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

by Randolph Faries

F. INFLUENCE OF FRENCH NOVELS OF ROMAN LIFE

Hitherto no mention has been made of the influence of French novels of Roman life upon English novels of Roman life. And I have found that this influence of French novels is not nearly so important as might be supposed, but on the whole, is rather an indefinite thing. But before concluding our survey of the “popular novel” of Roman life and the “gorgeous romance,” it is best to say a few words, (regarding the latter phrase especially), of the influence of certain French novels. In 1862 Gustave Flaubert’s famous Salammbo appeared in the English translation. While this great work undoubtedly had a tremendous influence as a “gorgeous romance,” it is difficult to trace this influence directly. The Gladiators (1863) appeared the following year, and exhibits a similarity of style in presenting the gorgeous pageantry of the past; but while The Gladiators may owe something to Salammbo, it seems more likely that Whyte-Melville’s novel was an independent effort to please a certain element of the public taste. Later and greater novels, such as Ben Hur and Quo Vadis, may have profited by the splendid example of Flaubert, who filled a large canvas with brilliant colors, but did not sacrifice truth,—but here again the influence is indefinite. In fact, Salammbo appears to have stood forth with such tremendous power that it discouraged rather than encouraged imitation. No one,—so novelists have thought,—could hope to equal Flaubert’s novel in splendor of style or in realistic effect. Thus Salammbo has remained the only great novel whose scene is ancient Carthage. Though its scene does not go to Rome, no view of Roman life would be complete without some knowledge of the most powerful enemy of the Roman Republic, whose life was so closely connected with that of Rome. Salammbo combines the story of a Carthaginian princess, a sister of Hannibal, with an account of the Mercenary War. The description of this war of Carthage with her own soldiers, suggests troubles Rome later had with armies composed of heterogeneous elements. Salammbo is equally vivid in its description of the pagan customs of Carthage, particularly of the custom of offering human sacrifices to Moloch. A few books which describe the city life of Carthage, or her wars with the Romans, no doubt owe their inspiration indirectly to Salammbo. G. A. Henty’s excellent book for boys, The Young Carthaginian (1886), describes the political organization and social conditions existing in the city of Carthage, and gives a similar description of the sacrifice to Moloch, before taking Hannibal on his campaign against Rome. The Lion’s Brood (1901) has its scene entirely in the Italian peninsula. Recently Señor Blasco Ibañez published Sonnica (1920), which seems to show evidence of his reading of Salammbo. In this novel Hannibal’s siege of the semibarbaric city of Saguntum recalls Flaubert’s description of the siege of Carthage by the Mercenaries. Sonnica, besides giving a good characterization of Hannibal, is especially noteworthy for its accurate portrayal of the stern, bare, and crude city of Rome in the early days of the republic. This portrayal contains a fine paragraph on the Roman father, and mentions several historical characters, such as the vindictive Cato and the slave Plautus. Sonnica does not appear as yet to have influenced novels of Roman life in English, though it may have given some suggestions to Mr. Jaquelin A. Caskie, who has written Nabala (1922), an attractive novelette, dealing with the Third Punic War. More likely Nabala, (as everything else in fiction connected with Hannibal and Carthage before her fall seems to do), goes back for its principal inspiration to Salammbo. Its scenes of fighting outside the city of Carthage recall similar scenes in Salammbo, as does its description of what goes on inside the city, the human sacrifice to Moloch furnishing the climax of the story.

A novel written in quite different style by Flaubert is The Temptation of St. Anthony (1874). This has for its scene the cell of an anchorite in the time of Constantine, since St. Anthony says in the novel, “The Emperor Constantine has written me three letters.” In describing the visions[31] which pass through the mind of the saint, however, the author makes it seem as though the entire pageant of the past history of the Roman Empire were passing before his eyes. In his temptation the saint sees pagan gods pass before him, and he takes on the personality of famous kings, with their unlimited power to gratify their passions. In his mental wanderings, he speaks of Athanasius, the Arians, and the monks of Nitria. This last thought recalls the part which the savage monks of Nitria play in Kingsley’s Hypatia, and the talk of other affairs of the Church also suggests Hypatia. Moreover, the situation of St. Anthony alone in his cell in the desert is strongly reminiscent of passages at the beginning and the end of Kingsley’s novel. But St. Anthony’s strongest temptation comes in the form of the vision of Thais, an irresistibly beautiful courtesan. This suggests M. Anatole France’s (Jacques Anatole France Thibault) Thais (1889), which also makes a portrayal of the beautiful courtesan. Custom forbids English and American novelists from making such a portrayal in detail, and it is to be doubted whether they could present such a picture with the realism of French authors, whose view-point has always been radically different, as regards the degree of frankness to be allowed a novelist in portraying a man’s passion for a beautiful woman. The portrayal of the beautiful courtesan in the French novel of Roman life reaches the greatest frankness in Pierre Louys’ Aphrodite, which is, in effect, a description of the schools of prostitution in Roman Alexandria. French novels of this kind have had little effect on novels of Roman life written in English. However, there is one novel written by an American of French descent, which frankly tells the story of a beautiful courtesan, and will now be discussed.

Mr. T. Everett Harré published in Philadelphia in 1916 Behold the Woman. This is the story of the famous Alexandrian courtesan of transcendent beauty, who is known in the Lives of the Saints as St. Mary of Egypt. Mr. Harré takes the general outlines of his story from the Lives of the Saints, though adding much from invention. And, while Behold the Woman shows an individuality of style and a remarkable power of description, it appears to be a book full of echoes. There is, for example, some similarity of plot between Behold the Woman and the Thais of M. Anatole France, in that both novels portray the repentance and regeneration of the fallen woman.

M. France in Thais had been said to combine “a curiously subtle piety of imagination with impiety of thought.” (B. W. Wells in The Encyclopedia Americana, 1920.) Whether this criticism is just or not, as applied to Thais, it must be said most emphatically that Mr. Harré’s work shows absolutely no impiety of thought. In presenting the facts of life in the Roman world, in Behold the Woman, he is making a simple statement of the truth. Piety of imagination is indeed displayed in the story of Mary’s conversion and life of penitence in the desert. But even in such a scene as that in which the supposed room of the Lord’s Supper is desecrated by the orgy of the fallen monks, the author shows no impiety of thought. Nor, if one sets aside questions of religion, and rests his faith on mere morality, can the charge of immorality be brought against Behold the Woman with any sincerity whatever. In certain scenes of Behold the Woman there appears evidence of a direct borrowing from Pierre Louys’ Aphrodite, in which there had been an elaborate description of the bath and toilet of the courtesan, with an extensive catalogue of her charms in symbolic language. In Behold the Woman the scenes attending the destruction of the temple of Serapic remind one of Ebers’ Serapis, which had described similar scenes. But Mr. Harré particularly excels in describing with minute touches the superstition of the Roman soldiers, who were called upon to destroy the temple and its huge idol, but feared to do so. Moreover, the brutal conduct of the military on this occasion and at the breaking up of the banquet at Mary’s palace, well represents the ruthless use of Rome’s mighty power. There also appear to be in Behold the Woman some slight suggestions taken from Kingsley’s novel, Hypatia, the same proper names being used, but transposed; the name of Philammon, Kingsley’s hero, is given to a character in Behold the Woman, who corresponds to one of the minor characters in Hypatia. Moreover, the scenes of riot in the streets of Alexandria, which appear in Behold the Woman, are reminiscent of similar scenes in Hypatia. The two books represent the savage monks in a similar way; and Mary is able to see through their sham Christianity, just as Philammon saw through the pretenses of the monks, in Hypatia. But as Mr. Harré says in his preface, he does not agree with Kingsley that “one who writes of such an era ... cannot tell how evil people were.” Here he is quoting the preface of Hypatia, though he does not say so. In Behold the Woman, he does tell how evil people were; and justly remarks in its preface that the novel is one for strong men and fearless women, not for children. The description of the orgy at the banquet in Mary’s palace is perhaps as realistic a portrayal of such a scene as is made in any novel of Roman life; but the frankness of this description is certainly very nearly equaled in Canon Farrar’s Darkness and Dawn, a novel which no one would think of calling immoral in any sense of the word. The description of Mary’s sordid life in the Brucheum, the slum quarter of the city, is also realistic, and portrays a side of life which has been neglected by the authors of novels of Roman life, even when they claimed to be presenting life among all classes of society.

Other scenes in Behold the Woman are similar to those which are already familiar in the novel of Roman life. And no matter what he is describing, the author’s genius and originality have enabled him to portray scenes from life in Roman times, with a vividness and realism hardly exceeded in any novel of Roman life. The style of Behold the Woman is richly ornamental at times, but never too flowery for the theme which the author has in hand. Behold the Woman could be placed in the class of the “gorgeous romance” along with such novels as Ben Hur and Quo Vadis. But it shows, more than any other novel of Roman life in English, the influence of the French novels of which we have spoken.