The History of Roman Literature / From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius

by Charles Thomas Cruttwell

2. POETS.

The poet is usually credited with a genius more independent of external circumstances than any other of nature's favourites. His inspiration is more creative, more unearthly, more constraining, more unattainable by mere effort. He seems to forget the world in his own inner sources of thought and feeling. As circumstances cannot produce him, so they do not greatly affect his genius. He is the product of causes as yet unknown to the student of human progress; he is a boon for which the age that has him should be grateful, a sort of aerii mellis caelestia dona. Modern literature is full of this conception. The poet "does but speak because he must; he sings but as the linnets sing." Never has the sentiment been expressed with deeper pathos than by Shelley's well-known lines:

"Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not."

The idea that the poet can neither be made on the one hand, nor repressed if he is there, on the other, has become deeply rooted in modern literary thought. And yet if we look through the epochs that have been most fertile of great poets, the instances of such self-sufficing hardiness are rare. In Greek poetry we question whether there is one to be found. In Latin poetry there is only Lucretius. In modern times, it is true, they are more numerous, owing to the greater complexity of our social conditions, and the greater difficulty for a strongly sensuous or deeply spiritual poetic nature to be in harmony with them all. Putting aside these solitary voices we should say on the whole that poetry, at least in ancient times, was the tenderest and least hardy of all garden flowers. It needed, so to say, a special soil, constant care, and shelter from the rude blast. It could blossom only in the summer of patronage, popular or imperial; the storms of war and revolution, and the chill frost of despotism, were equally fatal to its tender life. Where its supports were strong its own strength came out, and that with such luxuriance as to hide the props which lay beneath; but when once the inspiring consciousness of sympathy and aid was lost, its fair head drooped, its fragrance was forgotten, and its seeds were scattered to the waste of air.

If Lucan's claim to the name of poet be disputed, what shall we say to the so-called poets of the Flavian age? to Valerius Flaccus, Silius, Statius, and Martial? In one sense they are poets certainly; they have a thorough mastery over the form of their art, over the hackneyed themes of verse. But in the inspiration that makes the bard, in the grace that should adorn his mind, in the familiarity with noble thoughts which lends to the Pharsalia an undisputed greatness, they are one and all absolutely wanting. None of them raise in the reader one thrill of pleasure, none of them add one single idea to enrich the inheritance of mankind. The works of Pliny and Quintilian cannot indeed be ranked among the masterpieces of literature. But in elegant greatness they are immeasurably superior to the works of their brethren of the lyre. Science can seek a refuge in the contemplation of the material universe; if it can find no law there, no justice, no wisdom, no comfort, it at least bows before unchallenged greatness. Rhetoric can solace its aspirations in a noble though hopeless effort to rekindle an extinct past. Poetry, that should point the way to the ideal, that should bear witness if not to goodness at least to beauty and to glory, grovels in a base contentment with all that is meanest and shallowest in the present, and owns no source of inspiration but the bidding of superior force, or the insulting bribe of a despot's minion which derides in secret the very flattery it buys.

These poets need not detain us long. There is little to interest us in them, and they are of little importance in the history of literature. The first of them is C. VALERIUS FLACCUS SETINUS BALBUS. [1] He was born not, as his name would indicate, at Setia, but at Patavium. [2] We gather from a passage in his poem [3] that he filled the office of Quindecimvir sacris faciundis, and from Quintilian [4] that he was cut off by an early death. The date of this event may be fixed with probability to the year 88 A.D. [5] Dureau de la Malle has disputed this, and thinks it probable that he lived until the reign of Trajan; but this is in itself unlikely, and inconsistent with the obviously unfinished state of the poem. The legend of the Argonauts which forms its subject was one that had already been treated by Varro Atacinus apparently in the form of an imitation or translation from the same writer, Appollonius Rhodius, whom Valerius also chose as his model. But whereas Varro's poem was little more than a free translation, that of Valerius is an amplification and study from the original of a more ambitious character. It consists of eight books, of which the last is incomplete, and in estimating its merits or demerits we must not forget the immaturity of its author's talent.

The opening dedication to Vespasian fixes its composition under his reign. Its profane flattery is in the usual style of the period, but lacks the brilliancy, the audacity, and the satire of that of Lucan. From certain allusions it is probable that the poem was written soon after the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus [6] (A.D. 70). There is considerable learning shown, but a desire to compress allusions into a small space and to suggest trains of mythological recollection by passing hints, interfere with the lucidity of the style. In other respects the diction is classical and elegant, and both rhythm and language are closely modelled on those of Virgil. Licences of versification are rare. The spondaic line, rarely used by Ovid, almost discarded by Lucan, but which reappears in Statius, is sparingly employed by Valerius. Hiatus is still rarer, but the shortening of final o occurs in verbs and nominatives, such as Juno, Virgo, whenever it suits the metre. His speeches are rhetorical but not extravagant, some, e.g., that of Helle to Jason, are very pretty. In descriptive power he rises to his highest level; some of his subjects are extremely vivid and might form subjects for a painting. [7] During the time that he was writing the eruption of Vesuvius occurred, and he has described it with the zeal of a witness. [8]

"Sic ubi prorupti tonuit cum forte Vesevi
Hesperiae letalis apex; vixdum ignea montem
Torsit hiems, iamque Eoas einis induit urbes."

But in this, as in all the descriptive pieces, however striking and elaborate, of the period of the decline, are prominently visible the strained endeavour to be emphatic, and the continual dependence upon book reminiscence instead of first-hand observation. Valerius is no exception to the rule. Nor is the next author who presents himself any better in this respect, the voluptuary and poetaster C. SILIUS ITALICUS.

This laborious compiler and tasteless versifier was born 25 A.D., or according to some 24 A.D., and died by his own act seventy-six years later. He is known to us as a copyist of Virgil; to his contemporaries he was at least as well known as a clever orator and luxurious virtuoso. His early fondness for Virgil's poetry may be presumed from the dedication of Cornutus's treatise on that subject to him, but he soon deserted literature for public life, in which (68 A.D.) he attained the highest success by being nominated consul. He had been a personal friend of Vitellius and of Nero; but now, satisfied with his achievements, he settled down on his estates, and composed his poem on the Punic Wars in sixteen books. Most of the information we possess about him is gathered from the letter [9] in which Pliny narrates his death. We translate the most striking passages for the reader's benefit.

"I have just heard that Silius has closed his life in his Neapolitan villa by voluntary abstinence. The cause of his preferring to die was ill-health. He suffered from an incurable tumour, the trouble arising from which determined him with singular resolution to seek death as a relief. His whole life had been unvaryingly fortunate, except that he had lost the younger of his two sons. On the other hand, he had lived to see his elder and more promising son succeed in life and obtain the consulship. He had injured his reputation under Nero. It was believed he had acted as an informer. But afterwards, while enjoying Vitellius's friendship, he had conducted himself with courtesy and prudence. He had gained much credit by his proconsulship in Asia, and had since by an honourable leisure wiped out the blot which stained the activity of his former years. He ranked among the first men in the state, but he neither retained power nor excited envy. He was saluted, courted; he received levees often in his bed, always in his chamber, which was crowded with visitors, who came attracted by no considerations of his fortune. When not occupied with writing, he passed his days in learned discourse. His poems evince more diligence than talent: he now and then by reciting challenged men's opinions upon them. Latterly, owing to advancing years, he retired from Rome and remained in Campania, nor did even the accession of a new emperor draw him forth. To allow this inactivity was most liberal on the emperor's part, to have the courage to accept it was equally honourable to Silius. He was a virtuoso, and was even blamed for his propensities for collecting. He owned several country-houses in the same district, and was always so taken with each new house he purchased as to neglect the old for it. All of them were well stocked with books, statues, and busts of great men. These last he not only treasured but revered, above all, that of Virgil, whose birthday he kept more religiously than his own. He preferred celebrating it at Naples, where he visited the poet's tomb as if it had been a temple. Amid such complete tranquillity he passed his seventy-fifth year, not exactly weak in body, but delicate."

To this notice of Pliny's we might add several by Martial; but as these refer to the same facts, adding beside only fulsome praises of the wealthy and dignified littérateur, they need not be quoted here. Quintilian does not mention him. But his silence is no token of disrespect; it is merely an indication that Silius was still alive when the great critic wrote.

There is little that calls for remark in his long and tedious work. He is a poet only by memory. Timid and nerveless, he lacks alike the vigorous beauties of the earlier school, and the vigorous faults of the later. He pieces together in the straggling mosaic of his poem hemistichs from his contemporaries, fragments from Livy, words, thoughts, epithets, and rhythms from Virgil; and he elaborates the whole with a pre-Raphaelite fidelity to details which completely destroys whatever unity the subject suggested.

This subject is not in itself a bad one, but the treatment he applies to it is unreal and insipid in the highest degree. He cannot perceive, for instance, that the divine interventions which are admissible in the quarrel of Aeneas and Turnus are ludicrous when imported into the struggle between Scipio and Hannibal. And this inconsistency is the more glaring, since his extreme historical accuracy (an accuracy so strict as to make Niebuhr declare a knowledge of him indispensable to the student of the Punic Wars) gives to his chronicle a prosaic literalness from which nothing is more alien than the caprices of an imaginary pantheon. Who can help resenting the unreality, when at Saguntum Jupiter guides an arrow into Hannibal's body, which Juno immediately withdraws? [10] or when, at Cannae, Aeolus yields to the prayer of Juno and blinds the Romans by a whirlwind of dust? [11] These are two out of innumerable similar instances. Amid such incongruities it is no wonder if the heroes themselves lose all body and consistency, so that Scipio turns into a kind of Paladin, and Hannibal into a monster of cruelty, whom we should not be surprised to see devouring children. Silius in poetry represents, on a reduced scale, the same reactionary sentiments that in prose animated Quintilian. So far he is to be commended. But if we must choose a companion among the Flavian poets, let it be Statius with all his faults, rather than this correct, only because completely talentless, compiler.

To him let us now turn. With filial pride he attributes his eminence to the example and instruction of his father, P. PAPENIUS STATIUS, who was, if we may believe his son, a distinguished and extremely successful poet. [12] He was born either at Naples or at Selle; and the doubt hanging over this point neither the father nor the son had any desire to clear up; for did not the same ambiguity attach to the birthplace of Homer? At any rate he established himself at Naples as a young man, and opened a school for rhetoric and poetry, engaging in the quinquennial contests himself, and training his pupils to do the same. It is not certain that he ever settled at Rome; his modest ambition seems to have been content with provincial celebrity. What the subjects of his prize poetry were we have no means of ascertaining, but we know that he wrote a short epic on the wars between Vespasian and Vitellius and contemplated writing another on the eruption of Vesuvius. His more celebrated son, P. PAPINIUS STATIUS the younger, was born at Naples 61 A.D., and before his father's death had carried off the victory in the Neapolitan poetical games by a poem in honour of Ceres. [13] Shortly after this he returned to Rome, where it is probable he had been educated as a boy, and in his twenty-first year married a young widow named Claudia (whose former husband seems to have been a singer or harpist), [14] and their mutual attachment is a pleasing testimony to the poet's goodness of heart, a quality which the habitual exaggeration of his manner ineffectually tries to conceal.

Domitian had instituted a yearly poetical contest at the Quinquatria, in honour of Minerva, held on the Alban Mount. Statius was fortunate enough on three separate occasions to win the prize, his subject being in each case the praises of Domitian himself. [15] But at the great quinquennial Capitoline contest, in which apparently the subject was the praises of Jupiter, [16] Statius was not equally successful. [17] This defeat, which he bewails in more than one passage, was a disappointment he never quite overcame, though some critics have inferred from another passage [18] that on a subsequent occasion he came off victor; but this cannot be proved. [19]

Statius had something of the true poet in him. He had the love of nature and of those "cheap pleasures" of which Hume writes, the pleasures of flowers, birds, trees, fresh air, a country landscape, a blue sky. These could not be had at Rome for all the favours of the emperor. Statius pined for a simpler life. He wished also to provide for his step-daughter, whom he dearly loved, and whose engaging beauty while occupied in reciting her father's poems, or singing them to the music of the harp, he finely describes. Perhaps at Naples a husband could be found for her? So to Naples he went, and there in quiet retirement passed the short remainder of his days, finishing his opus magnum the Thebaid, and writing the fragment that remains of his still more ambitious Achilleid. The year of his death is not certain, but it may be placed with some probability in 98 A.D.

Statius was not merely a brilliant poet. He was a still more brilliant improvisator. Often he would pour forth to enthusiastic listeners, as Ovid had done before him,

"His profuse strains of unpremeditated art."

Improvisation had long been cultivated among the Greeks. We know from Cicero's oration on behalf of Archias that it was no rare accomplishment among the wits of that nation. And it was not unknown among the Romans, though with them also it was more commonly exercised in Greek than in Latin. The technicalities of versification had, since Ovid, ceased to involve any labour. Not an aspirant of any ambition but was familiar with every page of the Gradus ad Parnassum, and could lay it under contribution at a moment's notice. Hence to write fluent verses was no merit at all; to write epigrammatic verses was worth doing; but to extemporize a poem of from one to two hundred lines, of which every line should display a neat turn or a bon mot, this was the most deeply coveted gift of all; and it was the possession of this gift in its most seductive form that gave Statius unquestioned, though not unenvied, pre- eminence among the beaux esprits of his day. His Silvae, which are trifles, but very charming ones, were most of them written within twenty- four hours after their subjects had been suggested to him. Their elegant polish is undeniable; the worst feature about them is the base complaisance with which this versatile flatterer wrote to order, without asking any questions, whatever the eunuchs, pleasure-purveyors, or freedmen of the emperor desired. They are full of interest also as throwing light on the manners and fashions of the time and disclosing the frivolities which in the minds of all the members o£ the court had quite put out of sight the serious objects of life. They contain many notices of the poet and his friends, and we learn that when they were composed he was at work on the Thebaid. He excuses these short jeux d'esprit by alleging the example of Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice and Virgil's Culex. "I hardly know," he says, "of one illustrious poet who has not prefaced his nobler triumphs of song by some prelude in a lighter strain." [20] The short prose introductions in which he describes the poems that compose each book are well worth reading. The first book is addressed to his friend ARRUNTIUS STELLA, who was, if we may believe Statius and Martial, himself no mean poet, and in his little Columba, an ode addressed to his mistress's dove, rivalled, if he did not surpass, the famous "sparrow-poem" of Catullus. He wrote also several other love poems, and perhaps essayed a heroic flight in celebrating the Sarmatian victories of Domitian. [21]

The Silvae were for the most part read or recited in public. We saw in a former chapter [22] that Asinius Pollio first introduced these readings. His object in doing so is uncertain. It may have been to solace himself for the loss of a political career, or it may have been a device for ascertaining the value of new works before granting them a place in his public library. The recitations thus served the purpose of the modern reviews. They affixed to each new work the critic's verdict, and assigned to it its place among the list of candidates for fame. No sooner was the practice introduced than it became popular. Horace already complains of it, and declares that he will not indulge it: [23]

"Non recito cuiquam nisi amicis, idque coactus,
Non ubivis coramve quibuslibet."

He with greater wisdom read his poems to some single friend whose judgment and candour he could trust—some Quinctilius Varus, or Maecius Tarpa—and he advised his friends the Pisos to do the same; but his advice was little heeded. Even during his lifetime the vain thirst for applause tempted many an author to submit his compositions to the hasty judgment of a fashionable assembly, and (fond hope!) to promise himself an immortality proportioned to their compliments. Ovid's muse drew her fullest inspiration from the excitements of the hall, and the poet bitterly complains in exile that now this stimulus to effort is withdrawn he has lost the power and even the desire to write. [24] Nor was it only poetry that was thus criticised; grave historians read their works before publishing them, and it is related of Claudius that on hearing the thunders of applause which were bestowed on the recitations of Servilius Nonianus, he entered the building and seated himself uninvited among the enthusiastic listeners. Under Nero, the readings, which had hitherto been a custom, became a law, that is, were upheld by legal no less than social obligations. The same is true of Domitian's reign. This ill-educated prince wished to feign an interest in literature, the more so, since Nero, whom he imitated, had really been its eager votary. Accordingly, he patronised the readings of the principal poets, and above all, of Statius. This was the golden time of recitations, or ostentationes, as they now with sarcastic justice began to be called, and Statius was their chief hero. As Juvenal tells us, he made the whole city glad when he promised a day. [25] His recitations were often held at the houses of his great friends, men like Abascantius or Glabrio, adventurers of yesterday, who had come to Rome with "chalked feet," and now had been raised by Caesar to a height whence they looked with scorn upon the scattered relics of nobility. It is these men that Statius so adroitly flatters; it is to them that he looks for countenance, for patronage, for more substantial rewards; and yet so wretched is the recompense even of the highest popularity, that Statius would have to beg his bread if he did not find a better employer in the actor and manager, Paris, who pays him handsomely for the tragedies that at each successive exhaustion of his exchequer he is fain to write for the taste of a corrupt mob. [26] But at last Statius began to see the folly of all this. He grew tired of hiring himself out to amuse, of practising the affectation of a modesty, an inspiration, an emotion he did not feel, of hearing the false plaudits of rivals who he knew carped at his verses in his absence and libelled his character, of running hither and thither over Parnassus dragging his poor muse at the heels of some selfish freedman; he was man enough and poet enough to wish to write something that would live, and so he left Rome to con over his mythological erudition amid a less exciting environment, and woo the genius of poesy where its last great master had been laid to rest.

After Statius had left Rome, the popularity of the recitations gradually decreased. No poet of equal attractiveness was left to hold them. So the ennui and disgust, which had perhaps long been smothered, now burst forth. Many people refused to attend altogether. They sent their servants, parasites, or hired applauders, while they themselves strolled in the public squares or spent the hours in the bath, and only lounged into the room at the close of the performance. Their indifference at last rejected all disguise; absence became the rule. Even Trajan's assiduous attendance could hardly bring a scanty and listless concourse to the once crowded halls. Pliny the younger, who was a finished reciter, grievously complains of the incivility shown to deserving poets. Instead of the loud cries, the uneasy motions that had attested the excitement of the hearers, nothing is heard but yawns or shuffling of the feet; a dead silence prevails. Even Pliny's gay spirits and cheerful vanity were not proof against such a reception. The "little grumblings" (indignatiunculae), of which his letters are full, attest how sorely he felt the decline of a fashion in which he was so eminently fitted to excel. And if a wealthy noble patronised by the emperor thus complains, how intolerable must have been the disappointment to the poet whose bread depended on his verses, the poet depicted by Juvenal, to whom the patron graciously lends a house, ricketty and barred up, lying at a distance from town, and lays on him the ruinous expense of carriage for benches and stalls, which after all are only half-filled!

The frenzy of public readings, then, was over; but Statius had learned his style in their midst, and country retirement could not change it. The whole of his brilliant epic savours of the lecture room. The verbal conceits, the florid ornament, the sparkling but quite untranslatable epigrams which enliven every description and give point to every speech, need only be noted in passing; for no reader of a single book of the Thebaid can fail to mark them.

This poem, which is admitted by Merivale to be faultless in epic execution, and has been glorified by the admiration of Dante, occupied the author twelve years in the composing, [27] probably from 80 to 92 A.D. Its elaborate finish bears testimony to the labour expended on it. Had Statius been content with trifles such as are sketched in the Silvae he might have been to this day a favourite and widely-read poet. As it is, the minute beauties of his epic lie buried in such a wilderness of unattractive learning and second-hand mythological reminiscence, that few care to seek them out. His mastery over the epic machinery is complete; but he fails not only in the ardour of the bard, but in the vigour of the mere narrator. His action drags heavily through the first ten books, and then is summarily finished in the last two, the accession of Creon after Oedipus's exile, his prohibition to bury Polynices, the interference of Theseus, and the death of Creon being all dismissed in fifteen hundred lines.

The two most striking features in the poem are the descriptions of battles and the similes. The former are greatly superior to those of Lucan or Silius. They have not the hideous combination of horrors of the one, nor the shadowy unreality of the other. Though hatched in the closet and not on the battle-field, a defect they share with all poets from Virgil downwards, they have sufficient verisimilitude to interest, and not sufficient reality to shock us. The similes merit still higher praise. The genius of Latin poetry was fast tending towards the epigram, and these similes are strictly epigrammatic. The artificial brevity which suggests many different lines of reminiscence at the same time is exhibited with marked success. As the simile was so assiduously cultivated by the Latin epicists and forms a distinctive feature of their style, we shall give in the appendix to this chapter a comparative table of the more important similes of the three chief epic poets. At present we shall quote only two from the Thebaid, both admirable in their way, and each exemplifying one of Statius's prominent faults or virtues. The first compares an army following its general across a river to a herd of cattle following the leading bull: [28]

"Ac velut ignotum si quando armenta per amnem
Pastor agit, stat triste pecus, procul altera tellus [29]
Omnibus, et late medius timor: ast ubi ductor
Taurus init fecitque vadum, tune mollior unda,
Tunc faciles saltus, visaeque accedere ripae."

This is elegant in style but full of ambiguities, if not experiments, in language. The words in italics are an exaggerated imitation of a mode of expression to which Virgil is prone, i.e., a psychological indication of an effect made to stand for a description of the thing. Then as to the three forced expressions of the last two lines—to say nothing of fecit vadum, which may be a pastoral term, as we say made the ford, i.e. struck it—we have the epithet mollior, which, here again in caricature of Virgil, mixes feeling with description, used for facilior in the sense of "kinder," "more obliging" (for he can hardly mean that it feels softer); faciles saltus, either the "leap across seems easier," or perhaps "the woods on the other side look less frowning;" while to add to the hyperbole, "the bank appears to come near and meet them." Three subtle combinations are thus expended where Virgil would have used one simple one.

The next simile exemplifies the use of hyperbole at its happiest, an ornament, by the way, to which Statius is specially prone. It is a very short one. [30] It compares an infant to the babe Apollo crawling on the shore of Delos:

"Talis per litora reptans
Improbus Ortygiae latus inclinabat Apollo."

This is delightful. The mischievous little god crawls near the edge of the island, and by his divine weight nearly overturns it! We should observe the gross materialism of idea which underlies this pretty picture. Not one of the Roman poets is free from this taint. To take a well-known instance from Virgil; when Aeneas gets into Charon's boat

"Gemuit sub pondere cymba
Sutilis et multam accepit rimosa paludem." [31]

The effect of the "Ingens Aeneas" bursting Charon's crazy skiff is decidedly grotesque. Lucan has not failed to seize and exaggerate this peculiarity. To repeat the example we have already noticed in the first book, [32] when asking Nero which part of heaven he is selecting for his abode, he prays him not to choose one far removed from the centre, lest his vast weight should disturb the balance of the universe!

"Aetheris immensi partem si presseris unam
Sentiet axis onus."

Statius, as we have seen, adds the one element that was wanting, namely the abstraction of the heroic altogether; nevertheless, in small effects of this kind, he must be pronounced superior to both Virgil and Lucan.

The Achilleis is a mere fragment, no doubt left as such owing to the author's early death. The design, of which it was the first instalment, was even more ambitious than that of the Thebaid. It aimed at nothing less than an exhaustive treatment of all the legends of which Achilles was the hero, excepting those which form the subject of the Iliad. Its style shows a slight advance on that of the earlier poem; it is equally long- winded, but less bombastic, and consequently somewhat more natural. In one or two passages Statius [33] promises Domitian an epic celebrating his deeds, but probably he never had any serious intention of fulfilling his word. Statius had a high opinion of his own merits, especially when he compared himself with the poet fraternity of his day; but his careful study of Homer and Virgil had shown him that there was a domain into which he could not enter, and so even while vaunting his claims to immortality, he is careful not to aspire to be ranked with the poet of the Aeneid: [34]

"Nec tu divinam Aeneida tenta:
Sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora."

VALERIUS MARTIALIS was born at Bilbilis, in Hispania Tarraconensis (March 1, 43 A.D.), and retained through life an affectionate admiration for the place of his birth, which he celebrates in numerous poems. [35] At twenty- two [36] years of age he came to Rome, Nero being then on the throne. He does not appear to have been known to that emperor, but rose into great favour with Titus, which was continued under Domitian, who conferred on him the Jus trium liberorum [37] and the tribunate, together with the rank of a Roman knight, [38] and a pension from the imperial treasury, [39] probably attached to the position of court poet. It is difficult to ascertain the truth as to his circumstances. The facts above mentioned, as well as his possession of a house in the city and a villa at Nomentum, [40] would point to an easy competence; on the other hand the poet's continual complaints of poverty [41] prove that he was either less wealthy than his titles suggest, or else that he was hard to satisfy. On the accession of Trajan he seems to have left Rome for Spain, it is said because the emperor refused to recognise his genius; but as he had been a prominent author for upwards of thirty years, it is likely that his character, not his talent, was what Trajan looked coldly on. A poet who had prostituted his pen in a way unexampled even among the needy and immoral pickers-up of chance crumbs that crowded the avenues of the palace, could hardly be acceptable to a prince of manly character. At the same time there is this excuse for Martial, that he did not belong to the old families of Rome. He and such as he owed everything to the emperor's bounty, and if the emperor desired flattery in return, it cost them little pains and still less loss of self-respect to give it. Politics had become entirely a system of palace intrigue. Only when the army intervened was any general interest awakened. The supremacy of the emperor's person was the one great fact, rapidly becoming a great inherited idea, which formed the point of union among the diverse non-political classes, and gave the poets their chief theme of inspiration. It mattered not to them whether their lord was good or bad. It is well-known that the people liked Domitian, and it was only by the firmness of the senate that he was prevented from being formally proclaimed as a god. Martial does not pretend to be above the level of conduct which he saw practised by emperor and people alike. Without strength of character, without independence of thought, both of which indeed were almost extinct at this epoch, his one object was to ingratiate himself with those who could fill his purse. Hence the indifference he shows to the vices of Nero. Juvenal, Tacitus, and Pliny use a very different language. But then they represented the old-fashioned ideas of Rome. Martial, indeed, alludes to Nero as a well- known type of crime: [42]

"Quid Nerone peius?
Quid thermis melius Neronianis?"

but he has no real passion. The only thing he really hates him for is his having slain Lucan. [43]

Martial, then, is much on a level with the society in which he finds himself; the society, that is, of those very freedmen, favourites, actors, dancers, and needy bards, that Juvenal has made the objects of his satire. And therefore we cannot expect him to rise into lofty enthusiasm or pure views of conduct. His poems are a most valuable adjunct to those of Juvenal; for perhaps, if we did not possess Martial, we might fancy that the former's sardonic bitterness had over-coloured his picture. As it is, these two friends illustrate and confirm each other's statements.

Little as his conduct agrees with the respectability of a married man, Martial was married twice. His first wife was Cleopatra, [44] of whose morose temper he complains, [45] and from whom he was divorced [46] soon after obtaining the Jus trium liberorum. His second was Marcella, whom he married after his return to Spain. [47] Of her he speaks with respect and even admiration. [48] It is possible that his town house and country estate were part of his first wife's dowry, so that on his divorce they reverted to her family; this would account for the otherwise inexplicable poverty in which he so often declares himself to be plunged. While at Rome he had many patrons. Besides Domitian, he numbered Silius Italicus, Pliny, Stella the friend of Statius, Regulus the famous pleader, Parthenius, Crispinus, and Glabrio, among his influential friends. It is curious that he never mentions Statius. The most probable reason for his silence is the old one, given by Hesiod, but not yet obsolete:

kai kerameus keramei koteei kai aoidos aoido.

He and Statius were indisputably the chief poets of the day. One or other must hold the first place. We have no means of knowing how this quarrel, if quarrel it was, arose. Among Martial's other friends were Quintilian, Valerius Flaccus, and Juvenal. His intimacy with these men, two of whom at least were eminently respectable, lends some support to his own statement, advanced to palliate the impurity of his verses:

"Lasciva est nobis pagina: vita proba est."

The year of his death is not certain. But it must have occurred soon after 100 A.D. Pliny in his grand way gives an obituary notice of him in one of his letters, [49] which, interesting as all his letters are, we cannot do better than translate:

"I hear with regret that Valerius Martial is dead. He was a man of talent, acuteness, and spirit, with plenty of wit and gall, and as sincere as he was witty. I gave him a parting present when he left Rome, which was due both to our friendship and to some verses which he wrote in my praise. It was an ancestral custom of ours to enrich with honours or money those who had written the praises of individuals or cities, but among other noble and seemly customs this has now become obsolete. I suppose since we have ceased to do things worthy of laudation, we think it in bad taste to receive it."

Pliny then quotes the verses, [50] and proceeds—

"Was I not justified in parting on the most friendly terms with one who wrote so prettily of me, and am I not justified now in mourning his loss as that of an intimate friend? What he could he gave me; if he had had more he would have gladly given it. And yet what gift can be greater than glory, praise, and immortality? It is possible, indeed, as I think I hear you saying, that his poems may not last for ever. Nevertheless, he wrote them in the belief that they would."

Martial is the most finished master of the epigram, as we understand it. Epigram is with him condensed satire. The harmless plays on words, sudden surprises, and neat turns of expression, which had satisfied the Greek and earlier Latin epigrammatists, were by no means stimulating enough for the blasé taste of Martial's day. The age cried for point, and with point Martial supplies it to the full extent of its demand. His pungency is sometimes wonderful; the whole flavour of many a sparkling little poem is pressed into one envenomed word, like the scorpion's tail whose last joint is a sting. The marvel is that with that biting pen of his the poet could find so many warm friends. But the truth is, he was far more than a mere sharp-shooter of wit. He had a genuine love of good fellowship, a warm if not a constant heart, and that happy power of graceful panegyric which was so specially Roman a gift. Juvenal, indeed, complains that the Greeks were hopelessly above his countryman in the art of praise. But this is not an opinion in which we can agree. Their fulsome adulation may indeed have been more acceptable to the vulgar objects of it than that of the Roman panegyrist, who, even while flattering, could not shake off the fetters of the great dialect in which he wrote; but the efforts in this department by Cicero, Ovid, Horace, Pliny, and Martial, mast be allowed to be master- achievements to which it would be hard to find an equal in the literature of any other nation.

Martial is one of the most difficult of Roman authors. Scarce once or twice does he relax his style sufficiently to let the reader read instead of spelling through his poems. When he does this he is elegant and pleasing. The epicedion on a little girl who died at the age of six, is a lovely gem that may almost bear comparison with Catullus; but then it is spoilt by the misplaced wit of the last few lines. [51] Few indeed are the poems of Martial that are natural throughout. His constant effort to be terse, to condense description into allusion, and allusion into indication, and to indicate as many allusions as possible by a single word, compels the reader to weigh each expression with scrupulous care lest he may lose some of the points with which every line is weighted; and yet even Martial is less perfect in this respect than Juvenal. But then the shortness of his pieces takes away that relief which a longer satire must have, not only for its author's sake, but for purposes of artistic success. He must have read Juvenal with care, and sometimes seems to give a decoction of his satires. [52] It is probable that we do not possess all Martial's poems. It is also possible that many of those we possess under his name are not by him. The list embraces one book of Spectacula, celebrating the shows in which emperor and people took such delight; twelve of Epigrams, edited separately, and partially revised for each edition; [53] two of Xenia and Apophoreta, written before the tenth book of Epigrams, and devoted to the flattery of Domitian. The obscenities which defile almost every book make it impossible to read Martial with any pleasure, but those who desire to make his acquaintance will find Book IV. by far the least objectionable in this respect, as well as otherwise more interesting.

At this time Rome teemed with poets; as Pliny in one of his letters tells us, people reckoned the year by the abundance of its poetic harvest. TURNUS seems to have been a satirist of some note; [54] among others he satirised the poisoner Locusta. SCAEVIUS MEMOR was a tragedian; [55] a Hecuba, a Troades, and perhaps a Hercules, are ascribed to him. VERGINIUS RUFUS wrote erotic poems, and an epigram of his is quoted by Pliny. [56] VESTRICIUS SPURINNA was a lyricist, and had been consul under Domitian; a fine account of him is given by Pliny. [57] The only Roman poetess of whom we possess any fragment, belongs to this epoch, the highborn lady SULPICIA. She is celebrated by Martial for her chaste love- elegies, [58] and for fidelity to her husband Calenus. We suspect, however, that Martial is a little satiric here. For the epithets bestowed by other writers on Sulpicia imply warmth, not to say wantonness of tone, though her muse seems to have been constant to its legitimate flame. We possess about seventy hexameters bearing the title Sulpiciae Satira, supposed to have been written after the banishment of all philosophers by Domitian (94 A.D.). It is a dialogue between the poetess and her muse: she excuses herself for essaying so slight a subject in epic metre, and implies that she is more at home in lighter rhythms. This may be believed when we find that she makes the i of iambus long! However, the poem is corrupt, and the readings in many parts uncertain. Teuffel regards it as a forgery of the fifteenth century, following Boot's opinion. It is full of harsh constructions [59] and misplaced epithets, but on the other hand contains some pretty lines. If it be genuine, its boldness is remarkable. Great numbers of other poets appear in the pages of Martial, Statius, and Pliny, but they need not be named. The fact that verse-writing was an innocuous way of spending one's leisure doubtless drove many to it. CODRUS, or Cordus, [60] was the author of an ambitious epic, the Theseid, composed on the scale, but without the wit, of the Thebaid. The stage, too, engaged many writers. Tragedy and comedy [61] were again reviving, though their patrons seem to have preferred recitation to acting; mimes still flourished, though they had taken the form of pantomime. We hear of celebrated actors of them in Juvenal, as Paris, Latinus, and Thymele.