It is not easy to arrive at any just estimate of Claudian as a writer, partly because of an inevitable tendency to confuse relative with absolute standards, and partly (and it is saying much the same thing in other words) because it is so hard to separate Claudian the poet from Claudian the manipulator of the Latin language. If we compare his latinity with that of his contemporaries (with the possible exception of Rutilius) or with that of such a poet as Sidonius Apollinaris, who came not much more[xvii] than half a century after him, it is hard to withhold our admiration from a writer who could, at least as far as his language is concerned, challenge comparison with poets such as Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus, and Statius—poets who flourished about three centuries before him.[24] I doubt whether, subject matter set aside, Claudian might not deceive the very elect into thinking him a contemporary of Statius, with whose Silvae his own shorter poems have much in common.
Even as a poet Claudian is not always despicable. His descriptions are often clever, e.g. the Aponus, and many passages in the “De raptu.”[25] His treatment of somewhat commonplace and often threadbare themes is not seldom successful—for example, the poem on the Phoenix and a four-line description of the horses of the dawn in the Panegyric on Honorius’ fourth consulship[26]—and he has a happy knack of phrase-making which often relieves a tedious page:
ille vel aerata Danaën in turre latentem
eliceret[27]
he says of the pander Eutropius.
But perhaps Claudian’s forte is invective. The panegyrics (with the doubtful exception of that on[xviii] Manlius, which is certainly brighter than the others) are uniformly dull, but the poems on Rufinus and Eutropius are, though doubtless in the worst of taste, at least in parts amusing.
Claudian’s faults are easy to find. He mistook memory for inspiration and so is often wordy and tedious, as for instance in his three poems on Stilicho’s consulship.[28] Worse than this he is frequently obscure and involved—witness his seven poems on the drop of water contained within the rock crystal.[29] The besetting sin, too, of almost all post-Virgilian Roman poets, I mean a “conceited” frigidity, is one into which he is particularly liable to fall. Examples are almost too numerous to cite but the following are typical: “nusquam totiensque sepultus”[30] of the body of Rufinus, torn limb from limb by the infuriated soldiery; “caudamque in puppe retorquens Ad proram iacet usque leo”[31] of one of the animals brought from Africa for the games at Stilicho’s triumph; “saevusque Damastor, Ad depellendos iaculum cum quaereret hostes, Germani rigidum misit pro rupe cadaver”[32] of the giant Pallas turned to stone by the Gorgon’s head on Minerva’s shield. Consider, too, the remarkable[xix] statement that Stilicho, in swimming the Addua, showed greater bravery than Horatius Cocles because, while the latter swam away from Lars Porsenna, the former “dabat … Geticis pectora bellis.”[33]
Two of the poems are interesting as touching upon Christianity (Carm. min. corp. xxxii. “De salvatore,” and l. “In Iacobum”). The second of these two poems can scarcely be held to be serious, and although the first is unobjectionable it cannot be said to stamp its author as a sincere Christian. Orosius[34] and S. Augustine[35] both declare him to have been a heathen, but it is probable that, like his master Stilicho, Claudian rendered the new and orthodox religion at least lip-service.