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

by John Colin Dunlop

Cantrices, cistellatrices, nuncii, renuncii[265].”

The Greek courtezan possessed attainments, which the more virtuous of her sex were neither expected nor permitted to acquire. On her the education which was denied to a spotless woman, was carefully bestowed. To sing, to dance, to play on the lyre and the lute, were accomplishments in which the courtezan was, from her earliest years, completely instructed. The habits of private life afforded ample opportunity for the display of such acquirements, as the charm of convivial meetings among the Greeks was thought imperfect, unless the enjoyments were brightened by a display of the talents which belonged exclusively to the Wanton. But though these refinements alone were sufficient to excite the highest admiration of the Greek youth, unaccustomed as they were to female society, and often procured a splendid establishment for the accomplished courtezan, some of that class embraced a much wider range of education; and having added to their attainments in the fine arts, a knowledge of philosophy and the powers of eloquence, they became, thus trained and educated, the companions of orators, statesmen, and poets. The arrival of Aspasia at Athens is said to have produced a change in the manners of that city, and to have formed a new and remark[pg 159]able epoch in the history of society. The class to which she belonged was of more political importance in Athens than in any other state of Greece; and though I scarcely believe that the Peloponnesian war had its origin in the wrongs of Aspasia, the Athenian courtezans, with their various interests, were often alluded to in grave political harangues, and they were considered as part of the establishment of the state. Above all, the comic poets were devoted to their charms, were conversant with their manners, and often experienced their rapacity and infidelity; for, being unable to support them in their habits of expense, an opulent old man, or dissolute youth, was in consequence frequently preferred. The passion of Menander for Glycerium is well known, and Diphilus, from whom Plautus borrowed his Rudens, consorted with Gnathena, celebrated as one of the most lively and luxurious of Athenian Charmers[266]. Accordingly, many of the plays of the new comedy derive their names from celebrated courtezans; but it does not appear, from the fragments which remain, that they were generally represented in a favourable light, or in their meridian splendour of beauty and accomplishments[267]. In the Latin plays, the courtezans are not drawn so highly gifted in point of talents, or even beauty, as might be expected; but it was necessary to paint them as elegant, fascinating, and expensive, in order to account for the infatuation and ruin of their lovers. The Greeks and Romans were alike strangers to the polite gallantry of Modern Europe, and to the enthusiastic love which chivalry is said to have inspired in the middle ages. Thus their hearts and senses were left unprotected, to become the prey of such women as the Phronesium of the Truculentus, who is a picture of the most rapacious and debauched of her class, and whose vices are neither repented of, nor receive punishment, at the conclusion of the drama. Dinarchus may be regarded as a representation of the most profligate of the Greek or Roman youth, yet he is not held up to any particular censure; and, in the end, he is neither reformed nor adequately punished. The portion, indeed, of the lady whom he had violated, and at last agrees to espouse, is threatened by her father to be diminished, but this seems merely said in a momentary fit of resentment.

This play, with all its imperfections, is said to have been a great favourite of the author[268]; and was a very popular comedy at Rome. It has descended to us rather in a mutilated state, which may, perhaps, have deprived us of some fine sen[pg 160]tences or witticisms, which the ancients had admired; for, as a French translator of Plautus has remarked, their approbation could scarcely have been founded on the interest of the subject, the disposition of the incidents, or the moral which is inculcated.

The character of Lolpoop, the servant of Belfond Senior, in Shadwell’s Squire of Alsatia, has been evidently formed on that of the Truculentus, in this comedy. His part, however, as in the original, is chiefly episodical; and the principal plot, as shall be afterwards shown, has been founded on the Adelphi of Terence.

The above-mentioned plays are the twenty dramas of Plautus, which are still extant. But, besides these, a number of comedies, now lost, have been attributed to him. Aulus Gellius[269] mentions, that there were about a hundred and thirty plays, which, in his age, passed under the name of Plautus; and of these, nearly forty titles, with a few scattered fragments, still remain. From the time of Varro to that of Aulus Gellius, it seems to have been a subject of considerable discussion what plays were genuine; and it appears, that the best informed critics had come to the conclusion, that a great proportion of those comedies, which vulgarly passed for the productions of Plautus, were spurious. Such a vast number were probably ascribed to him, from his being the head and founder of a great dramatic school; so that those pieces, which he had perhaps merely retouched, came to be wholly attributed to his pen. As in the schools of painting, so in the dramatic art, a celebrated master may have disciples who adopt his principles. He may give the plan which they fill up, or complete what they have imperfectly executed. Many paintings passed under the name of Raphael, of which Julio Romano, and others, were the chief artists. “There is no doubt,” says Aulus Gellius, “but that those plays, which seem not to have been written by Plautus, but are ascribed to him, were by certain ancient poets, and afterwards retouched and polished by him[270].” Even those comedies which were written in the same taste with his, came to be termed Fabulæ Plautinæ, in the same way as we still speak of Æsopian fable, and Homeric verse. “Plautus quidem,” says Macrobius, “ea re clarus fuit, ut post mortem ejus, comœdiæ, quæ incertæ ferebantur, Plautinæ tamen esse, de jocorum copia, agnoscerentur[271].” It is thus evident, that a sufficient number of jests stamped a dramatic piece as the production of Plautus in the [pg 161]opinion of the multitude. But Gellius farther mentions, that there was a certain writer of comedies, whose name was Plautius, and whose plays having the inscription “Plauti,” were considered as by Plautus, and were named Plautinæ from Plautus, though in fact they ought to have been called Plautianæ from Plautius. All this sufficiently accounts for the vast number of plays ascribed to Plautus, and which the most learned and intelligent critics have greatly restricted. They have differed, however, very widely, as to the number which they have admitted to be genuine. Some, says Servius, maintain, that Plautus wrote twenty-one comedies, others forty, others a hundred[272]. Gellius informs us, that Lucius Ælius, a most learned man, was of opinion that not more than twenty-five were of his composition[273]. Varro wrote a work, entitled Quæstiones Plautinæ, a considerable portion of which was devoted to a discussion concerning the authenticity of the plays commonly assigned to Plautus, and the result of his investigation was, that twenty-one were unquestionably to be admitted as genuine. These were subsequently termed Varronian, in consequence of having been separated by Varro from the remainder, as no way doubtful, and universally allowed to be by Plautus. The twenty-one Varronian plays are the twenty still extant, and the Vidularia. This comedy appears to have been originally subjoined to the Palatine MS. of the still existing plays of Plautus, but to have been torn off, since, at the conclusion of the Truculentus, we find the words “Vidularia incipit[274]:” And Mai has recently published some fragments of it, which he found in an Ambrosian MS. Such, it would appear, had been the high authority of Varro, that only those plays, which had received his indubitable sanction, were transcribed in the MSS. as the genuine works of Plautus; yet it would seem that Varro himself had, on some occasion, assented to the authenticity of several others, induced by their style of humour corresponding to that of Plautus. He had somewhere mentioned, that the Saturio (the Glutton,) and the Addictus, (the Adjudged,) were written by Plautus during the period in which he laboured as a slave at the hand-mill. He was also of opinion, that the Bœotia was by Plautus; and Aulus Gellius concurs with him in this[275], citing certain verses delivered by a hungry parasite, which, he says, are perfectly Plautinian, and must satisfy [pg 162]every person to whom Plautus is familiar, of the authenticity of that drama. From this very passage, Osannus derives an argument unfavourable to the authenticity of the play. The parasite exclaims against the person who first distinguished hours, and set up the sun-dials, of which the town was so full. Now, Osannus maintains, that there were no sun-dials at Rome in the time of Plautus, and that the day was not then distributed into hours, but into much larger portions of time[276]. The Nervolaria was one of the disputed plays in the time of Au. Gellius; and also the Fretum, which Gellius thinks the most genuine of all[277]. Varro, in the first Book of his Quæstiones Plautinæ gives the following words of Attius, which, I presume, are quoted from his work on poetry and poets, entitled Didascalica. “For neither were the Gemini, the Leones, the Condalium, the Anus Plauti, the Bis Compressa, the Bœotia, or the Commorientes, by Plautus, but by M. Aquilius.” It appears, however, from the prologue to the Adelphi of Terence, that the Commorientes was written by Plautus, having been taken by him from a Greek comedy of Diphilus[278]. In opposition to the above passage of Attius, and to his own opinion expressed in the Quæstiones Plautinæ, Varro, in his treatise on the Latin Language, frequently cites, as the works of Plautus, the plays enumerated by Attius, and various others; but this was probably in deference to common opinion, or in agreement with ordinary language, and was not intended to contradict what he had elsewhere delivered, or to stamp with the character of authenticity productions, which he had more deliberately pronounced to be spurious[279].

From the review which has now been given of the comedies of Plautus, something may have been gathered of their general scope and tenor. In each plot there is sufficient action, movement, and spirit. The incidents never flag, but rapidly accelerate the catastrophe. Yet, if we regard his plays in the mass, there is a considerable, and perhaps too great, uniformity in their fables. They hinge, for the most part, on the love of some dissolute youth for a courtezan, his employment of a slave to defraud a father of a sum sufficient to supply his expensive pleasures, and the final discovery that his mistress is a free-born citizen. The charge against [pg 163]Plautus of uniformity in his characters, as well as in his fables, has been echoed without much consideration. The portraits of Plautus, it must be remembered, were drawn or copied at a time when the division of labour and progress of refinement had not yet given existence to those various descriptions of professions and artists—the doctor, author, attorney—in short, all those characters, whose habits, singularities, and whims, have supplied the modern Thalia with such diversified materials, and whose contrasts give to each other such relief, that no caricature is required in any individual representation. The characters of Alcmena, Euclio, and Periplectomenes, are sufficiently novel, and are not repeated in any of the other dramas; but there is ample range and variety even in those which he has most frequently employed—the avaricious old man—the debauched young fellow—the knavish slave—the braggart captain—the rapacious courtezan—the obsequious parasite—and the shameless pander. On most of these parts some observations have been made, while mentioning the different comedies in which they are introduced. The severe father and thoughtless youth, are those in which he has best succeeded, or at least they are those with which we are best pleased. The captain always appears to us exaggerated, and the change which has taken place in society and manners prevents us, perhaps, from entering fully into the characters of the slave, the parasite, and pander; but in the fathers and sons, he has shown his knowledge of our common nature, and delineated them with the truest and liveliest touches. In the former, the struggles of avarice and severity, with paternal affection, are finely wrought up and blended. Even when otherwise respectable characters, they are always represented as disliking their wives, which was not inconsistent with the manners of a Grecian state, in which marriage was merely regarded as a duty; and was a feature naturally enough exhibited on the theatre of a nation, one of whose most illustrious characters declared in the Senate, as a received maxim, that Romans married, not for the sake of domestic happiness, but to rear up soldiers for the republic.

The Latin style of Plautus excels in briskness of dialogue, as well as purity of expression, and has been highly extolled by the learned Roman grammarians, particularly by Varro, who declares, that if the Muses were to speak Latin they would employ his diction[280]; but as M. Schlegel has remarked, it is necessary to distinguish between the opinion of philologers, and that of critics and poets. Plautus wrote at a period when [pg 164]his country as yet possessed no written or literary language. Every phrase was drawn from the living source of conversation. This early simplicity seemed pleasing and artless to those Romans, who lived in an age of excessive refinement and cultivation; but this apparent merit was rather accidental than the effect of poetic art. Making, however, some allowance for this, there can be no doubt that Plautus wonderfully improved and refined the Latin language from the rude form in which it had been moulded by Ennius. That he should have effected such an alteration is not a little remarkable. Plautus was nearly contemporary with the Father of Roman song—according to most accounts he was born a slave—he was condemned, during part of his life, to the drudgery of the lowest manual labour—and, so far as we learn, he was not distinguished by the patronage of the Great, or admitted into Patrician society. Ennius, on the other hand, if he did not pass his life in affluence, spent it in the exercise of an honourable profession, and was the chosen familiar friend of Cato, Scipio Africanus, Fulvius Nobilior, and Lælius, the most learned as well as polished citizens of the Roman republic, whose conversation in their unrestrained intercourse must have bestowed on him advantages which Plautus never enjoyed. But perhaps the circumstance of his Greek original, which contributed so much to his learning and refinement, and qualified him for such exalted society, may have been unfavourable to that native purity of Latin diction, which the Umbrian slave imbibed from the unmixed fountains of conversation and nature.

The chief excellence of Plautus is generally reputed to consist in the wit and comic force of his dialogue; and, accordingly, the lines in Horace’s Art of Poetry, in which he derides the ancient Romans for having foolishly admired the “Plautinos sales,” has been the subject of much reprehension among critics[281]. That the wit of Plautus often degenerates into buffoonery, scurrility, and quibbles,—sometimes even into obscenity,—and that, in his constant attempts at merriment, he too often tries to excite laughter by exaggerated expressions, as well as by extravagant actions, cannot, in[pg 165]deed, be denied. This, I think, was partly owing to the immensity of the Roman theatres, and to the masks and trumpets of the actors, which must have rendered caricature and grotesque inventions essential to the production of that due effect, which, with such scenic apparatus, could not be created, unless by overstepping the modesty of nature. It must be always be recollected, that the plays of Plautus were written solely to be represented, and not to be read. Even in modern times, and subsequently to the invention of printing, the greatest dramatists—Shakspeare, for example—cared little about the publication of their plays; and in every age or country, in which dramatic poetry has flourished, it has been intended for public representation, and has been adapted to the taste of a promiscuous audience. It is the most social of all sorts of composition; and he who aims at popularity or success in it, must leave the solitudes of inspiration for the bustle of the world.

The contemplative poet may find his delight, and his reward, in the mere effort of imagination, but the poet of the drama must seek them in the applause of the multitude. He must stoop to men—be the mover of human hearts—and triumph by the living and hourly passions of our nature. Now, in the days of Plautus, the smiles of the polite critic were not enough for a Latin comedian, because in those days there were few polite critics at Rome; he required the shouts and laughter of the multitude, who could be fully gratified only by the broadest grins of comedy. Accordingly, many of the jests of Plautus are such as might be expected from a writer anxious to accommodate himself to the taste of the times, and naturally catching the spirit of ribaldry which prevailed.

During the age of Plautus, and indeed long after it, the general character of Roman wit consisted rather in a rude and not very liberal satire, than a just and temperate ridicule, restrained within the bounds of decency and good manners. A favourite topic, for example, of ancient raillery, was corporal defects;—a decisive proof of coarseness of humour, especially as it was recommended by rule, and enforced by the authority of the greatest masters, as one of the most legitimate sources of ridicule.—“Est deformitatis et corporis vitiorum satis bella materies ad jocandum,” says Cicero, in his treatise De Oratore[282]. The innumerable jests there recorded as having produced the happiest effects at the bar, are the most miserable puns and quibbles, coarse practical jokes, or personal reflections. The cause of this defect in elegance of wit and raillery, has been attributed by Hurd to the free and popular constitution of Rome. This, by placing all its citizens, at least [pg 166]during certain periods, on a level, and diffusing a general spirit of independence, took off those restraints of civility which are imposed by the dread of displeasing, and which can alone curb the licentiousness of ridicule. The only court to be paid was from the orators to the people, in the continual and immediate applications to them which were rendered necessary by the form of government. On such occasions, the popular assemblies had to be entertained with those gross banters, which were likely to prove most acceptable to them. Design growing into habit, the orators, and after them the nation, accustomed themselves to coarse ridicule at all times, till the humour passed from the rostrum, or forum, to the theatre, where the amusement and laughter of the people being the direct and immediate aim, it was heightened to still farther extravagance. This taste, says Hurd, was also fostered and promoted at Rome by the festal license which prevailed in the seasons of the Bacchanalia and Saturnalia[283]. Quintilian thinks, that, with some regulation, those days of periodical license might have aided the cultivation of a correct spirit of raillery; but, as it was, they tended to vitiate and corrupt it. The Roman muse, too, had been nurtured amid satiric and rustic exhibitions, the remembrance of which was still cherished, and a recollection of them kept alive, by the popular Exodia and Fabulæ Atellanæ.