General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

2. LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND LAW.

RELATION OF ROMAN TO GREEK LITERATURE: THE POETS OF THE REPUBLICAN ERA.— Latin literature was almost wholly imitative or borrowed, being a reproduction of Greek models; still it performed a most important service for civilization: it was the medium for the dissemination throughout the world of the rich literary treasures of Greece.

It was the dramatic productions of the Greeks which were first studied and copied at Rome. Livius Andronicus, Nævius, Ennius, Plautus, and Terence, all of whom wrote under the republic, are the most noted of the Roman dramatists. Most of their plays were simply adaptations or translations of Greek masterpieces.

Lucilius (born 148 B.C.) was one of the greatest of Roman satirists. The later satirists of the corrupt imperial era were his imitators. Besides Lucilius, there appeared during the later republican era only two other poets of distinguished merit, Lucretius and Catullus. Lucretius (95-51 B.C.) was an evolutionist, and in his great poem, On the Nature of Things, we find anticipated many of the conclusions of modern scientists.

POETS OF THE AUGUSTAN AGE.—We have in another place (see p. 307) spoken of the effects of the fall of the republic upon the development of Latin literature. Many, who if the republican institutions had continued would have been absorbed in the affairs of state, were led, by the change of government, to seek solace for their disappointed hopes, and employment for their enforced leisure, in the graceful labors of elegant composition. Four names have cast an unfading lustre over the period covered by the reign of Augustus, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Livy. So distinguished have these writers rendered the age in which they lived, that any period in a people's literature marked by unusual literary taste and refinement is called, in allusion to the Roman era, an Augustan Age. Of the three poets, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, a word has already been said; of Livy we shall find place to say something a little later, under the head of the Roman historians.

SATIRE AND SATIRISTS.—Satire thrives best in the reeking soil and tainted atmosphere of an age of selfishness, immorality, and vice. Such an age was that which followed the Augustan era at Rome. The throne was held by such imperial monsters as Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. The profligacy of fashionable life at the capital and the various watering-places of the empire, and the degradation of the court gave venom and point to the shafts of those who were goaded by the spectacle into attacking the immoralities and vices which were silently yet rapidly sapping the foundations of both society and state. Hence arose a succession of writers whose mastery of sharp and stinging satire has caused their productions to become the models of all subsequent attempts in the same species of literature. Two names stand out in special prominence—Persius and Juvenal, who lived and wrote during the last half of the first and the beginning of the second century of our era.

ORATORY AMONG THE ROMANS.—"Public oratory," as has been truly said, "is the child of political freedom, and cannot exist without it." We have seen this illustrated in the history of republican Athens. Equally well is the same truth exemplified by the records of the Roman state. All the great orators of Rome arose under the republic.

Roman oratory was senatorial, popular, or judicial. These different styles of eloquence were represented by the grave and dignified debates of the Senate, the impassioned and often noisy and inelegant harangues of the Forum, and the learned pleadings or ingenious appeals of the courts. Among the orators of ancient Rome, Hortensius, (114-50 B.C.), an eloquent advocate, and Cicero (106-43 B.C.) are easily first.

HISTORIANS.—Ancient Rome produced four writers of history whose works have won for them a permanent fame—Cæsar, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. Of Cæsar and his Commentaries on the Gallic War, we have learned in a previous chapter. His Commentaries will always be mentioned with the Anabasis of Xenophon, as a model of the narrative style of writing. Sallust (86-34 B.C.) was the contemporary and friend of Cæsar. The two works upon which his fame rests are the Conspiracy of Catiline and the Jugurthine War.

Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17) was one of the brightest ornaments of the Augustan age. Herodotus among the ancient, and Macaulay among the modern, writers of historical narrative, are the names with which his is most frequently compared. His greatest work is his Annals, a history of Rome from the earliest times to the year 9 B.C. Unfortunately, all save thirty-five of the books [Footnote: It should be borne in mind that a book in the ancient sense was simply a roll of manuscript or parchment, and contained nothing like the amount of matter held by an ordinary modern volume. Thus Cæsar's Gallic Wars, which makes a single volume of moderate size with us, made eight Roman books.]—the work filled one hundred and forty- two volumes—perished during the disturbed period that followed the overthrow of the empire. Many have been the laments over "the lost books of Livy." As a chronicle of actual events, Livy's history, particularly in its earlier parts, is very unreliable; however, it is invaluable as an account of what the Romans themselves believed respecting the origin of their race, the founding of their city, and the deeds and virtues of their forefathers.

The most highly prized work of Tacitus is his Germania, a treatise on the manners and customs of the Germans. Tacitus dwells with delight upon the simple life of the uncivilized Germans, and sets their virtues in strong contrast with the immoralities of the refined and cultured Romans.

ETHICS, SCIENCE, AND PHILOSOPHY.—Under this head may be grouped the names of Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus. Seneca (about A.D. 1-65), moralist and philosopher, has already come to our notice as the tutor of Nero (see p. 312). He was a disbeliever in the popular religion of his countrymen, and entertained conceptions of God and his moral government not very different from the doctrines of Socrates. Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) is almost the only Roman who won renown as a naturalist. The only work of his that has been spared to us is his Natural History, a sort of "Roman Encyclopædia," embracing thirty- seven books.

[Illustration: SENECA.]

Marcus Aurelius the emperor and Epictetus the slave hold prominent places among the ethical teachers of Rome. Of the emperor as a philosopher we have already spoken (see p. 321).

Epictetus (b. about 60 A.D.) was for many years a slave at the capital; but, securing in some way his freedom, he became a teacher of philosophy. Epictetus and Aurelius were the last eminent representatives and expositors of the philosophy of Zeno. Christianity, giving a larger place to the affections than did Stoicism, was already fast winning the hearts of men.

WRITERS OF THE EARLY LATIN CHURCH.—The Christian authors of the first three centuries, like the writers of the New Testament, employed the Greek, that being the language of learning and culture. As the Latin tongue, however, came into more general use throughout the extended provinces of the Roman empire, the Christian authors naturally began to use the same in the composition of their works. Hence, almost all the writings of the Fathers of the Church, produced during the last two centuries of the empire, were composed in Latin. Among the many names that adorn the Church literature of this period may be mentioned Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine,—the former celebrated for his translation of the Scriptures into Latin, [Footnote: The Vulgate, which is the version still used in the Roman Catholic Church.] and the latter for his "City of God." This was truly a wonderful work. It was written just when Rome was becoming the spoil of the barbarians, and was designed to answer the charge of the pagans that Christianity, turning the hearts of the people away from the worship of the ancient gods, was the cause of the calamities that were befalling the Roman state.

ROMAN LAW AND LAW LITERATURE.—Although the Latin writers in all the departments of literary effort which we have so far reviewed did much valuable work, yet the Roman intellect in all these directions was under Greek guidance. Its work was largely imitative. But in another department it was different. We mean, of course, the field of legal and political science. Here the Romans ceased to be pupils, and became teachers. Nations, like men, have their mission. Rome's mission was to give laws to the world.

In the year 527 A.D. Justinian became emperor of the Roman empire in the East. He almost immediately appointed a commission, headed by the great lawyer Tribonian, to collect and arrange in a systematic manner the immense mass of Roman laws, and the writings of the jurists. The undertaking was like that of the Decemvirs in connection with the Twelve Tables (see p. 236), only far greater. The result of the work of the commission was what is known as the Corpus Juris Civilis, or "Body of the Civil Law." This consisted of three parts: the Code, the Pandects and the Institutes, [Footnote: A later work called the Novels comprised the laws of Justinian subsequent to the completion of the Code.] The Code was a revised and compressed collection of all the laws, instructions to judicial officers, and opinions on legal subjects, promulgated by the different emperors since the time of Hadrian; the Pandects (all-containing) were a digest or abridgment of the writings, opinions, and decisions of the most eminent of the old Roman jurists and lawyers. The Institutes were a condensed edition of the Pandects, and were intended to form an elementary text-book for the use of students in the great law-schools of the empire.

The Body of the Roman Law thus preserved and transmitted was the great contribution of the Latin intellect to civilization. It has exerted a profound influence upon all the law-systems of Europe. Thus does the once little Palatine city of the Tiber still rule the world. The religion of Judea, the arts of Greece, and the laws of Rome are three very real and potent elements in modern civilization.