The History of Roman Literature Part 12

This poet, who is by later writers often confounded with Varro Reatinus, was much more finished in his style, and therefore more read by the Augustan writers. Frequently when they speak of Varro it is to him that they refer. We append some pa.s.sages from his _Chorographia_.

I.

"Vidit et aetherio mundum torquerier axe Et septem aeternis sonitum dare vocibus...o...b..s, Nitentes aliis alios quae maxima divis Laet.i.tia est. At tunc longe gratissima Phoebi Dextera consimiles meditator reddere voces."

II.

"Ergo inter solis stationem ad sidera septem Exporrecta iacet tellus: huic extima fluctu Oceani, interior Neptuno cingitur ora."

III.

"At quinque aethertis zonis accingitur orbis Ac vastant mas hiemes mediamque calores: Sed terrae extremas inter mediamque coluntur Quas solis valido numquam vis atterat igne'."

From the _Ephemeris_, two pa.s.sages which Virgil has copied.

I.

"Tum liceat pelagi volucres tardaeqne paludis Cernere inexpleto studio gestire lavandi Et velut insolitum pennis infundere rorem.

Aut arguta lacus circ.u.mvolitavit hirando."

II.

"Et vos suspiciens caelum (mirabile visu) Naribus aerium patulis decerpsit odorem, Nec tenuis formica cavis non erebit ova."

An epigram attributed to him, but probably of somewhat later date, is as follows:

"Marmoreo Licinus tumulo iacet, at Cato parvo; Pompeius nullo. Ciedimus esse deos?"

NOTE IV.--_On the Jurists, Critics, and Grammarians of less note._

The study of law had received a great impulse from the labours of Scaevola. But among his successors none can be named beside him, though many attained to a respectable eminence. The business of public life had now become so engrossing that statesmen had no leisure to study law deeply, nor jurists to devote themselves to politics. Hence there was a gradual divergence between the two careers, and universal principles began to make themselves felt in jurisprudence. The chief name of this period is _Sulpicius Rufus_ (born 105 B.C.), who is mentioned with great respect in Cicero's _Brutus_ as a high-minded man and a cultivated student. His contribution lay rather in methodical treatment than in ama.s.sing new material. Speeches are also attributed to him (Quint. iv. 2, 106), though sometimes there is an uncertainty whether the older orator is not meant.

Letters of his are preserved among those of Cicero, and show the extreme purity of language attained by the highly educated (Ad Fam. iv. 5). Other jurists are _P. Orbius_, a pupil of _Juventius_, of whom Cicero thought highly; _Ateius_, probably the father of that Ateius Capito who obtained great celebrity in the next period, and _Pacuvius Labeo_, whose fame was also eclipsed by that of his son. Somewhat later we find _C. Trebatius_, the friend of Cicero and recipient of some of his most interesting letters. He was a brilliant but not profound lawyer, and devoted himself more particularly to the pontifical law. His dexterous conduct through the civil wars enabled him to preserve his influence under the reign of Augustus. Horace professes to ask his advice (Sat. ii. 1, 4):

"Docte Trebati Quid faciam, praescribe."

Trebatius replies: "Cease to write, or if you cannot do that, celebrate the exploits of Caesar." This courtier-like counsel is characteristic of the man, and helps to explain the high position he was enabled to take under the empire. Two other jurists are worthy of mention, _A.

Cascellius_, a contemporary of Trebatius, and noted for his sarcastic wit; and _Q. Aelius Tubero_, who wrote also on history and rhetoric, but finally gave himself exclusively to legal studies.

Among grammatical critics, the most important is _P. Nigidius Figulus_ (98-46 B.C.). He was, like Varro, conservative in his views, and is considered by Gellius to come next to him in erudition. They appear to have been generally coupled together by later writers, but probably from the similarity of their studies rather than from any equality of talent.

Nigidius was a mystic, and devoted much of his time to Pythagorean speculations, and the celebration of various religious mysteries. His _Commentarii_ treated of grammar, orthography, etymology, &c. In the latter he appears to have copied Varro in deriving all Latin words from native roots. Besides grammar, he wrote on sacrificial rites, on theology (_de dis_), and natural science. One or two references are made to him in the curious _Apology_ of Apuleius. In the investigation of the supernatural he was followed by _Caecina_, who wrote on the Etruscan ceremonial, and drew up a theory of portents and prodigies.

The younger generation produced few grammarians of merit. We hear of _Ateius Praetextatus_, who was equally well known as a rhetorician. He was born at Athens, set free for his attainments, and called himself _Philologus_ (Suet. De Gram. 10). He seems to have had some influence with the young n.o.bles, with whom a teacher of grammar, who was also a fluent and persuasive speaker, was always welcome. Another instance is found in _Valerius Cato_, who lost his patrimony when quite a youth by the rapacity of Sulla, and was compelled to teach in order to obtain a living. He speedily became popular, and was considered an excellent trainer of poets.

He is called--

"Cato Grammaticus, Latina Siren, Qui solus legit et facit poetas."

Having acquired a moderate fortune and bought a villa at Tusculum, he sank through mismanagement again into poverty, from which he never emerged, but died in a garret, dest.i.tute of the necessaries of life. His fate was the subject of several epigrams, of which one by Bibaculus is preserved in Suetonius (De Cr. ii).

The only other name worth notice is that of _Santra_, who is called by Martial _Salebrosus_. He seems to have written chiefly on the history of Roman literature, and, in particular, to have commented on the poems of Naevius. Many obscurer writers are mentioned in Suetonius's treatise, to which, with that on rhetoric by the same author, the reader is here referred.

CHAPTER II.

ORATORY AND PHILOSOPHY--CICERO (106-43 B.C.).

Marcus Tullius Cicero, [1] the greatest name in Roman literature, was born on his father's estate near Arpinum, 3d Jan. 106 B.C. Arpinum had received the citizens.h.i.+p some time before, but his family though old and of equestrian position had never held any office in Rome. Cicero was therefore a _novus h.o.m.o_, a _parvenu_, as we should say, and this made the struggle for honours which occupied the greater part of his career, both unusual and arduous. For this struggle, in which his extraordinary talent seemed to predict success, his father determined to prepare the boy by an education under his own eye in Rome. Marcus lived there for some years with his brother Quintus, studying under the best masters (among whom was the poet Archias), learning the principles of grammar and rhetoric, and storing his mind with the great works of Greek literature. He now made the acquaintance of the three celebrated men to whom he so often refers in his writings, the Augur Mucius Scaevola, and the orators Cra.s.sus and Antonius, with whom he often conversed, and asked them such questions as his boyish modesty permitted. At this time too he made his first essays in verse, the poem called _Pontius Glaucus_, and perhaps the _Phaenomena_ and _Prognostics_ [2] of Aratus. On a.s.suming the manly gown he at once attached himself to Scaevola for the purpose of learning law, attending him not only in his private consultations, but also to the courts when he pleaded, and to the a.s.sembly when he harangued the people. His industry was untiring. As he tells us himself, he renounced dissipation, pleasure, exercise, even society; his whole spare time was spent in reading, writing, and declaiming, besides daily attendance at the forum, where he drank in with eager zeal the fervid eloquence of the great speakers.

Naturally keen to observe, he quickened his faculties by a.s.siduous attention; not a tone, not a gesture, not a turn of speech ever escaped him; all were noted down in his ready memory to be turned to good account when his own day should come. Meanwhile he prepared himself by deeper studies for rising to oratorical eminence. He attended the subtle lectures of Philo the Academic, and practised the minute dialectic of the Stoics under Diodotus, and tested his command over both philosophy and disputation by declaiming in Greek before the rhetorician Molo.

At the age of twenty-five he thought himself qualified to appear before the world. The speech for Quintius, [3] delivered 81 B.C. is not his first, but it is one of his earliest. In it he appears as the opponent of Hortensius. At this time Sulla was all-powerful at Rome. He had crushed with pitiless ferocity the remnants of the Marian party; he had reinstated the senate in its privileges, abased the tribunate, checked the power of the knights, and still swayed public opinion by a rule of terror. In his twenty-seventh year, Cicero, by defending S. Roscius Amerinus, [4] exposed himself to the dictator's wrath. Roscius, whose accuser was Sulla's powerful freedman Chrysogonus, was, though innocent, in imminent danger of conviction, but Cicero's staunch courage and irresistible eloquence procured his acquittal. The effect of this speech was instantaneous; the young aspirant was at once ranked among the great orators of the day.

In this speech we see Cicero espousing the popular side. The change which afterwards took place in his political conduct may perhaps be explained by his strong hatred on the one hand for personal domination, and by his enthusiasm on the other for the great traditions of the past. Averse by nature to all extremes, and ever disposed towards the weaker cause, he became a vacillating statesman, because his genius was literary not political, and because (being a scrupulously conscientious man, and without the inheritance of a family political creed to guide him) he found it hard to judge on which side right lay. The three crises of his life, his defence of Roscius, his contest with Catiline, and his resistance to Antony, were precisely the three occasions when no such doubts were possible, and on all these the conduct of Cicero, as well as his genius, s.h.i.+nes with its brightest l.u.s.tre. To the speech for Roscius, his first and therefore his boldest effort, he always looked back with justifiable pride, and drew from it perhaps in after life a spur to meet greater dangers, greater because experience enabled him to foresee them. [5]

About this time Cicero's health began to fail from too constant study and over severe exertions in pleading. The tremendous calls on a Roman orator's physique must have prevented any but robust men from attaining eminence. The place where he spoke, girt as it was with the proudest monuments of imperial dominion, the a.s.sembled mult.i.tudes, the magnitude of the political issues on which in reality nearly every criminal trial turned, all these roused the spirit of the speaker to its utmost tension, and awoke a corresponding vehemence of action and voice.

Cicero therefore retired to Athens, where he spent six months studying philosophy with Antiochus the Academic, and with Zeno and Phaedrus who were both Epicureans. His brother Quintus and his friend Atticus were fellow-students with him. He next travelled in Asia Minor, seeking the help and advice of all the celebrated rhetoricians he met, as Menippus of Stratonice, Dionysius of Magnesia, Aeschylus of Cnidos, Xenocles of Adramyttium. At Rhodes he again placed himself under Molo, whose wise counsel checked the Asiatic exuberance which to his latest years Cicero could never quite discard; and after an absence of over two years he returned home thoroughly restored in health, and steadily determined to win his place as the greatest orator of Rome (76 B.C.). Meanwhile Sulla had died, and Cicero no longer incurred danger by expressing his views. He soon after defended the great comedian Roscius [6] on a charge of fraud in a civil speech still extant, and apparently towards the end of the same year was married to Terentia, a lady of high birth, with whom he lived for upwards of thirty years.

In 75 B.C. Cicero was elected quaestor, and obtained the province of Sicily under the Praetor s.e.xtus Peducaeus. While there he conciliated good will by his integrity and kindness, and on his departure was loaded with honours by the grateful provincials. But he saw the necessity of remaining in Rome for the future, if he wished to become known; consequently he took a house near the forum, and applied himself unremittingly to the calls of his profession. He was now placed on the list of senators, and in the year 70 appeared as a candidate for the aediles.h.i.+p. The only oration we know of during the intervening years is that for Tullius [7] (71 B.C.); but many cases of importance must have been pleaded by him, since in the preliminary speech by which he secured the conduct of the case against Verres, [8] he triumphantly brings himself forward as the only man whose tried capacity and unfailing success makes him a match for Hortensius, who is retained on the other side. This year is memorable for the impeachment of Verres, the only instance almost where Cicero acted as public prosecutor, his kindly nature being apter to defend than to accuse; but on this occasion he burned with righteous indignation, and spared no labour or expense to ransack Sicily for evidence of the infamous praetor's guilt.

Cicero was tied to the Sicilians, whom he called his clients, by acts of mutual kindness, and he now stood forth to avenge them with a good will.

The friends of Verres tried to procure a _Praevaricatio_, or sham accusation, conducted by a friend of the defendant, but Cicero stopped this by his brilliant and withering invective on Caecilius, the unlucky candidate for this dishonourable office. The judges, who were all senators, could not but award the prosecution to Cicero, who, determined to obtain a conviction, conducted it with the utmost despatch. Waiving his right to speak, and bringing on the witnesses contrary to custom at the outset of the trial, he produced evidence so crus.h.i.+ng that Verres absconded, and the splendid orations which remain [9] had no occasion to be, and never were, delivered. It was Cicero's justifiable boast that he obtained all the offices of state in the first year in which he could by law hold them. In 69 B.C. he was elected at the head of the poll as Curule Aedile, a post of no special dignity, something between that of a mayor and a commissioner of works, but admitting a liberal expenditure on the public shows, and so useful towards acquiring the popularity necessary for one who aspired to the consuls.h.i.+p. To this year are to be referred the extant speeches for Fonteius [10] and Caecina, [11] and perhaps the lost ones for Matridius [12] and Oppius. [13] Cicero contrived without any great expenditure to make his aediles.h.i.+p a success. The people were well disposed to him, and regarded him as their most brilliant representative.

The next year (68 B.C.) is important for the historian as that in which begins Cicero's Correspondence--a mine of information more trustworthy than anything else in the whole range of antiquity, and of exquisite Latinity, and in style unsurpa.s.sed and unsurpa.s.sable. The wealth that had flowed in from various sources, such as bequests, presents from foreign potentates or grateful clients at home, loans probably from the same source, to which we must add his wife's considerable dowry, he proceeded to expend in erecting a _villa_ at Tusculum. Such villas were the fairest ornaments of Italy, "_ocelli Italiae_," as Cicero calls them, and their splendour may be inferred from the descriptions of Varro and Pliny.

Cicero's, however, though it contained choice works of art and many rare books, could not challenge comparison with those of great n.o.bles such as Catulus, Lucullus, or Cra.s.sus, but it was tastefully laid out so as to resemble in miniature the Academy of Athens, where several of his happiest hours had been spent, and to which in thought he often returned. Later in life he purchased other country-seats at Antium, Asturia, Sinuessa, Arpinum, Formiae, c.u.mae, Puteoli, and Pompeii; but the Tusculan was always his favourite.

In the year 67 Cicero stood for the praetors.h.i.+p, the election to which was twice put off, owing to the disturbances connected with Gabinius' motion for giving the command of the Mediterranean to Pompey, and that of Otho for a.s.signing separate seats in the theatre to the knights. But the third election ratified the results of the two previous ones, and brought in Cicero with a large majority as _Praetor Urba.n.u.s_ over the heads of seven, some of them very distinguished, compet.i.tors. He entered on his office 66 B.C. and signalised himself by his high conduct as a judge; but this did not, however, prevent him from exercising his profession as an advocate, for in this year he defended Fundanius [14] in a speech now lost, and Cluentius [15] (who was accused of poisoning) in an extremely long and complicated argument, one of the most difficult, but from the light it throws on the depraved morals of the time one of the most important of all his speeches. Another oration belonging to this year, and the first political harangue which Cicero delivered, was that in favour of the Manilian law, [16] which conferred on Pompey the conduct of the war against Mithridates. The bill was highly popular; Caesar openly favoured it, and Cicero had no difficulty in carrying the entire a.s.sembly with him.

It is a singularly happy effort of his eloquence, and contains a n.o.ble panegyric on Pompey, the more admirable because there was no personal motive behind it. At the expiration of his praetorian year he had the option of a province, which was a means of acquiring wealth eagerly coveted by the ambitious; but Cicero felt the necessity of remaining at Rome too strongly to be tempted by such a bribe. "Out of sight, out of mind," was nowhere so true as at Rome. If he remained away a year, who could tell whether his chance for the Consuls.h.i.+p might not be irretrievably compromised?

In the following year (65 B.C.) he announced himself as a candidate for this, the great object of his ambition, and received from his brother some most valuable suggestions in the essay or letter known as _De Pet.i.tione Consulatus_. This _manual_ (for so it might be called) of _electioneering tactics_, gives a curious insight into the customs of the time, and in union with many shrewd and pertinent remarks, contains independent testimony to the evil characters of Antony and Catiline. But Cicero relied more on his eloquence than on the arts of canva.s.sing. It was at this juncture that he defended the ex-tribune Cornelius, [17] who had been accused of _maiestas_, with such surpa.s.sing skill as to draw forth from Quintilian a special tribute of praise. This speech is unfortunately lost.

His speech _in the white gown_, [18] of which a few fragments are preserved by Asconius, was delivered the following year, only a few days before the election, to support the senatorial measure for checking corrupt canva.s.sing. When the _comitia_ were held, Cicero was elected by a unanimous vote, a fact which reflects credit upon those who gave it. For the candidate to whom they did honour had no claims of birth, or wealth, or military glory; he had never flattered them, never bribed them; his sole t.i.tle to their favour was his splendid genius, his unsullied character, and his defence of their rights whenever right was on their side. The only trial at which Cicero pleaded during this year was that of Q. Gellius, [19] in which he was successful.

The beginning of his consuls.h.i.+p (63 B.C.) was signalised by three great oratorical displays, viz. the speeches against the agrarian law of Rullus [20] and the extempore speech delivered on behalf of Roscius Otho. The populace on seeing Otho enter the theatre, rose in a body and greeted him with hisses: a tumult ensued; Cicero was sent for; he summoned the people into an adjoining temple, and rebuked them with such sparkling wit as to restore completely their good humour. It is to this triumph of eloquence that Virgil is thought to refer in the magnificent simile (_Aen._ i. 148):

"Ac veluti magno in populo c.u.m saepe coorta est Seditio, saevitque animis ign.o.bile volgus; Iamque faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat; Tum pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem Aspexere silent arrectisque auribus adstant; Ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet."

The next speech, which still remains to us, is a defence of the senator Rabirius; [21] that on behalf of Calpurnius Piso is lost. [22] But the efforts which make this year forever memorable are the four orations against Catiline. [23] These were almost extemporaneous, and in their trenchant vigour and terrible mastery of invective are unsurpa.s.sed except by the second Philippic. In the very heat of the crisis, however, Cicero found time to defend his friend Muraena [2] in a brilliant and jocose speech, which shows the marvellous versatility of the man. That warm Italian nature, open to every gust of feeling, over which impressions came and went like summer clouds, could turn at a moment's notice from the hand-to-hand grapple of a deadly duel to the lightest and most delicate rapier practice of the fencing school.

As soon as Cicero retired from office (62 B.C.) he found enemies ready to accuse him. Metellus the Tribune declared that he had violated the Const.i.tution. Cicero replied to him in a spirited speech, which he alludes to under the name _Oratio Metellina_, but he felt himself on insecure ground. Catiline was indeed crushed, but the ramifications of the conspiracy extended far and wide. Autronius and Sulla were implicated in it; the former Cicero refused to aid, the latter he defended in a speech which is lost to us. [25] The only other speech of this year is that on behalf of the poet Archias, [26] who had been accused of usurping the rights of a Roman citizen. In the following year (61 B.C.) occurred the scandal about Clodius. This profligate demagogue would have been acquitted on an _alibi_, had it not been for Cicero's damaging evidence; he nevertheless contrived to procure a final acquittal by the most abominable means, but determined to wreak his vengeance by working Cicero's ruin. To this resolution the personal taunts of the great orator no doubt contributed. We have an account from Cicero's pen of the scenes that took place in the senate during the trial--the invectives poured forth by Clodius and the no less fiery retorts of his opponent. We must not imagine our orator's talent as always finding vent in the lofty strain which we are accustomed to a.s.sociate with him. On the contrary, his attacks at times were pitched in another key, and he would frequently exchange sarcastic jests in a way that we should regard as incompatible with decency, and almost with self-respect. On one occasion, for instance, he had a skirmish of wit, which was vociferously applauded by an admiring senate: "You have bought a house," says Clodius. (We quote from Forsyth.) "One would think," rejoins Cicero, "that you said I had bought a jury."

"They did not believe you on your oath!" exclaims Clodius. "Yes," retorted Cicero, "twenty-five of the jury did believe _me_, but thirty-one did not believe _you_, for they took care to get their money beforehand!" These and similar pleasantries, however they may have tickled the ears of the senate, awoke in Clodius an implacable hatred, which could only be satisfied with Cicero's fall; and the better to strike at him he made an attempt (unsuccessful at first, but carried out somewhat later) to be made a plebeian and elected tribune of the people (60 B.C.).

Meanwhile Cicero had returned to his profession, and defended Scipio Nasica; [27] he had also composed a history of his consuls.h.i.+p in Greek, on which (to use his own expression) he had emptied all the scent-boxes of Isocrates, and touched it lightly with the brush of Aristotle; moreover, he collected into one volume the speeches he had delivered as consul under the t.i.tle of _Consular Orations_. [28] At this time the coalition known as the First Triumvirate was formed, and Cicero, disgusted at its unscrupulous conduct, left Rome for his Tusculan villa, where he meditated writing a work on universal geography. Soon, however, impatient of retirement, he returned to Rome, defended A. Themius [29] twice, and both times successfully, and afterwards, aided by Hortensius (with whose party he had now allied himself), L. Valerius Flaccus (59 B.C.). [30]

But Clodius's vengeance was by this time imminent, and Pompey's a.s.surances did not quiet Cicero's mind. He retired for some months to his Antian villa, and announced his intention of publis.h.i.+ng a collection of anecdotes of contemporary statesmen, in the style of Theopompus, which would be, if we possessed it, an extremely valuable work. On his return to Rome (58 B.C.) he found the feeling strongly against him, and a bill of Clodius's was pa.s.sed, interdicting him from fire and water, confiscating his property, and outlawing his person. The pusillanimity he shows in his exile exceeds even the measure of what we could have believed. It must be remembered that the love of country was a pa.s.sion with the ancients, to a degree now difficult to realise; and exile from it, even for a time, was felt to be an intolerable evil. But Cicero's exile did not last long; in August of the following year (57 B.C.) he was recalled with no dissentient voice but that of Clodius, and at once hastened to Rome, where he addressed the senate and people in terms of extravagant compliment. These are the line speeches "on his return," [31] in the first of which he thanks the senate, and in the second the people; in the third he addresses the pontiffs, trying to persuade them that he has a right to reclaim the site of his house, [32] in the fourth [33] which was delivered early the next year, he rings the changes on the same subject.

The next year (56 B.C.) is signalised by several important speeches.

Whatever we may think of his political conduct during this trying period, his professional activity was most remarkable. He defended L. Bestia [34]