O strand of Formiae, sweet with genial air,
Who art Apollinaris' chosen home
When, taking flight from his task-mistress Rome,
The tired man doffs his load of troubling care.
* * * * *
Here the sea's bosom quivers in the wind;
'Tis no dead calm, but sweet serenity,
Which bears the painted boat before the breeze,
As though some maid at pains the heat to ban,
Should waft a genial zephyr with her fan.
No fisher needs to buffet the high seas,
But whiles from bed or couch his line he casts,
May see his captive in the toils below.
* * * * *
But, niggard Rome, thou giv'st how grudgingly!
What the year's tale of days at Formiae
For him who tied by work in town must stay?
Stewards and lacqueys, happy your employ,
Your lords prepare enjoyment, you enjoy.
A. E. STREET.
These are surely the most beautiful scazons[664] in the Latin tongue; the metre limps no more; a master-hand has wrought it to exquisite melody; the quiet undulation of the sea, the yacht's easy gliding over its surface, live before us in its music. Even more delicate is the homelier description of the gardens of Julius Martialis on the slopes of the Janiculum. It is animated by the sincerity that never fails Martial when he writes to his friend:
Iuli iugera pauca Martialis hortis Hesperidum beatiora longo Ianiculi iugo recumbunt: lati collibus imminent recessus et planus modico tumore vertex caelo perfruitur sereniore et curvas nebula tegente valles solus luce nitet peculiari: puris leniter admoventur astris celsae culmina delicata villae. hinc septem dominos videre montes et totam licet aestimare Romam, Albanos quoque Tusculosque colles et quodcumque iacet sub urbe frigus (iv. 64).
Martial's few acres, e'en more blest
Than those famed gardens of the West,
Lie on Janiculum's long crest;
Above the slopes wide reaches hang recessed.
The level, gently swelling crown
Breathes air from purer heavens blown;
When mists the hollow valleys drown
'Tis radiant with a light that's all its own.
The clear stars almost seem to lie
On the wrought roof that's built so high;
The seven hills stand in majesty,
And Rome is summed in one wide sweep of eye.
Tusculan, Alban hills unfold,
Each nook which holds its store of cold.
A. E. STREET.
Such a picture is unsurpassed in any language.[665] Statius, with all his brilliance, never came near such perfect success; he lacks sincerity; he can juggle with words against any one, but he never learned their truest and noblest use.
There are many other themes beside landscape painting in which the Silvae of Statius challenge comparison with the epigrams of Martial. Both use the same servile flattery to the emperor, both celebrate the same patrons,[666] both console their noble friends for the loss of relatives, or favourite slaves; both write propemptica. Even in the most trivial of these poems, those addressed to the emperor, Statius is easily surpassed by his humbler rival. His inferiority lies largely in the fact that he is more ambitious. He wrote on a larger scale. When the infinitely trivial is a theme for verse, the epigrammatist has the advantage of the author of the more lengthy Silvae. Perfect neatness vanquishes dexterous elaboration. Moreover, if taste can be said to enter into such poems at all, Martial errs less grossly. Even Domitian—one might conjecture—may have felt that Statius' flattery was 'laid on with a trowel'. Martial may have used the same instrument, but had the art to conceal it.[667] There are even occasions where his flattery ceases to revolt the reader, and where we forget the object of the flattery. In a poem describing the suicide of a certain Festus he succeeds in combining the dignity of a funeral laudatio with the subtlest and most graceful flattery of the princeps:
indignas premeret pestis cum tabida fauces,
inque suos voltus serperet atra lues,
siccis ipse genis flentes hortatus amicos
decrevit Stygios Festus adire lacus.
nec tamen obscuro pia polluit ora veneno
aut torsit lenta tristia fata fame,
sanctam Romana vitam sed morte peregit
dimisitque animam nobiliore via.
hanc mortem fatis magni praeferre Catonis
fama potest; huius Caesar amicus erat (i. 78).
When the dire quinsy choked his guiltless breath,
And o'er his face the blackening venom stole,
Festus disdained to wait a lingering death,
Cheered his sad friends and freed his dauntless soul.
No meagre famine's slowly-wasting force,
Nor hemlock's gradual chillness he endured,
But like a Roman chose the nobler course,
And by one blow his liberty secured.
His death was nobler far than Cato's end,
For Caesar to the last was Festus' friend.
HODGSON (slightly altered).
The unctuous dexterity of Statius never achieved such a master-stroke.
So, too, in laments for the dead, the superior brevity and simplicity of Martial bear the palm away. Both poets bewailed the death of Glaucias, the child favourite of Atedius Melior. Statius has already been quoted in this connexion; Martial's poems on the subject,[668] though not quite among his best, yet ring truer than the verse of Statius. And Martial's epitaphs and epicedia at their best have in their slight way an almost unique charm. We must go to the best work of the Greek Anthology to surpass the epitaph on Erotion (v. 34):