Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

Suetonius and Cornelius Nepos need only be named in this connection, while we pass to a more particular mention of Plutarchus of Chæronea. He was, probably, a few years senior to Tacitus, and also wrote under the reign of Trajan. Plutarch is the representative of popular biography; he stands between the historian, the poet, and the romancer, to catch the beautiful lights of all. His account of Theseus resembles a legend from an old chronicle, or a chapter of magic; memoirs as depicted by his hand are exceedingly picturesque, in the presence of which reading becomes sight, as some vivid touch lights up the centre and animates the whole. For instance, the white charger of Sylla, lashed by a servant who saw his danger, carries the rider with a plunge between two falling spears. Again, Pyrrhus, wounded and faint, suddenly opens his eyes on Zopyrus in the act of waving a sword over his neck, and darts at him so fierce a look, that he springs back in terror, while his guilty hands tremble. And how startling is the aspect of Cæsar in the senate house, surrounded by conspirators, and turning his face in every direction, to meet only the murderous gleamings of steel!

The Roman prose writers excelled the poets in original worth. Their historical style, however, like their Corinthian order of art, was founded upon the Greek, but became much more florid than the original. Livy, for instance, the most perfect master of the Roman tongue as a national historian, is also the best illustration of this fault. Though excessively ornate in his emulation of the ancients, he yet retained something of their merit. Under the later Cæsars, history, that department of Augustan literature of most sterling worth, grew increasingly corrupt in matter, and deteriorated in style, until the fulsome meanness and insipidity of Velleius was reached, the lowest nadir of historic art. The advancement of the government in despotism is marked by a corresponding debasement in cotemporary writing. Seneca, for example, threw himself into the cold embrace of Stoicism, and becamed resigned as far as possible to the philosophy of endurance and the literature of despair.

Eloquence is a plant indigenous to a free soil, and was nearly a stranger to the Romans until it was nurtured in the schools of Tisias and Corax, when, on the dethronement of the tyrants, the dawn of freedom brightened upon Sicily. At length the privilege of unfettered debate which had first found a congenial home in Greece, arose in republican Rome. The plebeians, in their conflicts with the patricians, found an efficient advocate in Menenius Agrippa, who led them back from the sacred mountain with his rustic wisdom. Cases of oppression found some Icilius or Virginius armed with a panoply of burning indignation, and many a Siccius Dentatus, unskilled in pedantic terms, could appeal to his honorable wounds and scars in front received in patriotic service, and to the vestiges of torture marked by cruelty on his back. The unwritten literature of active life long preceded the office of formal history, and efficient oratory gradually arose to counteract by its antagonistic spirit the warlike fierceness of an utilitarian people. As when the great soldier, Scipio Africanus Major, was unjustly accused by a malignant opponent, the necessity of personal defense unexpectedly developed him into a consummate orator. Livy adorned the whole speech with his own rhetoric, but A. Gellius has preserved the peroration intact, which refers to the fortunate anniversary on which the defense was made: "I call to remembrance, Romans," said he, "that this is the very day on which I vanquished in a bloody battle on the plains of Africa the Carthaginian Hannibal, the most formidable enemy Rome ever encountered. I obtained for you a peace and an unlooked-for victory. Let us not, then, be ungrateful to heaven, but let us leave this knave, and at once offer our grateful thanksgivings to Jove, supremely good and great." The people obeyed his summons, the forum was deserted, and crowds followed the eloquent hero with acclamations to the Capitol.

The eloquence of Cato was mentioned, in our general notice of his versatile talents. He was equally successful as a speaker and a writer. The father of the Gracchi was distinguished among his cotemporaries for effective oratory, but no specimens have survived.

Scipio Africanus Minor was admirably qualified to be the link between the old and new style of eloquence. In his soldier-like character, the harder outlines of Roman sternness were modified by an ardent love of learning. His first campaign was in Greece, where he formed a literary friendship with leading minds, and especially with Polybius, which ripened into the closest intimacy when that great historian came as a hostage to Rome. He abhorred the degeneracy of manners, Greek and Roman, but preserving his own moral nature uncorrupted thereby, he was faithful in all the active duties of intelligent citizenship. Greek refinement had not destroyed the frankness, whilst it had humanized the boldness of the Roman; but prompted him to love the beautiful as well as the good, and to believe that elegance was by no means incompatible with strength. Lælius was his friend, and Servius Sulpicius Galba his successor in the more cultivated style of animated oratory.

But the Gracchi have the strongest claim upon the grateful remembrance of all who love democratic freedom. They paid the penalty usually connected with high destinies; but their death was the occasion of a better life to millions. Political changes which had been advancing slowly, but surely, for centuries, found in those two brothers the fitting instruments of a glorious consummation. Under their direction, the result of a long and obstinate struggle was, that the old distinction of patrician and plebeian was abolished. Plebeians held the consulship and censorship, and patricians, like the Gracchi, stood forward as plebeian tribunes and champions of popular rights. Such revolutionary periods usually produce extraordinary powers of eloquence, as in this instance. Lepidus Porcina, greatly imbued with Attic gentleness, was the model followed by Tiberius Gracchus; and Papirius Carbo, who united the gift of a delightful voice to verbal copiousness, was his ultra-liberal colleague; while Æmilius Scaurus, and Rutilius Rufus, were distinguished for opposing strength.

The Gracchi themselves were distinguished for gentle vigor, aided by a happy combination of accomplished endowments. Their father possessed an exalted character, and their mother inherited the strong mind and energetic genius of Scipio. She was well acquainted with Greek and Latin literature, with which she early imbued her aspiring sons. Tiberius was cool and sedate in speech, as in temperament; free from the storms of passion, he was self-possessed in debate, as stoical in disasters as was his philosophic creed. Caius, who was nine years younger, was morally inferior to Tiberius, but greatly his superior in intellect. He was less unswerving in purpose, but he was more susceptible of generous impulses, and had a much greater measure of creative genius. Cicero says that his imagination, lashed by the violence of his passions, required a strong curb; but for that very reason it gushed forth as from a natural fountain, and like a torrent swept all before it. On one occasion, his look, his voice, his gestures, were so inexpressibly affecting, that even his enemies were dissolved in tears. His education enabled him to rid himself of the harshness of the old school, and to gain the reputation of being the father of Roman prose.

M. Antonius entered public life under brilliant auspices, but he was greater as a judicial than as a deliberative orator. L. Licinius Crassus was four years younger than Antony, having been born B.C. 140. The last and most distinguished of the pre-Ciceronian orators, was Q. Hortensius, son of L. Hortensius, prætor of Sicily, and was born B.C. 97. When Crassus and Antony were dead, he was left the acknowledged leader of the forum until the effacing brightness of Rome's culminating star arose. In the cause of Quintius, the two great orators first came into direct conflict, when the mightier rival paid the highest possible compliment to the talents and genius of Hortensius, at the same time he clearly excelled him. As supreme as was the career of Cicero in the realm of eloquence, he was yet more influential in the department of philosophy at Rome, and we reserve a more extended notice of him for the chapter under that head.

After the battle of Actium, the spirit of faction and tumult subsided in a measure; and the love of letters, with a better sway, succeeded to that love of arms which had occupied every Roman mind for seven hundred years. The empire was at peace, and universal plunder had immensely enriched the metropolis. Gorgeous embellishment began to be admired, without producing correct taste; and, as a higher order of mind endeavored to cultivate a national literature, the language, like the capital of brick, seemed to have become marble. But never was Rome able to attain superior distinction in elegant letters, or diffuse among her citizens a general taste for refinement. An Athenian of the humblest rank could sit from morning to evening intent upon the scenes of Æschylus or Sophocles; but the Roman plebeian soon wearied of mental exhilaration, and turned to the more genial enjoyment of beast mangled by beast, and man by man. Nor was this peculiar to the lower classes. Knights and senators would hazard life in forcing their way into the amphitheatre, where they often struggled on the arena with their own slaves. Nothing beautiful was ever loved by them for its own sake, but might be haughtily patronized as an appendage to sensual delights. Throngs of poets and musicians attended at the public baths to recite or sing; and at supper, old and young bound their heads with laurel, not the amaranth of Minerva, but the gory weed of Mars. This was only an affected love of letters, and was equally gratified when entertained, at intervals, by wandering sophists, gladiators, jesters, or conjurors, as was common around the triclinium of the emperor himself. At the best epoch, a passion for literature and art was not the enthusiasm of appreciative genius, but only a transient fashion of the court.

After the death of Brutus, the world of letters shared in the universal change which transpired in the political world, so that literature under Augustus soon assumed a new and general tone entirely its own. The first five centuries of the republic formed the foundation on which the whole superstructure of the Augustan age was built. Literature was the last and least thing for that people to produce, and no indications of valuable fruit appeared until the end of the first Punic war. About two centuries later, Cicero, who became the representative of eloquence, philosophy, and sounding prose, was succeeded by Augustus, under whose auspices passed the golden age of Latin poetry. A hundred and fifty years later, classical literature died with Hadrian; chilled by the baleful influence of his tyrannical successors, the literati who had been patronized by the luxurious court sank into contempt. The only appropriate epithet which cotemporaries employed to characterize the age, was "iron," and it must have been both hard and cold. Sensual enjoyment deteriorated popular taste, and impotent revery took the place of energetic thought in the higher order of minds. Since Cicero, the flourishing period of eloquence had disappeared, and insipid daintiness of language was the only linguistic excellence admired. Seneca referred to this national degradation in literature, when he said, "Wherever you perceive that a corrupt taste pleases, be sure that the morals of the people have degenerated."