But the augur died immediately after; a sign that his words were not indeed false but premature, according to the will of the gods. Nowhere did any likelihood of permanent amelioration present itself, but the yearning remained and hardly ever found stronger expression than in the wretched years that followed the murder of Cæsar. It was strengthened by Sibylline oracles, which were privately circulated and kept faith in the happy future alive. Since the oracle could not lie, it was, perhaps, nothing but miscalculations and vain hopes of men, in the year 49, which had anticipated too soon the dawn of a new age; and perhaps the seculum should be reckoned at 110 years and not 100—it takes but little to revive hope. In the year 43 no less a person than Varro announced to the anxious world of his day that this was the correct estimate; 440 years after the first celebration the fourth Roman seculum was declining to its close, and then a new birth would usher in the new age. But Rome still hoped in vain. Misery increased, and with it the excitement spread into the widest circles. In the year 40 Asinius Pollio was consul, a man of honourable character and highly educated, who endeavoured to avoid the arbitrary usurpations of other rulers. In the circumstances of the time, not the boldest imagination ventured to dream that he might bring back the golden age. But Asinius was at that time expecting the birth of a son; perhaps this son was destined by fate to do so; and a contemporary poet greets the coming deliverer with the most ardent longings. In later days Virgil, with better reasons, fixed his hopes and desires upon the emperor.
The opportunity of holding secular games in the latter half of the last century before Christ had thus passed by unused, and it was a very difficult matter to prove that Augustus was entitled to hold such a celebration. This hard and thankless task fell to the share of the famous jurist Ateius Capito, who acquitted himself skilfully enough to make the will of his master possible in theory. The chronology of Roman history has suffered violence at many hands before and after the time of Ateius Capito, but hardly ever more than at the time of the secular games of Augustus.
A comet, so readily connected by the popular imagination with the end of the world, appears to have decided the old question as to the turning-point of the longed-for cosmic period. It might indeed seem as though the gods themselves had declared their will; for at the beginning of the year 17 an extraordinarily bright comet was visible at Rome, with a long tail pointing from south to north. This was of course the star of the Julian gens, which Rome had not seen since the terrible year of 44. That which the youthful Cæsar had then undertaken with almost superhuman courage for the sake of avenging his father was now finished, and the age of strife was over. At that time the red glow of the comet had portended blood and civil wars; the second appearance of the Julian star, after the expiation of the crime, was a sign that the beginning of the new age was close at hand.
The memoirs of the emperor show what great stress he laid upon the appearance of the star of the year 44, and the coins of the empire struck soon after 17 testify to the impression made upon him and his contemporaries by the supposed return of the star of the Julian gens. It was greeted as the long-desired and manifest divine sign of the end of the iron age and the commencement of the golden.
Hence we see that the appearance of the star only gave the decision in the last resort. That which had long been in the air, that which was perhaps already beginning to evaporate, suddenly condensed into tangible shape under the influence of this divine manifestation; Augustus resolved not to let the moment pass unused, but to celebrate the long-expected fifth secular games, which were associated with the hope of a new birth for Rome.[b]
LITERATURE OF THE GOLDEN AGE
With the formation of the monarchy coincides a second revival of Roman literature, which can only be partly attributed to the new administration, as the leaders were born under the republic and grew up amidst the struggles for the monarchy. This period does not differ so much from the literature of the period of free government as might seem at first sight. For that peculiarly characteristic penetration by the Greek spirit which extended even to that manifestation of it which was least worthy of imitation, namely the Alexandrian, had been already in existence, and the refined elaboration of the language for poetical purposes, its charm and lightness, its beauty and merit, are already perceptible in the time of Terence, though in a very different fashion.
The great revolution which was taking place before their eyes had a far less disastrous effect on the poets of this time than might have been expected, and if the lamentations of the civil war are heard everywhere, it is, nevertheless, rather the ideas of universal peace and the greatness of the Roman power which determine the pervading key-note. It is true that if we look for the originality, power, and simplicity which are so irresistible in Greek literature, we shall be very much disappointed; for they are no more to be found in the literary creations than in the political. And for these defects the number of productions can offer no amends. The thought of writing for a large public, the entire Latin West, must have had an inspiring effect on an author, as it of course decided the whole conception and direction of literary compositions; the provinces took a more and more active share in them; on the other hand, in this field a kind of substitute was offered for the lack of political activity; it was a matter of course that authorship was harmless and accommodated itself to the ruling system, or else entered into a dangerous opposition to it. Partisan writing existed during the active political struggles of Rome even under the republic; but now sunshine and light were too unequally divided, and the frankness which was forbidden during the lifetime of the rulers indemnified itself after their death by bitterness and calumny.
The really higher styles of poetry, such as drama and epic, entirely died out. It was not as if this had been caused by the change in the government, for even in the time of the republic little originality or creative power had been shown in these directions. All that was now produced was borrowed entirely from the past. Rhetoric, metrics, and careful diction were all that could be added to it, and a beautiful, refined, and elegant form became the criterion according to which the age judged both literary and artistic productions. It was to such matters as these that the attention of the judges who decided concerning the admission of the poets into the national library was mainly directed.
We have no adequate information regarding the dramatic poetry of the Augustan period, for everything which won the applause of contemporaries has been lost. What has been preserved to us from this period, namely the tragedies handed down to us under the name of Seneca, has all the faults which a depraved taste brings with it; sensational plots and scenes based on sensual and sentimental emotions; figures without life, but of many words and speeches; a treatment without knowledge of dramatic technicalities; and yet withal a harmony of words and verses, highly polished versification and diction, and the whole magnificent apparatus belonging to the schools of rhetoric in periods, antitheses, similes, and plays upon words. It is decidedly to the credit of the lower classes if they turned away from these dramas, leaving them to the lifeless declamatory exercises of the so-called educated classes, and in so far as the taste for the drama still existed, preferred to amuse themselves with a simpler entertainment and the familiar pieces of the older poets, which had long ceased to be sufficiently refined and elegant for people of cultivation.