The events already related had by this time prepared the Roman people for the reception of a more regular drama, when, at the conclusion of the first Punic War, the influence of Greek intellect, which had already long been felt in Italy, extended to the capital. But not only did the Romans owe to Greece the principles of literary taste, and the original models from which the elements of that taste were derived, but their first and earliest poet was one of that nation. Livius Andronicus, although born in Italy, educated in the Latin tongue at Rome, and subsequently a naturalized Roman, is generally supposed to have been a native of the Greek colony of Tarentum. He was a man of cultivated mind, and well versed in the literature of his nation, especially in dramatic poetry. How he came to be at Rome in the condition of a slave, it is impossible to say. Attius stated that he was taken prisoner at Tarentum by Q. Fabius Maximus, when he recovered that city, in the tenth year of the second Punic War. But Cicero shows, on the authority of Atticus, that this date is thirty years later than the period at which he first exhibited at Rome, and Niebuhr[109] considers that the reason why he is called a Tarentine captive is, from being confounded with one M. Livius Macatus, mentioned by Livy.[110] He may perhaps have owed his change of fortune to being made a prisoner of war; at any rate, he became one of the household of M. Livius Salinator, and occupied the confidential position of instructor to his children. The employment as tutors of Greek slaves, who, being men of education and refinement, had fallen into this position by the fortune of war, was customary with the wealthy Romans. By this means there was rapidly introduced amongst the rising generation of the higher classes a knowledge of that language and learning which the Romans so eagerly embraced and so enthusiastically admired.
Fidelity in so important a situation generally gained the esteem and affection of the patron. The generous Roman became a protector of the man of genius rather than his master, and conferred upon him the gift of freedom. Andronicus was emancipated under such circumstances as these, and according to custom received the name of his former master, Livius, and his civil and political rank became that of an ærarius. He wrote a translation, or perhaps an imitation of the Odyssey, in the old Saturnian metre, and also a few hymns. Niebuhr supposes that the reason why he has translated or epitomized the Odyssey in preference to the Iliad is, that it would have greater attractions for the Romans, in consequence of the relation which it bore to the ancient legends of Italy. The sea which washes the coast of Italy was the scene of many of the most marvellous adventures of Ulysses. Sicily, in which, owing to the wars with Hiero and the Carthaginians, the Romans now began to take a lively interest, was represented in the Odyssey as abounding in the elements of poetry. Circe’s fairy abode was within sight of land—a promontory of Latium bore her name, and one of Ulysses’ sons by her was, according to the legend of Hesiod, Latinus, the patriarch of the Latin name. His principal works, however, were tragedies. The passion of the Romans for shows and exhibitions, the love of action, and of stirring business-like occupation, which characterizes them, would make the drama popular, and it would harmonize with the public entertainments, in which they had been accustomed to take pleasure from the earliest times, when tradition informs us that the founder of their race instituted the solemn games to the equestrian Neptune, and invited all the neighbours to the spectacle;[111] and when Ancus celebrated with unwonted splendour the Great Games, and appointed separate seats and boxes for the knights and senators.[112] It was probable that Livius Andronicus, coming forward as the introducer of a new era in literature, would study the character as well as the language of his newly-adopted countrymen, and endeavour to please them as well as teach them. In order to become eventually a leader of the public taste, he would at first fall in with it to a certain degree. The process by which he moulded it after the model which he considered the true one, would be gentle and gradual, not sudden and abrupt. The paucity and brevity of the fragments which are extant furnish but little opportunity for forming an accurate estimate of his ability as a poet, and his competency to guide and form the taste of a people. Hermann[113] has collected together the fragments of the Latin Odyssey which are scattered through the works of Gellius, Priscian, Festus, Nonius, and others, and has compared them with the Homeric passages of which they are the translations. Few of these, however, are longer than a single line; and, therefore, the only opinion which can be formed respecting them is, that although the versification is rough and rhythmical rather than metrical, the language is vigorous and expressive, and conveys, as far as a translation can, the force and meaning of the original.
Nor do the criticisms of the ancient classical authors furnish much assistance in coming to a decision. Their tastes were so completely Greek, and the prejudices of their education so strong, that they could scarcely confess the existence of excellence in a poet so old as Andronicus. Cicero says in the Brutus,[114] that his Latin Odyssey was as old-fashioned and rude as would have been the sculptures of Dædalus, and that his dramas would not bear a second perusal. Horace, however, is not quite so sweeping in his strictures. He confesses that he would not condemn the poems of Livius[115] to utter oblivion, although he remembers them in connexion with the floggings of his schoolmaster; but he is surprised that any one should consider them polished and beautiful, and not falling far short of critical exactness.
A passage in the history of Livy seems to imply that Andronicus ventured upon some deviations from the ancient plan of scenic exhibitions.[116] According to him, Livius was the first who substituted, for the rude extemporaneous effusions of the Fescennine verse, plays with a regular plot and fable. He adds, that in consequence of losing his voice from being frequently encored, he obtained permission to introduce a boy to sing the ode, or air, to the accompaniment of the flute, whilst he himself represented the action of the song by his gestures and dancing. He was thus enabled to depict the subject with greater vigour and freedom of pantomimic action, because he was unimpeded by the obligation to use his voice. Hence the custom began of the actor responding by his gesticulation to the song and music of another, whilst the dialogue between the odes was delivered without any musical accompaniment.
The passage of which the above is a paraphrase, is as follows:—“Livius post aliquot annos qui ab saturis ausus est primus argumento fabulam serere (idem scilicet, id quod omnes tum erant, suorum carminum actor) dicitur, quum sæpius revocatus vocem obtudisset, veniâ petitâ, puerum ad canendum ante tibicinem quum statuisset, canticum egisse aliquanto magis vigente motu, quia nihil vocis usus impediebat. Inde ad manum cantari histrionibus cæptum, diverbiaque tantum ipsorum voci relicta.” It is evident that this description points out the introduction of the principles of Greek art. We are reminded of the hyporchemes in honour of Apollo, in which the gestures of certain members of the chorus represented the incidents related or sentiments expressed by the singer, and also the separation of the choral or musical part from the dialogue of a Greek tragedy. Nevertheless, the choral or lyrical portion of the drama to which alone this novel practice introduced by Livius applies, found but a small part in a Latin tragedy, if compared with those of the Greeks. In this alone the poet himself sustained a part, whilst the whole of the dialogue (diverbia) was recited by professional performers.
This new style of dramatic performances, however, does not appear at first to have taken such hold upon the affections of the people as to supersede their old amusements. They admitted them, and witnessed them with pleasure and applause, but they would not give up the old. The young men wished their amusements to be really games and sports; they were not content to be merely quiet spectators. Extemporaneous effusions were more convenient for amateurs than regular plays, and joke and jest than tragic earnest. The new custom introduced by Livius elevated the drama above the region of ribaldry and laughter, but the art and skill requisite confined the work to the professional performer. The young Romans, therefore, left to the stage-player the regular drama, restored their old amusement as an exodium or after-piece, and did not suffer it, as Livy says, to be “polluted” by the interference of histriones. According to the testimony of Cicero,[117] who makes his statement on the authority of Atticus, Livius first exhibited his dramas in the year before the birth of Ennius, in the consulship of C. Clodius and M. Tuditanus, A. U. C. 514.[118] This date is also adopted by Aulus Gellius,[119] who places his first dramatic representations about a hundred and sixty years after the death of Sophocles, and fifty-two years after that of Menander. The titles of his tragedies which are extant show that they were translations or adaptations from the Greek. Amongst them are those of Egisthus, Hermione, Tereus, Ajax, and Helena. From each of the last two one line is preserved, and four lines are quoted by Terentianus Maurus from his tragedy of Ino;[120] but the language and metre render it far more probable that they were written by some more modern poet. Two of his tragedies, the Clytemnestra and the Trojan Horse, were acted in the second consulship of Pompey the Great, at the inauguration of the splendid stone theatre[121] which he built. No expense was spared in putting them upon the stage, for Cicero writes, in a letter to M. Marius,[122] that three thousand bucklers, the spoils of foreign nations, were exhibited in the latter, and a procession of six hundred mules, probably richly caparisoned, were introduced in the former, whilst cavalry and infantry, clad in various armour, mingled in mimic combat on the scene. He considers, however, that this splendour was an offence against good taste, and that the enjoyment was spoilt by the gorgeousness of the spectacle. The taste of his patrons, the Roman people, as well as the testimony of antiquity, render it highly probable that he was the author of comedies[123] as well as tragedies. Festus speaks of one, of which he quotes a single line, for the sake of its philological value.
Nævius was the first poet who really deserves the name of Roman. His countrymen in all ages, as well as his contemporaries, looked upon him as one of themselves. The probability is, that he was not actually born at Rome, though even this has been maintained with some show of plausibility.[124] He was, at any rate, by birth entitled to the municipal franchise, and from his earliest boyhood was a resident in the capital. Nor was he a mere servile imitator, but applied Greek taste and cultivation to the development of Roman sentiments. A true Roman in heart and spirit in his fearless attachment to liberty; his stern opposition to all who dared invade the rights of his fellow-citizens; he was unsparing in his censure of immorality, and his admiration for heroic self-devotion. He was a soldier, and imbibed the free and martial enthusiasm which breathes in his poems when he fought the battles of his country in the first Punic War. His honest principles cemented, in his later years, a strong friendship between him and the upright and unbending Cato,[125]—a friendship which probably contributed to form the political and literary character of that stern old Roman.
It is generally assumed that Nævius was a Campanian; but the only reason for this assumption is, that A. Gellius[126] criticises his epitaph, of which Nævius himself was the author, as full of Campanian pride.
The time of his birth is unknown, but it is probable that his public career commenced within a very few years after that of Livius. Gellius fixes the exhibition of his first drama in B. C. 235,[127] and Cicero places his death in the consulship of M. Cornelius Cethegus and P. Sempronius Tuditanus,[128] although he allows that Varro, who places it somewhat later, is the most pains-taking of Roman antiquarians. It is also certain that he died at an advanced age, for, according to Cicero, he was an old man when he wrote one of his poems. He was the author of an epic poem, the title of which was the Punic War; but, owing to the popularity of dramatic literature, his earliest literary productions were tragedies and comedies. The titles of most of these show that their subjects were Greek legends or stories. It was, therefore, in his epic poem that the acknowledged originality of his talents was mainly displayed. Nævius was a strong political partisan, a warm supporter of the people against the encroachments of the nobility. In consequence of the expenditure during the war, great part of the population was reduced to poverty, and a strong line of demarkation was drawn between the rich and the poor. The estrangement and want of sympathy between those two classes were daily increasing. The barrier of caste was indeed almost destroyed, but that of class was beginning to be erected in its stead. The passing of the Licinian bills[129] had led to the gradual rise of a plebeian nobility. The Ogulnian law[130] had admitted patrician and plebeian to a religious as well as political equality, and more than three-quarters of a century had passed away since Appius Claudius the blind[131] had given political existence to the freedmen by admitting them into the tribes, and had even raised some whose fathers had been freedmen to the rank of senators, to the exclusion of many distinguished plebeians who had filled curule offices. The object which he proposed to himself by this policy was undoubtedly the depression of the rising plebeian nobility, and this object was for a time attained; but the ultimate result was a vast increase in the numbers and the power of those who were opposed to the old patrician nobility, by the formation of a higher class, the only qualification for admission into which was wealth and intelligence. According to the old distinctions of rank it was necessary that even a plebeian should have a pedigree; his father and grandfather must have been born free. Appius, when chosen for the first time, waived this, and introduced a new principle of political party. Of this anti-aristocratic party Nævius was the literary representative, and the vehement opponent of privileges derived from the accident of birth. His position, too, was calculated to provoke a man of better temper. He was a Roman citizen, but, as a native of a municipal town, he did not possess the full franchise which he saw enjoyed by others around him who were intellectually inferior to himself, and the sense of his political inferiority was galling to him. Accordingly he used literature as a new and powerful instrument to foster the jealousy which existed between the orders of the state. He attacked the principle of an aristocracy of birth in the persons of some members of the most distinguished families. He held up Scipio Africanus to ridicule by making him the hero of a tale of scandal.
The public services of the two Metelli could not shield them from the poet’s bitterness, which attributed their consulships not to their own merits, but to the mere will of fate.[132] One bitter sentence, “Fato Metelli Romæ fiunt consules.” made that powerful family his enemies. The Metellus, who at that time held the office of consul, threatened him with vengeance for his slander in the following verse:—“Dabunt malum Metelli Nævio poetæ.” and the offending poet was indicted for a libel, in pursuance of a law of the Twelve Tables,[133] and thrown into prison. Whilst there he composed two pieces, in which he expressed contrition; and Plautus[134] describes him as watched by two jailers, pensively resting his head upon his hands:—
Through the influence of the tribunes he was set at liberty.[135] As, however, is frequently the case, he could not resist indulging again in his satiric vein, and he was exiled to Utica, where he died,[136] having employed the last years of his life in writing his epic poem. The following laudatory epitaph was written by himself:—
The best and most admired writers have paid their homage to his excellence. Ennius and Virgil discovered in him such a freshness and power that they unscrupulously copied and imitated him, and transferred his thoughts into their own poems as they did those of Homer. Horace writes that in his day the poems of Nævius were universally read, and were in the hands and hearts of everybody, and Cicero[137] praises him, although he had no taste for the old national literature.
We cannot be surprised at the universal popularity of Nævius. His stern love of liberty, his unsparing opposition to aristocratic exclusiveness, was identical with the old Roman republicanism. His taste for satire exactly fell in with the spirit of the earliest Roman literature, whilst he depicted with life and vigour and graphic skill the scenes of heroism in which the soldier-poet of the first Punic War was himself an actor. His tragedies were probably entirely taken from the Greek, but his comedies had undoubted pretensions to originality. The titles of many of them plainly show a Greek origin; but probably all more or less presented pictures of Roman life and manners, and therefore went home to the hearts of the people. This is essential to the complete effectiveness of comedy. Tragedy appeals to higher feelings: it depicts passions and principles of action which are recognised by the whole human race; it may, therefore, enlist the sympathies on the side of those whose habits and manners differ from our own, as it does in favour of those characters which are of a heroic and superhuman mould. Comedy professes to describe real life, and to paint men as they are; it therefore loses part of its power unless it deals with scenes which the experience of the audience can realize. Thus it is with painting. The high art of the Italian school, which selected for its subjects the holy scenes of religion, the heroism of history, and the creatures of classical poetry, was fostered by the taste of the rich and noble amongst a highly cultivated and imaginative people. The homely realities of the Flemish painters, with their accurate and lifelike delineations, were the delight of a rude prosaic nation, who could not appreciate a more elevated style or understand ideal beauties unless brought down to the level of every-day life.
The new form with which Nævius invested comedy gave him scope for holding up to public scorn the prevailing vices and follies of the day. He had also another vehicle for personality in his Ludi or Satiræ, as they were termed by Cicero. These were comic scenes, and not regular dramas, somewhat resembling the Atellan farces, without their extemporaneous character. But his great work was his poem on the first Punic War. We cannot judge of its merits by the few fragments which remain; but the testimony borne to it by Cicero, and the use which was made of it by Ennius and Virgil, prove that it fully deserved the title of an epic poem. The idea was original, the plot and characters Roman. The author, although Greek literature taught him how to be a poet, drew his inspiration from the scenes of his native Italy and the exploits of his countrymen. To this poem Virgil owed that beautiful allegorical representation of the undying enmity between Rome and Carthage, and the disastrous love of Æneas and Dido. Here was first painted in such touching colours the self-devoted patriotism of Regulus, whom (although love of historic truth refuses to believe the legend) the poet represents as sacrificing home and wife and children to a sense of honour, and as submitting to a torturing death for the sake of his country. Probably many other heart-stirring legends and tales of prowess which had cheered the nightly bivouac of the soldiers and inspirited them in the field, were embodied in this popular epic. Not that he disdained any more than Virgil the aid of Homer.[138] The second book of the Iliad suggested to him the enumeration of the opposing forces at the commencement of the struggle, and the description of the storm, from which Virgil, in his turn, copied in the Æneid,[139] owes much of its energy to the eighth book of the Odyssey. The expostulation of Venus with the father of gods and men,[140] respecting the perils of her son, and the promise of future prosperity to the descendants of Æneas, with which Jupiter consoles her, as well as the address of Æneas to his companions, are imitations of passages from this poem of Nævius; and Ennius copied so much from him and his predecessors as to have provoked the following rebuke from Cicero:[141]—“They have written well, if not with all thy elegance, and so oughtest thou to think who have borrowed so much from Nævius, if you confess that you have done so, or, if you deny it, have stolen so much from him.”
The fragments of Nævius extant are not more numerous than those of Livius, but some are rather longer. The two following may be quoted as examples of simplicity and power:—
These few words tell their tale with as much pathos as that admired line in the Andrian of Terence—
The following lines describe the panic of the Carthaginians; nor could any Roman poet have sketched the picture in fewer strokes or with more suggestive power:—
Whoever can forgive roughness of expression for the sake of vigorous thought, would, if more had remained, have read with delight the inartificial although unpolished poetry of Nævius. Without that elaborate workmanship which was to the Roman the only substitute for the spontaneous grace and beauty of all that proceeded from the Greek mind, and was expressed in the Greek tongue, there is no doubt that Nævius displayed genius, originality, and dignity. The prejudices of Horace in favour of Greek taste were too strong for him to value what was old in poetry, or to sympathize with the admiration of that which the goddess of death had consecrated.[144] But Cicero, whilst he attributed to Livius only the mechanic skill and barbaric art of Dædalus, gave to Nævius the creative talent and plastic power of Myron.
Even when Roman critics were not unanimous in assigning him a niche amongst the greatest bards, the Roman people loved him as their national poet, and were grateful to him for his nationality. They paid him the highest compliment possible by retaining him as the educator of their youth. Orbilius flogged his sentiments into his pupil’s memories; and, whilst the niceties of grammar were taught through the instrumentality of Greek by Greek instructors, and poetic taste was formed by a study of the Homeric poems, Nævius still had the formation of the character of the young Roman gentlemen, and his epic was in the hands and hearts of every one.
One more subject remains to be treated of with reference to the literary productions of Nævius, and that is, the metrical character of his poetry. He appreciated that important element of Greek poetic beauty. The varied versification by means of which it appeals at once to the ear, just as physical beauty charms long before we are attracted by the hidden power of moral excellence, and external form creates a prejudice in favour of that which is of more intrinsic value, but cannot so readily be perceived, so the melody of verse more readily pleases than the beauty of the imagery and sentiments which the verses convey. Nævius, therefore, did not disdain to recommend his original genius by a study of the principles of Greek versification, and by clothing his thoughts in those which his ear suggested as being most appropriate to the occasion. He does not seem to have overcome the difficulties of the heroic metre, although he studied the Homeric poems.
Probably as the Saturnian, the only natural Italian measure which he found existing, was a triple time, the Roman ear could not at once adapt itself to the common time of the dactylic measures. The versification of our own country furnishes an analogous example. The usual metres of English poetry consist of an alternation of long and short syllables; dactyles and anapæsts are of less frequent occurrence and are of more modern introduction, and the English ear is even yet not quite accustomed to the hexametrical rhythm. The dignity of the epic is expressed in the grave march of the iambus; the ballad tells its story in the same metre, though in shorter lines; the joyous Anacreontic adopts the dancing step of the trochee. For this reason, perhaps, Nævius, as a matter of taste, limited himself to the introduction of iambic and trochaic metres, and the irregular features of Greek lyric poetry to the exclusion of the heroic hexameter.
It was long before the Romans could arrive at perfection in this metre. Ennius was unsuccessful. His hexameters are rough and unmusical; he seems never to have perfectly understood the nature and beauty of the cæsura or pause. The failure of Cicero, notwithstanding his natural musical ear, is proverbial. No one previous to Virgil seems to have overcome the difficulty. Versification seems always to have been somewhat of a labour to the Romans. In the structure of their poetry they worked by rule; their finish was artistic, but it was artificial. Hence the Latin poet allowed himself less metrical liberty than the Greek, whom he made his model. He seemed to feel that the Greek metres, which the education of his taste had compelled him to adopt, were not precisely the form into which Latin words naturally fell; that this deficiency must be supplied by the care with which he moulded his verse, according to the strictest possible standard. One can imagine the extemporaneous effusions of a Homeric bard; but to Roman taste which, in every literary work, especially in poetry, looked for elaborate finish, the power of the improvisator, who could pour forth a hundred verses standing on one foot, was a ridiculous pretension.[145]
As a general rule, no Roman poet attained facility in versification; Ovid was perhaps the only exception. In the early period, when Roman poetry was extemporaneous, their national verse was only rhythmical, and now that modern Italy can boast of the faculty of improvisation, verse has become rhythmical again. But although Nævius introduced a variety of Greek metres to the Romans, the principal part of his poems, and especially his national epic, were written in the old Saturnian measure: its structure was indeed less rude, and its metre more regular and scientific, but still he did not permit the new rules of Greek poetry to banish entirely the favourite verses “in which in olden times Fauns and bards sung,” and which would most acceptably convey to the national ear the achievements of Roman arms.
Nævius appears to have occupied a position between two successive ages; he was the last of the oldest school of writers, and prepared the way for a new one. Although a true Roman in sentiment, he admired Greek cultivation. He saw with regret the old literature of his country fading away, although he had himself introduced new principles of taste to his countrymen. He was not prepared for the shock of seeing the old school superseded by the new. But still the period for this had arrived, and in his epitaph, as we have seen, he deplored that Latin had died with him. A love for old Roman literature remained amongst the goatherds of the hills and the husbandmen of the valleys and plains, in whose memories lived the old songs which had been the delight of their infancy: it survived amongst the few who could discern merit in undisciplined genius; but the rising generation, who owed their taste to education, admired only those productions by which their taste had been formed. Greek literature had now an open field in which to flourish: it had driven out its predecessor, although as yet it had not struck its roots deeply into the Roman mind; a new school of poetry arose, and of that school Ennius was the founder. The principal events in the life of Ennius are as follows:—he was born at the little village of Rudiæ, in the wild and mountainous Calabria, B. C. 239.[146] Of ancient and honourable descent,[147] he is said[148] to have begun life in a military career, and to have risen to the rank of a centurion or captain. The anonymous author of the life of Cato, which is generally attributed to Cornelius Nepos, relates that Cato in his voyage from Africa to Rome[149] visited Sardinia, and finding Ennius in that island took him home with him. But no reason can be assigned why Ennius should have been there, or why Cato should have gone so far out of his way. If the Censor did really introduce the poet to public notice at Rome, he may have made his acquaintance during his quæstorship in Africa, if Ennius was with Scipio in that province; or during his prætorship[150] in Sardinia, if the poet was a resident in that island. There exist, however, no sufficient data to clear up these difficulties.
It seems, moreover, strange that Cato should have been his patron, and yet that he should have reproached M. Fulvius Nobilior for taking the poet with him as his companion throughout his Ætolian expedition.[151] With the exception of this campaign, Ennius resided during the remainder of his long life at Rome. Greek and Greek literature were now eagerly sought after by the higher classes, and Ennius earned a subsistence sufficient for his moderate wants by tuition. He enjoyed the friendship and esteem of the leading literary societies at Rome; and at his death, at the age of seventy, he was buried in the family tomb of the Scipios, at the request of the great conqueror of Hannibal, whose fame he contributed to hand down to posterity. His statue was honoured with a niche amongst the images of that illustrious race. The following epitaph was written by himself:—[152]
The epitaph which he wrote in honour of Scipio Africanus has also been preserved:—[153]
It is probable that death alone put a period to his career as a poet, and that his last work was completed but a short time before his decease. So popular was he for centuries, and with such care were his poems preserved, that his whole works are said to have existed as late as the thirteenth century.[154]
Literature, as represented by Ennius, attained a higher social and political position than it had hitherto enjoyed. Livius Andronicus was, as we have seen, a freedman, and probably a prisoner of war. Nævius never arrived at the full civic franchise, nor became anything more than the native of a municipality, resident at Rome. Hitherto the Romans, although they had begun to admire learning, had not learned to respect its professors. Ennius was evidently a gentleman; he was the first to obtain for literature its due influence. Thus he achieved for himself the much-coveted privileges of a Roman citizen, to which Livius had never aspired, and which Nævius was never able to attain. Hence Cicero always speaks of him with affection as a fellow-countryman. “Our own Ennius” is the appellation which he uses when he quotes his poetry. Horace also calls him “Father Ennius,” a term implying not only that he was the founder of Latin poetry, but also reverence and regard.
To discriminating taste and extensive learning he added that versatility of talent which is displayed in the great variety of his compositions. He was acquainted with all the best existing sources of poetic lore, the ancient legends of the Roman people, and the best works of the Greek writers; he had critical judgment to select beautiful and interesting portions, ingenuity to imitate them, and at the same time genius and fancy to clothe them with originality. It was not to be expected that he could be entirely freed from the antiquated style of the old school. The process of remodelling a national literature, including the very language in which it is expressed, and the metrical harmonies in which it falls upon the ear, is almost like reforming the modes of thought, and reconstructing the character of a people. Such a work must be gradual and gentle: a nation’s mind will not bend at once to new principles of taste and new rules of art. To attempt a violent revolution would be absurd, and argue ignorance of human nature. The poet who attempted it would fail in gaining sympathy, which is an essential element of success. To cause such a revolution at all requires a strong will and a vigorous manly mind; and these are precisely the characteristic features of the Ennian poetry.
If we were to paint the character best adapted to act the part of a literary reformer to a nation such as the Romans were, it would be exactly that of Ennius. He was, like his friends Cato the Censor and Scipio Africanus the elder, a man of action as well as philosophical thought. He was not only a poet, but he was a brave and stout-hearted soldier. He had all the singleness of heart and unostentatious simplicity of manners which marked the old times of Roman virtue; he lived the life of the Cincinnati, the Curii, and Fabricii, which the poets of the luxurious Augustan age professed to admire, but did not imitate. Rome was now beginning to be wealthy, and wealth to be the badge of rank; yet the noble poet was respected by the rich and great, even in his lowly cottage on the Aventine, and found it no discredit to be employed as an instructor of youth, although it had been up to his time only the occupation of servants and freedmen. He was the founder of a new school, and was leading his admirers forward to a new career; but his imagination could revel in the recollections and traditions of the past. To him the glorious exploits of the patriarchs of his race furnished as rich a mine of fable as the heroic strains of Homer, the marvellous mythologies of Hesiod, and the tragic heroes of Argos, Mycenæ and Thebes. His early training in Greek philosophy and poetry, and in the midst of Greek habits in his native village, had not polished and refined away his natural freshness. He was a child of art, but a child of nature still. He had a firm belief in his mission as a poet, an abiding conviction of his inspiration. He thought he was not metaphorically, but really, what Horace calls him, a second Homer,[155] for that the soul of the great Greek bard now animated his mortal body. He had all the enthusiasm and boldness necessary for accomplishing a great task, together with a consciousness that his task was a great and honourable one.
Owing to this rare union of the best points of Roman character with Greek refinement and civilization, he rendered himself as well as his works acceptable to the most distinguished men of his day, and his intimacy and friendship influenced the minds of Porcius Cato, Lælius, Fulvius Nobilior, and the great Scipio.
A comparison of the extant specimens of the old Latin with the numerous fragments[156] of the poems of Ennius which have been preserved, will show how deeply they were indebted to him for the improvement of their language, not only in the harmony of its numbers and the convenience of its grammatical forms, but also in its copiousness and power.
It must not, however, be supposed that Ennius is to be praised, not only because he did so much, but because he refrained from doing more, as though he designedly left an antiquated rudeness, redolent of the old Roman spirit and simplicity. A language in the condition or phase of improvement to which he brought it is valuable in an antiquarian point of view; but it is not to be admired as if it were then in a higher state of perfection than it afterwards attained. Elaborate polish may, perhaps, overcome life and freshness, but no one who possesses any correctness of ear or appreciation of beauty can prefer the limping hexameters of Ennius to the musical lines of Virgil, or his later style to the refined eloquence of the Augustan age. As Quintilian says, we value Ennius, not for the beauty of his style, but for his picturesqueness, and for the holiness, as it were, which consecrates antiquity, just as we feel a reverential awe when we contemplate the huge gnarled fathers of the forest. “Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus in quibus grandia et antiqua robora, jam non tantam habent speciem, quantam religionem.”
His predecessors had done little to remould the rude and undigested mass which, as has been shown, was made up of several elements, thrown together by the chance of war and conquest, and left to be amalgamated together by the natural genius of the people. Ennius naturally possessed great power over words, and wielded that power skilfully. In reconstructing the edifice he did the most important and most difficult part, although the result of his labours does not strike the eye as perfect and consummate. He laid the foundation strongly and safely. What he did was improved upon, but was never undone. The taste of succeeding ages erected on his basement an elegant and beautiful superstructure. To Ennius we owe the fact that after his time Latin literature was always advancing until it reached its perfection. It never went back, because the groundwork on which it was built was sound.
Ennius imitated most of the Greek metrical forms; but he wrote verses like a learner, and not like one imbued with the spirit of the metres which he imitated. He attended to the prosodiac rules of quantity, so far as his observation deduced them from the analogies of the two languages, instead of the old Roman principle of ictus or stress; but, provided the number of feet were correct, and the long and short syllables followed each other in proper order, his ear was satisfied: it was not as yet sufficiently in tune to appreciate those minuter accessaries which embellish later Latin versification. This is the principal cause of that ruggedness with which even the admirers of Ennius justly find fault. But notwithstanding these defects, there are amongst his verses some as musical and harmonious as those of the best poets in the Augustan age.
His great epic poem, entitled “The Annals,” gained him the attachment as well as the admiration of his countrymen. This poem, written in hexameters, a metre now first introduced to the notice of the Romans, detailed in eighteen books the rise and progress of their national glory, from the earliest legendary periods down to his own times. The only portion of history which he omitted was the first Punic war; and the reason which he gives for the omission is that others have anticipated him[157]—alluding to his predecessors Livius and Nævius.
The subject which he proposed to himself was one of considerable difficulty. The title and scope of his work compelled him to adopt a strict chronological order instead of the principles of epic arrangement, and to invest the truths which the course of history forced upon his acceptance with the interest of fiction. His subject could have no unity, no hero upon whose fortunes the principal interest should be concentrated, and around whom the leading events should group themselves. But still no history could be better adapted to his purpose than that of his own country. Its early legends form a long series of poetical romances, fit to be sung in heroic numbers, although from being originally unconnected with each other, incapable of being woven into one epic story. Ennius had to unite in himself the characters of the historian and the poet—to teach what he believed to be truth, and yet to move the feelings and delight the fancy by the embellishments of fiction. The poetical merit in which he must necessarily have been deficient was the conduct of the plot; but the fragments of his poem are not sufficiently numerous for us to discover this deficiency. They are, however, amply sufficient to show that he possessed picturesque power both in sketching his narratives and in portraying his characters. His scenes are full of activity and animation; his characters seem to live and breathe; his sentiments are noble, and full of a healthful enthusiasm. His language is what that of an old Roman ought to be, such as we might have expected from Cato and Scipio had they been poets: dignified, chaste, severe, it rises as high as the most majestic eloquence, although it does not soar to the sublimity of poetry.
The parts in which he approaches most nearly to his great model, or, as he believed, the source of his inspiration, were in his descriptions of battles. Here the martial spirit of the Roman warrior shines forth; the old soldier seems to revel in the scenes of his youth. The poem which occupied his declining years shows that it was his greatest pleasure to record the triumphs of his countrymen, and to teach posterity how their ancestors had won so many glorious fields. His similes are simply imitations; they show that he had taste to appreciate the peculiar features of the Homeric Poem; but as must be the case with mere imitations, they have not the energy which characterizes his battles.
As a dramatic poet, Ennius does not deserve a high reputation. A tragic drama must be of native growth, it will not bear transplanting. The Romans did not possess the elements of tragedy; the genius of Ennius was not able to remedy that defect, and he could do no more than select, with the taste and judgment which he possessed, such Greek dramas as were likely to be interesting. Probably, however, his tragedies never became popular; they were admired by the narrow literary circle in which his private life was passed. Those who were familiar with the Greek originals were delighted to see their favourites transferred into their native language; those who were not, had their curiosity gratified, and welcomed even these reflections of the glorious minds of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
But the tribute of admiration which the ancient classical authors paid to Ennius, was paid to him as an epic not as a dramatic poet. Cicero when he speaks in his praise generally quotes from the Annals, only once from a tragedy.[158] Virgil borrows lines and thoughts, together with the commencement and conclusion of the same poem; and, although the fame of Ennius survived the decline of Roman tragedy, and flourished even in the age of the Antonines,[159] and his verses were heard in the theatre of Puteoli (Pozzuoli,) the entertainment did not consist of one of his tragedies, but of recitations from his epic poem. Nevertheless his tragedies were very numerous, and the titles and some fragments of twenty-three remain. They are all close imitations, or even translations, of the Greek. Of fifteen fragments of his Medea which are extant, there is not one which does not correspond with some passage in the Medea of Euripides: the little which we have of his Eumenides is a transcript from the tragedy of Æschylus;[160] and, according to A. Gellius, his Hecuba is a clever translation likewise.
His favourite model was Euripides: nor is it surprising that he should have been better able to appreciate the inferior excellencies of this dramatic poet, when we remember that the birth of Latin literature was coincident with the decay of that of Greece. Callimachus died just as Livius began to write.[161] Theocritus expired when Ennius was twenty-five years old;[162] and by this decaying living literature his taste must have been partially educated and formed.
In comedy, as in tragedy, he never emancipated himself from the trammels of the Greek originals. His comedies were palliatæ; and Terence when accused of plagiarism defends himself by an appeal to the example of Ennius. Fragments are preserved of four only.
The poems which he wrote in various metres, and on miscellaneous subjects, were, for that reason, entitled Satiræ or Saturæ. Ennius does not, indeed, anticipate the claim of Lucilius to be considered the father of Roman satire in its proper sense; but still there can be little doubt that the scope of these minor poems was the chastisement of vice. The degeneracy of Roman virtue, even in his days, provoked language of Archilochian bitterness from so stern a moralist, although he would not libellously attack those who were undeserving of censure. The salutation which he addresses to himself expresses the burning indignation which he felt against wickedness:—