Of the histories (in five books dedicated to the younger Lucullus), we have but a few fragments, mostly speeches, of which the style seems a little fuller than usual: our judgment of the writer must be based upon the two essays that have reached us entire, that on the war with Iugurtha, and that on the Catilinarian conspiracy. Sallust takes credit to himself, in words that Tacitus has almost adopted, [84] for a strict impartiality. Compared with his predecessors he probably was impartial, and considering the closeness of the events to his own time it is doubtful whether any one could have been more so. For he wisely confined himself to periods neither too remote for the testimony of eye-witnesses, nor too recent for the disentanglement of truth. When Catiline fell (63 B.C.) the historian was twenty-two years old, and this is the latest point to which his studies reach. As a friend of Caesar he was an enemy of Cicero, and two declamations are extant, the productions of the reign of Claudius, [85] in which these two great men vituperate one another. But no vituperation is found in Sallust's works. There is, indeed, a coldness and reserve, a disinclination to praise the conduct and even the oratory of the consul which bespeaks a mind less noble than Cicero's, [86] But facts are not perverted, nor is the odium of an unconstitutional act thrown on Cicero alone, as we know it was thrown by Caesar's more unscrupulous partisans, and connived at by Caesar himself. The veneration of Sallust for his great chief is conspicuous. Caesar is brought into steady prominence; his influence is everywhere implied. But Sallust, however clearly he betrays the ascendancy of Caesar over himself, [87] does not on all points follow his lead. While, with Caesar, he believes fortune, or more properly chance, to rule human affairs, he retains his belief in virtue and immortality, [88] both of which Caesar rejected. He can not only admit, but glorify the virtues of Cato, which Caesar ridiculed and denied. But he is anxious to set the democratic policy in the most favourable light. Hence he depicts Cato rather than Cicero as the senatorial champion, because his impracticable views seemed to justify Caesar's opposition; [89] he throws into fierce relief the vices of Scaurus who was princeps Senatus; [90] and misrepresents the conduct of Turpilius through a desire to screen Marius. [91] As to his authorities, we find that he gave way to the prevailing tendency to manipulate them. The speeches of Caesar and Cato in the senate, which he surely might have transcribed, he prefers to remodel according to his own ideas, eloquently no doubt, but the originals would have been in better place, and entitled him to our gratitude. The same may be said of the speech of Marius. That of Memmius [92] he professes to give intact; but its genuineness is doubtful. The letter of Catiline to Catulus, that of Lentulus and his message to Catiline, may be accepted as original documents. [93] In the sifting of less accessible authorities he is culpably careless. His account of the early history of Africa is almost worthless, though he speaks of having drawn it from the books of King Hiempsal, and taken pains to insert what was generally thought worthy of credit. It is in the delineation of character that Sallust's penetration is unmistakably shown. Besides the instances already given, we may mention the admirable sketch of Sulla, [94] and the no less admirable ones of Catiline [95] and Iugurtha. [96] His power of depicting the terrors of conscience is tremendous. No language can surpass in condensed but lifelike intensity the terms in which he paints the guilty noble carrying remorse on his countenance and driven by inward agony to acts of desperation. [97]
His style is peculiar. He himself evidently imitated, and was thought by Quintilian to rival, Thucydides. [98] But the resemblance is in language only. The deep insight of the Athenian into the connexion of events is far removed from the popular rhetoric in which the Roman deplores the decline of virtue. And the brevity, by which both are characterised, while in the one it is nothing but the incapacity of the hand to keep pace with the rush of thought, in the other forms the artistic result of a careful process of excision and compression. While the one kindles reflection, the other baulks it. Nevertheless the style of Sallust has a special charm and will always find admirers to give it the palm among Latin histories. The archaisms which adorn or deface it, the poetical constructions which tinge its classicality, the rough periods without particles of connexion which impart to it a masculine hardness, are so fused together into a harmonious fabric that after the first reading most students recur to it with genuine pleasure. [99] On the whole it is more modern than that of Nepos, and resembles more than any other that of Tacitus. Its brevity rarely falls into obscurity, though it sometimes borders on affectation. There is an appearance as if he was never satisfied, but always straining after an excellence beyond his powers. It is emphatically a cultured style, and, as such often recalls older authors. Now it is a reminiscence of Homer: aliud clausum in pectore, aliud in lingua promptum habere; [100] now of a Latin tragedian: secundae res sapientium animos fatigant. Much allowance must be made for Sallust's defects, when we remember that no model of historical writing yet existed at Rome. Some of the aphorisms which are scattered in his book are wonderfully condensed, and have passed into proverbs. Concordia parvae res crescunt from the Iugurtha; and idem velle, idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est, from the Catiline, are instances familiar to all. The prose of Sallust differs from that of Cicero in being less rhythmical; the hexametrical ending which the orator rightly rejects, is in him not infrequent. It is probably a concession to Greek habit. [101] Sallust did good service in pointing out what historical writing should be, and his example was of such service to Livy that, had it not been for him, it is possible the great master- history would never have been designed.
It does not appear that this period was fruitful in historians. Tubero (49-47 B.C.) is the only other whose works are mentioned; the convulsions of the state, the short but sullen repose, broken by Caesar's death (44 B.C.), the bloodthirsty sway of the triumvirs, and the contests which ended in the final overthrow at Actium (31 B.C.), were not favourable to historical enterprise. But private notes were carefully kept, and men's memories were strengthened by silence, so that circumstances naturally inculcated waiting in patience until the time for speaking out should have arrived. [102]
APPENDIX.
On the Acta Diurna and Acta Senatus.
It is well known that there was a sort of journal at Rome analogous, perhaps, to our Gazette, but its nature and origin are somewhat uncertain. Suetonius (Caes. 20) has this account: "Inito honore, primus omnium instituit, ut tam Senatus quam populi diurna acta conficerentur et publicarentur," which seems naturally to imply that the people's acta had been published every day before Caesar's consulship, and that he did the same thing for the acta of the senate. Before investigating these we must distinguish them from certain other acta:—(1) Civilia, containing a register of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces, called apographai by Polybius, and alluded to by Cicero (ad Fam. viii. 7) and others. These were at first intrusted to the care of the censors, afterwards to the praefecti aerarii. (2) Forensia, comprising lists of laws, plebiscites, elections of aediles, tribunes, &c. like the daemosia grammata at Athens, placed among the archives annexed to various temples, especially that of Saturn. (3) Iudiciaria, the legal reports, often called gesta, kept in a special tabularium, under the charge of military men discharged from active service. (4) Militaria, which contained reports of all the men employed in war, their height, age, conduct, accomplishments, &c. These were entrusted to an officer called librarius legionis (Veg. ii. 19), or sometimes tabularius castrensis, but so only in the later Latin. Other less strictly formal documents, as lists of cases, precedents, &c. seem to have been also called acta, but the above are the regular kinds.
The Acta Senatus or deliberations of the senate were not published until Caesar. They were kept jealously secret, as is proved by a quaint story by Cato, quoted in Aulus Gellius (i. 23). At all important deliberations a senator, usually the praetor as being one of the junior members, acted as secretary. In the imperial times this functionary was always a confidant of the emperor. The acta were sometimes inscribed on tabulae publicae (Cic. pro Sull. 14, 15), but only on occasions when it was held expedient to make them known. As a rule the publication of the resolution (Senatus Consultum) was the first intimation the people had of the decisions of their rulers. In the times of the emperors there were also acta of each emperor, apparently the memoranda of state councils held by him, and communicated to the senate for them to act upon. There appears also to have been acta of private families when the estates were large enough to make it worth while to keep them. These are alluded to in Petronius Arbiter (ch. 53). We are now come to the Acta Diurna, Populi, Urbana or Publica, by all which names the same thing is meant. The earliest allusion to them is in a passage of Sempronius Asellio, who distinguishes the annals from the diaria, which the Greeks call ephaemeris (ap. A. Gell. V. 18). When about the year 131 B.C. the Annales were redacted into a complete form, the acta probably begun. When Servius (ad. Aen. i. 373) says that the Annales registered each day all noteworthy events that had occurred, he is apparently confounding them with the acta, which seem to have quietly taken their place. During the time that Cicero was absent in Cilicia (62 B.C.) he received the news of town from his friend. Coelius (Cic. Fam. viii. 1, 8, 12, &c.). These news comprised all the topics which we should find now-a-days in a daily paper. Asconius Pedianus, a commentator on Cicero of the time of Claudius, in his notes on the Milo (p. 47, ed. Orell. 1833), quotes several passages from the acta, on the authority of which he bases some of his arguments. Among them are analyses of forensic orations, political and judicial; and it is therefore probable that these formed a regular portion of the daily journal in the latest age of the Republic. When Antony offered Caesar a crown on the feast of the Lupercalia, Caesar ordered it to be noted in the acta (Dio xliv. 11); Antony, as we know from Cicero, even entered the fact in the Fasti, or religious calendar. Augustus continued the publication of the Acta Populi, under certain limitations, analogous to the control exercised over journalism by the governments of modern Europe; but he interdicted that of the Acta Senatus (Suet. Aug. 36). Later emperors abridged even this liberty. A portico in Rome having been in danger of falling and shored up by a skilful architect, Tiberius forbade the publication of his name (Dio lvii. 21). Nero relaxed the supervision of the press, but it was afterwards re-established. For the genuine fragments of the Acta, see the treatise by Vict. Le Clerc, sur les journaux chez les Romains, from which this notice is taken.
CHAPTER IV.
THE HISTORY OF POETRY TO THE CLOSE OF THE REPUBLIC—RISE OF ALEXANDRINISM —LUCRETIUS—CATULLUS.
As long as the drama was cultivated poetry had not ceased to be popular in its tone. But we have already mentioned that coincidentally with the rise of Sulla dramatic productiveness ceased. We hear, indeed, that J. CAESAR STRABO (about 90 B.C.) wrote tragedies, but they were probably never performed. Comedy, as hitherto practised, was almost equally mute. The only forms that lingered on were the Atellanae, and those few plebeian types of comedy known as Togata and Tabernaria. But even these had now withered. The present epoch brings before us a fresh type of composition in the Mime, which now first took a literary shape. Mimes had indeed existed in some sort from a very early period, but no art had been applied to their cultivation, and they had held a position much inferior to that of the national farce. But several circumstances now conspired to bring them into greater prominence. First, the great increase of luxury and show, and with it the appetite for the gaudy trappings of the spectacle; secondly, the failure of legitimate drama, and the fact that the Atellanae, with their patrician surroundings, were only half popular; and lastly, the familiarity with the different offshoots of Greek comedy, thrown out in rank profusion at Alexandria, and capable of assimilation with the plastic materials of the Mimus. These worthless products, issued under the names of Rhinthon, Sopater, Sciras, and Timon, were conspicuous for the entire absence of restraint with which they treated serious subjects, as well as for a merry-andrew style of humour easily naturalised, if it were not already present, among the huge concourse of idlers who came to sate their appetite for indecency without altogether sacrificing the pretence of a dramatic spectacle. Two things marked off the Mimus from the Atellana or national farce; the players appeared without masks, [1] and women were allowed to act. This opened the gates to licentiousness. We find from Cicero that Mimae bore a disreputable character, [2] but from their personal charms and accomplishments often became the chosen companions of the profligate nobles of the day. Under the Empire this was still more the case. Kingsley, in his Hypatia, has given a lifelike sketch of one of these elegant but dissolute females. To these seductive innovations the Mime added some conservative features. It absorbed many characteristics of legitimate comedy. The actors were not necessarily planipedes in fact, though they remained so in name; [3] they might wear the soccus [4] and the Greek dress [5] of the higher comedy. The Mimes seem to have formed at this time interludes between the acts of a regular drama. Hence they were at once simple and short, seasoned with as many coarse jests as could be crowded into a limited compass, with plenty of music, dancing, and expressive gesture-language. Their plot was always the same, and never failed to please; it struck the key-note of all decaying societies, the discomfiture of the husband by the wife. [6] Nevertheless, popular as was the Mime, it was, even in Caesar's time, obliged to share the palm of attractiveness with bear-fights, boxing matches, processions of strange beasts, foreign treasures, captives of uncouth aspect, and other curiosities, which passed sometimes for hours across the stage, feeding the gaze of an unlettered crowd, to the utter exclusion of drama and interlude alike. Thirty years later, Horace [7] declares that against such competitors no play could get a silent hearing.