The History of Roman Literature / From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius

by Charles Thomas Cruttwell

The radical defect in the Roman conception of history was its narrowness. The idea of preserving and handing down truth for its own sake was foreign to them. The very accuracy of their early registers was based on no such high principle as this. It arose simply from a sense of the continuity of the Roman commonwealth, from national pride, and from considerations of utility. The catalogue of prodigies, pestilences, divine visitations, expiations and successful propitiatory ceremonies, of which it was chiefly made up, was intended to show the value of the state religion, and to secure the administration of it in patrician hands. It was indeed praiseworthy that considerations so patriotic should at that rude period have so firmly rooted themselves in the mind of the governing class; but that their object was rather to consolidate their own power and advance that of the city than to instruct mankind, is clear from the totally untrustworthy character of the special gentile records; and when history began to be cultivated in a literary way, we do not observe any higher motive at work. Fabius and Cincius wrote in Greek, partly, no doubt, because in the unformed state of their own language it was easier to do so; but that this was not in itself a sufficient reason is shown by the enthusiasm with which not only their contemporary Ennius, but their predecessors Livius and Naevius, studied and developed the Latin tongue. Livius and Ennius worked at Latin in order to construct a literary dialect that should also be the speech of the people. Fabius and Cincius, we cannot help suspecting, wrote in Greek, because that was a language which the people did not understand.

Belonging to an ancient house whose traditions were exclusive and aristocratic, FABIUS (210 B.C.) addressed himself to the limited circle of readers who were conversant with the Greek tongue; to the people at large he was at no pains to be intelligible, and he probably was as indifferent to their literary, as his ancestors had been to their political, claims or advantages. The branch to which he belonged derived its distinguishing name from Fabius Pictor the grandfather of the historian, who, in 312 B.C. painted the temple of Salus, which was the oldest known specimen of Roman art, and existed, applauded by the criticism of posterity, until the era of Claudius. This single incident proves that in a period when Roman feeling as a rule recoiled from practising the arts of peace, members of this intellectual gens were already proficients in one of the proscribed Greek accomplishments, and taken into connection with the polished cultivation of the Claudii, and perhaps of other gentes, shows that in their private life the aristocratic party were not so bigoted as for political purposes they chose to represent themselves. [3] As to the value of Fabius's work we have no good means of forming an opinion. Livy invariably speaks of him with respect, as scriptorum longe antiquissimus; and there can be little doubt that he had access to the best existing authorities on his subject. Besides the public chronicles and the archives of his own house, he is said to have drawn on Greek sources. Niebuhr, also, takes a high view of his merits; and the unpretending form in which he clothed his work, merely a bare statement of events without any attempt at literary decoration, inclines us to believe that so far as national prejudices allowed, he endeavoured to represent faithfully the facts of history.

Of L. CINCIUS ALIMENTUS (flor. 209 B.C.) we should he inclined to form a somewhat higher estimate, from the fact that, when taken prisoner by Hannibal, he received greater consideration from him than almost any other Roman captive. He conversed freely with him, and informed him of the route by which he had crossed the Alps, and of the exact number of his invading force. Cincius was praetor in Sicily 209 B.C. He thus had good opportunities for learning the main events of the campaign. Niebuhr [4] says of him, "He was a critical investigator of antiquity, who threw light on the history of his country by researches among its ancient monuments. He proceeded in this work with no less honesty than diligence; [5] for it is only in his fragments that we find a distinct statement of the early relations between Rome and Latium, which in all the Annals were misrepresented from national pride. That Cincius wrote a book on the old Roman calendar, we are told by Macrobius; [6] that he examined into ancient Etruscan and Roman chronology, is clear from Livy." [7] The point in which he differed from the other authorities most strikingly is the date he assigns for the origin of the city; but Niebuhr thinks that his method of ascertaining it shows independent investigation. [8] Cincius, like Fabius, began his work by a rapid summary of the early history of Rome, and detailed at full length only those events which had happened during his own experience.

A third writer who flourished about the same time was C. ACILIUS (circ. 184 B.C.), who, like the others, began with the foundation of the city, and apparently carried his work down to the war with Antiochus. He, too, wrote in Greek, [9] and was afterwards translated into Latin by Claudius Quadrigarius, [10] in which form he was employed by Livy. Aulus Postumius Albinus, a younger contemporary of Cato, is also mentioned as the author of a Greek history. It is very possible that the selection of the Greek language by all these writers was partly due to their desire to prove to the Greeks that Roman history was worth studying; for the Latin language was at this time confined to the peninsula, and was certainly not studied by learned Greeks, except such as were compelled to acquire it by relations with their Roman conquerors. Besides these authors, we learn from Polybius that the great Scipio furnished contributions to history: among other writings, a long Greek letter to king Philip is mentioned which contained a succinct account of his Spanish and African campaigns. His son, and also Scipio Nasica, appear to have followed his example in writing Greek memoirs.

The creator of Latin prose writing was CATO (234-149 B.C.). In almost every department he set the example, and his works, voluminous and varied, retained their reputation until the close of the classical period. He was the first thoroughly national author.

The character of the rigid censor is generally associated in our minds with the contempt of letters. In his stern but narrow patriotism, he looked with jealous eyes on all that might turn the citizens from a single-minded devotion to the State. Culture was connected in his mind with Greece, and her deleterious influence. The embassy of Diogenes, Critolaus, and Carneades, 155 B.C. had shown him to what uses culture might be turned. The eloquent harangue pronounced in favour of justice, and the equally eloquent harangue pronounced next day against it by the same speaker without a blush of shame, had set Cato's face like a flint in opposition to Greek learning. "I will tell you about those Greeks," he wrote in his old age to his son Marcus, "what I discovered by careful observation at Athens, and how far I deem it good to skim through their writings, for in no case should they be deeply studied. I will prove to you that they are one and all, a worthless and intractable set. Mark my words, for they are those of a prophet: whenever that nation shall give us its literature, it will corrupt everything." [11]

With this settled conviction, thus emphatically expressed at a time when experience had shown the realization of his fears to be inevitable, and when he himself had so far bent as to study the literature he despised, the long and active public life of Cato is in complete harmony. He is the perfect type of an old Roman. Hard, shrewd, niggardly, and narrow-minded, he was honest to the core, unsparing of himself as of others, scorning every kind of luxury, and of inflexible moral rectitude. He had no respect for birth, rank, fortune, or talent; his praise was bestowed solely on personal merit. He himself belonged to an ancient and honourable house, [12] and from it he inherited those harsh virtues which, while they enforced the reverence, put him in conflict with the spirit, of the age. No man could have set before himself a more uphill task than that which Cato struggled all his life vainly to achieve. To reconstruct the past is but one step more impossible than to stem the tide of the present. If Cato failed, a greater than Cato would not have succeeded. Influences were at work in Rome which individual genius was powerless to resist. The ascendancy of reason over force, though it were the noblest form that force has ever assumed, was step by step establishing itself; and no stronger proof of its victory could be found than that Cato, despite of himself, in his old age studied Greek. We may smile at the deep-rooted prejudice which confounded the pure glories of the old Greek intellect with the degraded puerilities of its unworthy heirs; but though Cato could not fathom the mind of Greece, he thoroughly understood the mind of Rome, and unavailing as his efforts were, they were based on an unerring comprehension of the true issues at stake. He saw that Greece was unmaking Rome; but he did not see that mankind required that Rome should be unmade. It is the glory of men like Scipio and Ennius, that their large- heartedness opened their eyes, and carried their vision beyond the horizon of the Roman world into that dimly-seen but ever expanding country in which all men are brethren. But if from the loftiest point of view their wide humanity obtains the palm, no less does Cato's pure patriotism shed undying radiance over his rugged form, throwing into relief its massive grandeur, and ennobling rather than hiding its deformities.

We have said that Cato's name is associated with the contempt of letters. This is no doubt the fact. Nevertheless, Cato was by far the most original writer that Rome ever produced. He is the one man on whose vigorous mind no outside influence had ever told. Brought up at his father's farm at Tusculum, he spent his boyhood amid the labours of the plough. Hard work and scant fare toughened his sinews, and service under Fabius in the Hannibalic war knit his frame into that iron strength of endurance, which, until his death, never betrayed one sign of weakness or fatigue. A saying of his is preserved [13]—"Man's life is like iron; if you use it, it wears away, if not, the rust eats it. So, too, men are worn away by hard work; but if they do no work, rest and sloth do more injury than exercise." On this maxim his own life was formed. In the intervals of warfare, he did not relax himself in the pleasures of the city, but went home to his plough, and improved his small estate. Being soon well known for his shrewd wit and ready speech, he rose into eminence at the bar; and in due time obtained all the offices of state. In every position he made many enemies, but most notably in his capacity of censor. No man was oftener brought to trial. Forty-four times he spoke in his own defence, and every time he was acquitted. [14] As Livy says, he wore his enemies out, partly by accusing them, but still more by the pertinacity with which he defended himself. [15] Besides private causes, he spoke in many important public trials and on many great questions of state: Cicero [16] had seen or heard of 150 orations by him; in one passage he implies that he had delivered as many as Lysias, i.e. 230. [17] Even now we have traces, certainly of 80, and perhaps of 13 more. [18] His military life, which had been a series of successes, was brought to a close 190 B.C., and from this time until his death, he appears as an able civil administrator, and a vehement opponent of lax manners. In the year of his censorship (184 B.C.) Plautus died. The tremendous vigour with which he wielded the powers of this post stirred up a swarm of enemies. His tongue became more bitter than ever. Plutarch gives his portrait in an epigram.

Pyrron, pandaketaen, glaukommaton, oude thanonta Porkion eis aidaen Persephonae dechetai.

Here, at 85 years of age, [19] the man stands before us. We see the crisp, erect figure, bristling with aggressive vigour, the coarse, red hair, the keen, grey eyes, piercingly fixed on his opponent's face, and reading at a glance the knavery he sought to hide; we hear the rasping voice, launching its dry, cutting sarcasms one after another, each pointed with its sting of truth; and we can well believe that the dislike was intense, which could make an enemy provoke the terrible armoury of the old censor's eloquence.