The History of Roman Literature Part 21

[21] His mind was of that independent mould which can never be got to accept on anybody's authority the solution of problems which interest it.

Even when reason convinced him that imperialism, if not good in itself, was the least of all possible evils, ho did not become a hearty partisan; he maintained from first to last a more or less critical att.i.tude. Thus Maecenas may have heard of his literary promise, of his high character, without much concern. It was the paramount importance of enlisting so able a man on his own side that weighed with the shrewd statesman. For Horace, with the recklessness that poverty inspires, had shown a disposition to attack those in power. It is generally thought that Maecenas himself is ridiculed under the name Malthinus. [22] It is nevertheless clear that when he knew Maecenas he not only formed a high opinion of his character and talent, but felt a deep affection for him, which expresses itself in the generous language of an equal friend, with great respect, indeed, but totally without unworthy complaisance. The minister of monarchy might without inconsistency gain his goodwill; with the monarch it was a different matter. For many years Horace held aloof from Augustus. He made no application to him; he addressed to him no panegyric. Until the year 29, when the Temple of Ja.n.u.s was closed, he showed no approval of his measures. All his laudatory odes were written after that event. He indeed permitted the emperor to make advances to him, to invite him to his table, and maintain a friendly correspondence. But he refused the office of secretary which Augustus pressed upon him. He scrupulously abstained from pressing his claims of intimacy, as the emperor wished him to do; and at last he drew forth from him the remorseful expostulation, "Why is it that you avoid addressing me of all men in your poems? Is it that you are afraid posterity will think the worse of you for having been a friend of mine?" [23]

This appeal elicited from the poet that excellent epistle which traces the history and criticises the merits of Latin poetry. From all this we may be sure that when Augustus's measures are celebrated, as they are in the third book of the Odes and other places, with emphatic commendation, though the language may be that of poetical exaggeration, the sentiment is in the main sincere. It is a greater honour to the prudent ruler to have won the tardy approval of Horace, than to have enlisted from the outset the enthusiastic devotion of Virgil.

We left Horace installed as one of Maecenas's circle. This position naturally gained him many enemies; nor was his character one to conciliate his less fortunate rivals. He was choleric and sensitive, prompt to resent an insult, though quite free from malice or vindictiveness. He had not yet reached that high sense of his position when he could afford to treat the envious crowd with contempt. [24] He records in the satires which he now wrote, painting with inimitable humour each incident that arose, the attempts of the outsiders to obtain from him an introduction to Maecenas, [25] or some of that political information of which he was supposed to be the confidant. [26] At this period of his career he lived a good deal with his patron both in Rome and at his Tiburtine villa. Within a few years, however (probably 31 B.C.), he was put in possession of what he had always desired, [27] a small competence of his own. This was the Sabine estate in the valley of Ustica, not far from Tivoli, given him by Maecenas, the subject of many beautiful allusions, and the cause of his warmest grat.i.tude. [28] Here he resided during some part of each year [29] in the enjoyment of that independence which was to him the greatest good; and during the seven years that followed he wrote, and at their close published, the first three books of the Odes. [30] The death of Virgil, which happened when Horace was forty-six years of age, and soon afterwards that of Tibullus, threw his affections once more upon his early patrons.

He now resided more frequently at Rome, and was often to be seen at the palace. How he filled the arduous position of a courtier may be gathered from many, of the Epistles of the first book. The one which introduces Septimus to Tiberius is a masterpiece; [31] and those to Scaeva and Lellius [32] are models of high-bred courtesy. No one ever mingled compliment and advice with such consummate skill. Horace had made his position at court for himself, and though he still loved the country best, [33] he found both interest and profit in his daily intercourse with the great.

In the year 17 B.C. Augustus found an opportunity of testifying his regard for Horace. The secular games, which were celebrated in that year, included the singing of a hymn to Apollo and Diana by a chorus of 27 boys and the same number of girls, selected from the highest families in the state. The composition of this hymn was intrusted to Horace, much to his own legitimate pride, and to our instruction and pleasure, for not only is it a poem of high intrinsic excellence, but it is the only considerable extant specimen of the lyrical part of Roman wors.h.i.+p. Some scholars include under it besides the _Carmen Saeculare_ proper, various other odes, some of which unquestionably bear on the same subject, though, there is no direct evidence of their having been sung together. [34] Whether Horace had any Roman models in this style before him is not very clear. We have seen that Livius Andronicus was selected to celebrate the victory of Sena, [35] and there is an ode of Catullus [36] which seems to refer to some similar occasion. Doubtless the main lines in which the composition moved were indicated by custom; but the treatment was left to the individual genius of the poet. In this case we observe the poet's happy choice of a metre. Of all the varied lyric rhythms none, at least to our ears, lends itself so readily to a musical setting as the Sapphic; and the many melodies attached to odes in this metre by the monks of the Middle Ages attest its special adaptability to choir-singing. Augustus was highly pleased with the poet's performance, and two years' afterwards he commanded him to celebrate the victory of his step-sons Drusus and Tiberius over the Rhaeti and Vindelici. [37] This circ.u.mstance turned his attention once more to lyric poetry, which for six years he had quite discontinued. [38] It is not conclusively proved that he wrote all the odes which compose the fourth book at this period; two or three bear the impress of an earlier date, and were doubtless improved by re-writing or revision, but the majority were the production of his later years, and present to us the fruits of his matured judgment and taste. They show no diminution of lyric power, but the reverse; nor is there any ode in the first three books which surpa.s.ses or even equals the fourth poem in this collection. Horace's attention was, during the last few years of his life, given chiefly to literary subjects; the treatise on poetry and the epistle to Julius Florus were written probably between 14 and 11 B.C. That to Augustus is the last composition that issued from his pen; we may refer it to 10 B.C. two years before his death.

Horace's health had long been the reverse of strong. Whether from early delicacy, or from exposure to hards.h.i.+ps in Asia, his const.i.tution was never able to respond to the demands made upon it by the society of the capital. The weariness he expresses was often the result of physical prostration. The sketch he has left of himself [39] suggests a physique neither interesting nor vigorous. He was at 44 short, fat, and good- natured looking (rallied, we learn, by Augustus on his obesity), blear- eyed, somewhat dyspeptic, and prematurely grey; and ten years, we may be sure, had not improved the portrait. In the autumn of 8 B.C. Maecenas, who had long been himself a sufferer, succ.u.mbed to the effects of his devoted and arduous service. His last message confided Horace to the Emperor's care: "_Horatii flacci ut mei esto memor_." But the legacy was not long a burden. The prophetic antic.i.p.ations of affection that in death the poet would not be parted from his friend [40] were only too faithfully realised. Within a month of Maecenas's death Horace was borne to his rest, and his ashes were laid beside those of his patron on the Esquiline (November 29, 8 B.C.).

As regards the date of publication of his several books, several theories have been propounded, for which the student is referred to the many excellent editions of Horace that discuss the question. We shall content ourselves with a.s.signing those dates which seem to us the most probable.

All agree in considering the first book of the Satires to have been his earliest effort. This may have been published in 34 B.C.; and in 29 B.C.

the two books of Satires together, and perhaps the _Epodes_. In 24 B.C.

probably appeared the first two books of Odes, which open and close with a dedication to Maecenas, and in 23 B.C. the three books of Odes complete; though some suppose that all appeared at once and for the first time in this later year. In 21 B.C. perhaps, but more probably in 20, the first book of the Epistles was published; in 14 B.C. the fourth book of the Odes, though it is possible that the last ode of that book was written at a later date. The second book of Epistles, in which may have been included the _Ars Poetica_, could not have appeared before 10 B.C. It is clear that the latter poem is not complete, but whether Horace intended to finish it more thoroughly it is impossible to say.

In approaching the criticism of Horace, the first thing which strikes us is, that in him we see two different poets. There is the lyricist winning renown by the importation of a new kind of Greek song; and there is the observant critic and man of the world, entrusting to the tablets, his faithful companions, his reflections on men and things. The former poet ran his course through the _Epodes_ to the graceful pieces which form the great majority of his odes, and culminated in the loftier vein of lyric inspiration that characterises his political odes. The latter began with a somewhat acrimonious type of satire, which he speedily deserted for a lighter and more genial vein, and finally rested in the sober, practical, and healthy moralist and literary critic of the _Epistles_. It was in the former aspect that he a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of poet; with characteristic modesty he relinquishes all claim to it with regard to his _Epistles_ and _Satires_. We shall consider him briefly under these two aspects.

No writer believed so little in the sufficiency of the poetic gift by itself to produce a poet. Had he trusted the maxim _Poeta nascitur, non fit_, he would never have written his _Odes_. Looking back at his early attempts at verse we find in them few traces of genuine inspiration. Of the _Epodes_ a large number are positively unpleasing; others interest us from the expression of true feeling; a few only have merits of a high order. The fresh and enthusiastic, though somewhat diffuse, descriptions of country enjoyments in the second and sixteenth Epodes, and the vigorous word-painting in the fifth, bespeak the future master; and the patriotic emotion in the seventh, ninth, and sixteenth, strikes a note that was to thrill with loftier vibrations in the Odes of the third and fourth books.

But as a whole the _Epodes_ stand far below his other works. Their bitterness is quite different from the genial irony of the _Satires_, and, though occasionally the subjects of them merited the severest handling, [41] yet we do not like to see Horace applying the lash. It was not his proper vocation, and he does not do it well. He is never so unlike himself as when he is making a personal attack. Nevertheless to bring himself into notice, it was necessary to do something of the kind. Personal satire is always popular, and Horace had to carve his own way to fame. It is evident that the series of sketches of which Canidia is the heroine, [42] were received with unanimous approval by the _beau monde_. This wretched woman, singled out as the representative of a cla.s.s which was gaining daily influence in Rome, [43] he depicts in colours detestable and ignominious, which do credit to his talent but not to his courteous feeling. Horace has no true respect for woman. Nothing in all Latin poetry is so unpleasant as his brutal attacks on those _hetaerae_ (the only ladies of whom he seems to have had any knowledge) whose caprice or neglect had offended him. [44]

This is the one point in which he did not improve. In all other respects his constant self-culture opened to him higher and ever widening paths of excellence.

The glimpses of real feeling which the _Epodes_ allow us to gain are as a rule carefully excluded from the _Odes_. This is at first sight a matter for surprise. Our idea of a lyric poem is that of a warm and pa.s.sionate outpouring of the heart. Such are those of Burns; such are those of nearly all the writers who have gained the heart of modern times. In the grand style of dithyrambic song, indeed, the bard is rapt into an ideal world, and soars far beyond his subjective emotions or desires; but to this Pindaric inspiration Horace made no pretension. He was content to be an imitator of Alcaeus and Sappho, who had attuned to the lyre their own hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of their own chequered life. But in imitating their form he has altogether changed their spirit. Where they indulged feeling, he has controlled it; what they effect by intensity of colour, he attains by studied propriety of language. He desires not to enlist the world to sympathy with himself, but to put himself in sympathy with the world. Hence the many-sidedness, the culture, the broad human stand-point after which he ceaselessly strives. If depth must be sacrificed to attain this, he is ready to sacrifice it. He finds a field wide enough in the network of aims, interest, and feelings, which give society its hold on us, and us our union with society. And he feels that the writer who shall make his poem speak with a living voice to the largest number of these, will meet with most earnest heed, and be doing best the poet's true work. At the same time we must not forget that Horace's public was not our public. The unwieldy ma.s.s of labouring millions, shaken to its depths by questionings of momentous interest, cannot be drawn to listen except by an emotion vast as its own; but the society for whom Horace wrote was h.o.m.ogeneous in tone, limited in number, cultivated in intellect, and deeply absorbed in a race of ambition, some of whose prizes, at least, each might hope to win. He was, has been, and intended himself to be, the poet of men of the world.

Among such men at all times, and to an immeasurably greater extent in antiquity than now, staunch friends.h.i.+p has been considered one of the chief of virtues. Whatever were Horace's relations to the other s.e.x, no man whom he had once called a friend had any cause to complain. Admirable indeed in their frankness, their constancy, their sterling independence, are the friends.h.i.+ps it has delighted him to record. From the devoted, almost pa.s.sionate tribute to Maecenas--

"Ibimus ibimus Uteunque praecedes supremum Carpere iter comites parati,"

to the raillery so gracefully flung at an Iccius or Xanthias, for whom yet one discerns the kindest and tenderest feeling, these memorials of Roman intercourse place both giver and receiver in a truly amiable light. We can understand Augustus's regret that he had not been honoured with a regard of which he well knew the value. For the poet was rich who could dispense gifts like these.

Interspersed with the love-odes, addresses to friends and _pieces de circonstance_, we observe, even in the earlier books, lyrics of a more serious cast. Some are moral and contemplative, as the grand ode to Fortune [45] and that beginning

"Non ebur neque aureum Mea renidet in domo lacunar." [46]

Others are patriotic or political, as the second, twelfth, and thirty- seventh of Book I. (the last celebrating the downfall of Cleopatra), and the fifteenth of Book II. which bewails the increase of luxury. In these Horace is rising to the truly Roman conception that poetry, like other forces, should be consecrated to the service of the state. And now that he could see the inevitable tendency of things, could gauge the emperor's policy and find it really advantageous, he arose, no longer as a half- unwilling witness, but as a zealous co-operator to second political by moral power. The first six and the twenty-fourth Odes of the third book show us Horace not indeed at his best as a poet, but at his highest as a writer. They exhibit a more sustained manliness of tone than is perhaps to be found in any pa.s.sages of equal length from any other author. Heathen ethics have no n.o.bler portrait than that of the just man tenacious of his purpose, with which the third ode begins; and Roman patriotism no grander witness than the heart-stirring narrative of Regulus going forth to Carthage to meet his doom. Whether or not the third ode was written to dissuade Augustus from his rumoured project of transferring the seat of empire from Rome to Troy, it expresses most strongly the firm conviction of those best worth consulting, and, if the emperor really was in doubt, must, in conjunction with Virgil's emphatic repet.i.tion of the same sentiment, [47] have effectually turned him from his purpose. For these odes carried great authority. In them the poet appears as the authorised voice of the state, dispensing _verba et voces_ [48] "the charm of poesy"

to allay the moral pestilence that is devouring the people.

No one can read the odes without being struck with certain features wherein they differ from his other works. One of these is his constant employment of the Olympian mythology. Whatever view we may hold as to their appearance in the _Aeneid_, there can he no doubt that in the _Odes_ these deities have a purely fict.i.tious character. With the single exception of Jupiter, the eternal Father, without second or equal even among the Olympian choir, [49] whom he is careful not to name, none of his allusions imply, but on the contrary implicitly disown, any belief in their existence. In the satires and epistles he never employs this conventional ornament. The same thing is true of his language to Augustus.

a.s.suming the poet's license, he depicts him as the son of Maia, [50] the scion of kindly deities, [51] and a living denizen of the ethereal mansions. [52] But in the epistles he throws off this adulatory tone, and accosts the Caesar in a way befitting their mutual relations; for in declaring that altars are raised to him and men swear by his name, [53] he is not using flattery, but stating a fact. Another point of difference is his fondness in the Odes for commonplaces, _e.g._ the degeneracy of the age, [54] the necessity of enjoying the moment, [55] which he enforces with every variety of ill.u.s.tration. Neither of these was the result of genuine conviction. On the former he gives us his real view (a very n.o.ble and rational one) in the third Satire of the first book, [56] and in the _Ars Poetica_, as different as possible from the desponding pessimism of ode and epode. And the Epicurean maxims which in them he offers as the sum of wisdom, are in his _Epistles_ exchanged for their direct opposites: [56]

"Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum, Sperne voluptates; nocet empta dolore voluptas."

It is clear then that in the _Odes_, for the most part, he is an artist not a preacher. We must not look to them for his deepest sentiments, but for such, and such only, as admitted an effective lyric treatment.

As regards their form, we observe that they are moulded strictly upon the Greek, some of those on lighter themes being translations or close imitations. But in naturalising the Greek metres, he has accommodated them with the rarest skill to the harmonies of the Latin tongue. The Virgilian movement differs not more from the Homeric, than does the Horatian sapphic or alcaic from the same metres as treated by their Greek inventors. The success of Horace may be judged by comparing his stanzas with the sapphics of Catullus on the one hand, and the alcaics of Statius on the other. The former struggle under the complicated shackles of Greek prosody; the latter move on the stilts of school-boy imitation. In language he is singularly choice without being a purist; agreeably to their naturalised character he has interspersed the odes with Greek constructions, some highly elegant, others a little forced and bordering upon experiments on language. [57] The poetry of his language consists not so much in its being imaginative, as in its employing the fittest words in the fittest places. Its general level is that of the best epistolary or oratorical compositions, according to the elevation of the subject. He loves not to soar into the empyrean, but often checks Pegasus by a strong curb, or by a touch of irony or an incongruous allusion prevents himself or his reader being carried away. [58] This mingling of irony and earnest is thoroughly characteristic of his genius. To men of realistic minds it forms one of the greatest of its charms.

Among the varied excellences of these gems of poetry, we shall select three, as those after which Horace most evidently sought. They are brevity, ease, life. In the first he is perhaps unequalled. It is not only that what he says is terse; in what he omits we recognise the master hand.

He knows precisely what to dwell on, what to hint at, what to pa.s.s by. He is on the best understanding with his reader. He knows the reader is a busy man, and he says--"Read me! and, however you may judge my work, you shall at least not be bored." We recollect no instance in which Horace is prolix; none in which he can be called obscure; though there are many pa.s.sages that require weighing, and many abrupt transitions that somewhat task thought. In condensed simplicity he is the first of Latin poets. Who that has once heard can forget such phrases as _Nil desperandum, splendide mendax, non omnis moriar, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_, and a hundred others? His brevity is equalled by his ease. By this must not be understood either spontaneity of invention or rapidity of execution. We know that he was a slow, nay, a laborious workman.[59] But he has the _ars celare artem_. What can be more natural than the transition from the praises of young Nero to Hannibal's fine lament? [60] from those of Augustus to the speech of Juno? [61] Yet these are effected with the most subtle skill. And even when the digression appears more forced, as in the well-known instances of Europa [62] and the Danaides, [63] the incongruity is at once removed by supposing that the legend in each case forms the main subject of the poem, and that the occasional introductions are a characteristic form of preamble, perhaps reflected from Pindar. And once more as to his liveliness. This is the highest excellence of the _Odes_.

It never flags. If the poet does not rise to an exalted inspiration, he at least never sinks into heaviness, never loses life. To cite but one ode, in an artistic point of view, perhaps, the jewel of the whole collection-- the dialogue between the poet and Lydia; [64] here is an entire comedy played in twenty-four lines, in which the dialogue never becomes insipid, the action never flags. Like all his love odes it is barren of deep feeling, for which reason, perhaps, they have been compared to scentless flowers. But the comparison is most unjust. Aroma, _bouquet:_ this is precisely what they do _not_ lack. Some other metaphor must be sought to embody the deficiency. At the same time the want is a real one; and exquisite as are the _Odes_, no one knew better than their author himself that they have no power to pierce the heart, or to waken those troubled musings which in their blending of pain and pleasure elevate into something that it was not before, the whole being of him that reads them.

The _Satires_ and _Epistles_ differ somewhat in form, in elaboration, and in metrical treatment, but on the whole they have sufficient resemblance to be considered together. The Horatian satire is _sui generis_. In the familiar modern sense it is not satire at all. The censorious spirit that finds nothing to praise, everything to ridicule, is quite alien to Horace.

Neither Persius nor Juvenal, Boileau nor Pope, bears any real resemblance to him. The two former were satirists in the modern sense; the two latter have caught what we may call the _town_ side of Horace, but they are accomplished epigrammatists and rhetoricians, which he is not, and they entirely lack his strong love for the simple and the rural. Horace is decidedly the least rhetorical of all Roman poets. His taste is as free from the contamination of the basilica [65] as it is from that of Alexandrinism. As in lyric poetry he went straight to the fountain-head, seeking models among the bards of old Greece, so in his _prose-poetry_, as he calls the _Satires_, [66] he draws from the well of real experience, departing from it neither to the right hand nor to the left. This is what gives his works their lasting value. They are all gold; in other words, they have been dug for. Refined gold all certainly are not, many of them are strikingly the reverse; for all sorts of subjects are treated by them, bad as well as good. The poet professes to have no settled plan, but to wander from subject to subject, as the humour or the train of thought leads him; as Plato says--

_opae an o logos agoi, tautae iteon_.

Without the slightest pretence of authority or the right to dictate, he contrives to supply us with an infinite number of sound and healthy moral lessons, to reason with us so genially and with so frank an admission of his own equal frailty, that it is impossible to be angry with him, impossible not to love the gentle instructor. He has been accused of tolerance towards vice. That is, we think, a great error. Horace knew men too well to be severe; his is no trumpet-call, but a still small voice, which pleads but does not accuse. He was no doubt in his youth a lax liver; [67] he had adopted the Epicurean creed and the loose conduct that follows it. But he was struggling towards a purer ideal. Even in the _Satires_ he is only half an Epicurean; in the _Epistles_ he is not one at all: and in proportion as he has outlived the hot blood of youth, his voice becomes clearer and his faith in virtue stronger. The _Epistles_ are to a great extent reflective; he has examined his own heart, and depicts his musings for our benefit. Many of them are moral essays filled with precepts of wisdom, the more precious as having been genuinely thought out by the writer for himself. Less dramatic, less vigorous, perhaps, than the _Satires_, they embody in choicest language the maturest results of his reflection. Their poetical merits are higher, their diction more chaste, their metre more melodious. With the _Georgics_ they are ranked as the most perfect examples of the modulation of hexameter verse. Their movement is rippling rather than flowing, and satisfies the mind rather than the ear, but it is a delicious movement, full of suggestive grace. The diction, though cla.s.sical, admits occasional colloquialisms. [68]

Several of the _Satires_, [69] and the three Epistles which form the second book, are devoted to literary criticism, and these have always been regarded as among the most interesting of Horace's compositions. His opinions on previous and contemporary poetry are given with emphasis, and as a rule ran counter to the opinion of his day. The technical dexterity in versification which had resulted from the feverish activity of the last forty years, had produced a disastrous consequence. All the world was seized with the mania for writing poetry:

"Scribimus indocti doctique poemata pa.s.sim."

The young Pisos were among the number. To them the poet gave this friendly counsel, to lock up their creations for nine years, and then publish, or as we may shrewdly suspect he meant--destroy them. Poetry is the one thing that, if it is to be done at all, must be done well:

"Mediocribus esse poetis Non di, non homines, non concessere columnae."

In Horace's opinion none of the old poetry came up to this standard. When he quotes two lines of Ennius [70] as defying all efforts to make prose of them, we cannot help fancying he is indulging his ironical vein. He never speaks seriously of Ennius. In fact he thoroughly disliked the array of "old masters" that were at once confronted with him whenever he expressed a predilection. It was not only the populace who yawned over Accius's tragedies, or the critics who lauded the style of the Salian hymn, that moved his resentment. These he could afford to despise. It was rather the antiquarian prepossessions of such men as Virgil, Maecenas, and Augustus, that caused him so earnestly to combat the love of all that was old. In his zeal there is no doubt he has outrun justice. He had no sympathy for the untamed vigour of those rough but spirited writers; his fastidious taste could make no allowance for the circ.u.mstances against which they had to contend. To reply that the excessive admiration lavished by the mult.i.tude demanded an equally sweeping condemnation, is not to excuse Horace. One who wrote so cautiously would never have used exaggeration to enforce his words. The disparaging remarks must be regarded as expressing his real opinion, and we are not concerned to defend it.

His att.i.tude towards the age immediately preceding his own is even less worthy of him. He never mentions Lucretius, though one or two allusions [71] show that he knew and was indebted to his writings; he refers to Catullus only once, and then in evident depreciation, [72] mentioning him and Calvus as the sole literature of a second-rate singer, whom he calls the ape of Hermogenes Tigellius. Moreover his boast that he was the first to introduce the Archilochian iambic [73] and the lyric metres, [74]

though perhaps justifiable; is the reverse of generous, seeing that Catullus had treated before him three at least of the metres to which he alludes. Mr. Munro's a.s.sertion as to there being indications that the school of Lucretius and Catullus would have necessarily come into collision with that of the Augustan poets, had the former survived to their time, is supported by Horace's att.i.tude. Virgil and Tibullus would have found many points of union, so probably would Gallus; but Horace, Propertius, and Ovid, would certainly have been antagonistic. It is unfortunate that the canons laid down by Horace found no followers. While Virgil had his imitators from the first, and Tibullus and Propertius served as models to young aspirants, Horace, strangely enough, found no disciples. Persius in a later age studied him with care, and tried to reproduce his style, but with such a signal want of success that in every pa.s.sage where he imitates, he caricatures his master. He has, however, left us an appreciative and beautiful criticism on the Horatian method.

[75]

It has often been supposed that the _Ars Poetica_ was writen in the hope of regenerating the drama. This theory is based partly on the length at which dramatic subjects are treated, partly on the high pre-eminence which the critic a.s.signs to that cla.s.s of poetry. But he can hardly have so far deceived himself as to believe that any efforts of his could restore the popular interest in the legitimate drama which had now sunk to the lowest ebb. It should rather be considered as a deliberate expression of his views upon many important subjects connected with literary studies, written primarily for the young Pisos, but meant for the world at large, and not intended for an exhortation (_adhortatio_) so much as a treatise.

Its admirable precepts have been approved by every age: and there is probably no composition in the world to which so few exceptions have been taken.

Here we leave Horace, and conclude the chapter with a very short account of some of his friends who devoted themselves to poetry. The first is C.

VALGIUS RUFUS, who was consul in the year 12 B.C. and to whom the ninth Ode of the second book is addressed. Whether from his high position or from his genuine poetical promise, we find great expectations held regarding him. Tibullus (or rather, the author of the poem ascribed to him) [76] says that no other poet came nearer to Homer's genius, and Horace by asking him to celebrate the new trophies of Augustus implies that he cultivated an epic strain. [77] Besides loftier themes he treated erotic subjects in elegiac verse, translated the rhetoric of Apollodorus, [78] and wrote letters on grammar, probably in the form afterwards adopted by Seneca's moral epistles. ARISTIUS FUSCUS to whom the twenty-second Ode of the first book and the tenth Epistle are addressed, was a writer of some pretensions. It is not certain what line he followed, but in all probability the drama. He was an intimate acquaintance of Horace, and, it will be remembered, delivered him from the intrusive acquaintance on the Via Sacra. [79] FUNDANIUS, who is twice mentioned by Horace, and once in very complimentary terms as the best comic poet of the day, [80] has not been fortunate enough to find any biographer. t.i.tUS, one of the younger men to whom so many of the epistles are addressed, was a very ambitious poet. He attempted Pindaric flights from which the genius of Horace shrank, and apparently he cultivated tragedy, but in a pompous and ranting manner. [81] ICCIUS, who is referred to in the ninth Ode of Book I., and in the twelfth Epistle, as a philosopher, may have written poems. JULIUS FLORUS, to whom two beautiful epistles (I. iii. II. ii.) are addressed, is rallied by Horace on his tendency to write love-poems, but apparently his efforts came to nothing. CELSUS ALBINOVa.n.u.s was, like Florus, a friend of Tiberius, to whom he acted as private secretary for some time; [82] he was given to pilfering ideas and Horace deals him a salutary caution:--

"Monitus multumque monendus Privatas ut quaerat opes, et tangere vitet Scripta Palatinus quaecunque recepit Apollo." [83]

The last of these friends we shall notice is JULUS ANTONIUS [84] a son of the triumvir, who, according to Acron, [85] wrote twelve excellent books in epic metre on the legends of Diomed, a work obviously modelled on those of Euphorion, whose fourteen books of _Heracleia_ were extremely popular; in a later age Statius attempted a similar task in essaying the history of Achilles. The ode addressed to him by Horace seems to hint at a foolish ambition to imitate Pindar. Besides these lesser known authors Horace knew, though he does not mention, the poets Ovid and Domitius Marsus; probably also Propertius. With Tibullus he was long on terms of friends.h.i.+p, and one epistle and one ode [86] are addressed to him. His gentle nature endeared him to Horace, as his graceful poetry drew forth his commendation.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ELEGIAC POETS--GRATIUS--MANILIUS.

The short artificial elegy of Callimachus and Philetas had, as we have seen, found an imitator in Catullus. But that poet, when he addressed to Lesbia the language of true pa.s.sion, wrote for the most part in lyric verse. The Augustan age furnishes a series of brilliant poets who united the artificial elegiac with the expression of real feeling; and one of them, Ovid, has by his exquisite formal polish raised the Latin elegiac couplet to a popularity unparalleled in imitative literature. The metre had at first been adapted to short epigrams modelled on the Greek, _e.g._, triumphal inscriptions, epitaphs, _jeux d'esprit_, &c., several examples of which have been quoted in these pages. Catullus and his contemporaries first treated it at greater length, and paved the way for the highly specialised form in which it appears in Tibullus, the earliest Augustan author that has come down to us.

There are indications that Roman elegy, like heroic verse, had two separate tendencies. There was the comparatively simple continuous treatment of the metre seen in Catullus and Virgil, who are content to follow the Greek rhythm, and there was the more rhetorical and pointed style first beginning to appear in Tibullus, carried a step further in Propertius, and culminating in the epigrammatic couplet of Ovid. This last is a peculiarly Latin development, unsuited to the Greek, and too elaborately artificial to be the vehicle for the highest poetry, but, when treated by one who is master of his method, admitting of a facility, fluency, and incomparable elegance, which perhaps no other rhythm combines in an equal degree. In almost all its features it may be ill.u.s.trated by the heroic couplet of Pope. The elegiac line is in the strictest sense a pendant to the hexameter; only rarely does it introduce a new element of thought, and perhaps never a new commencement in narration. It is for the most part an iteration, variation, enlargement, condensation or ant.i.thesis of the idea embodied in its predecessor. In the most highly finished of Ovid's compositions this structure is carried to such a point that the syntax is rarely altogether continuous throughout the couplet; there is generally a break either natural or rhetorical at the conclusion of the hexameter or within the first few syllables of the pentameter. [1] The _rhetorical_ as distinct from the _natural_ period, which appears, though veiled with great skill, in the Virgilian hexameter, is in Ovid's verse made the key to the whole rhythmical structure, and by its restriction within the _minimum_ s.p.a.ce of two lines offers a tempting field to the various tricks of composition, the turn, the point, the climax, &c. in all of which Ovid, as the typical elegist, luxuriates, though he applies such elegant manipulation as rarely to over-stimulate and scarcely ever to offend the reader's attention. The criticism that such a system cannot fail to awaken is that of want of variety; and in spite of the diverse modes of producing effect which these accomplished writers, and above all Ovid, well knew how to use, one cannot read them long without a sense of monotony, which never attends on the far less ambitious elegies of Catullus, and probably would have been equally absent from those of CORNELIUS GALLUS.

This ill-starred poet, whose life is the subject of Bekker's admirable sketch, was born at Forum Julii (Frejus) 69 B.C., and is celebrated as the friend of Virgil's youth. Full of ambition and endowed with talent to command or conciliate, he speedily rose in Augustus's service, and was the first to introduce Virgil to his notice. For a time all prospered; he was appointed the first prefect of Egypt, then recently annexed as a province, but his haughtiness and success had made him many enemies; he was accused of treasonable conversation, and interdicted the palace of the emperor. To avoid further disgrace he committed suicide, in the 43d year of his age (27 B.C.). His poetry was entirely taken from Alexandria; he translated Euphorion and wrote four books of love-elegies to Cytheris. Whether she is the same as the Lycoris mentioned by Virgil, [2] whose faithlessness he bewails, we cannot tell. No fragments of his remain, [3] but the pa.s.sionate nature of the man, and the epithet _durior_ applied to his verse by Quintilian, makes it probable that he followed the older and more vigorous style of elegiac writing. [4]

Somewhat junior to him was DOMITIUS MARSUS who followed in the same track.

He was a member of the circle of Maecenas, though, strangely enough, never mentioned by Horace, and exercised his varied talents in epic poetry, in which he met with no great success, for Martial says [5]--

"Saepius in libro memoratur Persius uno Quam levis in toto Marsus Amazonide."