M. Schlegel is of opinion, that had the Romans quitted the practice of Greek translation, and composed original tragedies, these would have been of a different cast and species from the Greek productions, and would have been chiefly expressive of profound religious sentiments.—“La tragedie Grecque avoit montré l’homme libre, combattant contre la destinée; la tragedie Romaine eut presenté a nos regards l’homme soumis a la Divinité, et subjugué jusques dans ses penchans les plus intimes, par cette puissance infinie qui sanctifie les ames, qui les enchaine de ses liens, et qui brille de toutes parts, a travers le voile de l’univers[354].” His reasons for supposing that this difference would have existed, are founded on the difference in the mythological systems of the two nations.—“L’ancienne croyance des Romains et les usages qui s’y rapportoient, renfermoient un sens moral, serieux, philosophique, divinatoire et symbolique, qui n’existoit pas dans la religion des Grecs.” There can be no doubt, [pg 221]that the Romans were in public life, during the early periods or their history, a devotedly religious people. Nothing of moment was undertaken without being assured that the gods approved, and would favour the enterprise. The utmost order was observed in every step of religious performance. We see a consul leaving his army, on suspicion of some irregularity, to hold new auspices—an army inspired with sacred confidence and ardour, after appeasing the wrath of the gods, by expiatory lustrations—and a conqueror dedicating at his triumph the temple vowed in the moment of danger. But notwithstanding all this, it so happens, that a spirit of free-thinking is one of the most striking characteristics of the oldest class of Latin poets, particularly the tragedians, and in the fragments of those very plays which were founded on Roman subjects, there is everywhere expressed a bitter contempt for augury, and for the sens divinatoire et symbolique, which they evidently considered as quackery: and the dramatists do not seem to have much scrupled to declare that it was so, or the people to testify approbation of such sentiments. Even the almost impious lines of Ennius, that the gods take no concern in the affairs of mortals, were received, as we learn from Cicero, with vast applause.—“Noster Ennius, qui magno plausu loquitur, assentiente populo—Ego Deûm genus[355],” &c. It is probable, however, that a tragedy purely Roman would have been written in a different spirit from a Greek drama, because the manners of the two people had little resemblance, and because the Roman passion for freedom, detestation of tyranny, and feelings of patriotism, had strong shades of distinction from those of Greece. The self-devotion of the Decii and Curtius, was of a fiercer description than that of Leonidas. It was the headlong contempt, rather than the resolute sacrifice, of existence.
It was probably, too, from a slavish imitation of the Greek dramatists, that the Latin tragedies acquired what is considered one of their chief faults—the introduction of aphorisms and moral sentences, which were not confined to the chorus, the proper receptacle for them, (it being the peculiar office and character of the chorus to moralize,) but were spread over the whole drama in such a manner, that the characters appeared to be vivendi preceptores rather than rei actores. Quintilian characterizes Attius and Pacuvius as chiefly remarkable for this practice.—“Tragœdiæ scriptores Attius et Pacuvius, clarissimi gravitate sententiarum.” A question on this point is started by Hurd,—That since the Greek trage[pg 222]dians moralized so much, how shall we defend Sophocles, and particularly Euripides, if we condemn Attius and Seneca? Brumoy’s solution is, that the moral and political aphorisms of the Greek stage generally contained some apt and interesting allusion to the state of public affairs, easily caught by a quick intelligent audience, and not a dry affected moral without farther meaning, like most of the Latin maxims. In the age, too, of the Greek tragedians, there was a prevailing fondness for moral wisdom; and schools of philosophy were resorted to for recreation as well as for instruction. Moral aphorisms, therefore, were not inconsistent with the ordinary flow of conversation in those times, and would be relished by such as indulged in philosophical conferences, whereas such speculations were not introduced till late in Rome, and were never very generally in vogue.
On the whole, it may be admitted that the bold and animated genius of Rome was well suited to tragedy, and that in force of colouring and tragic elevation the Latin poets presented not a feeble image of their great originals; but unfortunately their judgment was uninformed, and they were too easily satisfied with their own productions. Strength and fire were all at which they aimed, and with this praise they remained contented. They were careless with regard to the regularity or harmony of versification. The discipline of correction, the curious polishing of art, which had given such lustre to the Greek tragedies, they could not bestow, or held the emendation requisite for dramatic perfection as disgraceful to the high spirit and energy of Roman genius[356]:
“Turpem putat inscriptis metuitque lituram[357].”
To originality or invention in their subjects, they hardly ever presumed to aspire, and were satisfied with gathering what they found already produced by another soil in full and ripened maturity.
It may perhaps appear strange that the Romans possessed so little original talents for tragedy, and indeed for the drama in general; but the genius of neighbouring nations, who had equal success in other sorts of poetry, has often been very different in this department of literature. The Spaniards could boast of Lopez de Vega, Cervantes, and Calderon, at a time when the Portuguese had no drama, and were contented with the exhibitions of strolling players from Castile. Scotland [pg 223]had scarcely produced a single play of merit in the brightest age of the dramatic glory of England—the age of Shakspeare, Massinger, and Jonson. While France was delighted with the productions of Racine, Corneille, and Moliere, the modern Italians, as if their ancestors’ poverty of dramatic genius still adhered to them, though so rich and abundant in every other department of literature, scarcely possessed a tolerable play of their own invention, and till the time of Goldoni were amused only with the most slavish imitations of the Latin comedies, the buffooneries of harlequin, or tragedies of accumulated and unmitigated horrors, which excite neither the interest of terror nor of pity.
For all this it may not be easy completely to account; but various causes may be assigned for the want of originality in Roman tragedy, and indeed in the whole Roman drama. The nation was deficient in that milder humanity of which there are so many beautiful instances in Grecian history. From the austere patriotism of Brutus sacrificing every personal feeling to the love of country,—from the frugality of Cincinnatus, and parsimony of the Censor, it fell with frightful rapidity into a state of luxury and corruption without example. Even during the short period which might be called the age of refinement, it wanted a poetical public. To judge by the early part of their history, one would suppose that the Romans were not deficient in that species of sensibility which fits for due sympathy in theatrical incidents. Most of their great revolutions were occasioned by events acting strongly and suddenly on their feelings. The hard fate of Lucretia, Virginia, and the youth Publilius, freed them from the tyranny of their kings, decemvirs, and patrician creditors. On the whole, however, they were an austere, stately, and formal people; their whole mode of life tended to harden the heart and feelings, and there was a rigid uniformity in their early manners, ill adapted to the free workings of the passions. External indications of tenderness were repressed as unbecoming of men whose souls were fixed on the attainment of the most lofty objects. Pity was never to be felt by a Roman, but when it came in the shape of clemency towards a vanquished foe, and tears were never to dim the eyes of those whose chief pride consisted in acting with energy and enduring with firmness. This self-command, which their principles required of them,—this control of every manifestation of suffering in themselves, and contempt for the expression of it in others, tended to exclude tragedy almost entirely from the range of their literature.
Any softer emotions, too, which the Roman people may have once experienced—any sentiments capable of being awakened [pg 224]to tragic pathos, became gradually blunted by the manner in which they were exercised. They had, by degrees, been accustomed to take a barbarous delight in the most wanton displays of human violence, and brutal cruelty. Lions and elephants tore each other in pieces before their eyes; and they beheld, with emotions only of delight, crowds of hireling gladiators wasting their energy, valour, and life, on the guilty arena of a Circus. Gladiatorial combats were first exhibited by Decius and Marcus Brutus, at the funeral of their father, about the commencement of the Punic wars. The number of such entertainments increased with the luxury of the times; and those who courted popular favour found no readier way to gain it than by magnificence and novelty in this species of expense. Cæsar exhibited three hundred pairs of gladiators; Pompey presented to the multitude six hundred lions, to be torn in pieces in the Circus, besides harnessed bears and dancing elephants; and some other candidate for popular favour, introduced the yet more refined barbarity of combats between men and wild animals. These were the darling amusements of all, and chief occupations of many Romans; and those who could take pleasure in such spectacles, must have lost all that tenderness of inward feeling, and all that exquisite sympathy for suffering, without which none can perceive the force and beauty of a tragic drama. The extension, too, of the military power, and the increasing wealth and splendour of the Roman republic, accustomed its citizens to triumphal and gaudy processions. This led to a taste for what, in modern times, has been called Spectacle; and, instead of melting with tenderness at the woes of Andromache, the people demanded on the stage such exhibitions as presented them with an image of their favourite pastimes:—
“Quatuor aut plures aulæa premuntur in horas,
Dum fugiunt equitum turmæ, peditumque catervæ: