During this period the Romans had nothing which can properly be termed, or which would now be considered as poetry—the shape in which literature usually first expands amongst a rude people. The verses which have come down to us under the character of Sibylline oracles, are not genuine. There probably at one time existed a few rude lines uttered by pretended prophetesses, and which were doubtless a political instrument, usefully employed in a state subject to popular commotions. The book delivered to Tarquin, and which was supposed to contain those ancient oracles, perished amid the conflagration in the Capitol, during the civil wars of Marius and Sylla. Even those collected in Greece, and the municipal states of Italy, in order to supply their place, and which were deposited in the temple of Apollo, on Mount Palatine, were burned by Stilicho in the reign of the Emperor Honorius. There is still extant, however, the hymn sung by the Fratres Arvales, a college of priests instituted by Romulus, for the purpose of walking in procession through the fields in the commencement of spring, and imploring from the gods a blessing on agriculture. Of a similar description were the rude Saturnian verses prescribed by Numa, and which were chaunted by the Salian priests, who carried through the streets those sacred shields, so long accounted the Palladium of Rome.
About the end of the fourth century from the building of the city, when it was for the first time afflicted with a plague, the Senate having exhausted without effect their own super[pg 40]stitious ceremonies, and run over the whole round of supplications, decreed that histrions or players should be summoned from Etruria, in order to appease the wrath of the gods by scenic representations. These chiefly exhibited rude dances and gesticulations, performed to the sound of the flute[70]. There was no dialogue or song, but the pantomime did not consist merely of unmeaning gestures: It had a certain scope, and represented a connected plot or story[71]; but what kind of action or story was represented, is utterly unknown. This whimsical sort of expiation seems to have attracted the fancy of the Roman youths, who imitated the Etruscan actors; but they improved on the entertainment, by rallying each other in extemporary and jocular lines. The Fescennine verses, originally employed in Etruria at the harvest-homes of the peasants, were about the same period applied by the Romans to marriage ceremonies and public diversions.
There were also songs of triumph in a rude measure, which were sung by the soldiers at the ovations of their leaders. As early as the time of Romulus, when that chief returned triumphant to Rome after his victory over the Ceninenses and Antemnates, his soldiers followed him in military array, singing hymns in honour of their gods, and extemporary verses in praise of their commander[72]. Of this description, too, were the Pæans, with which the victorious troops accompanied the chariot of Cincinnatus, after he subdued the Equi[73], and with which they celebrated a spirited enterprize of Cossus, a tribune of the soldiers[74]. Sometimes these laudatory songs were seasoned with coarse jokes and camp jests, like those introduced at the triumph of C. Claudius, and of M. Livius[75].
The triumphal hymns were not altogether confined to the ceremony performed on the streets of Rome. Cicero informs us, on the authority of Cato’s Origines, that at feasts and entertainments, it was usual for the guests to celebrate the praises of their native heroes to the sound of the flute[76]. Valerius Maximus says, that the verses were sung by the older guests, in order to excite the youth to emulation[77]; and Varro, [pg 41]that they were chaunted by ingenuous youths[78]. The difference, however, between the two authors, is easily reconciled. The former speaks of the original composition of these ballads[79], while Varro, though the passage is imperfect, seems to refer to a later period, when they were brought out anew for the entertainment of the guests. Valerius talks of them as poems or ballads of considerable extent. It was many generations, however, before the age of Cato, that this practice existed; and by the time of Cicero, these national and heroic productions, if they ever had been reduced to writing, were no longer extant[80]. This is all that can be collected concerning these legends, from the ancient Roman writers, who had evidently very imperfect notions and information on the subject. Niebuhr, however, and M. Schlegel, seem as well acquainted with their contents as we are with Chevy Chase, and talk as if these precious relics were lying on their shelves, or as if they had been personally present at the festivals where they were recited. They expressed, it seems, feelings purely patriotic—they contained no inconsiderable admixture of the marvellous—but even the propensity for what was incredible was exclusively national in its character—and the Roman fablers indulged themselves in the creation of no wonders, which did not redound in some measure to the honour of their ancestors. They were founded on the oldest traditions concerning the kings and heroes of the infant city, and the establishment of the republican form of government. “The fabulous birth of Romulus,” says Schlegel, “the rape of the Sabine women, the most poetical combat of the Horatii and Curiatii, the pride of Tarquin, the misfortunes and death of Lucretia, and the establishment of liberty by the elder Brutus—the wonderful war with Porsenna, and steadfastness of Scævola, the banishment of Coriolanus, the war which he kindled against his country, the subsequent struggle of his feelings, and the final triumph of his patriotism at the all-powerful intercession of his mother;—these and the like circumstances, if they be examined from the proper point of view, cannot fail to be considered as relics and fragments of the ancient heroic traditions and heroic poems of the Romans[81].” Niebuhr, not contented with insulated ballads, has [pg 42]imagined the existence of a grand and complete Epopee, commencing with the accession of Tarquinius Priscus, and ending with the battle of Regillus[82]. This is a great deal more information than Cicero or Varro could have afforded us on the subject.
However numerous or extensive these ballads may have been, they soon sunk into oblivion; and in consequence of the overpowering influence of Greek authors and manners, they never formed the groundwork of a polished system of national poetry. The manifold witcheries of the Odyssey, and the harmony of the noble Hexameter, made so entire a conquest of the fancy and ears of the Romans, as to leave no room for an imitation, or even an affectionate preservation, of the ancient poems of their country, and led them, as we shall soon see, exclusively to adopt in their stead, the thoughts, the recollections, and the poetry of the Greeks. Cicero, in his Tusculan Disputations, mentions a poem by Appius Claudius Cæcus, who flourished in the fifth century of Rome[83]; but he does not say what was the nature or subject of this production, except that it was Pythagorean; and this is the solitary authentic notice transmitted to us of the existence of any thing which can be supposed to have been a regular or continued poem, during the first five centuries that elapsed from the building of the city.
Since, then, we can discover, during this period, nothing but those feeble dawings of dramatic, satiric, and heroic poetry, which never brightened to a perfect day, the only history of Roman literature which can be given during the long interval, consists in the progress and improvement of the Latin language. In the course of these five centuries, it was extremely variable, from two causes.—1st, Although their policy in this respect afterwards changed, one of the great principles of aggrandizement among the Romans in their early ages, was incorporating aliens, and admitting them to the rights of citizens. Hence, there was a constant influx to Rome of stranger tribes; and the dissonance within its walls was probably greater than had yet been any where heard since the memorable confusion at Babel.—2d, The Latin was merely a spoken language, or at least had not received stability by literary composition—writing at that time being confined, (in consequence of the want of materials for it,) to treaties, or short columnar inscriptions. So remarkable was the fluctuation produced by these causes, even during a very short period, that Polybius, speaking of a treaty concluded [pg 43]between the Carthaginians and Romans in the 245th Year of the City, during the Consulship of Publius Valerius and Marcus Horatius, declares, that the language used in it was so different from the Latin spoken in his time, that the most learned Romans could not explain its text[84].
Of this changeable tongue, the earliest specimen extant, and which is supposed to be as ancient as the time of Romulus, is the hymn chaunted by the Fratres Arvales, the college of priests above-mentioned, who were called Fratres, from the first members of the institution being the sons of Acca Laurentia, the nurse of Romulus. This song was inscribed, during the time of the Emperor Heliogabalus[85], on a stone, which was discovered on opening the foundations of the Sacristy at St Peter’s, in the year 1778. It is in the following words:—
“Enos Lases juvate,
Neve luerve Marmar sinis incurrer in pleoris.
Satur fufere Mars: limen sali sta berber: