CHAPTER VIII.
Early Roman Satire—C. Lucilius, Died 102 b.c.
Poetical satire, as a branch of cultivated literature, arose out of the social and political circumstances, and the moral and literary conditions of Roman life in the last half of the second century b.c. The tone by which that form of poetry has been characterised, in ancient and modern times, is derived from the genius and temper of a remarkable man, belonging to that era, and from the spirit in which he regarded the world. C. Lucilius invented satire, by first imparting a definite purpose to an inartistic kind of metrical composition, in which miscellaneous topics had been treated in accordance with the occasional mood or interests of the writer. Although the satire of Lucilius was rude and unfinished, and evidently retained much of the vague general character belonging to the satura of Ennius, yet he was undoubtedly the first Roman writer who used his materials with the aim and in the manner which poetical satire has permanently assumed. The indigenous satura existing at Rome before the rise of regular literature had been merged partly in the Latin comedy of Naevius, Plautus, Caecilius, etc., partly in the metrical miscellanies of Ennius and Pacuvius, which, though not written for the stage, retained the name of the old scenic medley. The new satire differed from Latin comedy in form and style, and in the personal and national aims which it set before itself. The satire of Lucilius, and even that of Horace, retained many features in common with the desultory medley which Ennius had formed out of the older satura. But the latter was the parent of no permanent form of literary art. The miscellanies of Varro, the most famous work produced on this model, were composed partly in prose and partly in verse, and were never ranked by the Romans among their poetical works. The former, on the other hand, was the parent of the satire of Horace, of Persius, and of Juvenal, and, through that, of the poetical satire of modern times. The spirit of censorious criticism, in which Lucilius treated the politics and morals, the social manners and the literary taste of his age, has become the essential characteristic of that form of literature which derived its name from the old Italian satura.
Of all the forms of Roman poetry, satire was least indebted to the works of the Greeks. Quintilian claims it altogether for his countrymen—'satira tota nostra est.' Horace characterises it as 'Graecis intacti carminis.' While the names by which they are known at once betray the Greek invention of the other great forms of poetic art, the name of satire alone indicates a Roman origin. It is true that Lucilius, like every educated man of his time, was acquainted with the Greek language and literature. It is true also that the critical spirit in Greece had found vent for itself in the works of the early iambic writers, Archilochus, Simonides of Amorgos, and Hipponax, of the great authors of the old political comedy of Athens, and apparently in later writings such as the satiric discourses of Bion of Borysthenes, mentioned in Horace's line—
Ille Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro.
But Roman satire sprang up and flourished independently of any of those kinds of composition. In national spirit and moral purpose it was unlike the personal lampoons of the Greek satirists. It was perhaps not less personal, but was more ethical; it professed at least to be animated not by private enmity but by public spirit. It embraced also a much greater variety of topics. Horace finds a closer parallel to the satire of Lucilius in the old Athenian comedy. These two kinds of literature have this in common, that they are the expression of public, not of personal feeling. But though Lucilius probably, like Horace after him, studied the old comic poets 'Eupolis, Cratinus and Aristophanes,' to catch something of their spirit and manner in his satire, Roman satire was not an imitation of Greek comedy. Where Roman literature professes to be an imitation of Greek, it is the form and the metre much more than the spirit and matter that are reproduced. Greek comedy and Roman satire were the independent results of freedom of speech and criticism in different ages and countries. Their difference in form arose out of fundamental differences in the character as well as in the genius of the two nations. Although Roman speakers and writers exercised a license of speech and of personal criticism equal to that which prevailed in the Athenian democracy, and beyond what the spirit of personal honour tolerates in modern times, yet the exposure of public men to ridicule on the stage was utterly repugnant to the instincts of an aristocratic republic in which one of the great bonds of union was respect for outward authority[1]. The tendency of the Roman mind to reduce all things to rule and to express itself in abstract comments on life, rather than to represent human nature in living forms, also favoured the assumption by Lucilius of a mode of literature addressing itself to the understanding of readers, and not to the curiosity of spectators.
The spirit by which satire is animated was native to Italy. The germ out of which it was developed was the Fescennina licentia, or, as it is called by Dionysius, the κέρτομος καὶ σατυρικὴ παιδιά, peculiar to the Italian people. But in assuming a regular literary form, this native raillery was tempered by the serious spirit and vigorous understanding of Rome, and liberalised by the tastes and ideas derived from a Greek education. The age in which satire arose,—the age of the Gracchi,—was one of social discontent, of political excitement, of intellectual activity, of moral and religious unsettlement: and all these conditions exercised a powerful influence on its character. As addressed not to the imagination but to the practical understanding, it was in a peculiar manner the literary product of a people 'rebus natus agendis.' It combined the practical philosophy of the 'abnormis sapiens,' expressing itself in proverbial sayings, anecdotes, and homely illustrations; the keen perceptions, the criticism, and vivacity of a circle, educated, well-bred, and versed in affairs; the serious purpose of a moral censor; and the knowledge of life, which results from the mixed study of men and books. Their circumstances, temper, and pursuits, united these various elements, in different proportions, first in Lucilius, and after him in Horace. By writing what interested themselves, in accordance with their own natural bent, they satisfied the practical and social tastes of their countrymen. While the higher poetical imagination was a rare and exceptional gift among Roman authors, and was appreciated only by a limited class of readers, there was in Roman satire a true popular ring and a close adaptation to the national character, understanding, and circumstances. Martial writes in his day—
Nescis heu, nescis dominae fastidia Romae:
Crede mihi nimium Martia turba sapit:
Maiores nusquam rhonchi; iuvenesque senesque
Et pueri nasum rhinocerotis habent[2].—i. 4. 2-6.
As the most genuine product of actual Roman life, satire was, if not so luxuriant, a more vigorous plant than any other species of Roman poetry. It is seen growing up in hardy vigour under the free air of the Republic, attaining to mature perfection amid the rich intellectual life of the Augustan age, and still fresh and vital in the general intellectual languor and corruption of the Empire.
The Roman character of satire is attested also by the fact that other Roman poets and authors, besides those who professed to follow in the footsteps of Lucilius, have exhibited the satiric spirit. The caustic sense of Ennius, the generous scorn of Lucretius, the license of Catullus, attest their affinity, in some elements of character, to the Roman satirists. There may be remarked also in the best modern works of poetical satire,—such as the Absalom and Achitophel, the Prologue to Pope's Satires, the Vanity of Human Wishes,—a conscious or unconscious echo of that vigorous sense and nervous speech, which accompanied the great practical energy of the Romans.
Satire was not only national in its intellectual and moral characteristics, but it played a part in public life at Rome. Even under the Empire, when free speech and comment on the government were no longer possible, the Roman satirists claimed to perform an office similar in spirit to that which the Republic in its best days had devolved on its most honourable magistracy. But the satire of the Republic, besides performing this magisterial office, played an active part in the politics of the day. It combined the freedom of a tribune with the severity of a censor. It held up to public criticism the delinquencies of leading politicians, and of the mass of the people in their elective divisions,—
Primores populi arripuit populumque tributim.
Nor was it confined to aggressive criticism: it was used also as an instrument of political partisanship, to paint the virtues of Scipio as well as the vices of his antagonists. It thus performed something of the same kind of public office as the political pamphlet of an earlier time, and the newspaper of the present day.
It endeavoured also, by acting on individual character, to effect objects which the Roman State strove to accomplish by direct legislation. The various sumptuary laws of that age, and the enactments made to repress the study of Greek rhetoric and philosophy, emanated from the same spirit which led Lucilius to denounce the increase of luxury and the affectation of Greek manners among his contemporaries. The strong Roman appetites and the novelty of new studies prevailed alike over the artificial restraints of legislative enactments, and over the contemptuous and the earnest teaching of satire. But the influence of satire could reach further than that of censors or sumptuary laws. While it could brand notorious offenders it was able also to unmask hypocritical pretences—
Detrahere et pellem, nitidus qua quisque per ora
Cederet, introrsum turpis.
It could stimulate to virtue as well as denounce flagrant offences. It wielded something of the power of the preacher to produce an inward change in the characters of men. By its close contact with real experience and its close adherence to the national standard of virtue, it might educate men for the duties of citizens more effectually than the teaching of Greek rhetoric or philosophy.
But while satire in its earlier manifestation, from one side, is to be regarded as the directest expression of Roman public life, it was, at the same time, the truest exponent of the character, pursuits, and interests of the individual writer. The old definition of it by a Latin grammarian, 'Carmen maledicum et ad carpenda hominum vitia compositum,' is quite inapplicable to those familiar writings of Horace, in which he gives a pleasant account of his habits and mode of life in town and country, or that in which he humorously narrates his various adventures on his journey to Brundisium. The writings of Horace and Lucilius bore a more varied and miscellaneous character than that of the satire of the Empire or of modern times. Horace expresses his opinions and feelings in the form sometimes of a dialogue, sometimes of a familiar epistle, sometimes of a discourse put into the mouth of another, sometimes of a moral disquisition. He makes abundant use of fables, anecdotes, personal portraiture, real and imaginary, autobiography, and self-analysis. The fragments of Lucilius, and the notices about him in ancient authors, prove that in these respects Horace followed in his footsteps. The testimony of the lines—
Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim, etc.,
implies that Lucilius used his satire as a natural vehicle for expressing everything that interested him, in his own life and in the circumstances of his time. In regard to the miscellaneous nature of the topics treated by him, and the frankness of his personal revelations, his truest modern parallel is Montaigne,—the father of the prose essay, which has performed the function of the older Roman satire more completely than even the poetical satire of modern times.
Among the poets of the Republic, whose works have reached us only in fragments, Lucilius is only second in importance to Ennius. Roman Satire owes as much in form, substance, and spirit to him as the Roman epic does to the older poet. While Ennius represents the highest mood of Rome, and first gave expression to that imperial idea which ultimately realised itself in history, Lucilius is the exponent of her ordinary moods, manifested in the streets and the forum, and of those internal dissensions and destructive forces by which her political life was agitated and ultimately overthrown. His personal characteristics and literary position can be inferred with nearly as much certainty as those of Ennius. The most important external evidence from which we form our idea of him is that of Horace and Cicero. But the numerous fragments of his writings bear a strong impress of his personality. From the confirmation which they give to other testimonies, we may endeavour to recover some of the lines and colours of that 'votiva tabula' which the contemporaries of Horace found in his books, and to realise the nature of the work performed by him and of the influence which he exercised over his countrymen.
The time at which he appeared was one of the most critical epochs in Roman history, the end of one great era,—that of the undisputed ascendency of the Senate,—the beginning of the century of revolution which ended with the Battle of Actium. The mind of the nation began then to turn from the monotonous spectacle of military conquest and to busy itself with the conditions of internal well-being. A spirit of discontent with these, similar to that which called forth the legislation of the Gracchi, opened up a new path for Latin literature. It began then to concern itself, not with the national idea of conquest and empire, but with the actual condition of men. It sought for its material, not in the representation which had been fashioned by Greek dramatic art out of the heroic legends of early Greece or the citizen life of her later days, but out of the every day life of the Roman streets, law-courts, public assemblies, dinner-tables, and literary coteries, and out of the baser details of actual experience by which the magnificent ideal of Roman greatness was largely qualified. Though there is considerable difficulty in accepting the dates usually assigned for the birth and death of Lucilius, there is no reason to doubt that his active literary career began about the time of the tribunates of Tib. Gracchus, and continued till nearly the end of the first century b.c. This period is so important and interesting that such glimpses of light as are afforded by the fragments of the contemporary satirist are highly to be prized.
The dates of his birth and death, according to Jerome, were 148 b.c. and 102 b.c. We are told, on the same authority, that he died at Naples and received the honour of a public funeral. The chief difficulty in accepting these dates arises from the statement of Velleius that Lucilius served as an 'eques' under Scipio in the Numantine War[3], and from the fact, attested by Horace and other authorities, of his great intimacy with both Scipio and Laelius[4]. Horace also mentions that he celebrated in his writings the justice and valour of Scipio,—
Attamen et iustum poteras et scribere fortem
Scipiadem ut sapiens Lucilius—;
and the parallel there suggested between the relation of Lucilius to the great soldier and statesman of his age, and of Horace to Augustus, would be inappropriate unless the praises there spoken of had been bestowed on Scipio in his lifetime. Fragments from one book of the Satires appear to be parts of a letter written by Lucilius to congratulate his friend on the capture of Numantia[5]. One line of Book xxvi,—
Percrepa pugnam Popilli, facta Corneli cane,
contrasts the defeat of M. Popillius Laenas in 138 b.c. with the subsequent successes of Scipio. In another fragment Lucilius charges Scipio with affectation for pronouncing the word 'pertaesum' as if it were 'pertisum[6].' He is also mentioned as one of those whose criticism Lucilius dreaded[7]. These and other passages must have been written in the lifetime of Scipio—i.e. before 129 b.c. Thus, if the date assigned for the birth of Lucilius is correct, he must have served in the Numantine War at the age of fourteen or fifteen, he must have been admitted into the most intimate familiarity with the greatest man of the age, and must have composed some books of his Satires, and thus introduced a new form of literature, before the age of nineteen. L. Müller in his edition of the Fragments adduces other considerations for rejecting the dates given by Jerome, such as the allusions to the career of Lupus (whom he supposes to be the same as the Censor of 147 b.c.) and to the war with Viriathus. He holds also that the words of Horace—
Quo fit ut omnis
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
Vita senis—
lose their point, unless senis is to be understood in its usual sense. He supposes that the mistake of Jerome arose from a similarity in the names of the Consuls of 148 b.c. and 180 b.c., and would therefore throw the date of the poet's birth more than thirty years further back than that commonly received.
Whatever strength there may be in the other objections urged against accepting the date 148 b.c. as that of the birth of Lucilius, it is difficult to believe that Lucilius should have taken part in the Numantine War, and been admitted to apparently equal intimacy with Scipio before he had attained the age of fifteen. It is still more difficult to suppose that the earliest book or books of his Satires, composed before the death of Scipio, should be the work of a boy under nineteen years of age. But with these admissions it is not necessary to throw back the date of the poet's birth so far as is done by Müller. A more probable explanation of the error in the date was suggested by Mr. Munro in the Journal of Philology. He supposes that Jerome in copying the words of Suetonius referring to the death and funeral of Lucilius substituted the 'anno aetatis xlvi. for lxiv. or lxvi., and then adapted the year of birth to the annus Abrahae which would correspond to this false reading.' Mr. Munro adds, 'Everything would now run smooth. Lucilius when he went with Scipio to Spain would be in the prime of manhood, thirty-two or thirty-four years of age. Soon after that time he would be writing and publishing his earliest Books, xxvi.-xxix., and then xxx. Some of these at all events would be published before the death of Scipio, when the poet would be thirty-seven or thirty-nine[8].' It may be added against the supposition that Lucilius was born in the year 180 b.c., that, in that case, we should have expected to have found in his numerous fragments allusions to events even earlier than the Censorship of P. Cornelius Lupus or the wars with Viriathus. Moreover the notices of his relation to Scipio and Laelius, as in the 'discincti ludere' of Horace, and in the story told by the Scholiast on that passage, of Laelius coming on them, when the poet was chasing Scipio round the table with a napkin, seem to indicate the familiar footing of a much younger to older men.
His birth-place was Suessa Aurunca in Campania. Juvenal calls him 'Auruncae magnus alumnus.' He belonged to the equestrian order, a fact indicated in the passage in which Horace speaks of himself as 'infra Lucili censum.' The Scholiast on that passage mentions that he was on the mother's side grand-uncle to Pompey—a relationship confirmed by a passage in Velleius, who mentions that the mother of Pompey was named Lucilia.
His satires were written in thirty Books. The remaining fragments amount to about 1100 lines. Most of these are single lines, preserved by grammarians as illustrative of the use of words. The amount and variety of these, if they had no other value, would at least be suggestive of the industry with which grammatical and philological research into their own language was carried on by Roman writers. Some fragments are found in ancient commentaries on the Satires and Epistles of Horace. The longer passages are quoted by Cicero, Gellius, Lactantius, and others. The Books from i. to xx. were written in hexameters; Book xxii., apparently, in elegiacs, a metre which had hitherto been employed only in short epigrams. Of the intervening Books between xxii. and xxvi. there remains only one line[9]. Books xxvi. and xxix., from which a large number of lines have been preserved, were written in trochaics and iambics. The last Book (xxx.) was written in hexameters. From the fact that the trochaic and iambic metres had been chiefly employed by the older writers of saturae, it seems probable that Lucilius made his first attempts in these metres, that he afterwards adopted the hexameter, and that in one or two of his latest books he attempted to write continuously in elegiacs. The allusions in Book xxvi. to the Spanish wars and to the 'exploits of Cornelius,' and the statement of his reasons for coming forward as an author, render it not improbable that this Book was the earliest in order of composition. It was in this Book that he appeared most conspicuously as the censor and critic of the older writers, a position not unlikely to have been assumed, at the very outset of his career, by one who claimed to initiate a change in Roman literature.
The first impression produced by reading these fragments, as they have been arranged by Müller or Lachmann, is one of extreme desultoriness and discursiveness of treatment. The words applied by Horace to Lucilius,—
Garrulus atque piger scribendi ferre laborem,
characterise not his style only but his whole mode of composition. Subjects most widely removed from one another seem to have been introduced into the same book. We have no means of determining whether the separate books consisted of one or several miscellaneous pieces. He seems to start off on some new chase on the slightest suggestion, verbal or otherwise, as in the opening of Book v.—
Quo me habeam pacto, tametsi non quaeri', docebo,
Quando in eo numero mansti, quo in maxima nunc est
Pars hominum,
Ut periise velis quem visere nolueris, cum
Debueris. Hoc nolueris et debueris te
Si minu' delectat, quod τεχνίον Isocratium est,
Ληρῶδέςque simul totum ac συμμειρακιῶδες,
Non operam perdo[10].
We cannot accordingly expect to trace in them anything of the unity of purpose, the formal discourse and illustration of a set topic, which characterise the Satires of Persius and Juvenal, nor yet, of the apparently artless, but carefully meditated ease with which Horace, in his Satires, reproduces the manner of cultivated conversation. Lucilius adopts many modes of bringing himself into relations with his reader. Sometimes he speaks of himself by name, and appears to be communing with himself on his own fortunes or feelings. Sometimes he carries on a controversy in the form of dialogue; at other times he addresses the reader directly; or again, he puts a discourse in the mouth of another, as that on the luxury of the table in the mouth of Laelius. He makes frequent use of the epistolary form—a form which in prose and verse became one of the happiest products of Roman literature. He employs fables, quotations, and parodies, to illustrate his subject. He gives a narrative of his travels, and describes scenes and incidents at which he was present, such as a fight between two gladiators, a rustic feast, and a storm which he encountered in his voyage to Sicily. In other places he plays the part of a moralist, and discourses to a friend on the nature of virtue. More frequently he takes on himself the special office of a censor, and assails the vices of the day by direct denunciation and living examples. In other places he appears as a literary critic and a dictator on questions of grammar and orthography.
In Book i., dedicated to Aelius Stilo the grammarian, a council of the gods was introduced, debating how the Roman State was still to be preserved; and some of the most notorious men of the time were exposed by name to public reprobation. Book iii. contained an account of the author's journey from Rome to the Sicilian Strait, and has been imitated by Horace in his journey to Brundisium. From the line—
Mantica cantheri costas gravitate premebat[11]—
it appears that some part of the journey was made on horseback, but other lines[12] show that the latter part was made by water, and that a severe storm was encountered on the voyage. In Book iv., imitated by Horace (Sat. ii. 2), and by Persius in his third satire, was included the discourse of Laelius against gluttony. In this book mention was made of the sturgeon which gained notoriety for Gallonius[13]. Book v. contained a letter to a friend of the poet, who had neglected to visit him when ill. Book ix. was composed of a dissertation on questions of grammar, orthography, and criticism. Book xi. treated of the wars in Spain and Transalpine Gaul, and contained criticisms and anecdotes of various public men. Book xvi. was named 'Collyra,' in honour of the poet's mistress. In other books the castigation of particular vices formed a prominent topic, and some of the latest (probably the earliest in the order of composition), were largely filled with personal explanations and with criticisms of the older poets. But the desultory, discursive, self-communing character seems to have been common to all of them; and it would be contrary to our evidence to speak of any single book as composed on a definite plan, or as treating of a special topic.
The fragments however, when read collectively, bring out the main sources of interest which the Romans found in the writings of Lucilius; first, the interest of a self-portraiture and close personal relation established with the reader[14]: second, the interest of a censorious criticism on politics, morals, and literature[15].
Among the personal indications of the author we note the great freedom and independence of his life and character. In his mode of expressing this freedom and independence he reminds us of Horace, who seems to have imitated him in his view of life as well as in his writings. Thus, Lucilius declares his indifference to public employment, and his unwillingness to change his own position for the business of the Publicani of Asia, just as Horace declares that he would not exchange his leisure for all the wealth of Arabia[16]. Like Horace, he speaks of the joy of escaping from the storms of life into a quiet haven of repose[17], or inculcates contentment with one's own lot[18] and immunity from envy[19], and the superiority of plain living to luxury[20]. Like Horace, while holding to his independence of life, he put a high value on friendship, and strove to fulfil its duties[21]. Like him, while condemning excess and weakness, he did not conform to any austerer standard of morals than that of the world around him. Like Horace, too, in his later years, he seems to have been something of a valetudinarian[22], and to have had much of the self-consciousness which accompanies that condition. On the whole the impression we get of him is that of an independent, self-reliant character,—of a man living in strong contact with reality, taking all the rubs of life cheerfully[23],—enjoying society, travelling[24], the exercise of his art[25],—a warm friend and partisan, and a bold and uncompromising enemy,—not professing any austerity of life, but knowing and following the course which gave his own nature most satisfaction[26], while, at the same time, upholding a high standard of public duty and personal honour[27].
This establishment of a personal relation with his readers was one of the most original elements in the Lucilian satire. He was the first of Roman, and one of the first among all, writers, who took the public into his confidence, and gained their ear, without exposing himself to contempt, by making a frank and unreserved display of his inmost and most personal thoughts and feelings. Had his works reached us entire, we should probably have found the same kind of attraction in them, from the sense of familiar intimacy with a man of interesting character and intelligence, which we find in the Epistles of Cicero and the Satires and Epistles of Horace.
His independent social position, and the character of the times in which he lived, enabled him to perform the office of a political satirist with more freedom than any other Roman writer. He belonged to the middle party between the extreme partisans of the aristocracy and of the democracy, the party of Scipio and Laelius, and that to which Cicero, in a later age, naturally inclined. He directed his satire against the corruption, incapacity, and arrogance[28] of the nobles by whom the wars abroad and affairs at home were mismanaged. His service under Scipio, and his admiration of his generalship, made him keenly sensitive to the disgrace incurred by the Roman arms under 'the limping Hostilius and Manius[29],' and in the war against Viriathus. Among those assailed by him on political grounds, L. Hostilius Tubulus, notorious for openly receiving bribes while presiding at a trial for murder, and C. Papirius Carbo, the friend of Tib. Gracchus and the suspected murderer of Scipio, were conspicuous. The more reputable names of Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus and Mucius Scaevola are also mentioned among the objects of his satire[30]. Personal motives—and especially his devotion to Scipio[31]—may have stimulated these animosities; but there were instances enough of incapacity in war, profligacy and extortion in the government of the provinces, corruption and favouritism in the administration of justice, of venality and ignorance in the electoral bodies, to justify the bold exposure by Lucilius of 'the leading men of the State and of the mass of the people in their tribes.' The personality of his attacks probably made him many enemies; and thus we hear that he was assailed by name on the stage, and was unable to obtain redress, while a writer who had taken a similar liberty with the tragic poet Accius was condemned. But the honour of a public funeral awarded to him at his death would indicate that the final verdict of his contemporaries was that in assuming the censorial function of attaching marks of infamy against the names of eminent men he was actuated, in the main, by worthy motives, and had done good service to the State.
The chief social vices which Lucilius attacks are those which reappear in the pages of the later satirists. They are the two extremes to which the Roman temperament was most prone, rapacity and meanness in gaining money, vulgar ostentation and coarse sensuality in using it[32]. These were opposite results of a sudden influx of wealth among a people trained through many generations to habits of thrift and self-restraint, and, through this accumulated vital force, unaccompanied, as it was, with much capacity for refined enjoyment, animated by a strong craving for the coarser enjoyments of life. The intensity and concentrativeness of the Roman temperament also tended to produce those one-sided types of character, which are the favourite objects of satiric portraiture. The parasites and spendthrifts, the misers and money-makers of Horace's Satires and Epistles, Maenius and Avidienus for instance, are among the most strongly marked of his personal sketches. Lucilius witnessed the same tendencies in his time and exposed them with greater freedom. The names which are typical of certain characters in Horace, such as Nomentanus, Pantolabus (probably a nickname) Maenius and Gallonius, had first been taken by Lucilius from the streets and dinner-tables of Rome. This indifference to the claims of personal feeling, in which Lucilius emulates the license of the old Greek comedy, although sanctioned by the approval of Horace in a poet of an earlier age, would probably have been forbidden by the greater urbanity and decorum of the Augustan age.
The excesses of his contemporaries in the way of good living, against which numerous sumptuary laws (the Lex Fannia and Lex Licinia for instance), enacted in that age, vainly contended, were largely satirised by Lucilius. Such passages as these—
O Publi, O gurges Galloni, es homo miser, inquit,
Cenasti in vita numquam bene, quom omnia in ista
Consumis squilla atque acipensere quum decumano.
Hoc fit item in cena, dabis ostrea millibu' nummum
Empta.
Occidunt, Lupe, saperdae te et iura siluri.
Vivite lurcones, comedones, vivite ventres.
Illum sumina ducebant atque altilium lanx
Hunc pontes Tiberinu' duo inter captu' catillo.
Purpureo tersit tunc latas gausape mensas, etc.[33]
show the proportions already assumed by a form of sensuality the beginnings of which may be traced in Plautus and in the publication of the Hedyphagetica of Ennius, but of which the final culmination is to be sought in the ideal of life realised under the Empire, by Apicius, Vitellius, Elagabalus, and many men of less note.
The other extreme of unceasing activity in getting, and sordid meanness in hoarding money, and the discontent produced among all classes by the restless passion to grow rich, which fills so large a place in the Satires and Epistles of Horace, appears also frequently in the fragments of Lucilius; as, for instance, in the following:—
Milia dum centum frumenti tolli medimnum,
Vini mille cadum.—
Denique uti stulto nihil est satis, omnia cum sint.—
Rugosi passique senes eadem omnia quaerunt.—
Mordicus petere aurum e flamma expediat, e caeno cibum.—
Aquam te in animo habere intercutem[34].
The following description of a miser seems to have suggested the beginning of one of Catullus' lampoons[35]:—
Cui neque iumentumst nec servos nec comes ullus,
Bulgam et quidquid habet nummum secum habet ipse,
Cum bulga cenat, dormit, lavit; omnis in unast
Spes homini bulga. Bulga haec devincta lacertost[36].
In other passages he inculcates the lessons of good sense and moderation in the use of money, or urges, in the person of an objector, that a man is regarded in proportion to the estimate of his means. In his enumeration of the various constituents of virtue, one on which he dwells with emphasis, is the right estimation of the value of money. In all his thoughts and expressions on this subject it is easy to see how closely Horace follows on his traces.
The extravagance, airs, and vices of women, are another theme of his satire. But he deals with these topics rather in the spirit of raillery adopted by Plautus, than in that of Juvenal. In one fragment he compares, in terms neither delicate nor complimentary, the pretensions to beauty of the Roman ladies of his time with those of the Homeric heroines. In another he contrasts the care which they take in adorning themselves when expecting the visits of strangers with their indifference as to their appearance when alone with their husbands,—
Cum tecum'st, quidvis satis est: visuri alieni
Sint homines, spiras, pallam, redimicula promit[37].
Another fragment—
Homines ipsi hanc sibi molestiam ultro atque aerumnam offerunt,
Ducunt uxores, producunt quibus haec faciant liberos,—
indicates the same repugnance to marriage, which is expressed in a fragment of contemporary oratory, quoted by A. Gellius: 'If, Quirites, we could get on at all without wives, we should all keep clear of that nuisance; but since, in the way of nature, life cannot go on comfortably with them, nor at all without them, we ought rather to provide for the continued well-being of the world than for our temporary comfort.' The dislike to incur the responsibilities of family life, which appears so conspicuously among the cultivated classes in the later times of the Republic, was probably, if we are to judge from the testimony and examples of Lucilius and Horace, as much the result of the license allowed to men, as of the extravagant habits or jealous imperiousness of women.
The intellectual, as well as the moral and social peculiarities of the age were noted by Lucilius. One fragment is directed against the terrors of superstition, and shows that Lucilius, like all the older poets, was endowed with that strong secular sense which enabled the educated Romans, notwithstanding the forms and ceremonies of religion encompassing every private and public act, to escape, in all their ordinary relations, from supernatural influences. This passage affords a fair specimen of the continuous style of the author:—
Terriculas Lamias, Fauni quas Pompiliique
Instituere Numae, tremit has, hic omnia ponit;
Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena
Vivere, et esse homines; et sic isti omnia ficta
Vera putant, credunt signis cor inesse in ahenis;
Pergula pictorum, veri nihil, omnia ficta[38].
His attitude to philosophy, like his attitude to superstitious terrors, was not unlike that of Horace. We find mention in his fragments of the 'Socratici charti,' of the 'eidola atque atomus Epicuri' of the four στοιχεῖα of Empedocles, of the 'mutatus Polemon,' spoken of in Horace (Sat. ii. 3, 253), of Aristippus, and of Carneades; but his own wisdom was that of the world and not of the schools. In these lines,—
Paenula, si quaeris, canteriu', servu', segestre,
Utilior mihi, quam sapiens;
and—
Nondum etiam, qui haec omnia habebit,
Formosus, dives, liber, rex solu' feretur,
we find an anticipation of the tones in which Horace satirised the professors of Stoicism in his own time. The affectation of Greek manners and tastes is ridiculed in the person of Titus Albutius, in a passage which Cicero describes as written 'with much grace and pungent wit'[39]:—
Graecum te, Albuci, quam Romanum atque Sabinum,
Municipem Ponti, Tritanni, Centurionum,
Praeclarorum hominum ac primorum signiferumque,
Maluisti dici. Graece ergo praetor Athenis,
Id quod maluisti, te, cum ad me accedi', saluto:
Chaere, inquam, Tite. Lictores turma omni' cohorsque
Chaere, Tite. Hinc hostis mi, Albucius, hinc inimicus[40].
We learn from Cicero's account of the orators antecedent to, and contemporary with himself, that this denationalising fastidiousness was a not uncommon result of the new studies. The practice of Lucilius of mixing Greek words and phrases with his Latin style might, at first sight, expose him to a similar criticism. But this mannerism of style, which is condemned by the good sense of Horace, is merely superficial, and does not impair the vigorous nationality of the sentiment expressed by the Roman satirist. Like the similar practice in the Letters of Cicero, it was probably in accordance with the familiar conversational style of men powerfully attracted by the interest and novelty of the new learning, but yet strong enough in their national self-esteem to adhere to Roman standards in all the greater matters of action and sentiment. Lucilius seems however to recognise a deeper mischief than that of mere literary affectation in the general insincerity of character produced by the rhetorical and sophistical arts fostered by the new studies, and finding their sphere of action in the Roman law-courts.
The satire of Lucilius, besides its political, moral, and social function, assumed the part of a literary critic and censor. The testimony of Horace on this point,—
Nil comis tragici mutat Lucilius Acci?
Non ridet versus Enni gravitate minores,
Cum de se loquitur non ut maiore reprensis?
confirmed by that of Gellius[41], is amply borne out by extant fragments. These criticisms formed a large part of the twenty-sixth book, which Müller supposes to have been the earliest of the compositions of Lucilius. Several lines preserved from that book are either quotations or parodies from the old tragedies[42]. We observe in these and other quotations the peculiarities of style, noticed in the two tragic poets, such as their tendencies to alliteration and the use of asyndeta, the strained word-formations of Pacuvius, and the occasional inflation of Accius[43]. We trace the influence of these criticisms in the sneer of Persius,—
Est nunc Briseis quem venosus liber Acci,
Sunt quos Pacuviusque et verrucosa moretur
Antiopa, aerummis cor luctificabile fulta.
The antagonism displayed by Lucilius to the more ambitious style of the tragic and epic poets was perhaps as much due to his own deficiency in poetical imagination, as to his keen critical discernment, the 'stili nasus' or 'emunctae nares' attributed to him by Pliny and Horace.
The criticism of Lucilius was not only aggressive, but also directly didactic. In the ninth book he discussed, at considerable length, disputed questions of orthography; and a passage is quoted from the same book, in which a distinction is drawn out between 'poëma' and 'poësis.' Under the first he ranks—
Epigrammation, vel
Distichum, epistula item quaevis non magna;
under the second, whole poems, such as the Iliad, or the Annals of Ennius. The only interest attaching to these fragments is that, like the didactic works of Accius, they testify to the crude critical effort that accompanied the creative activity of the earlier Roman poets.
As specimens of his continuous style the two following passages may be given. The first exemplifies the serious moral spirit with which ancient satire was animated; the second vividly represents and rebukes one of the most prevalent pursuits of the age—
Virtus, Albine, est pretium persolvere verum,
Queis in versamur, queis vivimu' rebu', potesse:
Virtus est hominis, scire id quod quaeque habeat res.
Virtus scire homini rectum, utile, quid sit honestum;
Quae bona, quae mala item, quid inutile, turpe, inhonestum;
Virtus quaerendae rei finem scire modumque:
Virtus divitiis pretium persolvere posse:
Virtus id dare quod re ipsa debetur honori:
Hostem esse atque inimicum hominum morumque malorum,
Contra defensorem hominum morumque bonorum,
Hos magnifacere, his bene velle, his vivere amicum;
Commoda praeterea patriae sibi prima putare,
Deinde parentum, tertia jam postremaque nostra[44].
If there is no great originality of thought nor rhetorical grace of expression in this passage, it proves that Lucilius judged of questions of right and wrong from his own point of view. To him, as to Ennius, common sense and a just estimate of life were large ingredients in virtue. To be a good hater as well as a staunch friend, and to choose one's friends and enemies according to their characters, is another quality of his virtuous man. With him, as with the best Romans of every age, love of country, family, and friends, were the primary motives to right action. The next passage, written in language equally plain and forcible, gives a graphic picture of the growing taste for forensic oratory—
Nunc vero a mane ad noctem, festo atque profesto,
Toto itidem pariterque die, populusque patresque
Iactare indu foro se omnes, decedere nusquam,
Uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti,
Verba dare ut caute possint, pugnare dolose,
Blanditia certare, bonum simulare virum se
Insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes[45].
These passages are probably not unfavourable specimens of the author's continuous style. At its best that style appears to be sincere, serious, rapid, and full of vital force, but careless, redundant, and devoid of all rhetorical point and subtle suggestiveness. Even to these passages the censure of Horace applies,—
At dixi fluere hunc lutulentum.
If we regard these passages as on the ordinary level of his style we cannot hesitate to recognise his immense inferiority to Terence in elegance and finish[46], and to Plautus in rich and humorous exuberance of expression. There is scarcely a trace of imaginative power, or of susceptibility to the grandeur and pathos of human life, or to the beauty and sublimity of Nature in the thousand lines of his remains. We find a few vivid touches, as in this half-line—
Terra abit in nimbos imbresque,
but we fail to recognise not only the 'disjecti membra poetae,' but even the elements of the rhetorician, or of the ironical humourist—
Parcentis viribus atque
Extenuantis eas consulto.
Thus it is difficult to understand what Cicero means when he speaks of the 'Romani veteres atque urbani sales' as being 'salsiores' than those of the true masters of Attic wit, such as were Aristophanes, Plato, and Menander.
But these passages are simple, direct, and clear, compared with many of the single lines or longer passages, already quoted in illustration of the substance of his satire. These leave an impression not only of a total want of the 'limae labor,' but of an abnormal harshness and difficulty, beyond what we find in the fragments of Pacuvius, Accius, or Ennius. The fragments of his trochaics and iambics are much simpler, 'much less depart from the natural order of the words,' than those of his hexameters: a fact which reminds us of the great advance made by Horace in adapting the heroic measure to the familiar experience of life. Lucilius is moreover a great offender against not only the graces but the decencies of language. Lines are found in his fragments as coarse as the coarsest in Catullus or Juvenal: nor could he urge the extenuating plea of having forgotten the respect due to his readers from the necessity of relieving his wounded feelings or of vindicating morality.
Yet it is undoubted that, notwithstanding the most glaring faults and defects in form and style, he was one of the most popular among the Roman poets. The testimony of Cicero, Persius, Juvenal, Quintilian, Tacitus, and Gellius, confirms on this point the more ample testimony of Horace. If, as Mr. Munro thinks, Horace may have expressed, in deference to the prevailing taste of his time, a less qualified admiration for him than he really felt, this only shows how strong a hold his writings had over the reading public in the Augustan age. But Horace shows by no means the same deference to the admirers of Plautus and Ennius. To Lucilius he pays also the sincerer tribute of frequent imitation. He made him his model, in regard both to form and substance, in his satires; and even in his epistles he still acknowledges the guidance of his earliest master. In reading both the Satires and Epistles we are continually coming upon the vestiges of Lucilius, in some turn of expression, some personal or illustrative allusion. Similar vestiges are found, imbedded in the harsh and jagged diction of Persius, and though not to the same extent, in the polished rhetoric of Juvenal. Nor was his literary influence confined to Roman satirists. Lucretius, Catullus, and even Virgil, have not disdained to adopt his thoughts or imitate his manner[47].
But if we cannot altogether account for, we may yet partially understand the admiration which his countrymen felt for Lucilius. In every great literature, while there are some works which appeal to the imagination of the whole world, there are others which seem to hit some particular mood of the nation to which their author belongs, and are all the more valued from the prominence they give to this idiosyncracy. Every nation which has had a literature seems to have valued itself on some peculiar humour or vein of observation and feeling, which it regards as specially allotted to itself, over and above its common inheritance of the sense of the ludicrous, which it shares with other races. Those writers who have this last in unusual measure become the favourite humourists of the world. But their own countrymen often prefer those endowed with the narrower domestic type; and of this type Lucilius seems to have been a true representative. The 'antiqua et vernacula festivitas,' attributed to him, seems to have been more combative and aggressive than genial and sympathetic. The 'Italum acetum' was employed by the Romans as a weapon of controversy with the view of damaging an adversary and making either himself or the cause he represented appear ridiculous and contemptible. The dictum of a modern humourist, that to laugh at a man properly you must first love him, would have seemed to an ancient Roman a contradiction in terms. When Horace writes—
Ridiculum acri
Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res,
he means that men are more likely to be made better by the fear of contempt than of moral reprobation.
But Lucilius had much more than this power of personal raillery, exercised with the force supplied and under the restraints imposed by an energetic social and political life. He is spoken of not only as 'comis et urbanus,' but also as 'doctus' and 'sapiens.' Even his fragments indicate that he was a man of large knowledge of 'books and men.' Horace testifies to the use which he made of the old comic poets of Athens:—
Hinc omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus.
His fragments show familiarity with Homer, with the works of the Greek physical and ethical philosophers, with the systems of the rhetoricians, and some acquaintance with the writings of Plato, Archilochus, Euripides, and Aesop. His habit of building up his Latin lines with the help of Greek phrases illustrates the first powerful influence of the new learning before the Roman mind was able thoroughly to assimilate it, but when it was in the highest degree stimulated and fascinated by it. The mind of Lucilius was susceptible to the novelty of the new thoughts and new impressions, but like that of his contemporaries was insensible to the grace and symmetry of Greek art. Terence is the only writer in the ante-Ciceronian period who had the sense of artistic form. But all this foreign learning was, in the mind of Lucilius, subsidiary to the freshest observation and most discerning criticism of his own age. He was a spectator of life more than an actor in it, but he yet had been present at one of the most important military events of the time, and he had lived in the closest intimacy with the greatest soldier and most prudent statesman of his age. His satire had thus none of the limitation and unreality which attaches to the work of a student and recluse, such as Persius was. To the writings of Lucilius more perhaps than to those of any other Roman would the words of Martial apply—
Hominem pagina nostra sapit.
It is his strong realistic tendency both in expression and thought that seems to explain his antagonism to the older poets who treated of Greek heroes and heroines in language widely removed from that employed either in the forum or in the social meetings of educated men. The popularity of Lucilius among the Romans may thus be explained on much the same grounds as that of Archilochus among the Greeks. He first introduced the literature of the understanding as distinct from that either of the graver emotions or of humorous and sentimental representation. And, while writing with the breadth of view and wealth of illustration derived from learning, he did not, like the poets of later times, write for an exclusive circle of critical readers, but rather, as he himself said, 'for Tarentines, Consentini, and Sicilians[48].' There was nothing about him of the fastidiousness and shyness of a too refined culture. Every line almost of his fragments attests his possession of that quality which, more than any other, secures a wide, if not always a lasting, popularity, great vitality and its natural accompaniment, boldness and confidence of spirit. While he saw clearly, felt keenly, and judged wisely the political and social action of his time, he reproduced it vividly in his pages. Whatever other quality his style may want, it is always alive. And the life with which it is animated is thoroughly healthy. There is a singular sincerity in the ring of his words, the earnest of a mind, absolutely free from cant and pretence, not lashing itself into fierce indignation as a stimulant to rhetorical effect, nor forcing itself to conform to any impracticable scheme of life, but glowing with a hearty scorn for baseness, and never shrinking from its exposure in whatever rank and under whatever disguise he detected it[49], and ever courageously 'upholding the cause of virtue and of those who were on the side of virtue'—
Scilicet uni aequus virtuti atque eius amicis.
It was by the rectitude and manliness of his character, as much as by his learning, his quick and true discernment, his keen raillery and vivid portraiture, that he became the favourite of his time and country, and, alone among Roman writers, succeeded in introducing a new form of literature into the world.
[1] Bernhardy quotes the following words from Cicero, de Rep. iv. ap. Augustin. C. D. ii. 9:—
Etsi eiusmodi cives (scil. Cleonem, Cleophontem, Hyperbolum) a censore melius est, quam a poeta notari ... iudiciis enim magistratuum, disceptationibus legitimis propositam vitam, non poetarum ingeniis habere debemus; nec probrum audire nisi ea lege ut respondere liceat et iudicio defendere.
[2] 'You know not, ah you know not the airs of Imperial Rome: believe me the people of Mars is too critical: nowhere are there greater sneers; young men and old and even boys have the nose of a rhinoceros.'
[3] Vell. Paterc. ii. 9. The service of Lucilius in Spain seems to be confirmed by a line in one of his Satires:—
Publiu' Pavu' mihi [ ] quaestor Hibera
In terra fuit, lucifugus, nebulo, id genu' sane.
[4] Hor. Sat. ii. I. 71-5.
[5] Cf. L. Müller's edition of the Fragments.
Quo facetior videare et scire plus quam caeteri
Pertisum hominem, non pertaesum dices.
The comment of Festus shows that these words were addressed by Lucilius to Scipio.
[7] Cic. de Fin. i. 3.
[8] Journal of Philology, vol. viii. 16.
Iucundasque puer qui lamberat ore placentas.
One of many lines imitated and almost reproduced by Horace.
[10] 'I will tell you how I am, though you don't ask me, since you are of the fashion of most men now, and would rather that the man whom you did not choose to visit, when you ought, had died. If you don't like this "nolueris" and "debueris," because it is the trick of Isocrates, and altogether nonsensical and puerile, I don't waste my time on the matter.' This passage illustrates two characteristics of Lucilius—his habit of mixing Greek with Latin words, and the attention he bestowed on technical rules of style.
[11] Imitated by Horace in the lines:—
Nunc mihi curto
Ire licet mulo, vel, si libet, usque Tarentum,
Mantica cui lumbos onere ulceret, atque eques armos.
Promontorium remis superamu' Minervae.—
Hinc media remis Palinurum pervenio nox.—
Tertius hic mali superat decumanis fluctibus—carchesia summa.
[13] Hor. Sat. ii. 2. 46:—
Haud ita pridem
Galloni praeconis erat acipensere mensa
Infamis.
Quo fit ut omnis
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
Vita senis.
Secuit Lucilius urbem—
Primores populi arripuit populumque tributim—
Non ridet versus Enni gravitate minores—?
Mihi quidem non persuadetur publiceis mutem meos.
Publicanu' vero ut Asiae fiam scriptuarius
Pro Lucilio, id ego nolo, et uno hoc non muto omnia.
Cf. Hor. Ep. i. 7. 36:—
Nec
Otia divitiis Arabum liberrima muto.
Quodque te in tranquillum ex saevis transfers tempestatibus.
Nam si quod satis est homini, id satis esse potisset,
Hoc sat erat; nam cum hoc non est, qui credimu' porro
Divitias ullas animum mi explere potisse.
Nulli me invidere: non strabonem fieri saepius
Deliciis me istorum.
O lapathe, ut iactare nec es sati cognitu' qui sis—
Quod sumptum atque epulas victu praeponis honesto.
Munifici comesque amicis nostris videamur viri—
Sic amici quaerunt animum, rem parasiti ac ditias.
Among the friends of Lucilius, besides Scipio and Laelius, were Aelius Stilo, Albinus, and Granius, whom Cicero quotes for his wit.
Querquera consequitur capitisque dolores
Infesti mihi.—
Si tam corpu' loco validum ac regione maneret.
Scriptoris quam vera manet sententia cordi.
Verum haec ludus ibi susque omnia deque fuerunt,
Susque et deque fuere, inquam, omnia ludu' iocusque.
Et saepe quod ante
Optasti, freta Messanae, Regina videbis
Moenia.
Quantum haurire animus Musarum ec fontibu' gestit.
Cum sciam nil esse in vita proprium mortali datum
Iam qua tempestate vivo chresin ad me recipio.
Cf. Vitaque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu.
[27] Cf. Virtus, Albine, etc. Infra, p. 240.
Peccare impune rati sunt
Posse et nobilitate procul propellere iniquos.
Hostiliu' contra
Pestem permitiemque catax quam et Maniu' nobis.
[30] Cf. Cic. De Or. 1. 16: Sed ut solebat C. Lucilius saepe dicere, homo tibi (i.e. Scaevolae) subiratus, mihi propter eam causam minus quam volebat familiaris, sed tamen et doctus et perurbanus.
Hor. Sat. ii. 1. 67:—
Aut laeso doluere Metello
Famosisque Lupo cooperto versibus?
Pers. i. 115:—
Secuit Lucilius urbem,
Te Lupe, te Muci, et genuinum fregit in illis.
[31] Fuit autem inter P. Africanum et Q. Metellum sine acerbitate dissensio.
[32] Cf. Diversisque duobus vitiis, avaritia et luxuria civitatem laborare.—Livy, xxxiv. 4.
[33] 'O Publius Gallonius, thou whirlpool of excess; thou art a miserable man, says he; never in thy life hast thou supped well, since thou spendest all thy substance in that lobster of thine and that monstrous sturgeon.'
'This too is the case at dinner, you will give oysters, bought at a thousand sesterces.'
'Sardines and fish-sauce are your death, O Lupus.'
'Long live, ye gluttons, gourmands, belly-gods.'
'One was attracted by sow-teats and a dish of fatted fowls; another by a gourmandising pike caught between the two bridges.'
'Then he wiped the ample table with a purple cloth.'
The two last passages are reproduced by Horace in the lines:—
Unde datum sentis, lupus hic Tiberinus, an alto
Captus hiet, pontesne inter iactatus, an amnis
Ostia sub Tusci?—Sat. ii. 2. 31.
And
Gausape purpureo mensam pertersit.—Ib. ii. 8. 11.
[34] Cf.
Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops, etc.
Furei cui neque servus est neque arca, etc.
[36] 'Who has neither beast, nor slave, nor attendant; he carries about him his purse and all his money; with his purse he sleeps, dines, bathes—his whole hopes centre in his purse; this purse is fastened to his arm.'
[37] Cp. the speech of Cato (Livy, xxxiv. 4) in support of the Oppian law: 'An blandiores in publico quam in privato, et alienis quam vestris estis?'
[38] 'These bugbears and goblins from the days of the Fauni and Numa Pompilius fill him with terror; he believes anything of them. As children suppose that statues of brass are real and living men, so they fancy all these delusions to be real: they believe that there is understanding in brazen images: mere painter's blocks, no reality, all a delusion.' Cf. Horace, Ep. ii. 2. 208:—
Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
Nocturnos lemures portentaque Thessala rides?
[39] De Fin. i. 3.
[40] 'You preferred, Albucius, to be called a Greek, rather than a Roman or Sabine, a fellow-countryman of the Centurions, Pontius, Tritannius, excellent, first-rate men, and our standard-bearers. Accordingly, I, as praetor of Athens, when you approach me, greet you, as you wished to be greeted. "Chaere," I say, Titus; my lictors, escort, staff, address you with "Chaere." Hence you are to me a public and private enemy.'
[41] Et Pacuvius, et Pacuvio iam sene Accius, clariorque tunc in poematis corum obtrectandis Lucilius fuit.
[42] E.g.
Ego enim contemnificus fieri et fastidire Agamemnona.—
Di monerint meliora, amentiam averruncassint tuam.—
Hic cruciatur fame,
Frigore, inluvie, inperfundie, inbalnite, incuria.—
Nunc ignobilitas his mirum, taetrum, ac monstrificabile—
Dividant, differant, dissipent, distrahant.
[43] In the same spirit is the following line:—
Verum tristis contorto aliquo ex Pacuviano exordio.
And this from another book of Satires:—
Ransuro tragicus qui carmina perdit Oreste.
Among the phrases of Ennius at which Lucilius carped was one which Virgil did not disdain to adopt. The passage of the old poet,—
Hastis longis campus splendet et horret,—
parodied by the Satirist in the form 'horret et alget,' was justified by being reproduced in the Virgilian phrase,
Tum late ferreus hastis
Horret ager.
[44] 'Virtue, Albinus, consists in being able to give their true worth to the things on which we are engaged, among which we live. The virtue of a man is to understand the real meaning of each thing: to understand what is right, useful, honourable for him; what things are good, what bad, what is unprofitable, base, dishonourable; to know the due limit and measure in making money; to give its proper worth to wealth; to assign what is really due to office; to be a foe and enemy of bad men and bad principles; to stand by good men and good principles; to extol the good, to wish them well, to be their friend through life. Lastly, it is true worth to look on our country's weal as the chief good; next to that, the weal of our parents; third and last, our own weal.'
[45] 'But now from morning till night, on holiday and work-day, the whole day alike, common people and senators are bustling about within the Forum, never quitting it—all devoting themselves to the same practice and trick of wary word-fencing, fighting craftily, vying with each other in politeness, assuming airs of virtue, plotting against each other as if all were enemies.'
[46] Cp. Mr. Monro's criticism in the Journal of Philology.
[47] Passages of Lucilius apparently imitated by Lucretius:—
(1) Quantum haurire animus Musarum ec fontibu' gestit.
(2) Cum sciam nil esse in vita proprium mortali datum
Iam qua tempestate vivo, chresin ad me recipio.
(3) Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena
Vivere et esse homines, sic istic omnia ficta
Vera putant.
Virgil's 'rex ipse Phanaeus' is said by Servius to be imitated from the Χῖός τε δυναστής of Lucilius. Other imitations are pointed out in Macrobius and in Servius. An apparent imitation by Catullus has been already noticed.
[48] Cic. De Fin. i. 3.
Detrahere et pellem nitidus qua quisque per ora
cederet, introrsum turpis.