The History of Roman Literature Part 33

As yet, Tacitus's manner is only half-formed. He must have acquired by painful labour that wonderful suggestive brevity which in the _Annals_ reaches its culmination, and is of all styles the world of letters has ever seen, the most compressed and full of meaning. The _Germania_, however, in certain portions [51] approximates to it, and in other ways shows a slight increase of maturity over the biography of Agricola. His object in writing this treatise has been much contested. Some think it was in order to dissuade Trajan from a projected expedition that he painted the German people as foes so formidable; others that it is a satire on the vices of Rome couched under the guise of an innocent ethnographic treatise; others that it is inspired by the genuine scientific desire to investigate the many objects of historic and natural interest with which a vast and almost unknown territory abounded. But none of these motives supplies a satisfactory explanation. The first can hardly be maintained owing to historical difficulties; the second, though an object congenial to the Roman mind, is not lofty enough to have moved the pen of Tacitus; the third, though it may have had some weight with him, would argue a state of scientific curiosity in advance of Tacitus's position and age, and besides is incompatible with his culpable laziness in sifting information on matters of even still greater ethnographic interest. [52]

The true motive was no doubt his fear lest the continual a.s.saults of these tribes should prove a permanent and insurmountable danger to Rome. Having in all probability been himself employed in Germany, Tacitus had seen with dismay of what stuff the nation was made, and had foreseen what the defeat of Varus might have remotely suggested, that some day the degenerate Romans would be no match for these hardy and virtuous tribes. Thus, the design of the work was purely and pre-eminently patriotic; nor is any other purpose worthy of the great historian, patrician, patriot, and soldier that he was. At the same time subsidiary motives are not excluded; we may well believe that the gall of satire kindles his eloquence, and that the insatiable desire of knowledge stimulates his research while inquiring into the less accessible details of the German polity. The work is divided into two parts. The first gives an account of the situation, climate, soil, and inhabitants of the country; it investigates the etymology of several German names of men and G.o.ds, describes the national customs, religion, laws, amus.e.m.e.nts, and especially celebrates the people's moral strictness; but at the same time not without contrasting them unfavourably with Rome whenever the advantage is on her side. The second part contains a catalogue of the different tribes, with the geographical limits, salient characteristics, and a short historical account of each, whenever accessible.

Next come the _Histories_, which are a narrative of the reigns of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, t.i.tus, and Domitian, written under Trajan.

This work, of which we possess only four entire books, with part of the fifth, consisted originally of fourteen books, and was the most authentic and complete of all his writings. The loss of the last nine and a half books must be considered irreparable. In the _Germania_ he had shown the power of that liberty which the barbarians enjoyed, had indicated their polity, in which, even then the germs of feudalism, chivalry, the wors.h.i.+p of the s.e.x, troubadour minstrelsy, fairy mythology, and, above all, representative government, existed. In the _Historiae_ he paints with tremendous power the disorganisation, of the Roman state, the military anarchy which made the diadem the gift of a brutal soldiery, and revealed the startling truth that an emperor could be created elsewhere than at Rome.

At this period his style still retains some traces of its former copious flow; it has not yet been pressed tight into the short _sententiae_, which were its final and most characteristic development, and which in the _Annals_ dominate to the exclusion of every other style.

The _Annals, ab excessu divi Augusti_, in sixteen books, treated the history of the Empire until the extinction of the Claudian dynasty. They contain two separate threads of history, one internal, the other external.

The latter is important and interesting; but the former is both in an immeasurably greater degree. It has been likened to a tragedy in two acts, the first terminating with the death of Tiberius, the second with the death of Nero. Tacitus in this work shows his personal sympathies more strongly than in any of the others. He appears as a Roman of the old school, but still more, as an oligarchical partisan. Not that he indulged in chimerical plans for restoring the Republic. That he saw was impossible; nor had he much sympathy with those who strove for it. But his resignation to the Empire as an unavoidable evil does not inspire him with contentment. His blood boils with indignation at the steady repression of the liberty of action of the old families, which the instincts of imperialism forced upon the monarchs from the very beginning; nor do the general security of life and property, the bettered condition of the provinces, and the long peace that had allowed the internal resources of the empire to be developed, make amends for what he considers the iniquitous tyranny practised upon the higher orders of the state. Thus he writes under a strong sense of injustice, which reaches its culmination in treating of the earlier reigns. But this does not provoke him into intemperate language, far less into misrepresentation of fact; if he disdained to complain, he disdained still more to falsify. But he cannot help insinuating; and his insinuations are of such searching power that, once suggested, they grasp hold of the mind, and will not be shaken off.

Of all Latin authors none has so much power over the reader as Tacitus. If by eloquence is meant the ability to persuade, then he is the most eloquent historian that ever existed. To doubt his judgment is almost to be false to the conscience of history. Nevertheless, his saturnine portraits have been severely criticised both by English and French historians, and the arguments for the defence put forward with enthusiasm as well as force. The result is, that Tacitus's verdict has been shaken, but not reversed. The surpa.s.sing vividness of such characters as his Tiberius and Nero forbids us to doubt their substantial reality. But once his prepossessions are known and discounted, the student of his works can give a freer attention to the countervailing facts, which Tacitus is too honourable to hide.

After long wavering between the two styles, he adopted the brilliant one fas.h.i.+onable in his time, but he has glorified it in adopting it. Periods such as those of Pliny would be frigid in him. He still retains some traces (though they are few) of the rhetorician. In an interesting pa.s.sage he complains of the comparative poverty of his subject as contrasted with that of Livy: "Ingentia illi bella, expugnationes urbium, fusos captosque reges libero egressu memorabant; n.o.bis in arcto et inglorius labor. Immota quippe aut modice lacessita pax maestae urbis res et princeps proferendi imperii incuriosus;"--[53] but he certainly had no cause to complain. The sombre annals of the Empire were not less amenable to a powerful dramatic treatment than the vigorous and aggressive youth of the Republic had been.

Nor does the story of guilt and horror depicted in the _Annals_ fall below even the finest scenes of Livy; in intensity of interest it rather exceeds them.

Tacitus intended to have completed his labours by a history of Augustus's reign, which, however, he did not live to write. This is a great misfortune. But he has left us his opinion on the character and policy of Augustus in the first few chapters of the _Annals_, and a very valuable opinion it is. What makes the historian more bitter in the _Annals_ than elsewhere, is the feeling that it was the early emperors who inaugurated the evil policy which their successors could hardly help themselves in carrying out. When the failure of Piso's conspiracy destroyed the last hopes of the aristocracy, it was hardly possible to retain for the later emperors the same intense hatred that had been felt for those whose tyranny fostered, and then remorselessly crushed, the resistance of the patrician party. The _Annals_, therefore, though the most concentrated, powerful, and dramatic of Tacitus's works, hardly rank quite so high in a purely historical point of view as the _Histories_; as Merivale has said, _they are all satire_.

At the same time, his facts are quite trustworthy. We know from Pliny's letters that he took great pains to get at the most authentic sources, and beyond doubt he was well qualified to judge in cases of conflicting evidence. These diverse excellences, in the opinion of Niebuhr and Arnold, place him indisputably at the head of the Roman historians. We cannot better close this account than in the eloquent words of a French writer: [54] "In Tacitus subjectivity predominates; the anger and pity which in turn never cease to move him, give to his style an expressiveness, a rich glow of sentiment, of which antiquity affords no other example. This constant union between the dramatic and pathetic elements, together with the directness, energy, and reality of the language, must act with Irresistible force upon every reader. Tacitus is a poet; but a poet that has a spirit of his own. Was he as fully appreciated in his own day as he is in ours? We doubt it. The horrors, the degeneracy of his time, awake in his brooding soul the altogether modern idea of national expiation and national chastis.e.m.e.nt. The historian rises to the sublimity of the judge.

He summons the guilty to his tribunal, and it is in the name of the Future and of Posterity that he p.r.o.nounces the implacable and irreversible verdict."

The poetical and Greek constructions with which Tacitus's style abounds, the various artifices whereby he relieves the tedium of monotonous narrative, or attains brevity or variety, have been so often a.n.a.lysed in well-known grammatical treatises that it is unnecessary to do more than allude to them here.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE REIGNS OF HADRIAN AND THE ANTONINES (117-180 A.D.).

We now enter on a new and in some respects a very interesting era. From the influence exerted on the last period by the family of Seneca, we might call it the epoch of Spanish Latinity; from the similar influence now exerted by the African school, we might call the present the epoch of African Latinity. Its chief characteristic is ill-digested erudition.

Various circ.u.mstances combined to make a certain amount of knowledge general, and the growing cosmopolitan sentiment excited a strong interest in every kind of exotic learning. With increased diffusion depth was necessarily sacrificed. The emperor set the example of travel, which was eagerly followed by his subjects. Hence a large ma.s.s of information was acquired, which injuriously affected those who possessed it. They appear, as it were, crushed by its weight, and become learned triflers or uninteresting pedants. By far the most considerable writer of this period was Suetonius, but then he had been trained in the school of Pliny, of whom for several years he was an intimate friend. Hadrian himself (76-138 A.D.), among his many other accomplishments, gave some attention to letters. Speeches, treatises of various kinds, anecdotes, and a collection of oracles, are ascribed to his pen. Also certain epigrams which we still possess, and chiefly that exquisite address to his soul, composed on his death-bed: [1]

"Animala vagula blandula Hospes comesque corporis Quae nunc abibis in loca, Pallidula rigida nudula?

Nec ut soles dabis iocos."

Hadrian was also a patron of letters, though an inconstant one. His vanity led him to wish to have distinguished writers about him, but it also led him to wish to be ranked as himself the most distinguished. His own taste was good; he appreciated and copied the style of the republican age; but he encouraged the pedantic Fronto, whose taste was corrupt and ruinously influential. So that while with one hand he benefited literature, with the other he injured it.

The birth year of C. SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS is uncertain, but may be a.s.signed with probability to 75 A.D. [2] We may here remark the extraordinary reticence of the later writers on the subject of their younger days. Seneca alone is communicative. All the rest show an oblivion or indifference most unlike the genial communicativeness of Cicero, Horace, and Ovid. His father was one Suetonius Lenis, a military tribune and wearer of the angusticlave. Muretus, however, desirous to give him a more ill.u.s.trious origin, declares that his father was the Suetonius Paulinus mentioned by Tacitus. We learn a good deal of his younger days from the letters of Pliny, and can infer something of his character also.

In conformity with what we know from other sources of the tendencies of the age, we find that he was given to superst.i.tion. [3] At this time (_i.e._ under Trajan) Suetonius wavered between a literary and a political career. Pliny was able and willing to help him in the latter, and got him appointed to the office of tribune (102 A.D.). [4] Some years later (112 A.D.), he procured for him the _jus trium liberorum_, though Suetonius was childless. We see that Augustus's excellent inst.i.tutions had already turned into an abuse. The means for keeping up the population had become a compensation for domestic unhappiness. [5] Suetonius practised for some years at the bar, and seems to have ama.s.sed a considerable fortune. We find him begging Pliny to negotiate for him for the purchase of an estate.

[6] Shortly after this he was promoted to be Hadrian's secretary, which gave him an excellent opportunity of enriching his stores of knowledge from the imperial library. Of this opportunity he made excellent use, and after his disgrace, owing, it is said, to too great familiarity with, the empress (119 A.D.), he devoted his entire time to those multifarious and learned works, which gave him the position of the Varro of the imperial period. His life was prolonged for many years, probably until 160 A.D. [7]

The writings of Suetonius were encyclopaedic. Following the culture of his day, he seems to have written partly in Greek, partly in Latin. This had been also the practice of Cicero, and of many of the greatest republican authors. The difference between them lies, not in the fact that Suetonius's Greek was better, but that his Latin is less good. Instead of a national it is fast becoming a cosmopolitan dialect. Still Suetonius tried to form his taste on older and purer models, and is far removed from the denationalised school of Fronto and Apuleius.

The t.i.tles of his works are a little obscure. Both, following Suidas, gives the following. (1) _peri ton par Ellaesi paidion Biblion_, a book of games. This is quoted or paraphrased by Tzetzes, [8] and several excerpts from it are preserved in Eustathius. It was no doubt written in Greek, but perhaps in Latin also. (2) _peri ton para Romaiois theorion kai agonon biblia g_, an account in three books of the Roman spectacles and games, of which an interesting fragment on the Troia ludus is preserved by Tertullian. [9] (3) _peri tou kata Romaious eniautou biblion_, an archaeological investigation into the theory of the Roman year. (4) _peri ton en tois bibliois saemeion_, on the signification of rare words. (5) _peri taes Kikeronos politeias_, a justification of the conduct of Cicero, in opposition to some of his now numerous detractors, especially one Didymus, a conceited Alexandrine, called Chalcenterus, "the man of iron digestion," on account of his immense powers of work. (6) _peri onomaton kai ideas esthaematon kai upodaematon_, a treatise on the different names of shoes, coats, and other articles of dress. This may seem a trivial subject; but, after Carlyle, we can hardly deny its capability of throwing light on great matters. Besides, in ancient times dress had a religious origin, and in many cases a religious significance. And two pa.s.sages from the work preserved by Servius, [10] are important from this point of view.

(7) _peri dusphaemon lexeon aetoi blasphaemiom_, an inquiry into the origin and etymology of the various terms of abuse employed in conversation and literature. This was almost certainly written in Greek.

(8) _peri Romaes kai ton en autae nomimon kai aethon biblia b_, a succinct account of the chief Roman customs, of which only a short pa.s.sage on the Triumph has come down to us through Isidore. [11] (9) _Syngenikon Kaisaron_, [12] a biography of the twelve Caesars, divided into eight books. (10) _Stemma Romaion andron episaemon_, a gallery of ill.u.s.trious men, the plan of which was followed by Jerome in his history of the worthies of the church. But Suetonius's catalogue seems to have been confined to those eminent in literature, and to have treated only of poets, orators, historians, philosophers, grammarians, and rhetoricians.

Of this we possess considerable fragments, especially the account of the grammarians, and the lives of Terence, Horace, and Pliny. (11) _peri episaemon p.o.r.non_, an account of those courtesans who had become renowned through their wit, beauty, or genius. (12) _De Vitiis Corporalibus_, a list of bodily defects, written perhaps to supplement the medical works of Celsus and Scribonius Largus. (13) _De Inst.i.tutione Officiorum_, a manual of rank as fixed by law, and of social and court etiquette. This, did we possess it, would be highly interesting, and might throw light on many now obscure points. (14) _De Regibus_, in three books, containing short biographies of the most renowned monarchs in each of the three divisions of the globe, treated in his usual style of a string of facts coupled with a list of virtues and vices. (15) _De Rebus Variis_, a sort of _ana_, of which we can detect but few, and those insignificant, notices. (16) _Prata_, or miscellaneous subjects, in ten or perhaps twelve books, which work was greatly admired not only in the centuries immediately succeeding, but also throughout the Middle Ages. It is extremely probable, as Teuffel thinks, that many of the foregoing treatises may really have been simply portions of the _Prata_ cited under their separate names. The first eight books were confined to national antiquities and other similar points of interest; the rest were given to natural science and that sort of popular philosophy so much in vogue at the time, which finds a parallel between every fact of the physical universe and some phenomenon of the human body or mind. They were modelled on Varro's writings, which to a large extent they superseded, except for great writers like Augustine, who went back to the fountain head. [13] It is uncertain whether Suetonius treated history; but a work on the wars between Pompey and Caesar, Antony and Octavian, is indicated by some notices in Dio Ca.s.sius and Jerome. All these writings, however, are lost, and the sole work by which we can form an estimate of Suetonius's genius is his lives of the Caesars, which we fortunately possess almost entire.

Suetonius possessed in a high degree some of the most essential qualifications of a biographer. He was minute, laborious, and accurate in his investigation of facts; he neglected nothing, however trivial or even offensive, which he thought threw light upon the character or circ.u.mstances of those he described. And he is completely impartial; it would perhaps be more correct to say indifferent. His accounts have been well compared by a French writer to the _proces verbal_ of the law courts.

They are dry, systematic, and uncoloured by partisans.h.i.+p or pa.s.sion. Such statements are valuable in themselves, and particularly when read as a pendant to the history of Tacitus, which they often confirm, often correct, and always ill.u.s.trate. To take a single point; we see from Tacitus how it was that the emperors were so odious to the aristocracy; we see from Suetonius how it was that they became the idols of the people.

Many of the details are extremely disgusting, but this strong realism is a Roman characteristic, and adds to their value. To the higher attributes of a historian Suetonius has no pretension. He scarcely touches on the great historic events, and never ventures a comprehensive judgment; nor can he even take a wide survey of the characters he pourtrays. But he is a faithful collector of evidence on which the philosophic biographer may base his own judgment; and as he generally gives his sources, which are authentic in almost every case, we may use his statements with perfect confidence.

His style is coloured with rhetoric, and occasionally with poetic embellishment, but is otherwise terse and vigorous. The extreme curtness he cultivated often leads him into something bordering on obscurity. His habit of alluding to sources of information instead of being at the pains to describe them at length, while it adds to the neatness of his periods, detracts from its value to ourselves. He rises but rarely into eloquence, and still more rarely shows dramatic power. The best known of his descriptive scenes is the death of Julius Caesar, but that of Nero is almost more graphic. It may interest the reader to give a translation of it. [14] The scene is the palace, the time, the night before his death:--

"He thus put off deciding what to do till next day. But about midnight he awoke, and finding the guard gone, leapt out of bed, and sent round messages to his friends; but meeting with no response, he himself, accompanied by one or two persons, called at their houses in turn. But every door was shut, and no one answered his inquiries, so he returned to his chamber to find the guard had fled, carrying with them the entire furniture, and with the rest his box of poison. He at once asked for Spiculus the mirmillo or some other trained a.s.sa.s.sin to deal the fatal blow, but could get no one. This seemed to strike him; he cried out, 'Have I then neither friend nor enemy?' and ran forward as if intending to throw himself into the river. But checking his steps he begged for some better concealed hiding place where he might have time to collect his thoughts. The freedman Phaon offered his suburban villa, situate four miles distant, midway between the Salarian and Nomentane roads; so just as he was, bare-foot and clad in his tunic, he threw round him a faded cloak, and covering his head, and binding a napkin over his face, mounted a horse with four companions of whom Sporus was one. On starting he was terrified by a shock of earthquake and an adverse flash of lightning, and heard from the camp hard by the shouts of the soldiers predicting his ruin and Galba's triumph. A traveller, as they pa.s.sed, observed, 'Those men are pursuing Nero;'

another asked, 'Is there any news in town about Nero?' His horse took fright at the smell of a dead body which had been thrown into the road; in the confusion his disguise fell off, and a praetorian soldier recognised and saluted him. Arrived at the post-house, they left their horses, and struggled through a th.o.r.n.y copse by following a track in the sandy soil, but were obliged to put cloths under their feet as they walked. However, they arrived safely at the back wall of the villa. Phaon then suggested that they should hide in a cavern hard by, formed by a heap of sand. But Nero declaring that he would not be buried alive, they waited a little, till a chance should offer of entering the villa un.o.bserved. Seeing some water in a little pool, he scooped some up with his hand, and just before drinking said 'This is Nero's distilled water!' then, seeing how his cloak was torn by the brambles, he peeled off the thorns from the branches that crossed the path. Then crawling on all fours, he pa.s.sed through a narrow pa.s.sage out of the cavern into the nearest cellar, and there laid himself on a pallet made of old straw and furnished with anything but a comfortable pillow. Becoming both hungry and thirsty, he refused some musty bread that was offered him, but drank a little tepid water. To free himself from the constant shower of abuse that those who came to gaze poured on him, he ordered a pit to be made according to the measure of his body, and any bits of marble that lay by to be heaped together, and water and wood to be brought for the proper disposing of the corpse; weeping at each stage of the proceedings, and saying every now and then, 'Oh! what an artist the world is losing!' [15]

"While thus occupied a missive was brought to Phaon. Nero s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of his hand, and read that he had been decreed an enemy by the Senate, and was demanded for punishment 'according to the manner of our ancestors.' He asked what this meant. Being told that he would be stripped naked, his neck fixed in a pitchfork, and his back scourged until he was dead, he seized in his terror two daggers which he had brought with him, but after feeling their edge put them back into their sheaths, alleging that the fated hour had not yet come.

Sometimes he would ask Sporus to raise the funeral lamentation, then he would implore some one to set him an example of courage by dying first; sometimes he would chide his own irresoluteness by saying--'I am a base degenerate man to live! This does not beseem Nero! We must be steady on occasions like these--come, rouse yourself!' [16] Already the hors.e.m.e.n were seen approaching who had received orders to carry him off alive. Crying out in the words of Homer:

'The noise of swift-footed steeds strikes my ears,'

he drove the weapon into his throat with the help of his secretary Epaphroditus, and immediately fell back half-dead. The centurion now arrived, and, under the pretence of a.s.sisting him, put his cloak to the wound; Nero only replied, 'Too late!' and 'This is your loyalty!'

With these words he died, his eyes being quite glazed, and starting out in a manner horrible to witness. His continual and earnest pet.i.tion had been that no one should have possession of his head, but that come what would, he might be buried whole. This Talus, Galba's freedman, granted."

It will be seen that his narrative, though not lofty, is masterly, clear, and impressive.

Besides Suetonius we have a historian, though a minor one, in P. ANNIUS FLORUS, [17] who is now generally identified with the rhetorician and poet mentioned more than once by Pliny, and author of a dialogue, "_Vergilius Orator an Poeta_," and some lines _De Rosis_ and _De Qualitate Vitae_.

[18] Little is known of his life, except that he was a youth in the time of Domitian, was vanquished at the Capitoline contest through unjust partiality, and settled at Tarraco as a professional rhetorician. Under Hadrian he returned to Rome, and probably did not survive his reign. The epitome of Livy's history, or rather the wars of it, from the foundation of Rome to the era of Augustus, in two short books, is a pretentious and smartly written work. But it shows no independent investigation, and no power of impartial judgment. Its views of the const.i.tution [19] are even more superficial than those of Livy. The first book ends with the Gracchi, after whom, according to the author, the decline began. The frequent moral declamations were greatly to the taste of the Middle Ages, and throughout them Florus was a favourite. Abridgments were now the fas.h.i.+on; perhaps that of Pompeius Trogus by JUSTINUS belongs to this reign. [20] Many historians wrote in Greek.

Jurisprudence was also actively cultivated. We have the two great names of SALVIUS JULIa.n.u.s and s.e.x. POMPONIUS, both of whom continued to write under the Antonines. They were nearly of an age. Pomponius, we infer from his own words, [22] was born somewhere about 84 A.D., and as he lived to a great age, it is probable that he survived his brother jurist. Both enjoyed for several centuries a high and deserved reputation. The rise of philosophical jurisprudence coincides with the decline of all other literature. It must be considered to belong to science rather than letters, and is far too wide a subject to be more than merely noticed here, Both these authors wrote a digest, as well as numerous other works.

The best-known popular treatise of Pomponius was his _Enchiridion_, or Manual of the Law of Nations, containing a sketch of the history of Roman law and jurisprudence until the time of Julian. [23]

The study of grammar and rhetoric was pursued with much industry, but by persons of inferior mark. ANTONIUS JULIa.n.u.s, a Spaniard, some account of whom is given by Gellius, [24] kept up the older style as against the new African fas.h.i.+on. His declamations have perished; but those of CALPURNIUS FLACCUS still remain. The chief rhetoricians seem to have confined themselves to declaiming in Greek. The celebrated Favorinus, at once philosopher, rhetorician, and minute grammarian, was one of the most popular. TERENTIUS SCAURUS wrote a book on Latin grammar, and commentaries on Plautus and Virgil. We have his treatise _De Orthographia_, which contains many rare ancient forms. His evident desire to be brief has caused some obscurity. The author formed his language on the older models; like Suetonius, following Pliny, and through him, the cla.s.sical period.

Philosophers abounded in this age, and one at least, Plutarch, has attained the highest renown. As he, in common with all the rest, wrote in Greek, no more will be said about them here.

A medical writer of some note, whose two works on acute (_celeres pa.s.siones_) and chronic (_tardae_) diseases have reached us, is CAELIUS AURELIa.n.u.s. His exact date is not known. But as he never alludes to Galen, it is probable be lived before him. He was born at Sicca in Numidia, and chiefly followed Sora.n.u.s.

The reigns of Antoninus Pius and his son, the saintly M. Aurelius, covered a s.p.a.ce of forty-two years, during which good government and consistent patronage did all they could for letters. But though the emperor could give the tone to such literature as existed, he could not revive the old force and spirit, which were gone for ever. The Romans now showed all the signs of a decaying people. The loss of serious interest in anything, even in pleasure, argues a reduced mental calibre; and the subst.i.tution of minute learning for original thought always marks an irrecoverable decadence. The chief writer during the earlier part of this period is M.

CORNELIUS FRONTO (90-168 A.D.), a native of Cirta, in Numidia, who had been held under Hadrian to be the first pleader of the day; and now rose to even greater influence from being intrusted with the education of the two young Caesars, M. Aurelius and L. Verus. Fronto suffered acutely from the gout, and the tender solicitude displayed by Aurelius for his preceptor's ailments is pleasant to see, though the tone of condolence is sometimes a little mawkish. Fronto was a thorough pedant, and of corrupt taste. He had all the clumsy affectation of his school. Aurelius adopted his teacher's love of archaisms with such zest that even Fronto was obliged to advise a more popular style. When Aurelius left off rhetoric for the serious study of philosophy, Fronto tried his best to dissuade him from such apostasy. In his eyes eloquence, as he understood it, was the only pursuit worthy of a great man. In later life Aurelius arrived at better canons of judgment; in his _Meditations_ he praises Fronto's goodness, [25] but says not a word about his eloquence. His contemporaries were less reserved. They extolled him to the skies, and made him their oracle of all wisdom. Eumenius [26] says, "he is the second and equal glory of Roman eloquence;" and Macrobius [27] says, "There are four styles of speech; the copious, of which Cicero is chief; the terse, in which Sall.u.s.t holds sway; the dry, [28] which is a.s.signed to Fronto; the florid, in which Pliny luxuriates." With testimonies like these before them, and the knowledge that he had been raised to the consuls.h.i.+p (143) and to the confidential friends.h.i.+p of two emperors, scholars had formed a high estimate of his genius. But the discovery of his letters by Mai (1815) undeceived them. Independently of their false taste, which cannot fail to strike the reader, they show a feeble mind, together with a lack of independence and self-reliance. He has, however, a good _naturel_, and a genial self-conceit, which attracts us to him, and we are not surprised at the affection of his pupil, though we suspect it has led him to exaggerate his master's influence.

Until these came to light, scarcely anything was known of Fronto's works.

Five discussions on the signification of words had been preserved in Gellius, and a pa.s.sage in which he violently attacks the Christians in Minucius Felix. But the letters give an excellent idea of his mind, _i.e._ they are well stocked with words, and supply as little as possible of solid information. Family matters, mutual condolences, pieces of advice, interspersed with discussions on eloquence, form their staple. The collection consisted of ten books, five written to Aurelius as heir- apparent, and five to him as emperor. But we have lost the greater part of the latter series. Of Fronto's numerous other writings only scattered fragments remain. They are as follows:--(1) Panegyric speeches addressed to Hadrian [29] and Antoninus (among which was the celebrated one on his British victories 140 A.D.). (2) A speech returning thanks to the senate on behalf of the Carthaginians. (3) Speeches for the Bithynians and Ptolomacenses. (4) Speeches for and against individuals. (5) The speech against the Christians quoted by Minucius. (6) Appended to the letters are also some Greek epistles to members of the imperial household, a consolation from Aurelius to Fronto on the death of his grandson, and his reply, which is a mixture of desponding pessimism and philological pedantry. [30] (7) Trifles like the _erotikos_, a study based on Plato's theory of love, the story of Arion, the _feriae alsienses_, in which he humorously advises the prince to take a holiday, the _laudes fumi et pulveris_, a rhetorical exercise, [31] show that he was quite at home in a less ambitious vein.

The best example of his style and habits of thought is found in the letters _De Eloquentia_ on p. 139 _sqq._ of Naber's edition.

His life was soured by suffering and bereavement. His wife and all his children but one died before him, and he himself was a victim to various diseases. His interest for us is due to his relations with Aurelius and the general dearth at that period of first-rate writers. He died probably before the year 169. With Fronto's letters are found a considerable number of those of Aurelius, but they do not call for any remark. The writings that have brought him the purest and loftiest fame are not in Latin but in Greek. It would therefore be out of place to dwell on them here.

A younger contemporary and admirer of Fronto is AULUS GELLIUS (l25?-175 A.D.), author of the _Noctes Atticae_, in twenty books, a pleasant, gossiping work, written to occupy the leisure of his sons, and containing a vast amount of interesting details on literature and religious or antiquarian lore. Gellius is a man of small mind, but makes up by zeal for lack of power. He was trained in philosophy under Favorinus, in rhetoric under Antonius Julia.n.u.s and, perhaps, Fronto, but his style and taste are, on the whole, purer than those of his preceptors. The t.i.tle _Noctes Atticae_ was chosen, primarily, because the book was written at Athens and during the lucubrations of the night; but its modesty was also a recommendation in his eyes. The subjects are very various, but grammar or topics connected with it preponderate. A large s.p.a.ce is devoted to anecdotes, literary and historical, and among these are found both the most interesting and the best written pa.s.sages. Another element of importance is found in the quotations, which are very numerous, from ancient authors. The reader will appreciate the value of these from the continual references to Gellius which have been made in this work. [32]

The style of Gellius abounds with archaisms and rare words, _e.g., edulcare, recentari, aeruscator, adulescentes frugis, elegans verborum_, and shows an unnecessary predilection for frequentatives. [33] It is obvious that in his day men had ceased to feel the full meaning of the words they used. As a depraved bodily condition requires larger and stronger doses of physic to affect it, so Gellius, when his subject is most trivial, strives most for overcharged vigour of language. [34] But these defects are less conspicuous in the later books, where his thought also rises not unfrequently into a higher region. The man's nature is amiable and social; he enlisted the help of his friends in the preparation of his little essays, [35] and seems to have been on kindly terms with most of the chief writers of the day. Among the ancients his admiration was chiefly bestowed on Virgil and Cicero as representatives of literature, on Varro and Nigidius Figulus, [36] as representatives of science. His power of criticism is narrowed by pedantry and small pa.s.sions, but when these are absent he can use his judgment well. [37] He preserves many interesting points of etymology [38] and grammar, [39] and is a mine of archaic quotation. Among contemporary philosophers he admires most Plutarch, Favorinus, and Herodes Atticus the rival of Fronto. He smiles at the enthusiasm with which some regard all that is obsolete, and mentions the _Ennianistae_ [40] with half-disapproval. But his own bias inclines the same way, only he brings more taste to it than they. On the whole he is a very interesting writer, and the last that can be called in anyway cla.s.sical. He is well spoken of by Augustine; [41] and Macrobius, though he scarcely mentions him, pillages his works without reserve. His eighth book is lost, but the table of contents is fortunately preserved.

A great genius belonging to this time is the jurist GAIUS (110-180 A.D.).

His _nomen_ is not known; whence some have supposed that he never came to Rome. But this is both extremely unlikely in itself, and contradicted by at least one pa.s.sage of his works. He was a professor of jurisprudence for many years, and from the style of his extant works Teuffel conjectures that they originated from oral lectures. It is astonis.h.i.+ng how clear even the later Latin language becomes when it touches on congenial subjects, such as agriculture or law. The ancient legal phraseology had been seriously complained of as being so technical as to baffle all but experts in deciphering its meaning. Horace ridicules the cunning of the trained legal intellect in more than one place. But this reproach was no longer just. The series of able and thoughtful writers who had carried out a successive and systematic treatment of law since the Augustan age had brought into it such matchless clearness, that they have formed the model for all subsequent philosophic jurists. The amalgamation of the great Stoic principles of natural right, the equality of man, and the _jus gentium_, which last was gradually expanding into the conception of international law, contributed to make jurisprudence a complete exponent of the essential character of the Empire as the "polity of the human race." The works of Gaius included seven books _Rerum Cotidianarum_, which, like the work of Apuleius, were styled _Aurei_; and an introduction to the science of law, called _Inst.i.tutiones_, or _Inst.i.tuta_, in four books. These were published 161 A.D., and at once established themselves as the most popular exposition of the subject. Gaius was a native of the east, but of what country is uncertain. The names of several other jurists are preserved. They were divided into two cla.s.ses, [42] the practicians, who pleaded or responded, and the regularly endowed professors of jurisprudence. Of the former cla.s.s s.e.x. JULIUS AFRICa.n.u.s was the most celebrated for his acute intellect and the extreme difficulty of his definitions; ULPIUS MARCELLUS for his deep learning and the prudence of his decisions. He was an adviser of the emperor Aurelius. A third writer, one of whose treatises--that on the divisions of money, weights, and measures,--is still extant, was L. VOLUSIUS MAECIa.n.u.s. The reader is referred for information on this subject to Teuffel's work, and Poste's edition of the _Inst.i.tutes of Gaius_.

Among minor authors we may mention C. SULPICIUS APOLLINARIS, a Carthaginian, who became a teacher of rhetoric and grammar, and numbered among his pupils Aulus Gellius. He and ARRUNTIUS CELSUS devoted their talents for the most part to subjects of archaic interest. Erudition of a certain kind had now become universal, and was discussed with all the formality and exuberance of public debate. The disputations of the mediaeval universities seem to have found their germ in these animated discussions on trivial subjects, such as are described in chapters of Gellius to which the reader has already been referred. [43]