Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

PERIOD SECOND.

FROM THE AGE OF CICERO TO THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS (74 B.C.-14 A.D.)

1. DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN LITERATURE.—Latin literature, at first rude, and, for five centuries, unable to reach any high excellence, was, as we have seen, gradually developed by the example and tendency of the Greek mind, which moulded Roman civilization anew. The earliest Latin poets, historians, and grammarians were Greeks. The metre which was brought to such perfection by the Latin poets was formed from the Greek, and the Latin language more and more assimilated to the Hellenic tongue.

As civilization advanced, the rude literature of Rome was compared with the great monuments of Greek genius, their superiority was acknowledged, and the study of them encouraged. The Roman youth not only attended the schools of the Greeks, in Rome, but their education was considered incomplete, unless they repaired to those of Athens, Rhodes, and Mytilene. Thus, whatever of national character existed in the literature was gradually obliterated, and what it gained in harmony and finish it lost in originality. The Roman writers imitated more particularly the writers of the Alexandrian school, who, being more artificial, were more congenial than the great writers of the age of Pericles.

Roman genius, serious, majestic, and perhaps more original than at a later period, was manifest even at the time of the Punic wars, but it had not yet taken form; and while thought was vigorous and powerful, expression remained weak and uncertain. But, under the Greek influence, and aided by the vigor imparted by free institutions, the union of thought and form was at length consummated, and the literature reached its culminating point in the great Roman orator. The fruits which had grown and matured in the centuries preceding were gathered by Augustus; but the influences that contributed to the splendor of his age belong rather to the republic than the empire, and with the fall of the liberties of Rome, Roman literature declined.

2. MIMES, MIMOGRAPHERS, AND PANTOMIME.—Amidst all the splendor of the Latin literature of this period, dramatic poetry never recovered from the trance into which it had fallen, though the stage had not altogether lost its popularity. Aesopus and Roscius, the former the great tragic actor, and the latter the favorite comedian, in the time of Cicero, enjoyed his friendship and that of other great men, and both amassed large fortunes. But although the standard Roman plays were constantly represented, dramatic literature had become extinct. The entertainments, which had now taken the place of comedy and tragedy, were termed mimes. These were laughable imitations of manners and persons, combining the features of comedy and farce, for comedy represents the characters of a class, farce those of individuals. Their essence was that of the modern pantomime, and their coarseness, and even indecency, gratified the love of broad humor which characterized the Roman people. After a time, when they became established as popular favorites, the dialogue occupied a more prominent position, and was written in verse, like that of tragedy and comedy. During the dictatorship of Caesar, a Roman knight named Laberius (107-45 B.C.) became famous for his mimes. The profession of an actor of mimes was infamous, but Laberius was a writer, not an actor. On one occasion, Caesar offered him a large sum of money to enter the lists in a trial of his improvisatorial skill. Laberius did not submit to the degradation for the sake of the money, but he was afraid to refuse. The only method of retaliation in his power was sarcasm. His part was that of a slave; and when his master scourged him, he exclaimed: "Porro, Quirites, libertatem perdimus!" His words were received with a round of applause, and all eyes were fixed on Caesar. The dictator restored him to the rank of which his act had deprived him, but he could never recover the respect of his countrymen. As he passed the orchestra, on his way to the stalls of the knights, Cicero cried out: "If we were not so crowded, I would make room for you here." Laberius replied, alluding to Cicero's lukewarmness as a political partisan: "I am astonished that you should be crowded, as you generally sit on two stools."

Another writer and actor of mimes was Publius Syrus, originally a Syrian slave. Tradition has recorded a bon mot of his which is as witty as it is severe. Seeing an ill-tempered man named Mucius in low spirits, he exclaimed: "Either some ill fortune has happened to Mucius, or some good fortune to one of his friends!"

The Roman pantomime differed somewhat from the mime. It was a ballet of action, performed by a single dancer, who not only exhibited the human figure in its most graceful attitudes, but represented every passion and emotion with such truth that the spectators could, without difficulty, understand the story. The pantomime was licentious in its character, and the actors were forbidden by Tiberius to hold any intercourse with Romans of equestrian or senatorial dignity.

These were the exhibitions which threw such discredit on the stage, which called forth the well-deserved attacks of the early Christian fathers, and caused them to declare that whoever attended them was unworthy of the name of Christian. Had the drama not been so abused, had it retained its original purity, and carried out the object attributed to it by Aristotle, they would have seen it, not a nursery of vice, but a school of virtue; not only an innocent amusement, but a powerful engine to form the taste, to improve the morals, and to purify the feelings of a people.

3. EPIC POETRY.—The epic poets of this period selected their subjects either from the heroic age and the mythology of Greece, or from their own national history. The Augustan age abounds in representatives of these two poetical schools, though possessing little merit. But the Romans, essentially practical and positive in their character, felt little interest in the descriptions of manners and events remote from their associations, and poetry, restrained within the limits of their history, could not rise to that height of imagination demanded by the epic muse. Virgil united the two forms by selecting his subject from the national history, and adorning the ancient traditions of Rome with the splendor of Greek imagination.