life. A fragment of a discussion of the question whether Virgil was greater as a poet or as an orator is also preserved under the name of Florus. If this Florus is still the same person, we learn from the fragment that he was unsuccessful in competing for a prize in poetry at Rome, traveled about in many parts of the empire, and finally settled as a teacher in a provincial town, probably Tarraco (Tarragona), in the northeast part of Spain.

Historical writing was at a low ebb. Suetonius is far the most important historian of the second century, and he is made important rather by the dearth of good historians than by his own merits. Other historical writings of the second century. Florus hardly deserves the name of historian. Justin’s epitome of Trogus (see page 164) belongs, perhaps, to the time of Hadrian, and is important because it has preserved much of the substance of the work of Trogus, but is in no sense an original history. Under Antoninus Pius a history of Rome was written by Granius Licinianus, but the extant fragments show that this was little more than an epitome of Livy. The Liber Memorialis, by Lucius Ampelius, written at about the same time, is a little handbook of useful knowledge, containing general information about the earth, the stars, and the winds, followed by a brief sketch of the history of various nations. It is a mere compilation, possessing neither historical nor literary value.

The study of law was, on the other hand, pursued by many jurists of ability, whose works were much used by those who gave to Roman law its final form in the reign of Justinian. Jurists. Under Hadrian the edicts of the prætors and other magistrates were collected and codified by Salvius Julianus, a distinguished jurist of African birth, who attained the position of præfectus urbi and was twice consul. The Edictum Perpetuum, as his work is called, became henceforth the basis of Roman law. Julianus was also the author of independent juristic works. Sextus Pomponius, a younger contemporary of Julianus, wrote among other things a brief history of Roman jurisprudence, which is incorporated in the digests. Among the many jurists of the reign of Antoninus Pius, the most important is Gaius (about 110-180 A. D.), whose introduction to the study of law (Institutiones), clearly written in good and simple language, is for the most part preserved in the digests, and served as the foundation of the similar work written at the command of Justinian. The works of Quintus Cervidius Scævola, who lived under Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, were also much used by the writers of the pandects. One of the most distinguished jurists under Commodus and Septimius Severus was Papinianus, who was put to death under Caracalla (212 A. D.) because he was faithful to that emperor’s brother Geta.

The study of grammar was diligently pursued in the second century, and with it went the writing of commentaries on the classical authors. Grammar, literature, and philosophy. Under Hadrian, Terentius Scaurus wrote a Latin grammar, part of which is preserved in an abbreviated form, as well as commentaries on Plautus, Virgil, and Horace, fragments of which are found in the works of later commentators. Under the Antonines, rhetoricians and grammarians were numerous, and discussions of literary and grammatical questions formed a considerable part of polite conversation. Metrical handbooks were written by Terentianus Maurus and Juba, Helvius Acro wrote commentaries on Terence, Horace, and Persius about the end of the second century, and Pomponius Porphyrio, a grammarian of distinction, whose scholia on Horace still exist, though not in their original form, wrote probably at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. Festus, who made an epitome of Verrius Flaccus (see page 166) probably lived but little after this time. Some of the rhetoricians of this period probably continued to teach as they had themselves been taught, but the most important among them developed a new school, which will form the subject of our next chapter. Philosophy had in the second century still many followers, but there was little literary production in Latin. Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, and Sextus Empiricus wrote in Greek.