A History of Roman Literature

by Harold North Fowler

Roman literature, as might be expected after what has just been said, is often not the spontaneous outpouring of literary genius, but the means by which some practical ends or purposes are to be attained. Almost from first to last, the writings of Roman authors have a political purpose, and the influence of political events upon the literature is most marked. Political purpose of Roman writings. Even those kinds of Roman literature which seem at first sight to have the least connection with political matters have nevertheless a political purpose. Plays were written to enhance the splendor of public festivals provided by office holders who were at the same time office seekers and hoped to win the favor of the people by successful entertainments; history was written to teach the proper methods of action for future use or (sometimes) to add to the influence of living leaders of the state by calling to mind the great deeds of their ancestors; epic and lyric poems were composed to glorify important persons at Rome, or at least to prove the right of Rome to the foremost place among the nations by giving her a literature worthy to rank with that of the Greeks.

The development of Roman literature is closely connected with political events, and its three great divisions correspond to the divisions of Roman political history. Divisions of Roman literature. The first or Republican Period extends from the beginning of Roman literature after the first Punic war (240 B. C.) to the battle of Actium in 31 B. C. The second or Augustan Period, from 31 B. C. to 14 A. D., is the period in which the institutions of the republic were transformed to serve the purposes of the monarchy. The “Golden Age” of Roman literature comprises the last part of the Republican Period and the whole Augustan Period, from 81 B. C. to 14 A. D. The third or Imperial Period lasts from 14 A. D. to the beginning of the Middle Ages. The first part of this period, from 14 to 117 A. D., is called the “Silver Age.” In the first period the Romans learn to imitate Greek literature and develop their language until it is capable of fine literary treatment, and in the latter part of this time they produce some of their greatest works, especially in prose. The second period, made illustrious by Horace and Virgil, is the time when Roman poetry reaches its greatest height. The third period is a time of decline, sometimes rapid, sometimes retarded for a while, during which Roman literature shows few great works and many of very slight literary value. Throughout the first and second periods, and even for the most part in the third period, Latin literature is produced almost entirely at Rome, is affected by changes in the city, and reflects the sentiments of the city population. It is therefore proper to speak of Roman literature, rather than Latin literature, for that which interests us is the literature of the city by the Tiber and of the civilization with which the city is identified, rather than works written in the Latin language.

The beginning of a real literature at Rome was made by a foreigner of Greek birth, and naturally took the form of an imitation of Greek works. Elements of native Roman literature. This would undoubtedly have been the case, even if the first professional author had been a native Roman, for the Romans had for some time been in close touch with the Greeks of Italy, and Greek literature presented itself to them as a finished product, calling for their admiration and inciting them to imitate it. Nevertheless there were in existence at Rome in early times materials from which a native literature might have arisen if the Greek influence had not been so strong as to prevent their development. The early Romans sang songs at weddings and at harvest festivals, chanted hymns to the gods, and were familiar with rude popular performances which might have given rise to a native drama. The words of such songs and performances were of course, for the most part at least, rhythmical, but few if any of them were committed to writing until much later times. The art of writing was, however, known to the Romans as early as the sixth century B. C., for the Greek colonies on the coast of Italy must have had trade connections with the Romans at a very early time, and writing was thoroughly familiar to the Greeks by the time Rome was two centuries old.

From early times the Romans kept lists of officials, records of prodigies, lists of the dies fasti, i.e., of the days on which it was lawful to conduct public business, and other simple records. The twelve tables of the laws are said to have been written in 451 and 450 B. C., and these had some influence on Roman prose, for they were the first attempt at connected prose in the Latin language. No doubt other laws and probably also treaties were written in Latin and preserved at an early date. Funeral orations called for some practise in oratory, but probably not for careful preparation, and certainly not for composition in writing in the early days of Rome. Appius Claudius Cæcus. The first Roman speech known to have been written out for publication is the speech delivered in 280 B. C., by the aged Appius Claudius Cæcus, in which he urged the rejection of the terms of peace offered by Pyrrhus. This speech was known and read at Rome for two centuries after the death of its author. A collection of sayings or proverbs was also current under the name of Claudius, and he was actively interested in adapting more perfectly to the Latin language the alphabet which the Romans had received from the Greeks, and in fixing the spelling of Latin words.

All this is, however, not so much literature as the material from which literature might have developed if Rome had been removed from the sphere of Greek influence. Since that was not the case, these first steps toward a national literature led to nothing, though they show that the Romans had some originality, and help us to understand some of the peculiarities of Roman literature as distinguished from its Greek prototype. Still Roman literature is a literature of imitation, and the beginning of it was made by a Greek named Andronicus, who was brought to Rome after the capture of Tarentum in

272 B. C. when he was still a boy. At Rome he was the slave of M. Livius Salinator, whose children he instructed in Greek and Latin. When set free, he took the name of Lucius Livius Andronicus, and continued to teach. L. Livius Andronicus. As there were no Latin books which he could use in teaching, he conceived the idea of translating Homer’s Odyssey into Latin, thereby making the beginning of Latin literature. His translation of the Odyssey was rude and imperfect. Andronicus made no attempt to reproduce in Latin the hexameter verse of Homer, but employed the native Saturnian verse (see page [7]), probably because it seemed to him better fitted to the Latin language than the more stately hexameter. After the first Punic war, at the Ludi Romani in 240 B. C., Andronicus produced and put upon the stage Latin translations of a Greek tragedy and a Greek comedy. In these and his later dramas he retained the iambic and trochaic metres of the originals, and his example was followed by his successors. He also composed hymns for public occasions. Of his works only a few fragments are preserved, hardly more than enough to show that they had little real literary merit. But he had made a beginning, and long before his death, which took place about 204 B. C., his successors were advancing along the lines he had marked out.

Gnæus Nævius, a freeborn citizen of a Latin city in Campania, was the first native Latin poet of importance. Gnæus Nævius. He was a soldier in the first Punic war, at the end of which, while still a young man, he came to Rome, where he devoted himself to poetry. He was a man of independent spirit, not hesitating to attack in his comedies and other verses the most powerful Romans, especially the great family of the Metelli. For many years he maintained his position, but at last the Metelli brought about his imprisonment and banishment, and he died in exile in 199 B. C., at about seventy years of age. His dramatic works were numerous, both tragedies and comedies, for the most part translations and adaptations from the Greek, but alongside of these he produced also plays based upon Roman legends. These were called fabulæ prætextæ or prætextatæ, “plays of the purple stripe,” because the characters wore Roman costumes. In one of these plays, the Romulus (or in two, if the Lupus or “Wolf” is not the Romulus under another title), he dramatized the story of Romulus and Remus, and in another, the Clastidium, the defeat (in 222 B. C.) of the Insubrians by M. Claudius Marcellus and Cn. Cornelius Scipio. In his later years he turned to epic poetry and wrote in Saturnian verse the history of the first Punic war, introduced by an account of the legendary history of Rome from the departure of Æneas for Italy after the fall of Troy. This poem was read and admired for many years, and parts of it were imitated by Virgil in the Æneid. Nævius also wrote other poems, called Satires, on various subjects, partly, but not entirely, in Saturnian metre. Of all these works only inconsiderable fragments remain. They show, however, that Nævius was a poet of real power, and that with him the Latin language was beginning to develop some fitness for literary use. His epitaph, preserved by Aulus Gellius, will serve not only to show the stiff and monotonous rhythm of the Saturnian verse, but also, since it was probably written by Nævius himself, to exhibit his proud consciousness of superiority:

Immórtalés mortáles sí forét fas flére

Flerént divaé Caménae Naéviúm poétam.