Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

The life of Horace is especially instructive, as a mirror in which is reflected a faithful image of the manners of his day. He is the representative of Roman refined society, as Virgil is of the national mind. His morals were lax, but not worse than those of his contemporaries. He looked at virtue and vice from a worldly, not from a moral point of view, and with him the one was prudence and the other folly.

In connection with Horace, we may mention Maecenas, who, by his good taste and munificence, exercised a great influence upon literature, and literary men of Rome were much indebted to him for the use he made of his friendship with Augustus, to whom, probably, his love of literature and of pleasure and his imperturbable temper recommended him as an agreeable companion. He had wealth enough to gratify his utmost wishes, and his mind was so full of the delights of refined society, of palaces, gardens, wit, poetry, and art, that there was no room in it for ambition. All the most brilliant men of Rome were found at his table,—Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and Varius were among his friends and constant associates. He was a fair specimen of the man of pleasure and society,—liberal, kind- hearted, clever, refined, but luxurious, self-indulgent, indolent, and volatile, with good impulses, but without principle.

6. ELEGY.—Tibullus (b. 54 B.C.) was the father of the Roman elegy. He was a contemporary of Virgil and Horace. The style of his poems and their tone of thought are like his character, deficient in vigor and manliness, but sweet, smooth, polished, tender, and never disfigured by bad taste. He passed his short life in peaceful retirement, and died soon after Virgil. The poems ascribed to Tibullus consist of four books, of which only two are genuine.

Propertius (b. 150 B.C.), although a contemporary and friend of the Augustan poets, may be considered as belonging to a somewhat different school of poetry. While Horace, Virgil, and Tibullus imitated the noblest poets of the Greek age, Propertius, like the minor Roman poets, aspired to nothing more than the imitation of the graceful, but feeble strains of the Alexandrian poets. If he excels Tibullus in vigor of fancy, expression, and coloring, he is inferior to him in grace, spontaneity, and delicacy; he cannot, also, be compared with Catullus, who greatly surpasses him in his easy and effective style.

Ovid (43 B.C.-6 A.D.), the most fertile of the Latin poets, not only in elegy, but also in other kinds of poetry, was enabled by his rank, fortune, and talents to cultivate the society of men of congenial tastes. A skeptic and an epicurean, he lived a life of continual indulgence and intrigue. He was a universal admirer of the female sex, and a favorite among women. He was popular as a poet, successful in society, and possessed all the enjoyments that wealth could bestow; but later in life he incurred the anger of Augustus, and was banished to the very frontier of the Roman empire, where he lingered for a few years and died in great misery. The "Epistles to and from Women of the Heroic Age" are a series of love-letters; with the exception of the "Metamorphoses," they have been greater favorites than any other of his works. Love, in the days of Ovid, had in it nothing pure or chivalrous. The age in which he lived was morally polluted, and he was neither better nor worse than his contemporaries; hence grossness is the characteristic of his "Art of Love." His "Metamorphoses" contain a series of mythological narratives from the earliest times to the translation of the soul of Julius Caesar from earth to heaven, and his metamorphosis into a star. In this poem especially may be traced that study and learning by which the Roman poets made all the treasures of Greek literature their own. "The Fasti," a poem on the Roman calendar, is a beautiful specimen of simple narrative in verse, and displays, more than any of his works, his power of telling a story without the slightest effort, in poetry as well as prose. The five books of the "Tristia," and the "Epistles from Pontus," were the outpourings of his sorrowful heart during the gloomy evening of his days.

7. ORATORY AND PHILOSOPHY.—As oratory gave to Latin prose-writing its elegance and dignity, Cicero (106-43 B.C.) is not only the representative of the flourishing period of the language, but also the instrumental cause of its arriving at perfection. He gave a fixed character to the Latin tongue; showed his countrymen what vigor it possessed, and of what elegance and polish it was susceptible. The influence of Cicero on the language and literature of his day was not only extensive, but permanent, and it survived almost until the language was corrupted by barbarism. After traveling in Greece and Asia, and holding a high office in Sicily, he returned to Rome, resumed his forensic practice, and was made consul. The conspiracy of Catiline was the great event of his consulship. The prudence and tact with which he crushed this gained him the applause and gratitude of his fellow-citizens, who hailed him as the father of his country; but he was obliged, by the intrigues of his enemies, to fly from Rome; his exile was decreed, and his town and country houses given up to plunder. He was, however, recalled, and appointed to a seat in the college of Augurs. In the struggle between Pompey and Caesar, he followed the fortunes of the former; but Caesar, after his triumph, granted him a full and free pardon. After the assassination of Caesar, Cicero delivered that torrent of indignant and eloquent invective, his twelve Philippic orations, and became again the popular idol; but when the second triumvirate was formed, and each member gave up his friends to the vengeance of his colleagues, Octavius did not hesitate to sacrifice Cicero. Betrayed by a treacherous freedman, he would not permit his attendants to make any resistance, but courageously submitted to the sword of the assassins, who cut off his head and hands, and carried them to Antony, whose wife, Julia, gloated with inhuman delight upon the pallid features, and in petty spite pierced with a needle the once eloquent tongue. Cicero had numerous faults; he was vain, vacillating, inconstant, timid, and the victim of morbid sensibility; but he was candid, truthful, just, generous, pure-minded, and warm-hearted. Gentle, sympathizing, and affectionate, he lived as a patriot and died as a philosopher.

The place which Cicero occupies in the history of Roman literature is that of an orator and philosopher. The effectiveness of his oratory was mainly owing to his knowledge of the human heart, and of the national peculiarities of his countrymen. Its charm was owing to his extensive acquaintance with the stores of literature and philosophy, which his sprightly wit moulded at will; to the varied learning, which his unpedantic mind made so pleasant and popular; and to his fund of illustration, at once interesting and convincing. He carried his hearers with him; senate, judges, and people understood his arguments, and felt his passionate appeals. Compared with the dignified energy and majestic vigor of Demosthenes, the Asiatic exuberance of some of his orations may be fatiguing to the more sober and chaste taste of modern scholars; but in order to form a just appreciation, we must transport ourselves mentally to the excitements of the thronged forum, to the senate, composed of statesmen and warriors in the prime of life, maddened with the party- spirit of revolutionary times. Viewed in this light, his most florid passages will appear free from affectation—the natural flow of a speaker carried away with the torrent of his enthusiasm. Among his numerous orations, in which, according to the criticisms of Quintilian, he combined the force of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the elegance of Isocrates, we mention the six celebrated Verrian harangues, which are considered masterpieces of Tullian eloquence. In the speech for the poet Archias, he had evidently expended all his resources of art, taste, and skill; and his oration in defense of Milo, for force, pathos, and the externals of eloquence, deserves to be reckoned among his most wonderful efforts. The oratory of Cicero was essentially judicial; even his political orations are rather judicial than deliberative. He was not born for a politician; he did not possess that analytical character of mind which penetrates into the remote causes of human action, nor the synthetical power which enables a man to follow them out to their farthest consequences. Of the three qualities necessary for a statesman, he possessed only two,—honesty and patriotism; he had not political wisdom. Hence, in the finest specimens of his political orations, his Catilinarians and Philippics, we look in vain for the calm, practical weighing of the subject which is necessary in addressing a deliberative assembly. Nevertheless, so irresistible was the influence which he exercised upon the minds of his hearers, that all his political speeches were triumphs. His panegyric on Pompey carried his appointment as commander-in-chief of the armies of the East; he crushed in Catiline one of the most formidable traitors that had ever menaced the safety of the republic, and Antony's fall followed the complete exposure of his debauchery in private life, and the factiousness of his public career.

In his rhetorical works, Cicero left a legacy of practical instruction to posterity. The treatise "On Invention" is merely interesting as the juvenile production of a future great man. "The Orator," "Brutus, or the illustrious Orators," and "The Orator to Marius Brutus," are the results of his matured experience. They form together one series, in which the principles are laid down, and their development carried out and illustrated; and in the "Orator" he places before the eyes of Brutus the model of ideal perfection. In his treatment of that subject, he shows a mind imbued with the spirit of Plato; he invests it with dramatic interest, and transports the reader into the scene which he so graphically describes.

Roman philosophy was neither the result of original investigation, nor the gradual development of the Greek system. It arose rather from a study of ancient philosophical literature, than from an emanation of philosophical principles. It consisted in a kind of eclecticism with an ethical tendency, bringing together doctrines and opinions scattered over a wide field in reference to the political and social relations of man. Greek philosophy was probably first introduced into Rome 166 B.C. But although the Romans could appreciate the majestic dignity and poetical beauty of the style of Plato, they were not equal to the task of penetrating his hidden meaning; neither did the peripatetic doctrines meet with much favor. The philosophical system which first arrested the attention of the Romans, and gained an influence over their minds, was the Epicurean. That of the Stoics also, the severe principles of which were in harmony with the stern old Roman virtues, had distinguished disciples. The part which Cicero's character qualified him to perform in the philosophical instruction of his countrymen was scarcely that of a guide; he could give them a lively interest in the subject, but he could not mould and form their belief, and train them in the work of original investigation. Not being devoutly attached to any system of philosophical belief, he would be cautious of offending the philosophical prejudices of others. He was essentially an eclectic in accumulating stores of Greek erudition, while his mind had a tendency, in the midst of a variety of inconsistent doctrines, to leave the conclusion undetermined. He brought everything to a practical standard; he admired the exalted purity of stoical morality, but he feared that it was impractical. He believed in the existence of one supreme creator, in his spiritual nature, and the immortality of the soul; but his belief was rather the result of instinctive conviction, than of proof derived from philosophy.

The study of Cicero's philosophical works is invaluable, in order to understand the minds of those who came after him. Not only all Roman philosophy after his time, but a great part of that of the Middle Ages, was Greek philosophy filtered through Latin, and mainly founded on that of Cicero. Among his works on speculative philosophy are "The Academics, or a history and defense of the belief of the new Academy;" "Dialogues on the Supreme Good, the end of all moral action;" "The Tusculan Disputations," containing five treatises on the fear of death, the endurance of pain, power of wisdom over sorrow, the morbid passions, and the relation of virtue to happiness. His moral philosophy comprehends the "Duties," a stoical treatise on moral obligations, and the unequaled little essays on "Friendship and Old Age." His political works are "The Republic" and "The Law;" but these remains are fragmentary.