Part 12 (1/2)
Though the poem of Virgil is in many pa.s.sages an imitation from the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Roman element predominates in it, and the Aeneid is the true national poem of Rome. There was no subject more adapted to flatter the vanity of the Romans, than the splendor and antiquity of their origin. Augustus is evidently typified under the character of Aeneas; Cleopatra is boldly sketched as Dido; and Turnus as the popular Antony.
The love and death of Dido, the pa.s.sionate victim of an unrequited love, give occasion to the poet to sing the victories of his countrymen over their Carthaginian rivals; the Pythagorean metempsychosis, which he adopts in the description of Elysium, affords an opportunity to exalt the heroes of Rome; and the wars of Aeneas allow him to describe the localities and the manners of ancient Latium with such truthfulness as to give to his verses the authority of historical quotations. In style, the Aeneid is a model of purity and elegance, and for the variety and the harmony of its incidents, for the power of its descriptions, and for the interest of its plot and episodes, second only to the Iliad. It has been observed that Virgil's descriptions are more like landscape painting than those of any of his predecessors, whether Greek or Roman, and it is a remarkable fact, that landscape painting was first introduced in his time.
4. DIDACTIC POETRY.--The poems, which first established the reputation of Virgil as a poet, belong to didactic poetry. They are his Bucolics and Georgics. The Bucolics are pastoral idyls; the characters are Italian in all their sentiments and feelings, acting, however, the unreal and a.s.sumed part of Greek shepherds. The Italians never possessed the elements of pastoral life, and could not furnish the poet with originals and models from which to draw his portraits. When represented as Virgil represents them in his Bucolics, they are in masquerade, and the drama in which they form the characters is of an allegorical kind. Even the scenery is Sicilian, and does not truthfully describe the tame neighborhood of Mantua. In fact, these poems are imitations of Theocritus; but, divesting ourselves of the idea of the outward form which the poet has chosen to adopt, we are touched by the simple narrative of disappointed loves and childlike woes; we appreciate the delicately-veiled compliments paid by the poet to his patron; we enjoy the inventive genius and poetical power which they display, and we are elevated by the exalted sentiments which they sometimes breathe.
The Georgics are poems on the labors and enjoyments of rural life, a subject for which Rome offered a favorable field. Though in this style Hesiod was the model of Virgil, his system is perfectly Italian, so much so, that many of his rules may be traced in modern Italian husbandry, just as the descriptions of implements in the Greek poet are frequently found to agree with those in use in modern Greece. The great merit of the Georgics consists in their varied digressions, interesting episodes, and in the sublime bursts of descriptive vigor which are interspersed throughout them. They have frequently been taken as models for imitation by the didactic poets of all nations, and more particularly of England.
The ”Seasons,” for instance, is a thoroughly Virgilian poem.
Lucretius (95-51 B.C.) belongs to the cla.s.s of didactic poets. He might claim a place among philosophers as well as poets, for his poem marks an epoch both in poetry and philosophy. But his philosophy is a mere reflection from that of Greece, while his poetry is bright with the rays of original genius. His poem on ”The Nature of Things” is in imitation of that of Empedocles. Its subject is philosophical and its purpose didactic; but its unity of design gives to it almost the rank of an epic. Its structure prevents it from being a complete and systematic survey of the whole Epicurean philosophy, but as far as the form of the poem permitted, it presents an accurate view of the philosophy which then enjoyed the highest popularity.
The object of the poem of Lucretius is to emanc.i.p.ate mankind from the debasing effects of superst.i.tion by an exposition of philosophy, and though a follower of Epicurus, he is not entirely dest.i.tute of the religious sentiment, for he deifies nature and has a veneration for her laws. His infidelity must be viewed rather in the light of a philosophical protest against the results of heathen superst.i.tion, than a total rejection of the principles of religious faith.
Lucretius valued the capabilities of the Latin language. He wielded at will its power of embodying the n.o.blest thoughts, and showed how its copious and flexible properties could overcome the hard technicalities of science. The great beauty of his poetry is its variety; his fancy is always lively, his imagination has always free scope. He is sublime, as a philosopher who penetrates the secrets of the natural world, and discloses to the eyes of man the hidden causes of its wonderful phenomena. His object was a lofty one; for although the absurdities of the national creed drove him into skepticism, his aim was to set the intellect free from the trammels of superst.i.tion. But besides grandeur and sublimity, we find the totally different qualities of softness and tenderness. Rome had long known nothing but war, and was now rent by civil dissension. Lucretius yearned for peace; and his prayer, that the fabled G.o.ddess of all that is beautiful in nature would heal the wounds which discord had made, is distinguished by tenderness and pathos even more than by sublimity. He is superior to Ovid in force, though inferior in facility; not so smooth or harmonious as Virgil, his poetry always falls upon the ear with a swelling and sonorous melody. Virgil appreciated his excellence, and imitated not only single expressions, but almost entire verses and pa.s.sages; and Ovid exclaims, that the sublime strains of Lucretius shall never perish until the world shall be given up to destruction.
5. LYRIC POETRY.--The Romans had not the ideality and the enthusiasm which are the elements of lyric poetry, and in all the range of their literature there are only two poets who, greatly inferior to the lyric poets of Greece, have a positive claim to a place in this department, Catullus and Horace. Catullus (86-46 B.C.) was born near Verona. At an early age he went to Rome, where he plunged into all the excesses of the capital, and where his sole occupation was the cultivation of his literary tastes and talents. A career of extravagance and debauchery terminated in the ruin of his fortune, and he died at the age of forty. The works of Catullus consist of numerous short pieces of a lyrical character, elegies and other poems. He was one of the most popular of the Roman poets, because he possessed those qualities which the literary society at Rome most valued, polish and learning, and because, although an imitator, there was a truly Roman nationality in all that he wrote. His satire was the bitter resentment of a vindictive spirit; his love and his hate were both purely selfish, but his excellences were of the most alluring and captivating kind. He has never been surpa.s.sed in gracefulness, melody, and tenderness.
Horace (65-8 B.C.), like Virgil and other poets of his time, enjoyed the friends.h.i.+p and intimacy of Maecenas, who procured for him the public grant of his Sabine farm, situated about fifteen miles from Tivoli. At Rome he occupied a house on the beautiful heights of the Esquiline. The rapid alternation of town and country life, which the fickle poet indulged in, gives a peculiar charm to his poetry. His ”Satires” were followed by the publication of the ”Odes” and the ”Epistles.” The satires of Horace occupied the position of the fas.h.i.+onable novel of our day. In them is sketched boldly, but good-humoredly, a picture of Roman social life, with its vices and follies. They have nothing of the bitterness of Lucilius, the love of purity and honor that adorns Persius, or the burning indignation of Juvenal at the loathsome corruption of morals. Vice, in his day, had not reached that appalling height which it attained in the time of the emperors who succeeded Augustus. Deficient in moral purity, nothing would strike him as deserving censure, except such excess as would actually defeat the object which he proposed to himself, namely, the utmost enjoyment of life. In the ”Epistles,” he lays aside the character of a moral teacher or censor, and writes with the freedom with which he would converse with an intimate friend. But it is in his inimitable ”Odes”
that the genius of Horace as a poet is especially displayed; they have never been equaled in beauty of sentiment, gracefulness of language, and melody of versification; they comprehend every variety of subject suitable to the lyric muse; they rise without effort to the most elevated topics; and they descend to the simplest joys and sorrows of every-day life.
The life of Horace is especially instructive, as a mirror in which is reflected a faithful image of the manners of his day. He is the representative of Roman refined society, as Virgil is of the national mind. His morals were lax, but not worse than those of his contemporaries.
He looked at virtue and vice from a worldly, not from a moral point of view, and with him the one was prudence and the other folly.
In connection with Horace, we may mention Maecenas, who, by his good taste and munificence, exercised a great influence upon literature, and literary men of Rome were much indebted to him for the use he made of his friends.h.i.+p with Augustus, to whom, probably, his love of literature and of pleasure and his imperturbable temper recommended him as an agreeable companion. He had wealth enough to gratify his utmost wishes, and his mind was so full of the delights of refined society, of palaces, gardens, wit, poetry, and art, that there was no room in it for ambition. All the most brilliant men of Rome were found at his table,--Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and Varius were among his friends and constant a.s.sociates. He was a fair specimen of the man of pleasure and society,--liberal, kind- hearted, clever, refined, but luxurious, self-indulgent, indolent, and volatile, with good impulses, but without principle.
6. ELEGY.--Tibullus (b. 54 B.C.) was the father of the Roman elegy. He was a contemporary of Virgil and Horace. The style of his poems and their tone of thought are like his character, deficient in vigor and manliness, but sweet, smooth, polished, tender, and never disfigured by bad taste. He pa.s.sed his short life in peaceful retirement, and died soon after Virgil.
The poems ascribed to Tibullus consist of four books, of which only two are genuine.
Propertius (b. 150 B.C.), although a contemporary and friend of the Augustan poets, may be considered as belonging to a somewhat different school of poetry. While Horace, Virgil, and Tibullus imitated the n.o.blest poets of the Greek age, Propertius, like the minor Roman poets, aspired to nothing more than the imitation of the graceful, but feeble strains of the Alexandrian poets. If he excels Tibullus in vigor of fancy, expression, and coloring, he is inferior to him in grace, spontaneity, and delicacy; he cannot, also, be compared with Catullus, who greatly surpa.s.ses him in his easy and effective style.
Ovid (43 B.C.-6 A.D.), the most fertile of the Latin poets, not only in elegy, but also in other kinds of poetry, was enabled by his rank, fortune, and talents to cultivate the society of men of congenial tastes.
A skeptic and an epicurean, he lived a life of continual indulgence and intrigue. He was a universal admirer of the female s.e.x, and a favorite among women. He was popular as a poet, successful in society, and possessed all the enjoyments that wealth could bestow; but later in life he incurred the anger of Augustus, and was banished to the very frontier of the Roman empire, where he lingered for a few years and died in great misery. The ”Epistles to and from Women of the Heroic Age” are a series of love-letters; with the exception of the ”Metamorphoses,” they have been greater favorites than any other of his works. Love, in the days of Ovid, had in it nothing pure or chivalrous. The age in which he lived was morally polluted, and he was neither better nor worse than his contemporaries; hence grossness is the characteristic of his ”Art of Love.” His ”Metamorphoses” contain a series of mythological narratives from the earliest times to the translation of the soul of Julius Caesar from earth to heaven, and his metamorphosis into a star. In this poem especially may be traced that study and learning by which the Roman poets made all the treasures of Greek literature their own. ”The Fasti,” a poem on the Roman calendar, is a beautiful specimen of simple narrative in verse, and displays, more than any of his works, his power of telling a story without the slightest effort, in poetry as well as prose. The five books of the ”Tristia,” and the ”Epistles from Pontus,” were the outpourings of his sorrowful heart during the gloomy evening of his days.
7. ORATORY AND PHILOSOPHY.--As oratory gave to Latin prose-writing its elegance and dignity, Cicero (106-43 B.C.) is not only the representative of the flouris.h.i.+ng period of the language, but also the instrumental cause of its arriving at perfection. He gave a fixed character to the Latin tongue; showed his countrymen what vigor it possessed, and of what elegance and polish it was susceptible. The influence of Cicero on the language and literature of his day was not only extensive, but permanent, and it survived almost until the language was corrupted by barbarism.
After traveling in Greece and Asia, and holding a high office in Sicily, he returned to Rome, resumed his forensic practice, and was made consul.
The conspiracy of Catiline was the great event of his consuls.h.i.+p. The prudence and tact with which he crushed this gained him the applause and grat.i.tude of his fellow-citizens, who hailed him as the father of his country; but he was obliged, by the intrigues of his enemies, to fly from Rome; his exile was decreed, and his town and country houses given up to plunder. He was, however, recalled, and appointed to a seat in the college of Augurs. In the struggle between Pompey and Caesar, he followed the fortunes of the former; but Caesar, after his triumph, granted him a full and free pardon. After the a.s.sa.s.sination of Caesar, Cicero delivered that torrent of indignant and eloquent invective, his twelve Philippic orations, and became again the popular idol; but when the second triumvirate was formed, and each member gave up his friends to the vengeance of his colleagues, Octavius did not hesitate to sacrifice Cicero. Betrayed by a treacherous freedman, he would not permit his attendants to make any resistance, but courageously submitted to the sword of the a.s.sa.s.sins, who cut off his head and hands, and carried them to Antony, whose wife, Julia, gloated with inhuman delight upon the pallid features, and in petty spite pierced with a needle the once eloquent tongue. Cicero had numerous faults; he was vain, vacillating, inconstant, timid, and the victim of morbid sensibility; but he was candid, truthful, just, generous, pure-minded, and warm-hearted. Gentle, sympathizing, and affectionate, he lived as a patriot and died as a philosopher.
The place which Cicero occupies in the history of Roman literature is that of an orator and philosopher. The effectiveness of his oratory was mainly owing to his knowledge of the human heart, and of the national peculiarities of his countrymen. Its charm was owing to his extensive acquaintance with the stores of literature and philosophy, which his sprightly wit moulded at will; to the varied learning, which his unpedantic mind made so pleasant and popular; and to his fund of ill.u.s.tration, at once interesting and convincing. He carried his hearers with him; senate, judges, and people understood his arguments, and felt his pa.s.sionate appeals. Compared with the dignified energy and majestic vigor of Demosthenes, the Asiatic exuberance of some of his orations may be fatiguing to the more sober and chaste taste of modern scholars; but in order to form a just appreciation, we must transport ourselves mentally to the excitements of the thronged forum, to the senate, composed of statesmen and warriors in the prime of life, maddened with the party- spirit of revolutionary times. Viewed in this light, his most florid pa.s.sages will appear free from affectation--the natural flow of a speaker carried away with the torrent of his enthusiasm. Among his numerous orations, in which, according to the criticisms of Quintilian, he combined the force of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the elegance of Isocrates, we mention the six celebrated Verrian harangues, which are considered masterpieces of Tullian eloquence. In the speech for the poet Archias, he had evidently expended all his resources of art, taste, and skill; and his oration in defense of Milo, for force, pathos, and the externals of eloquence, deserves to be reckoned among his most wonderful efforts. The oratory of Cicero was essentially judicial; even his political orations are rather judicial than deliberative. He was not born for a politician; he did not possess that a.n.a.lytical character of mind which penetrates into the remote causes of human action, nor the synthetical power which enables a man to follow them out to their farthest consequences. Of the three qualities necessary for a statesman, he possessed only two,--honesty and patriotism; he had not political wisdom.
Hence, in the finest specimens of his political orations, his Catilinarians and Philippics, we look in vain for the calm, practical weighing of the subject which is necessary in addressing a deliberative a.s.sembly. Nevertheless, so irresistible was the influence which he exercised upon the minds of his hearers, that all his political speeches were triumphs. His panegyric on Pompey carried his appointment as commander-in-chief of the armies of the East; he crushed in Catiline one of the most formidable traitors that had ever menaced the safety of the republic, and Antony's fall followed the complete exposure of his debauchery in private life, and the factiousness of his public career.
In his rhetorical works, Cicero left a legacy of practical instruction to posterity. The treatise ”On Invention” is merely interesting as the juvenile production of a future great man. ”The Orator,” ”Brutus, or the ill.u.s.trious Orators,” and ”The Orator to Marius Brutus,” are the results of his matured experience. They form together one series, in which the principles are laid down, and their development carried out and ill.u.s.trated; and in the ”Orator” he places before the eyes of Brutus the model of ideal perfection. In his treatment of that subject, he shows a mind imbued with the spirit of Plato; he invests it with dramatic interest, and transports the reader into the scene which he so graphically describes.
Roman philosophy was neither the result of original investigation, nor the gradual development of the Greek system. It arose rather from a study of ancient philosophical literature, than from an emanation of philosophical principles. It consisted in a kind of eclecticism with an ethical tendency, bringing together doctrines and opinions scattered over a wide field in reference to the political and social relations of man. Greek philosophy was probably first introduced into Rome 166 B.C. But although the Romans could appreciate the majestic dignity and poetical beauty of the style of Plato, they were not equal to the task of penetrating his hidden meaning; neither did the peripatetic doctrines meet with much favor. The philosophical system which first arrested the attention of the Romans, and gained an influence over their minds, was the Epicurean. That of the Stoics also, the severe principles of which were in harmony with the stern old Roman virtues, had distinguished disciples. The part which Cicero's character qualified him to perform in the philosophical instruction of his countrymen was scarcely that of a guide; he could give them a lively interest in the subject, but he could not mould and form their belief, and train them in the work of original investigation. Not being devoutly attached to any system of philosophical belief, he would be cautious of offending the philosophical prejudices of others. He was essentially an eclectic in acc.u.mulating stores of Greek erudition, while his mind had a tendency, in the midst of a variety of inconsistent doctrines, to leave the conclusion undetermined. He brought everything to a practical standard; he admired the exalted purity of stoical morality, but he feared that it was impractical. He believed in the existence of one supreme creator, in his spiritual nature, and the immortality of the soul; but his belief was rather the result of instinctive conviction, than of proof derived from philosophy.
The study of Cicero's philosophical works is invaluable, in order to understand the minds of those who came after him. Not only all Roman philosophy after his time, but a great part of that of the Middle Ages, was Greek philosophy filtered through Latin, and mainly founded on that of Cicero. Among his works on speculative philosophy are ”The Academics, or a history and defense of the belief of the new Academy;” ”Dialogues on the Supreme Good, the end of all moral action;” ”The Tusculan Disputations,”
containing five treatises on the fear of death, the endurance of pain, power of wisdom over sorrow, the morbid pa.s.sions, and the relation of virtue to happiness. His moral philosophy comprehends the ”Duties,” a stoical treatise on moral obligations, and the unequaled little essays on ”Friends.h.i.+p and Old Age.” His political works are ”The Republic” and ”The Law;” but these remains are fragmentary.
The extent of Cicero's correspondence is almost incredible. Even those epistles which remain number more than eight hundred. In them we find the eloquence of the heart, not of the rhetorical school. They are models of pure Latinity, elegant without stiffness, the natural outpourings of a mind which could not give birth to an ungraceful idea. In his letters to Atticus he lays bare the secret of his heart; he trusts his life in his hands; he is not only his friend but his confidant, his second self. In the letters of Cicero we have the description of the period of Roman history, and the portrait of the inner life of Roman society in his day.
8. HISTORY.--In their historical literature the Romans exhibited a faithful transcript of their mind and character. History at once gratified their patriotism, and its investigations were in accordance with their love of the real and the practical. In this department, they were enabled to emulate the Greeks and to be their rivals, and sometimes their superiors. The elegant simplicity of Caesar is as attractive as that of Herodotus; none of the Greek historians surpa.s.ses Livy in talent for the picturesque and in the charm with which he invests his spirited and living stories; while for condensation of thought, terseness of expression, and political and philosophical ac.u.men, Tacitus is not inferior to Thucydides.