Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal

by Harold Edgeworth Butler

PETRONIUS

The most curious and in some respects the most remarkable work that the Silver Age has bequeathed to us is a fragment of a novel, the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, Its author is generally identified with Titus Petronius, the friend and victim of Nero. Tacitus has described him in a passage, remarkable even among Tacitean portraits for its extraordinary brilliance. 'His days he passed in sleep, his nights in the business and pleasures of life. Indolence had raised him to fame, as energy raises others, and he was reckoned not a debauchee and spendthrift, like most of those who squander their substance, but a man of refined luxury. And indeed his talk and his doings, the freer they were, and the more show of carelessness they exhibited, were the better liked for their look of a natural simplicity. Yet as proconsul of Bithynia and soon afterwards as consul, he showed himself a man of vigour and equal to business. Then, falling back into vice or affecting vice, he was chosen by Nero to be one of his few intimate associates, as a critic in matters of taste (elegantiae arbiter). The emperor thought nothing charming or elegant in luxury unless Petronius had expressed his approval. Hence jealousy on the part of Tigellinus, who looked on him as a rival, and even his superior, in the science of pleasure. And so he worked on the prince's cruelty, which dominated every other passion: charging Petronius with having been the friend of Scaevinus, bribing a slave to turn informer, robbing him of the means of defence, and hurrying into prison the greater part of his domestics. It happened at the time that the emperor was on his way to Campania, and that Petronius, after going as far as Cumae, was there detained. He bore no longer the suspense of fear or of hope. Yet he did not fling away life with precipitate haste, but having made an incision in his veins and then according to his humour bound them up, he again opened them, while he conversed with his friends, not in a serious strain or on topics that might win him the glory of courage. He listened to them as they repeated, not thoughts on the immortality of the soul or on the theories of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses. To some of his slaves he gave liberal presents, to others a flogging. He dined, indulged himself in sleep, that death, even though forced, might have a natural appearance. Even in his will he did not, as did many in their last moments, flatter Nero or Tigellinus, or any other of the men in power. On the contrary, he described fully the prince's shameful excesses, with the names of his male and female companions and their novelties in debauchery, and sent the account under seal to Nero. Then he broke his signet-ring, that it might not be available to bring others into peril.'[309]

There is nothing definitely to bring this ingenious and brilliant debauchee into connexion with the Petronius Arbiter of the Satyricon. But the character of Titus Petronius is exactly in keeping with the tone of the novel; the novelist's cognomen Arbiter, though in itself by no means extraordinary, may well have sprung from or given rise to the title elegantiae arbiter; and finally the few indications of date in the novel all point to a period not far from the reign of Nero. There is the criticism of Lucan,[310] which certainly loses point if not written during Lucan's lifetime; there is the criticism of the rhetorical training of the day,[311] which finds a remarkable echo in the criticism of Vipstanus Messala in the Dialogus of Tacitus, a work which, whatever the date of its actual composition, certainly refers to a period less than ten years after the death of T. Petronius; there is the style of the work itself; wherever the writer abandons the colloquial Latin, in which so much of the work is written, we find a finished diction, whether in prose or verse, which no unprejudiced judge could place later than the accession of Trajan, and which has nothing in it to prevent its attribution to the reign of Nero. In that reign there is but one Petronius to whom we can assign the Satyricon, the Petronius immortalized by Tacitus.[312]

Of the work as a whole this is no place to speak. The fragments which survive are in the main in prose. But the work is modelled on the Menippean satires of Varro, and belongs to the same class of writing as the Apocolocyntosis of Seneca. In the form of a loosely-strung and rambling novel we have a satirical commentary on human life; the satire is cynical and pungent, rather than mordant, makes no pretence of logic, and proceeds not from a moral sense but from a sense of humour. Wild and indecent as Petronius' laughter often is, it springs from one who is a real artist, possessing a sense of proportion as well as the sense of contrast that is the source and fount of humour. This is most strongly evident in that portion of his satire which concerns us here, inasmuch as it is directed against contemporary literary tendencies. We must beware of fastening on the words of the characters in the novel as necessarily expressing the thoughts of its author. But it is noteworthy that all his literary criticism points in the same direction; it is above all conservative. Through the mouths of Encolpius, the dissolute hero of the story, and the rhetorician Agamemnon[313] he denounces the flamboyant rhetoric of the day, its remoteness from reality, the lack of sanity and industry on the part both of pupil and instructor. 'As boys they pass their time at school at what is no better than play, as youths they make themselves ridiculous in the forum, and, worst of all, when they grow old they refuse to acknowledge the faults acquired by their education.' Study is necessary, and above all the study of good models. Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, the great lyricists, Plato, Demosthenes, Thucydides, Hyperides, all the great classics, these are the true models for the young orator. Agamemnon cannot restrain himself and even bursts into verse in the course of this disquisition on the decadence of oratory:

artis severae si quis ambit effectus mentemque magnis applicat, prius mores frugalitatis lege poliat exacta. nec curet alto regiam trucem vultu cliensve cenas impotentium captet nec perditis addictus obruat vino mentis calorem, neve plausor in scaenam sedeat redemptus histrionis ad rictus. sed sive armigerae rident Tritonidis arces, seu Lacedaemonio tellus habitata colono Sirenumve domus, det primos versibus annos Maeoniumque bibat felici pectore fontem. mox et Socratico plenus grege mittat habenas liber et ingentis quatiat Demosthenis arma. hinc Romana manus circumfluat et modo Graio exonerata sono mutet suffusa saporem. interdum subducta foro det pagina cursum et cortina[314] sonet celeri distincta meatu; dein[315] epulas et bella truci memorata canore grandiaque indomiti Ciceronis verba minetur. his animum succinge bonis: sic flumine largo plenus Pierio defundes pectore verba.

If any man court success in the lofty art of letters and apply his mind to great things, he must first perfect his character by simplicity's stern law; he must care naught for the haughty frown of the fierce tyrant that lords it in his palace, nor seek client-like for invitations to the board of the profligate, nor deliver himself over to the company of debauchees and drown the fire of his understanding in wine, nor sit in the theatre the hired applauder of the mouthing actor. But whether the citadel of panoplied Minerva allure him with its smile, or the land where the Spartan exile came to dwell, or the Sirens' home, let him devote his early years to poesy, and let his spirit drink in with happy omen a draught from the Maeonian fount. Thereafter, when his soul is full of the lore of the Socratic school, let him give himself free rein and brandish the weapons of great Demosthenes. Next let the band of Roman authors throng him round, and, but newly freed from the music of Greece, suffuse his soul and change its tone. Meanwhile, let his pen run its course withdrawn from the forum, and let Apollo's tripod send forth a voice rhythmic and swift: next let him roll forth in lordly speech the tale of heroes' feasting and wars, set forth in fierce strain and lofty language, such as fell from the lips of dauntless Cicero. Prepare thy soul for joys such as these; and, steeped in the plenteous stream of letters, thou shalt give utterance to the thoughts of thy Pierian soul.

This is not inspired poetry; but its advice is sound, and its point of view just. Nor is this criticism a mere jeu d'esprit; it is hard to resist the conclusion that the author is putting his own views into the mouths of his more than shady characters. For, mutatis mutandis, the same attitude towards literary art is revealed in the utterances of the poet Eumolpus.[316] It is a curious fact that while none of the characters in Petronius are to be taken seriously, their speech at times soars from the reeking atmosphere of the brothel and the clamour of the streets to clearer and loftier regions of thought, if not of action. The first appearance of Eumolpus is conceived in a broadly comic vein. 'While I was thus engaged a grey-haired old man entered the picture gallery. He had a troubled countenance, which seemed to promise some momentous utterance. His dress was lamentable, and showed that he was clearly one of those literary gentlemen so unpopular with the rich. He took his stand by my side. "I am a poet," he said, "and no mean one, if any trust is to be placed in wreaths of honour, which are so often bestowed even on those who least deserve them." "Why, then, are you so ill-clad?" I asked. "Just for that very reason. Devotion to art never brought any one wealth"—

qui pelago credit magno se faenore tollit; qui pugnas et castra petit, praecingitur auro; vilis adulator picto iacet ebrius ostro, et qui sollicitat nuptas, ad praemia peccat: sola pruinosis horret facundia pannis atque inopi lingua desertas invocat artes.[317]

He who entrusts his fortunes to the sea, wins a mighty harvest; he who seeks the camp and the field of war, may gird him with gold: the vile flatterer lies drunken on embroidered purple; the gallant who courts the favours of wedded wives, wins wealth by his sin: eloquence alone shivers in frosty rags and invokes the neglected arts with pauper tongue.

'There's no doubt as to the truth of it. If a man has a detestation of vice and chooses the paths of virtue, he is hated on the ground that his morals are eccentric. No one approves of ways of life other than his own. Then there are those whose sole care is the acquisition of wealth; they are unwilling that anything should be thought to be a superior good to that which they themselves possess. And so they persecute lovers of literature with all their might.' This vitiorum omnium inimicus then proceeds to tell a story which casts a startling light upon his 'eccentric morality'. Its undoubted humour can hardly be said to redeem its amazing grossness. He has scarcely finished the narration of his own shame when he is back again in another world—the world of letters. He laments the decay of art and philosophy. 'The passion for money-making has brought ruin in its train. While virtue went bare and was a welcome guest, the noble arts flourished, and men vied with one another in the effort to discover anything that might be of service to mankind.' He quotes the examples of Democritus, Eudoxus, Chrysippus in the world of science, of Myron in art. 'We have given ourselves up to wine and women, and take no pains to become acquainted even with the arts already discovered. We traduce antiquity by teaching and learning its vices only. Where is dialectic? Where is astronomy? Where is philosophy?' He sees that Encolpius is not listening, but is absorbed in the contemplation of a picture representing the sack of Troy, and seizes the opportunity of reciting a poem of his own upon the subject. The lines are for the most part neither original nor striking; they form a kind of abstract in iambics of the second Aeneid, from the appearance of Sinon to the emergence of the Greeks from the Trojan horse. But the work is finished and elegant,[318] and the simile which describes the arrival of the serpents that were to slay Laocoon is not unworthy of a more successful poet than Eumolpus is represented to have been:

ecce alia monstra; celsa qua Tenedos mare dorso replevit, tumida consurgunt freta undaque resultat scissa tranquillo minans[319] qualis silenti nocte remorum sonus longe refertur, cum premunt classes mare pulsumque marmor abiete imposita gemit. respicimus; angues orbibus geminis ferunt ad saxa fluctus, tumida quorum pectora rates ut altae lateribus spumas agunt.

Lo! a fresh portent; where the ridge of lofty Tenedos filled the sea, there breaks a swelling surge, and the broken waves rebound and threaten the calm: as when in the silent night the sound of oars is borne afar, when navies burden the main and the smitten deep groans beneath its freight of pine. We looked round: the waves bear towards the rocks two coiling snakes, whose swelling breasts, like tall ships, drive the water in foam along their sides.

The picture is at once vivid and beautiful, and we feel almost regretful at the fate which his recitation brought on the unhappy poet. 'Those who were walking in the colonnade began to throw stones at Eumolpus as he recited. He recognized this method of applauding his wit, covered his head with his cloak and fled from the temple. I was afraid that he would denounce me as a poet. And so I followed him till I came to the sea-shore and was out of range. "What do you mean," I said, "by inflicting this disease of yours upon us? You have been less than two hours in my company, and you have more often spoken like a poet than a man. I'm not surprised that people throw stones at you. I'm going to fill my own pockets with stones, and the moment you begin to unburden yourself, I'm going to break your head." His face revealed a painful emotion. "My good youth," said he, "to-day is not the first occasion on which I have suffered this fate. Nay, I have never entered a theatre to recite, without attracting this kind of welcome. But as I don't want to quarrel with you, I will abstain from my daily food for the whole day."' Eumolpus did not keep this promise; but the poem with which he broke it is of small importance and need not detain us.[320] It is a little disquisition on the refinements of luxury now prevalent, and has but one notable line—the last—

quidquid quaeritur optimum videtur.

Whatever must be sought for, that seems best.

But later he has another outbreak. Encolpius and his friends have been shipwrecked near Croton. On their way to the town Eumolpus beguiles the tedium of the climb by the criticism of Lucan and the attempt to improve on the Pharsalia, which have been discussed in the chapter on Lucan. If neither his poetry nor his criticism as a whole are sound, they are at least meant seriously. Here, again, we have a plea for earnest study, and for the avoidance of mere tricks of rhetoric. As for the rhetorician Agamemnon, so for Eumolpus, the great poets of the past are Homer and the lyric poets; and nearer home are the 'Roman Vergil' and Horace. If there was nothing else in this passage than the immortal phrase 'Horatii curiosa felicitas', it would redeem it from the commonplace. Petronius is a 'classicist'; the friend of Nero, he protests against the flamboyance of the age as typified in the rhetorical style of Seneca and Lucan. If the work was written at the time when Seneca and Lucan first fell from the Imperial favour, such criticism may well have found favour at court. If, with the brilliant whimsicality that characterizes all his work, Petronius has placed these utterances in the mouth of disreputable and broadly comic figures, that does not impair the value or sincerity of the criticism. Eumolpus' complaint of the decline of the arts and the baneful effect of the struggle for wealth is no doubt primarily inspired by the fact that he is poor and can find no patron nor praise for his verse, but must put up with execrations and showers of stones. But that does not affect the truth of much that he says, nor throw doubt upon the sincerity of Petronius himself.

The same whimsicality is shown elsewhere in the course of the novel. It contains not a few poems which, detached from their context, are full of grace and charm, though their application is often disgusting in the extreme. Such are the hexameters towards the close of the work in which Encolpius describes the scene of his unhappy love affair with a certain Circe:

Idaeo quales fudit de vertice flores terra parens, cum se concesso iunxit amori Iuppiter et toto concepit pectore flammas: emicuere rosae violaeque et molle cyperon, albaque de viridi riserunt lilia prato: talis humus Venerem molles clamavit in herbas, candidiorque dies secreto favit amori (127);

As the flowers poured forth by mother earth from Ida's peak, when she yielded to Jove's embrace and the god's soul was filled with passionate flame; the rose, the violet, and the soft iris flashed forth, and white lilies gleamed from the green meadow; so shone the earth when it called our love to rest upon the soft grass, and the day, brighter than its wont, smiled on our secret passion.

nobilis aestivas platanus diffuderat umbras et bacis redimita Daphne tremulaeque cupressus et circum tonsae trepidanti vertice pinus. has inter ludebat aquis errantibus amnis spumeus et querulo vexabat rore lapillos. dignus amore locus: testis silvestris aedon atque urbana Procne, quae circum gramina fusae ac molles violas cantu sua furta colebant (131).

A noble plane tree and the bay tree with its garland of berries, and the quivering cypress and the trim pine with its tremulous top, spread a sweet summer shade abroad. Amid them a foaming river sported with wandering waters and lashed the pebbles with its peevish spray. Meet was the place for love, with the woodland nightingale and the town-haunting swallow for witness, that, flitting all about the grass and the soft violets, told of their loves in song.

The unpleasing nature of the context cannot obscure the fact that here we have genuine poetry of great delicacy and beauty.[321]

Of the satirical epigrams contained in the novel little need be said. They are not in any way pointless or feeble, but they lack the ease and grace, and, it may be added, the sting, of the best work of Martial. The themes are hackneyed and suffer from the absence of the personal note. But it is at least refreshing to find that Petronius does not attempt, like Martial and others, to excuse his obscenity on the ground that his actual life is chaste. He speaks out frankly. 'Why hide what all men know?'

quid me constricta spectatis fronte Catones
damnatisque novae simplicitatis opus?
sermonis puri non tristis gratia ridet,
quodque facit populus, Candida lingua refert (132).

Why gaze at me, ye Catos, with frowning brow, and damn the
fresh frankness of my work? my speech is Latin undefiled, and
has grace unmarred by gloom, and my candid tongue tells of what
all Rome's people do.

A more interesting collection of poems, probably Petronian, remains to be discussed. In addition to the numerous fragments of poetry included in the surviving excerpts from the Satyricon, a considerable number of epigrams, attributed with more or less certainty to Petronius, are preserved in the fragments of the Anthologia Latina.[322] Immediately following on the epigrams assigned to the authorship of Seneca, the Codex Vossianus Q. 86 gives sixteen epigrams,[323] each headed by the word item. Of these two are quoted by Fulgentius as the work of Petronius.[324] There is, therefore, especially in view of the fact that they all bear a marked family resemblance to one another, a strong presumption that all are by the author of the Satyricon. Further, there are eleven epigrams[325] published by Binet in his edition of Petronius[326] from a MS. originally in the cathedral library of Beauvais, but now unfortunately lost. The first of the series is quoted by Fulgentius[327] as being by Petronius, and there is no reason for doubting the accuracy of Binet or his MS.[328] as to the rest. These poems are followed by eight more epigrams,[329] the first two of which Binet attributes to Petronius on stylistic grounds, but without any MS. authority.[330] Lastly, four epigrams are preserved by a third MS. (Cod. Voss. F. III) under the title Petronii[331]. Of these the first two are found in the extant portions of the Satyricon. The evidence for the Petronian authorship of these thirty-seven poems is not conclusive. Arguments based on resemblance or divergence in points of style are somewhat precarious in the case of an author like Petronius, writing with great variety of style on a variety of subjects. But there are some very marked resemblances between certain of these poems and verses surviving in the excerpts from the Satyricon[332], and the evidence against the Petronian authorship is of the slightest. A possible exception may be made in the case of the last eight epigrams preserved by Binet, though even here Binet is just enough in pointing out the resemblance of the first two of these to what is admittedly the work of Petronius. But with regard to the rest we shall run small risk in regarding them as selected from the lost books of the Satyricon.

These poems are very varied in character and as a whole reach a higher poetical level than most of those preserved in the existing fragments of the Satyricon.[1] The most notable features are simplicity and unaffected grace of diction coupled with a delicate appreciation of the beauties of nature. There is nothing that is out of keeping with the classicism on which we have insisted as a characteristic of Petronius, there is much that is worthy of the best writers of the Augustan age. The five lines in which he describes the coming of autumn have much in common with the descriptions of nature already quoted from the Satyricon. The last line in particular has at once a conciseness and a wealth of suggestion that is rare in any post-Ovidian poet:

iam nunc algentes autumnus fecerat umbras atque hiemem tepidis spectabat Phoebus habenis, iam platanus iactare comas, iam coeperat uvas adnumerare suas defecto palmite vitis: ante oculos stabat, quidquid promiserat annus.[333]

Now autumn had brought its cool shades, Phoebus' reins glowed less hot and he was looking winterward. The plane was beginning to shed her leaves, the vine to count its clusters, and its fresh shoots were withered. Before our eyes stood all the promise of the year.

Equally charming and sincere in tone is the description of the delights of the simple life:

parvula securo tegitur mihi culmine sedes uvaque plena mero fecunda pendet ab ulmo. dant rami cerasos, dant mala rubentia silvae Palladiumque nemus pingui se vertice frangit. iam qua diductos potat levis area fontes, Corycium mihi surgit olus malvaeque supinae et non sollicitos missura papavera somnos. praeterea sive alitibus contexere fraudem seu magis inbelles libuit circumdare cervos aut tereti lino pavidum subducere piscem, hos tantum novere dolos mea sordida rura. i nunc et vitae fugientis tempora vende divitibus cenis! me qui manet exitus olim, hic precor inveniat consumptaque tempora poscat.[334]

My cottage is sheltered by a roof that fears no ill; the grape, bursting with wine, hangs from the fertile elm; cherries hang by the bough and my orchard yields its rosy apples, and the tree that Pallas loves breaks beneath the rich burden of its branches. And now, where the garden bed's light soil drinks in the runnels of water, rises for me Corycian kale and low-growing mallow, and the poppy that grants easy slumber. Moreover, whether 'tis my pleasure to set snares for birds or hem in the timid deer, or on fine-meshed net to draw up the affrighted fish, this is all the guile known to my humble lands. Go to, now, and waste the flying hours of life on sumptuous feasts! I pray, that my destined end may find me here, and here demand an account of the days I have lived.

These lines may be no more than an academic exercise on a commonplace theme, but there can be no doubt of their artistic success. We find the same simplicity in Columella, but not the same art. Compare them with the work of Petronius' contemporary, Calpurnius Siculus, and there is all the difference between true poetry and mere poetising. More passionate and more convincing is the elegiac poem celebrating the poet's return to the scene of former happiness:

o litus vita mihi dulcius, o mare! felix,
cui licet ad terras ire subinde tuas!
o formosa dies! hoc quondam rure solebam
naidas alterna[335] sollicitare manu.
hic fontis lacus est, illic sinus egerit algas:
haec statio est tacitis fida cupidinibus.
pervixi; neque enim fortuna malignior umquam
eripiet nobis, quod prior aura dedit.[336]

O shore, O sea, that I love more than life! Happy is he that may straightway visit the lands ye border. O fairest day! 'Twas here that once I was wont to swim and vex the sea-nymphs with my hands' alternate strokes. Here is a stream's deep pool, there the bay casts up its seaweed: here is a spot that can faithfully guard the secret of one's love. I have lived my life to the full; nor can grudging fortune ever rob me of that which her favouring breeze once gave me.

But Petronius can attain to equal success in other veins. Now we have a fragment in the epic style containing a simile at once original and beautiful:

haec ait et tremulo deduxit vertice canos consecuitque genas; oculis nec defuit imber, sed qualis rapitur per vallis improbus amnis, cum gelidae periere nives et languidus auster non patitur glaciem resoluta vivere terra, gurgite sic pleno facies manavit et alto insonuit gemitu turbato murmure pectus.[337]

He spake, and rent the white hair on his trembling head and tore his cheeks, and his eyes streamed with a flood of tears. As when a resistless river sweeps down the valley when the chill snows have melted and the languid south wind thaws the earth and suffers not the ice to remain, even so his face streamed with a torrent of weeping and his breast groaned loud with a confused murmur of sorrow.

Elsewhere we find him writing in satirical vein of the origin of religion,[338] on the decay of virtue,[339] on the hardship of the married state[340]:

'uxor legis onus, debet quasi census amari.'
nec censum vellem semper amare meum.

'One should love one's wife as one loves one's fortune.'
Nay, I desire not always to love even my fortune.

But it is in a love-poem that he reaches his highest achievement:

lecto compositus vix prima silentia noctis
carpebam et somno lumina victa dabam:
cum me saevus Amor prensat sursumque capillis
excitat et lacerum pervigilare iubet.
'tu famulus meus,' inquit, 'ames cum mille puellas,
solus, io, solus, dure, iacere potes?'
exsilio et pedibus nudis tunicaque soluta
omne iter incipio, nullum iter expedio.
nunc propero, nunc ire piget, rursumque redire
paenitet et pudor est stare via media.
ecce tacent voces hominum strepitusque viarum
et volucrum cantus turbaque fida canum:
solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque
et sequor imperium, magne Cupido, tuum.[341]

I lay on my bed and began to enjoy the silence of the night scarce yet begun, and was yielding my wearied eyes to sleep, when fierce Love laid hold of me, and, seizing me by the hair, aroused me, tore me, and bade me wake. 'Canst thou, my servant,' he cried, 'the lover of a thousand girls, lie thus alone, alone, hard-hearted?' I leapt from my couch, and barefoot, with dishevelled robe, started on my errand, yet never accomplished it. Now I hurry forward, now am loth to go; now repent me that I have returned, and feel shame to stand thus aimless in mid-street. So the voices of men, the murmur of the streets, the song of birds, and the trusty watchdogs all are silent; and I alone dread the slumbers of my couch and follow thy behest, great god of love.

If this is not great poetry, it is at least one of the most perfect specimens of conventional erotic verse in all ancient literature. If we except a very few of the best poems of Propertius, Latin Elegiacs have nothing to show that combines such perfection of form with such exquisite sensuous charm. It breathes the fragrance of the Greek anthology.

The general impression left by the poetical work of Petronius is curiously unlike that left by any Latin poet. Sometimes dull, he is never eccentric; without the originality of the greatest artists, he has all the artist's sensibility for form. He writes not as one inspired, but as one steeped in the best literature. Many were greater stylists, but few were endowed with such an exquisite sense of style. As a poet he is a dilettante, and his claim to greatness lies in the brilliant and audacious humour of his 'picaresque novel'. But his verse at its best has a charm and fragrance of its own that is almost unique in Latin, and reveals a combination of grace and facility, to find a parallel for which among writers of the post-Augustan age we must turn to the pages of Martial.