By these things the state was deeply moved and the face of the city was changed. From the greatest gaiety and wantonness, which long peace had brought forth, suddenly utter sadness came in; people hurried, ran trembling about, had no confidence in any place or man, neither waged war, nor were at peace; each one measured the danger by his own fear.[51]
The beginning of the speech of Marius to the Romans exhibits Sallust’s rhetorical style, his liking for antitheses and for descriptive epithets:
I know, Quirites, that not by the same conduct do most men seek power from you and use it after they have obtained it, that at first they are industrious, humble, and moderate, but afterward pass their lives in sloth and haughtiness. But to me the opposite seems right, for by as much as the entire state is more important than the consulship or the prætorship, with so much greater care ought the former to be administered than these latter to be sought. Nor am I ignorant how much trouble I am taking upon myself at the same time with the greatest honor from you. To make ready for war, and at the same time spare the treasury, to force to military service those whom one does not wish to offend, to care for everything at home and abroad, and to do this among envious, opposing, seditious men, is harder, Quirites, than you think.
Artificial though the style of Sallust is, it is interesting, lively, often concise and vivid. It had no little influence upon the style of subsequent writers, especially upon that of Tacitus, the greatest of Roman historians. We must remember, too, that the Catiline and the Jugurtha were of much less importance than the lost Histories. In this greater and more mature work Sallust may have avoided some of the faults of style that appear in the extant treatises.
A much less interesting writer than Sallust is Cornelius Nepos. Like Catullus and several other authors of this period, he came to Rome from the north. His birthplace was probably Ticinum, on the river Po. Cornelius Nepos. Little is known of his life, which appears to have extended from a little before 100 B. C. to a little after 30 B. C. He was a friend of Catullus and of Cicero’s friend Atticus, probably also of other literary men at Rome. His works were all, with the exception of some love poems, historical and biographical. The Chronica, in three books, treating of universal history, was probably written before 52 B. C. The Exempla, in five books, was a history of Roman manners and customs. Three other works were a Life of Cato (the elder), a Life of Cicero, and a treatise on geography. His latest work, published apparently between 35 and 33 B. C., was a great collection of biographies of distinguished men (De Viris Illustribus), dedicated to Atticus. An addition to the life of Atticus was made between 31 and 27 B. C. This work contained at least sixteen books, and was divided into sections of two books each, so that each section contained one book on Romans and one on foreigners. The sections treated of Kings, Generals, Statesmen, Orators, Poets, Philosophers, Historians, and Grammarians.
Of all the works of Nepos, there remain to us only the book on foreign generals, and from the book on Roman historians the lives of Cato the elder and of Atticus, besides fragments of the letters of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi. Qualities of the works of Nepos. The book on foreign generals contains biographies of twenty Greek generals, a brief sketch of kings who were also generals, and biographies of Hamilcar and Hannibal. Nepos draws his facts from good sources, such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Theopompus, Polybius, and the writings of Hannibal, but is careless and uncritical, and does not employ all the important sources of information on each subject. He makes mistakes in matters of history and geography, arranges his material badly, and gives to trivial anecdotes the space that might better have been devoted to more important matters. His style, though generally clear, is without elegance. The structure of his sentences is simple, and his subject-matter is interesting. For these reasons, rather than on account of any literary merit, his Lives have been much used as a text-book for beginners in Latin.
One of the most productive and learned writers of the age of Cicero was Marcus Terentius Varro, who was born in 116 B. C. at Reate, in the Sabine country. He studied at Rome under Lucius Ælius Stilo, and at Athens under Antiochus of Ascalon. Varro. In 76 B. C. he was in the army in Spain, in 67 B. C. he distinguished himself in the war against the pirates. Perhaps he continued to serve under Pompey in the war with Mithridates. In the civil war he was on the side of Pompey, and was forced to surrender to Cæsar the legion under his command. He was afterward in Epirus, at Corcyra, and at Dyrrhachium. After Cæsar’s victory, Varro accepted the new government and was placed in charge of the public libraries. He was proscribed by Antony after Cæsar’s death, but his life was saved through the devotion of his friends, and he spent his remaining years in peace, continuing his literary activity until the end. He died in his ninetieth year, 27 B. C.
Varro’s works.Varro’s works were many and varied. Some seventy-four titles are known, and the total number of single books amounted to about six hundred and twenty. These included poems, works on grammar, history, geography, law, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics, literary history and education, miscellaneous essays, orations, and letters. Of all these there remain one complete work, On Agriculture (De Re Rustica), in three books, six (v-x) of the original twenty-five books of the treatise On the Latin Language (De Lingua Latino), numerous short fragments of the Menippean Satires (Saturæ Menippeæ), and a few fragments of some of the other works. The collection of maxims that passes under Varro’s name is probably spurious.
Varro’s extant works. The Menippean Satires were written in prose interspersed with verses, in imitation of the works of the Cynic Menippus, who lived about 300 B. C., and probably belong to Varro’s earlier years. They treat of almost all the relations of human life in a satirical vein. The extant verses show some ability in metrical composition and no little humor. It is evident, however, that Varro was not a great poet, and the loss of his other poems is little to be regretted. The three books On Agriculture give, in the form of a dialogue, a systematic treatment of agriculture proper, of stock-raising, and of poultry, game, and fish. The dialogue is stiff, and the arrangement of the different parts of the subject artificial. The work is valuable for the information it contains, but its literary form is unattractive. The extant books of the treatise On the Latin Language are chiefly concerned with the derivation of words and with inflections. Syntax was treated in books xiv-xxv. Varro’s etymologies are often incorrect, and his ideas concerning inflections unscientific; but the work contains much that is of value to the student of the Latin language and of Roman antiquities. The style is dry and often dull. In fact, this is hardly a work of literature, but rather a technical treatise. Varro was a man of great learning and prodigious industry, but not a literary artist. The Antiquitates and the Imagines. Among his lost works the most important were probably the Human and Divine Antiquities (Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum Humanarumque), in forty-one books, and the Portraits (Hebdomades, or Imagines), in fifteen books. The latter work contained brief accounts in prose and verse of seven hundred famous Greeks and Romans, with their portraits. Varro’s works were vast treasure-houses of information, but there is no reason to suppose that they possessed any great literary qualities.