Ancient Rome in the English novel: a study in English historical fiction

by Randolph Faries

D. THE NOVEL OF ROMAN LIFE IN A FULLY DEVELOPED FORM

In 1834 was published Bulwer’s[18] Last Days of Pompeii, which probably has been as widely read, and for as long a period as any other historical novel. Men still live who consider Bulwer among the greatest of English novelists; and if one were to select only one book for which he is especially remembered, I believe The Last Days of Pompeii would have equal claims with such a novel as The Last of the Barons, to which critics usually assign a higher place. The Last Days of Pompeii was a new thing of its kind; it represents a new departure in the historical novel, and in the novel of Roman life. It is true that there remain in it certain elements of the Byronism, which was still so prevalent in the novel of the day, but these elements cannot merely be dismissed as defects. There is the Byronic passion for the terrible in nature, which reaches its height in the unsurpassed description of the eruption of Vesuvius, and its terrible effects. The “Byronic hero,” moreover, can easily be seen in the disguise of Arbaces, the Egyptian, who is surrounded by an air of mystery, and has a lofty scorn of the common herd of mankind. Moreover, Arbaces, to secure his ends, has recourse to Egyptian “magic,” the intricacy and subtlety of which had been well represented in The Epicurean. Such motives as these, however, have already been discussed, together with their relation to the novel of Roman life. Let us see what Bulwer added to this particular variety of the historical novel.

It will be recalled that Scott (who must be considered Bulwer’s most important predecessor in the field), in writing his historical novels, always made use of historical characters and events, as well as of purely imaginary characters and events. Bulwer departed from this program, in the first instance, by reducing the number of historical events,—the eruption being the only important one. Moreover, he succeeded, with no loss of effect, in replacing the “historical” characters, which are usually necessary to the historical novel, by imaginary characters such as he perceived would be in harmony with the time he described. This omission of “historical” characters is to be accounted for by Bulwer’s choice of scene. Having chosen Pompeii (and not Rome) for his scene, and finding there were no “historical” characters suitable for a novel portraying the life of this brilliant Campanian city, he decided to make up for their absence by lending an almost “historical” reality to his imaginary characters. Scott had made his imaginary characters appear to be real men and women by reproducing real men and women whom he had observed; Bulwer, in writing The Last Days of Pompeii, undertook the more difficult task of representing men and women who might well have lived in the times of ancient Rome,—and succeeds rather well. Around these characters he decided to weave a narrative which would reproduce exactly the life of the time,—and in this he succeeds admirably. Scott had been warned by the mistake made by the antiquary, Joseph Strutt, in a misuse of antiquarian details. Bulwer was an antiquarian of an entirely different sort; he revelled in the use of details, but in putting them into his story, made the whole conduce toward realistic effect. He had read widely in Latin and Greek literature; he climbed Mt. Vesuvius and learned all he could by actual observation, filing every detail in huge commonplace books; he studied Roman antiquities, and compared the results of his study with the manners of modern Italians. In short, he realized in his imagination the decadent life of Pompeii as it had actually been just before the eruption of Vesuvius, and reproduced it in the pages of The Last Days of Pompeii. While Bulwer, therefore, did not reproduce historical characters and events in quite the same way that Scott did, he makes an even more concrete use, than Scott did, of that life of the past which is not recorded in formal history. He views the past from the standpoint of the philosopher as well as from that of the student of human nature. Moreover, he seeks for permanent truths in human nature, rather than for merely picturesque elements.

The title and subject of The Last Days of Pompeii, was first concretely suggested to Bulwer’s mind by a picture of the same title. This picture, he says in his journal, was one of a collection in the Brera Gallery at Milan, and was “full of genius, imagination and nature. The faces are fine, the conception grand.” And as the author says in his Preface to the 1834 Edition, having chosen for his subject the “catastrophe, the Destruction of Pompeii, it required but little insight into the higher principles of art to perceive that to Pompeii the story should rigidly be confined. Placed in contrast with the mighty pomp of Rome, the luxuries and gaud of the vivid Campanian city would have sunk into insignificance. Her awful fate would have seemed but a petty and isolated wreck in the vast seas of the imperial sway.” Bulwer therefore decided to avoid the temptation “to conduct the characters of his tale ... from Pompeii to Rome,” leaving “to others the honor of delineating the hollow but majestic civilization of Rome.” The last part of this quotation is especially important to us. Bulwer in his preparatory studies spent much time in Rome, as well as in the vicinity of Pompeii. While the story of The Last Days of Pompeii does not actually go to Rome, all of its important elements, save the description of the eruption, could be transferred to a story of the Imperial City. Thus Bulwer’s novel not only shows that the novel of Roman life had become firmly established as a definite type, but it also points forward and shows the way for all important novels of Roman life since its time. The mingling of Romans and Italians, with Greeks and other foreigners in Pompeii, suggests the hybrid population of Rome; the worship of Isis, and her priest, the Egyptian Arbaces, suggest not only the varied forms of pagan religion at Rome, but also the important connections of Rome with Alexandria and the Nile civilization; the early struggles of Christianity (represented by Olinthus, and his converts) with these pagan superstitions recall the even greater trials of the Christians at Rome; the witch of the crater, with her spells and incantations, reminds one of the Sibyl of Cumæ and the soothsayers who appear at Rome in later novels of Roman life. The minor incidents of Bulwer’s novel and his descriptions of the manners of society also are used in novels whose scene is Rome; the banquets and revels, the life of loungers at the bath and spectators at the amphitheatre, the habits and haunts of the gladiators, the busy hum of the forum, are all things which Bulwer showed later novelists how to portray. He realized that he must not make his characters talk in the periods of Cicero, and takes without question the opinion of Scott (voiced in the preface to Ivanhoe), that the historical novelist should “explain ancient manners in modern language.” Bulwer’s method was somewhat different from that of Scott; but his purpose was essentially the same. His ideal is fairly stated at the end of the Preface to the 1834 edition, viz., to present a portrait faithful “to the features and costume of the age which I have attempted to paint. May it be (what is far more important) a just representation of the human passions and the human heart, whose elements in all ages are the same.” How well he achieved his purpose and realized his ideal is amply shown in The Last Days of Pompeii. Writers of the novel of Roman life who have followed Bulwer have surpassed him in few respects. Their purpose must be essentially the same as his; their ideal could not be higher.

Before the close of the year 1834, Valerius and The Last Days of Pompeii are the only two important novels whose scene is laid almost entirely in or near ancient Rome.[19] This fact is attested by historians of the novel; but if one is not satisfied without hearing an opinion of an author’s work expressed by one of his contemporaries, we have the tribute of Sir Archibald Alison (History of Europe, 1815-52, ch. V). He says in speaking of Valerius, “The most successful attempt which has yet been made to engraft the interest of modern life on ancient story: its extreme difficulty may be judged by the brilliant genius of Bulwer having alone rivalled him in the undertaking.” If there is any other book written before 1834, which deserves in every respect the title of “novel of Roman life,” I have been unable to trace it, nor do I know of any one else who claims to have done so. In considering the genesis of the novel of Roman life, one may be confident that Valerius first marks out its general outlines, and The Last Days of Pompeii establishes for it a complete and artistic form.

III
Principal Lines of Development of the Novel of Roman Life from 1834 to the Present Day

In considering the principal lines of development which the novel of Roman life has followed in its development from the time of Bulwer’s novel to the present day, one fact seems fairly obvious, but cannot be overemphasized. No important novel of Roman life has been written by an author who lacks classical scholarship of a very high order. Needless to say, such scholarship implies the possession of a highly cultivated intellect, and stands far above mere book-learning or pedanticism. In a general survey of the field it very soon appears that scholarship of this kind was possessed by the great scholar and preacher, Charles Kingsley, and is finely exemplified in his Hypatia, in spite of what pedantic critics have said concerning his “history.” After Kingsley, other great scholars, who were also preachers, made the novel of Roman life a vehicle for the presentation of universal truths. Besides such preachers, Ebers, Eckstein, and other followers of Scott in Germany,—whose classic novels constitute the most important influence from abroad on the English novel of Roman life before the time of Quo Vadis (1896),—showed the value of absolute thoroughness in matters of scholarship. While they sometimes were led in their careful research to place undue emphasis on minute particulars, they often succeeded in giving to their work an atmosphere of universal truth. Novelists, whose principal purpose seems to have been to tell a “rattling good story” or to present a series of gorgeous pictures of Roman life, soon came to realize the necessity of scholarly accuracy, if they would attain to realistic effect. This was true of Whyte-Melville, the author of The Gladiators (1863), and of General Lew Wallace, who wrote Ben Hur (1880), though it must be admitted that the latter was somewhat more of a scholar, and had a more serious purpose. The success of men who have made a business of scholarship speaks for itself in the more recent and really fine work of Mr. William Stearns Davis in A Friend of Caesar (1900), and of Mr. Edward Lucas White in Andivius Hedulio (1921). But the finest fruits of the true scholarly mind have ever pointed toward the intellectual, the æsthetic, the beautiful in thought and expression. The beauty of thought and expression of Walter Pater’s Marius, the Epicurean (1885), has perhaps never been surpassed in English prose fiction. Some approach to the quality of Pater’s work, however, is seen in that of George Gissing, in Veranilda (1904), and an even greater similarity to it appears in parts of Pan and the Twins (1922), by Mr. Eden Philpotts. Novelists such as these seek not merely to portray life as it appears to the average observer, but to make possible a fine appreciation of many things, which exist only for those who are seeking truth and beauty beneath the surface.