JUVENAL

Perplexities of biography—Medieval _uitae_—Contradictory and incredible elements—Tradition of Juvenal’s exile—Was he in Egypt?—Was he in Britain?—The lost inscription from Aquinum—Martial and Juvenal—Publication of the Satires in books—A few dates obtainable—Survey of the Satires—Motives for writing—Pretence of satirizing a previous generation—Men of evil life—A gallery of detestable women—An honest Roman’s farewell to Rome—Dramatic elements—Hosts and clients—Prospects of literature—Vanity of human wishes—Plain living and extravagance—Legacy-hunters—Revenge a weakness—Parental example—Egyptian villages at feud—A soldier’s advantages—Change of spirit in later Satires—Lucilius, Horace, Juvenal—Power of vivid delineation—Dark colours—Grimness of humour—Control of rhetorical artifice—Familiar quotations—Debt to predecessors—Juvenal’s hexameter—Words from the common speech—Influence on later writers.

The life of D. Junius Juvenalis[1746] is full of perplexities which investigation has not disentangled. Outside the scanty data obtainable from his works and certain scholia, there is little on which to rely with absolute security: yet there is a considerable amount of apparent evidence consisting of some thirteen biographies, mostly medieval, attached to many of the interpolated MSS., an inscription of possible relevance from Aquinum, three poems addressed by Martial to a Juvenal whom we can hardly suppose to have been other than the satirist, mention by a few later authors,[1747] and an allusion in a hendecasyllabic poem by Sidonius Apollinaris[1748] to one who had the misfortune, like Ovid, to be banished and who was the “exiled victim of an actor’s wrath” (_irati fuit histrionis exul_). Since the banishment of Juvenal is a tradition among the _uitae_, though its alleged time and place vary, this last allusion is not unnaturally taken to apply to him. Juvenal was too much of a contemporary to figure in Suetonius’s book _De Viris Illustribus_,[1749] so that even the best written of the _Lives_—namely, that added to the Codex Montepessulanus or Pithoeanus in a later hand—cannot be surmised to rest on so good a foundation as Suetonius, or indeed to be of earlier date than the fourth century. Twelve _uitae_ seem to be variations of the earliest one, independent variations being almost certainly attempts to add conjectures based upon passages in the satires. Thus, the prevailing tradition of a banishment to Egypt is varied in two _uitae_ to “_contra Scotos_”—a change presumably suggested by Juvenal’s references to Britain. How little intelligence might underlie a _uita_ can be gauged from the absurd explanation, given by one in a Harleian MS., that Juvenal’s last satire, an attack on the unfair advantages of soldiers, was meant to encourage recruiting. This looks as if the innocent fabricator had confined himself to the opening sentence—_Quis numerare queat felicis praemia, Galli, militiae?_

The chief statements in the most highly commended _uita_ are that Juvenal was either a son or foster-son of a rich freedman (a closely allied _uita_ adds Aquinum as his birthplace); that he practised declamation until middle life more for the sake of amusement (_animi magis causa_) than for academic or forensic use; that he composed lines directed against Domitian’s pantomime-actor Paris; that later, when he had become famous, he inserted those lines into what we know as the seventh satire;[1750] that there happened then to be at court a favourite actor who took the lines as directed against himself; that Juvenal’s supposed allusion was resented in the highest quarters; and that, under pretext of giving him a military command but in reality by way of punishment, the authorities gazetted him at the age of eighty to the prefecture of a cohort in a distant part of Egypt, where he very soon (_intra breuissimum tempus_) died of grief and weariness.

Difficulties arise at once. If Juvenal was either son or foster-son of a rich _libertinus_, how comes it that he is so obviously acquainted with poverty at first hand, and why does he assail the class of freedmen, if he owed it either birth or up-bringing? His tone convinces us that, for at least one part of his life, far from being wealthy, he had experienced the indignities put upon clients, hated the pampered lackeys of arrogant patrons, and felt deep sympathy with the poor.[1751] Horace could attack an individual freedman, as he did in the fourth epode, but Juvenal detests the whole category: not only does he despise the purse-proud upstart who had once been his barber, but he writes in general with so Roman a prejudice against the foreigner that one cannot but distrust the allegation of an alien strain in him.[1752] The more one examines the _uitae_, the more do they appear to be manufactured: here the suspicion arises that Juvenal, being a satirist, has been by some wrong-headed parallel-hunter credited with a _libertinus_ for a father simply because Horace had one before him. If it is just conceivable that the lines cited as offensive enough to get him banished might have been twisted against the author in the way alleged, at any rate the appointment of an octogenarian to a military post in an important province appears too incredible a prank for the Roman Empire: and, in any case, this statement in three _Lives_ is contradicted by that in another group, which indicates it was Domitian, not Trajan, who punished Juvenal. According to that, the exile would have occurred earlier in Juvenal’s career.

Confusion increases as we look through the _uitae_. One declares Juvenal to have come back to Rome from his command, and to have died of melancholy because he did not see his friend Martial (who had left the city for Spain in A.D. 98): another declares he died worn out with old age as late as the reign of Antoninus Pius, having been exiled by Domitian but not recalled by his immediate successors. In this latter _uita_ he is said to have “amplified his satires in exile and made many changes in them,” a statement which bore fruit in part of Ribbeck’s theory about two Juvenals. An additional _uita_ found by Dürr in a MS. in the Palazzo Barberini at Rome agrees with twelve of the _uitae_ that Juvenal belonged to Aquinum: it also provides him with a mother and sister named alike Septumuleia, which betrays medieval ignorance of the classic usage whereby any daughter of Junius Juvenalis would have been called Junia. The inconsistencies in these biographies cannot but throw doubt even on any consistent residuum, unless it be independently supported. Though a majority of the _uitae_ mention a military command in Egypt, one has the uncomfortable suspicion that this may have come from an impression that Juvenal’s treatment of an Egyptian subject in Satire XV necessarily implied residence near its scene:[1753] and, again, though in a majority of the _uitae_ he is said to have practised declamation till middle life, this may have been an invention from the rhetorical manner characteristically persisting in satires which were manifestly composed long after he had been an academic pupil.[1754]

The all but unanimous record of a banishment appears to receive some confirmation in the allusion already cited from Sidonius Apollinaris; but one realizes that there is no certainty about the emperor who pronounced the sentence, nor any means of deciding whether the command in Egypt is or is not a confusion with previous military service in Britain. The almost complete consensus about Aquinum as Juvenal’s birthplace agrees with, and indeed may be ultimately due to, the passage in the third satire where Umbricius, who is supposed to be saying good-bye to the poet, employs the phrase “tuo Aquino.”[1755] That there was a Juvenal at Aquinum is clear from the inscription discovered there and long since lost.[1756] It recorded a dedication to Ceres (the very goddess mentioned towards the close of the third satire) by Junius Juvenalis (the _praenomen_ had disappeared), who was an officer in a cohort of Dalmatians, and who, in respect of being a _duumuir quinquennalis_ and _flamen_ of the deified Vespasian, was evidently the holder of two local offices of importance. The reference to Vespasian-worship places the inscription late in the first century, and, as more than one Dalmatian cohort served, we know, in Britain about this period, it is tempting to think that here we have an explanation of the satirist’s repeated references to so far-off an island—his mention of the captured Orkneys and the short night of the North, the chariot-fighting of Britons, the oysters of Rutupiae (Richborough in Kent), the British whale, the forts of the Brigantes in Yorkshire, the spread of Latin eloquence to Thule (a designed exaggeration), and his use of the rather official form _Brittones_.[1757] But here again questions arise. If Juvenal had seen war-service, did it leave him inimical to a military life, as he appears to be in his last satire? And, in addition to his undoubtedly close acquaintance with Roman city life, was he long enough resident at Aquinum to hold important magistracies there?

If Martial’s Juvenal is, as seems most likely, our Juvenal, then we have the evidence of two epigrams in the seventh book belonging to A.D. 92, and one in the twelfth book issued in 101 or 102, after Martial had returned to Spain.[1758] By 92 Juvenal is regarded by his friend as _facundus_, which may refer either to style in writing or to eloquence in speech. The eloquence has in this case generally been associated with rhetorical powers, but it may have a forensic reference. Juvenal is possibly speaking of his own practice at the bar when, after stigmatising the high fee paid to a nobleman as advocate, he adds “and yet _we_ pleaded better.”[1759] Besides, it is worth noting that Martial applies the epithet _facundus_ to his lawyer friend Pliny, and that Juvenal too uses it of lawyers.[1760] Granted that banishment ever befell Juvenal, there was time for it to have occurred between 92 and 101 or 102, when Martial again addressed Juvenal; and whether Juvenal was an advocate or not, he was then pictured as a struggling citizen wearing his sweaty gown (_sudatrix toga_) at receptions in the mansions of the great. Between the two poets a great sympathy of outlook is discernible[1761]. They not only touch often upon the same subjects and persons, but adopt a very similar attitude towards literature and patronage; they unveil alike the vices of their day; and they exhibit considerable resemblance in words and expressions.

Fortunately a few unquestioned dates can be extracted from his works. The sixteen satires were issued in five sets or books at different times.[1762] Internal evidence as to date discoverable from any one satire has therefore significance for the whole volume to which it belongs. The first book contained satires I-V, and the bitter tone regarding Domitian in the second and fourth satires would alone prove that their composition was later than his assassination in 96.[1763] But we do not need to rely on inference; for a definite reference is made in the fourth satire to his murder.[1764] The opening satire, which, being prefatory, may have been written last, alludes to the sentence on Marius Priscus for misgovernment in Africa;[1765] and, as we can date this trial, in which Pliny held a prosecuting brief, at A.D. 100, we see that Juvenal’s earliest published work belongs to the beginning of the second century. It seems natural to think that Domitian’s reign was not yet far in the past, and that Juvenal writes with a fierce, because recent, recollection of the repression which had been removed to the equal relief of writers like Pliny and Tacitus. This spirit makes it difficult to believe that Friedländer is right in dating the first book so late as the years between 112 and 116 in order to bring it nearer in time to the succeeding book.

The long sixth satire formed the second book. The comet and the earthquake[1766] there mentioned have been convincingly assigned to the year 115, so that the volume can be dated about A.D. 116.

The third book consisted of satires VII, VIII and IX. The first of these three opens with the declaration that the future of literature depends on the emperor entirely—_et spes et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantum_. Which Caesar? Some have said Trajan; Nettleship argued for Domitian,[1767] without winning much support for a theory which would badly break the chronological sequence of the volumes. A more fitting emperor and period can be found in Hadrian, soon after his accession. He had poetic tastes, and Juvenal’s words were a not unbecoming compliment to the new ruler who reached Rome from the East in 118. Satire VIII was probably written earlier: its allusion to Marius Priscus suggests a date not long after A.D. 100.[1768]

The date of the fourth book, containing X, XI and XII, is undiscoverable. The remaining four satires constituted the fifth book. Two passages in it give clues to a date, and fix the thirteenth satire to 127 and the fifteenth to 128 A.D.[1769]

This brief summary indicates a literary activity of some thirty years. If, as we may infer, Juvenal had reached middle life when the first volume was published, a date about A.D. 60 might be conjectured for his birth. By the time of the eleventh satire he writes as an old man.[1770] Unlike Lucilius and Horace, his acknowledged masters in satire, Juvenal reveals little about himself. His rhetorical education was the one customary for Romans of standing.[1771] For the philosophy professed by exalted minds he felt a respect proportionate to his contempt for philosophical hypocrites; but the philosophy which appealed to him was not so much that of the Greek schools[1772] as that of life:

Great is Philosophy, whose holy writ Ordains commandments and who conquers Chance. We deem those happy too whom life hath taught To bear life’s ills nor fret against the yoke.[1773]

He himself had been schooled by hardship, though later in his career we know he owned a small farm at Tibur, and was able to offer hospitality to friends in his own house at Rome.[1774]

The sixteen Satires consist of nearly 3900 hexameters, and range in length from the 661 lines (or, including the Bodleian[1775] fragment, 695 lines) of the devastatingly horrible sixth satire to the 60 lines of the incomplete sixteenth. In particular, the first, third and tenth—each making a different appeal—can be read again and again without losing their freshness: they stand the true test of the classical. It is impossible to miss either the nobility of spirit pervading the thirteenth or the terrific, if overdriven, power of the indictment against women in the sixth.

The first satire is a characteristic prelude—the poet’s _apologia_, to explain why he should write satire, and what his manner and matter should be. A careful examination of it, therefore, reveals the underlying aim. Deafened with recitations from authors, and, like Martial, sick of hackneyed mythology, must not Juvenal too have his say?

Shall I just listen always? ne’er repay Hoarse Cordus bawling his heroic lay? Shall one recite his comedies at me, Another elegiacs, and go free?... I too learned rhetoric beneath the cane: My essays counselled Sulla sleep to gain In private life. ’Tis clemency misplaced, When everywhere with swarms of bards you’re faced, To spare the paper someone sure will waste.

So much to justify writing. But why satire? Why should Juvenal follow the career of Lucilius? The answer comes pat: the difficulty is _not_ to write satire (_difficile est saturam non scribere_). The prominence of offensive and vicious persons goads one into invective. One loathes the spectacle of the impotent who dares to marry, or the masculine woman aping a man, or the fabulously wealthy ex-slave and ex-barber flaunting his riches. Annoying beyond endurance are the over-smart lawyers, the treacherous informer and the unabashed will-hunter. How one’s anger blazes to think of an innocent ward driven to evil courses by the knavery of an unscrupulous guardian, or of a guilty proconsul receiving so light a sentence that he can enjoy exile on his ill-gotten gains! Such abuses need the Venusian lamp of Horace, and, somewhat in Martial’s spirit, Juvenal claims that he has no taste for legendary themes, when, from lust of filthy lucre, a cuckold encourages his wife’s lover, or when horse-racing spendthrifts expect commissions in the army. In fact, the temptation is rather to compose a whole volume in the open street, when an imposing _lectica_ brings along a forger lolling at ease, or a wealthy widow who poisoned her husband. If you would cut a figure, dare some black deed that ought to earn transportation or jail: honesty gets praise but is left in the cold (_probitas laudatur et alget_):

To crime men owe their table, park, estate, Goblets in high relief or antique plate. Say, who could find the calm repose they need When a son’s wife is bribed to sin for greed, When brides prove frail and boys turn paramours? Though nature jibs, yet wrath my verse ensures. (_si natura negat, facit indignatio uersum_).

So, like Martial again, but in an angrier tone, Juvenal proclaims his subject to be human life—a gallimaufry of everything from the days of the Flood:

Whate’er men do, their vows, fears, pleasure, rage, Joys, hustle, make the hotchpotch of my page.[1776]

And when was there ever a heavier crop of villainy and avarice? Picture the gamester attended by his steward, armed squire-like with a money-chest for the battle of the gaming-table, ready to stake a fortune but refusing raiment to a shivering slave. Think of the many country-seats one rich individual may possess; think of his dining off seven courses in solitary state; think of the miserable dole of the _sportula_ given at his door to poor dependents, and the care taken to confer this charity upon as few as possible. The scramble for the dole, and the degrading tricks by which it is sought, are inimitably narrated with all Juvenal’s power of realistic detail. “Wealth,” he remarks bitingly, “is our most revered divinity: how singular that we Romans have raised no temple to Money—no altars to the coinage to match our worship of Pax, Fides, Victoria, Virtus and Concordia!” The gluttony of the rich, however, brings its penalty in sudden death: and no one feels sorry. Nowadays vice has reached its zenith—“so then, my satire, hoist sail, crowd on full canvas!” (_utere uelis, totos pande sinus_). Yet one caution must be observed. If, following Lucilius, you attack those in high station, you may be sentenced to a cruel death. Therefore count the cost before the trumpet sounds. It is safer to satirise a past generation—those who lie buried beside the Great North Road (the _Flaminia_), or the South-Eastern Road (the _Latina_). Dead men do not retaliate.

Juvenal’s claim here to occupy himself with the past is noteworthy. The profession is less an attempted blind for his own safety, than simply another way of disavowing, as Martial explicitly did, the intention of attacking individuals of his own times. Some critics have emphasised the unreality of Juvenal’s working himself into a fury against dead men and bygone abuses; but it may be urged that conceivably part of his material was secretly written up (it was certainly noted in the mind) under Domitian, and that anyhow, as society does not radically change within a few years, there obviously remained, even under the better rule of Trajan, abundance of human types inviting satiric attack. Contemporary observation would then reinforce memory. The theory that represents Juvenal’s eye as mainly upon the past fails to account for his vigour of style, which is not adequately explained as artificial rhetoric.

Satires II, VI and IX may be considered together. Their plainspokenness on sexual excess or perversion has excluded them from many editions. Satire II denounces the atrocious profligacy of hypocritical philosophers “who pose as Puritans, but live in vice” (_qui Curios simulant at Bacchanalia uiuunt_). After a Zolaesque glance at diseases caused by evil living, it is conceded that an open offender is less obnoxious than a counterfeit moralist: “who’d stand a Gracchus railing at revolt?” (_quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?_). In contrast with the sixth satire, a woman is here introduced as a critic of the unnatural depravity of some of the male sex. She protests that not women, but men deserve the rigours of the law. Yet “censure acquits the crow but damns the dove” (_dat ueniam coruis uexat censura columbas_). Men begin with effeminate luxury and end as such monstrosities that the other world would have to be disinfected after receiving them! One great lesson is driven home—the steps in degradation must be jealously watched; “No man becomes a blackguard in a trice” (_nemo repente fuit turpissimus_).

Satire VI is a long gallery of women to be avoided. Some are incurably bad and deserve all they get: others, whom we might call merely objectionable, like the loud-voiced virago or ostentatious she-pedant, incur equal castigation from the angry author. About his brilliant vehemence there can be no doubt. One must, however, not expect a strictly logical summary; for careful planning is not Juvenal’s forte. He will not limit his energy to a fixed programme. Thus in VI he harks back to its opening jeremiad on the disappearance of primitive chastity from a degenerate world; and more than once he introduces the capricious cruelty of mistresses to slaves, or the passion for public spectacles. It is inevitable, then, that, in satires like the first, critics should note signs of imperfect construction. What, however, is lost in methodical arrangement is often gained in free vigour.

His immediate keynote is the insanity of a man’s contemplating marriage so long as ropes are available to hang himself with! With characteristic exaggeration he declares there are few pure women left in Rome—few that do not behave as dangerous temptresses. Can one imagine a woman content with one husband? Scarcely could one discover an honest girl in the country. Roman ladies are spectators of indecent pantomimes, they fall in love with players or gladiators—they will desert home and children for a pet “Sergy”—and they prove exacting in the costliest fancies.

Should you chance on that astounding rarity (_rara auis in terris nigroque simillima cygno_)—a good woman—she is likely to exhibit intolerable pride (_grande supercilium_): and the boastfulness that ruined Niobe spoils all other feminine merits. Then there is the annoying affectation of using Greek words (like the wanton ζωή and ψυχή) which turned an Italian girl into “a maid of Athens” with Hellenic blandishments. Even true love for your bride constitutes a danger; you become her thrall and _Madame_ rules the house, prescribing your affections, settling your will, sentencing a slave to death, and in the end leaving you if it suits her. Figure to yourself the wife of eight husbands in five autumns—an elegant epitaph! (here again Martial might be speaking). Besides, there is your mother-in-law, schooling the young mistress in rapacity and duplicity. If there is a law-suit, _cherchez la femme_ (_nulla fere causa est in qua non femina litem mouerit_). Another bugbear is the unsexed woman who takes up fencing, or the guilty consort whose hypocritical tears conceal her offence, who brazens out the charge if detected in an amour, and is eloquent where a trained rhetorician would be hard put to it for an excuse. Riches, drunkenness, foreign ways, strange rituals have all contributed to Rome’s deterioration. The advice may be offered to set a guard on one’s wife—“but who shall guard the guards themselves?” (_quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_)

The unpleasant series of portraits continues:—the housewife whose ruinous extravagance knows no bounds and takes no lesson; she who dotes on eunuchs or musicians; the gossip who retails the latest news with additions; the bad-tempered woman, imperious in demands on her slaves and coolly keeping guests waiting for dinner if she chooses to have a bath. There is also the victim of disgusting intemperance; but Juvenal’s grim humour represents as worse still[1777] the lady who will talk literature at table—Madam Oracle, beside whom not even another woman (to say nothing of an attorney or town-crier) could get a word in:[1778] and, with a suggestive alliteration, he adds:

The wave of words, you’d swear, that from her wells Sounds like so many basins banged with bells.[1779]

Therefore do not let the Roman matron go in too much for logic, history, grammar, or rhetoric, for she will then quote verses you don’t know, and pedantically correct her friend’s slip in grammar. He returns to the maltreatment of slaves—a displaced curl may cost a lashing: he then pillories the devotees of Eastern superstition, and those who avoid motherhood, smuggle supposititious children into a home to delude a husband, and resort to magic charms or philtres or even to poisons. But—and here Juvenal anticipates the criticism that he paints too dark a picture—you will say, this is all tragic rant.[1780] No, it is too true: Roman women are guilty of the enormities described. Alcestis died for her husband; the modern woman would have a husband die for a pet dog. There are Clytemnestras everywhere.

It is a lurid ending, all the more effective after the clever protest that he has only been telling the truth. In this satire we seem far away from the respectable society of the satirist’s contemporary, Pliny the younger. Yet if the picture is too much overdrawn to be sound history, the genius of the author makes it great literature.

The ninth satire need not occupy us fully. In treating the unpleasant theme of a reprobate’s sorrows, Juvenal introduces just enough of the element of dialogue to remind one of the manner of Persius. Answering the interlocutor’s request that he should withhold his revelation of depravity in high circles, the poet asks in turn whether rich offenders can ever successfully hide their infamy—the very talk of one’s slaves should set a check on evil living. The other, mourning over years misused, replies in one of the most notable passages in Juvenal:

What cure for my lost time and hopes deceived? The little span of our poor narrow life Hastes like a fading blossom to a close. We drink; we call for garlands, perfumes, girls; But Age creeps on us ere we understand.[1781]

Satire III, paraphrased by Johnson under the title of “London,” as he paraphrased Satire X under the title of “The Vanity of Human Wishes,” is deservedly among the most admired of Juvenal’s poems. The picture of Rome as a good place to be out of lends itself to so much realistic and even dramatic treatment that it forms an unforgettable social document. The attack is put in the mouth of one of the poet’s friends, Umbricius, who unburdens his mind just outside the Porta Capena, as he and a cartful of household belongings are about to quit the city and take the road for Cumae on the Bay of Naples. The capital is no place, he asserts, for honourable men or honest work; he cannot be a useful accomplice in crime; he cannot lie and flatter like smooth-tongued versatile jacks-of-all-work from Greece or yet further East. Bitter invective is directed against the _Graeculus esuriens_ who belongs to a nation of consummate actors, cringing sycophants, and dangerous spies; but there is also much stinging criticism upon the Rome and Romans of the day. Where money, not worth, is the test of character, poverty meets with the unkindest cut of all—it is jeered at.[1782] How hard it is to rise in straitened circumstances! Rural simplicity is in sharp contrast to the showiness of the town, where everything has its price, where one must bribe a pampered valet for an interview with his master, where life is threatened by tumble-down tenements or conflagrations or street accidents.

The sudden collapse of a waggon loaded with marble is made the subject of a miniature drama worthy of the ancient traditions of _satura_. Within fourteen lines[1783] we have three vivid scenes:

I. A street in Rome; heavy traffic; cart upset; fatal accident to a passer-by.

II. (The scene is changed, _domus interea_). The victim’s home; busy slaves, in unconscious dramatic irony, preparing the bath for their master who will never return alive.

III. (Another change of scene). Hades, whither master has already gone (_at ille iam sedet in ripa_), a shuddering novice waiting for the dread ferryman across the gloomy stream.

Nor are the perils less by night. Make your will before you venture to sup from home! A strikingly picturesque sketch is given of the dark streets where the drunken swashbuckler bullies those he can waylay. Here again Juvenal shows mastery of his effective semi-dramatic method in a series of brief scenes:

I. Night: restless _apache_ of ancient Rome tossing sleepless on his couch; he has killed nobody that day; hence his insomnia!—murdering is an indispensable soporific.

II. Dark street; _apache_ eluding the patrol.

III. Moonlight; lonely wayfarer returning from a supper-party; enter _apache_ (_stat contra_):

He calls a halt: and you must needs obey: What else? he’s wild, and brawn can force its way.

Swift angry dialogue follows, if dialogue it can be called, where the surprised citizen scarcely gets time to reply. “And where may you come from?” he bawls: “whose sour wine and beans have blown you out? Who’s the cobbler you’ve been with gorging chopped leeks or boiled sheep’s head? Eh? no answer? Speak or take a sound kicking! Out with it! Where do you hold forth? In what praying-shanty am I to look for you?” It is the poor man’s privilege to get mauled and implore leave to go home with just a few teeth left! After a final complaint about shopbreakers, footpads and highwaymen, Umbricius, in Juvenal’s hyperbolical manner, affects to fear a shortage of iron owing to the quantity of chains needed for the criminal population.

Satire IV is a half-playful account of an enormous turbot which a fisherman decided must be presented to Domitian, who summons his privy council to deliberate on the proper treatment of the fish. We are made vividly to realize the perilous friendship of an imperial tyrant, his distrust of his counsellors, and their pallid nervousness in his proximity. The brief strokes of portraiture which recreate the figures at court show great power.

The fifth satire is a scathing exposure of the shabby entertainment of clients by mean hosts. “If,” says the poet to the client, “you can tamely suffer the indignities put upon you at a rich patron’s table, you must be absolutely worthless. Better be a beggar out and out. The height of your aspiration (_uotorum summa_) is to get even the worst place at the great man’s board, where one is not allowed to drink the same wine, or eat the same bread or fish as he. A blackamoor rascal attends to you whom you wouldn’t like to meet on a dark night (_cui per mediam nolis occurrere noctem_) on the Latin Way, while a handsome slave stands by your patron, who regales himself upon _foie gras_, capon and boar with truffles in season. The best dainties you are permitted to watch without tasting. Don’t suppose all this is entirely mean economy on your host’s part: he does it maliciously to wound: it is such fun to watch a client’s angry disappointment. To endure such insults proves you deserve them (_omnia ferre si potes, et debes_).”

Satire VII anticipates the dawn of better days for literature and learning under the patronage of a new ruler (_et spes et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantum_). In contrast with these brighter prospects, the poem is a growl of discontent over the present condition of literature, which does not pay. Patrons are mean and poverty chills authorship. Only the pantomime actor thrives and wields influence (_quod non dant proceres dabit histrio_): so the most promising thing poets can do is to sell a libretto for a _fabula saltica_ on the stage: otherwise a Statius might starve in spite of popular readings from his _Thebaid_. Take the literary professions: they are all miserably rewarded. The historian gets no adequate return for his exacting toil: the advocate is not recompensed in proportion to real skill—a jockey of the red colour can eclipse in fortune a hundred lawyers. Nowadays a Cicero would not be prized unless he wore a fine ring: a poor man has no chance, however eloquent (_rara in tenui facundia panno_), and would do well to retire to Gaul or Africa—a sagacious testimony by Juvenal to the intellectual force of these provinces. The teachers of declamation are no better off: they are killed by the deadly monotony of repeated exercises (_occidit miseros crambe repetita magistros_). They are expected to post students up in useful points without receiving proper fees (_scire uolunt omnes, mercedem soluere nemo_), and they are blamed for a pupil’s want of proficiency. Compute the fees earned by a teacher of singing and music, and you will tear up your manual of rhetoric. If a great professor like Quintilian made a good income, that was an exceptional freak of fortune. And, with a touch of poetry, Juvenal calls for heaven’s blessing on former generations who knew how to respect the instructor of the mind:

Grant that the earth, ye gods, above the shades Of our forefathers may lie soft and light: Sweet-breathing crocus, spring that never fades, Grant to the tombs of those who held it right To honour teachers as one would a sire.[1784]

In the eighth satire the uselessness of pedigrees is exposed (_stemmata quid faciunt?_) as Juvenal laughs at the claims of long descent on the part of those who live unworthy lives:

Though decked with olden busts great halls may be, Virtue remains the sole nobility.[1785]

Good character is the true patent of high rank:[1786] there should be a rapturous welcome for real goodness to match that of votaries greeting Osiris. In breeds of dumb animals we expect the old qualities to be maintained: otherwise, the degenerate is rejected: so a man must be capable of winning distinction by his own conduct instead of relying on his ancestors’ renown (_miserum est aliorum incumbere famae_). Juvenal nowhere strikes a loftier ethical note than in his admonitions here that the truth must be spoken were it even at the risk of torture, that a governor of a province must rule his own desires, that the triumphs of peace outnumber those of war (_plures de pace triumphos_), and—in two of his most memorable lines—that death is preferable to disgrace.

Hold it black sin ’fore honour breath to choose— For living’s sake the grounds of life to lose.[1787]

With the famous tenth satire we encounter Juvenal’s later and more reflective manner. In length it comes next to the sixth, though about 300 lines shorter. The main thesis is that a survey of mankind over the globe from the Pillars of Hercules to the Ganges, or, as Johnson has it, “from China to Peru,” shows the blind foolishness of human desires. Ignorant of what is really beneficial, man everywhere craves for what may prove his ruin. Such a world of idiocy may move equally well a Democritus to laughter or a Heraclitus to tears. The theme is vigorously illustrated by instances exhibiting the perils of political ambition (Sejanus, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar); eloquence (Demosthenes and Cicero); military glory (Hannibal, Alexander the Great); long life (Nestor, Priam, Croesus, Marius, and others who outlived their best days); beauty (Lucretia, Virginia, Hippolytus, and Messalina’s ill-starred favourite Silius). More abstract in subject, the satire retains much of Juvenal’s old vivid and dramatic manner. In one compact line an admirably complete picture can be conveyed: a traveller, nervous over the risk of robbery on a lonely road (like the Appian), passes through a marshy district (such as the Pomptine), and in the moonlight fancies each stirring of the bulrushes may mean a lurking highwayman.[1788] Nothing could exceed the vigour shown in describing the outburst of popular fury against the statues of the fallen idol, Sejanus, and in the dramatic comments by those whom we might introduce as “first citizen” and “second citizen.”[1789] Much else remains familiar in the satire—the gibe at Cicero’s poetry, the nauseous realism in recounting drawbacks of old age, and the sketch of Hannibal’s career leading up to the contemptuous dismissal:

Go, madman, o’er the cruel Alps make speed To please young spouters of a college screed![1790]

Juvenal’s cynicism is not entirely negative. After denouncing all ordinary human aims, he still leaves something to pray for. The concluding passage owes much of its nobility to the Stoicism which inspires it; and though there is no need to question the author’s sincerity, he comes in one flippant line very near spoiling the whole effect. Half ashamed of his own seriousness, he seems unable to resist the temptation to have his jest at one of the religious rituals of the day (_exta et candiduli diuina tomacula porci_):

Shall men then pray for naught? If ’tis advice You crave, then let the deities themselves Apportion us our due and helpful lot. The gods will grant not joys but all that’s meet. They love man more than man loves self. Impelled By yearning heart, by might of blind desire, We seek a bride and offspring; but the gods Alone know what the child or wife will be. Still, that you may ask something, paying vows At shrines with victims’ entrails, offering Prophetic mincemeat of a piglet white, Pray for a sound mind in a body sound. Ask for the valiant soul that fears not death, But counts the final lap of life a gift From nature, and can suffer any toil, Stranger to wrath and lust, preferring all The cruel toils and woes of Hercules To banquets, love, or cushions from the East. Behold—I show what you may give yourself— Through goodness lies the only path of peace. O Chance, thy power is foiled if men be wise: We men make thee a goddess in the skies.[1791]

The interest of the eleventh satire, which contrasts plain living with sumptuous junketing, is in part autobiographic; for after its prelude of 55 lines on the folly of extravagant gourmands who neglect the heaven-sent and ever-valuable maxim “Know thyself,” it consists of an invitation from the poet to a simple meal which shall draw produce from his own Tiburtine farm. Only Homer and Virgil are to be read at table, while the roar of the holiday-makers in the circus can be heard afar off. The author’s old age is suggested in his declaration that it is for the young to attend the games and shout and bet with a smart damsel seated by their side: “but let my shrivelled skin bask in the spring sunshine free from the formal gown.”[1792]

Though the twelfth is the shortest of the satires except the fragmentary sixteenth, it hardly makes an artistic unity. The safe arrival of Juvenal’s friend Catullus at Ostia after imminent danger of shipwreck gives occasion for a pious sacrifice in token of thanksgiving by the poet. His motives however must not be misconstrued. He is no legacy-hunter seeking to curry favour. An awkward transition leads to a gibe at such legacy-hunters as would purchase a place in a will by offering the costliest victims, an elephant (and here the satire becomes doubly elephantine), or a slave, or a child devoted like Iphigeneia. The closing note is the forcible imprecation on a fortune-seeker:

Long may Pacuvius live, as Nestor old, Possess as much, as Nero snatched, pile gold In mountains, loving none, by none beloved.[1793]

The elevated moral teaching of Satire XIII must win our admiration. Calvinus has been cheated of 10,000 sesterces by a fraudulent friend. The solace which the poet has to offer is that genuine punishment is inflicted by a guilty conscience: no wrong-doer can elude that court. After all, we live no longer in the Golden Age, but in corrupt times, when money exerts its lure and perjury is rampant. “The wrath of gods is great, yet worketh slow” (_ut sit magna tamen certe lenta ira deorum est_). The offender, then, must be left in the hands of heaven; and Juvenal feels for vindictive passions only a biting, and, at the same time, misogynistic contempt:

Vengeance is the delight of petty minds, Paltry and weak. Infer this truth, because None like a woman dotes upon revenge.[1794]

The influence of parental example is the theme of Satire XIV—the third longest of the collection. There are many faults which children learn from their parents, such as gambling, gluttony, cruelty, intrigue. Therefore all that is unseemly to hear or see must be excluded from the home: the utmost respect is due to the child (_maxima debetur puero reuerentia_). You take pains to make your house clean to receive a guest: should you not, for your son’s sake, keep it free from evil? The later part of the poem deals with avarice, a fault which the young practise reluctantly and which wears a spurious resemblance to virtue. Hence too often a father inculcates the passion for gain upon a son by precept and example; and hence the modern quest for wealth at the cost of crime and risk of death. The final counsel is to get enough for the support of life; and, with a glance at the Stoic ideal of living _secundum naturam_, he declares:

Nature ne’er contradicts Philosophy.[1795]

If you need more, adopt the equestrian income as a standard, or even twice that amount; beyond that, the treasures of Croesus are little likely to satisfy your desires.

The fifteenth satire tells of a feud between two Egyptian townships, Ombi and Tentyra. The Tentyrites having attacked their neighbours in the midst of a festival were put to flight. In the retreat one fugitive who slipped was hacked to pieces by the victors and devoured. This revolting cannibalism gives Juvenal occasion for the reflection that tenderness of heart as shown by tears is the noblest attribute of man.[1796]

Only partially finished, the last satire complains of unfair advantages possessed by a soldier over a civilian. When it is cited as evidence throwing doubt upon the records of Juvenal’s military service, one ought in fairness to remember that not every soldier leaves the army as its panegyrist.

In spirit there are signal differences between the earlier and the later satires. If Satires X and XII-XV be compared with the rest, an increase in prolix bookishness will be noted alongside of a decrease in concrete force. Ribbeck’s theory of two Juvenals, a genuine satirist and a spurious declaimer, is long since dead; but it possessed the merit of resting upon a close examination into points of difference in the satires. The hypothesis viewed the traditional Juvenal as a Janus-head (_Janus-kopf_) looking on one side at the full fresh life of Rome and the present, but on the other side at the dead past and the dusk of academic tradition. The contrast was likened to passing from one of Schiller’s dramas to a drowsy afternoon sermon (_eine sanft einschläfernde Nachmittagspredigt_). Unfortunately the theory overestimated the differences, failed to see that there was no fundamental incompatibility in style, and interpreted the actual differences with a perverse misconception of the true explanation. Above all its other absurdities, the theory would ask us to believe that the tenth satire was the work of some unknown forger and was merely one of the alleged “drowsy afternoon sermons.” The solution lies not in positing a duality of authorship, but in recognizing that the real Juvenal had grown older, and in his later manner let his satire down from the old level of full-blooded vitality and devil-may-care invective. The figment of the true and the false Juvenal could be maintained only in cheerful oblivion of the evolution, and sometimes deterioration, in style characteristic of many other authors. There is no greater unlikeness between the early and the late Juvenal than between the Horace of the earliest _Satires_ and the Horace of the _Epistles_; or, to cite a prose-writer, between the first and last works of Tacitus. In modern English, Carlyle and Browning are apt parallels.

Juvenal, we have seen, proclaims his literary ancestry in his first satire, legitimately affiliating his _genre_ to that of both Lucilius and Horace. His insistence on indignation as the mainspring of his censorious utterances definitely connects him with the fierce invective of the former. Though the influence of Horace is manifest in his language, one finds no imitation of Horatian geniality. To turn from Juvenal to the fourth satire in Horace’s first book is to breathe an entirely different atmosphere. We are there in the company of an apologist for the satiric attitude who does not wish to be feared or hated or to write dangerously, who guarantees that ill-natured rancour shall be absent from his sketches, and who pleads for an indulgent attitude towards any outspoken jest.[1797] Aware of his own faults, Horace can take himself, as well as others, gently to task, with a sort of Chaucerian smile for pardonable human weaknesses. His very habit of jotting things down on paper (_inludo chartis_) is one of those venial peccadilloes (_mediocribus illis ex uitiis unum_). This is the reason why his sportive verses win the reader’s heart, as Persius felt—_circum praecordia ludit_. Juvenal’s strength lies elsewhere: the genial smile has gone: he cannot laugh at himself as Horace does. There is no self-revelation; for Juvenal takes himself as seriously as he takes the world. If there is humour, it is grim; since the times are out of joint, the lash must be plied to put them right again. Some elements of Persius’s earnest spirit, especially some Stoic traits, enter into him, though his method of censure is not so much homily as fiery attack. Both alike, however, are fighters, waging a warfare to improve the diseased society against which they find themselves in reaction.

For Juvenal’s purpose he had at his command the gift of extraordinarily vivid and succinct presentation of men and things. This gift renders him the most powerful delineator of Roman society at the beginning of the second century, so that he recreates for his readers the life that was led then and the human figures who moved in the street, house, or palace. This constitutes what, for want of a better term, we call his realism. The secret of it he had learned, not in any rhetorical academy, but in the severe school of life:[1798] he had undergone the privations of poverty, and almost certainly of war and exile: he possessed the observant eye, the retentive memory, the faculty of direct expression needed to make an experience live again in literature. A few essential and picturesque details, recorded with the utmost parsimony, place a whole scene before us. Thus, we cannot fail to see the scramble for the dole, with such subterfuges as the curtained, though empty, _lectica_ supposed to contain a lady caller.[1799] Again, we seem to be uncomfortably present among Domitian’s counsellors—one, an unwieldy mountain of flesh (_uenter adest abdomine tardus_); another, an informer whose gentle whisper could slit a victim’s throat (_tenui iugulos aperire susurro_); yet another, a repulsive blind flatterer, pouring out words of admiration for the emperor’s great turbot, and at the same time “turning to the left, though in fact the fish was lying on his right!” In the same passage[1800] the allusion to “the beggar at the carriage wheels, who throws wheedling kisses as it drives down hill” is as true to Italy to-day as it ever was. Certain dramatic aspects of this realism have been illustrated in the survey of the Satires. Not unnaturally it is a realism concentrated mainly on what will favour satiric treatment. A satirist never achieves, or even aims at, a universal or impartial view of life. Juvenal’s professed subject may be the _farrago_ of all mankind’s doings during postdiluvian ages; but actually a great proportion of human affairs can offer no challenge to a mordant critic. Goodness, for instance, even at its most humdrum, is little likely to stir the _indignatio_ which is Juvenal’s driving force. That he should be darkly pessimistic is involved in the nature of the case and in his temperament. He tends to look only at the gloomy side, and therefore to obscure the fact that not everything around him was a cesspool of vice, but that on the contrary much in contemporary Roman and Italian life was sound, healthy, and beautiful. Undeniably, we could have spared some of the coarseness with which he made wickedness revolting.

What humour exists in Juvenal is of a kind to match his serious disposition. It tends to be grim and ironical: and the want of kindly sunshine in it has led some to doubt its existence.[1801] His roundabout allusive manner sometimes produces quaintly humorous effects through its smack of flippancy: thus he substitutes “Ceres’ son-in-law” for Pluto; and “the youth preferred to jealous Iarbas” for Aeneas. But his grim irony is best seen in passages like those in which he treats the unexpected fate of the citizen killed in the street accident of the third satire, or when he sums up the aim of all ambition as nothing but the laudatory inscription on a sepulchre which is itself so far from immortal that even a tree may burst it asunder—“the very tombs have their allotted span” (_data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulcris_, X, 146). Here he has taken one impressive step beyond the idea in Gray’s line, “The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”

Occasionally there is a feeling for beauty, doubly welcome because not much may be expected in a satirist. A transient gleam of romance illumines the grotto of the inspired Egeria when he prefers nature’s loveliness to artificial improvements:

Down to Egeria’s vale we fared, to caves From Nature’s work transformed. How much more near Would be the fountain nymph, if simple grass Enclosed the waters with its margent green, Nor marble kerb profaned the native stone.[1802]

Allusion has already been made to the beauty of idea and language in his prayer that the last resting-place of those who revered the teachers of the young shall be brightened by “fragrant crocus and unfailing spring” (_spirantisque crocus et in urna perpetuum uer_, VII, 208).

It is not however in the realm of pure poetry but in his free mastery of rhetoric and his skill in adapting it to his literary aims, that Juvenal’s true eminence lies. This is not to suggest that he could ever be dismissed as a rhetorician. He is not controlled by, but controls, his instrument. It is very easy to accumulate copious examples of his recourse to rhetorical artifices—interrogation, apostrophe, antithesis and the rest. Scores of _sententiae_ could be reckoned up, like

Travellers with naught sing in the robber’s face.[1803]

or

“There’s many a thing which they Whose coats are tattered never dare to say.”[1804]

Attention could also be called to his fondness for hyperbole, like “men at sea outnumber those ashore!” or “pillars split by the everlasting reciter,” or the jest that, if asked to enumerate the legion ailments of old age, one could more readily tell “how many patients Dr. Themison killed off in one autumn season.”[1805]

Akin to this penchant for overstatement is his diverting use of an anticlimax where a series of objectionable things or persons ends intentionally in a surprise. Thus, nothing worse, he says, could be conceived than to stay in Rome dreading conflagrations, the constant fall of houses, the thousand dangers of a cruel town, and—to cap all—poets giving readings from their works in the hot August days![1806] But the truth is that, tricks notwithstanding, his style in its complexity and individuality is much more than merely rhetorical. The statement of the _uitae_ that he practised declamation till middle life has produced a misleading effect on some critics who have impeached his sincerity. His place, however, in literary history is secure: he is one of the great satirists—to some the greatest—and one refuses to believe that greatness of style can be based on rhetorical knack alone. Admittedly declamatory, he yet drew his real strength from a passion for serious morality, which, without, perhaps, very deep religious feeling[1807] or convinced attachment to philosophy,[1808] still gave him the right to cherish his _saeua indignatio_ against abuses constituting social dangers.

Genuine feeling, then, forced him to raise an original voice in utterances which the world has not allowed to die. Lines or phrases that readily recur to the memory (some of them already quoted) are so many reminders of his permanent contribution to literature: _e.g. probitas laudatur et alget; quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes? nemo repente fuit turpissimus; omnia nouit Graeculus esuriens; haud facile emergunt, quorum uirtutibus obstat res angusta domi; nemo malus felix; rara auis in terris; hoc uolo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione uoluntas; sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? soloecismum liceat fecisse marito; facies dicetur an ulcus? occidit miseros crambe repetita magistros; stemmata quid faciunt? propter uitam uiuendi perdere causas; panem et circenses; mens sana in corpore sano; pictores quis nescit ab Iside pasci? prima est haec ultio, quod se iudice nemo nocens absoluitur?; maxima debetur puero reverentia; lucri bonus est odor ex re qualibet_.

Allusions and verbal reminiscences prove Juvenal’s memory for previous literature. His reader is expected to understand an ordinary reference to Greek poetry or history and to recognize now a Horatian, now a Virgilian tag, as, for example, we find _rusticus expectas_ and _parcendum est teneris_ in the same satire.[1809] As regards his versification, he makes a noticeable departure from his fellow-satirists, Horace and Persius, in favour of Virgil. His control, and it is masterly, over the hexameter is in the main Virgilian rather than Ovidian, though it has some Lucretian quality. One finds, then, in him an epic ring, which appears to suggest that at least in his longer passages Juvenal may be represented in English by the traditional blank verse of narrative poetry more appropriately than by what too easily becomes the ding-dong of the rhymed heroic couplet.

In those satires which Dryden selected for rendering, his neat distich is at its best among the terse sententious parts; and the experiment whereby the great English satirist set himself to translate his Roman prototype must always remain of extraordinary interest, although one may feel that Gifford’s heroic couplets achieve in some respects a more successful version. Briefly, however, Juvenal’s variety of line-structure, his freedom in pause and _enjambement_, cannot be conveyed within the rigid limits of the couplet. This ease of movement accounts for his range—occasional beauty, occasional harshness, but prevailing rapidity. Cleverly interwined alliterations may be made not merely emphatic and decorative as in _dat ueniam coruis, uexat censura columbas_, but realistic in their unmistakable echo of the sense, as in the likening of a woman’s torrential talk to the banging of tin basins and tinkling bells—_tot pariter pelues et tintinnabula dicas pulsari_. Or, again, the excited bustle of a house on fire is suggested by the final and initial dentals which recur, like the rat-tat of a kettle-drum in

“iam poscit aquam, iam friuola transfert Ucalegon, tabulata tibi iam tertia fumant.”

Totally different effects are produced by the slow melancholy movement at the close of a line to express the fate of a poor wretch who has found favour with the dangerous Messalina:

“rapitur miser extinguendus Messalinae oculis.”

Like all the satirists, Juvenal draws a modicum of words from the common speech of town and country—_caballus_, _olla_, _scrofa_, _potestas_ (like the Italian _podestà_, a magistrate). He delights in such diminutives as the _sermo cotidianus_ preserved all through the history of Latin and handed down to modern Italian. One may specify as examples, _candidulus_, _cuticula_, _flammeolum_, _foculus_, _fraterculus_, _Graeculus_, _hortulus_, _igniculus_, _improbulus_, _liuidulus_, _nutricula_, _ofella_, _pallidulus_, _palliolum_, _paruulus_, _pellicula_, _rancidulus_, _sarcinula_, _seruulus_, _sordidulus_, _virguncula_.

The influence of the Satires is not traceable before the fourth century, when Ammianus Marcellinus proves they had admirers. Both pagans and Christians felt their spell: they were imitated by Ausonius, Claudian, and Prudentius, and quoted by Lactantius and Servius. Medieval interest in Juvenal’s ethical value was well marked—Chaucer apostrophizes him; and from Elizabethan times onwards the satirists of England and France have studied his poems. Readers of Boileau, Dryden, Pope, Johnson and Byron know that they all in varying degrees were indebted to the works of the Roman satirist.

LITERATURE IN THE REIGN OF HADRIAN

A.D. 117–A.D. 138

SUETONIUS AND FLORUS

Hadrian’s reign a literary diminuendo—The emperor himself—His tastes—Archaism and Greek—Suetonius—An imperial secretary in disgrace—Encyclopaedic fruits of his leisure—Works extant and lost—Date of _De Viris Illustribus_ and _De Vita Caesarum_—Sources—_De Grammaticis_—_De Rhetoribus_—_De Poetis_—The doubtful _Life of Virgil_—Characteristics of _Lives of the Caesars_—Suetonius and Tacitus—Suetonius and Pepys—Portraits of emperors—Entertaining realism—Style—Influence.

Three Flori in one—Florus the rhetor—Florus the poet—Doubtful ascription of _Peruigilium Veneris_ to him—Florus the historian—The Roman people his hero—Eulogy and rhetoric.

THE REIGN OF HADRIAN

Tempting though it is to make a study of the Silver Age culminate crescendo-wise in the unique artistry of Tacitean prose, there are difficulties in leaving out the diminuendo of Hadrian’s reign[1810] (A.D. 117-138). One must acknowledge that literary history has but a faint interest in the jurists of the period like Salvius Julianus and Pomponius; or in the rhetoricians and philosophers, who mostly wrote in Greek; or again in versifiers, skilful rather than inspired, like Annianus, Septimius Serenus, Alfius Avitus, and the restless emperor himself, although his dying farewell to his soul is at least a perpetual bait for translators.[1811] One notes, too, little of significance among the grammarians, except perhaps the commentaries, now in fragments, written by Terentius Scaurus on Plautus, Virgil and Horace, and his linguistically important _De Orthographia_, of which we possess two abstracts. It is also true that the greatness of Tacitus eclipses the work of Suetonius and Florus, the only two Hadrianic historians who are noteworthy, if, as is most likely, the abridgement of Trogus’s Macedonian history by Justinus is rather Antonine than contemporary.[1812] But chronologically there is no natural break just before Suetonius, who was one of Pliny’s junior friends; nor should the fall-off from Tacitean brilliance blind one either to Suetonius’s merits in a different kind of biography from the _Agricola_ or to the debt which literary history owes him for preserving, with an almost Varronian interest in the past, much that could not otherwise have been known about the poets and the teachers of Rome.

Before studying Suetonius and Florus, a glance at the reign seems appropriate. Its total literary achievement makes a somewhat ironic comment on Juvenal’s hope _et spes et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantum_, and shows that patronage does not of necessity beget literature. Patronage, indeed, while clearly it never can create genius, is not always even good for such genius as may emerge. The prince himself was a lover of learning and architecture. He established a library at his spacious villa whose ruins still impress us under the slopes of Tivoli: he had another at Antium, and a third was attached to his famous academy at Rome, the Athenaeum. “The little Greek” (_Graeculus_), as some dared to call him, was a student of eloquence and drama. He published some of his speeches: he patronized but also quizzed scholars and philosophers. Pieces of mediocre verse by his Majesty have survived, and we know the ugly title of his lost miscellany, _Catachannae_. Only once did inspiration visit him: as he lay under the shadow of death, there came to him a few simple lines immortal in their suggestion of the mysterious parting between body and soul:

_Animula, uagula, blandula,_ _Hospes comesque corporis,_ _Quae nunc abibis in loca,_ _Pallidula, rigida, nudula,_ _Nec ut soles dabis iocos?_

The tender diminutives add to the difficulty of translation, but one more attempt may be made:

Ah! little fondling soul and fleeting, My body’s guest and travel-friend, To what far land art thou retreating, Poor little wan, stark, naked sweeting— Thy wonted frolic at an end?[1813]

In several ways the example set by imperial taste contributed to give to literature the particular turn which it now took. Hadrian had a preference for the archaic—a feature of Roman criticism accentuated later in the century. That he was a pronounced phil-Hellene and a great traveller were both facts which influenced others. Suetonius, we shall find, furnishes a good instance of the extent to which authors were now composing in Greek as well as in Latin; and no long time elapses before a Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, chooses Greek as the proper language for his _Meditations_. Apollodorus composed his treatise on siege-operations expressly for Hadrian, and military writing was continued by Aelian in his work on Greek tactics. Many Greek volumes of the time on history have perished; for example those of Crito, a Macedonian who accompanied Hadrian on his journeys, and treated Syracuse, Macedonia, Persia in addition to Trajan’s Dacian war. The best work of Arrian, from Bithynia, belongs to Hadrian’s time. If he is chiefly remembered as a second Xenophon who produced a new set of _Memorabilia_ in handling the Stoic philosophy of his master Epictetus, and a new _Anabasis_ in narrating the Asiatic expedition of Alexander, it should likewise be borne in mind that he became a Roman citizen and a consul. Though he was still alive in the days of Marcus Aurelius, it was for Hadrian that Arrian wrote the _Periplus_ of the Black Sea. Geography, one feels, ought to have flourished under so indefatigable a traveller: certainly mathematical geography was, thanks to the genius of Ptolemaeus, to make a notable advance under the Antonines.

SUETONIUS

No one in antiquity appears to have thought of writing the biography of one of its most famous biographers, C. Suetonius Tranquillus.[1814] For information about him, we are in consequence dependent upon a few allusions of his own,[1815] sundry letters of the younger Pliny, and a statement in the _Life of Hadrian_ which Spartianus wrote in or after Diocletian’s reign. His father, Suetonius Laetus, fought at Betriacum as a _tribunus angusticlauius_ of the thirteenth legion in A.D. 69, and about that year Suetonius Tranquillus must have been born.[1816] This conclusion hangs largely on the meaning attached to the term _adulescentia_; for he looked back on himself as having been _adulescens_ in A.D. 88 (when a pretended Nero appeared twenty years after the real Nero’s death), and as still _adulescens_ late in Domitian’s reign.[1817] He may have been born in Rome; but this is no more certain of him than it is of Lucretius or Julius Caesar.

The external evidence about his life consists of references in Pliny’s letters within the period from 96 to 112.[1818] These references show that he practised in the law-courts; that he was allowed to transfer to a kinsman a military tribunate for which he had himself been nominated; that he was appreciated as a writer, but slow to issue works; and that Pliny valued his advice on such a question as reading verse in public. Pliny’s request submitted on Suetonius’s behalf to Trajan for the concession of the _ius trium liberorum_ proves that, though he was married, he had either no children or fewer than the statutory requirement. The letter is a warm testimony to the integrity and learning of a man who had been for a time an inmate of Pliny’s house, and for whom, he assures the emperor, he felt a stronger affection the closer his acquaintance became.[1819] In the next reign Suetonius held an imperial secretaryship,[1820] when access to the archives gave him presumably the first impulse, and certainly considerable material, towards his _Lives of the Caesars_. Hadrian, however, in A.D. 121 dismissed him along with others, including Septicius Clarus, prefect of the Praetorian guard, for some offence against court-etiquette in relation to the empress Sabina.[1821] Never a public man, Suetonius thenceforward devoted his leisure to what most attracted him—historical, academic and antiquarian studies. The list of his works proves that his productivity was great; but we know from Pliny that he produced slowly.[1822] It may, therefore, easily be credited that Suetonius lived till he was an old man under the emperor Antoninus Pius.

Time has spared only the _Lives of the Caesars_, and from the _De Viris Illustribus_, on men eminent in literature, the greater part of the sections _De Grammaticis_ and _De Rhetoribus_, as well as the _Life_ of the elder Pliny among the historians, that of Passienus Crispus among the orators, and the _Lives_ of Terence, Horace and Lucan.[1823] These last three are all (except such morsels as Jerome preserved in his amplification of Eusebius’s chronicle) that can safely be counted genuine portions of the _De Poetis_, the loss of which has left lamentable blanks in our knowledge.

A catalogue given in Greek by Suidas under the heading Τράγκυλλος includes the _De Vita Caesarum_ and _De Viris Illustribus_ and adds nine titles: _On Games among the Greeks_ (in Greek); _On Spectacles and Games among the Romans_; _On the Roman Year_; _On (critical) Signs in Writings_; _On Cicero’s Republic_ (a book in answer to six books by the grammarian Didymus against Cicero); _On Proper Names, Dress and Shoes_ (probably a history rather than a philosophy of clothes); _On Abusive Terms and their Origin_ (in Greek, and grouped by their application to the vicious, to busybodies, fools, slaves, etc.); _On the Manners and Customs of Rome_ (two books which we can imagine to have been full of interest); and the enigmatic Συγγενικόν.[1824] Some of these are also vouched for by Latin writers like Aulus Gellius, Tertullian, Censorinus, and Servius; while some may be not independent works but sections of a larger treatise. Traces of yet other books are found in Orosius, Servius, Lydus, Priscian and Isidore: namely, an account of Julius Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul;[1825] _On Physical Blemishes_ (_De Vitiis Corporalibus_, conceivably treated in connexion with his work on dress); _On Eminent Courtesans_; _On Organization of Public Duties_ (_De Institutione Officiorum_); _On Kings_ (_De Regibus_); _On Various Matters_ (_De Rebus Variis_), possibly identical with the miscellaneous _Pratum_ or _Prata_, which, as can be inferred from later references, was divided into books on different subjects, antiquarian and scientific (_e.g._ Rome and Roman customs, the Roman year, the universe, nature of animals, etc.), probably including some of those in Suidas’s list.[1826] When it is remembered that Suetonius wrote both in Greek and in Latin, and handled a vast range of themes, one can realize his long years of laborious industry and understand his influence upon historians, grammarians, antiquaries and encyclopaedists for several centuries.

If the work whose appearance in whole or part Pliny in one of his letters expected from Suetonius was the _De Viris Illustribus_, then its publication may be put about A.D. 113.[1827] One is on fairly sure ground in dating the _De Vita Caesarum_ about 121, _i.e._ before the disgrace of Septicius Clarus to whom the imperial biographies were dedicated. There is, however, hardly justification for attempting to give, even with reserve, as Macé does, an approximate date for the _De Institutione Officiorum_ and the _De Rebus Variis_.

Much of his antiquarian lore Suetonius drew from Varro; for facts about illustrious men he could lay under contribution Fenestella, Santra, Nepos, Hyginus, Seneca the elder, and Asconius; and for poets the commentators upon them. The citations and references to authorities in the _Life of Terence_ indicate that he was well read. His main reliance upon books and documents may be one reason (apart from an instinctively historical interest in Julius and Augustus) why the _Lives_ grow shorter as they approach his own period, when oral evidence was more abundant than written histories. But he did not ignore verbal witnesses: on the contrary, much in him was due to popular opinion and gossip. Thus, stories about Claudius on the bench are recorded from the recollections of elderly persons (_a maioribus natu audiebam_, _Cl._ xv.). The painstaking inquiries (_quamuis satis curiose inquirerem_, _Vesp._ i.) about Vespasian’s ancestors were presumably conducted in districts likely to know the family. Quite definitely he made use of matters which he heard mentioned by his grandfather (_auum meum narrantem puer audiebam_, _Cal._ xix.), by his father (_Oth._ x.), or by others (_ex nonnullis comperi_, _Ner._ xxix.). Similarly, he had several informants (_e pluribus comperi_, _Tit._ iii.) to vouch for Titus’s expertness in shorthand and that adroitness in imitating signatures which might in other circumstances have turned the prince into an arch-forger. Yet the bulk of Suetonius’s material came from his reading, which could be more exactly estimated, had it been part of his method to name his sources regularly instead of frequently contenting himself with a colourless _quidam ... nonnulli tradunt_ (_Vesp._ i.). Though he may characterize authorities as trustworthy (_nec incertis_, _Ner._ xxxiv.), this only leaves one curious as to their identity. When Suetonius was in Hadrian’s service _ab epistulis_, the archives under charge of the associated department _a studiis_ were easily accessible to him; while his intimacy with Pliny’s circle had not only given a patrician colour to his outlook, but probably directed him by preference to writers of a corresponding hue. At court he had opportunities for examining collections of imperial letters and speeches, state-papers, edicts and ceremonial eulogies, and, among public documents, the _acta diurna_, _senatus consulta_ and _senatus acta_.[1828] It is interesting to remember that Suetonius mentions his possession of verses by Nero in the emperor’s own handwriting;[1829] nor is his reading without literary acumen when he remarks of Claudius’s autobiography in eight books that it was lacking not so much in style as in common sense (_composuit ... magis inepte quam ineleganter_).[1830] Among historians whom he does name are well-known figures like Nepos, Hirtius, Asinius Pollio, Cremutius Cordus and a few others unfamiliar to us.[1831] Diligent though he was, he cannot be called critical of his material: he was too well satisfied with amassing it. A conflict of evidence he prefers to leave undecided (_quod discrepat sit in medio_, _Vitell._ ii.). It is the more surprising that upon occasion he can weigh his authorities. The most memorable instance is the chapter discussing the birthplace of Caligula,[1832] where a brief investigation into his sources decides him to follow the official _acta_ or _publici instrumenti auctoritas_ in preference to the authors Lentulus Gaetulicus and the elder Pliny. In another passage he reasons critically about the variation between complimentary and uncomplimentary accounts of Vitellius’s ancestry: it was not, he observes, simply due to prejudice for or against the emperor himself, since older accounts presented the same conflict of evidence; and, in this connexion, he cites as one of his first-hand authorities a memoir by Q. Elogius in the Augustan period.[1833]

The _De Grammaticis_ contains in brief space much of interest in the chronicle of literary teachers at Rome, throwing incidental light on such points as the demarcation of grammar from rhetoric, the effect of literary teaching on poetry, the fees earned, and the taste for old-fashioned writers which lingered in the provinces after it had vanished in Rome. Here and there we find amusing touches, like the request made by a pleader for adjournment of a case to enable a litigant to take lessons in grammar, or Asinius Gallus’s epigram on the ex-boxer who had turned to teaching:

The Don who gives us glosses in a list Once learned to dodge his head: His mouth’s no good—but he has got a fist! Why doesn’t he box instead?[1834]

In the still shorter _De Rhetoribus_ we are told incidentally about enactments against professors of rhetoric, dangerous innovations in the educational system, instances of long-continued practice of declamation by famous men, varying methods and standard exercises. The work unfortunately ends in an interrupted list of prominent teachers.

Among the _Lives of the Poets_ we face the double misfortune that few have survived, and that the _Life of Virgil_ cannot with confidence be pronounced Suetonian. It strikes in its very first chapter a note different from the other literary biographies. There is something appropriately mysterious in the record of Virgil’s lowly birth by the wayside, the mild-eyed tearless babe, his mother’s symbolic dream, and the poplar branch which was planted where he was born and which grew with miraculous speed into a tree hallowed by prayers and veneration. All this is indicative of a reverential attitude towards the personality of Virgil already enshrined in educational tradition and honoured by worshipping poets like Statius, in preparation, as it were, for the medieval belief in his wizardry. The tone has led many critics to ascribe it to Donatus; but it is only right to quote Nettleship’s defence of the Suetonian authorship.[1835] “The style,” he says, “is in the main the peculiar style of Suetonius; the Latin is the quiet, sober, terse and yet distinguished Latin which characterizes him among other writers of his period, and separates him from the later writers of the _Historia Augusta_.” Of the accepted _Lives_ the _Terence_ has among its verse quotations interesting criticisms by Cicero and Caesar (_o dimidiate Menander!_) while the _Horace_ gives illuminating glimpses into Horace’s affectionate intimacy with Maecenas and Augustus.

On the _Lives of the Caesars_ the reputation of Suetonius rests. Yet it is easy to pick faults in the work. A great deal of it partakes of the nature of a _chronique scandaleuse_ based upon tittle-tattle about the emperors and compiled by a literary man with the muck-rake, too keen upon petty and prurient detail to produce a scientific account of his subjects. The author is neglectful of dates and over-rigid in his scheme of biography. A measure of monotony is inevitable in his typical arrangement of ancestry, birth, years before accession to power, then public life and private life grouped under different aspects, portents presaging death, personal appearance and so on.[1836] The stiffness of plan is, however, considerably softened by a wealth of illustrative anecdote. But there is no grasp like that of a Tacitus, no deep penetration of motive, no appreciation of historical movements. One reads the biographies of Galba, Otho and Vitellius without getting any connected view of their struggle for sovereignty as presented in the _Histories_ of Tacitus. On the other hand, the truth remains that Suetonius is readable and continues to be read. In strong contrast to Tacitus he hardly ever indulges in a general reflection; but he succeeds in drawing attention to significant facts and outward characteristics. The names of Suetonius and of Pepys have been mentioned together;[1837] and some analogy indeed exists between their matter-of-fact, concrete, gossiping styles, and their official relationship to the most elevated personages of their day. There, however, the likeness, such as it is, ends; for the English diarist is pre-eminent for naïve honesty in setting down his own personality with his pen. The self-revelation made with his intimacy of detail belongs to a different world from the record of the Caesars which Suetonius compiled from documents and hearsay. Pepys is internal, subjective and autobiographic: Suetonius is external, objective and biographic.

If, again, one thinks of Tacitus’s vividness, Suetonius is vivid in a different way. Compared with Tacitus, he is as a photograph to a picture or a finished engraving. He is plain-spoken, and it may at least be urged that, after the lunacy of certain high-flown writers, Suetonius comes like a whiff of plebeian common sense. To him nothing is common or unclean. He descends, if need be, into the coarse without qualms or condemnation. He is a recorder, not a moralist: so, in regard to Tiberius, as Heredia has it,

Égratignant la cire impitoyable, il a Décrit les noirs loisirs du veillard de Caprée.[1838]

The great thing is that his personages live. His method is brevity of fact, story and description. Attracted by details such as Tacitus would have considered beneath the dignity of history, many may wish to know what the early emperors looked like. Here are some vignettes with which Suetonius can oblige them—Julius Caesar, a tall, clear-complexioned, well-formed man with keen black eyes, close-shaven and rather sensitive about his baldness; Augustus, handsome though not tall, with striking eyes, curly yellowish locks, a nose prominent at the top, and complexion between dark and fair; Tiberius, of robust build and stature above the average, left-handed, wearing his hair pretty long at the back, with particularly large eyes capable of seeing even in the dark, a stern person with hardly anything to say; Caligula, pale-complexioned, hollow-eyed and ugly; Claudius, not without dignity while he sat or stood, but shaky on his legs when he walked, and ridiculous by reason of his unseemly guffaw, his stammering utterance, and his perpetually nodding head; Nero, of about medium height, with features handsome rather than winning, light hair arranged in tiers of curls, weak bluish-grey eyes, thick-set neck, projecting paunch and slender legs; Galba, bald in front, blue-eyed, hook-nosed, his hands and feet twisted with arthritis.[1839] We need not go through the whole realistic gallery, which suggests the Dutch School of portraiture.

Similar vividness marks the facts and incidents with which Suetonius entertains us. So full is he of his facts that as a rule he gives them in the briefest possible compass. Just occasionally does he allow himself to expand into longer passages which impress the memory. Among such memorable ones is the narrative of Caesar’s arrival at the Rubicon after missing his way in the darkness, the pause to weigh the question whether to cross or not to cross, and the strangely gracious figure that appeared to him piping by the river-side.[1840] Here a slight gleam of romance has lit up a prevailingly matter-of-fact style. Other passages somewhat more sustained than his customary terse strokes are the engrossing description of Caesar’s murder, the account of Tiberius at Rhodes, the graphic chapter on Caligula’s mad cruelty, where one almost seems to hear the eerie laugh of the insane tyrant tickled at the thought that on a nod from him his two unsuspecting consular guests could have their throats cut; and the complete tale of the closing days in Nero’s life when he was at bay, a series of ten chapters forming a unity unusually elaborate for Suetonius and thrilling in its culminating three chapters.[1841]

Much, however, is on a smaller and less connected scale. As with a diarist like Pepys, one can dip anywhere into Suetonius at haphazard and chance upon incidents that may be isolated but are certainly entertaining. It holds one to read about Caligula’s megalomaniac jealousy of great writers like Homer, Virgil and Livy, whose works he wished to destroy; his lunatic pranks in treating Castor and Pollux as his _concierges_ so that from their temple Romans might enter the imperial palace; his flirtations with the Moon-goddess and confidential talks with brother Jove; his scathing disrespect for relatives in characterizing his grandmother Livia as “a Ulysses in petticoats” and in regarding his uncle Claudius as merely a butt. In the next _Life_, the ridiculous side in Claudius is illustrated repeatedly from the emperor’s feeble jokes, his silly remarks, and an absentmindedness so supreme as to sanction the despatch of invitations to the dead. The reader is not expected to honour an emperor who, while he could declaim marvellously, talked, as Goldsmith did, like poor Poll.[1842] The _Life of Nero_ has many good things. It tells of the way in which his ancestors the Aenobarbi got their red beards; and of the young ruler’s exclamation over signing his first death-warrant, “How I wish I did not know letters!” (_quam uellem litteras nescire!_) It reveals the system of _claqueurs_ whom Nero had trained in different sorts of applause (“bombi,” “rain-patter,” “dish-clash”), and acquaints us with his touchy conceit, his hooliganism in the streets at night, his ominous interest in fires, and his childish conduct in exhibiting water-organs after the news of the revolt of Vindex had reached him.

The sketches of the three Flavians contain metal just as attractive. The _Life of Vespasian_ is masterly in its own way, from the entertainingly superstitious portents heralding the great future of the destined prince from the East (_e.g._ the sign of the three oak branches, the sign of the street-mud, and the sign of the dog that brought in a man’s hand one day when Vespasian was at lunch) up to the dying emperor’s grim jest “Alack! I’m growing into a god, I suppose” (_Vae, puto, deus fio_). The short _Life of Titus_ gives a mere glance at his notorious passion (_insignem amorem_) for Queen Berenice; and a little later what might have been handled as a romance closes in the curt statement about the parted sweethearts; _Berenicem statim ab urbe dimisit inuitus inuitam_. Like Gibbon, Titus presumably sighed as a lover but obeyed as a son. To Suetonius we owe the record of the prince’s deservedly commended utterance that a day in which he had done good to nobody was a lost day—“_perdidi diem_,” _memorabilem illam meritoque laudatam uocem_. In the _Life_ of his brother we are doubtless intended to catch the sinister bearing of Domitian’s morbid pleasure in fly-catching at the beginning of his reign, and his incessant reading of little beyond the memoirs written at Capri by Tiberius—_son digne émule_, remarks Cucheval.[1843]

The free-and-easy style of Suetonius makes a sort of businesslike match for his systematic marshalling of material. He is too much absorbed in what he has drawn from his documents to trouble about rhetorical display. His facts are left to speak for themselves, and sometimes they speak badly. Inelegantly used participles or ablatives, jerky and unpolished clauses, and an inartistic structure of sentence are frequent results of this carelessness. One feels as if something has gone wrong with sentences like _sed ea quoque paulatim repleta assidua equi uectatione post cibum_ (_Cal._ iii.); or, again, one finds an important remark tacked loosely on to a sentence, _e.g._ in telling how the doubtful reputation of Titus as a possible second Nero “changed into rapturous praise when no fault was discovered in him, but the noblest virtues instead”—_at illi ea fama pro bono cessit conuersaque est in maximas laudes neque uitio ullo reperto et contra uirtutibus summis_ (_Tit._ vii.). There is something modern in this escape from the conventional order of words and this absence of decoration. Hence it comes that the Elizabethan pomp and quaintness of Philemon Holland’s version are too opulently distracting to convey the simple matter-of-fact tone of the greater part of Suetonius, so that there is critical point in the old epigram:

Philemon with’s Translations doeth so fille us, He will not let Suetonius be Tranquillus.

Yet it has been noted that Suetonius is not without a rhythm in his prose. De Groot’s statistics for the sentence-endings examined by him suggest that the frequency of the double trochee in Suetonius is much the same as in Quintilian, of cretic followed by trochee less than in Quintilian, and of double cretic much the same as in Quintilian, though less than in the younger Seneca.[1844] Macé has considered, on M. Havet’s method, the rhythm of Suetonius’s _clausulae_ in relation to both quantity and accent.[1845]

Preferring a neat simplicity[1846] in the statement of facts, Suetonius has yet an individuality of style which, in spite of Silver Age constructions and vocabulary, marks him off from writers like Velleius and Florus as much as from Caesar and Cicero. We owe it to his dislike of affectation that he often quotes documents verbatim without any attempt at rewriting in his own manner. To the same dislike of affectation we owe the comparative infrequency of archaisms and neologisms in his works. It is noticeable that while Suetonius, as a scholar, had literary and antiquarian interests in common with Hadrian, his critical tastes were different. Unlike the emperor, he did not prefer Ennius to Virgil, Cato to Cicero and Caelius to Sallust:[1847] on the contrary, he was an admirer of Cicero, and,[1848] if he found blemishes in Sallust, must have seen more in Caelius. In his vocabulary, as might be expected, there are many words, or meanings of words, not to be found in Caesar or Cicero; but, as in most other Silver Age writers, these are, to a large extent, words taken over in first-century prose from the poetry of Virgil and Horace, or words already occurring in the prose of Livy and post-Augustan authors. Thus the Virgilian _austrinus_ (“southern”) had been used by Columella and the elder Pliny before Suetonius; and _adapertus_ (“open”) descended to him from Livy and Ovid through both prose and poetry of the first century. Occasionally Suetonius harked back to the old-fashioned: _cerritus_ (“crazed”) is a Plautine word transmitted through Horace, and _aquilus_ (“swarthy”) is a rare adjective borrowed from Plautus. Sometimes there are comparative novelties. _Extemporalis_ (“on the spur of the moment”) represents the sort of term which Suetonius naturally shares with writers like Quintilian, Tacitus, the younger Pliny and Martial, who have occasion to mention rhetorical fluency. Much the same holds of the non-Ciceronian, but ultimately most useful, words _prosa_ (sc. _oratio_) for “prose,” and _breuiarium_ for “an abstract.”

* * * * *

The Suetonian tradition is traceable in the biographical character of histories for generations. It ousted the Tacitean type until Ammianus Marcellinus (330-400) modelled his work on Tacitus. Suetonius’s formal arrangement was imitated in the lost writings of Marius Maximus (165-230), and it is evidently followed in the _Augustan History_, once ascribed in part to Diocletian’s reign.[1849] Christian authors also copied his structure, as did Paulinus in his biography of Ambrosius, and after the same pattern Einhard, or Eginhard, composed his life of Charlemagne. As regards language, writers like Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, and Orosius show traces of having read Suetonius. The influence of his _Lives_ of literary celebrities upon Jerome is a familiar fact. His Greek writings appealed to some of the Byzantines, while his miscellaneous range secured him notice from many different writers in Latin. Thus, Tertullian used his work on games for the _De Spectaculis_; Censorinus, Solinus and Macrobius found antiquarian lore in him; and other borrowers were the Virgilian commentator Servius, the scholiasts on Horace, on Germanicus, on Lucan and on Juvenal; as well as the encyclopaedist Isidorus of Seville.

FLORUS

Great probability attaches to the arguments that Florus[1850] the historian, Florus the rhetor, and Florus the poet, who all lived at this period, were one and the same person. Accepting this identification, we must take the correct name to have been P. Annius Florus, as the rhetor was called, and explain as confusions the “Julius Florus” and “L. Annaeus Florus” in MSS. of the historian. The academic dialogue by the rhetor on the question whether Virgil was more of an orator or a poet (_Vergilius Orator an Poeta_) is lost, but from a Brussels MS., containing an introduction[1851] to this lost theme, important details about the author’s life have been recovered. He was African. While at Rome in his youth under Domitian, he took part in the Capitoline competition, but was unfairly denied the prize and in chagrin took to wanderings which eventually brought him to Tarraco. Settled in Spain, he was one day in Trajan’s reign taxed by a friend with his long absence from the capital, where his verses, the friend reminded him, found appreciative readers. By Hadrian’s time he was in Rome again, and intimate enough with the emperor to banter him in miserable trochaics upon his travelling propensities:

To be Caesar I’ve no notion, Or to roam the British Ocean Or in Scythian fog be frozen.

The imperial retort was:

To be Florus I’d be sorry, Round the city inns to hurry, Or thro’ every cookshop scurry, Where the plump mosquitoes worry.[1852]

Better verses by Florus[1853] have come down in five hexameters on spring-roses and twenty-six, on the whole pleasing, trochaic tetrameters _De Qualitate Vitae_, which include reflections on womankind, bad companionship, and foreign morality. In one quatrain a lover, who has cut his sweetheart’s name on the bark of a tree, declares with an agreeable assonance:

As the tree grows, so my zeal glows: passion fills the graven words. (_Crescit arbor, gliscit ardor: animus implet literas._)

Another quatrain plays with a fancy concerning the Sun-god and the Wine-god:

As Apollo, so is Bacchus, bearer of a fiery load: Both the gods were flame-created: both the gods were born in fire: Both have heat to give as guerdon in the sunlight or the vine: One dispels the dark of night-time, one the darkness of the mind.

(_Sic Apollo deinde Liber sic uidetur ignifer:_ _Ambo sunt flammis creati prosatique ex ignibus:_ _Ambo de donis calorem, uite et radio, conferunt:_ _Noctis hic rumpit tenebras, hic tenebras pectoris._)

His work in trochaics gives colour to the guess that Florus composed the _Peruigilium Veneris_,[1854] nearly one hundred trochaic tetrameters celebrating the eve of a joyous festival devoted to the Lady of the Springtime and of Love. Though now sadly disarranged, the poem was originally perhaps in twenty-two quatrains,[1855] marked off by the chanted refrain:

Let the lover love to-morrow; let the loveless learn to love. (_Cras amet qui nunquam amauit, quique amauit cras amet._)

If one could be confident in the ascription to Florus, the reign of Hadrian would be credited with one of the sweetest and most romantic poems in all Latin literature, a hymn of ecstasy over the coming of a new season of brightness and fertility upon the earth:

’Tis the fresh and tuneful Springtide—Spring first brought the world to light, In the Spring fond hearts draw closer: in the Springtime birds unite: (_Ver nouum, uer iam canorum; uere natus orbis est;_ _Vere concordant amores; uere nubunt alites._)

In contrast to the prevailing glee comes the personal note of melancholy at the end:

She is singing: we are silent: when doth Spring for me awake? When shall I grow like the swallow? When may I my silence break? I have lost the Muse by silence, and Apollo heeds me not. (_Illa cantat, nos tacemus; quando uer uenit meum?_ _Quando fiam uti chelidon, ut tacere desinam?_ _Perdidi musam tacendo, nec me Apollo respicit._)

On the whole one must doubt whether the poem is not too good to be by Florus. In style it might be called Apuleian, and if it is not Hadrianic there is little to prevent one from believing that it at least belongs to some part of the second century, unless its almost entire avoidance of quadrisyllabic endings is considered too suggestive of the manner of Tiberianus in the fourth century.[1856]

With Florus as historian, or rather epitomizer, we are on surer ground. The best MS., the _Bambergensis_, gives the title of his work as _Epitoma ... de T. Liuio bellorum omnium annorum DCC_ and the correct number of books as two. The _Nazarianus_ follows a division into four books. In the title Florus’s dependence on Livy is recognized; but, besides this main source, he used Sallust, Caesar, and possibly the elder Seneca’s _Histories_. He is no geographer, but he alludes in his preface to geographical charts, and may have consulted Mela and Pliny. The _Natural History_ would give him authority for his reference to the richness of Spain in gold, _chrysocolla_ and _minium_.[1857] Perhaps Lucan also was a source.[1858] The work was probably written early in Hadrian’s reign.[1859]

His preface shows his attitude. It is an attitude of praise rather than of studied narration.[1860] The seven hundred years which he counts from Romulus to Augustus had been, he feels, so full of the greatness of the Roman people that one might suppose the history had been longer. To study it is to study the destiny not of one people but of the human race. Valour and Fortune had combined to establish a world-wide dominion. On the analogy of geographers, Florus submits at the outset a kind of plan (_breui quasi tabella_) to illustrate the evolution of the Roman people. For him it was an organism, and had passed through four ages: infancy, 250 years of regal government; youth, 250 years of warfare in Italy; robust maturity, 200 years of world-conquest up to Augustus; old age and decline, 200 years from Augustus until the writer’s own day—with, however, he is careful to add, a renewal of youth under Trajan. His figures, it should be noted, need correction; for chronology is not his strong point. A recapitulation (_anacephalaeosis_) is given with each of the first three ages; but the decadence is not treated. There is at the end of Book I an anticipatory review of growing luxury in the third age suggestive of the cause of the decline: the attack, as so often in the Silver Era, is couched in rhetorical terms.[1861]

Genuine historical thought is impossible in an author whose criterion of value was the extent to which events redounded to the glory of Rome, and whose criterion of credibility was an entry in the annals (_quae nisi in annalibus forent, hodie fabulae uiderentur_). His mode of treatment scarcely admits a touch of romance. Egeria’s mysterious prompting of Numa’s policy is merely a useful state-figment (_quo magis barbari acciperent_). Occasionally we find a story, but it is in general told with almost grudging curtness, like that of Navius and the whetstone. Occasionally, too, a great exploit rouses Florus to something approaching enthusiasm, like the recovery of Spain by Scipio; though it is a blemish that the enthusiasm is not always worked into the narrative but confined to parenthetic outbursts. Inevitably, however, much of the fascination of Roman history vanishes in the dry condensation of a summary. Its very neatness becomes tiresome, for the brevity tends to pass into abruptness. But in fairness it must be judged with regard to the author’s intention of writing a eulogistic sketch, where the Populus Romanus shall be the single hero throughout.

Because the aim was eulogistic instead of unimpassioned history, there is too frequent indulgence in exclamatory asides—“quae superbia!” “mira res dictu!” “quis credat?” “immane dictu!” “mirum et incredibile dictu!” “fidem numinum!” “o nefas!” Some of his comments have a naïve banality in their search for antithetic point. Of Julius Caesar’s assassination he says, “so he who had drenched the world with citizens’ blood at last drenched the senate-house with his own” (_sic ille qui terrarum orbem ciuili sanguine impleuerat tandem ipse sanguine suo curiam impleuit_); and, when the murdered Cicero’s head was fixed on the _rostra_, he states, “there was as great a rush to see him as there usually was to hear” (_nec aliter ad uidendum eum quam solebat ad audiendum concurreretur_). It is not surprising that the poetic element in him overloads his expression with metaphor, while the rhetorical element tempts him to exaggerate, as when Antony’s high turreted ships, “forts and cities in appearance, sailed not without the groaning of the sea and the toil of the winds” (_castellorum et urbium specie, non sine gemitu maris, et labore uentorum ferebantur_). It is unsafe for a prose-writer to expand the idea of Virgil’s _urbis opus_. On the other hand, he is happy in certain of his comparisons: there is force in likening the final resistance of Carthage to the dangerous bite of a dying beast; or the diminution in the Gauls’ resistance, after a first effort, to the melting of the snow upon their mountains. It may not be entirely fanciful to impute to African Latinity the more bizarre and brusque turns in him.[1862] In any case, though some of his rhetoric is absurd, it redeems his work from being a totally dry abstract. His sentences are, as a rule, well written, and not unpleasing in their _clausulae_. His language is characteristic in the use of post-Augustan words like _captiuitas_ and _diuersitas_, and in the position of _igitur_ at the start of a sentence.[1863] _Receptator_ seems to be a word of his own, outside legal phraseology. The way in which he overworks _quasi_ and _quippe_ is ludicrous.[1864]

The popularity of Florus was assured in the third and fourth centuries, when the demand for epitomes rose to its height. It is no longer a current belief, as it once was, that the Livian _periochae_ (which should not be mistaken for epitomes) were the work of Florus. But Lucius Ampelius borrowed from him for his short manual of general knowledge, the _Liber Memorialis_, compiled perhaps early in the third century.[1865] Ammianus, Orosius, Festus and Jordanes used him, as did the Byzantine historian Malalas; and the multiplication of manuscripts of his text testifies to the favour in which he stood with the Middle Ages.

CONCLUSION

AN EPILOGUE—THE SECOND CENTURY AND AFTER

The passing of the Silver Age—Factors hampering literary creation—_Elocutio nouella_—Fronto, Gellius, Apuleius—Anarchy of third century—Energy diverted towards law, scholarship, epitomes—Vigour of Christian apologists—Prose of Minucius, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius—Poetry of Commodianus, Ambrose, Prudentius—A Greek renascence—Echoes of Silver Age in Gallic _Panegyrici_, in _Historia Augusta_, and in Ammianus—Poetic revival in fourth century—Nemesianus, Ausonius, Claudian—End of national Roman literature—The European Latin of the Middle Ages—Vitality of literary influence of Rome at Renaissance and later periods.

Beyond the time of Suetonius the Silver Age does not extend.[1866] We are not, therefore, strictly concerned with the Roman literature which followed, or with its phases of decadence, barrenness and revival. Yet it is instructive to consider what took the place of Silver Latin, and why changes set in. Obviously, Latin continued to be written, though for a time not in the same quantity; but such Latin as continued was written with a difference in quality. Several factors, indeed, during the immediately succeeding period militated against the production of what had been the prevalent type of literature. In the first place, there arose that natural desire for change which ensures periodic reaction in all literary history. What one might call the Silver spirit had spent itself. Pointed epigram palled: neither interest nor dexterity in it any longer existed. The chief sign of the altered tendency was the appearance of the archaizing school of Cornelius Fronto, which, by turning back to Ennius, Cato and the Gracchi as models of style, implicitly undervalued the Silver Age and revolted against its conventions. Born in Numidia about the beginning of the second century, Fronto had studied at Alexandria, had been a successful pleader at Rome in Hadrian’s time, and was, under Antoninus Pius, made tutor to the future emperor Marcus Aurelius, his correspondence with whom has in part survived. Fronto never was in any deep sense a thinker. His primary concern being eloquence, he manifestly did not sympathize with his imperial pupil’s devotion to philosophy. Touching canons of style, no less than the supremacy of wisdom, he was poles asunder from Seneca. A zealous champion of archaism in composition, Fronto maintained that old-fashioned Latin writers were preferable to the Greeks and to the later Romans, and that a virile _elocutio nouella_ (the phrase is his own) would spring from a union between the ancient and the spoken Latin. The direct plainness of the older writers and speakers he felt, with some justice, to be more in touch with life; but his fundamental misconception lay in failing to realize that to copy them, as if Roman literature had not run a distinguished course during some centuries since their day, was to fly in the face of evolution, and that to reintroduce obsolete words, however natural they had been at one time, was merely to displace one system of artificiality in favour of another. Yet for a space the movement was novel enough to live. Fronto’s unbounded enthusiasm for the antiquated won the admiration of Aulus Gellius, who about the middle of the century began his miscellany of the _Noctes Atticae_ during a winter spent at Athens. He used to buy old volumes in order to dig in them for contributions towards those brief essay-like studies of his which constitute an ancient museum of curiosities in literature, learning, language, philosophy and custom. As Gellius occupied himself particularly with the correct use of Latin words and idioms, his illustrations are often of great value. Not only did he transcribe passages from old authors like Ennius, Plautus, Caecilius or Afranius, and discuss points of Virgilian or Ciceronian expression and text, but he recorded critical views held by contemporary rhetoricians like Fronto, Herodes Atticus and Favorinus. In the _Attic Nights_ one never knows on what odd piece of information one may chance. When, for instance, he writes about the perversity of Laberius in inventing bits of doubtful Latinity or in borrowing words from the common speech, Gellius tells us that _botulus_, a rare name for a sausage which we associate with the modern medical term _botulism_ for certain sorts of food-poisoning, was a vulgar word used instead of the more proper _farcimen_ in one of Laberius’s mimes. All such philological preoccupation was symptomatic of a period of literary decadence, when critics could not see what a miserable substitute for good Latin style was offered by the obscure, ill-sounding and strained language which they were now manufacturing.

The culmination of the _elocutio nouella_ which marked the collapse of the Silver Latin is to be found in the work of the African Platonist and rhetorician Lucius Apuleius, and especially in his _Metamorphoses_, the fantastic tale relating, not without some prurience, the adventures of his namesake Lucius in Thessaly, the home of witchcraft and the supernatural. The main account of the consequences following the hero’s magical transformation into an ass came from a Greek source; and so did the incidental tales, such as the charming fairy-story of Cupid and Psyche, which the author dovetailed into his narrative. Based thus as its matter was on Greek, the romance is not unaffected by Hellenisms, but its prevailing exuberance follows the new Latin fashion. The short runs of words in a clause seem partly to recall a primitive, partly to anticipate a modern type of prose. The phrasing is unusual, often bizarre: it is a fantastic blend of elaborate archaism and bold innovation—now poetic, now colloquial. The diminutives of the vulgar tongue jostle far-fetched artifices. Such is the general effect that the reader accustomed to normal Latin feels as if he had adventured into a strange land with a strange speech.

There were other contemporary factors which tended to reduce the output of Latin literature. Tranquillity under the good government of the Antonines appeared to be as unpropitious for letters as was the anarchy of the third century. It is significant that there were no fewer than twenty-five Roman emperors between Commodus (180-192) and Diocletian (284-305). Besides, intellect was being diverted into other than purely literary channels. In law, the reigns of Septimius and Alexander Severus are famous for the eminent jurists Papinian and Ulpian. Attention was also devoted to scholarship and criticism. Authorities on metre like Terentianus Maurus, and grammarians or commentators of the third century, had in the fourth many renowned successors like Donatus, Charisius, Diomedes, Servius and Macrobius. Very symptomatic too was the demand in these centuries for epitomes of the more voluminous writers of the past. There is evidence of a definite distaste—from which emperors were not free—for the trouble of reading older and fuller authors; so that epitomators, on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, could at least claim to be ministering to culture by their condensed products. How much the epitomes contributed to the disappearance of their originals is a question easier to raise than to settle. Sometimes both original and epitome have come down together, as holds good of Vitruvius. Two abridgements did not kill Valerius Maximus, nor did epitomators and excerptors cause Pliny’s _Natural History_ to be lost. Half of the elder Seneca’s _Controuersiae_ and nearly three and a half decades of Livy survived in spite of being summarized, although sometimes, on the other hand, the abridgement alone has descended to posterity. Justinus, for example, remains, while his foundation Trogus has perished. Here, however, we may be content to conclude that the period was not only as a whole uncreative but that it felt itself unequal to the task of digesting the creations of more fertile times.

The truth is that the most virile thought which now found expression in Latin for some generations was the thought connected with the new faith in Christ, so that henceforth a history of Latin literature must take into account theological and patristic authors. Minucius Felix, a Roman lawyer, about the end of the second century, composed in his dialogue _Octauius_, which opens prettily on the sands at Ostia, a defence of certain aspects, though not the most significant aspects, of the Christian religion. This work was based on older models; but a new manner is coupled unmistakably with new matter in the works which the African Tertullian wrote after his conversion to Christianity. His previous training had been that of an advocate in the law-courts of Carthage; and he now consecrated a fiery eloquence to a fresh cause. The fervid indictment of paganism, in his _Apologeticum_ especially, sounds like a break with classical tradition, because he unsparingly denounces the poetry and philosophy of the Greeks and Romans as a perversion of Holy Writ. His uncompromising Puritanism could spare no admiration for ancient culture. Yet, in spite of this, the break is not absolute. Even among Christian writers two lines of literary influence are discernible. On the one hand Tertullian’s Latin is akin to the African Latinity of Apuleius, and may, with some qualifications, be classed beside the better style of Cyprian, who was bishop of Carthage in the middle of the third century. On the other hand, a more classic tradition is seen not only in the above-mentioned _Octauius_ by Minucius who continued the literary preference of Quintilian for Ciceronian standards, but also in _The Institutes of Divinity_ (_Diuinae Institutiones_) by Lactantius, who, though a pupil of Arnobius, the author of _Aduersus Nationes_, departed from his master’s unpolished style in favour of that elegant diction which he cultivated as a professor of rhetoric at Nicomedia late in the third century, and which won him the title of “the Christian Cicero.” His Ciceronianism was merely one of many links between him and the past: he was in reality widely read in classical verse as well as prose, and a poem on the _Phoenix_ in finished elegiacs may well be his. The poetry which Commodianus wrote after his conversion is a deviation from the classical manner, and in its mixture of quantitative with accentual principles marks a step towards medieval versification; but in general the attempts at Christian verse-writing bore little fruit until, about the end of the fourth century, St. Ambrose and Prudentius composed their hymns.

The contemporary prominence of Greek was another indication and contributory cause of the decadence of Latin. The fashion among Romans of composing in Greek and the genius of the actual Greek writers at this epoch, like Plutarch, Arrian and Lucian, helped to throw Latin into the shade as something outworn. Once more history tended to pass into Hellenic hands. Appian, in the time of Antoninus Pius, set himself to compose a Roman history, of which we possess a considerable portion; and later Dion Cassius, a grandson of the rhetorician Dion Chrysostom esteemed by Trajan, conceived the scheme of relating in eighty books the development of Rome from Aeneas’s time to A.D. 229, the year of the author’s return to his native Nicaea. The extant parts form an important, though not infallible, historical document. Greek writers in contact with Rome were never more admired than they were from Flavian to Antonine days. Hadrian’s reign, we have seen, inaugurated what may be fairly called a Hellenic revival; for little of the highest importance had appeared in secular Greek literature from Strabo and Diodorus in Augustan times to Dion Chrysostom and Plutarch. There was now, however, a sort of sophistic renascence of Greek prose, brilliant enough to dazzle contemporaries, which is transmitted from Dion Chrysostom, Lucian and Aristides, the rhetorician who studied under Herodes Atticus, down to Libanius who was Julian’s teacher in the fourth century. It is a movement which had points of contact with Latin writers such as Apuleius; but it laid no firm hold upon the world.

Latin, however, never so lost its vitality as to be wholly supplanted by Greek in the late Silver Age of Hellenism.[1867] Though it may be argued that classical Latin in a sense ended with Suetonius, and though the literary ages which followed the Silver might be named after inferior metal, there were various resuscitations, if only spasmodic, of the classical manner. Mention has already been made of Ciceronian elements in Minucius and Lactantius. Although inferior in execution, some writers at least looked to the old exemplars. The rhetorical panegyrists of the Gallic school in the third century had Pliny’s _Panegyricus_ in their eye; the six authors who composed, professedly under Diocletian and Constantine, the _Historia Augusta_[1868] were, however feebly, continuing Suetonius’s studies of the Caesars; and the Asiatic Ammianus Marcellinus, though he never attained to mastery over Latin, intended his history of nearly three centuries from the beginning of Nerva’s reign until the death of Valens (96-378) to be a sequel to Tacitus. The last eighteen of his thirty-one books survive to enable us to judge of his obscurity and inflation in manner. Among poets under Diocletian and his successors, the revival of style became more evident; for the lethargy which had fallen on the third century was being thrown off. Even then the Virgilian tradition was plainly at work in the _Cynegetica_, a didactic poem on hunting by the Carthaginian Nemesianus, and in his bucolic pieces it combined pleasantly with the influence of Calpurnius Siculus. Still more varied classical influences unite in the works of Ausonius of Bordeaux. Whether one looks at his miscellaneous light verse, often amusingly egotistic, or at his renowned description of the river _Mosella_, written about 370, one finds a great deal that marks him as standing between the two worlds of classicism and romance. Towards the turn of the same century Claudian had come from Alexandria to the imperial court at Milan. In contrast to Ammianus, his use of Greek in early life did not prevent him from gaining wonderful control over the Latin manner. His historical epics revive the Virgilian tradition dear to the poets of the Silver Age; his _Rape of Proserpine_ is reminiscent of Ovid; and his laudatory pieces are under obligations to Statius. Claudian’s patriotism, no less than his style, is only one among many recurrent illustrations of Rome’s power of attracting and remaking the alien. The beneficence of the Roman Empire is the idea underlying his lines:

Rome only takes the vanquished to her breast, Fostering mankind beneath one common name, Like mother, not like mistress: citizens She calls them, bound by ties no distance breaks.[1869]

With him or with the Gaul Rutilius Namatianus the national poetry might be said to close. Namatianus wrote in half-classical diction and half-classical metre at the time when the Empire was splitting up into new kingdoms; and there is a fitting note in his farewell apostrophe to Rome:

Thou mad’st a city what was erst a world. (_Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat_.)

Yet, in another sense, Latin literature does not end either with Claudian or with Namatian: nor does it make much difference whether, with some authorities,[1870] we take Boethius for the last of the ancients, or, with others,[1871] take him for the first medieval Latin writer. Both positions are defensible and instructive. Two events, in particular, may serve to illustrate the continuity of influence, apart from questions of classic quality in style. First, Jerome’s translation into Latin of the Scriptures from Genesis to Acts, which came to be known as _The Vulgate_, was published in 405. Its Latinity, very different from the Ciceronian, must be recognized as one of the great formative influences on expression during medieval times. Secondly, the sack of Rome in 410 by a host of Goths and Huns under Alaric stimulated Augustine to undertake his work _De Ciuitate Dei_. No better link between antiquity and the Middle Ages could be discovered. The ideal claim to citizenship in a more abiding state than an earthly one had received a telling confirmation in the barbarians’ triumphant challenge to the power of Rome; and Rome herself was now to become “the Eternal City” rather through the greatness of the universal Church than through that of the Roman Empire.

Latin literature, then, did not close in the fourth or the fifth century; but thenceforward it was no longer national, no longer Roman. Latin became in the Middle Ages European, whether employed by the Venerable Bede, by Isidore of Seville, or by Carolingian scholars like Alcuin and Einhard. Even the birth of modern languages from their parent did not supplant Latin as an international medium for conveying ecclesiastical, legal, historical and philosophical learning: so, following Dante, it came that Petrarca and Boccaccio made use of Latin and Italian indifferently; and not till after the end of the seventeenth century was Latin really shaken in its supremacy as the general language for philosophy and science. That century had seen issued Bacon’s _Nouum Organum_ and _De Augmentis Scientiarum_ in its first quarter and Newton’s _Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica_ in its last quarter.

There can be no more interesting pendant to a literary history of Rome than a glance at later periods when the influence of the best writers acted strongly enough to inspire an artistic use of the Latin language. It must never be forgotten how much the humanism of the Renaissance, vitalized as it was by the rediscovery of Greek culture, included also a revival of Latin studies and of the power to write good Latin. In prose many names rise easily to the mind—among them, Valla and Ficino in Italy, Budaeus and Langolius in France, Erasmus and Grotius in the Low Countries, Sir Thomas More in England and George Buchanan in Scotland. In verse, the various collections of _Deliciae_ drawn from the poets of Italy, France, Holland, Germany, England and Scotland, contain excellent examples of supreme ability to recapture, in fresh circumstances, the manner of the greatest authors of Rome. Other countries may not have had a galaxy of modern Latin poets to compare with the Italians Baptista Mantuan, Poliziano, Bembo, Pontano, Sannazaro, Vida, Fracastoro, Navagero and Flaminio, but there is no mistaking the literary merit of such Latin poems as were written by the Dutch scholars Grotius and Daniel Heinsius or by the Scottish scholars Buchanan and Arthur Johnston. Of England it may be said that, even if Latin poems like those of Milton and Cowley be taken into account, her finest work in Latin verse was yet to come from scholars of the nineteenth century, when in this field she had no equals abroad. While it is true that much of this modern skill consisted in translation or light _jeux d’esprit_, the elegance and taste shown in composition has borne eloquent testimony to the living literary influence of the best poets of the Gold and Silver Ages of Rome.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Heitland’s contentions in _The Roman Fate_ and _Iterum_ seem, however, unduly to emphasize the want of power in the central government to remedy weaknesses throughout the empire. His views regarding the stagnation resultant upon “the inability of the passive parts to vitalize the whole” are not wholly applicable to the first two centuries from Augustus: see H. M. Last, _J.R.S._, XV., 1925, Pt. I.

[2] Frank, “Race Mixture in Rom. Emp.,” _Amer. Hist. Rev._, July, 1916, pp. 689-708. Prof. Frank thinks “perhaps 90 per cent had Oriental blood in their veins.”

[3] _E.g._ Merivale, _Hist. of Romans under the Emp._; Mommsen, _Röm. Staatsrecht_, and _Röm. Gesch._, vol. v. (_The Provinces_, Eng. ed.); Schiller, _Gesch. der röm. Kaiserzeit_; Peter, _Geschichtliche Litteratur üb. d. röm. Kaiserzeit_ (ch. ii. treats influence of rhetoric on history); Ferrero, _Greatness and Decline of Rome_ (from vol. v.); Frank, _Rom. Imperialism_; Nilsson, _Imperial Rome_ (tr. Richards), 1926; Dessau, _Gesch. d. röm. Kaiserzeit_, II. i., 1926 (Tiberius to Vitellius); Rostovzeff, _Social and Econ. Hist. of Rom. Emp._, 1926; Friedländer, _Sittengesch. Roms_ (Eng. tr., Magnus); Dill, _Rom. Society, Nero to M. Aurelius_, 1905; Tucker, _Life in Rom. World of Nero and St. Paul_, 1910; Toutain, _Les cultes païens dans l’empire romain_; Wickhoff, _Rom. Art_; Mrs. Strong, _Rom. Sculpture; Apotheosis and After Life_.

[4] For fuller treatment see Butler, _Post-Augustan Poetry_, 1909, pp. 1-6, 166-170.

[5] Suet., _Cal._, liii.

[6] This is more fully discussed in a separate chapter.

[7] IV. ii. 29: “declamatio forensium actionum meditatio” (μελετή). F. H. Colson, _C.R._, 1922, pp. 116-117, suggests that _declamatio_, “loud shouting,” may have originally been a translation of κατήχησις, “dinning into the ears.”

[8] Diog. Laert., VII. 121: εἶναι γὰρ τὸν κυνισμὸν σύντομον ἐπ’ ἀρετὴν ὁδόν.

[9] Epictet., _Diss._, III. x. 6: τὸ δὲ φιλοσοφῆσαι τί ἔστιν; οὐχὶ παρασκευάσασθαι πρὸς τὰ συμβαίνοντα.

[10] Sen., _Epist. Mor._, xli. 2.

[11] Tac., _Ann._, IV. xxxiv.; Juv., V. 36-37:

“Quale coronati Thrasea Heluidiusque bibebant Brutorum et Cassi natalibus.”

[12] Dion Cass., lxvi. 12, says of Helvidius: βασιλείας τε ἀεὶ κατηγόρει καὶ δημοκρατίαν ἐπῄνει.

[13] For prominent figures in opposition throughout the first century, see E. V. Arnold’s _Roman Stoicism_.

[14] The Stoic test of a man’s worth was character: “we all have the same source: no man is nobler than another, save he who has a more upright character,” Sen., _De Ben._, iii. 28.

[15] _E.g._ _notare_ in sense of _animaduertere_; _subinde_, “repeatedly” (Fr. _souvent_); _frequenter_, “repeatedly”; _numerosus_, “numerous.”

[16] _E.g._ Cicero declared the superlative of _pius_ to be un-Latin when used by Mark Antony, _Phil._ xiii. 43; but Sen. _ad Polyb._, vii. 4, has _piissimis_: _cf._ xv. 4, _piissime_. _Itaque_ in Cic. is regularly at the beginning of a clause, in Sen. often after one or two words. _Proinde_, once associated with imperative or subjunctive, comes to be used more and more, without any idea of command or exhortation, as an ordinary inferential word meaning “therefore.” Among noticeable grammatical usages are the new Silver senses given to the fut. part. in _-urus_.

[17] For useful summaries of representative Silver features, see Furneaux’s Introd. to ed. of Tac., _Ann._, and Summers’s Introductions to _Select Letters of Seneca_, 1910, and to Tac. _Hist._, Bk. III., 1904. _Cf._ Dräger, _Ueb. Syntax u. Stil des Tacitus_. For typical features of vocabulary, Paucker, _Vorarbeiten zur latein. Sprachgesch._, Berl., 1884, zweite Abt.: “Uebersicht des der sogenannten silbernen Latinität eigenthümichen Wörterschatzes.”

[18] _E.g._ frequent omission of parts of _esse_; omission of _eo_, _tanto_, _potius_ in comparisons, and of _utrum_ or _-ne_ before _an_.

[19] _E.g._ _ingenia_, “men of talent,” “geniuses” (Sen., _Ad Helv._, xix. 5; Tac., _Agric._, ii.). The post-Augustan sense of _custodiae_ as “persons under guard,” “prisoners,” in Plin., _Ep._, X. xix., and Suet., _Tib._, lxi., _Ner._, xxxi., Sen., _Ep._, v. 7, shows a complete change round from a previous extension of its meaning found in Cic., viz. “persons serving as guards,” “sentinels.” _Cf._ _inquisitio_, “investigators,” Plin., _Ep._, X. xxx.; _matrimonia_, “wives,” Tac., _Ann._, II. xiii.; _amicitia_, “friends,” II. xxvii.; _consilia_, “advisers,” IV. xl.; _affinitatibus et amicitiis_, “kindred and friends,” _Agr._, 44; _lectiones_, “works to be read,” Quint., _I.O._, X. i. 45.

[20] _E.g._ “umido paludum,” Tac., _Ann._, I. lxi.; “lubrico paludum,” _ib._, lxv: _cf._ “occulta saltuum,” _ib._, lxi.; “subiecta uallium,” _ib._, lxv.

[21] _Ad Helv._, ii. 4: “nulli tamen non magno constitit etiam bona nouerca.”

[22] Bibliography: Cramer, _Gesch. d. Erziehung u. d. Unterrichts im Altertum_, 2 vols., Elberf., 1832-1838; Egger, _Étude sur l’education ... chez les Romains_, Par., 1833; Grasberger, _Erziehung u. Unterricht im klass. Altert._, 3 vols., Würzb., 1864-1881; Ussing, _Darstellung d. Erziehungs- u. Unterrichtswesens bei d. Griechen u. Römern_ (Germ. tr. from Dan.), Altona, 1870; G. Boissier, art. “Declamatio” in Daremberg-Saglio; _L’Instruction publique dans l’emp. rom._, in _Rev. d. deux Mondes_, 1884; _Les écoles de déclamation à Rome_, _ib._, Oct., 1902; Monroe, _Source-Bk. of Hist. of Educ. for Grk. and Rom. Period_, Lond., 1902; Wilkins, _Rom. Educ._, Camb., 1905; Gwynn, _Rom. Educ._ (Cic. to Quintilian), Oxf. 1926; Fuller bibliog. in Wight Duff’s art. “Rom. Educ.” in _Encyclop. of Religion and Ethics_, vol. v., Edinb., 1912.

[23] Plut., _Cat. Maj._, xx.: αὐτὸς μὲν ἦν γραμματιστής, αὐτὸς δὲ νομοδιδάκτης, αὐτὸς δὲ γυμναστής.

[24] _De Ben._, III. 11.

[25] _Ep._, VIII. xiv. 6: “suus cuique parens pro magistro.”

[26] Some of its details are considered in “The Invasion of Hellenism” in Wight Duff’s _Lit. Hist. of Rome to Close of Golden Age_, pp. 92-117.

[27] Apul., _Flor._, IV. xx.: “prima cratera litteratoris ruditatem eximit, secunda grammatici doctrina instruit, tertia rhetoris eloquentia armat.”

[28] For instruction in reading, see L. Grasberger, _Erziehung u. Unterricht im klass. Altert._, II., pp. 256-300; writing _op. cit._, II. 300 _sqq._

[29] Marquardt, _Das Privatleben der Römer_, ed. 2, pp. 97-104; or Fr. tr., _La vie privée des Romains_, 1892, I. 115-123.

[30] Early in the _De Educatione Liberorum_, perhaps rightly ascribed to Plutarch, it is laid down δεῖ δὲ (ὡς ἐγὼ ἂν φαίην) αὐτὰς τὰς μητέρας τὰ τέκνα τρέφειν καὶ τούτοις ὑπέχειν τοὺς μαστούς.

[31] Cic., _Brut._, lviii.: “magni interest quos quisque audiat cotidie domi, quibuscum loquatur a puero, quemadmodum patres, paedagogi, matres etiam loquantur. Legimus epistulas Corneliae, matris Gracchorum; apparet filios non tam in gremio educatos, quam in sermone, matris”; _cf._ Tac., _Agric._, iv.: “in huius (_i.e._ matris) sinu indulgentiaque educatus per omnem honestarum artium cultum pueritiam adulescentiamque transegit.”

[32] Consult “monumenta columbariorum” in _C.I.L._, VI. 4352, 4457, 6323, 6324, 8941-8943; and the occurrences of “nutrix” and similar words in the Indices to volumes ix. and x. of _C.I.L._ under “parentelae et necessitudines.”

[33] _Inst. Or._, I. i. 12.

[34] Suet., _De Gram._, xv., xvi., xix., xx.

[35] _Op. cit._, ii.

[36] _Op. cit._, ix.; xviii.; xxii.

[37] _Op. cit._, iii.

[38] _Op. cit._, x.

[39] _Op. cit._, vii.

[40] E.g. “Grammaticus Graecus,” _C.I.L._, II. 2236 (Corduba); VI. 9453, 9454; X. 3961 (Capua); “Grammaticus Latinus,” II. 2892 (Tricio in Spain); III. 406 (Thyatira in Asia Minor, ΡΩΜΑΙΚΩ); V. 3433 (Verona), 5278 (Comum); VI. 9455 (Rome); IX. 5545.

[41] Quint., _Inst. Or._, I. iv.-ix.

[42] _Inst. Or._, I. iv. 4; I. x.

[43] Cic., _De Leg._, I. ii.

[44] _Inst. Or._, I. ix. 6.

[45] _Inst. Or._, I. viii. 2; VIII. i. 3; XI. iii. 30.

[46] _Inst. Or._, II. i.

[47] Suet., _De Gram._, iv.: “ueteres grammatici et rhetoricam docebant.”

[48] Suet., _De Gram._, iv.: “ne scilicet sicci omnino atque aridi pueri rhetoribus traderentur.”

[49] Declamations were introduced at Rome perhaps by Molon of Rhodes about 84 B.C., as Bornecque thinks (_Les Déclamations et Déclamateurs_, etc., p. 42).

[50] Juv., X. 114-117; Quint., _Inst. Or._, II. vii. i.

[51] _Inst. Or._, II. iv.

[52] _Inst. Or._, II. iv. 26; _cf._ Propert., II. xii. (III. iii.).

[53] _Inst. Or._, II. vii. 1; Juv., vii. 154.

[54] The Roman term given to Greek rhetorical methods is marked by the change of terminology, which indicates a change in practice. The main exercises at first had been called _theses_, the Greek term (θέσεις) applied to general questions for debate, such as “Ought a man to marry or remain single?” “Is it better to take a share in public life or to mind one’s own affairs?” Then came a business-like development or Roman condescension from general to particular whereby an approach to facts and reality was made in treating “cases” such as those tried before a court; and, appropriately, these exercises were called by a Latin name, _causae_. Both terms were in use during Cicero’s days, but early in his career there emerged the fashion of _declamatio_, the scholastic exercise in rhetoric based on but not identical with Greek models; and in course of time we read no longer of _theses_ and _causae_, but of _controuersiae_ and _suasoriae_—both, it will be noted, Latin, not Greek terms.

[55] Sen., _Suas._, i., iii. and vii.; _cf._ Quint., _Inst. Or._, III. viii. 16-19, _e.g._ “Deliberat C. Caesar an perseueret in Germaniam ire,” etc.

[56] Sen., _Suas._, ii.; _Inst. Or._, _loc. cit._

[57] Juv., I., 15-17.

[58] Juv., VII. 158-164; _cf._ X. 166-167:

“I demens et saeuas curre per Alpes, Vt pueris placeas et declamatio fias.”

[59] _Contr._, II. ii. 8-12.

[60] _Op. cit._: “libentius dicebat suasorias: molesta illi erat omnis argumentatio.”

[61] _De Rhet._, i.

[62] This case is similar to CCCXL. in the Quintilianean _Declamationes_, ed. Ritter, 1884.

[63] _Contr._, I. i.

[64] Juv., VII. 154.

[65] _E.g._: τῶν δὲ πανηγυρικῶν λήρων ὡς ποῤῥωτάτω τοὺς υἱεῖς ἀπάγειν, and later οἱ δ’ αὐτοσχέδιοι τῶν λόγων πολλῆς εὐχερείας καὶ ῥᾳδιουργίας εἰσὶ πλήρεις, and again, σοφὸν γὰρ εὔκαιρος σιγὴ καὶ παντός λόγου κρείττων.

[66] _Inst. Or._, XII. i. 1. Quintilian insists on the moral excellence essential to great oratory in I. _prooem._ 9-10; II. ii. (whole section); II. xv. 1.

[67] _Inst. Or._, II. xxi. 14.

[68] _Op. cit._, I. _prooem._ 16; XII. ii. 10; iii.; iv.

[69] Dill, _Rom. Soc. from Nero_, etc., 1905, p. 372; Mommsen, _Provinces of Rom. Emp._, Eng. tr., 1886, I., pp. 362-367; _cf._ Philostr., _Apoll. Tyan._, i. 7; _Vit. Soph._, i. 220.

[70] Tac., _Agric._, iv. 4.; xxi. 2.

[71] Juv., XV. 111-112.

[72] Capitol., _M. Ant. Phil._, ii.-iii.

[73] Lamprid., _Alex. Sev._, iii.

[74] Dill, _Rom. Soc. in last Cent. of W. Empire_, pp. 385-451.

[75] _Confess._, I. xiii.-xiv.; VII. ix.; VIII. ii.

[76] Suet., _Iul._, xlii.

[77] Suet., _Aug._, xlii.; _De Gram._, xvii.

[78] Euseb., _Chron. ad ann. 2104_: “Quintilianus ex Hispania Calagurritanus primus Romae publicam scholam et salarium e fisco accepit et claruit.”

[79] Plin., _Paneg._, xxvi.-xxviii.

[80] Spart., _Hadr._, xvi.

[81] Capitol., _Ant. Pius_, xi.: “rhetoribus et philosophis per omnes prouincias et honores et salaria detulit.”

[82] _Digest._, XXVII. i. 6.

[83] Dio Cass., lxxi. 31, 3 (ed. Bekker); Lucian, _Eun._, iii.

[84] For a fuller account see Boissier: _L’instruction publique dans l’empire romain_ in _Rev. d. deux Mondes_, 1884.

[85] Lamprid., _Alex. Sev._, xliv.

[86] Bibliography: Early editions of elder Seneca were combined with his son’s works: sep. edns., by Faber, Par., 1587; Gronov., Leid., 1649; Bursian, Leipz., 1857; Kiessling, Leipz., 1872 and 1913; H. J. Müller, Vienna, 1887; Bornecque (text with Fr. tr.), 2 vols., Par., 1902.

On Seneca and rhetoric (_cf._ bibliogr. note on Roman educ.): Chassang, _De compta post Ciceronem a declamatoribus eloquentia_, diss., Par., 1852; Koerber, _Ueber d. Rhetor Sen. u. d. röm. Rhetorik seiner Zeit_, diss., Marb., 1864; Tivier, _De arte declamandi et de Romanis declamatoribus ..._ diss., Par., 1868; Sander, _Der Sprachgebrauch d. Rhet. Ann. Sen._, Berl., 1877; Karsten, _De elocutione rhetorica qualis invenitur in Ann. Senecae suas. et contr._, Rotterd., 1881; Jullien, _Les professeurs d. litter. dans l’anc. Rome ..._ Par., 1885; Cucheval, _L’éloquence rom. depuis la mort de Cicéron ..._ 2 vols., Par., 1893; Simonds, _Themes treated by elder Seneca_, diss., Baltim., 1896; Boissier, _Les écoles de déclamation à Rome_ in _Rev. d. deux Mondes_, Oct., 1902, pp. 481-508 (“Schools of Declam. at Rome” in _Tacitus and other Studies_, 1906); Bornecque, _Les déclamations et les déclamateurs d’après Sénèque le père_, Lille, 1902.

[87] The MSS. give L., which may account for the confusion of his works with those of his more famous son. The argument for M. is not convincing.

[88] Mart., I. lxi. 7-8; Cic., _pro Arch._, x. 26. In _Suas._, vi. 27, Seneca calls the Spaniard Sextilius Ena from Corduba “municipem nostrum.”

[89] Tac., _Ann._, XIV. liii.

[90] _Contr._, I. _praef._ 11.

[91] _Contr._, I. _praef._ 22.

[92] _Acts_, xviii.; _cf._ imaginary portrait of Gallio in Anatole France’s _Sur la Pierre Blanche_.

[93] _Contr._, II. ii. 8.

[94] II. iv. 12-13.

[95] IV. _praef._ 3: “audiui illum et uiridem et postea iam senem.”

[96] Suet., _Tib._, lxxiii.

[97] Sen., _Consol. ad Helv._, ii. 4.

[98] Sen., _Consol. ad Helv._, xvii. 3: “patris mei antiquus rigor.”

[99] _Contr._, II. iv.; _cf._ iv. _praef._ 5: “illi clementissimo uiro” (referring to Augustus).

[100] Contrast X. _praef._ 5-7 with II. iv. 13: “horum non possum misereri qui tanti putant caput potius quam dictum perdere.”

[101] I. _praef._ 6: “insolenti Graeciae.”

[102] I. vi. 12: “Glyconis ualde leuis e Graecis (_v.l._ ‘et Graeca’ uel ‘ut Graeca’) sententia est.” There are commendations of Greeks in I. iv. 11-12, but then Albucius is said to surpass them.

[103] _E.g._ X. iv. 18 and 23. For Seneca’s Roman preferences _cf._ praise of a Greek speaker of Roman type, Agroitas from Marseilles (_Contr._, II. vi. 12); glances at Greek unsavoury realism (I. ii. 22-23); record of Arellius Fuscus’s views about Roman borrowers who improved on Greek originals (IX. i. 13); and Cestius’s views on Cicero’s surpassing “arrogant Greece,” _Suas._, vii. 10, repeating Seneca’s phrase in _Contr._, I. _praef._ 6.

[104] Galdi, _L’Epitome nella letteratura latina_, 1922, p. 148.

[105] I do not think Schanz has proved his conclusion, _Gesch. d. röm. Lit._, II. i. § 334: “Die Abfassungszeit der Schrift fällt daher in die ersten Regierungsjahre des Caligula.”

[106] _Contr._, II. iv. 8: “cum ad suasorias uenero.”

[107] I. _praef._ 10: “populo dedicabo.”

[108] I. _praef._ 1: “exigitis rem magis iucundam mihi quam facilem.”

[109] _Contr._, III. _praef._ 12-14.

[110] VII. _praef._ 7: “schema dixi.”

[111] IX. _praef._ 3.

[112] _E.g._ _Contr._, II. i. 34; III. _praef._ 16; IV. _praef._ 10 and 11; VII. _praef._ 4 and 5; VII. iv. 10; IX. v. 15; X. _praef._ 8.

[113] _Contr._, III. _praef._ 16-17.

[114] _Satyr._, _ad init._; _Dial. de Or._, 35.

[115] _Contr._, I. vii.

[116] For parallels between subjects in Seneca, the pseudo-Quintilian and Calpurnius Flaccus, see Simonds, _Themes Treated by Elder Seneca_, pp. 71-81.

[117] _Contr._, VII. ii. 14, iii. 8; IX. iv. 22.

[118] VII. v. 10.

[119] _Suas._, ii. 14: ποῖ φεύξεσθε, ὁπλῖται, τείχη;

[120] _Contr._, X. iv. 2.

[121] _Suas._, i. 9.

[122] _Contr._, VI. vii. 2; VII. i. 9, i. 10; _Suas._, ii. 2.

[123] _Suas._, i. 2; _Contr._, VII. i. 26 (in Greek); _Suas._, ii. 8 (Thermopylae).

[124] _Contr._, VIII. vi. 3.

[125] _Suas._, ii. 4.

[126] _Contr._, X. _praef._ 13.

[127] Suet., _Tib._, lxvii.; lxx. (“artes liberales utriusque generis studiosissime coluit”); _ib._, lxxi.; _Dom._ xx.; Sen., _Suas._, iii. 7.

[128] _Ann._, IV. xxxi.; XIII. iii.

[129] Suet., _Cal._, xxxiv. and liii.

[130] Suet., _Claud._, xli.; Tac., _Ann._, XI. xiv.; Quint., _I. Or._, I. vii. 26.

[131] Plin., _N.H._, VII. 8 (46); Tac., _Ann._, IV. liii.

[132] Sen., _Contr._, X. _praef._ 12.

[133] Sen., _Contr._, I. iii. 11; II. i. 33.

[134] Tac., _Ann._, IV. lxi.; Sen., _Contr._, IV. _praef._ 7: “sufflaminandus est.”

[135] _I. Or._, X. i. 24: “nobis pueris insignes _Pro Voluseno Catulo_ Domitii Afri, Crispi Passieni, D. Laelii orationes ferebantur.”

[136] Suet., _Cal._, xvi.: “Titi Labieni, Cordi Cremuti, Cassi Seueri scripta SCsultis abolita requiri et esse in manibus lectitarique permisit.”

[137] Sen., _Contr._, X. _praef._ 4-5 and 7.

[138] Tac., _Ann._, I. lxxii.; IV. xxi.; Sen., _Contr._, III. _praef._

[139] Tac., _Dial._, xiii.; _Ann._, IV. lii. and lxvi.; Plin., _Ep._, II. xiv. 10; Quint., _I. Or._, V. vii. 7; VIII. v. 16; IX. ii. 20, iii. 66, iv. 31; X. i. 24 and 118.

[140] Text: Aldus Manutius, Ven., 1534; Pighius, Antw., 1567; Thysius, Leyd., 1655; Torrenius, _c. nott. variorum_ (good index), Leyd., 1726; Kempf, Berl., 1854, Lpz., 1888 (_Nouae Quaest. Val._, Berl., 1866). The 2-vol. ed. published Argent., 1806, gives list of edns. and of trans. (several in French and German; one in English, by Speed, 1678) up to beginning of 19th cent.

[141] _De Historicis Latinis_, prefixed to many editions of Valerius.

[142] Gell., _N.A._, XII. vii.; “Scripta haec historia est in libro Valerii Maximi _Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium_ octauo” (_i.e._ Val. Max., VIII. i., _sub fin._).

[143] Val. Max., II. vi. 8: “Asiam cum Sex. Pompeio petens Iulida oppidum intraui.” _Cf._ IV. vii. _ext._ 2: “Pompeium meum ... a quo omnium incrementa commodorum ultro oblata cepi ... qui studia nostra ductu et auspiciis suis lucidiora et alacriora reddidit.”

[144] _Ex Ponto_, IV. i. and v. For Pompeius as speaker, _cf._ _Ex Pont._, IV. iv. 37 (“facundo ore”); Val. Max., II. vi. 8 (“facundissimo sermone”); Tac., _Ann._, III. xi.

[145] I. v. 7, viii. 8; VI. iv. 5; _cf._ proceedings taken by creatures of Sejanus in A.D. 25 against Cremutius Cordus for having praised Brutus and Cassius, Tac., _Ann._, IV. xxxiv.

[146] VI. i. _praef._; IX. xi. _ext._ 4.

[147] I. _praef._: “Te igitur huic coepto, penes quem hominum deorumque consensus maris ac terrae regimen esse uoluit, certissima salus patriae, Caesar, inuoco: cuius caelesti prouidentia uirtutes, de quibus dicturus sum, benignissime fouentur, uitia seuerissime uindicantur.” H. Peter, _Die Geschichtliche Lit. über d. röm. Kaiserzeit_, 1897, I. p. 15, gives the date “zwischen den Jahren 29 und 32 n. Chr.”

[148] I. _praef._ “... ab illustribus electa auctoribus digerere constitui, ut documenta sumere uolentibus longae inquisitionis labor absit.”

[149] Some subjects are especially Roman, _e.g._ II. i., _De Matrimoniorum Ritu_, or VII. v., _De Repulsis_. It is inaccurate to say that “each chapter” has the section on _externa_, as is alleged in Teuffel, _Gesch. Röm. Lit._, § 279, 2.

[150] IV. i. 12; _cf._ VI. iv., _ad init._: “ex abundanti copia nec parca nimis nec rursus auida manu.”

[151] III. viii. _ext._ 1.

[152] III. vii. 11: “ut ab eo decentius ad externa transeamus, producatur in medium”; _cf._ transition from “bona fiducia” to “constantia,” III. viii., _ad init._; and from praises of poverty to “uerecundia,” IV. v. _ad init._

[153] IV. i. 15.

[154] II. ii. 2.

[155] II. ii. 3.

[156] II. ii. 1: “Fidum erat et altum reipublicae pectus Curia, silentiique salubritate munitum et uallatum undique: cuius limen intrantes, abiecta priuata caritate, publicam induebant.”

[157] II. vii., _ad init._

[158] II. vii. 6.

[159] II. viii., _ad init._

[160] IV. viii. 4.

[161] V. i. 1.

[162] VI. v., _ad init._

[163] I. viii. _ext._ 19. For sources see Krieger, _Quibus fontibus Val. Max. usus sit ..._ Berl., 1888; Traube in _Sitzungsberichte d. kais. bayerisch. Akad. d. Wissenschaften_, Münch., 1891. Klotz., _Herm._, XLIV. 2, gives 41 anecdotes as common to Val. Max. and Seneca, which he believes came from a book of “Exempla” derived (possibly by Hyginus) from Livy, Antipater, Cato, etc.

[164] In Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 279, 3, it is erroneously said that Cicero is “likewise mentioned only once” (_i.e._ VIII. xiii. _ext._ 1); but see VIII. x. 3 and other passages.

[165] III. ii. 24: “Nisi ea certi auctores, inter quos M. Varro, monimentis suis testata esse uoluissent”; _cf._ II. ii. 6, which may be based on Varro’s information “de senaculis” in his _De Vita Populi Romani_; _cf._ Varro, _Ling. Lat._, V. § 156 (Müll.).

[166] For Trogus as utilized by Val. Max., see R. B. Steele, _Amer. Jrnl. Philol._, xxxviii. 1, 1917.

[167] II. iv. 4.; III. vii. 11; I. vii. 6; IV. iv., _ad init._; IV. iv. 11.

[168] VIII. i. 2.

[169] III. iv. 6.

[170] Galdi, _L’Epitome nella lett. lat._, 1922, pp. 128-140.

[171] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 279, 10; _cf._ Galdi, _op. cit._, pp. 141-144.

[172] Niebuhr, _Lects. on Hist. of Rome_, ed. Schmitz, 1849, vol. ii., p. 93.

[173] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 279, 5.

[174] Val. Max., I. vi. 12.

[175] I. viii. 7: “nostrum sit inclutis literarum monimentis consecrata perinde ac uana non refugisse.”

[176] III. viii. 3: “furialis fax tribunicia.”

[177] IV. i. 8; IV. vii. 1.

[178] VIII. x. 1.

[179] II. ix. 6.

[180] _E.g._ II. i., _ad init._; _cf._ V. v. 3.

[181] II. i. 10.

[182] I. vi. 13.

[183] VI. ix. 15: “C. Caesar cuius uirtutes aditum sibi in caelum struxerunt.... Parua igitur summa clarissimum mundi sidus in piratico myoparone rependi Fortuna uoluit”; and, on Julius’s care to fall with decency before his assassins, IV. v. 6: “in hunc modum non homines exspirant, sed dii immortales sedes suas repetunt”; _cf._ VIII. ix. 3; IX. xv. 2.

[184] _E.g._ IX. xv. 6: “a Sullana uiolentia Caesariana aequitas reduxit gubernacula Romani imperii.”

[185] I. vii. 2.

[186] I. vii. 1: “diui Augusti sacratissima memoria”; IV. vii. 7; IX. xv. 3.

[187] VIII. xv., _ad init._ In II. viii. 7: “qua postes Augustae domus sempiterna gloria triumphant,” the allusion is to the old oak near Julius’s house which furnished the wreath conferred for saving a citizen’s life.

[188] VI. i., _ad init._: “Tu (_sc._ Pudicitia) palatii columen, augustos penates sanctissimumque Iuliae genialem torum assidua statione celebras”: the reading “Iuliae gentis” does not greatly mend matters.

[189] H. Peter, _op. cit._, I. pp. 15-16: “indem er die effektvollere Überlieferung auswählt, selbst dann, wenn sein Gewährsmann (Livius) schon Zweifel an ihrer Glaubwürdigkeit angedeutet hatte, ferner selbstständig die Pointe möglichst zuspitzt und dabei sich nicht scheut, wissentlich von der Wahrheit abzuweichen, die obendrein noch durch seine Oberflächlichkeit, seinen Leichtsinn und seine Gewissenlosigkeit schwer geschädigt wird; zahllose Anachronismen und Fehler hat er in die Erzählung hineingetragen.” _Cf._ Kempf, _Prolegg._, pp. 26-34; Köhler, _Qua ratione Liuii annal. usi sint historici_, pp. 13, 21, _sqq._

[190] II. ix., _ad init._

[191] II. ix. 4.

[192] IV. iv. 7.

[193] IX. i. 3.

[194] IX. i. 5.

[195] IV, iv., _ad init._; IX. i. 2.

[196] II. vii. 10 and 15.

[197] III. ii. _ext._ 6.

[198] IX. iii., _ad init._

[199] III. iii. 1; the “militia” is illustrated by examples of “patientia” which follow, III. iii, 2-4.

[200] V. vi., _ad init._

[201] VI. ix. _ext._ 7: “Caduca nimium et fragilia, puerilibusque consentanea crepundiis sunt ista quae uires atque opes humanae uocantur. Affluunt subito, repente dilabuntur: nullo in loco, nulla in persona stabilibus nixa radicibus consistunt; sed incertissimo flatu fortunae huc atque illuc acta, quos sublime extulerunt, improuiso recursu destitutos, profundo cladium miserabiliter immergunt. Itaque neque existimari neque dici debent bona, quae inflictorum malorum amaritudinem desiderio sui duplicant.”

[202] II. vii. 5: “non digna exempla quae tam breuiter, nisi maioribus urgerer, referrentur.”

[203] _Cf._ Val. Max., VII. iii. 1, with Livy, I. xlv.

[204] I. vi. _ext._ 2.

[205] II. vii. 6; _ib._, 8.

[206] II. x. 3: “Bis enim te, Paulle, Macedonia urbi nostrae illustrem ostendit: incolumem, spoliis suis; fato functum, humeris!”

[207] IV. iv. 11.

[208] III. vii. _ext._ 1; _cf._ II. vii., _ad init._: “militaris disciplinae tenacissimum _uinculum_ in _cuius sinu ac tutela_ serenus tranquillusque beatae pacis status _acquiescat_.”

[209] III. v. 1. Other typical metaphors are: IV. vii. _ext._ 2, “infulis misericordiae permulseris”; VIII. v. 4, “quae decora civitatis umbone iudiciali repulsa sunt”; IX. ii. 1, “Sulla ... omnes Italiae partes sanguinis fluminibus inundauit”; IX. iii., _ad init._, “Ira quoque et odium in pectoribus humanis magnos fluctus excitant.”

[210] VI. ix. _ext._ 5.

[211] III. ii. _ext._ 6 and 9.

[212] III. vii. 11; VI. i. 2.

[213] _Cf._ VIII. i. 7: “uictoriam in ipsa uictoria perdidit”; IX. i. 6: “eodem tempore et in iisdem penatibus diuersa saecula habitarunt, frugalissimum alterum, alterum nequissimum.”

[214] II. vii. 9.

[215] III. ii. 14; _cf._ V. iii. 2, VII. vii. 1 (“togatam militiam”).

[216] _Prolog._ to Bk. I.

[217] II. iii. 1.

[218] VI. vi. 1.

[219] IX. i. 3: “uiros in hoc priscae continentiae ignotum deuerticulum prolapsos.” _Cf._ IV. iii. 14: “quae quidem tam misericors continentia plebis tacitum crudelium conuitium fuit”; IV. vii. 6: “fideli mendacio obscuritate ipsa suffragante, Brutum se esse simulauit.”

[220] _Sugillare_ (“beat black and blue,” hence “insult”), III. ii. _ext._ 1; VII. v. 5 and viii. 9; Liv., IV. xxxv.; _Sugillatio_, II. iii. 1; VI. ix. 12; IX. ii., _ad init._; Liv., XLIII. xiv.

[221] Wight Duff, _A Lit. Hist. of Rome to Golden Age_, 1909, pp. 659-662.

[222] III. ii. 24: “numerosa donorum pompa”; II. ix. 1: “posteritati numerosae.”

[223] III. viii. 1: “persuasam”; V. ix. 4: “persuasus.”

[224] _E.g._ V. x. 3: “orationi meae uagari permittam”; VII. i., _ad init._: “malignitatis obliuisci sibi imperauit”; IX. i. 3: “uehi permittebat.” _Cf._ IX. i. 4, “quas imbecillitas ... studium ad cultum hortatur conferre.” Usages like Quintilian’s familiar “fere solus legi dignus” (_Inst. Or._, X. i. 96) are already in vogue: _e.g._ II. ix. 1: “puniri dignos.”

[225] Tac., _Ann._, IV. xxxiv.-v.; see also chapter on “Elder Seneca,” p. 63.

[226] Sen., _Suas._, vi. 18 and 23; Younger Sen., _Ep._, XXX. 1; Quint., _I. Or._, X. i. 103; Plin., _N.H._, _praef._ 20; VI. (10) 27.

[227] Teuffel, _Gesch. d. röm. Lit._, § 291, 1.

[228] The praenomen “Gaius” of the _editio princeps_ is supported (in preference to P. or M.) by the identification of the historian with the individual named on a milestone in North Africa, “C. Velleio Paterculo leg(ato) Aug(usti) leg(ionis) III Aug(ustae),” _C.I.L._, VIII. 10311. See Teuffel, _Hist. Rom. Lit._, § 278, n. 1.

[229] Text: ed. princeps, Bâle, 1520; Orelli, 1835; Kritz (rec., annot. et indd. instruxit), 1840; Halm (app. crit. adiecto), 1876; Ellis (ex Amerbachii praecipue apographo ed. et emend.), 1898 (rev. by Warde Fowler, _C.R._, XIII. pp. 316 _sqq._). Rockwood, ed. Bk. II. xli.-cxxxi., 1900 (Civil War and reigns of Augustus and Tiberius w. introd.; noticed _C.R._, X. 58). On style: Oestling, _De elocutione Vell._, 1874; Fritsch, _Über d. Sprachgebr. des Vell._, 1876; Georges, _De elocutione Vell._, 1877; Lange, _Zum Sprachgebr. des Vell._, 1878. On historical value: Morgenstern, _De fide historica V.P., imprimis de adulatione ei obiecta_, 1798; Speckert, _De la sincérité de V.P._, 1848; Pernice, _De V. fide historica_, 1862; Stanger, _De V. fide_, 1863; Windheuser, _De V. fide ad Tiberii mores_, 1867; De Oppen, _De M. Vell._, 1875; Goeke, _De Vell. Tiberii imagine_, 1876.

[230] Vell., II. cxi. 3.

[231] II. cxxiv. 4.

[232] Vell., II. xvi. 2; Liv., XXIII. vii.-x.

[233] II. lxxvi.: “Quod alieno testimonium redderem, eo non fraudabo auum meum.”

[234] II. civ. 3.

[235] II. lxix. 5.

[236] II. cxv. 1; cxxi. 3; cxxiv. 4.

[237] I. v., vii.; II. ix., xxxvi., lxvi.

[238] II. ci. 3.

[239] II. ci. 2: “quod spectaculum stantis ex diuerso, hinc Romani, illinc Parthorum exercitus, cum duo inter se eminentissima imperiorum et hominum coirent capita, perquam clarum et memorabile sub initia stipendiorum meorum tribuno militum mihi uisere contigit.”

[240] II. ci. 3: “... haud iniucunda tot rerum, locorum, gentium, urbium recordatione perfruor.”

[241] II. lxxxii. 4, _sub fin._

[242] II. lxxxiii. 2: “caeruleatus et nudus caputque redimitus arundine et caudam trahens, genibus innixus.”

[243] II. civ. 3: “Hoc tempus (_i.e._ A.D. 4) me, functum ante tribunatu, castrorum Ti. Caesaris militem fecit; quippe protinus ab adoptione missus cum eo praefectus equitum in Germaniam, successor officii patris mei, caelestissimorum eius operum per annos continuos †VIII praefectus aut legatus spectator, tum pro captu mediocritatis meae adiutor fui.”

[244] II. civ. 3; II. cxi. 3.

[245] II. cxi. 4: “Quas non primo anno acies hostium uidimus!” It was Burman who inserted “non” for _nos_. Heinsius’s conjecture of “fudimus” is rejected by Kritz, who thinks it was approved “sine iusta caussa” by Krause, Orelli and others.

[246] II. cxiv.-cxv.

[247] II. cxx. 5: “perpetuus patronus Romani imperi adsuetam sibi causam suscipit.”

[248] II. cxxx. 5: “cuius temporis aegritudinem auxit amissa mater, eminentissima et per omnia deis quam hominibus similior femina.”

[249] II. cxxvii.-cxxviii.

[250] I. xiv.

[251] I. xvi. 1: “intellego mihi in hac tam praecipiti festinatione, quae me rotae proniue gurgitis (ac uerticis) modo nusquam patitur consistere, paene magis necessaria praetereunda quam superuacua amplectenda.”

[252] II. xxix. 2.

[253] II. xli. 1.

[254] II. xlviii. 5.

[255] II. lv.; “admonet promissae breuitatis fides quanto omnia transcursu dicenda sint.”

[256] II. lxxxvi.: “in hoc transcursu tam artati operis.”

[257] II. lxxxix.: “ne in operis quidem iusti materia, nedum huius tam recisi digne exprimi potest.”

[258] II. xcvi.: “alio loco explicabimus, hoc opus seruet formam suam.”

[259] II. xcix. ... “iusto seruemus operi ... in hoc transcursu dicendum est.”

[260] II. ciii. 4, _cf._ cxiv., cxix. 1.

[261] II. cxxiv.: “neque mihi tam festinanti exprimere uacat neque cui uacat potest.”

[262] _E.g._ fondness for the epithet _caelestis_, II. lx.: “spreuit itaque caelestis animus humana consilia”; II. lxiv.: “fulgentissimo et caelesti ore” (of Cicero); lxvi.: “caelestissimi oris” (of Cicero again); civ.: “caelestissimorum eius operum” (of Tiberius); cxxiii.: “animam caelestem deo reddidit” (of Augustus); or such recurrences as “mihi contigit” in II. ci. 2, cxxi. 2, cxxiv. 4.

[263] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 278, _n._ 1.

[264] I. vii.: “pace diligentiae Catonis dixerim.”

[265] II. xvi. 3, xxv. 4, xlviii. 5, lix. 1 (reading _praeuenit_).

[266] Wight Duff, _op. cit._, pp. 86, 423-426, 636-637.

[267] I. xiv.-xv., xvii.; II. ix., xxxvi., xxxviii., lxxxix.

[268] Gracchi, II. iii., vi.-vii.; Marius, II. xi.; Manilius, II. xxxiii.

[269] Cato, II. xxxv.; Octavius’s birth, II. xxxvi.; Julius Caesar, II. xxxix.; Tiberius as soldier, II. xciv.-xcvii., civ.-cxv., cxx.-cxxii. (for his praises, esp. xciv., xcix., cxi., cxiii.-cxv., cxx., cxxii., cxxiv., cxxix.-cxxx.); Sejanus, II. cxxvii.

[270] Wight Duff, _Lit. Hist. of Rome to Golden Age_, pp. 661-662.

[271] II. xli. 1-2; _cf._ the clumsiness of structure in I. xii. 4-5, “bellum ... clementiae” with a characteristically awkward parenthesis; II. ii. 1-3, “quippe ... iuuenem”; and elsewhere _passim_.

[272] II. lxvi. 3: “nihil tamen egisti, M. Antoni (cogit enim excedere propositi formam operis erumpens animo ac pectore indignatio), nihil, inquam, egisti mercedem caelestissimi oris et clarissimi capitis abscisi numerando auctoramentoque funebri ad conseruatoris quondam rei publicae tantique consulis inritando necem. rapuisti tum Ciceroni lucem sollicitam et aetatem senilem et uitam miseriorem te principe quam sub te triumuiro mortem, famam uero gloriamque factorum atque dictorum adeo non abstulisti ut auxeris. uiuit uiuetque per omnem saeculorum memoriam dumque hoc uel forte uel prouidentia uel utcumque constitutum rerum naturae corpus, quod ille paene solus Romanorum animo uidit, ingenio complexus est, eloquentia inluminauit, manebit incolume, comitem aeui sui laudem Ciceronis trahet omnisque posteritas illius in te scripta mirabitur, tuum in eum factum exsecrabitur.” For rhetorical interrogations, see II. liii. 2.

[273] _E.g._ II. xxiii. 1 (of Marius): “uir in bello hostibus, in otio ciuibus infestissimus quietisque impatientissimus.” The usual plethora of superlatives is well exemplified in II. xxix (character of Pompey).

[274] For the palpable “desire of Velleius Paterculus to write for the sake of fine writing and to improve upon the diction of the Ciceronian era,” see art. by Sihler, _Transactions Amer. Philol. Assoc._, 1894, vol. xxv.

[275] II. iv.

[276] II. xxvi.

[277] II. xlix.

[278] Luc., _Phars._, I. 129-157.

[279] II. lxxii., lxxxv.

[280] II. xix., _ad fin._

[281] II. xxii.

[282] II. xxxv., _ad fin._

[283] II. lxxiii., lxxxviii.

[284] Wight Duff, _op. cit._, pp. 413-414.

[285] I. xvii. 5; _ib._, 6; _ib._, 7; II. iii. 4, xxx. 3, lxxii. 5, lxxviii. 2, cxxvii. 2.

[286] II. lvii.: “Sed profecto ineluctabilis fatorum uis, cuiuscumque fortunam mutare constituit, consilia corrumpit”; _cf._ II. cxviii.: “ita se res habet, ut plerumque cui fortunam mutaturus est deus, consilia corrumpat.” It is the spirit of the later proverb, _quem Iuppiter uult perdere prius dementat_.

[287] I. xi., Metellus, who built the first marble temple at Rome, “uel magnificentiae uel luxuriae princeps fuit.” In I. xv. Velleius sympathizes with the opposition of “Puritans” like the consul Scipio to the completion of a theatre by Cassius, the censor, at Rome.

[288] II. xxx., xliv.

[289] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 278: “Für den inneren Zusammenhang der Dinge hat er kein Verstandnis, seine Teilnahme gilt den Personen.”

[290] I. xiv. 1: “cum facilius cuiusque rei in unum contracta species quam diuisa temporibus oculis animisque inhaereat....”

[291] II. cxvi. 3: “utinam non maioribus experimentis testatum esset, quantum in omni re fortuna posset!”

[292] II. cxvi. 5: “neque enim iustus sine mendacio candor apud bonos crimini est.”

[293] See remarks on Drusus, II. xcvii., and rapturous exclamations on Tiberius, II. cxi.

[294] I. xi., xiii.

[295] I. xiii. 4 ... “iuberet praedici conducentibus, si eas perdidissent, nouas eos reddituros.”

[296] II. xxviii., xciv., _sub fin._: “semper magnae fortunae comes adest adulatio.”

[297] II. xxxix.

[298] II. lxxv.

[299] II. xciv.: “Ti. Claudius Nero ... innutritus caelestium praeceptorum disciplinis, iuuenis genere, forma, celsitudine corporis, optimis studiis maximoque ingenio instructissimus, qui protinus, quantus est, sperari potuerat uisuque praetulerat principem.”

[300] II. xciv.-xcviii., civ.-cxv., cxx.-cxxii.

[301] II. civ. 4: “At uero militum conspectu eius elicitae gaudio lacrimae alacritasque et salutationis noua quaedam exultatio et contingendi manum cupiditas non continentium protinus quin adicerent, ‘uidemus te, imperator? Saluum recipimus?’ ac deinde ‘ego tecum, imperator, in Armenia, ego in Raetia fui, ego a te in Vindelicis, ego in Pannonia, ego in Germania donatus sum,’ neque uerbis exprimi et fortasse uix mereri fidem potest.”

[302] II. cvii.

[303] II. cxiv., cxv.

[304] II. xcix., c., ciii., cxxiv.

[305] II. cxxvi. The passage has genuine interest for the claims made on behalf of imperial government.

[306] II. cxxix. 2–cxxx. 2.

[307] II. xxxvi. (on Augustus), lxxxix. (on Augustan _régime_).

[308] II. cxxxi.

[309] _Bibliography._ Edns.: Erasmus, 1518; Freinsheim, Strasb., 1648; c. not. varior. (Elzev.) Amst., 1664; Mützell (mit krit. u. exeget. Anm.), Berl., 1841; Zumpt (recens. et comment. instr.), Brunsv., 1849; Hedicke, Berl., 1867; Vogel (Teub.), Leipz., 1904.

First Eng. trans, by Brende, Lond., 1553, followed by those of Codrington, 1652; Digby, 1714; Pratt, 1809 and 1821. French trans, by Vaugelas in Firmin Didot edn. (Nisard, 1847), with Du Ryer’s Fr. version of Freinsheim’s supplements for the missing bks., I. and II. _Cf._ Dosson, _Étude sur Quinte Curce_, 1887.

[310] Furneaux, on Tac., _Ann._, xi. 20, thinks it probable Curtius Rufus was father of the historian.

[311] Tac., _Ann._, XI. 21; Plin., _Ep._, VII. xxvii. 2-3.

[312] Curt. VIII. v. 6: “adulatio, perpetuum malum regum, quorum opes saepius adsentatio quam hostis euertit.”

[313] IV. iv. 21: “longa pace cuncta refouente ...”; X. ix. 3-4: “nouum sidus inluxit: huius, hercule, non solis ortus lucem _caliganti_ reddidit mundo.”

[314] Hosius, _Rh. Mus._ xlviii. p. 303 _sqq._, on _Lucan u. seine Quellen_ endeavours to suggest, on ground of analogies in description and resemblances in expression, that Lucan used Curtius. If proved, this would clearly bear on his date. But Hosius’s theory is examined and rejected, I think convincingly, by R. Pichon in _Les Sources de Lucain_, 1912, pp. 254-261.

[315] Liv., IX. xvii.-xix.

[316] Sen., _Suas._, i.

[317] IX. v. 21: “Ptolemaeum qui postea regnauit, huic pugnae adfuisse auctor est Clitarchus et Timegenes: sed ipse ... afuisse se ... memoriae tradidit.” IX. viii. 15, on number of Indians slain: “Clitarchus est auctor.”

[318] Diod. Sic., II. vii. (96): ὡς δὲ Κλείταρχος, καὶ τῶν ὕστερον μετ’ Ἀλεξάνδρου διαβάντων εἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν τινὲς ἀνέγραψαν: _cf._ Strab., XI. v. 4, where Clitarchus’s statement regarding the Amazon queen who visited Alexander and his record of a geographical distance in stades from the Caspian do not prove his participation in the expedition.

[319] Cic., _de Leg._, I. ii. 7: “quem (Clitarchum) si assequi posset aliquantum tamen ab optimo abesset.” _Cf._ Quint., _I. Or._, X. i. 75: “Clitarchi probatur ingenium, fides infamatur.”

[320] F. Reuss, in _Rh. Mus._, xxvii. 4 (1902), maintains that Clitarchus lived about 260 B.C. and must have used Aristobulus; objects to the hypothesis of a history of Alexander by Timagenes; and ascribes the agreement in the account of the campaigns by Strabo, Plutarch and Arrian to a common source in the writings of Eratosthenes.

[321] IX. i. 34: “equidem plura transcribo quam credo: nam nec adfirmare sustineo de quibus dubito, nec subducere quae accepi.”

[322] VII. viii.

[323] X. ix. 3.

[324] III. vi. 17-20: “Namque haud facile dictu est, praeter ingenitam illi genti erga reges suos venerationem, quantum huius utique regis uel admirationi dediti fuerint uel caritate flagrauerint. Iam primum nihil sine diuina ope aggredi uidebatur: nam cum praesto esset ubique fortuna, temeritas in gloriam cesserat. Aetas quoque uix tantis matura rebus, sed abunde sufficiens, omnia eius opera honestabat et, quae leuiora haberi solent, plerumque militari gratiora uolgo sunt: exercitatio corporis inter ipsos, cultus habitusque paulum a priuato abhorrens, militaris uigor: quibus ille uel ingeni dotibus uel animi artibus ut pariter carus ac uenerandus esset effecerat.”

[325] The conception deserves comparison with Florus’s view of the Roman Empire as the outcome of a struggle between fortune and virtue.

[326] V. xi. 10: “eludant me licet quibus forte temere humana negotia uolui agique persuasum est: equidem fato crediderim nexuque causarum latentium et multo ante destinatarum suum quemque ordinem immutabili lege percurrere.”

[327] For these four types of _clausulae_ De Groot, _Der Antike Prosarhythmus_, 1921, gives, over a number of observed instances, the following percentages—31, 15, 12 and 8.

[328] Text: Almeloveen (not. varr.), 1687; Targa (Patav.), 1769, (Veron.) 1810; Milligan (index), ed. 2, 1831; Daremberg, Lpz., 1859 (ed. 2, 1891). Translations: Lee (Lat. and Eng.), 2 vols., 1831-1836; Nisard (Lat. and French), 1877. See also Ilberg, _A. Corn. Celsus u. die Medizin in Rom_ (aus dem XIX. Bande der _Neuen Jahrbücher für d. Klass. Altert._), Lpz., 1907.

[329] _E.g._ Col., I. i. 14.; III. xvii. 4; Plin., _N.H._, XIV. ii. (v.), xxxiii.: “Graecinus qui alioqui Cornelium Celsum transcripsit.” The praenomen has the authority of MS. headings of the _De Medicina_.

[330] Col., III. xvii. 4: “Iulius Atticus et Cornelius Celsus, aetatis nostrae celeberrimi auctores, patrem atque filium Sasernam secuti.”

[331] Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 280, 4; 283, 4. Cichorius, _Röm. Studien_, 1922, pp. 411-417, examines Pliny’s citations and argues that the agricultural portion of Celsus was written A.D. 25-26, and the medical portion soon after.

[332] IV. iv. 1: “quamuis in monumentis medicorum non legerim”; _cf._ Teuffel, _op. cit._, § 294, 2.

[333] Wight Duff, _A Literary Hist. of Rome_, ed. 2, 1910, pp. 262 _sqq._ and 332 _sqq._

[334] There were five books on agriculture, Col., I. i. 14; and, if he is the Celsus mentioned by the scholiast to Juv., vi. 245, there were seven books on rhetoric (“Celso: oratori illius temporis qui septem libros _Institutionum_ scriptos reliquit”). His work on philosophy was in six books, Augustin., _De haeresibus_ (Migne, _Patrolog._, tom. xlii., 1861, p. 23), “opiniones omnium philosophorum ... sex non paruis uoluminibus quidam Celsus absoluit.”

[335] Veget., _De re mil._, i. 8; Lyd., _De mag._, i. 47; iii. 33: καὶ συγγραφὴν περὶ τούτου μονήρη Κέλσος, ὁ Ῥωμαῖος τακτικὸς, ἀπολέλοιπε, and 34.

[336] Aug., _loc. cit._ “nec redarguit aliquem, sed tantum quid sentirent (_v.l._, sentiret) aperuit”; contrast Quint., _Inst. Or._, X. i. 124: “scripsit non parum multa Cornelius Celsus, Sextios secutus, non sine cultu ac nitore.”

[337] _I. Or._, XII. xi. 24: “Cum etiam Cornelius Celsus, mediocri uir ingenio, non solum de his omnibus conscripserit artibus sed amplius rei militaris et rusticae et medicinae praecepta reliquerit”; _cf._ II. xv. 22 and 32; VIII. iii. 35: “neque enim accedo Celso qui ab oratore uerba fingi uetat.”

[338] In Cels., V. xxviii. 16, the mention of a prescription, “as already recommended in case of cattle,” proves the agricultural portion preceded. The opening of the preface to what is now Bk. I. suggests that “Agriculture” _immediately_ preceded, “ut alimenta sanis corporibus agricultura, sic sanitatem aegris medicina promittit.” This is confirmed by headings in many MSS., “Celsi artium liber VI., idem medicinae I.”; _cf._ Col., I. i., xiv.

[339] II. _praef._, _ad init._: “non dubitabo auctoritate antiquorum uirorum uti, maximeque Hippocratis”; _cf._ II. xiv., VIII. iv. Rhodius, in a rambling _Vita_ prefixed to Almeloveen’s ed., records the nickname “Hippocratis simiam.”

[340] IV. iv.: “Asclepiades ... auctor bonus”; _ibid. infra_ for Asclepiades and Erasistratus on hemorrhage; I. iii.: “in eo uolumine quod de _tuenda sanitate_ composuit”; II. xiv., _ad init._: “in eo uolumine quod _communium auxiliorum_ inscripsit”; _Cf._ III. xiv. and V. _praef._

[341] _E.g._ III. iv.: “Commodeque Erasistratus dixit ....”; IV. xxiv., _sub fin._; V. _praef._, etc.

[342] V. xviii. is a good example.

[343] _E.g._ II. i. (consumption): “labes quam Graeci φθίσιν nominant” _ib._ (paralysis): “resolutio neruorum, παράλυσιν Graeci nominant.”

[344] _I. Or._, IX. i. 18: “Cornelius tamen Celsus adicit ... figuras colorum, nimia profecto nouitatis cupiditate ductus.”

[345] _E.g._ I. _praef._: “Themison _nuper_ ipse quoque quaedam in senectute deflexit”; III. iv. (on food in fevers): “At Themison _nuper_, non quando coepisset febris, sed quando desisset ... considerabat”; _ib._: “Neque tamen uerum est quod Themisoni uidebatur”; _cf._ IV. xv. (cure for dysentery).

[346] I. _praef._: “ingeniosissimus saeculi nostri medicus, quem nuper uidimus, Cassius”; IV. xiv.: “Est etiam medicamentum eius rei causa comparatum, quod κωλικὸν nominatur: id se repperisse Cassius gloriabatur.”

[347] _E.g._ II. xii., decreased use of injections; II. x., _ad init._, increased use of blood-letting.

[348] II. xvii.: “quarumdam naturalium sudationum ubi terra profusus calidus uapor aedificio includitur sicut super Baias in myrtetis habemus.”

[349] III. xi., _sub fin._: “_Ego_ tum hoc puto tentandum”; III. xxiv.: “_Ego_ utique,” after citing Asclepiades and others on jaundice; III. xxi., a treatment of dropsy introduced by Tharrias is “still observed by many, I see” (“seruatum esse a pluribus, uideo”). In VII. xii. 4 he cites a case known to him of an ineffective operation upon a tongue-tied patient (“Ego autem cognoui qui, succisa lingua,” etc.), and in VII. vii. 6 he says of a certain eye-operation that he remembers no successful case (“ego sic restitutum esse neminem memini”).

[350] II. x.: “quod si uehemens febris urget, in ipso impetu eius sanguinem mittere, hominem iugulare est.”

[351] I. _praef._: “siquidem haec duo (desidia et luxuria) corpora, prius in Graecia, deinde apud nos afflixerunt.”

[352] II. i. (autumn); I. x. (“meridianus somnus”); VII. v. 2 (surgical treatment of arrow-wounds); I. ii., iv., vii., viii. (“clara lectio,” “clare legere,” “uoce contendere”).

[353] I. _praef._: “Verique simile est ... non ideo quidem medicos fuisse, uerum ideo quoque maiores medicos exstitisse.”

[354] His language (_loc. cit._) pointedly suggests the parallel between the “ruffian” vivisectionist and the “ruffian” robber with violence: “ita mortui demum praecordia et uiscus omne in conspectum _latrocinantis medici_ dari,” and “interdum enim gladiatorem in arena uel militem in acie uel uiatorem _a latronibus exceptum_ sic uolnerari ut eius interior aliqua pars aperiatur, et in alio alia.”

[355] I. _praef._: “Incidere autem uiuorum corpora et crudele et superuacuum est: mortuorum, discentibus necessarium.”

[356] I. ii. and iii.

[357] I. ii.: “Sin lucubrandum est, non post cibum id facere, sed post concoctionem.”

[358] II. i.: “Pessimum aegro caelum est quod aegrum fecit”; IV. iv. 4: “Utilis etiam in omni tussi est peregrinatio, nauigatio longa, loca maritima, natationes.”

[359] II. vi.: “Non itaque, si quid uix in millesimo corpore aliquando decipit, fidem non habet.”

[360] II. viii.: “Scire licet, inter ea quoque quae ars adhibet, naturam plurimum posse.”

[361] III. iv.: “Optimum uero medicamentum est opportune cibus datus.”

[362] III. vi. (pulse); x. _sub fin._ (a quack’s temerity); iv. (critical days).

[363] III. iv., _ad init._

[364] IV. i.

[365] VII. _praef._: “Non ut clamore eius motus uel magis quam res desiderat properet, uel minus quam necesse est secet.”

[366] VII. vii. 14.

[367] IV. iv.

[368] I. iv., _ad init._

[369] II. xviii.

[370] IV. iv. 1.

[371] _Ibid._

[372] V. v.; viii.; _cf._ V. xxii. 4.

[373] As a rule, he has too keen a feeling for exactitude to indulge often in a pleonasm like “causa quae ante praecesserat” (I. _praef._).

[374] III. xviii.: “Quidam imaginibus non mente falluntur; quales insanientem Aiacem uel Orestem percepisse poetae ferunt.”

[375] IV. xxi.: “uitare autem oportet _cruditates_,” in sense of “indigestible fare.”

[376] I. _praef._, _ad init._, quoted _supra_; _cf._ later in _praef._: “Nec post rationem medicinam esse inuentam sed post inuentam medicinam rationem esse quaesitam,” where the antithetic order aims at clear emphasis, not rhetorical effect.

[377] Cic., _Ad Fam._, IX. xxii. (discussion by E. W. Fay in _Cl. Q._, I. i., April, 1907); Cic., _Or._, XLV., 154; Quint., _I. Or._, VIII. iii. 44-47 (on κακέμφατον), IX. iv. 33; _cf._ _Rh. Mus._, Vol. III. p. 576 (1835); Ritter, _Uebertriebene Scheu der Römer vor gewissen Ausdrücken und Wortverbindungen_.

[378] VI. xviii. 1: “Proxima sunt ea quae ad partes obscaenas pertinent: quarum apud Graecos uocabula et tolerabilius se habent et accepta iam usu sunt, cum in omni fere medicorum uolumine atque sermone iactentur.”

[379] _Loc. cit._: “ut difficilis haec explanatio sit simul et pudorem et artis praecepta seruantibus.”

[380] V. xxvi. 1: “In his autem ante omnia scire medicus debet, quae insanabilia sint, quae difficilem curationem habeant, quae promptiorem. Est enim prudentis hominis, primum eum qui seruari non potest, non attingere, nec subire speciem eius, ut occisi, quem sors ipsius interemit: deinde, ubi grauis metus, sine tamen desperatione, est, indicare necessariis periclitantis, in difficili rem esse; ne, si uicta ars malo fuerit, uel ignorasse uel fefellisse uideatur. Sed ut haec prudenti uiro conueniunt, sic rursus histrionis est paruam rem attollere quo plus praestitisse uideatur.”

[381] Ed. Gronov., Leyd., 1696; cum not. var., _ib._, 1722; Parthey, Berl., 1867; Frick, Leipz., 1880. Nisard (with Macrobius and Varro and Fr. trans.), Firmin-Didot, Par., 1883.

_Cf._ Tozer, _Hist. of Anct. Geog._, 1897; Klotz, _Quaest. Plin. Geogr._, Berl., 1906.

[382] Strabo, III. iv. 19: οἱ δὲ τῶν Ῥωμαίων συγγραφεῖς μιμοῦνται μὲν τοὺς Ἕλληνας, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐπὶ πολύ· καὶ γὰρ ἃ λέγουσι παρὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων μεταφέρουσι, ἐξ ἑαυτῶν δ’ οὐ πολὺ μὲν προσφέρονται τὸ φιλείδημον, κ.τ.λ.

[383] Plin., _N.H._, V. i. 12.

[384] Mela, II. vi. (96): “unde nos sumus, Tingentera.”

[385] Teuffel, _Gesch. d. röm. Lit._, § 296 _n._ 1.

[386] Norden, _Kunstprosa_, 305, imagines that in the Latin text, III. vi. (49), “tamdiu _clausam_ (sc. Britanniam) aperit ecce principum maximus,” there is a play on the name of Claudius.

[387] Current literary histories (Teuffel, 296, 1; Schanz, 443) combine this passage (III. 49) with Mela’s alleged mention of Thia (II. 111), an island which first appeared in A.D. 46, to prove a later date. But Wissowa, _Herm._, li. (1916), p. 89 _sqq._, distrusts the reading in II. 111, and argues that the future in _triumpho declaraturus_ makes it imperative to take the triumph as a _terminus ante quem_. He rejects 46 and believes the beginning of 44 to be the date of composition.

[388] Bunbury, _Hist. of Anct. Geog._, I. p. 404; Tozer, _Hist. of Anct. Geog._, p. 119.

[389] III. v. (45) and III. ix. (90).

[390] _Handb. d. klass. Altertumswissenschaft_, vol. iii. (_Geographie u. politische Geschichte_), p. 514: “Von römischer Seite ist zuerst Varro (116-127 v. Chr.) als geographischer Schriftsteller über Hispanien aufgetreten, das er als Legat des Pompejus persönlich kennen gelernt hat.”

[391] Notes on Juv. II. 159-160; Virg., _Aen._, IX. 31.

[392] I., _prooem._: “quod si non ope ingenii orantis at ipsa sui contemplatione pretium operae attendentium absoluat.”

[393] I. xiii. (72).

[394] _Eg._ Egypt, I. ix.; Pontus, I. xix.; Scythians, II. i.; Druids, III. ii.

[395] III. i., _ad init._

[396] I. vii., _ad fin._

[397] See tables of statistics in De Groot’s _Der Antike Prosarhythmus_, Haag, 1921, pp. 108-109.

[398] Ed. pr., Ruellius, Par., 1528; Rhodius, Patav., 1655; Bernhold, Strasb., 1786; Helmreich, Leipz., 1887. Language, etc.: Lattritz, _De Scrib. Largi genere dicendi_, Bonn, 1913; Jourdan, _Notes de critique verbale sur Scrib. Larg._ (introd., bibliog.), Par., 1919.

[399] Teuffel, _op. cit._, 281, 1 and 2.

[400] Suet., _Gr._, 22: “sermonis latini exactor molestissimus.”

[401] Sen., _Ad Helv._, X. 8; Schol. Juv., IV. 23.

[402] Ed. pr., Mil., 1498; Lister, Lond., 1705; Schuch, Heidelb., 1867, 2nd ed., 1874; Giarratano and Vollmer, Leipz., 1922. Vollmer has argued that the “Caelius,” sometimes added to Apicius’s name, should be dropped as an erroneous expansion by Renaissance scholars of what they found on the title-page of the archetype MS.

[403] Sen., _De Tranq. An._, xiv. 4; _cf._ 9.

[404] Text: Ed. pr., Pithoeus, 1596; Burman, 1698 (_varior. not._, 1718); Bentley (w. Terence), 1726; Orelli, 1831; emend., adnot., suppl. L. Müller, 1877; Robert (w. facsim. of _Cod. Pithoeanus_), 1894; Havet, _Phaedri Aug. lib. fab. Aesop._, 1895 (noticed by Ellis, _C.R._, X. 159-163), and _Phèdre_ (texte, notes), 1896, ed. 14, 1923; Gow, _Corp. Poet. Lat._, II., 1905; Ramorino, ed. 5, Turin, 1915; Postgate, _Fabulae Aesopiae_ (cum Perotti prologo et X. nouis fabulis), 1920; Brenot, _Phèdre_ (Budé), texte et trad., 1924.

Other works: Nisard, _Études ... sur les poètes latins de la décadence_, ed. 3, 1867, I. pp. 3-57; L. Müller, _De Phaedri et Aviani fabulis_, 1875; J. J. Hartman, _De Ph. fabulis commentatio_, 1890, an able work, noticed _C.R._, V. 29-32; Hervieux, _Les fabulistes latins_, vols. i.-v. ed. 2, 1893-1894; Ellis, _The Fables of Ph._ (Inaug. Lect.), 1894; Jacobs, _The Fables of Aesop_, 2 vols., 1889 (for history of Aesopic fable, see vol. i.); Vandaele, _Qua mente Phaeder fabellas scripserit_, 1897; Zander, _Phaedrus solutus uel Phaedri fab. nouae_, XXX., Lund, 1921 (noticed _J. R. S._ by Wight Duff, 1923).

[405] III. _prol._ 17 _sqq._; Schwabe, Rh. _Mus._, xxxix. p. 476, proves against Wölfflin that the lines are meant literally.

[406] III. _epil._ 33-34: “Palam muttire plebeio piaculumst” is from the _Telephus_ of Ennius.

[407] III. _prol._ 27-28; IV. vii. 6 _sqq._; IV. xxii. (xxiii.) and xxv. (xxvi.).

[408] _Epist. ad. Theodos._: “Phaedrus etiam partem aliquam quinque in libellos resoluit.”

[409] Plessis, _La poésie lat._, p. 484. Ellis (_Fables of Ph._, p. 3) thinks the rare by-form “Phaeder” less likely.

[410] The emperor seems to be referred to as alive in II. v. 7, where he is “Caesar Tiberius”; contrast “a diuo Augusto” of Augustus, III. x. 39.

[411] Ellis, _op. cit._, p. 2. Bk. I. is more strictly “Aesopian” or Hellenic; Bk. II. obviously introduces Roman matter.

[412] III. _epil._ 15-19; III. i. 7.

[413] Havet favours later dates for his birth and for chronology of the works. According to his arguments—which present difficulties—Book III. was written under Claudius, IV. under Nero, and V. as late as Vespasian’s time. Havet’s hypothesis depends primarily upon his transposition from