No More Learning

but of the ways and doings of the Latin land. Of course the Terentian school rapidly took possession of this species of comedy also; it was quite in accordance with its spirit to naturalise Greek comedy in Italy on the one hand by faithful translation, and on the other hand by pure Roman imitation. The chief representative of this school was Lucius Afranius (who flourished about 660). The fragments of his comedies remaining give no distinct impression, but they are not inconsistent with what the Roman critics of art remark regarding him. His numerous national comedies were in their construction thoroughly formed on the model of the Greek intrigue-piece ; only, as was natural in imita tion, they were simpler and shorter. In the details also he borrowed what pleased him partly from Menander, partly from the older national literature. But of the Latin local tints, which are so distinctly marked in Titinius the creator of this species of art, we find not much in Afranius ,1 his subjects retain a very general character, and may well have
been throughout imitations of particular Greek comedies with merely an alteration of costume. A polished eclecti eism and adroitness in composition—literary allusions not unfrequently occur—are characteristic of him as of Terence: the moral tendency too, in which his pieces approximated to the drama, their inoffensive tenor in a police point of view, their purity of language are common to him with the latter. Afranius is sufliciently indicated as of a kindred spirit with Menander and Terence by the judgment of posterity that he wore the toga as Menander would have
1 External circumstances also, it'may be presumed, co-operatecl in bringing about this change. After all the Italian communities had obtained the Roman franchise in consequence of the Social war, it was no longer allowable to transfer the scene of a comedy to any such community, and the poet had either to keep to general ground or to choose places that had fallen into ruin or were situated abroad. Certainly this circumstance, which was taken into account even in the production of the older comedies, exercised an unfavourable effect on the national comedy.
230
LITERATURE AND ART Boox rv
CRAP. xiii LITERATURE AND ART
:3:
worn it had he been an Italian, and by his own expression that to his mind Terence surpassed all other poets.
The farce appeared afresh at this period in the field of Atelllnll. Roman literature. It was in itself very old 291): long
before Rome arose, the merry youths of Latium may have improvised on festal occasions in the masks once for all estab
lished for particular characters. These pastimes obtained a fixed local background in the Latin “asylum of fools,” for which they selected the formerly Oscan town of Atella, which was destroyed in the Hannibalic war and was thereby handed over to comic use thenceforth the name of “ Oscan plays ” or “plays of Atella” was commonly used for these
exhibitions. 1 But these pleasantries had nothing to do with
With these names there has been associated from ancient times a series of errors. The utter mistake of Greek reporters, that these farcu were played at Rome in the Oscan language, now with justice universally rejected; but is, on a closer consideration, little short of impossible to bring these pieces, which are laid in the midst of Latin town and country life, into relation with the national Oscan character at all. The appella tion of "Atellan play" to be explained in another way. The Latin farce with its fixed characters and standing jests needed a permanent scenery the fool-world everywhere seeks for itself a local habitation. Of course under the Roman stage-police none of the Roman communities,
or of the Latin communities allied with Rome, could be taken for this purpose, although was allowable to transfer the togatae to these. But Atella, which, although destroyed de jure along with Capua in 543 (ii. 211, 340, 366). continued practically to subsist as a village inhabited by Roman farmers, was adapted in every respect for the purpose. This conjecture
changed into certainty by our observing that several of these farces are
laid in other communities within the domain of the Latin tongue, which existed no longer at all, or no longer at any rate in the eye of the law
such as the Campani of Pomponius and perhaps also his Adult/n‘ and his Quinquatrz'a in Capua, and the Militer Pomelinmrer of Novius in Suessa Pometia—-vvhile no existing community was subjected to similar mal treatment. The real home of these pieces was therefore Latium, their poetical stage was the Latinized Oscan land with the Oscan nation they
have no connection. The statement that a piece of Naevius after 550) 200, was for want of proper actors performed by l'Atellan players" and was therefore called p:rronala (Festus, . r. 11. ), provs nothing against this view:
the appellation "Atellan players" comes to stand here proleptically, and we might even conjecture from this passage that they were formerly termed " masked players " (perronati).
An explanation quite similar may be given of the "lays of Fscen nium," which likewise belong to the burlesque poetry of the Romans and were localized in the South Etruscan village of Fescennium;
not necessary on that account to class them with Etruscan poetry any
it is
is
('I'
;
is
it
is
:
it
1
;
(i.
:3:
LITERATURE AND ART noox iv
the stage1 and with literature; they were performed by amateurs where and when they pleased, and the text was not written or at any rate was not published. It was not until the present period that the Atellan piece was handed over to actors properly so called} and was employed, like the Greek satyric drama, as an afterpiece particularly after tragedies ; a change which naturally suggested the extension of literary activity to that field. Whether this authorship developed itself altogether independently, or whether possibly the art-farce of Lower Italy, in various respects of kindred character, gave the impulse to this Roman farce,a can no
more than the Atellanae with Oscan. That Fescennium was in historical times not a town but a village, cannot certainly be directly proved, but is in the highest degree probable from the way in which authors mention the place and from the silence of inscriptions.
1 The close and original connection, which Livy in particular reprsents as subsisting between the Atellan farce and the . ratura with the drama thence developed, is not at all tenable. The difference between the lu‘rln'o and the Atellan player was just about as great as is at present the difl'erence between a professional actor and a man who goes to a masked ball; between the dramatic piece, which down to Terence's time had no masks, and the Atellan, which was essentially based on the character-mask, there subsisted an original distinction in no way to be effaced. The drama arose out of the flute-piece, which at first without any recitation was confined merely to song and dance, then acquired a
text (ruture), and lastly obtained through Andronicus a libretto borrowed from the Greek stage, in which the old flute-lays occupied nearly the place of the Gredr chorus. This course of development nowhere in its earlier stages comes into contact with the farce, which was performed by amateurs.
3 In the time of the empire the Atellana was represented by professional actors (Friedlander in Becker's Handbuch, vi. 549). The time at which these began to engage in it is not reported, but it can hardly have been other than the time at which the Atellan was admitted among the regular stage-plays, {. e. the epoch before Cicero (Cic. ad Fam. ix. 16). This view is not inconsistent with the circumstance that still in Livy's time (vii. 2) the Atellan players retained their honorary rights as contrasted with other actors; for the statement that professional actors began to take part in performing the Atellana for pay does not imply that the Atellana was no longer performed, in the country towns for instance, by unpaid amateurs, and' the privilege therefore still remained applicable.
It deserves attention that the Greek farce was not only especially at home in Lower Italy, but that several of its pieces (ag. among those of Sopater, the “ Lennie-Porridge," the “ Wooers of Bacchis," the " Valet of Mystaltos," the “Bookworms," the "Physiologist ") strikingly remind usof the Atellanae. This composition of farces must have reached down to the time at which the Greeks in and around Neapolis formed a circle enclosed
CHAP. x111 LITERATURE‘ AND ART
:33
longer be determined ; that the several pieces were uniformly original works, is certain. The founder of this new species of literature, Lucius Pomponius from the Latin colony of Bononia, appeared in the first half of the seventh century ;1 and along with his pieces those of another poet Novius soon became favourites. So far as the few remains and the reports of the old lz'tleratorer allow us to form an opinion, they were short farces, ordinarily perhaps of one act, the
charm of which depended less on the preposterous and loosely constructed plot than on the drastic portraiture of particular classes and situations. Festal days and public acts were favourite subjects of comic delineation, such as the
“Marriage,” the "First of March,” “Harlequin Candidate”; so were also foreign nationalities—the Transalpine Gauls, the Syrians; above all, the various trades frequently appear on the boards. The sacristan, the soothsayer, the bird-seer, the physician, the publican, the painter, fisherman, baker,
across the stage; the public criers were severely assailed and still more the fullers, who seem to have played in the Roman fool-world the part of our tailors. While the varied life of the city thus received its due attention, the farmer with his joys and sorrows was also represented in all aspects. The copiousness of this rural repertory may be guessed from the numerous titles of that nature, such as “the Cow,” “the Ass,” “the Kid,” “the Sow,” “the Swine,” “the Sick Boar,” “the Farmer,” “the Countryman,”
“Harlequin Countryman,” “the Cattle-herd,” “the Vine dresser,” “the Fig-gatherer,” “Woodcutting,” “Pruning,”
“the Poultry-yard. ” In these pieces it was always the standing
within the Latin-speaking Campania; for one of these writers of fares, Blaesus of Capreae, bears even a Roman name and wrote a farce "Saturnus. "
1 According to Eusebius, Pomponius flourished about 664; Velleius 90. calls him a contemporary of Lucius Crassus (614-663) and Marcus 140-91. Antonius (611-667). The former statement is probably about a genera- 148-37. tion too late ; the reckoning by zlictoriali (p. 182) which was discontinued
about 6 50 still occurs in his Pictorer, and about the end of this period we 100. already meet the mimes which displaced the Atellanae from the stage.
pass
234
LITERATURE AND ART noon rv
figures of the stupid and the artful servant, the good old man, the wise man, that delighted the public; the first in particular might never be wanting—the Pulcinello of this farce-the gluttonous filthy Maccur, hideously ugly and yet eternally in love, always on the point of stumbling across his own path, set upon by all with jeers and with blows and eventually at the close the regular scapegoat. The titles “ Maccur Micr,” “MGL'L‘US Capri,” “Mama Wrga,” “Maczur Exul,” “Macci
Gemini” may furnish the good-humoured reader with some conception of the variety of entertainment in the Roman masquerade. Although these farces, at least after they came to be written, accommodated themselves to the general laws of literature, and in their metres for instance followed the Greek stage, they yet naturally retained a far more Latin and more popular stamp than even the national comedy. The farce resorted to the Greek world only under the form of travestied tragedy;1 and this style appears to have been cultivated first by Novius, and not very frequently in any case. The farce of this poet moreover ventured, if not to trespass on Olympus, at least to touch the most human of the gods, Hercules: he wrote a HZ’rculer Auc tz'onator. The tone, as a matter of course, was not the most refined; very unambiguous ambiguities, coarse rustic Obscenities, ghosts frightening and occasionally
devouring children, formed part of the entertainment, and offensive
personalities, even with the mention of names, not unfre quently crept in. But there was no want also of vivid delineation, of grotesque incidents, of telling jokes, and of pithy sayings ; and the harlequinade rapidly won for itself no inconsiderable position in the theatrical life of the capital and even in literature.
I It was probably merry enough in this form. In the Plonu'uuol Novius, for instance, there was the line :—
Sum ama, iam t: accidam claua . m'rpea, just as Menander's \Ileufinpanhfis makes his appearance,
CHAP- xm LITERATURE AND ART
235
Lastly as regards the development of dramatic arrange- Dram! “ ments we are not in a position to set forth in detail—what mg’ is clear on the whole—that the general interest in dramatic performances was constantly on the increase, and that they
became more and more frequent and magnificent. Not
only was there hardly any ordinary or extraordinary popular
festival that was now celebrated without dramatic exhibi
tions ; even in the country-towns and in private houses repre sentations by companies of hired actors were common. It
is true that, while probably various municipal towns already
at this time possessed theatres built of stone, the capital
was still without one; the building of a theatre, already contracted for, had been again prohibited by the senate in
599 on the suggestion of Publius Scipio Nasica. It was 155. quite in the spirit of the sanctimonious policy of this age,
that the building of a permanent theatre was prohibited out
of respect for the customs of their ancestors, but never theless theatrical entertainments were allowed rapidly to increase, and enormous sums were expended annually in erecting and decorating structures of boards for them.
The arrangements of the stage became visibly better. The improved scenic arrangements and the reintroduction of masks about the time of Terence are doubtless connected
with the fact, that the erection and maintenance of the stage and stage-apparatus were charged in 580 on the 17. 4.
public chest. 1 The plays which Lucius Mummius pro duced after the capture of Corinth (609) formed an epoch 145. in the history of the theatre. It was probably then that
a theatre acoustically constructed after the Greek fashion
1 Hitherto the person providing the play had been obliged to fit up the stage and scenic apparatus out of the round sum assigned to him or at his
own expense, and probably much money would not often be expended on these. But in 580 the censors made the erection of the stage for the 174 games of the praetors and aediles a. matter of special contract (Liv. xli.
:7); the circumstance that the stage-apparatus was now no longer erected merely for a single performance must have led to a puceptible improve
ment of it.
I36
LITERATURE AND ART BOOK IV
and provided with seats was first erected, and more care
was expended on the exhibitions. 1 Now also there is frequent mention of the bestowal of a prize of victory—which implies the competition of several pieces— of the audience taking a lively part for or against the leading actors, of cliques and :lagueurr. The decorations and machinery were improved; moveable scenery artfully painted and audible theatrical thunder made their appear ance under the aedileship of Gaius Claudius Pulcher in
99. 79. 655 ;2 and twenty years later (675) under the aedileship of the brothers Lucius and Marcus Lucullus came the changing of the decorations by shifting the scenes. To the close of this epoch belongs the greatest of Roman
62. actors, the freedman Quintus Roscius about 692 at great age), throughout several generations the ornament and pride of the Roman stage,a the friend and welcome
generally
boon-companion the sequel.
of Sulla—to whom we shall have to recur
In recitative poetry the most surprising circumstance
The attention given to the acoustic an'angements of the Greeks may be Inferred from Vitruv. v. 5, 8. Ritschl (Parerg. 227, xx. ) has dis cussed the question of the seats but probable (according to Plautus, Capt. pro]. 11) that those only who were not capite cum‘ had a claim to a seat. It probable, moreover, that the words of Horace that “ captive Greece led captive her conqueror" primarily refer to these epoch-making theatrical games of Mummius (Tac. Arm. xiv. 2r).
The scenery of Pulcher must have been regularly painted, since the birds are said to have attempted to perch on the tiles (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 4, 23; Val. Max. ii. 4, 6). Hitherto the machinery for thunder had con sisted in the shaking of nails and stones in copper kettle Pulcher first produced a better thunder by rolling stones, which was thenceforth named
" Claudian thunder" (Festus, 1/. Claudiana, p. 57).
Among the few minor poems preserved from this epoch there occurs
the following epigram on this illustrious actor :—
Conrtiteram, exorientm Auroram forte mlufaiu, Cum rubito a [ma Rorciur exoritur.
Pate mi/zi liceat, coelerter, dicere vertra; Mortalir ‘virurt pulchr-iar err: deo.
The author of this epigram, Greek in its tone and inspired by Greek
enthusiasm for art, was no less a man than the conqueror of the Cimbri, 102. Quintus Lutatius Catulus, consul in 652.
'
2l is
in
a
;
;
it is
i.
is a
(1'
can. xm LITERATURE AND ART
237
the insignificance of the Epos, which during the sixth century had occupied decidedly the first place in the literature destined for reading ; it had numerous representa tives in the seventh, but not a single one who had even temporary success. From the present epoch there is hardly anything to be reported save a number of rude attempts to translate Homer, and some continuations of the Ennian Annals, such as the “Istrian War” of Hostius and the
“Annals (perhaps) of the Gallic War” by Aulus Furius
(about 6 50), which to all appearance took up the narrative 100.
at the very point where Ennius had broken off—the description of the Istrian war of 576 and 577. In didactic 178, 1" and elegiac poetry no prominent name appears. The only successes which the recitative poetry of this period has to
show, belong to the domain of what was called Satura—a
species of art, which like the letter or the pamphlet allowed
of any form and admitted any sort of contents, and accordingly in default of all proper generic characters
derived its individual shape wholly from the individuality
of each poet, and occupied a position not merely on the boundary between poetry and prose, but even more than
half beyond the bounds of literature proper. The humorous
poetical epistles, which one of the younger men of the Scipionic circle, Spurius Mummius, the brother of the destroyer of Corinth, sent home from the camp of Corinth
to his friends, were still read with pleasure a century after
wards; and numerous poetical pleasantries of that sort not destined for publication probably proceeded at that time
from the rich social and intellectual life of the better circles
of Rome.
Its representative in literature is Gaius Lucilius (606
651) sprung of a respectable family in the Latin colony of 148-108. Suessa, and likewise a member of the Scipionic circle.
His poems are, as it were, open letters to the public.
Their contents, as a clever successor gracefully says, embrace
Saturn.
Lnclllul.
238
LITERATURE AND ART noox W
the whole life of a cultivated man of independence, who looks upon the events passing on the political stage from the pit and occasionally from the sidescenes 5 who con verses with the best of his epoch as his equals; who follows literature and science with sympathy and intelligence with out wishing personally to pass for a poet or scholar; and who, in fine, makes his pocket-book the confidential receptacle for everything good and bad that he meets with, for his political experiences and expectations, for gramma tical remarks and criticisms on art, for incidents of his own
life, visits, dinners, journeys, as well as for anecdotes which he has heard. Caustic, capricious, thoroughly individual, the Lucilian poetry has yet the distinct stamp of an opposi tional and, so far, didactic aim in literature as well as in morals and politics; there is in it something of the revolt of the country against the capital; the Suessan’s sense of his own purity of speech and honesty of life asserts itself in antagonism to the great Babel of mingled tongues and corrupt morals. The aspiration of the Scipionic circle after literary correctness, especially in point of language, finds critically its most finished and most clever representative in Lucilius. He dedicated his very first book to Lucius Stilo, the founder of Roman philology 216), and desig
nated as the public for which he wrote not the cultivated circles of pure and classical speech, but the Tarentines, the Bruttians, the Siculi, or in other words the half-Greeks of Italy, whose Latin certainly might well require cor rective. Whole books of his poems are occupied with the settlement of Latin orthography and prosody, with the combating of Praenestine, Sabine, Etruscan provincialisms, with the exposure of current solecisms; along with which, however, the poet by no means forgets to ridicule tne insipidly systematic Isocratean purism of words and phrases,‘
Quam lepide )téfsrs compmtae ut terr:rulae onma Arte pam'menta atgue emblemate wrmiculato
I
a
(p.
can. xru LITERATURE AND ART
239
and even to reproach his friend Scipio in right earnest jest with the exclusive fineness of his language. 1 But the poet inculcates purity of morals in public and private life far more earnestly than he preaches pure and simple Latinity. For this his position gave him peculiar advantages. Al though by descent, estate, and culture on a level with the
genteel Romans of his time and possessor of a handsome house in the capital, he was yet not a Roman burgess, but a Latin; even his position towards Scipio, under whom he had served in his early youth during the Numantine war, and in whose house he was a frequent visitor, may be connected with the fact, that Scipio stood in varied relations to the Latins and was their patron in the political feuds of the time (iii. 33 He was thus precluded from public life, and he disdained the career of speculator—he had no desire, as he once said, to “ cease to be Lucilius in order to become an Asiatic revenue-farmer. ” So he lived in the sultry age of the Graechan reforms and the agitations pre ceding the Social war, frequenting the palaces and villas of the Roman grandees and yet not exactly their client, at once in the midst of the strife of political coteries and parties and yet not directly taking part with one or another; in way similar to Béranger, of whom there much that reminds us in the political and poetical position of Lucilius. From this position he uttered his comments on public life with sound common sensethat was not to be shaken,
with good humour that was inexhaustible, and with perpetually gushing:
Nuru: um 11 mane ad noctm, fertn algae prefab Toto itidem pariterque die popular-qua palmgue
lactar: indu fora . te omner, dander: nurquam.
The poet advises him
Quofacelior videane ct . rcire flur guam uteri
to say not perineum: but pmirum.
wit
‘
a aa
a
is
a
7).
a
s40
LITERATURE AND ART
Uni re algue ez‘a':m rlurl'io amner a'm'er: at arh' , Verba dare at mute porrz'nt, pugnare dalare,
Blandilia urtare, bonum rimulare virum re, lnridimrfacere ut :1’ lwrter rint omnibur onmu.
noon IV
The illustrations of this inexhaustible text remorselessly,‘ without omitting his friends or even the poet himself, as sailed the evils of the age, the coterie-system, the endless Spanish war-service, and the like; the very commence ment of his Satires was a great debate in the senate of the Olympian gods on the question, whether Rome deserved to enjoy the continued protection of the celestials. Cor porations, classes, individuals, were everywhere severally mentioned by name ; the poetry of political polemics, shut. out from the Roman stage, was the true element and life breath of the Lucilian poems, which by the power of the
most pungent wit illustrated with the richest imagery-—a power which still entrances us even in the remains that survive-—pierce and crush their adversary “as by a drawn sword. ” In this—in the moral ascendency and the proud sense of freedom of the poet of Suessa—lies the reason why the refined Venusian, who in the Alexandrian age of Roman poetry revived the Lucilian satire, in spite of all his superi ority in formal skill with true modesty yields to the earlier poet as “his better. ” The language is that of a man of thorough culture, Greek and Latin, who freely indulges his humour; a poet like Lucilius, who is alleged to have made two hundred hexameters before dinner and as many after
in far too great hurry to be nice; useless prolixity, slovenly repetition of the same turn, culpable instances of carelessness frequently occur: the first word, Latin or Greek, always the best. The metres are similarly treated, particularly the very predominant hexameter: we trans pose the words—his clever imitator says-—no man would
observe that he had anything else before him than simple prose in point of effect they can only be compared to our
;
if
is
it, is
a
can. xm LITERATURE AND ART
241
doggerel verses. 1 The poems of Terence and those of Lucilius stand on the same level of culture, and have the same relation to each other as a carefully prepared and polished literary work has to a letter written on the spur
of the moment. But the incomparably higher intellectual gifts and the freer view of life, which mark the knight of Suessa as compared with the African slave, rendered his success as rapid and brilliant as that of Terence had been laborious and doubtful; Lucilius became immediately the favourite of the nation, and he like Béranger could say of
his poems that “they alone of all were read by the people. ” The uncommon popularity of the Lucilian poem in historical point of view, remarkable event; we see from.
that literature was already power, and beyond doubt we should fall in with various traces of its influence, thorough history of this period had been preserved. Posterity has only confirmed the judgment of contempor aries the Roman judges of art who were opposed to the Alexandrian school assigned to Lucilius the first rank among all the Latin poets. So far as satire can be re
garded as distinct form of art at all, Lucilius created and in created the only species of art which was peculiar to the Romans and was bequeathed them to posterity.
The following longer fragment a characteristic specimen of the style and metrical treatment, the loose structure of which cannot possibly be reproduced in German hexameters :—
Virtur, Albina, ert pretium perrohlere verum Qua’r in vzrramur, qua‘r vi'uimu’ rebu’ patent,
Virtur at Immini rain qua quaeque Meat rer Virtur Jfiift Iwmini rectum, utile, quid rit lumerhml,
Quae tuna, quae mala item, quid inutile, turfe, inlumert‘ull; Virtur quaermdaefinem rei rn'r: modumqu:
Virtur divifiir pretium p:rrol-uere parr:
Virtur id dare quad re ipra debet‘ur honor-i,
Hortm ar: atque inimicum lumu'mnn morumque malmn, Contra defemarem lwminum morumque bonorum,
H0: magnifaure, hi. r 6m: 11:11:, in"r vii/ere amicum Cmmada praeterea patn'rzi prim putare,
Deind: parentum, tertia iam fortr:maque mime v01~ IV
:16
,
,
by
,
,
is
a a
1
; it
a
if 5aa
it
it
is,
Historical composi tion. Polybius.
208-127.
the Romans various geographical tales current among the Greeks, such as the Delian legend of Latona, the fables of Europa and of the marvellous bird Phoenix; as was likewise reserved for him on his travels to discover at Dodona and to copy that remarkable tripod, on which might be read the oracle imparted to the Pelasgians before their migration into the land of the Siceli and Aborigines —a discovery which the Roman annals did not neglect devoutly to register.
In historical composition this epoch especially marked by the emergence of an author who did not belong to Italy either by birth or in respect of his intellectual and literary standpoint, but who first or rather alone brought literary appreciation and description to bear on Rome’s place in the world, and to whom all subsequent generations, and we too, owe the best part of our knowledge of the Roman development. Polybius 5464'. 627) of Megalopolis in the Peloponnesus, son of the Achaean statesman
:42
LITERATURE AND ART BOOK iv
Of poetry attaching itself to the Alexandrian school nothing occurs in Rome at this epoch except minor poems translated from or modelled on Alexandrian epigrams, which deserve notice not on their own account, but as the first harbingers of the later epoch of Roman literature. Leaving out of account some poets little known and whose dates cannot be fixed with certainty, there belong to this
102. category Quintus Catulus, consul in 652 36 n. ) and 97. Lucius Manlius, an esteemed senator, who wrote in 657. The latter seems to have been the first to circulate among
189. Lycortas, took part apparently as early as 565 in the expedition of the Romans against the Celts of Asia Minor, and was afterwards on various occasions, especially during the third Macedonian war, employed by his countrymen in military and diplomatic affairs. After the crisis oc casioned that war in Hellas he was carried off along with the other Achaean hostages to Italy (ii. 517), where
by
(c.
is
it
(p. 2
CHAP. XIII LITERATURE AND ART
243
he lived in exile for seventeen years (587 -6o4) and was 167-150. introduced by the sons of Paullus to the genteel circles of
the capital. By the sending back of the Achaean hostages
(iii. 264) he was restored to his home, where he thenceforth
acted as permanent mediator between his confederacy and
the Romans. He was present at the destruction of Carthage and of Corinth (608). He seemed educated, as 146. it were, by destiny to comprehend the historical position
of Rome more clearly than the Romans of that day could themselves. From the place which he occupied, a Greek statesman and a Roman prisoner, esteemed and occasion
ally envied for his Hellenic culture by Scipio Aemilianus
and the first men of Rome generally, he saw the streams, which had so long flowed separately, meet together in the same channel and the history of the states of the Medi terranean resolve itself into the hegemony of Roman power
and Greek culture. Thus Polybius became the first Greek
of note, who embraced with serious conviction the compre hensive view of the Scipionic circle, and recognized the superiority of Hellenism in the sphere of intellect and of
the Roman character in the sphere of politics as facts,
which history had given her final decision, and to which people on both sides were entitled and bound to submit.
In this spirit he acted as a practical statesman, and wrote his history. If in his youth he had done homage to the honourable but impracticable local patriotism of the Achaeans, during his later years, with a clear discernment of inevitable necessity, he advocated in the community to which he belonged the policy of the closest adherence to Rome. It was a policy in the highest degree judicious and beyond doubt well-intentioned, but it was far from being high-spirited or proud. Nor was Polybius able wholly to disengage himself from the vanity and paltriness of the Hellenic statesmanship of the time. He was hardly released from exile, when he proposed to the senate that
regarding
244
LITERATURE AND ART BOOK 1'
it should formally secure to the released their former rank in their several homes; whereupon Cato aptly remarked, that this looked to him as if Ulysses were to return to the cave of Polyphemus to request from the giant his hat and girdle. He often made use of his relations with the great men in Rome to benefit his countrymen; but the way in which he submitted to, and boasted of, the illustrious pro tection somewhat approaches fawning servility. His literary activity breathes throughout the same spirit as his practical action. It was the task of his life to write the history of the union of the Mediterranean states under the hegemony of Rome. From the first Punic war down to the destruction of Carthage and Corinth his work embraces the fortunes of all the civilized states—namely Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Carthage, and Italy—and exhibits in causal connection the mode in which they came under the Roman protectorate; in so far he describes it as his object to demonstrate the fitness and reasonableness of the Roman hegemony. In design as in execution, this history stands in clear and distinct contrast with the contemporary Roman as well as with the contemporary Greek historiography. In
Rome history still remained wholly at the stage of chronicle; there existed doubtless important historical materials, but what was called historical composition was restricted—with the exception of the very respectable but purely individual writings of Cato, which at any rate did not reach beyond the rudiments of research and narration—partly to nursery tales, partly to collections of notices. The Greeks had
certainly exhibited historical research and had written history; but the conceptions of nation and state had been so completely lost amidst the distracted times of the Diadochi, that none of the numerous historians succeeded in following the steps of the great Attic masters in spirit and in truth, or in treating from a general point of view the matter of world-wide interest in the history of the times.
can. x111 LITERATURE AND ART
:45
Their histories were either purely outward records, or they were pervaded by the verbiage and sophistries of Attic rhetoric and only too often by the venality and vulgarity, the sycophancy and the bitterness of the age. Among the Romans as among the Greeks there was nothing but histories of cities or of tribes. Polybius, a Peloponnesian, as has been justly remarked, and holding intellectually a position at least as far aloof from the Attics as from the Romans, first stepped beyond these miserable limits, treated the Roman materials with mature Hellenic criticism, and furnished a history, which was not indeed universal, but which was at any rate dissociated from the mere local states and laid hold of the Romano-Greek state in the course of formation. Never perhaps has any historian united within himself all the advantages of an author drawing from original
sources so completely as Polybius. The compass of his task is completely clear and present to him at every moment; and his eye is fixed throughout on the real historical connection of events. The legend, the anecdote, the mass of worthless chronicle-notices are thrown aside; the description of countries and peoples, the representation of political and mercantile relations—all the facts of so infinite importance, which escape the annalist because they do not admit of being nailed to a particular year—are put into possession of their long-suspended rights. In the procuring of historic materials Polybius shows a caution and per severance such as are not perhaps paralleled in antiquity; he avails himself of documents, gives comprehensive atten tion to the literature of different nations, makes the most extensive use of his favourable position for collecting the accounts of actors and eye-witnesses, and, in fine, method ically travels over the whole domain of the Mediterranean states and part of the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. 1 Truth
1 Such scientific travels were, however, nothing uncommon among the
346
LITERATURE AND ART BOOK IV
fulness is his nature. In all great matters he has no interest for one state or against another, for this man or against that, but is singly and solely interested in the essential connection of events, to present which in their true relation of causes and effects seems to him not merely the first but the sole task of the historian. Lastly, the narrative is a model of completeness, simplicity, and clearness. Still all these uncommon advantages by no means constitute a historian of the first rank. Polybius grasps his literary task, as he grasped his practical, with great understanding, but with the understanding alone. History, the struggle of necessity and liberty, is a moral problem; Polybius treats it as if it were a mechanical one. The whole alone has value for him, in nature as in the state; the particular event, the individual man, however wonderful they may
appear, are yet properly mere single elements, insignificant wheels in the highly artificial mechanism which is named the state. So far Polybius was certainly qualified as nc other was to narrate the history of the Roman people, which actually solved the marvellous problem of raising itself to unparalleled internal and external greatness without producing a single statesman of genius in the highest sense, and which resting on its simple foundations developed itself with wonderful almost mathematical consistency. But the element of moral freedom bears sway in the history of every people, and it was not neglected by Polybius in the history of Rome with impunity. His treatment of all questions, in which right, honour, religion are involved, is not merely shallow, but radically false. The same holds true wherever a genetic construction is required; the purely mechanical attempts at explanation, which Polybius substitutes, are
Greeks of this period. Thus in Plautus (Men. 248, comp. 235) one who has navigated the whole Mediterranean ssks—
Quin no: him domum Redimur, ru'sr' ri hirtorians rcripturi sun's’
CHAP. xm LITERATURE AND ART 24. 7
sometimes altogether desperate; there is hardly, for instance, a more foolish political speculation than that which derives the excellent constitution of Rome from a judicious mixture of monarchical, aristocratic, and demo cratic elements, and deduces the successes of Rome from the excellence of her constitution. His conception of relations is everywhere dreadfully jejune and destitute of imagination: his contemptuous and over-wise mode of treating religious matters is altogether offensive. The narrative, preserving throughout an intentional contrast to the usual Greek historiography with its artistic style, is doubtless correct and clear, but flat and languid, digressing with undue frequency into polemical discussions or into biographical, not seldom very self-suflicient, description of his own experiences. A controversial vein pervades the whole work; the author destined his treatise primarily for the Romans, and yet found among them only a very small circle that understood him ; he felt that he remained in the eyes of the Romans a foreigner, in the eyes of his country men a renegade, and that with his grand conception of his subject he belonged more to the future than to the present. Accordingly he was not exempt from a certain ill-humour and personal bitterness, which frequently appear after a quarrelsome and paltry fashion in his attacks upon the superficial or even venal Greek and the uncritical Roman historians, so that he degenerates from the tone of the historian to that of the reviewer. Polybius is not an attractive author; but as truth and truthfulness are of more value than all ornament and elegance, no other author of antiquity perhaps can be named to whom we are indebted for so much real instruction. His books are like the sun in the field of Roman history; at the point where they
begin the veil of mist which still envelops the Samnite and Pyrrhic wars is raised, and at the point where they end a new and, if possible, still more vexatious twilight begins.
146.
:48
LITERATURE AND ART noox iv
In singular contrast to this grand conception and
Roman
“mm! ” treatment of Roman history by a foreigner stands the
historical literature of native growth. At the beginning of this period we still find some chronicles written in Greek such as that already mentioned (iii. 204)
151. of Aulus Postumius (consul in 603), full of wretched
contemporary
and that of Gaius ‘Acilius (who closed it at an 142. advanced age about 612). Yet under the influence partly
of Catonian patriotism, partly of the more refined culture of the Scipionic circle, the Latin language gained so decided an ascendency in this field, that of the later historical works not more than one or two occur written in Greek;1 and not only so, but the older Greek chronicles were translated into Latin and were probably read mainly in these transla tions. Unhappily beyond the employment of the mother tongue there is hardly anything else deserving of commenda tion in the chronicles of this epoch composed in Latin, They were numerous and detailed enough—there are mentioned, for example, those of Lucius Cassius Hemina
188. (about 608), of Lucius Calpurnius Piso (consul in 621), of 129. Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus (consul in 625), of Gaius 122. Fannius (consul in 632). To these falls to be added the
digest of the oflicial annals of the city in eighty books, which 188. Publius Mucius Scaevola (consul in 621), a man esteemed
also as a jurist, prepared and published as pontiféx maximur, thereby closing the city-chronicle in so far as thenceforth the pontifical records, although not exactly discontinued, were no longer at any rate, amidst the increasing diligence of private chroniclers, taken account of in literature. All these annals, whether they gave themselves forth as private or as oflicial works, were substantially similar compilations of the extant
1' The only real exception, so far as we know, is the Greek history of Gnaeus Autidius, who flourished in Cicero's boyhood (Ture. v. 38, 112), 90. that is, about 660. The Greek memoirs of Publius Rutilius Rufus (consul 105. in 649) are hardly to be regarded as an exception, since their author wrote
them in exile at Smyrna,
rationalizing,
can. xm LITERATURE AND ART
249
historical and quasi-historical materials; and the value of their authorities as well as their formal value declined beyond doubt in the same proportion as their amplitude increased. Chronicle certainly nowhere presents truth without fiction,
and it would be very foolish to quarrel with Naevius and Pictor because they have not acted otherwise than Hecataeus and Saxo Grammaticus ; but the later attempts
to build houses out of such castles in the air put even
the most tried patience to a severe test. No blank in tradition presents so wide a chasm, but that this system of smooth and downright invention will fill it up with playful facility. The eclipses of the sun, the numbers of the census, family-registers, triumphs, are without hesitation carried back from the current year up to the year One; it stands duly recorded, in what year, month, and day king Romulus went
up to heaven, and how king Servius Tullius triumphed over
the Etruscans first on the 2 5th November 183, and again 571. on the 2 5th May 187. In entire harmony with such 567. details accordingly the vessel in which Aeneas had voyaged from Ilion to Latium was shown in the Roman docks, and even the identical sow, which had served as a guide to Aeneas, was preserved well pickled in the Roman temple
of Vesta. With the lying disposition of a poet these chroniclers of rank combine all the tiresome exactness of a notary, and treat their great subject throughout with the dulness which necessarily results from the elimination at once of all poetical and all historical elements. When we read, for instance, in Piso that Romulus avoided indulging in his cups when he had a sitting of the senate next day ; or that Tarpeia betrayed the Capitol to the Sabines out of patriotism, with a view to deprive the enemy of their shields; we cannot be surprised at the judgment of intelli
gent contemporaries as to all this sort of scribbling, “that it was not writing history, but telling stories to children. ”
Of far greater excellence were isolated works on the
:50
LITERATURE AND ART :00: IV
history of the recent past and of the present, particularly the
history of the Hannibalic war by Lucius Caelius Antipater 121. (about 633) and the history of his own time by Publius Sempronius Asellio, who was a little younger. These ex
hibited at least valuable materials and an earnest spirit of truth, in the case of Antipater also a lively, although strongly affected, style of narrative ; yet, judging from all testimonies and fragments, none of these books came up either in pithy form or in originality to the “Origines” of Cato, who unhappily created as little of a school in the field of history as in that of politics.
The subordinate, more individual and
species of historical literature—memoirs, letters, and speeches—were strongly represented also, at least as respects quantity. The first statesmen of Rome already recorded in person their experiences: such as Marcus
115. 105. Scaurus (consul in 639), Publius Rufus (consul in 649), 102. Quintus Catulus (consul in 652), and even the regent Sulla ; but none of these productions seem to have been
of importance for literature otherwise than by the substance of their contents. The collection of letters of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, was remarkable partly for the classical purity of the language and the high spirit of the writer, partly as the first correspondence published in Rome, and as the first literary production of a Roman
The literature of speeches preserved at this period the stamp impressed on it by Cato; advocates’ pleadings were not yet looked on as literary productions, and such speeches as were published were political pamphlets. During the revolutionary commotions this pamphlet-litera ture increased in extent and importance, and among the mass of ephemeral productions there were some which, like the Philippics of Demosthenes and the fugitive pieces of Courier, acquired a permanent place in literature from the important position of their authors or from their . own
lady.
ephemeral,
crur. xru LITERATURE AND ART
:5!
weight. Such were the political speeches of Gaius Laelius and of Scipio Aemilianus, masterpieces of excellent Latin as of the noblest patriotism ; such were the gushing speeches of Gaius Titius, from whose pungent pictures of the place and the time—his description of the senatorial juryman has been given already r88)—the national comedy borrowed various points; such above all were the numer ous orations of Gaius Gracchus, whose fiery words pre served in faithful mirror the impassioned earnestness, the aristocratic bearing, and the tragic destiny of that lofty nature.
In scientific literature the collection of juristic opinions Scienou. by Marcus Brutus, which was published about the year
600, presents remarkable attempt to transplant to Rome 150.
the method usual among the Greeks of handling pro
fessional subjects means of dialogue, and to give to his treatise an artistic semi-dramatic form machinery of conversation in which the persons, time, and place were distinctly specified. But the later men of science, such as Stilo the philologist and Scaevola the jurist, laid aside this method, more poetical than practical, both in the sciences of general culture and in the special professional sciences. The increasing value of science as such, and the preponderance of material interest in at Rome, are clearly reflected in this rapid rejection of the fetters of artistic form. We have already spoken (p. 211 f) in detail of the sciences of general liberal culture, grammar or rather
philology, rhetoric and philosophy, in so far as these now became essential elements of the usual Roman training and thereby first began to be dissociated from the pro fessional sciences properly so called.
In the field of letters Latin philology flourished
ously, in close association with the philological treatment —long ago placed on sure basis—of Greek literature. It was already mentioned that about the beginning of this
vigor- Phflohg.
a
a
it
by a
a by
a
(p.
252
LITERATURE AND ART BOOK 1v
century the Latin epic poets found their diarkeuartae and revisers of their text 214); was also noticed, that not only did the Scipionic circle generally insist on correctness above everything else, but several also of the most noted poets, such as Accius and Lucilius, busied themselves with the regulation of orthography and of grammar. At the same period we find isolated attempts to develop archae ology from the historical side; although the dissertations of the unwieldy annalists of this age, such as those of Hemina “on the Censors" and of Tuditanus “on the Magistrates," can hardly have been better than their chronicles. Of more interest were the treatise on the Magistracies by Marcus Junius the friend of Gaius Gracchus, as the first attempt to make archaeological investigation serviceable for political objects,1 and the metrically composed Dz'darcalz'ae of the tragedian Accius, an essay towards literary history of the Latin drama. But those early attempts at scientific treatment of the mother-tongue still hear very much dz'lettante stamp, and strikingly remind us of our orthographic literature in the Bodmer-Klopstock period; and we may likewise without injustice assign but modest place to the antiquarian researches of this epoch.
The Roman, who established the investigation of the Latin language and antiquities in the spirit of the Alex andrian masters on scientific basis, was Lucius Aelius
100. Stilo about 50 216). He first went back to the oldest monuments of the language, and commented on the Salian litanies and the Twelve Tables. He devoted his special attention to the comedy of the sixth century, and first formed list of the pieces of Plautus which in his opinion were genuine. He sought, after the Greek fashion, to
The assertion, for instance, that the quaestors were nominated in the regal period by the burgesses, not by the king, as certainly erroneous II bears on its face the impress of a partisan character.
it
l
a
is
6
(p.
a
a
a
(p.
a a
it
CHAP. xm LITERATURE AND ART
253
determine historically the origin of every single pheno menon in the Roman life and dealings vand to ascertain in each case the “inventor,” and at the same time brought the whole annalistic tradition within the range of his research. The success, which he had among his con
is attested by the dedication to him of the most important poetical, and the most important historical, work of his time, the Satires of Lucilius and the Annals of Antipater; and this first Roman philologist influenced the studies of his nation for the future by transmitting his spirit of investigation both into words and into things to his disciple Varro.
The literary activity in the field of Latin rhetoric was, Rhetoric. as might be expected, of a more subordinate kind. There
was nothing here to be done but to write manuals and exercise-books after the model of the Greek compendia of Hermagoras and others ; and these accordingly the school
masters did not fail to supply, partly on account of the
temporaries,
need for them, partly on account of vanity and
Such a manual of rhetoric has been preserved to us, com posed under Sulla’s dictatorship by an unknown author, who according to the fashion then prevailing
simultaneously
216) taught Latin literature and Latin rhetoric, and wrote on both; treatise remarkable not merely for its terse, clear, and firm handling of the subject, but above all for its comparative independence in presence of Greek models. Although in method entirely dependent on the Greeks, the Roman yet distinctly and even abruptly rejects all “the useless matter which the Greeks had gathered together, solely in order that the science might appear more diflicult to learn. ” The bitterest censure bestowed
on the hair-splitting dialectics—that “loquacious science of inability to speak ”—whose finished master, for sheer fear of expressing himself ambiguously, at last no longer ventures to pronounce his own name. The Greek school
money.
is
a
(p.
Philo sophy.
Profey sional sciences.
Juris
terminology is throughout and intentionally avoided. Very earnestly the author points out the danger of many teachers, and inculcates the golden rule that the scholar ought above all to be induced by the teacher to help himself; with equal earnestness he recognizes the truth that the school is a secondary, and life the main, matter, and gives in his examples chosen with thorough independence an echo of those forensic speeches which during the last decades had excited notice in the Roman advocate-world. It deserves attention, that the opposition to the extravagances of Hellenism, which had formerly sought to prevent the rise of a native Latin rhetoric :17), continued to influence after arose, and thereby secured to Roman eloquence, as compared with the contemporary eloquence of the Greeks, theoretically and practically higher dignity and greater usefulness.
Philosophy, in fine, was not yet represented in literature, since neither did an inward need develop national Roman philosophy nor did outward circumstances call forth Latin philosophical authorship. It cannot even be shown with certainty that there were Latin translations of popular sum maries of philosophy belonging to this period; those who pursued philosophy read and disputed in Greek.
In the professional sciences there was but little activity. Well as the Romans understood how to farm and how to calculate, physical and mathematical research gained no hold among them. The consequences of neglecting theory appeared practically in the low state of medical knowledge and of portion of the military sciences. Of all the pro fessional sciences jurisprudence alone was flourishing. We cannot trace its internal development with chronological accuracy. On the whole ritual law fell more and more into the shade, and at the end of this period stood nearly in the same position as the canon law at the present day. The finer and more profound conception of law, on the
254
LITERATURE AND ART BOOK Iv
a
it
a
a
a
(p. a
it
CRAP. xm LITERATURE AND ART
355
other hand, which substitutes for outward criteria the motive springs of action within—such as the development of the ideas of offences arising from intention and from carelessness respectively, and of possession entitled to temporary protection—was not yet in existence at the time of the Twelve Tables, but was so in the age of Cicero, and probably owed its elaboration substantially to the present epoch. The reaction of political relations on the develop ment of law has been already indicated on several occasions; it was not always advantageous. By the institution of the tribunal of the Centumm'ri to deal with inheritance (p. 128), for instance, there was introduced in the law of property a college of jurymen, which, like the criminal authorities, instead of simply applying the law placed itself above it and with its so-called equity undermined the legal institutions; one consequence of which among others was the irrational principle, that any one, whom a relative had passed over in his testament, was at liberty to propose that the testa ment should be annulled by the court, and the court decided according to its discretion.
The development of juristic literature admits of being more distinctly recognized. It had hitherto been restricted
to collections of formularies and explanations of terms in
the laws; at this period there was first formed a literature
of opinions (reqfionra), which answers nearly to our modern collections of precedents. These opinions—which were delivered no longer merely by members of the pontifical college, but by every one who found persons to consult him,
at home or in the open market-place, and with which were already associated rational and polemical illustrations and the standing controversies peculiar to jurisprudence—began to
be noted down and to be promulgated in collections about
the beginning of the seventh century. This was done first
by the younger Cato about 600) and by Marcus Brutus 160. (nearly contemporary); and these collections were, as
it
(1'
95. 82.
would appear, arranged in the order of matters. 1 A strictly systematic treatment of the law of the land soon followed. Its founder was the pontzfex maxz'mur Quintus Mucius Scae vola (consul in 659, ‘r 672, (iii, 481, pp. 84, 205), in whose family jurisprudence was, like the supreme priesthood, hereditary. His eighteen books on the [ur Cir/17:, which embraced the positive materials of jurisprudence—legisla tive enactments, judicial precedents, and authorities—partly from the older collections, partly from oral tradition in as
great completeness as possible, formed the starting-point and the model of the detailed systems of Roman law; in like manner his compendious treatise of “Definitions” (5pm) became the basis of juristic summaries and particu larly of the books of Rules. Although this development of law proceeded of course in the main independently of Hellenism, yet an acquaintance with the philosophico practical scheme-making of the Greeks beyond doubt gave a general impulse to the more systematic treatment of juris prudence, as in fact the Greek influence is in the case of the last-mentioned treatise apparent in the very title. We have already remarked that in several more external matters Roman jurisprudence was influenced by the Stoa
202 f).
Art exhibits still less pleasing results. In architecture,
sculpture, and painting there was, no doubt, more and more general diffusion of dilettante interest, but the exercise of native art retrograded rather than advanced. It became more and more customary for those sojourning in Grecian lands personally to inspect the works of art; for which in particular the winter-quarters of Sulla’s army in Asia Minor in 67 0-671 formed an epoch. Connoisseur ship developed itself also in Italy. They had commenced
Cam’: book probably bore the title D: s'urir dircipline (Gell. xiii. 20), that of Brutus the title De iur: civili (Cie. pro Clueni. 5r, I4! D: Oraf. ii. 55. 223) that they were essentially collections of opinions. shown by Cicero (D: Oral. 33, 14a).
256
LITERATURE AND ART B001: rv
84-88.
ii.
;
is ;
1
(p.
a
a
can. :111 LITERATURE AND ART
551
with articles in silver and bronze; about the commence ment of this epoch they began to esteem not merely Greek statues, but also Greek pictures. The first picture publicly exhibited in Rome was the Bacchus of Aristides, which Lucius Mummius withdrew from the sale of the Corinthian spoil, because king Attalus offered as much as 6000 denarii (,52 60) for The buildings became more splendid; and
in particular transmarine, especially Hymettian, marble (Cipollino) came into use for that purpose—the Italian marble quarries were not yet in operation. A magnificent colonnade still admired in the time of the empire, which Quintus Metellus (consul in 611) the conqueror of Mace 1“. donia constructed in the Campus Martius, enclosed the
first marble temple which the capital had seen; was
soon followed by similar structures built on the Capitol
by Scipio Nasica (consul in 616), and near to the Circus 188.
by Gnaeus Octavius (consul in 626). The first private 128.
house adorned with marble columns was that of the orator
Lucius Crassus 663) on the Palatine 184). But 91.
where they could plunder or purchase, instead of creating
for themselves, they did so; was wretched indication
of the poverty of Roman architecture, that already began
to employ the columns of the old Greek temples; the
Roman Capitol, for instance, was embellished by Sulla
with those of the temple of Zeus at Athens. The works,
that were produced in Rome, proceeded from the hands of
foreigners; the few Roman artists of this period, who are
particularly mentioned, are without exception Italian or
transmarine Greeks who had migrated thither. Such was
the case with the architect Hermodorus from the Cyprian
Salamis, who among other works restored the Roman docks
and built for Quintus Metellus (consul in 611) the temple 148.
of Jupiter Stator in the basilica constructed
by him, and
for Decimus Brutus (consul in 616) the temple of Mars in 188.
the Flaminian circus; with the sculptor Pasiteles (about '01. . iv :17
a it
(p.
it
(1'
it
it.
258
LITERATURE AND ART I00! Iv
665) from Magna Graecia, who furnished images of the gods in ivory for Roman temples; and with the painter and philosopher Metrodorus of Athens, who was summoned to paint the pictures for the triumph of Lucius Paullus
167. (587). It is significant that the coins of this epoch exhibit in comparison with those of the previous period a greater
variety of types, but a retrogression rather than an improve ment in the cutting of the dies.
Finally, music and dancing passed over in like manner from Hellas to Rome, solely in order to be there applied to the enhancement of decorative luxury. Such foreign arts were certainly not new in Rome; the state had from olden time allowed Etruscan flute-players and dancers to appear at its festivals, and the freedmen and the lowest class of the Roman people had previously followed this trade. But it was a novelty that Greek dances and musical performances should form the regular accompaniment of a genteel banquet. Another novelty was a dancing-school, such as Scipio Aemilianus full of indignation describes in one of his speeches, in which upwards of five hundred boys and girls—the dregs of the people and the children of magistrates and of dignitaries mixed up together-—re ceived instruction from a ballet-master in far from decorous castanet-dances, in corresponding songs, and in the use of the proscribed Greek stringed instruments. It was a novelty too—not so much that a consular and pontgfex
183. maximur like Publius Scaevola (consul in 621) should catch the balls in the circus as nimbly as he solved the most complicated questions of law at home—as that young Romans of rank should display their jockey-arts before all the people at the festal games of Sulla. The government occasionally attempted to check such practices; as for
115. instance in 639, when all musical instruments, with the exception of the simple flute indigenous in Latium, were prohibited by the censors. But Rome was no Sparta; the
CHAP- xm LITERATURE AND ART
259
lax government by such prohibitions rather drew attention to the evils than attempted to remedy them by a sharp and consistent application of the laws.
in conclusion, we glance back at the picture as wh ale which the literature and art of Italy unfold to our view from the death of Ennius to the beginning of the Ciceronian age, we find in these respects as compared with the preceding epoch most decided decline of productive ness. The higher kinds of literature—such as tragedy, history—have died out or have been arrested in their development. The subordinate kinds—the trans lation and imitation of the intrigue-piece, the farce, the poetical and prose brochure—alone are successful; this last field of literature swept by the full hurricane of revolu tion we meet with the two men of greatest literary talent in
this epoch, Gaius Gracchus and Gaius Lucilius, who stand out amidst number of more or less mediocre writers just as in similar epoch of French literature Courier and Béranger stand out amidst multitude of pretentious nullities. In the plastic and delineative arts likewise the production, always weak, now utterly null.