Part 1 (1/2)

Post-Augustan Poetry.

by H.E. Butler.

PREFACE

I have attempted in this book to provide something of an introduction to the poetical literature of the post-Augustan age. Although few of the writers dealt with have any claim to be called poets of the first order, and some stand very low in the scale of poetry, as a whole the poets of this period have suffered greater neglect than they deserve.

Their undeniable weaknesses tend in many cases to obscure their real merits, with the result that they are at times either ignored or subjected to unduly sweeping condemnation. I have attempted in these pages to detach and ill.u.s.trate their excellences without in any way pa.s.sing over their defects.

Manilius and Phaedrus have been omitted on the ground that as regards the general character of their writings they belong rather to the Augustan period than to the subsequent age of decadence. Manilius indeed composed a considerable portion of his work during the lifetime of Augustus, while Phaedrus, though somewhat later in date, showed a sobriety of thought and an antique simplicity of style that place him at least a generation away from his contemporaries. The authorities to whose works I am indebted are duly acknowledged in the course of the work. I owe a special debt, however, to those great works of reference, the Histories of Roman Literature by Schanz and Teuffel, to Friedlander's _Sittengeschichte_, and, for the chapters on Lucan and Statius, to Heitland's _Introduction to Haskin's edition of Lucan_ and Legras' _Thebade de Stace_. I wish particularly to express my indebtedness to Professor Gilbert Murray and Mr. Nowell Smith, who read the book in ma.n.u.script and made many valuable suggestions and corrections. I also have to thank Mr. A.S. Owen for much a.s.sistance in the corrections of the proofs.

My thanks are owing to Professor Goldwin Smith for permission to print translations from 'Bay Leaves', and to Mr. A.E. Street and Mr. F.J.

Miller and their publishers, for permission to quote from their translations of Martial (Messrs. Spottiswoode) and Seneca (Chicago University Press) respectively.

H.E. BUTLER.

_November_, 1908.

CHAPTER I

THE DECLINE OF POST-AUGUSTAN POETRY

During the latter years of the princ.i.p.ate of Augustus a remarkable change in literary methods and style begins to make itself felt. The gradual extinction of the great luminaries is followed by a gradual disappearance of originality and of the natural and easy-flowing style whose phrases and felicities adorn, without overloading or obscuring the sense. In their place comes a straining after effect, a love of startling colour, produced now by over-gorgeous or over-minute imagery, now by a surfeit of brilliant epigram, while controlling good sense and observance of due proportion are often absent and imitative preciosity too frequently masquerades as originality. Further, in too many cases there is a complete absence of moral enthusiasm, close observation, and genuine insight.

What were the causes of this change? Was it due mainly to the evil influence of the princ.i.p.ate or to more subtle and deep-rooted causes?

The princ.i.p.ate had been denounced as the _fons et origo mali_.[1] That its influence was for evil can hardly be denied. But it was rather a symptom, an outward and visible sign of a deep-engrained decay, which it accentuated and brought to the surface, but in no way originated. We are told that the princ.i.p.ate 'created around itself the quiet of the graveyard, since all independence was compelled under threat of death to hypocritical silence or subterfuge; servility alone was allowed to speak; the rest submitted to what was inevitable, nay, even endeavoured to accommodate their minds to it as much as possible.' Even if this highly coloured statement were true, the influence of such tyrannical suppression of free thinking and free speaking could only have _directly_ affected certain forms of literature, such as satire, recent history,[2] and political oratory, while even in these branches of literature a wide field was left over which an intending author might safely range. The _direct_ influence on poetry must have been exceedingly small. If we review the great poets of the Augustan and republican periods, we shall find little save certain epigrams of Catullus that could not safely have been produced in post-Augustan times. Moreover, when we turn to what is actually known of the att.i.tude of the early emperors towards literature, the balance does not seriously incline against them. It may be said without hesitation of the four emperors succeeding Augustus that they had a genuine taste and some capacity for literature.

Of two only is it true that their influence was in any way repressive.

The princ.i.p.ate of Tiberius is notorious for the silence of literature; whether the fact is due as much to the character of Tiberius as to the temporary exhaustion of genius following naturally on the brilliance of the Augustan period, is more than doubtful. But Tiberius cannot be acquitted of all blame. The cynical humour with which it pleased him to mark the steady advance of autocracy, the _lentae maxillae_ which Augustus attributed to his adopted son,[3] the icy and ironic cruelty which was--on the most favourable estimate--a not inconsiderable element in his character, no doubt all exercised a chilling influence, not only on politics but on all spontaneous expression of human character.

Further, we find a few instances of active and cruel repression.

Lampoons against the emperor were punished with death.[4] Cremutius Cordus was driven to suicide for styling 'Brutus and Ca.s.sius the last of all the Romans'.[5] Mamercus Scaurus had the misfortune to write a tragedy on the subject of Atreus in which he advised submission to Atreus in a version of the Euripidean

[Greek: tas t_on turann_on amathias pherein chre_on][6]

He too fell a victim to the Emperor's displeasure, though the chief charges actually brought against him were of adultery with the Princess Livilla and practice of the black art. We hear also of another case in which _obiectum est poetae quod in tragoedia Agamemnonem probris lacessisset_ (Suet. _Tib_. 61). It is worthy of notice that actors also came under Tiberius's displeasure.[7] The mime and the Atellan farce afforded too free an opportunity for improvisation against the emperor.

Even the harmless Phaedrus seems to have incurred the anger of Seja.n.u.s, and to have suffered thereby.[8] Nor do the few instances in which Tiberius appears as a patron of literature fill us with great respect for his taste. He is said to have given one Asellius Sabinus 100,000 sesterces for a dialogue between a mushroom, a finch, an oyster, and a thrush,[9] and to have rewarded a worthless writer,[10] Clutorius Priscus, for a poem composed on the death of Germanicus. On the other hand, he seems to have had a sincere love of literature,[11] though he wrote in a crabbed and affected style. He was a purist in language with a taste for archaism,[12] left a brief autobiography[13] and dabbled in poetry, writing epigrams,[14] a lyric _conquestio de morte Lucii Caesaris_[15] and Greek imitations of Euphorion, Rhia.n.u.s, and Parthenius, the learned poets of Alexandria. His taste was bad: he went even farther than his beloved Alexandrians, awaking the laughter of his contemporaries even in an age when obscure mythological learning was at a premium. The questions which delighted him were--'Who was the mother of Hecuba?' 'What was the name of Achilles when disguised as a girl?'

'What did the sirens sing?'[16] Literature had little to learn from Tiberius, but it should have had something to gain from the fact that he was not blind to its charms: at the worst it cannot have required abnormal skill to avoid incurring a charge of _lese-majeste_.

The reign of the lunatic Caligula is of small importance, thanks to its extreme brevity. For all his madness he had considerable ability; he was ready of speech to a remarkable degree, though his oratory suffered from extravagant ornament[17] and lack of restraint. He had, however, some literary insight: in his description of Seneca's rhetoric as _merae commissiones_, 'prize declamations,' and 'sand without lime' he gave an admirable summary of that writer's chief weaknesses.[18] But he would in all probability have proved a greater danger to literature than Tiberius. It is true that in his desire to compare favourably with his predecessors he allowed the writings of T. Labienus, Cremutius Cordus, and Ca.s.sius Severus, which had fallen under the senate's ban in the two preceding reigns, to be freely circulated once more.[19] But he by no means abandoned trials for _lese-majeste_. The rhetorician Carinas Secundus was banished on account of an imprudent phrase in a _suasoria_ on the hackneyed theme of tyrannicide.[20] A writer of an Atellan farce was burned to death in the amphitheatre[21] for a treasonable jest, and Seneca narrowly escaped death for having made a brilliant display of oratory in the senate.[22] He also seriously meditated the destruction of the works of Homer. Plato had banished Homer from his ideal state.

Why should not Caligula? He was with difficulty restrained from doing the like for Vergil and Livy. The former, he said, was a man of little learning and less wit;[23] the latter was verbose and careless. Even when he attempted to encourage literature, his eccentricity carried him to such extremes that the compet.i.tors shrank in horror from entering the lists. He inst.i.tuted a contest at Lugudunum in which prizes were offered for declamations in Greek and Latin. The prizes were presented to the victors by the vanquished, who were ordered to write panegyrics in honour of their successful rivals, while in cases where the declamations were decided to be unusually poor, the unhappy authors were ordered to obliterate their writings with a sponge or even with their own tongues, under penalty of being caned or ducked in the Rhone.[24]

Literature had some reason to be thankful for his early a.s.sa.s.sination.

The lunatic was succeeded by a fool, but a learned fool. Claudius was historian, antiquary, and philologist. He wrote two books on the civil war, forty-one on the princ.i.p.ate of Augustus, a defence of Cicero, eight books of autobiography,[25] an official diary,[26] a treatise on dicing.[27] To this must be added his writings in Greek, twenty books of Etruscan history, eight of Carthaginian,[28] together with a comedy performed and crowned at Naples in honour of the memory of Germanicus.[29] His style, according to Suetonius, was _magis ineptus quam inelegans_.[30] He did more than write: he attempted a reform of spelling, by introducing three new letters into the Latin alphabet. His enthusiasm and industry were exemplary. Such indeed was his activity that a special office,[31] _a studiis_, was established, which was filled for the first time by the influential freedman Polybius. Claudius lacked the saving grace of good sense, but in happier days might have been a useful professor: at any rate his interest in literature was whole-hearted and disinterested. His own writing was too feeble to influence contemporaries for ill and he had the merit of having given literature room to move. Seneca might mock at him after his death,[32]

but he had done good service.

Nero, Claudius' successor, was also a liberal, if embarra.s.sing, patron of literature. His tastes were more purely literary. He had received an elaborate and diversified education. He had even enjoyed the privilege of having Seneca--the head of the literary profession--for his tutor.

These influences were not wholly for the good: Agrippina dissuaded him from the study of philosophy as being unsuited for a future emperor, Seneca from the study of earlier and saner orators that he might himself have a longer lease of Nero's admiration.[33] The result was that a temperament, perhaps falsely styled artistic,[34] was deprived of the solid nutriment required to give it stability. Nero's great ambition was to be supreme in poetry and art as he was supreme in empire. He composed rapidly and with some technical skill,[35] but his work lacked distinction, connexion of thought, and unity of style.[36] Satirical[37]

and erotic[38] epigrams, learned mythological poems on Attis and the Bacchae,[39] all flowed from his pen. But his most famous works were his _Troica_,[40] an epic on the Trojan legend, which he recited before the people in the theatre,[41] and his [Greek: Iion al_osis], which may perhaps have been included in the _Troica_, and is famous as having--so scandal ran--been declaimed over burning Rome.[42] But his ambition soared higher. He contemplated an epic on the whole of Roman history. It was estimated that 400 books would be required. The Stoic Annaeus Cornutus justly remarked that no one would read so many. It was pointed out that the Stoic's master, Chrysippus, had written even more. 'Yes,'

said Cornutus, 'but they were of some use to humanity.' Cornutus was banished, but he saved Rome from the epic. Nero was also prolific in speeches and, proud of his voice, often appeared on the stage. He impersonated Orestes matricida, Canace parturiens, Oedipus blind, and Hercules mad.[43] It is not improbable that the words declaimed or sung in these scenes were composed by Nero himself.[44] For the encouragement of music and poetry he had established quinquennial games known as the Neronia. How far his motives for so doing were interested it is hard to say. But there is no doubt that he had a pa.s.sionate ambition to win the prize at the contest inst.i.tuted by himself. In A.D. 60, on the first occasion of the celebration of these games, the prize was won by Lucan with a poem in praise of Nero.[45] Vacca, in his life of Lucan, states that this lost him Nero's favour, the emperor being jealous of his success. The story is demonstrably false,[46] but that Nero subsequently became jealous of Lucan is undoubted. Till Lucan's fame was a.s.sured, Nero extended his favour to him: then partly through Lucan's extreme vanity and want of tact, partly through Nero's jealousy of Lucan's pre-eminence that favour was wholly withdrawn.[47] Nevertheless, though Nero may have shown jealousy of successful rivals, he seems to have had sufficient respect for literature to refrain from persecution. He did not go out of his way to punish personal attacks on himself. If names were delated to the senate on such a charge, he inclined to mercy. Even the introduction into an Atellan farce of jests on the deaths of Claudius and Agrippina was only punished with exile.[48] Only after the detection of Piso's conspiracy in 65 did his anger vent itself on writers: towards the end of his reign the distinguished authors, Virginius Flavus and the Stoic Musonius Rufus, were both driven into exile. As for the deaths of Seneca and Lucan, the two most distinguished writers of the day, though both perished at Nero's hands, it was their conduct, not their writings, that brought them to destruction. Both were implicated in the Pisonian conspiracy. If, then, Nero's direct influence on literature was for the bad, it was not because he was adverse: it suffered rather from his favour: the extravagant tastes of the princeps and the many eccentricities of his life and character may perhaps find a reflection in some of the more grotesque extravagances of Lucan, such for instance as the absurdly servile dedication of the _Pharsalia_. But even in this direction his influence was probably comparatively small.