In this peculiarly rhetorical age, the most distinguished teacher of rhetoric was M. Fabius Quintilianus. He attempted to restore a purer and more classical taste; and although to a certain extent he was successful, the effect which he produced was only temporary. He was, like Martial, a Spaniard, born[1303] at Calagurris, the modern Calahorra.[1304] At an early age he came to Rome, and had the advantage of hearing the celebrated orators Domitius Afer and Julius Africanus, whose eloquence he considered superior to that of their contemporaries.[1305] How long he remained at Rome is uncertain; but he appears to have gone back to his native country, and then returned to the capital together with the Emperor Galba.
Although he practised as a pleader, he was far more eminent as an instructor. Domitian intrusted to him the education of his two great-nephews;[1306] and the younger Pliny was also one of his pupils.[1307] The Emperor’s favour conferred on him that reward to which Juvenal alludes in the following lines:—
and besides this he held one of the professorships which were endowed by Vespasian with 100,000 sestertia per annum (800l.[1309]) He thus formed an exception to the larger number of instructors and grammarians who swarmed in Rome, who, depending on the fees of their pupils, earned a precarious subsistence,[1310] and was even able to purchase estates and accumulate property.
But though more fortunate than many deserving members of his profession, he was not esteemed a wealthy man by the rich and luxurious Romans of his day; for his grateful pupil, Pliny, when he presented him with 400l. towards his daughter’s portion, spoke of him as a man of moderate means.[1311] His expressions are:—“Te porro, animo beatissimum, modicum facultatibus scio.” The probability is that he was twice married. His first wife died at the early age of nineteen, leaving two sons, of whom death bereaved him in a few years.[1312] For the instruction of the elder of these, who survived his younger brother for but a short time, he wrote his great work. His second wife was the daughter of one Tutilius, and the fruit of this marriage was an only daughter who married Nonius Celer, and to whom the liberal present of Pliny was made. For twenty years he discharged the duties of his professorship, and then retired from active life; and died, as is generally supposed, about A. D. 118. His countryman, Martial,[1313] speaks of him as the glory of the Roman bar, and the head of his profession as an instructor:—
Quintilian’s great work is entitled Institutiones Oratoriæ, or a complete instruction in the art of oratory: and in it he shows himself far superior to Cicero as a teacher, although he was inferior to him as an orator. The rhetorical works of the great orator will not, in point of fulness and completeness, bear a comparison with the elaborate treatise of Quintilian. When engaged in its composition he had retired from the duties of a public professor, and was only occupied, as he himself states,[1315] with his duties as tutor to the great-nephew of Domitian. He professes to have undertaken the task reluctantly, and at the earnest solicitations of his friends. He thought that the ground was already pre-occupied, both by Greek and Latin writers of eminence. But seeing how wide the field was, and that such a work must treat of all those qualifications without which no one can be an orator, he complied with their entreaties, and dedicated his book to his friend Marcellus Victorius, as a token of his regard, and a useful contribution towards the education of his son. Two rhetorical treatises had already appeared under his name, but not published by himself. One consisted of a lecture which occupied two days in delivery; the other a longer course: and both had been taken down in notes, and given to the public, as he says, by his excellent but too partial pupils: (boni juvenes, sed nimium amantes mei.[1316])
On the Institutiones he professes to have expended the greatest pains and labour. He traces the progress of the orator from the very cradle until he arrives at perfection.[1317] He speaks of the importance of earliest impressions, of the parental, especially the maternal care, and illustrates this by the example of Cornelia, to whom the Gracchi owed their eminence; and brings forward, as instances of female eloquence, the daughters of Lælius and Hortensius. He believes that education must commence, and the tastes be formed, and the moral character be impressed, even in infancy. The choice, therefore, of a nurse is, in his opinion, as important, as of early companions, pedagogues, and instructors.
Both on account of the positive good to be acquired, and the evil resulting from the corrupt state of Roman society which the boy would thus avoid, he prefers a school to a home education.[1318] As we consider the classical languages the best preparation for the study of the vernacular tongue,[1319] so he lays down as an axiom that education in Greek literature should precede Latin. Grammar[1320] is to be the foundation of education, together with its subdivisions, declension, construction,[1321] orthography,[1322] the use of words,[1323] rhythm, metre, the beauties and faults of style,[1324] reading,[1325] delivery, action;[1326] and to these are to be added music and geometry.[1327]
Primary education being completed, the young student is to be transferred to the care of the rhetorician.[1328] The choice of a proper instructor,[1329] as well as his duties and character,[1330] are described; the necessary exercises, the reading and study of orations and histories are recommended,[1331] and the nature, principles, objects, and utility of oratory are accurately investigated. In the third book, after a short notice of the principal writers on rhetoric,[1332] he divides his subject into five parts,[1333] namely, invention, arrangement, style, memory, both natural and artificial, and delivery or action. Closely following Aristotle, he then discusses the three kinds of oratory, the demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial.[1334] In the fourth, he treats of the physical divisions of all orations, namely, the exordium,[1335] the narration,[1336] excursions or digressions,[1337] the question proposed,[1338] the division of topics.[1339] In that part of his treatise which discusses the next division, namely, proofs, Aristotle is his chief guide, as meeting, in his opinion, the universal assent of all mankind. The sixth book analyzes the peroration, and also discusses the passions,[1340] moral habits,[1341] ridicule,[1342] and other topics, which complete the subject of invention. The seventh treats of arrangement and its kindred topics; the eighth and ninth of style and its essential qualities, such as perspicuity,[1343] ornament[1344] tropes,[1345] amplification,[1346] figures of speech.[1347]
Facility, or as we, in common with the Romans, frequently term it, “copia verborum,”[1348] is the next division of the subject; and as original invention has already occupied so large a portion of his work, he now endeavours to guide the student in imitating the excellencies of the best Greek and Latin writers; and tells him that the next duty, in point of importance, is to profit by the inventions of others.[1349] A wide field is thus opened before him, affording an opportunity for the display of his extensive learning, his critical taste, his penetrating discrimination, and his great power of illustration.[1350]
He passes over in rapid review the whole history of Greek and Roman literature. His remarks, though brief, are clear and decided, and are marked with an attractive beauty and sound judgment, which have stood the test of ages, and recommend themselves to all who have been distinguished for pure classical taste. So adroit is he in catching the leading features, that the portraits of great authors of antiquity, though only sketches and outlines, stand forth in bold and tangible shape, each exhibiting marked and distinct characteristics. There are few specimens of criticism so attractive, so suggestive, and which lay such hold on the memory, as this portion of the Institutions of Quintilian. Other subjects are also briefly handled in the tenth book, such as the necessity of pains and elaborate corrections, in order to form a polished style.[1351] The choice of materials,[1352] original thought,[1353] the means of acquiring and perfecting a habit of extemporaneous speaking.[1354]
The eleventh book is devoted to the subjects of appropriateness, memory,[1355] and delivery.[1356]
The twelfth opens with what the author designates[1357] as the most grave and important portion of the whole work, well worthy of the dignified character of true Roman virtue. Its subject is the high moral qualifications necessary for a perfect orator.[1358] Talent, wisdom, learning, eloquence are nothing, if the mind is distracted and torn asunder by vicious thoughts and depraved passions.[1359] The orator, therefore, must learn studies by what his moral character can alone be formed;[1360] he must possess that firmness of principle which will cause him fearlessly to practise what he knows. “Neque erit perfectus orator nisi qui honeste dicere et sciet et audebit.”
A knowledge of history[1361] and the principles of jurisprudence,[1362] he also considers indispensably necessary, notwithstanding the slighting way in which Cicero speaks of the antiquarian learning of the jurisconsults. Some practical rules[1363] are also added as to the time of commencing practice in the courts, the rules to be observed in undertaking causes,[1364] and the cautions to be attended to in preparing and pleading them.[1365] He deprecates the undertaking such important duties early, although the call to the bar at Rome took place as soon as the manly gown was assumed: tradition spoke of boys clothed with the prætexta pleading. Cæsar Augustus, at twelve years old, publicly pronounced a eulogy on his grandmother, as did Tiberius at the early age of nine over the body of his deceased father.[1366]
Enough has been said to show the fulness and completeness with which Quintilian has exhausted his subject, and left, as a monument of his taste and genius, a text-book of the science and art of nations, as well as a masterly sketch of the eloquence of antiquity.
There have been attributed to Quintilian, besides his great work, nineteen declamations or judicial speeches relating to imaginary suits; also one hundred and forty-five sketches of orations, the remains of a larger collection, consisting of three hundred and eighty-eight. But there is no evidence in favour of their being his, and their style seems to show that they were the work of different authors and different ages. Neither is there any good reason for considering that the treatise on the Causes of Corrupt Eloquence is the same as that to which he alludes in the proëmium to the sixth and the conclusion of the eighth book[1367] of the Institutions. Indeed, the almost unanimous opinion of scholars assigns it to Tacitus. His works were discovered by Poggius, together with those of Silius Italicus and L. Valerius Flaccus, in the monastery of St. Gall, twenty miles from Constance, during the sitting of the celebrated ecclesiastical council.
The disposition of Quintilian was as affectionate and tender as his genius was brilliant, and his taste pure. Few passages throughout the whole range of Latin literature can be compared to that in which he mourns the loss of his wife and children. It is the touching eloquence of one who could not write otherwise than gracefully; and if he murmurs at the divine decrees, it must be remembered that his dearest hopes were blighted, and that he had not the hopes, the consolation, or the teaching of a Christian. “I had a son,” he says, “whose eminent genius deserved a father’s anxious diligence. I thought that if—which I might fairly have expected and wished for—death had removed me from him, I could have left him, as the best inheritance, a father’s instructions. But by a second blow, a second bereavement, I have lost the object of my highest hopes, the only comfort of my declining years. What shall I do now? Of what use can I suppose myself to be, as the gods have cast me off? It happened that when I commenced my book on the Causes of Corrupt Eloquence, I was stricken by a similar blow. It would surely have been best then to have flung upon the funeral pile—which was destined prematurely to consume all that bound me to life—my unlucky work, and the ill-starred fruits of all my toils, and not to have wearied with new cares a life to which I so unnaturally clung. For what tender parent would pardon me if I were able to study any longer, and not hate my firmness of mind, if I, who survived all my dear ones, could find any employment for my tongue except to accuse the gods, and to protest that no Providence looks down upon the affairs of men? If I cannot say this in reference to my own case, to which no objection can be made except that I survive, at least I can with reference to theirs—condemned to an unmerited and untimely grave.
“Their mother had before been torn from me, who had given birth to two sons before she had completed her nineteenth year; and though her death was a cruel blow to me, to her it was a happy one. To me the affliction was so crushing, that fortune could no longer restore me to happiness. For not only did the exercise of every feminine virtue render her husband’s grief incurable, but, compared with my own age, she was but a girl, and therefore her loss may be accounted as that of a child. Still, my children survived, and were my joy and comfort, and she since I survived (a thing unnatural, although she wished it,) escaped by a precipitate flight the agonies of grief. In my younger son, who died at five years old, I lost one light of my eyes. I have no ambition to make much of my misfortunes, or to exaggerate the reasons which I have for sorrow; would that I had means of assuaging it! But how can I conceal his lovely countenance, his endearing talk, his sparkling wit, and (what I feel can scarcely be believed) his calm and deep solidity of mind? Had he been another’s child he would have won my love. But insidious fortune, in order to inflict on me severer anguish, made him more affectionate to me than to his nurses, his grandmother, who brought him up, and all who usually gain the attachment of children of that age.
“Thankful therefore do I feel for that sorrow in which but a few months before I was plunged by the loss of his matchless, his inestimable mother; for my lot was less a subject for tears than hers was for rejoicing. One only hope, support, and consolation, had remained in my Quintilian. He had not, like my younger son, just put forth his early blossoms, but entering on his tenth year had shown mature and well-set fruit. I swear by my misfortunes, by the consciousness of my unhappiness, by those departed spirits, the deities who preside over my grief, that in him I discerned such vigour of intellect, not only in the acquisition of learning (and yet in all my extensive experience I never saw it surpassed,) such a zeal for study, which, as his tutors can testify, never required pressing, but also such uprightness, filial affection, refinement, and generosity, as furnished grounds for apprehending the thunder-stroke which has fallen. For it is generally observed that a precocious maturity too quickly perishes; and there is I know not what envious power which deflowers our brightest hopes, lest we soar higher than human beings are permitted to soar. He possessed also those gifts which are accidental—a clear and melodious voice, a sweet pronunciation, a correct enunciation of every letter both in Greek and Latin. Such promise did he give of future excellence; but he possessed also the far higher qualities of constancy, earnestness, and firmness to bear sorrow and to resist fear. With what admiration did his physicians contemplate the patience with which he endured a malady of eight months’ duration! What consolation did he administer to me in his last moments! When life and intellect began to fail, his wandering mind dwelt on literature alone. O! dearest object of my disappointed hopes! could I behold thy glazing eyes, thy fleeting breath? Could I embrace thy cold and lifeless form, and live to drink again the common air? Well do I deserve these agonizing thoughts, these tortures which I endure!”
Such were the principal writers who adorned and illustrated the literature of the silver age: it remains only to speak briefly of those whose works, although of minor interest, must not be passed over without notice.
Celsus was the author of many works on various subjects, of which one, in eight books, on Medicine, is now extant. The place of his birth and the age at which he flourished are unknown, but he probably lived in the reign of Tiberius. He was a man of comprehensive, almost encyclopædic knowledge, and wrote on philosophy, rhetoric, agriculture, and even strategy. It has been doubted whether he ever practised medicine, or was only theoretically acquainted with the subject; but the independence of his views, the practical as well as the scientific nature of his instructions, are inconsistent with any hypothesis except that he had himself patiently watched the phenomena of morbid action and experimented upon its treatment. Above all, his knowledge of surgery, and his clear exposition of surgical operations, necessarily imply that practical experience and reality of knowledge which never could have been acquired from books.
If we compare the masterly handling of the subject by Celsus with the history of medicine by Pliny,[1368] it is easy to distinguish the man of practical and experimental science from the collector and transcriber of others’ views. His manual of medicine embraces the following subjects: Diet,[1369] Pathology,[1370] Therapeutics,[1371] Surgery;[1372] and without entering into its peculiar merits, a task which could only be performed satisfactorily by a professional writer, the highest testimony is borne to its merits by the fact of its being used as a text-book even in the present advanced state of medical science.
The study of medicine has a tendency to predispose the mind for general scientific investigations in other departments not immediately connected with it. Hence the medical profession has numbered amongst its members many men of general scientific attainments; and Celsus was an example of this versatility. The taste of the age in which he lived turned his attention also to polite literature; and to this may be ascribed the Augustan purity of his style, which gained for him the appellation of “Cicero Medicorum.”
The “Cicero of physicians” was followed by Scribonius, an obsequious court physician, in the reign of Claudius. He was the author of several works, one of which, a large collection of prescriptions, is extant. In the language of impious flattery, he calls the imbecile emperor a god. He is said to have accompanied him in his expedition to Britain.
Pomponius Mela may be considered as the representative of the Roman geographers. He was a native of Tingentera, a town in Spain, and lived in the reign of Claudius. His treatise is entitled, “De Situ Orbis, Libri iii.” It is systematic and learned. The stores of information derived from the Greek geographers are interspersed with entertaining myths and lively descriptions. The knowledge, however, contained in it is all taken from books: it is an epitome of former treatises, and is not enriched by the discoveries of more recent travellers. The simplicity of the style, and the almost Augustan purity of the Latinity, prevent even so bare a skeleton and list of facts from being dry and uninteresting.
The didactic work of Columella gives, in smooth and fluent, though somewhat too diffuse, a style, the fullest and completest information on practical agriculture amongst the Romans, in the first century of the Christian era. Pliny is the only classical author who mentions him; but he refers to him as a competent authority. Columella himself informs us that he was born at Gades (Cadiz,[1373]) and resided at Rome,[1374] but had travelled in Syria and Cilicia.[1375] It is generally supposed that he died and was buried at Tarentum.
His work, “De Re Rusticâ,” is divided into twelve books. It treats of all subjects connected with the choice and management of a farm,[1376] the arrangement of farm buildings,[1377] the propagation and rearing of stock,[1378] the cultivation of fruit trees,[1379] and household economy.[1380] A calendar is attached to the eleventh book, pointing out the cosmical risings and settings of the constellations, which marked the successive seasons for various labours and other practical points of rustic astronomy. The tenth book, the subject of which is horticulture, is in hexameters. It never rises quite to the height of poetry: it is rather metrical prose, characterized, like the rest of his work, by fluency, and also expressed in correct versification. The reason which he gives for this variation from his plan is, that it is intended as supplementary to the Georgics of Virgil, and that in so doing he is following the great poet’s own recommendations. In his preface to his friend Silvinus he thus expresses his intention:—“Postulatio tua pervicit ut poeticis numeris explerem Georgici carminis omissas partes, quas tamen et ipse Virgilius significaverat posteris se memorandas relinquere.”
Sex. Jul. Frontinus deserves a place amongst Roman classical writers as the author of two works, both of which are still extant. The first, entitled, “Stratagematicon, Libri iv.,” was a treatise on military tactics. The form in which he has enunciated his doctrines is that of precepts and anecdotes of celebrated military commanders. In this way the necessary preparations for a battle, the stratagems resorted to in fighting, the rules for conducting sieges, and the means of maintaining discipline in an army, are explained and illustrated in a straight-forward and soldier-like style.
As the object which he had in view in adducing his anecdotes is scientific illustration rather than historic truth, he is not very particular as to the sources from which his examples are derived. It is interesting, however, to the antiquarian, if not of practical utility to the tactician, as displaying the theory and practice of ancient warfare. This subject had in early times been treated of by Cato and Cincius, and afterwards by Hyginus in a treatise on Field Fortification (de Castrametatione,) and also in the epitome of Vegetius.
His other work, which has descended to modern times in a perfect state, is a descriptive architectural treatise, in two books, on those wonderful monuments of Roman art, the aqueducts. But besides these, fragments remain of other works, which assign Frontinus an important place in the estimation of the student of Roman history. These are treatises on surveying, and the laws and customs relating to landed property. They were partly of a scientific, partly of a jurisprudential character, and are to be found amongst the works of the Agri-mensores, or Rei Agrariæ Scriptores. The difficulty and obscurity of everything connected with Roman agrarian institutions is well known; and every fragment relating to them is valuable, because of the probability of its throwing light upon so important a subject. Niebuhr[1381] saw their value, and pronounced that “the fragments of Frontinus were the only work amongst the Agri-mensores which can be counted a part of classical literature, or which was composed with any legal knowledge.” These fragments, therefore, may be taken as a favourable specimen of this class of writers, amongst whom were Siculus Flaccus, Argenius Urbicus, and Hyginus (Grammaticus.)
Of the life of Frontinus himself very few facts are known. He was city prætor in the reign of Vespasian,[1382] and succeeded Cerealis as governor of Britain. He made a successful campaign against the Silures[1383] (S. Wales,) and was succeeded by Agricola, A. D. 78. He was subsequently curator aquarum,[1384] an office which probably suggested the composition of his practical manual on aqueducts. He also had a seat in the college of augurs, in which, after his death,[1385] he was succeeded by the younger Pliny.
With this third epoch a history of Roman classical literature comes to a close. In the silver age taste had gradually but surely declined; and although the Roman language and literature shone forth for a time with classic radiance in the writings of Persius, Juvenal, Quintilian, Tacitus, and the Plinies, nothing could arrest its fall. In vain emperors endeavoured to encourage learning by pecuniary rewards and salaried professorships: it languished together with the death of constitutional freedom, the extinction of patriotism, and the decay of the national spirit. Poetry had become declamation. History had degenerated either into fulsome panegyric, or the fleshless skeletons of epitomes; and at length Romans seemed to disdain the use of their native tongue—that tongue which laborious pains had brought to such a height of polish and perfection, and wrote in Greek, as they had in the infancy of the national literature, when Latin was too rude and imperfect to imbody the ideas which they had derived from their Greek instructors.
The Emperor Hadrian resided long at Athens, and became imbued with a taste and admiration for Greek; and thus the literature of Rome became Hellenized. From this epoch the term Classical can no longer be applied to it, for it did not retain its purity. To Greek influence succeeded the still more corrupting one of foreign nations. Even with the death of Nerva the uninterrupted succession of emperors of Roman or Italian birth ceased. Trajan himself was a Spaniard; and after him not only barbarians of every European race, but even Orientals and Africans were invested with the imperial purple. The empire also over which they ruled was an unwieldy mass of heterogeneous materials. The literary influence of the capital was not felt in the distant portions of the Roman dominions. Schools were established in the very heart of nations just emerging from barbarism—at Burdegala (Bourdeaux,) Lugdunum (Lyons,) and Augusta Trevirorum (Treves;) and, although the blessings of civilization and intellectual culture were thus distributed far and wide, still literary taste, as it filtered through the minds of foreigners, became corrupted, and the language of the imperial city, exposed to the infectious contact of barbarous idioms, lost its purity.[1386]
The Latin authors of this period were numerous, and many of them were Christians; but few had taste to appreciate and imitate the literature of the Augustan age. The brightest stars which illuminated the darkness were A. Gellius, L. Apuleius, T. Petronius Arbiter, the learned author of the Saturnalia; the Christian ethical philosopher, L. Cœlius Lactantius; and that poet, in whom the graceful imagination of classical antiquity seems to have revived, the flattering and courtly Claudian.