Roman poetry is also interesting as the revelation of personal experience and character. The biographies of ancient authors are, for the most part, meagre and untrustworthy; and thus it is chiefly through the conscious or unconscious self-portraiture in their writings that the actual men of antiquity are brought into close contact with the modern world. Few men of any age or country are so well known to us as Horace; and it is from his own writings, exclusively, that this intimate knowledge has been obtained. The lines in which he describes Lucilius are more applicable to himself than to any extant writer of Greece or Rome,—
Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris: neque si male cesserat, unquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
Vita senis[6].
He has described himself, his tastes and pursuits, his thoughts and convictions, with perfect frankness and candour, and without any of the triviality or affectation of literary egotism. Catullus, although sometimes wanting in proper reticence, and altogether devoid of that meditative art with which Horace transmutes his own experience into the common experience of human nature, is known also as a familiar friend, from the force of feeling with which he realised, and the transparent sincerity with which he recorded, all the pain and the pleasure of his life. The elegiac poets of the Augustan age have written, neither from so strong a heart as that of Catullus, nor with the good taste and self-respect of Horace; but yet one of the chief sources of interest in their poetry, as of that of Martial in a later age, arises from their strong realisation of life, their unreserved communicativeness, and the light they thus throw on one phase of personal and social manners in ancient times.
Nor are these indications of individual character confined to the poets who profess to communicate their own feelings, and to record their own fortunes. All the works of Roman poetry bear emphatically the impress of their authors. While the finest Greek poetry seems like an almost impersonal emanation of genius, Roman poetry is, to a much greater extent, the expression of character. The great Roman writers manifest that kind of self-consciousness which accompanies resolute and successful effort; while the Greeks enjoy that happy self-forgetfulness which attends the unimpeded exercise of a natural gift. The epitaphs composed for themselves by Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, and Pacuvius, and the assertion of their own originality and of their hopes of fame, which occurs in the poetry of Lucretius, Virgil, and Horace, were dictated by a strong sense of their own personality, and of the importance of the task on which they were engaged. Catullus, although he is much preoccupied with, and most frank in communicating his feelings and pursuits, has much less of the consciousness of genius, is much more humble in his aspirations, and more modest in his estimate of himself. In this, as in other respects, he approaches nearer to the type of Greek art than any of his brother-poets of Rome.
It is a common remark that the very greatest poets are those about whose personal characteristics least is known. It is impossible in their case to determine where they have expressed their real sympathies or convictions. They rise above the prejudices of their country and the accidents of their time, and can see the good and evil inseparably mixed in all human action. No criticism can throw any trustworthy light on the personal position, the pursuits and aims, the outward and inward experience of Homer. It cannot even be determined with certainty how much of the poetry which bears his name is the creation of one, seemingly, inexhaustible genius; and how much is the 'divine voice' of earlier singers still 'floating around him.' Such inquiries are ever attracting and ever baffling a high curiosity. They leave the mind perplexed with the doubt whether it is discerning, in the far distance, the outline of solid mountain-land, or only the transient shapes of the clouds. Hesiod, on the other hand, a poet of perhaps equal antiquity, but of an infinitely lower order of genius, has left his own likeness graphically delineated on his remains. There is much to interest a reader in the old didactic poem, 'The Works and Days,' but it is not the interest of studying a work of art or of creative genius. The charm of the book consists partly in its power of calling up the ideas of a remote antiquity and of human life in its most elemental conditions; partly in the distinct impression which it bears of a character of an antique and primitive and yet not unfamiliar type;—a character of deep natural piety and righteousness, but with a quaint intermixture of other qualities, homespun sagacity and worldly wisdom;—genuine thrift, and horror of idleness, of war, of seafaring enterprise;—sardonic dislike of the airs and vices of women, and a grim discontent with his own condition, and with the poor soil which it was his lot to till[7]. It is through his want of those gifts of genius which have made Homer immortal as a poet, and a mere name as a man, that Hesiod has left so distinct a picture of himself to the latest times. In like manner Roman poetry, while never rising to the heights of creative and impersonal genius, from this very defect, is a truer revelation of the poets themselves. The Aeneid supplies ample materials for understanding the affections and convictions of Virgil. Lucretius makes his personal presence felt through the whole march of his argument, and supports every position of his system not with his logic only, but with the whole force of his nature. The fragments of Ennius and of Lucilius afford ample evidence by which we may judge what kind of men they were.
It thus appears that, over and above their higher and finer excellencies, the Roman poets have this additional source of interest, that, more than any other authors in the vigorous times of antiquity, they satisfy the modern curiosity in regard to personal character and experience. These poets have themselves left the most trustworthy record of their happiest hours and most real interests; of their standard of conduct, their personal worth, and their strength of affection; of the studies and the occupations in which they passed their lives, and of the spirit in which they awaited the certainty of their end.