The remaining prose writers of this period may be passed over with a brief mention. Atticus. Many of them are little more than names to us, and the works of all are lost. One of the most interesting is Titus Pomponius Atticus (109-32 B. C.), whose biography was written by Cornelius Nepos. He was a wealthy man, who abstained from public life and devoted himself to literature by publishing the works of others and giving friendly aid to literary men as well as by writing. His friendship with Cicero has already been mentioned. His works were historical, the most important being the Annals (Liber Annalis), a chronological sketch of Roman history from the foundation of the city to the year 49 B. C. His other works were biographies or genealogies, and descriptive verses written to accompany portraits of distinguished men.
Minor orators.The orator Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (114-50 B. C.) is chiefly known through Cicero. He was the advocate of Verres when Cicero conducted the prosecution, he spoke against the Manilian Law, which Cicero supported, and in several suits he was engaged by the same client who secured Cicero’s services. Hortensius was the chief representative of the florid and ornamental “Asian” style of oratory at Rome. Among the orators who adopted the simple Attic style, the most important were Marcus Calidius, who was prætor in 57 B. C. and died in 47 B. C.; Gaius Licinius Calvus (87-47 B. C.), who has been mentioned above (page [62]) as a poet; Marcus Junius Brutus, the leader of the conspirators who murdered Cæsar; and Quintus Cornificius, who was also a poet (see page [64]).
Quintus Tullius Cicero (102-43 B. C.), the brother of Marcus, was also a literary man, though far inferior to his brother. Quintus Cicero. When he was Cæsar’s lieutenant in Gaul, in 54 B. C., he wrote several tragedies, apparently translations from the Greek, and he was also the author of annals and of an epic poem on Cæsar’s expedition to Britain. The only writings of Quintus Cicero now existing are three letters to Tiro and one to Marcus Cicero, besides an Essay on Candidature for the Consulship, in the form of a letter to Marcus, written when he was a candidate for that office in 64 B. C. This gives some interesting information about the methods of Roman politicians,but has little literary interest. The first of Marcus Cicero’s Letters to Quintus is a similar treatise on the government of a province, written when Quintus was beginning his third year as proprætor of Asia, 59 B. C. Tiro. Another writer closely connected with Cicero was his freedman and friend Tiro, who wrote Cicero’s biography, made editions of his speeches and letters, and collected his witticisms, besides writing on grammar and inventing a system of shorthand.
The grammatical, theological, and scientific works of Publius Nigidius Figulus, who was prætor in 58 B. C., and died in banishment in 45 B. C., have little to do with literature, and are lost. Writers on special subjects. Nor is it necessary to devote even a brief space to the grammatical and rhetorical works of Aurelius Opilius, Antonius Gnipho, Marcus Pompilius Andronicus, and others, whose teachings helped to inform some of the great writers and orators of the time, but whose works have not been preserved. A philologist, historian, and poet, whose writings were considered important, was Santra, who seems to have been somewhat younger than Varro, but we are now unable to determine wherein their importance consisted. Among the jurists of this period the most distinguished was Servius Sulpicius Rufus, two letters from whom are preserved in Cicero’s correspondence (Ad Familiares, iv, 5, and iv, 12). These give a high idea of his style, but are the only remains of his writings. All branches of knowledge, so far as they existed at that time, were treated by various writers, but a discussion of their lost works has no place in a brief history of literature.
The last years of the republic are made illustrious by the great names of Lucretius, Catullus, Cicero, and Cæsar. In the Augustan age, poetry attained a still greater height of perfection with Virgil and Horace, but the age of Cicero is the golden age of Latin prose.