History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. I

by John Colin Dunlop

With regard to the Romans, in particular, they are allowed to have been a civilized nation, powerfully constituted, and wisely governed, previous to the existence of any author in the Latin language. Their character was formed before their literature was created: their moral and patriotic dignity, indeed, had reached its highest perfection, in the age in which their literature commenced—the age of Lælius and Africanus. Except in the province of the drama, it always continued a patrician attribute; and though intellectual improvement could not have facilitated the inroads of vice and guilty ambition, it certainly proved inadequate to stem the tide of moral corruption, to mitigate the sanguinary animosities of faction, or to retard the establishment of despotism.

Literary history is, secondly, of importance, as being the index of the character and condition of a people—as holding up a mirror, which reflects the manners and customs of remote or ancient nations. The less influence, however, which literature exercises, the less valuable will be its picture of life and manners. It must also be admitted, that from a separate cause, the early periods, at least, of Roman literature, possess not in this point of view any peculiar attractions. When literature is indigenous, as it was in Greece, where authors were guided by no antecedent system, and their compositions were shaped on no [pg x]other model than the objects themselves which they were occupied in delineating, or the living passions they portrayed, an accurate estimate of the general state of manners and feeling may be drawn from works written at various epochs of the national history. But, at Rome, the pursuit of literature was neither a native nor predominant taste among the people. The Roman territory was always a foreign soil for letters, which were not the produce of national genius, but were naturalized by the assiduous culture of a few individuals reared in the schools of Greece. Indeed, the early Roman authors, particularly the dramatic, who, of all others, best illustrate the prevalent ideas and sentiments of a nation, were mere translators from the Greek. Hence, those delineations, which at first view might appear to be characteristic national sketches, are in fact the draught of foreign manners, and the mirror of customs which no Roman adopted, or of sentiments in which, perhaps, no Roman participated.

Since, then, the literature of Rome exercised but a limited influence on the conduct of its citizens, and as it reciprocally reflects but a partial light on their manners and institutions, its history must, in a great measure, consist of biographical sketches of authors—of critical accounts of their works—and an examination of the influence which these works have exercised on modern literature. The authors of Rome were, in their characters, and the events of their lives, more interesting than the writers of any ancient or modern land. The authors who flourished during the existence of the Roman Republic, were Cato the Censor, Cicero, and Cæsar; men who (independently of their literary claims to celebrity) were unrivalled in their own age and country, and have scarcely been surpassed [pg xi]in any other. I need not here anticipate those observations which the works of the Roman authors will suggest in the following pages. Though formed on a model which has been shaped by the Greeks, we shall perceive through that spirit of imitation which marks all their literary productions, a tone of practical utility, derived from the familiar acquaintance which their writers exercised with the business and affairs of life; and also that air of nationality, which was acquired from the greatness and unity of the Roman republic, and could not be expected in literary works, produced where there was a subdivision of states in the same country, as in Greece, modern Italy, Germany, and Britain. We shall remark a characteristic authority of expression, a gravity, circumspection, solidity of understanding, and dignity of sentiment, produced partly by the moral firmness that distinguished the character of the Romans, their austerity of manners, and tranquillity of temper, but chiefly by their national pride, and the exalted name of Roman citizen, which their authors bore. And, finally, we shall recognise that love of rural retirement which originated in the mode of life of the ancient Italians, and was augmented by the pleasing contrast which the undisturbed repose and simple enjoyments of rural existence presented to the bustle of an immense and agitated capital. In the last point of view that has been alluded to—the influence which these works have exercised on modern letters—it cannot be denied that the literary history of Rome is peculiarly interesting. If the Greeks gave the first impulse to literature, the Romans engraved the traces of its progress deeper on the world. “The earliest writers,” as has been justly remarked, “took possession of the most striking objects for description, and the most probable occurrences for [pg xii]fiction, and left nothing to those that followed, but transcriptions of the same events, and new combinations of the same images[6].” The great author from whom these reflections are quoted, had at one time actually “projected a work, to show how small a quantity of invention there is in the world, and that the same images and incidents, with little variation, have served all the authors who have ever written[7].” Had he prosecuted his intention, he would have found the notion he entertained fully confirmed by the history both of dramatic and romantic fiction; he would have perceived the incapacity of the most active and fertile imagination greatly to diversify the common characters and incidents of life, which, on a superficial view, one might suppose to be susceptible of infinite combinations; he would have found, that while Plautus and Terence servilely copied from the Greek dramatists, even Ariosto scarcely diverged in his comedies from the paths of Plautus.

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But whatever may be the advantages or imperfections of a literary subject in its own nature, it is evident that it can never be treated with effect or utility, unless sufficient materials exist for compilation. Unfortunately, there was no historian of Roman literature among the Romans themselves. Many particulars, however, with regard to it, as also judgments on productions which are now lost, may be collected from the writings of Cicero; and many curious remarks, as well as amusing anecdotes, may be gathered from the works of the latter Classics; as Pliny’s Natural History, the Institutes of Quintilian, the Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, and the Saturnalia of Macrobius.

Among modern authors who have written on the subject of Roman literature, the first place is unquestionably due to Tiraboschi, who, though a cold and uninteresting critic, is distinguished by soundness of judgment and labour of research. The first and second volumes of his great work, Della Letteratura Italiana, are occupied with the subject of Roman literature; and though not executed with the same ability as the portion of his literary history relating to modern Italy, they may safely be relied on for correctness of facts and references.

The recent French work of Schoell, entitled, Histoire Abregée de la Litterature Romaine, is extremely succinct and unsatisfactory on the early periods of Roman literature. Though consisting of four volumes, the author, at the middle of the first volume of the book, has advanced as far as Virgil. It is more complete in the succeeding periods, and, like his Histoire de la Litterature Grecque, is rather a history of the decline, than of the progress and perfection of literature.

A number of German works, (chiefly, however, bibliographical,) have lately appeared on the subject of Roman literature. I regret, that from possessing but a recent and limited acquaintance with the language, I have not been able to draw so extensively as might have been wished from these sources of information.

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The composition of the present volumes was not suggested by any of the works which I have mentioned on the subject of Roman literature; but by the perusal of an elegant, though somewhat superficial production, on “The Civil and Constitutional History of Rome, from its Foundation to the Age of [pg xiv]Augustus[8].” It occurred to me that a History of Roman Literature, during the same period, might prove not uninteresting. There are three great ages in the literary history of Rome—that which precedes the æra of Augustus—the epoch which is stamped with the name of that emperor—and the interval which commenced immediately after his death, and may be considered as extending to the destruction of Rome. Of these periods, the first and second run into each other with respect to dates, but the difference in their spirit and taste may be easily distinguished. Although Cicero died during the triumvirate of Octavius, his genius breathes only the spirit of the Republic; and though Virgil and Horace were born during the subsistence of the commonwealth, their writings bear the character of monarchical influence.