Silver Age of Roman Letters.—With the death of Augustus and the accession of his step-son Tiberius, despotism in its worst form was established at Rome, and, as in Greece, a decline of letters immediately followed. Symptoms of literary decay had already shown themselves in the reign of the first emperor, although he took care to conceal his assumption of absolute power under the mask of republican forms, and was known to all as a patron of learning. Tiberius, on the contrary, openly declared himself the enemy of freedom, both political and intellectual; and when, in 37 A.D., his attendants, no longer able to endure his rule of blood, smothered the monster with pillows, Latin literature was at its lowest ebb.
A brief renaissance, however, succeeded; so that the imperial fiend Nero was able to number among his victims an epic poet, Lucan, and a philosopher and dramatist of no common stamp, Seneca. Under the Cæsars, genius was hopelessly fettered; a chance word might condemn its author to the headsman; the poet, the historian, the orator, must needs suppress his sentiments or forfeit his self-respect by flattering the reigning despot.
A brighter day dawned with the mild rule of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines (96-180 A.D.). During this golden age of the Roman empire, poetry for a time recovered its vitality, and through the stinging satires of Juvenal denounced the abuses that had prevailed in the days of Nero and Domitian; while in the histories of Tacitus, prose indignantly broke its enforced silence, and held up to public detestation the despots of the past. But this revival was short-lived. Latin literature rapidly degenerated, for Latin genius was no more. In the later centuries of the empire, science and jurisprudence alone flourished on the soil where poetry had now ceased to bloom. (Refer to Nisard’s “Études sur les Poètes Latins de la Décadence”)
In the reign of Tiberius, we meet with the names of Velleius Paterculus, the court historian, Celsus, and Phædrus.
Velleius Paterculus is memorable for his epitome of Roman history, a work in other respects meritorious, but marred by its author’s servile praise of Tiberius. Yet we must remember that Velleius was not permitted to see the worst phase of this emperor’s tyranny. When the treachery of the prime minister Seja’nus was exposed, the historian, though not implicated with him, was one of the first to be put to death. He was thus prevented from witnessing the murders of hundreds of other innocent persons—atrocities that might have altered his estimate of his ungrateful master.
Valerius Maximus, his contemporary and fellow-flatterer, prepared a cyclopædia of anecdotes gleaned from the history of Rome and foreign countries, entitled “Remarkable Deeds and Sayings.” It was designed for the use of persons who had not the time or inclination to make original investigations, and, though written in an artificial style, contains much that is interesting.
Celsus was the author of a scientific encyclopædia, whose twenty books were devoted to farming, medicine, rhetoric, jurisprudence, and military tactics. The eight books on medicine still survive, constituting the great Roman authority on that subject.
Before his day the art of medicine and surgery had been almost entirely confined to Greek physicians; but Celsus dignified it as a calling worthy of Romans, not only practising with success among his countrymen, but committing to writing the results of his experience. He was the first ancient author who recommended the tying of blood-vessels for the purpose of checking hemorrhage.
Phædrus, the only noteworthy poet of Tiberius’s reign, is known to us by his fables. Of his life, we have few facts. He is supposed to have been brought from Thrace to Rome, as a captive; and to have lived there as the slave of Augustus, who, recognizing his latent talent, gave him an education and finally his freedom.
In the sunshine of his patron’s smiles, Phædrus led a happy life; but on the death of Augustus he was exposed to the persecutions of Sejanus, who virtually controlled the state under the succeeding emperor, and who affected to see in the poet’s fables masked attacks upon his own vicious career. Phædrus, however, outlived all his enemies, and died at a good old age.
The fables of Phædrus, preserved in a single manuscript, were discovered in an abbey at Rheims (1561), and, after narrowly escaping destruction at the hands of some French fanatics, were published to the world. In the main translated or imitated from Æsop, whom their author thus made known to the Romans, they commend themselves for their conciseness and simplicity, as well as for the moral lessons they convey. His “pleasant tales” may be judged of by the following specimens:—
THE FOX AND THE GOAT.
THE BALD MAN AND THE FLY.
The three great ornaments of Nero’s reign (54-68 A.D.) were Persius the satirist, Seneca, and his nephew Lucan.
Persius.—Born at the Etruscan town of Volaterræ (34 A.D.), Persius was brought to Rome by his mother at the age of twelve, and there educated. In the Stoic, Cornu’tus, he found his ideal preceptor, and to this “best of friends” the poet pays a beautiful tribute in the following verses, among the finest he ever wrote:—
Death overtook our poet in his 28th year (62 A.D.). All we have of his writings is six satires—only 650 hexameter lines. After his death these were published, and elicited unbounded admiration. Other works of his were torn up by his mother, who deemed them unworthy of his genius. Persius bequeathed to Cornutus his library of 700 manuscripts.
The satires of Persius were written in the interest of morality, and what gave them weight was that all knew their author to be a man who practised the virtue he commended, a man of stainless character in an age of universal licentiousness. And yet we do not find him lashing vice as we should expect. Was he loath to do so, lest the very pictures he must draw might corrupt? Or, was Persius forced to hold his peace in the presence of a despot who revelled in the vilest excesses, whose policy it was to reduce his subjects to his own low level? Perhaps for both reasons he preferred to assail wickedness in the abstract. Certainly his “maidenly modesty” shrunk from portraying the hideous sins that flaunted around him, while his philosophical tenets inclined him to keep aloof from the world. (Read Nettleship’s “The Roman Satura.”)
Poetasters and pedants that pandered to the perverted taste of the day, received the brunt of his attack in his First Satire. The Second discusses the proper subjects of prayer. How few, says the poet, would be willing to have their petitions made public:—
The Second Satire concludes with these noble lines:—
Lucius Annæus Seneca, son of the rhetorician, was born at Cordova B.C. 7, but received his education at Rome under the supervision of his father. From the first he displayed great interest in his studies, and as he grew in years he indulged his natural bent for philosophical researches. So thorough a Pythagorean did he become that he even eschewed animal food, lest he should devour flesh that had once been animated by a human soul. On the remonstrance of his parent, however, he renounced vegetarianism and “lived as others lived” again. At a later period we find him the leader of the Stoics at Rome.
Seneca early made his mark as an orator. Hearing him plead eloquently on one occasion in the senate, Caligula, out of jealousy, threatened to have him executed, and was deterred only by the consideration that Seneca had the consumption and was not likely to live for any length of time.
But Seneca survived this imperial butcher, to become the instructor and moral guide of the youthful Nero. While Nero submitted to his counsels, Rome enjoyed a halcyon age, long remembered by her people as the Five Years. His influence led to the adoption of many salutary measures; it is thought to have been at his instigation that Nero despatched an expedition to explore the sources of the Nile—the first recorded in history. Well would it have been for Rome, had Nero continued to follow the advice of Seneca.
This, however, was not to be; a sudden change took place in the disposition of the prince, when his mother was charged with conspiring against him. It was her life or his; and Nero won. The taste of blood transformed him into a monster, and he forthwith entered upon a reign of horrors that has no equal in history. Virtue was now the surest road to ruin. Falsely accused of complicity in a conspiracy, Seneca was sentenced to put an end to his own life (65 A.D.). With perfect calmness he received the royal mandate, and caused his veins to be severed; but the blood flowing too slowly, he entered a vapor-bath and ended his sufferings by suffocation. His wife Paulina elected to die with him, and in the same manner; but Nero had her veins ligatured, and thus added several years of misery to her life. To his friends, Seneca was permitted to leave no more valuable legacy than his virtuous example.
Seneca was a great moral leader, the first of a class of philosophers who aimed at winning the people back to the virtue of primitive Rome. His teachings were in strange contrast to the age in which he lived; they bear a striking resemblance to those of the Gospel, with which he may have become acquainted through St. Paul. The fathers of the Church were loud in their praises of “the divine pagan,” but there is no evidence that, as some have stated, Seneca was persuaded by the apostle to become a Christian.
Our philosopher is described as simple in his tastes. Though the envied possessor of a princely fortune, he could consistently write in support of temperance on his table of gold. A cupful of water from the brook was sweeter to him than beakers of Italy’s choicest wines, and the fruits of the wild wood he preferred to the luxurious dishes fashion required him to spread before the rich and great. His fault was weakness, which betrayed him into flattery, and perhaps made him an unwilling accessory to some of his master’s crimes.
Seneca was the author, not only of philosophical treatises, but also of ten tragedies, and one hundred and twenty-four moral epistles. He even attempted a satire on the stupidity of the emperor Claudius, representing him as transformed after death, not into a god, as the senate decreed, but into a pumpkin. Several other works from his pen are lost.
The best of Seneca’s treatises are those on Anger, Providence, and Consolation. His style, labored, antithetical, and full of repetitions, has an artificial glitter about it that impresses the reader unfavorably.
EXTRACTS FROM SENECA’S WRITINGS.
ON ANGER.
“How idle are many of those things that make us stark mad! A resty horse, the overturning of a glass, the falling of a key, the dragging of a chair, a jealousy, a misconstruction. How shall that man endure the extremities of hunger and thirst, that flies into a rage only for the putting of a little too much water in his wine? What haste is there to lay a servant by the heels, or break a leg or an arm immediately for it? The answer of a servant, a wife, a tenant, puts some people out of all patience, and yet they can quarrel with the government for not allowing them the same liberty in public which they themselves deny to their own families. If they say nothing, ’tis contumacy; if they speak or laugh, ’tis insolence. Neither are our eyes less curious and fantastical than our ears. When we are abroad, we can bear well enough with foul ways, nasty streets, noisome ditches; but a spot upon a dish at home, or an unswept hearth, absolutely distracts us. And what’s the reason, but that we are patient in the one place and peevish in the other?
Nothing makes us more intemperate than luxury. When we are once weakened with our pleasures, everything grows intolerable. And we are angry as well with those things that cannot hurt us as with those that do. We tear a book because it is blotted; and our clothes because they are not well made—things that neither deserve our anger nor feel it. The tailor perchance did his best, or had no intent to displease us. If so, first, why should we be angry at all? Secondly, why should we be angry with the thing for the man’s sake? Nay, our anger extends even to dogs, horses, and other beasts.
Cyrus, in his design upon Babylon, found a river in his way that put a stop to his march. The current was strong, and carried away one of the horses that belonged to his own chariot; upon this he swore that, since it had obstructed his passage, it should never hinder that of another, and presently set his whole army to work on it, which diverted it into a hundred and fourscore channels, and laid it dry. In this ignoble and unprofitable employment he lost his time and the soldiers their courage; moreover, he gave his adversaries an opportunity of providing themselves, while he was waging war with a river instead of an enemy.”
ON A HAPPY LIFE.
“It is dangerous for a man too suddenly or too easily to believe himself. Wherefore let us examine, watch, observe, and inspect our own hearts; for we ourselves are our own greatest flatterers. We should every night call ourselves to account—’What infirmity have I mastered to-day? What passion opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired?’ Our vices will abate of themselves, if they be brought every day to the shrift. O the blessed sleep that follows such a diary! O the tranquillity, liberty, and greatness of that mind that is a spy upon itself, and a private censor of its own manners! It is my custom every night, so soon as the candle is out, to run over all the words and actions of the past day; and I let nothing escape me. What can be more reasonable than this daily review of a life that we cannot warrant for a moment?”—L’Estrange.
MISCELLANEOUS SAYINGS.
“Those whom God loves, he disciplines.
We can never quarrel enough with our vices.
The day of death is the birthday of eternity.
There is no need to pray the ædile to admit you to the ear of an image, that so your petitions may be heard the better. God is near you; he is with you; a holy spirit resides within us, our constant guardian.
Let us be liberal after the example of our great Creator, and give to others with the same consideration that he gives to us.
How many are unworthy of the light; yet the day dawns.
The good-will of the benefactor is the fountain of all benefits.
To obey God is liberty.
Apply thyself to the true riches. It is shameful to depend for a happy life on silver and gold.”
Lucan (39-65 A.D.), the nephew of Seneca, though born at Cordova, was brought up at Rome, and there became the fellow-pupil and favorite companion of Nero. But the superior genius of the Spanish youth provoked the jealousy of his royal master, who had rather too high an opinion of his own attainments, and was nettled by the public verdict that Lucan, then only twenty-three years of age, was the greatest of living poets. At length the awarding of the prize to Lucan in a literary contest between them so enraged the emperor that he forbade his former friend to recite any more pieces.
Lucan’s indiscretion sealed his fate. Not content with libellous attacks upon Nero, he became implicated in a conspiracy against the government, upon the detection of which he was condemned to death. Nero allowing him to choose the manner in which he should suffer, the poet had his veins opened in a hot bath. Becoming faint from loss of blood, he recited a passage from his own “Pharsalia,” descriptive of the death of a snake-bitten soldier:—
and so he passed away.
Lucan was interred at Rome in his own garden. An ancient monument in the church of Santo Paulo contains an inscription to his memory, probably placed there by order of Nero, who seems after all to have rendered secret homage to his genius and virtue. The talents of his wife have been highly commended; and it is probable that she assisted him in composing his work.
The epic “Pharsalia” is the only poem of Lucan’s that we now possess. Its subject is the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey; and it receives its name from the place at which the decisive battle between the rival commanders was fought. Though inferior to the Æneid, it certainly displays talent of a high order. Critics have differed in their estimate of Lucan. That he has faults, none will deny who are familiar with his tumid style and love of tinsel. On the other hand, energy, exuberant imagination, and a fervent love of liberty, are his peculiar excellences. The defects of the Pharsalia are excusable in a youth of twenty-six. Had the author lived to revise and finish the work, it might have equalled Virgil’s epic.
Lucan is partial to the supernatural; dreams, witches, and ghosts, enter freely into his machinery. In the sixth book of the Pharsalia, he makes Pompey’s son consult the witch Erichtho on the eve of the battle. His picture of the weird woman is quoted here as one of the most imaginative passages in the whole range of classical poetry. Erichtho is the type of a class of impostors firmly believed in by the Romans of that day; the powers with which the poet endows her are simply those attributed to her by popular superstition.
THE WITCH ERICHTHO.
The Flavian Era is memorable for a few writers of note. Pliny the Elder, called also the Naturalist, was an intimate friend of the emperor Vespasian; while the names of Martial, Statius, and Quintilian, are associated with the reign of Domitian, Vespasian’s son (81-96 A.D.).
Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.) was born at Como in Cisalpine Gaul, and there passed his boyhood. We find him afterward at Rome attending rhetorical lectures, and still later in his career serving as a soldier in Germany. Nero made him proconsul of Spain, and at the expiration of his term he returned to Rome to find his old friend Vespasian invested with the purple.
Pliny had already become distinguished as the author of a treatise on “the Use of the Javelin,” a “History of the German Wars,” and eight books on “Difficulties in the Latin Language.” He now devoted himself to the compilation of his “Natural History,” the only work we have left from his pen, which Cuvier pronounced “one of the most precious monuments that have come down to us from ancient times.”
We might well wonder how, in the face of his onerous public duties, Pliny found time for literary pursuits so engrossing, did not his nephew, Pliny the Younger, describe to us his wonderful industry. His day’s work began at 1 or 2 A.M., even in winter; sometimes at midnight. Before sunrise he repaired to the palace to chat informally with Vespasian, who like him was accustomed to rob the night of a few hours; after which he applied himself to business and study, devoting every spare moment to the accumulation of knowledge. “No book so bad but that something good may be gleaned from it,” was his motto. To be without a volume and a portable writing-desk was a crime in Pliny’s eyes. A slave constantly attended him, to take down his words in short-hand; during his meals he employed a reader, and even in his bath he dictated or listened. “I remember his chiding me,” said his nephew, “for taking a walk, saying ‘You might have saved three hours.’ Compared with him, I am an idle vagabond.”
Pliny the Elder was a martyr to science. In August, 79 A.D., while in command of the Mediterranean squadron, to which he had been appointed by Vespasian, word was brought him that Vesuvius was in a state of eruption. Desiring to investigate the phenomenon, he steered straight for the blazing mountain, pushed on through the rain of hot ashes and pumice-stones, and when advised by the pilot to turn back fearlessly replied, “Fortune favors the brave!” He effected a landing, but only to be suffocated by the sulphurous vapors that proved fatal to so many of the inhabitants of Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Pliny was the master-compiler of antiquity; and he was only a compiler, as he himself acknowledged. His Natural History, in thirty-seven books, is a storehouse of quaint lore, according to its author a condensation of two thousand volumes, relating to astronomy, geography, zoölogy, botany, mineralogy, diseases and their remedies, etc. A penchant for the marvellous, which shows him to have been a man of infinite credulity, was a weakness of Pliny; yet his stories were implicitly trusted in the Dark Ages, and many of them reappeared in the tales of the Arabian Nights. A few of his curious statements are subjoined:—
ECCENTRICITIES OF NATURE.
“Some individuals are born with certain parts of the body endowed with properties of a marvellous nature. Such was the case with King Pyrrhus, the great toe of whose right foot cured diseases of the spleen merely by touching the patient. We are also informed that this toe could not be reduced to ashes together with the other portions of the body.
India and Ethiopia abound in wonders. According to Megasthenes, on a mountain called Nulo there dwells a race of men who have their feet turned backward, with eight toes on each foot. On many of the mountains, again, there is a tribe of men who have the heads of dogs; instead of speaking they bark, and, furnished with claws, they live by hunting and catching birds. According to Ctesias, the number of this people is more than 120,000. This author speaks also of another race of men called Single-legs, who have only one limb, but are able to leap with surprising agility. The same people are also called Foot-shadowers, because they are in the habit of lying on their backs, and protecting themselves from the sun by the shade of their feet.
At the very extremity of India, near the source of the river Ganges, there is the nation of Mouthless people; their bodies are rough and overgrown with hair, and they cover themselves with a down plucked from the leaves of trees. These people subsist only by breathing and by the odors which they inhale through the nostrils. They support themselves upon neither meat nor drink; when they go upon a long journey, they carry with them only odoriferous roots and flowers, and wild apples, that they may not be without something to smell at. But an odor which is a little more powerful than usual easily destroys them.”
HYDROPHOBIA.
“Canine madness is fatal to man during the heat of the Dog-star, and proves so in consequence of those who are bitten having a deadly horror of water. For this reason, during the thirty days that the star exerts its influence, we try to prevent the disease in dogs; or, if they are attacked by it, give them hellebore.
We have a single remedy against the bite, which has been but lately discovered—the root of the wild rose, which is called dog-rose. Columella informs us that if, on the fortieth day after the birth of a pup, the last bone of the tail is bitten off, the sinew will follow with it; after which the tail will not grow, and the dog will never become rabid.”
REMEDIES FOR TOOTHACHE, ETC.
“Toothache is alleviated by scarifying the gums with bones of the sea-dragon, or by rubbing the teeth once a year with the brains of a dog-fish boiled in oil. It is a very good plan, too, for the cure of toothache, to lance the gums with the sting of the ray. This sting is pounded and applied to the teeth with white hellebore, having the effect of extracting them without the slightest difficulty. A decoction is made of a single frog boiled in two-thirds of a pint of vinegar, and the teeth are rinsed with it. It is generally thought that this recipe applies more particularly to the double teeth, and that the vinegar prepared as above mentioned is remarkably useful for strengthening them when loose. Ashes, also, of burnt crabs make an excellent dentifrice.
There is a small frog which ascends trees, and croaks aloud there; if a person suffering from cough spits into its mouth and then lets it go, he will experience a cure. For cough attended with spitting of blood, it is recommended to beat up the raw flesh of a snail, and to drink it in hot water.”—Riley.
Martial (43-117 A.D.).—The chief poet of Domitian’s reign was Martial, master of the Latin epigram. Born in Spain, Martial came to Rome in Nero’s time and began the study of law. But finding it uncongenial, he adopted literature as a profession, and rose to distinction under Titus and Domitian, his sordid flattery of the latter securing him wealth and honors.
The epigrams of Martial are pithy, pointed with satire, and not without elegance; but the pleasure of reading them is constantly interrupted by coarse allusions and even downright obscenity. Hence it has been justly said that Martial taught vice while reproving it. His poems, however, contain valuable pictures of Roman manners.
THE BEAU.
Statius (61-96 A.D.), a contemporary and rival of Martial, was the author of the epic “Theba’is,” based on the strife of the sons of Œdipus (see p. 200). Despite the fact that the poet gave a year’s work to each of its twelve books, this epic has little to recommend it.
Statius began another poem on the life of Achilles, which he did not live to finish. His forte lay not in the line of epics, but in the improvising of short pointed pieces, thirty-two of which are preserved in the collection called “Silvæ.” Juvenal bears witness to his popularity.
Statius was patronized by the emperor Domitian, but is said to have been stabbed by the latter with a stylus, in a fit of anger. The following tender lines are from a poem addressed to his wife Claudia.
STATIUS TO HIS WIFE.
Sulpicia.—We must not pass over the Roman lyric poetess Sulpicia, the Sappho of Domitian’s age—a noble lady of exceptional genius, who claims that she
A short satire on Domitian’s expulsion of the Greek philosophers from Italy, bearing the name of Sulpicia, still survives. It is valuable, as the only fragment we have from a Roman poetess. From it we extract the following apt simile:—
Quintilian (35-95 A.D.), of Spanish parentage but Roman education, for many years taught eloquence successfully in the capital, numbering among his pupils the nephews of Domitian. He had the good fortune to enjoy the favor of the emperor, and filled a professorship to which was attached an annual salary of about $4,000.
Quintilian is honored as the author of the “Institutes of Oratory,” an exhaustive rhetorical treatise in twelve books, devoted to the education of the orator from infancy. “No other author,” it has been said, “ever adorned a scientific treatise with so many happy metaphors.” No other author, it may be added, ever succeeded better in investing a dry subject with general interest. The “Institutes” may be read with profit by all who desire to improve their style.
Quintilian insists on virtue as a requisite of the perfect orator; yet with strange inconsistency excuses a falsehood if told in a good cause, and justifies the doing of evil that good may come. We present a few paragraphs on
THE EMBELLISHMENT OF STYLE.