Had the Romans, indeed, possessed a literature of their own, when they first grew familiar with the works of the Greek poets, their native productions would no doubt have been improved by the study and imitation of the masterpieces of these more accomplished foreigners; yet they would still have preserved something of a national character. But, unfortunately, when the Romans first became acquainted with the writings of the Greeks, they had not even sown the seeds of learning, so that they remained satisfied with the full-ripened produce imported from abroad. Several critics have indeed remarked in all the compositions of the Romans, and particularly in their tragedies, a peculiar severity and loftiness of thought; but they were all formed so entirely on a Greek model, that their early poetry must be regarded rather as the production of art than genius, and as a spark struck by contact and attrition, [pg 227]rather than a flame spontaneously kindled at the altar of the Muses.
In addition to all this, the Latin poet had no encouragement to invent. He was not required to look abroad into nature, or strike out a path for himself. So far from this being demanded, Greek subjects were evidently preferred by the public—
“Omnes res gestas Athenis esse autumant,
Quo vobis illud Græcum videatur magis[362].”
All the works, then, which have been hitherto mentioned, and which, with exception of the Annals of Ennius, are entirely dramatic, belong strictly to what may be called the Greek school of composition, and are unquestionably the least original class of productions in the Latin, or perhaps any other language. But however little the early dramatists of Rome may have to boast of originality or invention, they are amply entitled to claim an unborrowed praise for the genuine purity of their native style and language.
The style and language of the dramatic writers of the period, on which we are now engaged, seem to have been much relished by a numerous class of readers, from the age of Augustus to that of the Antonines, and to have been equally abhorred by the poets of that time. We have already seen Horace’s indignation against those who admired the Carmen Saliare, or the poems of Livius, and which appears the bolder and more surprising, as Augustus himself was not altogether exempt from this predilection[363]; and we have also seen the satire of Persius against his age, for being still delighted with the fustian tragedies of Attius and the rugged style of Pacuvius—
“Est nunc Brisei quem venosus liber Atti,
Sunt quos Pacuviusque et verrucosa moretur
Antiope ærumnis cor luctificabile fulta.”
In like manner Martial, in his Epigrams, mimicking the obsolete phrases of the ancient dramatists—