Part 2 (2/2)

The fact, also, that the Romans possessed no native term for a poet is highly significant. _Poeta_, which we find as early as Naevius, [6] is Greek; and _vates_, which Zeuss [7] traces to a Celtic root, meant originally ”soothsayer,” not ”poet.” [8] Only in the Augustan period does it come into prominence as the n.o.bler term, denoting that inspiration which is the gift of heaven and forms the peculiar privilege of genius.

[9] The names current among the ancient Romans, _librarius_, _scriba_, were of a far less complimentary nature, and referred merely to the mechanical side of the art. [10] These considerations all tend to the conclusion that the true point from which to date the beginning of Roman literature is that a.s.signed by Horace, [11] viz. the interval between the first and second Punic wars. It was then that the Romans first had leisure to contemplate the marvellous results of Greek culture, revealed to them by the capture of Tarentum (272 B.C.), and still more conspicuously by the annexation of Sicily in the war with Carthage. In Sicily, even more than in Magna Graecia, poetry and the arts had a splendid and enduring life.

The long line of philosophers, dramatists, and historians was hardly yet extinct. Theocritus was still teaching his countrymen the new poetry of rustic life, and many of the inhabitants of the conquered provinces came to reside at Rome, and imported their arts and cultivation; and from this period the history of Roman poetry a.s.sumes a regular and connected form.

[12]

Besides the scanty traces of written memorials, there were various elements in Roman civilisation which received a speedy development in the direction of literature and science as soon as Greek influence was brought to bear on them. These may be divided into three cla.s.ses, viz. rudimentary dramatic performances, public speaking in the senate and forum, and the study of jurisprudence.

The capacity of the Italian nations for the drama is attested by the fact that three kinds of dramatic composition were cultivated in Rome, and if we add to these the semi-dramatic _Fescenninae_, we shall complete the list of that department of literature. This very primitive type of song took its rise in Etruria; it derives its name from Fescennium, an Etrurian town, though others connect it with _fascinum_, as if originally it were an attempt to avert the evil eye. [13] Horace traces the history of this rude banter from its source in the harvest field to its city developments of slander and abuse, [14] which needed the restraint of the law. Livy, in his sketch of the rise of Roman drama, [15] alludes to these verses as altogether unpolished, and for the most part extemporaneous. He agrees with Horace in describing them as taking the form of dialogue (_alternis_), but his account is meagre in the extreme. In process of time the Fescennines seem to have modified both their form and character. From being in alternate strains, they admitted a treatment as if uttered by a single speaker,--so at least we should infer from Macrobius's notice of the Fescennines sent by Augustus to Pollio, [16] which were either lines of extempore raillery, or short biting epigrams, like that of Catullus on Vatinius, [17] owing their t.i.tle to the name solely to the pungency of their contents. In a general way they were restricted to weddings, and we have in the first _Epithalamium_ of Catullus, [18] and some poems by Claudian, highly-refined specimens of this cla.s.s of composition. The Fescennines owed their popularity to the light-hearted temper of the old Italians, and to a readiness at repartee which is still conspicuous at the present day in many parts of Italy.

With more of the dramatic element than the Fescennines, the _Saturae_ appear to have early found a footing in Rome, though their history is difficult to trace. We gather from Livy [19] that they were acted on the stage as early as 359 B.C. Before this the boards had been occupied by Etruscan dancers, and possibly, though not certainly, by improvisers of Fescennine buffooneries; but soon after this date _Saturae_ were performed by one or more actors to the accompaniment of the flute. The actors, it appears, sang as well as gesticulated, until the time of Livius, who set apart a singer for the interludes, while he himself only used his voice in the dialogue. The unrestrained and merry character of the _Saturae_ fitted them for the after-pieces, which broke up the day's proceedings (_exodium_); but in later times, when tragedies were performed, this position was generally taken by the _Atellana_ or the _Mime_. The name _Satura_ (or _Satira_) is from _lanx saturu_, the medley or hodge-podge, ”quae referta variis multisque primitiis in sacro apud priscos diis inferebatur.” Mommsen supposes it to have been the ”masque of the full men” (_saturi_), enacted at a popular festival, while others have connected it with the Greek Satyric Drama. In its dramatic form it disappears early from history, and a.s.sumes with Ennius a different character, which has clung to it ever since.

Besides these we have to notice the _Mime_ and the _Atellanae_. The former corresponds roughly with our farce, though the pantomimic element is also present, and in the most recent period gained the ascendancy. Its true Latin name is _Planipes_ (so Juvenal _Planipedes audit Fabios_ [20] in allusion to the actor's entering the stage barefoot, no doubt for the better exhibition of his agility). Mimes must have existed from very remote times in Italy, but they did not come into prominence until the later days of the Republic, when Laberius and Syrus cultivated them with marked success. We therefore defer noticing them until our account of that period.

There still remain the _fabulae Atellanae_, so called from Atella, an Oscan town of Campania, and often mentioned as _Osci Ludi_. These were more honourable than the other kinds, inasmuch as they were performed by the young n.o.bles, wearing masks, and giving the reins to their power of improvisation. Teuffel (L. L. -- 9) considers the subjects to have been ”comic descriptions of life in small towns, in which the chief personages gradually a.s.sumed a fixed character.” In the period of which we are now treating, _i.e._ before the time of a written literature, they were exclusively in the hands of free-born citizens, and, to use Livy's expression, were not allowed to be polluted by professional actors. But this hindered their progress, and it was not until several centuries after their introduction, viz., in the time of Sulla, that they received literary treatment. They adopted the dialect of the common people, and were more or less popular in their character. More details will be given when we examine them in their completer form. All such parts of these early scenic entertainments as were not mere conversation or ribaldry, were probably composed in the Saturnian metre.

This ancient rhythm, the only one indigenous to Italy, presents some points worthy of discussion. The original application of the name is not agreed upon. Thompson says, ”The term Saturnius seems to have possessed two distinct applications. In both of these, however, it simply meant 'as old as the days of Saturn,' and, like the Greek _Ogugios_, was a kind of proverbial expression for something antiquated. Hence (1) the rude rhythmical effusions, which contained the early Roman story, might be called Saturnian, not with reference to their metrical law, but to their _antiquity_; and (2) the term _Saturnius_ was also applied to a definite measure on the principles of Greek prosody, though rudely and loosely moulded--the measure employed by Naevius, which soon became _antiquated_, when Ennius introduced the hexameter--and which is the _metrum Saturnium_ recognised by the grammarians.” [21] Whether this measure was of Italian origin, as Niebuhr and Macaulay think, or was introduced from Greece at an early period, it never attained to anything like Greek strictness of metrical rules. To scan a line of Livius or Naevius, in the strict sense of the word, is by no means an easy task, since there was not the same constancy of usage with regard to quant.i.ty as prevailed after Ennius, and the relative prominence of syllables was determined by accent, either natural or metrical. By natural accent is meant the higher or lower pitch of the voice, which rests on a particular syllable of each word _e.g.

Lucius_; by metrical accent the _ictus_ or beat of the verse, which in the Greek rhythms implies a long _quant.i.ty_, but in the Saturnian measure has nothing to do with quant.i.ty. The principle underlying the structure of the measure is as follows. It is a succession of trochaic beats, six in all, preceded by a single syllable, as in the instance quoted by Macaulay:

”The | queen was in her chamber eating bread and honey,”

So in the Scipionic epitaph,

”Qui | bus si in longa licuiset tibi utier vita.”

These are, doubtless, the purest form of the measure. In these there is no break, but an even continuous flow of trochaic rhythm. But even in the earliest examples of Saturnians there is a very strong tendency to form a break by making the third trochaic beat close a word, _e.g._

”Cor | nelius Lucius || Scipio Barbatus,”

and this structure prevailed, so that in the fragments of Livius and Naevius by far the greater number exhibit it.

When Greek patterns of versification were introduced, the Saturnian rhythm seems to have received a different explanation. It was considered as a compound of the iambic and trochaic systems. It might be described as an _iambic hepthemimer_ followed by a _trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic_.

The latter portion was preserved with something like regularity, but the former admitted many variations. The best example of this _Graecised_ metre is the celebrated line--

”Dabunt malum Metelli | Naevio poetae.”

If, however, we look into the existing fragments of Naevius and Livius, and compare them with the Scipionic epitaphs, we shall find that there is no appreciable difference in the rhythm; that whatever theory grammarians might adopt to explain it, the measure of these poets is the genuine trochaic beat, so natural to a primitive people, [22] and only so far elaborated as to have in most cases a pause after the first half of the line. The idea that the metre had prosodiacal laws, which, nevertheless, its greatest masters habitually violated, [23] is one that would never have been maintained had not the desire to systematise all Latin prosody on a Greek basis prevailed almost universally. The true theory of early Latin scansion is established beyond a doubt by the labours of Ritschl in regard to Plautus. This great scholar shows that, whereas after Ennius cla.s.sic poetry was based on quant.i.ty alone, before him accent had at least as important a place; and, indeed, that in the determination of quant.i.ty, the main results in many cases were produced by the influence of accent.

Accent (Gr. _prosodia_) implied that the p.r.o.nunciation of the accented syllable was on a higher or lower note than the rest of the word. It was therefore a musical, not a quant.i.tative symbol. The rules for its position are briefly as follows. No words but monosyllables or contracted forms have the accent on the last; dissyllables are therefore always accented on the first, and polysyllables on the first or second, according as the penultimate is short or long, _Lucius, cecidi_. At the same time, old Latin was burdened with a vast number of suffixes with a long final vowel.

The result of the non-accentuation of the last syllable was a continual tendency to slur over and so shorten these suffixes. And this tendency was carried in later times to such an extent as to make the quant.i.ty of all final vowels after a short syllable bearing the accent indifferent. There were therefore two opposing considerations which met the poet in his capacity of versifier. There was the desire to retain the accent of every- day life, and so make his language easy and natural, and the desire to conform to the true quant.i.ty, and so make it strictly correct. In the early poets this struggle of opposing principles is clearly seen. Many apparent anomalies in versification are due to the influence of accent over-riding quant.i.ty, and many again to the preservation of the original quant.i.ty in spite of the accent. Ennius harmonised with great skill the claims of both, doing little more violence to the natural accent in his elaborate system of quant.i.ty than was done by the Saturnian and comic poets with their fluctuating usage. [24]

To apply these results to the Saturnian verses extant, let us select a few examples:

”Gnaivod patre prognatus | fortis vir sapiensque.”

_patre_ or _patred_ retains its length by position, _i.e._ its metrical accent, against the natural accent _patre_. In the case of syllables on which the _ictus_ does not fall the quant.i.ty and accent are indifferent.

They are always counted as short, two syllables may stand instead of one--

<script>