"Interea Oceani linquens Aurora cubile."
"Quod genus hoc hominum Saturno sancte create?"
"Pressatur pede pes, mucro mucrone, viro vir." [12]
CHAPTER VII.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF SATIRE (ENNIUS TO LUCILIUS)
200-103 B.C.
Satire, as every one knows, is the one branch of literature claimed by the Romans as their own. [1] It is, at any rate, the branch in which their excellence is most characteristically displayed. Nor is the excellence confined to the professed satirists; it was rather inherent in the genius of the nation. All their serious writings tended to assume at times a satirical spirit. Tragedy, so far as we can judge, rose to her clearest tones in branding with contempt the superstitions of the day. The epic verses of Ennius are not without traces of the same power. The prose of Cato abounds with sarcastic reflections, pointedly expressed. The arguments of Cicero's theological and moral treatises are largely sprinkled with satire. The whole poem of Lucretius is deeply imbued with it: few writers of any age have launched more fiery sarcasm upon the fear of death, or the blind passion of love than he has done in his third and fourth books. Even the gentle Virgil breaks forth at times into earnest invective, tipped with the flame of satire: [2] Dido's bitter irony, Turnus' fierce taunts, show that he could wield with stern effect this specially Roman weapon. Lucan and Seneca affect a style which, though grotesque, is meant to be satirical; while at the close of the classical period, Tacitus transforms the calm domain of history into satire, more burning because more suppressed than that of any of his predecessors. [3]
The claim to an independent origin advanced by Quintilian has been more than once disputed. The name Satire has been alleged as indicative of a Greek original (Satyrion). [4] It is true this can no longer be maintained. Still some have thought that the poems of Archilochus or the Silli may have suggested the Roman form of composition. But the former, though full of invective, were iambic or personal, not properly satirical. And the Silli, of which examples are found in Diogenes Laertius and Dio Chrysostom, were rather patched together from the verses of serious writers, forming a kind of Cento like the Carmen Nuptiale of Ausonius, than original productions. The Roman Satire differed from these in being essentially didactic. Besides ridiculing the vices and absurdities of individuals or of society, it had a serious practical purpose, viz. the improvement of public culture or morals. Thus it followed the old Comedy of Athens in its plain speaking, and the method of Archilochus in its bitter hostility to those who provoked attack. But it differed from the former in its non-political bias, as well as its non-dramatic form: and from the latter in its motive, which is not personal enmity, but public spirit. Thus the assertion of Horace, that Lucilius is indebted to the old comedians, [5] must be taken in a general sense only, and not be held to invalidate the generally received opinion that, in its final and perfected form, Satire was a genuine product of Rome.
The metres adopted by Satire was originally indifferent. The Saturae of Ennius were composed in trochaics, hexameters, and iambics; those of Varro (called Menippean, from Menippus of Gadara), mingled together prose and verse. [6] But from Lucilius onwards, Satire, accurately so called, was always treated in hexameter verse. [7]
Nevertheless, Horace is unquestionably right in saying that it had more real affinity for prose than for poetry of any kind—