CHAPTER XIII
TIBERIUS TO VESPASIAN
The emperors (Tiberius, 14-37 A. D.; Caligula, 37-41 A. D.; Claudius, 41-54 A. D.; Nero, 54-68 A. D.)—Phædrus, about 40 A. D.—Germanicus, 15 B. C.-19 A. D.—Velleius Paterculus, 30 A. D.—Valerius Maximus, about 47 B. C. to about 30 A. D.—Celsus about 35 A. D.—Votienus Montanus, died 27 A. D.—Asinius Gallus, 40 B. C.-33 A. D.—Mamercus Scaurus, died 34 A. D.—Publius Vitellius, died 31 A. D.—Domitius Afer, 14 B. C.-59 A. D.—Cremutius Cordus, died 25 A. D.—Aufidius Bassus—Remmius Palæmon—Julius Atticus—Julius Gracchinus—Marcus Apicius—Philosophers—Lucius Annæus Seneca, about 1 A. D. to 65 A. D.—Persius, 34-62 A. D.—Lucan, 39-65 A. D.—Calpurnius, about 60 A. D.—Pomponius Secundus, about 50 A. D.—Petronius, died 66 A. D.—Quintus Curtius, about 50 (?) A. D.—Columella, about 40 A. D.—Mela, about 40 A. D.—Other writers.
With the death of Augustus the greatest period of Roman literature comes to an end. Literature after Augustus. From this time its history is a record of decay, not regularly progressive, to be sure, and not always manifested in the same way, but almost constant, and hardly interrupted even by the appearance of a few writers of genuine ability. With the establishment of peace throughout the Roman Empire, and with the ease and security of travel from province to province, men from all parts of the empire came to Rome for a time and returned to their homes, after, perhaps, imbibing something of the culture of the capital, while others took up their residence permanently in the imperial city. Some men of each class devoted themselves to literature. The elder Seneca belongs to one of these classes, the younger Seneca certainly to the latter. The influence of the provincials upon Roman literature could not fail to be great. In the hands of Spaniards like the Senecas, Latin could hardly remain the city speech, sermo urbanus, of the time of Cicero. The evil influence of even the best rhetorical teaching of the time of Augustus has already been mentioned, and as time went on the rhetorical teaching became constantly worse. Moreover, the circumstances of the empire, and especially of the city of Rome, were not favorable to the growth of literature. The peace that followed the unrest of the civil wars had led in the time of Augustus to great literary activity, but the continued peace in the subsequent years, when men’s minds were no longer moved by the remembrance of stirring events, tended to deaden the imagination and to dry up the springs of literary life. In the early part of the first century after Christ there are few important writers either in Greek or Latin. In the city itself the character of the emperor had a powerful effect upon literature.
Tiberius (14-37 A. D.) was a pupil of the Greek rhetorician, Theodorus of Gadara, and was familiar with Greek and Latin literature. The relations of the emperors to literature. He wrote Greek verses in the learned Alexandrian manner, a Latin poem on the death of Lucius Cæsar, and autobiographical memoirs in prose; but his own literary interest did not make him a patron of literature. His suspicious nature caused him to seek out and punish all real or imaginary allusions to himself in the works of contemporary authors, with the natural result that authorship became a pursuit too dangerous to be popular. Caligula (37-41 A. D.) had some ability as a speaker, and wished to be considered an orator, but his insanity led him to wish to destroy the works of Homer, and to remove the works and the busts of Virgil and Livy from the public libraries, on the ground that one of them was without genius or learning and the other was diffuse and careless. Although he did not systematically repress literature, his brief reign was certainly not favorable to its cultivation. Claudius (41-54 A. D.), who came to the throne at the age of fifty years, was a dull and learned pedant. He began to write a history from the death of Cæsar, but stopped at the end of the second book, owing to the objections of his mother and grandmother. He then wrote a history in forty-one books, probably beginning with the bestowal of the title of Augustus upon Octavian (27 B. C.), and continuing for forty-one years. He also wrote a history of the Etruscans in twenty books and a history of Carthage in eight books. Of all these works nothing remains. Some idea of his style may be derived from two inscriptions found at Lyons and Trent. The first is a speech delivered in the senate in 48 A. D., advocating the extension to the Gallic nobility of the ius honorum, or right to hold offices, the second a decree renewing the grant of citizenship to the inhabitants of the regions in the Rhætian Alps about Trent, and regulating their affairs. In both cases the style is confused and entirely without elegance or merit. Claudius also wrote a defense of Cicero against Asinius Gallus, the son of Asinius Pollio, who had maintained that Pollio was the greater orator. The addition by Claudius of three letters to the Latin alphabet shows his interest in linguistic matters, but was without permanent effect. Under this ruler literature revived somewhat after the persecutions under Tiberius. Nero (54-68 A. D.), the pupil of Seneca, wrote various short poems and an epic, entitled Troica, on the Trojan War. His jealousy caused him to be the enemy of other poets, but he paid little attention to literary attacks upon himself. On the whole, literature was not repressed during his reign, though after the discovery of the conspiracy of Piso, in 65 A. D., his wrath fell upon philosophers and men of letters.
The literature of the times of Tiberius and Caligula is less important than that of the following years. Phædrus. The only poet of importance is Phædrus, a freed-man of Augustus, who wrote fables in iambic verse. These are for the most part not original with Phædrus, but are the so-called fables of Æsop, tales of Oriental origin, which migrated in writing or in oral form to Europe. The Greeks thought them the inventions of Æsop, but modern investigations have proved that they belong to the migratory folk-lore of India. After the first book of his fables, Phædrus introduces fables and tales of his own among those ascribed to Æsop. The whole collection now consists of ninety-three fables, divided into five books; but it originally contained a greater number, especially in Books II and V. The fables are still, many of them, at least, familiar to most children. Such are the stories of the Wolf and the Lamb, the Frog who tried to be as big as an Ox, the Fox and the Crane, and many others. Phædrus tells the fables in well-composed verses, but sometimes overdoes his love of brevity so as to be obscure. He also points out the moral of his tales too plainly, leaving nothing to the imagination of his readers. His language is the simple and easy Latin of the early Augustan period, without the rhetorical flourishes popular in the following years. Yet it is evident from references in the prologue to the third book that, although Sejanus was powerful after the appearance of the first two books, the third was written after his fall, that is to say, after 31 A. D. Probably Phædrus wrote at least as late as 40 A. D. Of his personal history little is known. He was born in Pieria, in Macedonia, but went to Italy and probably to Rome, at an early age. Something in the first two books of fables brought down upon the poet the wrath of Sejanus, but how serious its effects were is not known. The Eutychus to whom the third book is addressed is probably the charioteer who was an important personage in the last years of Caligula. Particulo and Philetes, whom Phædrus addresses in the epilogue and the last fable of the fifth book, are unknown. The Fables of Phædrus have been much used as a text-book, because they are interesting to young readers and are written in simple, classical Latin.
A poem belonging to the first years after the death of Augustus is the Aratea, by Germanicus, the son of Drusus (15 B. C.-19 A. D.). Germanicus. This is a translation and adaptation of the Phænomena of Aratus, and shows that the author was not only a talented writer of hexameters, but also a well-educated astronomer. This poem contains 725 lines. Of a poem on the stars and constellations in their relation to the weather and the like, entitled Prognostica, only a few fragments remain. Besides these astronomical poems of Germanicus, the last book of Manilius (see p. 138) belongs to this period. So also do some of the poems wrongly ascribed to Virgil and Ovid, and for that matter, the later poems of Ovid himself.
The only prose writers of the years before Claudius whose works are extant are Velleius Paterculus, Valerius Maximus, and Celsus. Velleius Paterculus. Gaius Velleius Paterculus was an officer who had served under Tiberius; he was tribunus militum in 1 A. D. and prætor-elect in 14 A. D. The latest date mentioned in his Roman History is the consulship of Vinicius, 30 A. D. The dates of his birth and death are unknown. The Roman History consists of two books, the first of which is imperfectly preserved. Velleius does not confine himself strictly to Roman affairs, but begins his work with a brief sketch of the foundation of the Greek cities in Italy. The early part of the work is a mere summary, but more details are introduced as the narrative approaches the author’s own times; yet it is, even in the latter part, by no means an exhaustive history. Throughout the work Velleius introduces his own opinions and is governed by his own prejudices; his history is therefore not especially trustworthy. His praise of Tiberius is so excessive that it can not be excused even as the enthusiasm of a veteran for his old general, and the almost equally exaggerated praise of Sejanus is without the shadow of excuse. A noteworthy peculiarity is that Velleius pays attention to the history of Greek and Roman literature, which would hardly be expected in so short a work. The style is clumsy, but shows a desire for rhetorical effect. The vocabulary is that of the Augustan age, but the pretentious rhetoric and the evident striving for variety are characteristic of the later time. The chief interest of Velleius is in the character of the persons of whom he writes, and his whole work has something personal about it which distinguishes it from a mere record of events. In the early part of the work he follows good authorities, though he often disagrees with Livy, perhaps on account of Livy’s republican sympathies. In the latter part of the history he is untrustworthy, owing to his servile partiality for Tiberius and those connected with him.
The nine books of Memorable Doings and Sayings (Facta et Dicta Memorabilia), by Valerius Maximus, were written not far from 30 A. D., and dedicated to Tiberius. Valerius Maximus. Of the writer little is known except that he accompanied Sextus Pompeius to Asia, about 27 B. C. He was, then, born probably as early as 47 B. C., and can hardly have lived long after the completion of his books. Many of the anecdotes contained in his work are interesting, but the style is artificial, pompous, and dull. The most servile flattery is given to Tiberius, Julius Cæsar, and Augustus. The anecdotes cover a wide range of subjects—religion, ancient customs, all varieties of character, fortune, old age, remarkable deaths, and many more. Naturally, the work contains some valuable information, but this is thinly distributed through the nine books. The work was, however, popular in the Middle Ages, and is preserved in many manuscripts. A book on words, especially names (De Prænominibus, etc.), contained in the manuscripts of Valerius Maximus, is by some unknown author and is of little value.
Aulus Cornelius Celsus wrote an encyclopedia, which contained treatises on agriculture, medicine, the art of war, oratory, jurisprudence, and philosophy. Celsus. Part, at least, of this great work was written under Tiberius, but other parts may have been written later, for there is no definite indication of the date of the author’s birth or death. Only the treatise on medicine (Books VI-XIII of the entire work) is preserved. This shows that Celsus was well versed in the medical science of his day, and that medical science had at that time reached a high degree of perfection. Celsus writes in a simple, straightforward style, without the artificial rhetoric or the poetic phraseology common among post-Augustan prose writers. His work was deservedly popular among those who wished for scientific knowledge in the Middle Ages, was one of the first books printed after the invention of the printing-press, and was used as a text-book for medical students until recent times. Whether the other parts of the encyclopedia were as good as the treatise on medicine can not now be determined. The treatise on agriculture is mentioned with respect by Columella, but Quintilian speaks slightingly of Celsus, perhaps on account of defects in the rhetorical parts of his work.
The names of several orators of this period are handed down, chiefly in the reminiscences of the elder Seneca. The most noteworthy are, perhaps, Votienus Montanus, who was banished by Tiberius and died in 27 A. D.; Asinius Gallus (40 B. C.-33 A. D.) the son of Asinius Pollio; Prose writers whose works are lost. Mamercus Scaurus, who was forced by Tiberius to commit suicide in 34 A. D.; Publius Vitellius, who brought about the condemnation of Piso for the murder of Germanicus in 19 A. D., and who died in 31 A. D.; and Domitius Afer, from Nemausus (14 B. C.-59 A. D.), who held important offices under Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. Among these orators, Domitius Afer was most prominent as a speaker in court, while Montanus was a teacher of oratory and a declaimer. Historians whose works are lost were Aulus Cremutius Cordus and Aufidius Bassus. The former published under Augustus a historical work in which he praised Brutus and spoke of Cassius as “the last of the Romans.” For this his books were burned by decree of the senate in 25 A. D., and he committed suicide by starving himself. Bassus wrote a contemporary history in rhetorical style, probably embracing the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, and possibly the end of the republic. Among the grammarians of this time, the most important was Quintus Remmius Palæmon, whose grammar (Ars Grammatica) was much used by the later writer Charisius. There were also several writers on special subjects, such as Cæpio and Antonius Castor, who wrote on botany, Julius Atticus and Julius Gracchinus, who wrote on vine culture, and Marcus Apicius, who wrote on cookery, though the extant cook-book ascribed to him is a work of the third century. These names show that even under Tiberius prose writing, although not so important as at other times, was not entirely neglected.
Philosophy was much cultivated at Rome in this time, as it had been for at least a century, but the philosophical teachers under Tiberius and Caligula wrote for the most part, when they wrote at all, in Greek. Philosophy. Among them were the Sextii and Sotion, whose activity was in the later years of Augustus and the earlier years of Tiberius, Lucius Annæus Cornutus, and Gaius Musonius Rufus, both of whom were banished by Nero in 65 A. D. These men, and others of less note, whose doctrines were chiefly Stoic, exercised great influence upon Roman thought, but as their teachings were chiefly oral and their written works were in Greek, they must be passed over with a brief mention by no means commensurate with their real importance. Sotion was one of the teachers of the younger Seneca, the most important writer of the time of Nero, while Cornutus was the teacher of the satirist Persius, and Musonius of the powerful ethical preacher Epictetus.
Lucius Annæus Seneca. Lucius Annæus Seneca, the son of the rhetor Seneca, whose work on the oratorical teachers of the period of Augustus and the subsequent years has already been mentioned, was born at Corduba, in Spain, about the beginning of the Christian era, but was educated in Rome, where he studied under Sotion, the Stoic Attalus, and a follower of the Sextii, Papirius Fabianus, besides attending schools of rhetoric. His mother, Helvia, was a lady of noble birth, whose sister married Vitrasius Pollio, who was for some years governor of Egypt. Seneca appears to have spent some time in Egypt with his aunt, through whose influence he obtained the quæstorship after his return to Rome, at some time between 42 and 37 A. D. A speech which he delivered in the senate nearly caused his death by arousing the jealousy of Caligula in 39 A. D. In 41 A. D. he was banished to Corsica through the influence of Messalina, on the charge of too great intimacy with Julia Livilla, Caligula’s younger sister. Such stories were circulated about all the members of the imperial family, and we have now no means of knowing whether there was any truth in the charge against Seneca and Livilla. Probably the real reason for Seneca’s banishment was his connection with the faction of Agrippina. At any rate, Agrippina recalled him from Corsica eight years later, after the execution of Messalina, obtained for him the prætorship, and made him tutor to her son Domitius Nero. His influence over his young pupil was so great that when Nero came to the throne, Seneca, with the aid of his friend Afranius Burrus, commander of the prætorian guards, directed the imperial government. He restrained the ferocity of Nero and checked the ambition and vengefulness of Agrippina. Owing to his influence the early years of Nero’s reign were long remembered as a period of rest and peace at Rome. But Seneca obtained and held his influence in great measure by yielding consent to Nero’s wishes, even when they were opposed to his better judgment or his conscience. He was probably privy to the murder of Claudius, by which Nero became emperor, there is no indication that he opposed the murder of Germanicus in 55 A. D., and he probably had some connection with the murder of Agrippina in 59 A. D. It is natural that in spite of his remarkable intellectual and social gifts, he was unable to maintain his moral ascendency over the emperor. With the death of Burrus, in 62 A. D., Seneca’s power was broken. He recognized the fact, withdrew so far as he could from the life of the court, and in 64 A. D. offered to give up his great wealth. But his retirement did not save him from Nero’s cruelty, and in 65 A. D. he was accused of sharing in the conspiracy of Piso and compelled to commit suicide.
Seneca’s philosophy did not forbid him to have a share of worldly wealth and honors. At the height of his prosperity he was immensely wealthy, possessing estates in Italy and abroad, and having money out at interest as far away as Britain. His total wealth was estimated at more than $15,000,000. He held all the regular offices, attaining the consulship in 57 A. D. Of his private life little is known. He was twice married, His first wife bore him at least two sons, one of whom died shortly before his father’s banishment. His second wife, Pompeia Paulina, whom he married in 57 A. D., wished to commit suicide at the time of her husband’s death, but was prevented by Nero.
Seneca was an extremely voluminous writer, and though many of his works are lost, those that remain still exceed in bulk the extant works of almost any other ancient writer. Seneca’s tragedies. They comprise tragedies, philosophical treatises, a satire on the death of Claudius, and a few epigrams. The exact dates of individual works can be established only in comparatively few instances, and no attempt will be made here to treat them in chronological order. Since, however, it is probably that the tragedies are works of his earlier years, they may be mentioned first. Nine of these are extant.[91] The subjects are all derived from Greek mythology, and had all been used as the subjects of tragedies by Greek dramatists. No originality of plot is therefore to be expected in Seneca’s tragedies. Nor is there any great originality of treatment. Seneca imitates Euripides and some of the later Greek tragic poets, not simply translating their work, yet inventing few if any new situations, and differing from the Greek dramatists chiefly in his greater realism and his declamatory rhetoric. In fact, his tragedies are a succession of speeches, hardly interrupted by choral songs, which differ from the speeches of the actors chiefly in metre. In themselves these tragedies are feeble imitations and perversions of their Greek prototypes, though in them, as in his other works, Seneca shows great mastery of language and vigor of expression; but their real importance to the modern reader is due to their great influence upon the English dramatists of the sixteenth century and upon the whole course of the French classical drama. At a time when Latin was far more familiar than Greek these tragedies were regarded as the highest expression of ancient dramatic art, and were studied and imitated by the dramatists of the modern nations.
The best known among them is, perhaps, the Medea. In this play, as in the Medea of Euripides, the part of the myth is treated in which Jason deserts his wife Medea to marry Creüsa, daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. The Medea. Medea sends her two sons to Creüsa to give her a poisoned robe, which causes her death and that of her father Creon. Then Medea, in order to pain Jason, kills the two children. The following passage is taken from Medea’s reply to her nurse, who urges her to flee when the news is brought that Creon and Creüsa have been killed by the poisoned robe she had sent:
Shall I fly? I? Were I already gone
I would return for this, that I might see
These new betrothals. Dost thou pause, my soul?
This joy’s but the beginning of revenge.
Thou dost but love if thou art satisfied
To widow Jason. Seek new penalties;
Honor is gone and maiden modesty—
It were a light revenge pure hands could yield.
Strengthen thy drooping spirit, stir up wrath,
Drain from thy heart its all of ancient force,
Thy deeds till now call honor; wake, and act,
That they may see how light, how little worth,
All former crime—the prelude of revenge!
What was there great my novice hands could dare?
What was the madness of my girlhood days?
I am Medea now, through sorrow strong.
Rejoice, because through thee thy brother died;
Rejoice, because through thee his limbs were torn,
Through thee thy father lost the golden fleece;
Rejoice, that armed by thee his daughters slew
Old Pelias! Seek revenge! No novice hand
Thou bring’st to crime; what wilt thou do; what dart
Let fly against thy hated enemy?
I know not what my maddened spirit plots,
Nor yet dare I confess it to myself!
In folly I made haste—would that my foe
Had children by this other! Mine are his.
We’ll say Creüsa bore them! ’Tis enough;
Through them my heart at last finds full revenge.
My soul must be prepared for this last crime.
Ye who were once my children, mine no more,
Ye pay the forfeit for your father’s crimes.
Awe strikes my spirit and benumbs my hand;
My heart beats wildly; mother-love drives out
Hate of my husband; shall I shed their blood—
My children’s blood? Demented one, rage not,
Be far from thee this crime! What guilt is theirs?
Is Jason not their father?—guilt enough!
And worse, Medea claims them as her sons.
They are not sons of mine, so let them die!
Nay, rather let them perish since they are!
But they are innocent—my brother was!
Fear’st thou? Do tears already mar thy cheek?
Do wrath and love like adverse tides impel
Now here, now there? As when the winds wage war,
And the wild waves against each other smite,
My heart is beaten; duty drives out fear,
As wrath drives duty. Anger dies in love.[92]
Seneca’s philosophical writings fall naturally into three divisions: the formal treatises on ethical subjects, the twenty books of Ethical Letters (Epistulæ Morales), addressed to Lucilius[93], and the Studies of Nature (Quæstiones Naturales), in seven books. Seneca’s philosophical writings. The last-mentioned work, addressed to Lucilius, and written between 57 and 64 A. D., is by no means a complete treatise on nature. Two books treat of astronomy, two of physical geography, and four of meteorology; for Book IV should properly be divided into two books, one on physical geography, the other on meteorology. These subjects are treated from the point of view of the Stoics, without any original investigation by Seneca, who derives his information entirely from books. The work was very popular in the Middle Ages, but is of no scientific value. Seneca’s chief interest was in ethics, and he uses the phenomena of nature as texts for his ethical views. The formal treatises on ethics discuss such subjects as Anger (De Ira, in three books), The Shortness of Life (De Brevitate Vitæ), Clemency (De Clementia). The Happy Life (De Vita Beata), Consolation (De Consolatione, three independent treatises addressed to different persons), and The Giving and Receiving of Favors (De Beneficiis, an elaborate treatise in seven books). The Letters treat of similar subjects in a somewhat less formal way. These works show that Seneca had studied with great diligence the works of previous writers on such subjects, especially those of the Stoics, though the writings of Epicureans had been by no means neglected. The moral teaching is, in the main, sound and wise, but there is little originality of thought. The style is vigorous and effective, though artificial and rhetorical; but these latter qualities were so natural to Seneca, in common with other writers of his day, that they do not detract from the sincerity of the sentiments expressed. Seneca is the most complete exponent of the Stoic philosophy as it developed at Rome. He is not so much a speculative thinker as a giver of practical advice for the conduct of life. Like most, if not all, the Roman Stoics, he is a preacher and teacher; and as such he is of the highest interest and importance. His works were much read in his own time and in the years immediately following, though Quintilian and others who wished to revive the Latin of Cicero found fault with their style. Their popularity continued unabated for centuries, and their high moral tone led to the belief that Seneca was a Christian. This belief was strengthened by the composition, at a comparatively early date, of a series of fourteen letters supposed to have been exchanged between Seneca and the Apostle Paul. These letters are, however, obviously forgeries, and possess no literary merit. Seneca’s influence did not die with the death of the ancient civilization, but has continued even to our own times, and is very marked in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In the Apocolocyntosis Seneca appears as a political satirist. The title may be translated Pumpkinification, for the word is made from the Greek apotheosis, with the word for “pumpkin” substituted for the word meaning “god.” This joke does not, however, appear in the pamphlet itself. The Apocolocyntosis. The Emperor Claudius, who had just died, is supposed to arrive at Olympus and claim admittance among the gods. The gods hold a meeting, at which Augustus speaks against the admission of Claudius, who is finally sent off to Hades, where he is met by those whom he has unjustly put to death. This is the only extant specimen of a complete Menippean Satire, a work written in prose for the most part, but containing also metrical portions. For that reason it has a certain interest, but its literary merit is slight. Nor are Seneca’s epigrams of any great importance. They are merely such verses as any cultivated man of letters like Seneca can write when the occasion offers.
The age of Seneca produced no great poets, and few whose works have survived. Persius. The earliest of these is Aulus Persius Flaccus, who was born at Volaterræ, December 4, 34 A. D., and died at the age of twenty-eight, November 24, 62 A. D. At the age of twelve, Persius left his native town for Rome, where he attended various schools, among them that of the grammarian Remmius Palæmon. At the age of sixteen he attached himself to the Stoic Cornutus and became an enthusiastic adherent of the Stoic school. He was acquainted with many of the distinguished men of the time, among them Seneca and the epic poet Lucan. He was related to Arria, the wife of Pætus Thrasea, and his intimacy with Thrasea and his family doubtless strengthened his interest in the Stoic philosophy; for Thrasea was one of the many noble Romans who found in the Stoic doctrines some moral support amid the vice and corruption of their degenerate times. Persius belonged to a family of equestrian rank, and at his death left a large property. His library he left to Cornutus, who edited his poems, consisting of six Satires. Persius had written some notes of travel and a tragedy of the kind called prætexta, but these were not published. In the first satire he attacks the literary production of the time, and the prevailing love of notoriety. This is a real satire, in imitation of those of Lucilius or, rather, of Horace. In the remaining poems Persius discourses on subjects drawn from the doctrines of the Stoics. The second satire treats of prayer, the third of the contradiction between our conduct and what we know is right, the fourth of self-knowledge; in the fifth Persius gratefully praises Cornutus, who had trained him in Stoic philosophy, and passes on to describe true freedom, which delivers men from the tyranny of the passions; in the sixth he addresses his friend, the poet Cæsius Bassus, speaks of his own pleasant life in retirement at Luna, and discusses the true use of this world’s goods.
The poems of Persius were much admired by his contemporaries, and later generations, even throughout the Middle Ages, read them and wrote commentaries upon them. This admiration was due to the moral and ethical contents of the poems, though the style also no doubt pleased the perverted taste of the poet’s own times. But neither the contents nor the style merits admiration. Quality of the poems of Persius. Persius was a young man of little originality, who expressed in his poems only what he learned from his teachers. The Stoic doctrines he teaches are trite, even the examples he cites being derived from books, not from his own experience; and the style has all the faults of the period. Persius had studied Horace with diligence, and his poems are full of Horatian words and phrases, but they have nothing of the grace and charm of Horace. Persius aims at striking expressions and novelty of form. He therefore avoids as much as possible all that is natural, employs unusual words in unnatural order, and succeeds in being obscure without being profound. Few authors have so undeservedly gained long-enduring reputation.
A far abler poet was Marcus Annæus Lucanus, the nephew of Seneca. He was born at Corduba in 39 A. D., but was taken to Rome when only eight months old. Lucan. There he was well-educated, especially in rhetoric, and acquired a reputation as a declaimer in Greek and Latin. One of his teachers was the philosopher Cornutus, and among his friends was Persius, whom he admired greatly. He went to Athens to complete his education, and was called back to Rome by Nero, who made him one of his circle of friends. In 60 A. D. he wrote a poem in praise of Nero, which led to his political advancement. But Nero’s favor was short-lived, either because Lucan was guilty of some impoliteness in public declaiming, or because Nero was jealous of his reputation as a poet, and forbade him to write or recite. Lucan joined the conspiracy of Piso, and was forced to commit suicide, April 30, 65 A. D.
Lucan wrote several works, chiefly in verse, but the only, one extant is an epic poem in ten books, entitled De Bello Civili (On the Civil War), ordinarily called Pharsalia, in which he tells the story of the civil war to the time when Cæsar was besieged at Alexandria. The Pharsalia. The narrative is prosaic and somewhat dull, but the tedium is relieved by vivid descriptions and really eloquent speeches. The chief historical source is Livy, though other writers seem to have been consulted. Some inaccuracies detract from the historical value of the poem. The diction is in the main Virgilian, though it is evident that Lucan had studied Horace and Ovid. Geographical and mythological lore is sometimes needlessly displayed, and the author’s rhetorical training and ability are too evident. In Books I-III Lucan is still friendly to Nero, whom he flatters in Book I, 33-66, though throughout the entire work Cæsar, the founder of the empire, is the constant object of the poet’s hostility. In the first three books Pompey is the hero, and Cato and Brutus are spoken of with admiration. The opposition to Cæsar does not, however in Lucan’s case, indicate hostility to the empire and a desire to return to the republican form of government; in fact, Lucan’s participation in the conspiracy of Piso, which had for its purpose the overthrow of Nero and the substitution of a good emperor in his place, shows that he accepted the imperial form of government as the only one possible. As a specimen of Lucan’s spirit, and of the speeches which lend brilliancy to his pages, we may take the address of Cato to the Roman soldiers of Pompey’s army in Egypt after Pompey’s death, when the army was on the point of joining Cæsar:
So for no higher cause you waged your wars?
You, too, youths, fought for masters, and you were
No Roman force, but only Pompey’s band?
Since not for royalty you’re toiling now,
Since for yourselves, not for your leaders’ gain
You live and die, since not for any man
You seek to gain the world, since now for you
’Tis safe to conquer, you shrink back from wars,
And seek a yoke to press your empty necks,
And know not how to live without a king!
Yet now you have a cause worth risk for men.
Your blood could be for Pompey shed in streams,
And do you now refuse your country’s call
For lives and swords when liberty is nigh?
Of three lords Fortune now has left but one.
O shame! The royal palace of the Nile
And Parthian soldier’s bow have more than you
Upheld the Roman laws. Go now, despise
The merit Ptolemy by arms has won!
Degenerate soldiers! Who will think that e’er
Your hands were red with any battle’s blood?
He will believe you quickly turned your backs
In flight before him; he will think that you
Fled first from dire Philippi’s Thracian field.
So go in safety! You have saved your lives,
In Cæsar’s judgment, not subdued by arms,
Nor yet by siege. O base, unmanly slaves!
Your former master dead, go to his heir!
Why will you not earn more than life and more
Than pardon? Let great Pompey’s wretched wife
And let Metellus’ offspring o’er the waves
Be borne in chains; take captive Pompey’s sons;
Let Ptolemy’s deserts be less than yours!
My own head, too, whoever brings and gives
The hateful tyrant, reaps no mean reward.
Those men will know by my head’s price that they
Served no mean standard when they followed mine.
Then come, and by great slaughter gain deserts.
Mere flight is a base crime.[94]
Lucan is certainly the chief poet of the time of Nero. Less important is Titus Calpurnius Siculus, the author of seven Eclogues in imitation of Virgil and Theocritus. Calpurnius. Formerly eleven eclogues were attributed to him, but it is now evident that he was the author of only seven, the remainder being probably the work of Nemesianus, who lived in the first half of the third century. The Eclogues of Calpurnius are close imitations of those of Virgil, but are far inferior to their prototypes. They are attractive, but so much less attractive than Virgil’s Eclogues that they are little read. A poem In Praise of Piso (De Laude Pisonis) is attributed with great probability to Calpurnius. The Piso whose praise is sung is without doubt Calpurnius Piso, the rich and influential man who headed the conspiracy against Nero and committed suicide in 65 A. D. This poem is full of imitations of Virgil, Ovid, and Horace. Other poems. The poem entitled Ætna (see p. 141) and many of the anonymous poems preserved in manuscripts, some of which are not without merit, are to be ascribed to this period. The prætexta entitled Octavia, preserved among Seneca’s tragedies, undoubtedly belongs to a slightly later time, as Seneca and Nero appear in it. So far as its style is concerned, it might almost be by Seneca, though the rhetoric displayed is somewhat less effective than that of Seneca’s tragedies. The play is interesting, chiefly because it is the only extant play of its class. Only a few unimportant fragments remain of the tragedies by the distinguished general, Publius Pomponius Secundus.
A work of unique interest is the novel by Petronius. Petronius. This author is without much doubt identical with the Gaius Petronius, who was proconsul of Bithynia and afterwards consul, whom Nero admitted to his friendship and regarded as the arbiter elegantiæ or judge of good taste, but who was accused by Tigellinus in 66 A. D., and committed suicide to avoid execution. The novel, known as Satiræ, originally consisted of some twenty books, and contained an account of the adventures of a Greek freedman, Encolpius, as told by himself. The adventures were strung together with no plot, except as the wrath of the god Priapus (a parody of the wrath of Poseidon in Homer’s Odyssey) may have served as a plot to some extent. The extant parts are from the fifteenth and sixteenth books. The form is that of a Menippean Satire, prose and verse in combination, but the longer parts are exclusively in prose.
The chief of these is the Cena Trimalchionis (Trimalchio’s Banquet), the description of an elaborate entertainment given by a rich and purse-proud freedman, Trimalchio. Trimalchio’s banquet. The scene of the banquet is laid at Cumæ, or Puteoli. The house is large and full of costly things, but shows utter lack of taste. Trimalchio himself is a fat old fellow, who comes to the dinner after all the guests have been seated for some time. He informs them that it was inconvenient for him to come, but that he did not wish to disappoint them. At first he plays checkers with an attendant, but presently takes part in the feast and the conversation. The first course brought in is a wooden fowl sitting on eggs, which prove to be made of paste, and to contain finely seasoned birds. When a silver dish falls on the floor, Trimalchio orders it to be swept up with the rubbish. Another course consists of a great boar, out of which, when it is cut open by a slave in hunting costume, fly live thrushes. Again a roast pig is cut open, and sausages of all kinds fall out. The entertainment has other than gastronomical surprises, for a troupe of Homeric actors appear and perform scenes of the Trojan War, speaking in Greek. At the end of their performance a boiled calf is brought in, and the actor who takes the part of Ajax hacks it with his sword in imitation of the attack made by Ajax in his madness upon the cattle at Troy, and offers the astonished guests pieces of meat on his sword point. Acrobats also come in, and when one of them falls from a ladder upon Trimalchio, he is at once freed from slavery, lest it be said that so great a man as Trimalchio was injured by a slave. Presently the ceiling rolls apart, and a great hoop is let down, upon which are jars of perfumes as keepsakes for the guests. All these astonishing performances are made more amusing by the naive pride of Trimalchio, who prates much of his great wealth, and exhibits his ignorance by trying to make a show of learning. One of the guests tells a ghost story and another a tale of an adventure with a werewolf. Further excitement is caused by a fight between a fat little dog brought by Trimalchio’s friend, the stone-cutter Habinnas, and a large dog belonging to Trimalchio. The slaves then take part in the banquet, Trimalchio has his will read, and all weep. After a bath, the company passes to a second dining-room. Here Trimalchio has a furious quarrel with his wife, who is jealous of a favorite slave boy. Trimalchio finally has his grave-clothes brought in, and lies down as if dead, ordering his horn-blowers to play funereal music. The noise is so great that the police, thinking something is the matter, break into the house, whereupon the guests escape. All this, with many more details of the lavish and tasteless expenditure, the pride of the vulgar Trimalchio, and the absurd features of the banquet, is described with much satirical humor. The language of the narrative is refined, evidently that of a highly cultivated man. Trimalchio, however, and some of the other characters speak the popular dialect of southern Italy, which contains many words strange to literary Latin. Their speech is not without mistakes in grammar, and is full of proverbs, like the speech of Sancho Panza in Don Quixote.
Among the poems contained in the novel, the longest, entitled De Bello Civili (On the Civil War), consists of two hundred and ninety-five hexameters, in imitation of Lucan, with touches of parody; the next in length is the Troiæ Halosis (Capture of Troy), in sixty-five senarii, probably a parody of Nero’s poem of the same title. The novel of Petronius is, in some places, extremely indecent, but is interesting on account of the specimens of popular speech it contains, and still more, as the only known example of the satirical novel in Latin. It is, moreover, full of wit and humor, and shows keen observation and much knowledge of human nature as well as of literature. The loss of the greater part of the work is greatly to be regretted.
The only extant historical work of this period is the History of Alexander the Great (De Gestis Alexandri Magni), by Quintus Curtius Rufus, of whose personality nothing is known, but who seems to have written under Claudius. Quintus Curtius. The work originally consisted of ten books, the first two of which are lost. The style is modelled upon that of Livy, and is clear and simple for the most part, though not entirely free from the affectation of elegance customary at the time. Some of the descriptions and speeches are exceptionally fine. Curtius is not a critical historian, and follows Greek authorities selected without much attention to their accuracy. Of the other historical works of this period nothing remains. Memoirs. The memoirs composed by various more or less important persons are also lost. Among them may be mentioned those of the Empress Agrippina and of the generals Gnæus Domitius Corbulo, who was consul suffectus in 39 A. D., and was put to death by Nero in 86 A. D., and Suetonius Paulinus, who was twice consul, once soon after 42, and again in 66 A. D.
Many scientific treatises were written at this time, as in the previous period, but two only are extant: the treatise On Agriculture (De Re Rustica), by Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, and the Geography (Chorographia), by Pomponius Mela. Columella. Columella was born at Gades (Cadiz), and served in the army in Syria. He possessed land in Italy, and in his work he has the agriculture of Italy chiefly in mind. The work is divided into twelve books, and is the most complete ancient treatise on agriculture extant—more complete than those of Cato and Varro. It is written in a simple and dignified style, more like the prose of the Augustan period than the artificial rhetoric of most contemporary writings. In this respect Columella is a precursor of the classical revival under the Flavian emperors. The tenth book, on gardening, is written in hexameters, to serve as a fifth book of Virgil’s Georgics, because Virgil had hardly touched upon this branch of his subject.[95] The entire work is dedicated to Publius Silvinus, and it was due to a suggestion from him and another friend that the tenth book was written in verse. Columella’s verse is simple and classical, but is greatly inferior to that of Virgil, and less admirable than his prose. Mela. Mela, like Columella, was a Spaniard. His native place was Tingentera. His three books on geography were written soon after 40 A. D., and form the earliest systematic treatise on the subject extant. The style is far inferior to that of Columella, for Mela writes in the affected manner of his times. The work is enlivened by descriptions of peoples, places, and customs, and is valuable as a source of information, since it is based upon good authorities.
Historical explanations of five orations of Cicero by Quintus Asconius Pedianus (about 3-88 A. D.) are preserved in a fragmentary condition. Various writers. They show great care and diligence, and are written in simple classical style. Of other works by Asconius some fragments are preserved in the commentary of Servius on Virgil. The works of the orators of this period are all lost, as are the legal writings of Proculus and Gaius Cassius Longinus (consul in 30 A. D.), who continued the schools of Labeo and Capito. The most important grammarian of this time was Marcus
Probus.Valerius Probus, of Berytus, to whom Jerome assigns the date 56 A. D. He prepared and published editions of Terence, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, and Persius, paying attention to various readings, punctuation, and the like, and commenting upon the text. He also wrote grammatical treatises, though the grammar preserved under his name is not his work. His only extant works are a list of abbreviations and parts of the commentaries on Virgil.