A History of Roman Literature

by Harold North Fowler

The Latin of the Golden Age was a more or less artificial language developed by the genius of the great writers from the common language of every-day life. Changes in Latin. The Latin of the Silver Age was a development from the literary Latin of the Golden Age, not directly from the popular speech. While literary Latin was thus passing through various phases, the popular speech was also developing along its own lines, and by the second century after Christ was very different from the literary Latin of the time as well as from any Latin, whether spoken or written, of the Ciceronian or earlier times. It had already entered upon the course of change which was in the end to lead to the birth of the Romance languages. Fronto, in his desire to infuse new life into the worn-out literary Latin of his day, went back to the writers before Cicero and adopted their words and phrases, at the same time exerting himself to arrange words in unusual order with the intention of giving piquancy to his expression. His precepts and example were followed by others, as, for instance, Gellius, and still more clearly, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus as they appear in their letters to their teacher. But Fronto, although he had great influence for a time, could not turn the stream of progress backward. If literary Latin was to develop anything new, it must be by adopting something from the living speech of the people. This course was followed, in a measure, at least, by Apuleius.

Apuleius (the prænomen Lucius is doubtful) was, like Fronto, an African, though he may have been of Roman descent. Apuleius. He was born probably about 125 A. D., at Madaura, on the borders of Numidia and Gætulia. He was educated at Madaura, Carthage, and Athens, travelled extensively, and was for a time in Rome, where he was employed as an advocate. He married Æmilia Pudentilla, a wealthy widow of Oea, in Africa, and was accused by her relatives of having led her into the marriage by means of magic arts. His defense against this charge is the extant book De Magia (On Magic), also called the Apologia. In its present form the book is a revised and enlarged edition of the speech in court. Apuleius was evidently acquitted, and he became a man of great influence and reputation. He prided himself on his versatility, wrote and spoke both Greek and Latin, and confined himself to no one branch of literature, but was orator, poet, scientist, philosopher, and novelist, without, however, displaying any great originality in any direction. He preferred to call himself a Platonic philosopher, but his chief activity was that of a travelling orator, or sophist, who went from place to place giving public exhibitions of his skill in composing and delivering interesting speeches on all sorts of subjects. He seems to have spent most of his life in Africa, and he held the office of priest of the province (sacerdos provinciæ) at Carthage. He was initiated into the mysteries of Isis and seems to have been one of those who sought in the mystic worship of foreign deities the satisfaction of their religious yearnings which the Roman state religion did not give. He seems to have been opposed to Christianity, though he nowhere mentions it directly. His great reputation and the number of works ascribed to him would seem to indicate that he lived to a good age, but the date of his death is unknown.

The extant works of Apuleius are the Metamorphoses, a novel in eleven books, the Apologia, a book on spirits especially the familiar spirit of Socrates, De Deo Socratis, two books on the doctrines of Plato, De Dogmate Platonis, and a collection of extracts from his speeches entitled Florida. Works of Apuleius. The dialogue Asclepius, the treatise On the World (De Mundo), and the treatise published as the third book on Plato’s teachings, are not by Apuleius. Of these works the most interesting is the novel entitled Metamorphoses, in which are narrated the adventures of a certain Lucius of Corinth, who was changed by magic into an ass, and in that form passed through many vicissitudes and saw and heard many strange things, until he was finally restored to human form by the aid of the goddess Isis, to whose service he afterwards devoted himself. This story is derived from a Greek original which appears in abbreviated form among the writings falsely ascribed to Lucian, under the title Lucius or The Ass. Apuleius amplified his Greek original by inserting nearly twenty stories that have no connection with the plot. These are usually introduced in an unskillful way, interrupting the narrative and destroying the unity of the work, but they are in themselves the most interesting parts of the whole novel. The longest and most famous among them is the charming story of Cupid and Psyche, beautifully rendered by William Morris in his Earthly Paradise. This mystic love tale was derived, like the other tales inserted in the story of Lucius, from a Greek original. It is not an invention of Apuleius, but he inserted it in his novel, and thus preserved it to later times.

The style of Apuleius is not the same in his different works. Everywhere, to be sure, he aims at striking effect by means of unusual words arranged in peculiar order, and of sentences curiously broken up into short rhythmical members, very different in effect from the dignified, sonorous periods of Cicero and other classical writers. The style of Apuleius. But in the Metamorphoses he adopts many expressions from the common speech of the people, whereas in his oratorical and philosophical works he reverts, like Fronto, to the early writers. Apuleius and Fronto, both Africans, are the chief representatives of the elocutio novella, the new rhetoric, which broke with the continuous tradition of classical Latin and tried to infuse new life into Latin literature. Neither Fronto nor Apuleius was a man of great inventive genius. Both imitated the Greek sophists of their time, such as Maximus of Tyre and Ælius Aristides, not only in the subject matter of their discourses, but to some extent in their style; yet the fact that they wrote and spoke in Latin and tried to influence the course of Latin literature gives them an importance not possessed by any of the later Greek sophists except Dio Chrysostom and Lucian. Apuleius was apparently more gifted by nature than Fronto, and his works show a surprising ability in the use of language, which makes up in a measure for the lack of originality in thought. Of his extant works the Metamorphoses is the most important. It not only shows the qualities of the elocutio novella more completely than any other work, but it gives a picture of the life of the times, with its superstitions, loose morals, robberies, friendships, hospitalities, and social amenities. Moreover, it has preserved to us many interesting tales, among them the story of Cupid and Psyche. Owing probably to the supernatural elements in the Metamorphoses and to the fact that he had been accused of magical arts, Apuleius came soon after his death to be regarded as a mighty sorcerer, and as a sorcerer he was associated with Virgil in mediæval times.

While Fronto, Apuleius, and others were practising the elocutio novella in prose, attempts were made to introduce innovations in poetry. Innovations in poetry. Terentianus Maurus, who wrote in verse a handbook on letters, syllables, and metres toward the end of the second century, mentions poetæ novelli, and Diomedes, a grammarian of the latter part of the fourth century, speaks of poetæ neoterici, to whom he ascribes a variety of innovations. The names of several of these poets are mentioned, but too little is known of them to awaken any interest in their personalities. Their innovations seem to have consisted largely of verbal juggling, a remarkable example of which is seen in these lines:

Nereides freta sic verrentes caerula tranant,

Flamine confidens ut Notus Icarium.

Icarium Notus ut confidens flamine, tranant

Caerula verrentes sic freta Nereides.