A life of literary or artistic pursuits, was never in high estimation among the Romans. This is indicated by the frequent occasions Cicero employs to apologize for occupations which, at Athens, throughout her glorious career, so far from requiring excuse, would have been esteemed the strongest claim to popular regard. Virgil, too, in some of his most exquisite lines of the sixth Æneid, hesitates not to speak slightingly of the arts, and even of oratory; and to represent no pursuit as becoming the majesty of a Roman, but to hold the sceptre, dictate laws, to spare the prostrate, and humble the proud. Horace had a true feeling for heroic greatness, and would have produced writings worthy of himself, probably, had the rare gifts of his republican youth been exercised under the same auspices in their maturity. When the commonwealth was overthrown, he may have suffered many bitter regrets. Some charitably believe that the excess of his mirth is only the mask of unavailing grief. A happier inspiration occasionally emits jets of patriotic flame, but in general all the native fires of his genius were subdued to the base office of illuminating a palace he had too much reason to despise. Inclination, not less than conviction, may have prompted him to become the defender of free speech in perpetual support of democratic progress; but policy dictated that he should write as a royalist, and glorify the empire of force. When the great Cicero was sacrificed in a fitful effort again to be free, Horace was too cowardly and recreant to indite one word in his behalf, or even to mention his name. Imperial tyrants trampled on all the germs of free thought, till nothing but a barren field remained, and then such creatures as Lucan, once a professed republican, sank into the hireling's wealth, and splendidly crouched at Nero's feet. He found nothing near and national to commend, and so he praised the superseded Cato, with other heroes yet more remote. Persius pursued the same low trade, and completed the picture of an age thoroughly corrupt.
Almost the only redeeming fact in the history of Roman literature was, that the most elevated individuals took an active part in its early culture, and co-operated with all subordinate endeavors to perfect its merit. Hence the air of majesty stamped upon their published thought, and which wears an aspect of greatness in contrast with the preceding age of beauty. Despite the servility of Roman writers, their works obtained an appearance of dignity and worth, by forming the great point of union between the ancient and the modern world. That which most atones for innumerable defects, is their one great and pervading idea of Rome itself; Rome so wonderful in her energy and laws, so colossal in her conquests and crimes. Something of this independent dignity appears in even the most slavish imitator, and relieves the otherwise ignoble traits of his character. But this stamp of grandeur was impressed on her literature only while Rome was extending her dominion over the world, impelled by an irresistible confidence in the ascendency of her victorious star. Rough, obdurate, and almost uncivilized, Rome disdained the practice and despised the advantages of commerce. The mother-country possessed no arts of refinement to export to the countries she conquered, or the colonies she planted; so far from producing an overplus to supply the destitute, she often dispossessed those who were more refined, and who were in a measure themselves enriched. When Greece submitted to Roman power, she obtained a more illustrious triumph over rustic ignorance and military force, through the influence of literature, science, and the elegant arts.
As western Asia, from the earliest times, was the great highway of culture to Greece, so the Ægean islands and the western colonies were the intermediate steps to Roman supremacy, even to the Atlantic coast. The sphere of civilization was vastly developed by the indefatigable attempts of Alexander to mix all the eastern nations; but the unity which he failed to create under the spiritual influence of Greece was infinitely extended and established through the agency of material Rome. At the same time their martial influence was rising, the greatness of their character, strictness of their laws, love of their country, and high opinion of themselves common to that nation, rose with correlative might. But these more noble characteristics changed as soon as universal conquest was reached, and their fall was as humiliating as their ascent had been sublime. The empire was quickly dissolved, because, inveterate in national vanity, Rome refused to be instructed by defeat, but construed fatal disasters into occasions for vain hope. From the accession of Augustus to Theodosius the Great, A.D. 395, every national incident was a manifestation of apparent decay; but in reality, at the same time, there was gathering underneath a deeper and purer tide of civilization, in due time to burst forth with redeeming power yet further west.
Rome was the second link between the ancient and modern world. In her career of conquest, she garnered all wealth by force; and when she fell, it was at the exact moment when her hoarded treasures would best promote the fortunes of mankind. The eagles of Rome soared with talons and pinions wet with gore, but the seeds of great institutions were thus made the more firmly to adhere, and they bore them over Apennines and the Alps. They were most signally the instruments of Providence for benefitting succeeding nations in literature and religion. By the consequences which ensued upon Roman conquests, the way was cleared for the most auspicious propagation of Christianity; and the suddenness of her fall, as clearly as the savageness of her ascendancy, proved that the wisest scheme of selfishness carries within itself the guaranty of utter dissolution. Into the richness of her ruins were cast the seeds of intellectual renovation, and posterity was made to reap rich harvests from fields plowed by chariots of war and fructified with human blood. That mighty nation was predestined to be a transporter, and not a producer, of ennobling worth; and it was wisely ordered that she should possess no native production of sufficient splendor to make her regardless of those that might come in her way, and whose superior worth she might appropriate. Cicero and Pliny, with their literary associates, were not propounders of new theories, but transmitters and commentators of the old. Thus every age has been conserved, without accumulating a burden too great; and the mighty aggregate, fused into an appropriate adaptation to future uses, has come down to us. If a thousand tributaries, from every direction, were made to pour their currents into one great central reservoir, it was with the divine intention, when the fitting epoch arrived, to empty all the mighty tide towards the western main, and by that means, at a later era, to infuse into a prolific soil all the wisdom of the ancient world.
Greece carried individual culture to the highest pitch, but never established social relations on a sufficiently solid basis. It was not her mission to combine subjugated nations into a consolidated union, as the terrible Peloponnesian war and the lamentable history of Alexander and his successors but too sadly proved. To work out the principle of association on a broad and enduring scale was a task destined for the Roman race, and sublimely was it performed. Through the protracted process of conflict between contrasted nations, and their homogeneous assimilation, the great centre of progressive culture was removed another step from the East. More skillful in the art of establishing durable political ties, Rome was soon surrounded by a social net-work which embraced all the historic races. It was a vast empire which recombined preceding epochs, and presented the spectacle of the most brilliant interlacing of universal associations the world has ever seen.
The first extensive library at Rome, was that of Paulus Æmilus, taken B.C. 167, from Perses, king of Macedon. The next, and the largest in the world, was collected by the Saracens at Cordova, in Spain. Books, like every other civilizing element, followed the sun. Before Carthage perished, Greek was widely known along the Mediterranean shores. Hannibal wrote the history of his wars in that language, and through the same luminous medium were the maritime adventures of Carthaginian navigators described. But as the conquering power of Rome stamped all nationalities with its image and superscription, so the superinduction of their language extinguished the living idioms of many tribes, or absorbed into itself all the sources of expansive and formative life which they contained. When sufficiently matured, the Latin language was spread over a much larger surface of the world than the Grecian, even before the seat of empire was removed to Byzantium. The diffusion of a tongue so strongly endowed, and imbued with such prolific means of promoting national union, tended powerfully toward making mankind human, by furnishing them with a common country. To this end, Cincinnatus lived in democratic simplicity, tilling his own soil, and yet nobler than a lord; he was as competent as he was ready for any public service, but first bound the brightest laurel to the plow. Splendors multiplied and power increased, while the elder Scipio lay in the bosom of Ennius, Lælius was flattered by the rumor of his helping Terence, and Virgil brightened the purple of Rome's great emperor. Then imperial eagles and mailed legions executed the commands of a single individual on the seven hills, and the strength which had been created by the republic enabled a tyrant like Tiberius to rivet the chains of the world. The era of exalted literary worth, imperfect at the best, continued only about one century, and thenceforth till the extinction of the language, the progress of corruption was rapid and fatal. After the reign of Trajan, all healthful development ceased. In the fourth century, such works as those of Ammianus Marcellinus, Bœthius Fronto, Lactantius, and Symmachus, proved that the utmost degradation was not yet attained, but these were the last vital utterances of the Roman tongue. A few years after, and the greater part of the language was either foreign or provincial. Pure Latin was forever dead.
It is painful to contemplate the countless battles and destructive wars which so becloud and disfigure the Augustan age. But we should recollect that the annals of past nations, with all their endless and apparently useless contests, are but motes in the sun compared with the great whole of human destiny. Amid the thickest gloom, Tacitus, with searching eye, fathomed the mission of his age, and saw that the great system of pacification which Octavius Cæsar promised to the nations was delusive, and that there were yet more desolating revolutions to transpire before heaven's highest boon of freedom could be enjoyed. The one, imperishable, ever-progressive, and all-devouring city, Rome, was to gather all oriental wealth to herself; and then, as she had taken the sword to reap with, so should the sword become the grand instrument of distribution, and the great West be sown with the spoils. The first repulse was at Numantia, in Spain, when Scipio saw Roman invincibility broken, and the hour sounded when Rome herself must take blows as well as give. Gaul cost her fifteen stubborn battles and a most costly effusion of blood, which were afterward repaid by perpetual levies made on Italian territory and wealth. At this moment, Celts are masters in her capital. Cimbri and Teutones, with wives and children, descended upon the prepared field in whole tribes, directly the time had come for salutary amalgamation in view of prospective destinies; and the knell of the Augustan age resounded from afar, when Varus was defeated by the German Arminius in his native woods.
CHAPTER II.
ART.
Roman genius was somewhat inventive, but it was exercised only in pandering to sensual gratification. There the plow, the pen, and the chisel were all in the hands of slaves. No free-souled Plato enchanted appreciative throngs in the umbrageous walks of a Latin Academy, nor was there a Demosthenes to wave the stormy democracy into a calm from some sunny hill-side. Very few artists of Roman blood possessed talents which might have been symbolized by a precious ring on their finger, such as Pliny says was worn by Pyrrhus, in which nature had produced the figure of Apollo and the nine muses. At their birth, the gods of power may have descended to offer gifts, but it is certain the gentler graces did not attend.