[Footnote 76: Epictetus, Manual, 51.]
Sometimes the facile admiration borders on simplicity. Sentius Angurinus reads a poem, and the benevolent critic exclaims, "In my judgment, there has been nothing better done for years;" giving a specimen of the lines, that the reader may pass his own judgment. It is a little piece in which he, Pliny, is compared to Calvus and Catullus and ranked, of course, above both, without taking into consideration that he has the wisdom of a Cato into the bargain. "What delicacy!" cries the tickled critic, "what nicety of expression what vivacity!" Of course, who would not see charms in a madrigal containing these pleasant sentiments about one's self? It would be fastidious indeed to fail in admiration of such a production.
Sentius loudly proclaims the poetic talent of Pliny; and Pliny reciprocates with the announcement that Sentius is one of those rare geniuses who do honor to their age. It was an exchange of good offices—a mutual adulation in which the lecturer of to-day received back all that he had generously lavished about him yesterday. Vanity more than the love of letters found its meed in this interchange of courtesies.
We have already seen that on one side the disdain of serious thinkers, and on the other public satiety, had ended by injuring the success of these exhibitions. Solitude reigned about the lecturer, but should he on that account desert his post? It was an extreme case not to be easily met, but necessity is ingenious. New plans were invented for filling the hall. If an audience would not come, an audience must be hunted up—recruited at any cost. Clients and freedmen were borrowed from personal friends to fill the benches. One orator gathered together a troop of famished wretches and gave them a plentiful dinner. The guests, having eaten and rejoiced, were fired with gastric gratitude, and vigorously clapped the poems of their Amphitryon. This trade was carried on every day, and those who said their admiration for a good dinner were called by the expressive name of laudicoeni. Others bought applause cash down; but at a low price, if they were not particular as to quality; contented, for instance, with servants, who could be had for three denarii apiece. At this rate, persons of low estate could drive a lucrative business by hiring out their services. A more simple method, however, than that of paying listeners by the day, was making use of debtors if one had any; for what debtor, with any sense of duty, could help attending the lectures of his creditors?
An audience collected thus did not trouble themselves much about listening, but no matter for that if they would but applaud; and applaud they did, and all the more vigorously in proportion to their inattention, as Pliny tells us, and we may well believe. All that the orchestra needed was a leader to give the signal to his docile troop, at the fine points, and to regulate the degrees of enthusiasm. Applause was no mere trade; it had risen to the dignity of a science. A skilful manager could provide every suitable emotion, from a discreet and low-voiced approbation up to passionately tumultuous enthusiasm. First came murmurs of pleasure, starts of gratified surprise and involuntary exclamations, followed by a silence no less flattering. Gradually the excitement got beyond control, and manifested itself by stamping of feet; by cries, nay, howls; to use the words of Pliny, ululatus large supersunt. Togas were shaken; benches trembled beneath the blows of trampling feet. Persons who sat near the lecturer, and could take such a liberty, ran to embrace him in token of gratitude at the delight he had afforded them. If perchance the speaker was an emperor, respect did not allow them to kiss his sacred lips, but only to pour forth expressions of gratitude. The joy would become so universal, as we see in the case of Nero, that the senate decreed solemn thanksgiving to be offered to the gods; and the verses of the prince, graven in golden letters on the walls of the capitol, to be dedicated to Jupiter, as the noblest offering earth could consecrate to heaven. [Footnote 77]
[Footnote 77: Pliny the Younger, Letters, ii. 10, 14; Martial, i. 77; Suetonius, Nero, 10.]
IV.
We see by Pliny's lamentations that lectures in his day were not in vogue as they had been formerly. But it must be remembered that, even when lectures were at the height of popularity, they attracted only the cultivated class, so-called; that is to say, the minority. The Roman people did not pride themselves upon a marked taste for refined intellectual pleasures, finding more fascination in spectacles and circus games. Statius, according to contemporary accounts, appears to have been the poet most eagerly sought; but numerous as was the audience that thronged to hear him, there is little doubt, that, if some famous gladiator had appeared in the arena, Statius would have stood a fair chance of addressing empty benches. While the seats of the small lecture-room filled slowly with hardly earned auditors, the amphitheatre steps were never vast enough to accommodate the struggling multitude.
Only in Greece do we find a nation truly sensitive to purely intellectual enjoyments. There the simple artisan understood and appreciated philosophers, poets, and orators. The art of eloquence never left him indifferent, and he would leave his trade to run to a discourse as to a feast. With this disposition, what seemed to the Romans a pastime for the few, was the chief interest of many members of Greek society. Public speaking was but an accident in the lives of Pliny and his friends, while to the clever men of Athens or Alexandria it became a profession. Anyone who believed himself gifted with eloquence became a sophist or rhetor, and with a little tact and assurance could count upon that kind of success which is measured by a numerous audience. Some distinction between these two classes of men, the sophist and the rhetor, should be made here. The former claimed to have succeeded the philosophers, with the right to teach the people, and to develop the commonplaces of politics, morals, and even of religion. They made themselves preachers to the populace, and sometimes to princes, as, for instance, when we find Dion Chrysostom holding forth concerning the duties of royalty in Trajan's palace. Rhetors, on the other hand, were professors of eloquence. Their avowed aim was to please, but, while less proud in pretensions than the sophists, they were in reality equally presumptuous, assuming to teach art not only by explaining its roles, but also by offering in their own compositions finished models of rhetoric, in the genuine belief that they had garnered up the heritage of Demosthenes and Eschines. As all pretensions belong together, the sophist often combined his duties with those of the rhetor; witness the Dion above mentioned.
This race of public speakers lingered about the towns of Greece, and also of Asia Minor, Egypt, and Lybia. Then, finding these limits too narrow, they burst beyond them and invaded the Latin countries.