Lastly, VALERIUS AEDITUUS, who is only known by the short notices in Varro and Gellius, wrote similar short pieces, two of which are preserved.
AD PAMPHILAM.
"Dicere cum conor curam tibi, Pamphila, cordis,
Quid mi abs te quaeram? verba labris abeunt
Per pectus miserum manat subito mihi sudor.
Si tacitus, subidus: duplo ideo pereo."
AD PUERUM PHILEROTA.
"Quid faculam praefers, Phileros, qua nil opus nobis?
Ibimus, hoc lucet pectore flamma satis.
Illam non potis est vis saeva exstinguere venti,
Aut imber caelo candidus praecipitans.
At contra, hunc ignem Veneris, si non Venus ipsa,
Nulla est quae possit vis alia opprimare."
We have quoted these pieces, not from their intrinsic merit, for they have little or none, but to show the painful process by which Latin versification was elaborated. All these must be referred to a date at least sixty years after Ennius, and yet the rhythm is scarcely at all improved. The great number of second-rate poets who wrought in the same laboratory did good work, in so far that they made the technical part less wearisome for poets like Lucretius and Catullus. With mechanical dexterity taste also slowly improved by the competing effort of many ordinary minds; but it did not make those giant strides which nothing but genius can achieve. The later developments of the Epigram will be considered in a subsequent book.
CHAPTER IX.
PROSE LITERATURE—HISTORY. FABIUS PICTOR—MACER (210-80 B.C.).
There are nations among whom the imagination is so predominant that they seem incapable of regarding things as they are. The literature of such nations will always be cast in a poetical mould, even when it takes the outward form of prose. Of this class India is a conspicuous example. In the opposite category stand those nations which, lacking imaginative power, supply its place by the rich colouring of rhetoric, but whose poetry, judged by the highest standard, does not rise above the sphere of prose. Modern France is perhaps the best example of this. The same is so far true of ancient Rome that she was unquestionably more productive of great prose writers than of poets. Her utilitarian and matter-of-fact genius inclined her to approach the problems of thought and life from a prosaic point of view. Her perceptions of beauty were defective; her sense of sympathy between man and nature (the deepest root of poetry) slumbered until roused by a voice from without to momentary life. The aspirations and destiny of the individual soul which had kindled the brightest light of Greek song, were in Rome replaced by the sovereign claims of the State. The visible City, throned on Seven Hills, the source and emblem of imperial power, and that not ideal but actual, was a theme fitted to inspire the patriot orator or historian, but not to create the finer susceptibilities of the poet. We find in accordance with this fact, that Prose Literature was approached, not by strangers or freedmen, but by members of the noblest houses in Rome. The subjects were given by the features of national life. The wars that had gained dominion abroad, the eloquence that had secured power at home, the laws that had knit society together and made the people great; these were the elements on which Prose Literature was based. Its developments, though influenced by Greece, are truly national, and on them the Roman character is indelibly impressed. The first to establish itself was history. The struggles of the first Punic war had been chronicled in the rude verse of Naevius; those of the second produced the annals of Fabius and Cincius Alimentus.
From the earliest period the Romans had a clear sense of the value of contemporary records. The Annales Maximi or Commentarii Pontificum contained the names of magistrates for each year, and a daily record [1] of all memorable events from the regal times until the Pontificate of P. Mucius Scaevola (133 B.C.). The occurrences noted were, however, mostly of a trivial character, as Cato tells us in a fragment of his Origines, and as we can gather from the extracts found in Livy. The Libri Lintei, mentioned several times by Livy, [2] were written on rolls of linen cloth, and, besides lists of magistrates, contained many national monuments, such as the treaty between Rome and Carthage, and the truce made with Ardea and Gabii. Similar notes were kept by the civil magistrates (Commentarii Consulares, Libri Praetorum, Tabulae Censoriae) and stored up in the various temples. The greater number of these records perished in the capture of Rome by the Gauls, and when Livy speaks of them as existing later, he refers not to the originals, but to copies made after that event. Such yearly registers were continued to a late period. One of the most important was discovered in the sixteenth century, embracing a list of the great magistracies from 509 B.C. till the death of Augustus, and executed in the reign of Tiberius. Another source of history was the family register kept by each of the great houses, and treasured with peculiar care. It was probably more than a mere catalogue of actions performed or honours gained, since many of the more distinguished families preserved their records as witnesses of glories that in reality had never existed, but were the invention of flattering chroniclers or clients.