Plate III. VIEW OF SPOLETO
What is the cause of the eclipse which Latin studies are still suffering? One cause, perhaps, is to be found in the misuse of the language by the pedagogues and philologists of the past in the school and the examination-room. But another cause is the recent discovery of the true Greek civilisation, whereby scholars have come to realise that Latin culture is in the main only secondary and derivative. At the present moment we are passing through a stage of revolt against classicism, convention, and artificiality. We know that Greek culture, truly discerned, is neither “classic” nor conventional nor artificial, but Latinism is still apparently subject to all these terms. The Latinity of Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Lucan, and the greater part of the giants, in fact all the Latin of our schools is—what Greek is not—really and truly classical. They were not writing as they spoke and thought. They had studied the laws of expression in the school of rhetoric, and on pain of being esteemed barbarous they wrote under those laws. Style was their aim. Their very language was subject to arbitrary laws of syntax and grammar. The English schoolboy who approaches Cicero by way of the primer’s rules and examples is entering into Latin literature by much the same road as the Romans themselves. The Romans were grammarians by instinct and orators by education. Thus Latin is fitted by nature for schoolroom use, and for all who would learn and study words, which after all are thoughts, Latin is the supremely best training-ground. The language marches by rule. Rules govern the inflexions and the concords of the words. The periods are built up logically and beautifully in obedience to law. Latin, of all languages, least permits translation. You have only to translate Cicero to despise him.
In the world of letters, as in that of politics, there are the virtues of order and the virtues of liberty. Our own eighteenth century was logical in mind because it had to clothe its thoughts in a language of precision. But even Pope and Addison are rude barbarians compared with Vergil and Cicero. De gustibus non est disputandum—let some prefer the plain roast and others the made dish. Latin may be an acquired taste, but no sort of excellence is mortal. Latin will come into its own again along with Dryden and Congreve, along with patches and periwigs. Meanwhile it must be a very dull soul who is unmoved by the grandeur of Roman history, the triumphant march of the citizen legions, the dogged patriotism which resisted Hannibal to the death, and the pageantry and splendour of the Empire. One must be blind not to admire the massive strength of her ruined monuments, arches, bridges, roads, and aqueducts. And one must be deaf indeed not to enjoy the surges of Ciceronian oratory or the rolling music of the Vergilian hexameter. Greece may claim all the charm of the spring-time of civilisation, but Rome in all her works has a majesty which must command, if not love, wonder and respect. Mommsen justly remarks that “it is only a pitiful narrow-mindedness that will object to the Athenian that he did not know how to mould his State like the Fabii and Valerii, or to the Roman that he did not learn to carve like Phidias and to write like Aristophanes.”
Under the flowing toga of Latinism the natural Roman is concealed from our view. It is possible that the progress of research and excavation may to some extent rediscover him and distinguish him, as it has already done for his Hellenic brother, from the polished courtiers of the Augustan age who have hitherto passed as typical products of Rome.
It is astonishing how little we really know of Rome and the Romans after all that has been said and written about them. The ordinary natural Roman is a complete stranger to us. It is certain that he did not live in luxury like Mæcenas, but how did he live and what sort of man was he? We can discern that his language was not in the least like that of Cicero. It appears that he neither dreaded nor disliked emperors like Nero, as did Tacitus and Juvenal. As for his religion, much has already been done, and more still remains to be done, to show that he did not really worship the Hellenised Olympians who pass in literature for his gods. Recent scholarship has done something to reveal to us the presence of a real national art in Rome, or at any rate of an artistic development on Italian soil which made visible steps of its own out of Hellenic leading-strings. Thus there is some hope that the real Roman will not always elude us. But for the present in the whole domain of art, religion, thought, and literature, Greek influence has almost obliterated the native strain. For the present, therefore, we must be content to regard Roman civilisation as mainly derivative, and our principal object will be to see how Rome fulfilled her task as the missionary of Greek thought. This object, together with the unsatisfactory nature of the records, must excuse the haste with which I have passed over the earlier stages of Roman republican history. It is obvious that the first three centuries of our era will be the important part of Roman history from this point of view. Also, if the progress of civilisation be our main study, nothing in Roman history before the beginning of the second century B.C. can come directly under our attention. When the Romans first came into contact with the Greeks they were still barbarians, with no literature, no art, and very little industry or commerce. The earlier periods will only be introductory.
Italy and the Roman
The pleasant land of Italy needs no description here. Our illustrations[2] will recall its sunny hill-sides, its deep shadows, its vineyards and olive-yards. But there are one or two features of its geography which have a bearing upon the history of Rome.
To begin with, the geographical unity of the Italian peninsula is more apparent than real. The curving formation of the Apennines really divides Italy into four parts—(1) the northern region, mainly consisting of the Po valley, a fertile plain which throughout the Republican period was scarcely considered as part of Italy at all, and was, in fact, inhabited by barbarian Gauls; (2) the long eastern strip of Adriatic coast, an exposed waterless and harbourless region, with a scanty population, which hardly comes into ancient history; (3) the southern region of Italy proper, hot, fertile, and rich in natural harbours, so that it very early attracted the notice of the Greek mariners, and was planted with luxurious and populous cities long before Rome came into prominence; and (4) the central plain facing westward, in which the river Tiber and the city of Rome occupy a central position. Etruria and Latium together fill the greater part of it. Its width is only about eighty miles, so that there is no room for any considerable rivers to develop, and, in fact, there are only four rivers of any importance in a coast-line of more than 300 miles. We may call the whole of this region a plain in distinction from the Apennine highlands; but it is, of course, plentifully scattered with hills high enough to provide an impregnable citadel, and to this day crowned with huddled villages.