CHAPTER VII
CÆSAR—SALLUST—OTHER PROSE WRITERS
Cæsar, 102(?)-44 B. C.—Hirtius,?-43 B. C.—Oppius, died after 44 B. C.—Continuations of Cæsar’s Commentaries—Sallust, 86-35 B. C.—Cornelius Nepos, before 100 B. C. to after 30 B. C.—Varro, 116-27 B. C.—Atticus, 109-32 B. C.—Hortensius, 114-50 B. C.—Calidius, died 47 B. C.—Calvus, 87-47 B. C.—Brutus, 78 (?)-42 B. C.—Cornificius,?-41 B. C.—Quintus Cicero, 102-43, B. C.—Tiro—Nigidius Figulus, died 45 B. C.—Aurelius Opilius—Antonius Gnipho—Pompilius Andronicus—Santra—Servius Sulpicius Rufus.
What has been said of Cicero applies with at least equal force to Cæsar—the story of his life belongs to the history of Rome rather than to that of literature. We must therefore content ourselves with a brief sketch.
Gaius Julius Cæsar was born, according to the common account, in 100 B. C., but the real date is probably two years earlier. Cæsar’s early life. He was of patrician birth and his family claimed descent from Ascanius; or Iulus, the son of Æneas. Marius, his uncle by marriage, made him a priest of Jupiter at the age of not more than fifteen. While still little more than a boy he married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, and barely escaped the proscription of Sulla when he refused to divorce her. The young Cæsar was thus, in spite of his patrician birth, identified with the popular party. In 67 B. C. he was quæstor in Farther Spain, in 65 B. C. he became curule ædile, in which office he distinguished himself by the magnificence of his public games and exhibitions, and in 63 B. C. he was elected pontifex maximus, thereby becoming for life the official head of the Roman religion.
In 62 B. C. he was chosen prætor, and the next year was sent as proprætor to Farther Spain. His government in Spain. Up to this time he was known chiefly as a dissolute man and an unscrupulous demagogue. His extravagance had involved him in debts amounting to more than a million dollars. But in the government of his province he distinguished himself by military successes and excellent civil administration, besides amassing sufficient wealth to pay his debts.
The first triumvirate.In 60 B. C. he returned to Rome, and soon formed with Pompey and Crassus the agreement known as the first triumvirate, by which he was assured of the consulship in 59 B. C., and the government of Gaul for the following five years. To strengthen the alliance he married his young and beautiful daughter Julia to Pompey. In 56 B. C. he met Pompey and Crassus at Lucca, in the presence of a great concourse of senators and their followers, and an agreement was made that Cæsar should continue to hold the province of Gaul through 49 B. C., while Pompey and Crassus were to be consuls in 55 B. C., after which Syria and Spain were to be given to Crassus and Pompey respectively for five years. The agreement was duly carried out, and in 54 B. C. Crassus want to Syria, where he lost his life after the battle of Carrhæ, in 53 B. C. In the same year Pompey’s wife, Julia, died. Pompey had not gone to Spain to take possession of his province, but remained at Rome, and soon became openly hostile to Cæsar. When the Gallic war was ended, the senatorial party, with Pompey at its head, demanded that Cæsar disband his army. The civil war. This he refused to do unless Pompey also gave up his military command. Hereupon the civil war broke out, Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, the boundary of his province, and Pompey fled to Greece, where he was defeated in 48 B. C., at Pharsalus, then to Egypt, where he was murdered. In 46 B. C. the senatorial party was finally defeated in the battle of Thapsus, in Africa, and their leader, Cato, committed suicide at Utica.
Cæsar now returned to Rome, where he was made imperator and perpetual dictator, thus uniting in one person all the political power of the state. Henceforth the forms of republican government were but a thin mask disguising a real monarchy. Cæsar’s dictatorship and death. In the brief period of his power Cæsar accomplished the reform of the calendar, and carried through numerous important changes for the improvement of the government, but nothing could placate the hatred of those who wished to restore the rule of the senate, whatever its abuses had been. On the Ides of March (March 15), 44 B. C., he was murdered in the senate-house by a band of conspirators headed by Brutus.
Cæsar’s extant writings are seven books of Commentaries on the Gallic War, covering the years 58-52 B. C., and three books of Commentaries on the Civil War, covering the years 49-48 B. C. Cæsar’s writings. He also wrote some poems, a book On the Stars, two books Against Cato, and a few grammatical or rhetorical essays, all of which are lost, as are also his orations, which were greatly admired. Collections of his letters existed in antiquity, but these also have been lost, and the only extant letters of Cæsar are a few which are preserved in the correspondence of Cicero. Cæsar doubtless intended to publish commentaries on the years between 52 and 49 B. C., as well as on his wars in Egypt and elsewhere, but did not carry out his intention.
Cæsar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War were written apparently in the year 51 B. C., when he was still on good terms with Pompey. The energy of this pale, slender, delicate man sufficed not only to make him the conqueror of the warlike tribes of the north, and afterward of the trained armies of the republic, but also to gain him an eminent position among the great narrative and descriptive writers of the world. The Commentaries were written rapidly,[49] for the double purpose of showing what Cæsar had done to increase the glory and power of Rome, and to prove to his detractors that his conquest of Gaul had not been an act of unprovoked aggression, but had been forced upon him by circumstances. The facts narrated are drawn, in all probability, from the official army records, supplemented from Cæsar’s own recollections, and perhaps from his private journals. In striking contrast to the transparent vanity which led Cicero to extol his own merits on all possible occasions, Cæsar keeps his personality in the background, and writes of himself always in the third person, as if the deeds he narrates were those of another than the writer. This gives his narrative the appearance of great impartiality, but the careful reader can hardly fail to notice that Cæsar’s conduct is always put in the most favorable light, that his victories are made as important as possible, and his reverses are more lightly passed over. The Commentaries are not to be regarded as accurate history, but rather as a justification of Cæsar’s actions, presented in historical form.
Cæsar’s style.Cæsar’s style is clear, simple, and unaffected, and free from all obtrusive rhetorical adornment, but the narrative of his campaigns is varied and enlivened by the insertion of descriptions, speeches, dialogues, and all sorts of interesting details. He frequently takes occasion to signalize the brave deeds of his men. So in his account of the siege of Gergovia, he describes the heroic death of one of his centurions:
Marcus Petronius, a centurion of the same legion, in trying to break down the gate, was overwhelmed by numbers and despaired of his life. When he had already been wounded many times, he said to his comrades, who had followed him: “Since I can not save myself together with you, I will at least provide for your safety, since through my greed for glory I have led you into danger. When an opportunity is given you, do you look out for yourselves.” At once he rushed into the midst of the enemy, and after killing two, drove the rest a little away from the gate. When his comrades tried to succour him, “In vain,” he said, “do you try to save my life, since my blood and my strength are ebbing away. So go away, while you have the opportunity, and retreat to the legion.” Thus fighting he soon fell and saved his comrades.
The history of the Gallic war was published under the unassuming title of Commentarii, or “notes”; but such is the perfection of its simple style that no one ever thought of rewriting it.
The three books of Commentaries on the Civil War show the same qualities as those On the Gallic War, but in a less admirable degree. The Civil War. In one external matter they differ from the history of the Gallic War, for in the latter each book contains the account of a year’s campaign, while the story of the first year of the Civil War occupies two books. The historical interest of this work is at least as great as that of the books on the Gallic War, but it does not compete with them in literary merit, and contains some positive misstatements. Probably the work was written in haste and was never revised by its author. This supposition would account for some of its defects. It may have been prepared for publication by one of Cæsar’s officers, perhaps by one of those who undertook to furnish histories of the campaigns which Cæsar had left unrecorded.
Among those who continued Cæsar’s record of his wars, the best writer is Aulus Hirtius. He was one of Cæsar’s lieutenants in Gaul, and was sent by him to Rome as a trusted agent. In 49 B. C. he was with Cæsar in Rome. What share he had in the civil war is not known, but he himself says that he was not present in the Alexandrian and African wars. Continuations of Cæsar’s Commentaries. He was prætor, on Cæsar’s nomination, in 46 B. C., and was consul in 43 B. C., when he was killed in the battle of Mutina, fighting against Antony. The only work ascribed to him with certainty is the eighth book of the Commentaries on the Gallic War, in which he shows himself far inferior to Cæsar as a writer, but not without some ability. The book is well written, in a style evidently intended to resemble that of Cæsar. Whether the book on the Alexandrian War was written by Hirtius or by Gaius Oppius is uncertain. Oppius was a man of equestrian rank, a supporter and agent of Cæsar at Rome. After Cæsar’s death he attached himself to the party of Octavius, and urged Cicero to do the same. He appears not to have lived long after 44 B. C. The Alexandrian War is written in a style similar to that of the eighth book of the Gallic War. The books on the African War and the Spanish War are by unknown authors. The style of the first is tasteless and turgid, while that of the latter is hesitating and crabbed. These books possess a certain literary interest, because they show the immense difference between Cæsar’s literary ability and that of the average Roman of his day.
Cæsar’s inimitable Commentaries are the records of their author’s own deeds, written from the point of view of the chief actor in the events narrated. They are not the results of wide historical research, nor do they attempt to give the reader a broad general knowledge of the course of events, with all their causes and consequences. They are not, strictly speaking, history, but a masterly presentation of the material from which history is made. The earlier records of the past by Roman writers, such as Valerius Antias, Cornelius Sisenna, and others (see page [43]), were mere annals, deficient alike in careful research and literary finish. The first real historian of Rome was Sallust.
Gaius Sallustius Crispus was born of a plebeian family, at Amiternum, in the Sabine country, in 86 B. C. Sallust. At some unknown date he obtained the office of quæstor, and in 52 B. C. he was tribune. In the earlier part of his life he was dissolute, and he is said to have brought his father in sorrow to the grave. In 50 B. C. he was expelled from the senate by the censors Appius Claudius and Lucius Piso. In the following year he was reappointed quæstor by Cæsar and thus regained his place in the senate. In 48 B. C. he was in command of a legion in Illyria, in the year following he was sent by Cæsar to suppress a mutiny among the soldiers in Campania, and in 46 B. C. served as prætor in the African war. At the end of the year he was made proconsul of Numidia, where he enriched himself by plundering the province. He then bought a villa and gardens on the Quirinal, and devoted himself to historical writing until his death in 35 B. C.
Sallust’s works are The Conspiracy of Catiline, The Jugurthine War, and the Histories. Sallust’s works. The first two are preserved entire, but of the Histories, which treated of the events from 78 to 67 B. C., only fragments are preserved, in addition to four speeches and two letters, which were inserted in the narrative, but were collected and published for use in rhetorical teaching. The two letters to Cæsar and the speech against Cicero, published under the name of Sallust, are spurious.
In his writings Sallust appears as an opponent of the nobility and a champion of the popular party. Character of Sallust’s works. He depicts in glaring colors the corruption and greed of the senate, and describes in glowing terms the successes and virtues of the popular hero Marius. At times his political bias leads him even to distort the truth, though the distortion is not so great as to deprive his works of historical value. He is not content to state the bare facts of history, but exerts himself to depict the sentiments and motives underlying the actions of the chief persons about whom he writes, and even of mankind in general. He prefaces his narrative with introductions of a philosophical nature, sometimes not strictly relevant to the subject in hand. His style is rhetorical and piquant, and he uses many archaic words, chosen in great part from Cato’s works. He evidently imitates the style of Thucydides, and, like him, he introduces speeches and letters composed to suit the occasion on which they are supposed to have been delivered or written. These peculiarities give his works the interest of individuality, and have caused them to be much admired, and also severely criticised, in ancient and modern times. Some of the qualities of Sallust’s writing may appear in translations of a few brief extracts. The opening words of the Catiline are as follows:
All men, who desire to excel the other animals, ought to strive with all their power not to pass their lives in silence, like the cattle which nature has made prone and obedient to their appetite. But all our power is situated in the spirit and the body; our spirit is more for command, our body for obedience; the one we have in common with the gods, the other with the beasts; wherefore it seems to me more fitting to seek glory by the resources of the mind than by physical strength, and, since the life which we enjoy is itself brief, to make the memory of us as lasting as possible.[50]
His account of the terror at Rome when the greatness of the danger from the conspiracy of Catiline became known, shows his power of vivid description:
By these things the state was deeply moved and the face of the city was changed. From the greatest gaiety and wantonness, which long peace had brought forth, suddenly utter sadness came in; people hurried, ran trembling about, had no confidence in any place or man, neither waged war, nor were at peace; each one measured the danger by his own fear.[51]
The beginning of the speech of Marius to the Romans exhibits Sallust’s rhetorical style, his liking for antitheses and for descriptive epithets:
I know, Quirites, that not by the same conduct do most men seek power from you and use it after they have obtained it, that at first they are industrious, humble, and moderate, but afterward pass their lives in sloth and haughtiness. But to me the opposite seems right, for by as much as the entire state is more important than the consulship or the prætorship, with so much greater care ought the former to be administered than these latter to be sought. Nor am I ignorant how much trouble I am taking upon myself at the same time with the greatest honor from you. To make ready for war, and at the same time spare the treasury, to force to military service those whom one does not wish to offend, to care for everything at home and abroad, and to do this among envious, opposing, seditious men, is harder, Quirites, than you think.
Artificial though the style of Sallust is, it is interesting, lively, often concise and vivid. It had no little influence upon the style of subsequent writers, especially upon that of Tacitus, the greatest of Roman historians. We must remember, too, that the Catiline and the Jugurtha were of much less importance than the lost Histories. In this greater and more mature work Sallust may have avoided some of the faults of style that appear in the extant treatises.
A much less interesting writer than Sallust is Cornelius Nepos. Like Catullus and several other authors of this period, he came to Rome from the north. His birthplace was probably Ticinum, on the river Po. Cornelius Nepos. Little is known of his life, which appears to have extended from a little before 100 B. C. to a little after 30 B. C. He was a friend of Catullus and of Cicero’s friend Atticus, probably also of other literary men at Rome. His works were all, with the exception of some love poems, historical and biographical. The Chronica, in three books, treating of universal history, was probably written before 52 B. C. The Exempla, in five books, was a history of Roman manners and customs. Three other works were a Life of Cato (the elder), a Life of Cicero, and a treatise on geography. His latest work, published apparently between 35 and 33 B. C., was a great collection of biographies of distinguished men (De Viris Illustribus), dedicated to Atticus. An addition to the life of Atticus was made between 31 and 27 B. C. This work contained at least sixteen books, and was divided into sections of two books each, so that each section contained one book on Romans and one on foreigners. The sections treated of Kings, Generals, Statesmen, Orators, Poets, Philosophers, Historians, and Grammarians.
Of all the works of Nepos, there remain to us only the book on foreign generals, and from the book on Roman historians the lives of Cato the elder and of Atticus, besides fragments of the letters of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi. Qualities of the works of Nepos. The book on foreign generals contains biographies of twenty Greek generals, a brief sketch of kings who were also generals, and biographies of Hamilcar and Hannibal. Nepos draws his facts from good sources, such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Theopompus, Polybius, and the writings of Hannibal, but is careless and uncritical, and does not employ all the important sources of information on each subject. He makes mistakes in matters of history and geography, arranges his material badly, and gives to trivial anecdotes the space that might better have been devoted to more important matters. His style, though generally clear, is without elegance. The structure of his sentences is simple, and his subject-matter is interesting. For these reasons, rather than on account of any literary merit, his Lives have been much used as a text-book for beginners in Latin.
One of the most productive and learned writers of the age of Cicero was Marcus Terentius Varro, who was born in 116 B. C. at Reate, in the Sabine country. He studied at Rome under Lucius Ælius Stilo, and at Athens under Antiochus of Ascalon. Varro. In 76 B. C. he was in the army in Spain, in 67 B. C. he distinguished himself in the war against the pirates. Perhaps he continued to serve under Pompey in the war with Mithridates. In the civil war he was on the side of Pompey, and was forced to surrender to Cæsar the legion under his command. He was afterward in Epirus, at Corcyra, and at Dyrrhachium. After Cæsar’s victory, Varro accepted the new government and was placed in charge of the public libraries. He was proscribed by Antony after Cæsar’s death, but his life was saved through the devotion of his friends, and he spent his remaining years in peace, continuing his literary activity until the end. He died in his ninetieth year, 27 B. C.
Varro’s works.Varro’s works were many and varied. Some seventy-four titles are known, and the total number of single books amounted to about six hundred and twenty. These included poems, works on grammar, history, geography, law, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics, literary history and education, miscellaneous essays, orations, and letters. Of all these there remain one complete work, On Agriculture (De Re Rustica), in three books, six (v-x) of the original twenty-five books of the treatise On the Latin Language (De Lingua Latino), numerous short fragments of the Menippean Satires (Saturæ Menippeæ), and a few fragments of some of the other works. The collection of maxims that passes under Varro’s name is probably spurious.
Varro’s extant works. The Menippean Satires were written in prose interspersed with verses, in imitation of the works of the Cynic Menippus, who lived about 300 B. C., and probably belong to Varro’s earlier years. They treat of almost all the relations of human life in a satirical vein. The extant verses show some ability in metrical composition and no little humor. It is evident, however, that Varro was not a great poet, and the loss of his other poems is little to be regretted. The three books On Agriculture give, in the form of a dialogue, a systematic treatment of agriculture proper, of stock-raising, and of poultry, game, and fish. The dialogue is stiff, and the arrangement of the different parts of the subject artificial. The work is valuable for the information it contains, but its literary form is unattractive. The extant books of the treatise On the Latin Language are chiefly concerned with the derivation of words and with inflections. Syntax was treated in books xiv-xxv. Varro’s etymologies are often incorrect, and his ideas concerning inflections unscientific; but the work contains much that is of value to the student of the Latin language and of Roman antiquities. The style is dry and often dull. In fact, this is hardly a work of literature, but rather a technical treatise. Varro was a man of great learning and prodigious industry, but not a literary artist. The Antiquitates and the Imagines. Among his lost works the most important were probably the Human and Divine Antiquities (Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum Humanarumque), in forty-one books, and the Portraits (Hebdomades, or Imagines), in fifteen books. The latter work contained brief accounts in prose and verse of seven hundred famous Greeks and Romans, with their portraits. Varro’s works were vast treasure-houses of information, but there is no reason to suppose that they possessed any great literary qualities.
The remaining prose writers of this period may be passed over with a brief mention. Atticus. Many of them are little more than names to us, and the works of all are lost. One of the most interesting is Titus Pomponius Atticus (109-32 B. C.), whose biography was written by Cornelius Nepos. He was a wealthy man, who abstained from public life and devoted himself to literature by publishing the works of others and giving friendly aid to literary men as well as by writing. His friendship with Cicero has already been mentioned. His works were historical, the most important being the Annals (Liber Annalis), a chronological sketch of Roman history from the foundation of the city to the year 49 B. C. His other works were biographies or genealogies, and descriptive verses written to accompany portraits of distinguished men.
Minor orators.The orator Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (114-50 B. C.) is chiefly known through Cicero. He was the advocate of Verres when Cicero conducted the prosecution, he spoke against the Manilian Law, which Cicero supported, and in several suits he was engaged by the same client who secured Cicero’s services. Hortensius was the chief representative of the florid and ornamental “Asian” style of oratory at Rome. Among the orators who adopted the simple Attic style, the most important were Marcus Calidius, who was prætor in 57 B. C. and died in 47 B. C.; Gaius Licinius Calvus (87-47 B. C.), who has been mentioned above (page [62]) as a poet; Marcus Junius Brutus, the leader of the conspirators who murdered Cæsar; and Quintus Cornificius, who was also a poet (see page [64]).
Quintus Tullius Cicero (102-43 B. C.), the brother of Marcus, was also a literary man, though far inferior to his brother. Quintus Cicero. When he was Cæsar’s lieutenant in Gaul, in 54 B. C., he wrote several tragedies, apparently translations from the Greek, and he was also the author of annals and of an epic poem on Cæsar’s expedition to Britain. The only writings of Quintus Cicero now existing are three letters to Tiro and one to Marcus Cicero, besides an Essay on Candidature for the Consulship, in the form of a letter to Marcus, written when he was a candidate for that office in 64 B. C. This gives some interesting information about the methods of Roman politicians,but has little literary interest. The first of Marcus Cicero’s Letters to Quintus is a similar treatise on the government of a province, written when Quintus was beginning his third year as proprætor of Asia, 59 B. C. Tiro. Another writer closely connected with Cicero was his freedman and friend Tiro, who wrote Cicero’s biography, made editions of his speeches and letters, and collected his witticisms, besides writing on grammar and inventing a system of shorthand.
The grammatical, theological, and scientific works of Publius Nigidius Figulus, who was prætor in 58 B. C., and died in banishment in 45 B. C., have little to do with literature, and are lost. Writers on special subjects. Nor is it necessary to devote even a brief space to the grammatical and rhetorical works of Aurelius Opilius, Antonius Gnipho, Marcus Pompilius Andronicus, and others, whose teachings helped to inform some of the great writers and orators of the time, but whose works have not been preserved. A philologist, historian, and poet, whose writings were considered important, was Santra, who seems to have been somewhat younger than Varro, but we are now unable to determine wherein their importance consisted. Among the jurists of this period the most distinguished was Servius Sulpicius Rufus, two letters from whom are preserved in Cicero’s correspondence (Ad Familiares, iv, 5, and iv, 12). These give a high idea of his style, but are the only remains of his writings. All branches of knowledge, so far as they existed at that time, were treated by various writers, but a discussion of their lost works has no place in a brief history of literature.
The last years of the republic are made illustrious by the great names of Lucretius, Catullus, Cicero, and Cæsar. In the Augustan age, poetry attained a still greater height of perfection with Virgil and Horace, but the age of Cicero is the golden age of Latin prose.