History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Volume I Part 16

Such lines, however, as these, it must be confessed, are more appropriate in epic, or descriptive poetry, than in tragedy.

It does not appear that the tragedies of Pacuvius had much success or popularity in his own age. He was obliged to have recourse for his subjects to foreign mythology and unknown history. Iphigenia and Orestes were always more or less strangers to a Roman audience, and the whole drama in which these and similar personages figured, never attained in Rome to a healthy and perfect existence. Comedy, on the other hand, addressed itself to the feelings of all. There were prodigal sons, avaricious fathers, and rapacious courtezans, in Rome as well as in Greece(340). But it requires a certain cultivation of mind and tenderness of heart to enjoy the representation of a regular tragedy. The plebeians thronged to the theatre for the sake of merriment, and the patricians were still too much occupied with the projects of their own ambition, to weep over the woes of Antigone or Electra.

Pacuvius, accordingly, had fewer imitators than Plautus. Indeed, for a long period he had none of much note, except

ATTIUS,

or Accius, as he is sometimes, but improperly, called, who brought forward his first play when thirty years old, in the same season in which Pacuvius, having reached the age of eighty, gave his last to the public(341). Now, as Pacuvius would be eighty in 614, Attius, according to this calculation, must have been born in 584. It has been questioned, however, if he was born so early, since Valerius Maximus relates a story of his refusing to rise from his place on the entrance of Julius Caesar into the College of Poets, because in that place they did not contest the prize of birth, but of learning(342),-which disrespect, if he came into the world in 584, he could not have survived to offer to the dictator, Julius Caesar, who was not born till 654. This collector of anecdotes, however, may probably allude either to some other poet of the name of Attius, or to some other individual of the Julian family, than the Julius Caesar who subverted the liberties of his country. At all events it is evident, that Attius lived to extreme old age. If born in 584, he must have been 63 years old at the birth of Cicero, who came into the world in 647. Now, Cicero mentions not only having seen him, but having heard from his own mouth opinions concerning the eloquence of his friend D. Brutus, and other speakers of his time(343). Supposing this conversation took place even when Cicero was so young as seventeen, Attius must have lived at least to the age of eighty.

It is certain, that Attius had begun to write tragedies before the death of Pacuvius. Aulus Gellius relates, as a well-known anecdote, that Attius, while on his way to Asia, was detained, for some time at Tarentum, whither Pacuvius had retired, and was invited to pa.s.s a few days with the veteran poet. During his stay he read to his host the tragedy of _Atreus_, which was one of his earliest productions. Pacuvius declared his verses to be high sounding and lofty, but he remarked that they were a little harsh, and wanted mellowness. Attius acknowledged the truth of the observation, which he said gave him much satisfaction; for that genius resembled apples, which when produced hard and sour, grow mellow in maturity, while those which are unseasonably soft do not become ripe, but rotten(344). His expectations, however, were scarcely fulfilled, and the produce of his more advanced years was nearly as harsh as what he had borne in youth. He seems, nevertheless, to have entertained at all times a good opinion of his own poetical talents: for, though a person of diminutive size, he got a huge statue of himself placed in a conspicuous niche in the Temple of the Muses(345). Nor does his vanity appear to have exceeded the high esteem in which he was held by his countrymen. Such was the respect paid to him, that a player was severely punished for mentioning his name on the stage(346). Decius Brutus, who was consul in 615, and was distinguished for his victories in Spain, received him into the same degree of intimacy to which Ennius had been admitted by the elder, and Terence by the younger, Scipio Africa.n.u.s: and such was his estimation of the verses of this tragedian, that he inscribed them over the entrance to a temple adorned by him with the spoils of enemies whom he had conquered(347). From the high opinion generally entertained of the force and eloquence of his tragedies, Attius was asked why he did not plead causes in the Forum; to which he replied, that he made the characters in his tragedies speak what he chose, but that, in the Forum, his adversaries might say things he did not like, and which he could not answer(348).

Horace, in the same line where he celebrates the dramatic skill of Pacuvius, alludes to the loftiness of Attius,-

-- "Aufert Pacuvius docti famam senis-Attius alti;"

by which is probably meant sublimity both of sentiment and expression. A somewhat similar quality is intended to be expressed in the epithet applied to him by Ovid:-

"Ennius arte carens, animosique Attius oris, Casurum nullo tempore nomen habent."

It would appear from Ovid likewise, that he generally chose atrocious subjects for the arguments of his tragedies:-

"Nec liber indicium est animi, sed honesta voluptas, Plurima mulcendis auribus apta ferens: Attius esset atrox, conviva Terentius esset, Essent pugnaces qui fera bella canunt(349)."

By advice of Pacuvius, Attius adopted such subjects as had already been brought forward on the Athenian stage; and we accordingly find that he has dramatized the well-known stories of Andromache, Philoctetes, Antigone, &c. There are larger fragments extant from these tragedies than from the dramatic works of Ennius or Pacuvius. One of the longest and finest pa.s.sages is that in the _Medea_, where a shepherd discovering, from the top of a mountain, the vessel which conveyed the Argonauts on their expedition, thus expresses his wonder and admiration at an object he had never before seen:-

-- "Tanta moles labitur Fremebunda ex alto, ingenti sonitu et spiritu Prae se undas volvit, vortices vi suscitat, Ruit prolapsa, pelagus respergit, reflat: Ita num interruptum credas nimb.u.m volvier, Num quod sublime ventis expulsum rapi Saxum, aut procellis, vel globosos turbines Existere ictos, undis concursantibus?

Num quas terrestres pontus strages conciet; Aut forte Triton fuscina evertens specus, Subter radices penitus undanti in freto Molem ex profundo saxeam ad clum vomit?"

With this early specimen of Latin verse, it may be agreeable to compare a corresponding pa.s.sage in one of our most ancient English poets. A shepherd, in Spenser's _Epilogue to the Shepherd's Calendar_, thus describes his astonishment at the sight of a s.h.i.+p:-

"For as we stood there waiting on the strand, Behold a huge great vessel to us came, Dancing upon the waters back to land, As if it scorn'd the danger of the same.

Yet was it but a wooden frame, and frail, Glued together with some subtle matter: Yet had it arms, and wings, and head, and tail, And life, to move itself upon the water.

Strange thing! how bold and swift the monster was!

That neither cared for wind, nor hail, nor rain, Nor swelling waves, but thorough them did pa.s.s So proudly, that she made them roar again."

Among the shorter fragments of Attius we meet with many scattered sentiments, which have been borrowed by subsequent poets and moral writers. The expression, "oderint dum metuant," occurs in the _Atreus_.

Thus, too, in the _Armorum Judicium_,-

"Nam trophaeum ferre me a forti pulchrum est viro; Si autem et vincar, vinci a tali, nullum est probrum."

A line in the same play-

"Virtuti sis par-dispar fortunis patris,"

has suggested to Virgil the affecting address-

"Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem; Fortunam ex aliis: --"

This play, which turns on the contest of Ajax and Ulysses for the arms of Achilles, has also supplied a great deal to Ovid. The tragic poet makes Ajax say-

"Quid est cur componere ausis mihi te, aut me tibi."

In like manner, Ajax, in his speech in Ovid-

-- "Agimus, pro Jupiter, inquit, Ante rates causam, et mec.u.m confertur Ulysses!"

There are two lines in the _Philoctetes_, which present a fine image of discomfort and desolation-

"Contempla hanc sedem, in qua ego novem hiemes, saxo stratus, pertuli, Ubi horrifer aquilonis stridor gelidas molitur nives(350)."

Most of the plays of Attius, as we have seen, were taken from the Greek tragedians. Two of them, however, the _Brutus_ and the _Decius_, hinged on Roman subjects, and were both probably written in compliment to the family of his patron, Decius Brutus. The subject of the former was the expulsion of the Tarquins: but the only pa.s.sage of it extant, is the dream of Tarquin, and its interpretation, which have been preserved by Cicero in his work _De Divinatione_. Tarquin's dream was, that he had been overthrown by a ram which a shepherd had presented to him, and that while lying wounded on his back, he had looked up to the sky, and observed that the sun, having changed his course, was journeying from west to east. The first part of this dream being interpreted, was a warning, that he would be expelled from his kingdom by one whom he accounted as stupid as a sheep; and the solar phenomenon portended a popular change in the government. The interpreter adds, that such strange dreams could not have occurred without the purpose of some special manifestation, but that no attention need be paid to those which merely present to us the daily transactions of life-

"Nam quae in vita usurpant homines, cogitant, curant, vident, Quaeque agunt vigilantes, agitantque, ea si cui in somno accidunt.

Minus mirum est --"

In his tragedies, indeed, Attius rather shows a contempt for dreams, and prodigies, and the science of augury-

"Nihil credo auguribus qui aures verbis divitant Alienas, suas ut auro locupletent domos."

The argument of Attius' other drama, founded on a Roman subject, and belonging to the cla.s.s called _Praetextatae_, was the patriotic self-devotion of Publius Decius, who, when his army could no longer sustain the onset of the foe, threw himself into the thickest of the combat, and was despatched by the darts of the enemy. There were at least two of the family of Decii, a father and son, who had successively devoted themselves in this manner-the former in a contest with the Latins, the latter in a war with the Gauls, leagued to the Etruscans, in the year of Rome 457. No doubt, however, can exist, that it was the son who was the subject of the tragedy of _Attius_-in the first place, because he twice talks of following the example of his father-

"-- Patrio Exemplo dicabo me, atque animam devotabo hostibus."

And again-

"Quibus rem summam et patriam nostram quondam adauctavit pater."

And, in the next place, he refers, in two different pa.s.sages, to the opposing host of the Gauls-

-- "Gallei, voce canora ac fremitu, Peragrant minitabiliter -- * * * * *

Vim Gallicam obduc contra in acie." --

Horace, as is well known, bestowed some commendation on those dramatists who had chosen events of domestic history as subjects for their tragedies-

"Nec minimum meruere decus, vestigia Graeca Ausi deserere, et celebrare domestica facta(351)."

Dramas taken from our own annals, excite a public interest, and afford the best, as well as easiest opportunity of attracting the mind, by frequent reference to our manners, prejudices, or customs. It may, at first view, seem strange, that the Romans, who were a national people, and whose epics were generally founded on events in their own history, should, when they did make such frequent attempts at the composition of tragedy, have so seldom selected their arguments from the ancient annals or traditions of their country. These traditions were, perhaps, not very fertile in pathetic or mournful incident, but they afforded subjects rich, beyond all others, in tragic energy and elevation; and even in the range of female character, in which the ancient drama was most defective, Lucretia and Virginia were victims as interesting as Iphigenia or Alcestis. The tragic writers of modern times have borrowed from these very sources many subjects of a highly poetical nature, and admirably calculated for scenic representation. The furious combat of the Horatii and Curiatii, the stern patriotic firmness of Brutus, the internal conflicts of Coriola.n.u.s, the tragic fate of Virginia, and the magnanimous self-devotion of Regulus, have been dramatized with success, in the different languages of modern Europe. But those names, which to us sound so lofty, may, to the natives, have been too familiar for the dignity essential to tragedy. In Rome, besides the risk of offending great families, the Roman subjects were of too recent a date to have acquired that venerable cast, which the tragic muse demands, and time alone can bestow. They were not at sufficient distance to have dropped all those mean and disparaging circ.u.mstances, which unavoidably adhere to recent events, and in some measure sink the n.o.blest modern transactions to the level of ordinary life. This seems to have been strongly felt by Sophocles and Euripides, who preferred the incidents connected with the sieges of Troy and of Thebes, rendered gigantic only by the mists of antiquity, to the real and almost living glories of Marathon or Thermopylae. But the Romans had no families corresponding to the race of Atreus or dipus-they had no princess endowed with the beauty of Helen-no monarch invested with the dignity of Agamemnon-they had, in short, no epic cycle on which to form tragedies, like the Greeks, whose minds had been conciliated by Homer in favour of Ajax and Ulysses(352). "The most interesting subjects of tragedies," says Adam Smith(353), "are the misfortunes of virtuous and magnanimous kings and princes;" but the Roman kings were a detested race, for whose rank and qualities there was no admiration, and for whose misfortunes there could be no sympathy. Accordingly, after some few and not very successful attempts to dramatize national incidents, the Latin tragic writers relapsed into their former practice, as appears from the t.i.tles of all the tragedies which were brought out from the time of Attius to that of Seneca.

Hence it follows, that those remarks, which have been repeated to satiety with regard to the subjects of the Greek theatre, are likewise applicable to those of the Roman stage. There would be the same dignified misfortune displayed in n.o.bler and imposing att.i.tudes-the same observance of the unities-the same dramatic phrensy, remorse, and love, proceeding from the vengeance of the G.o.ds, and exhibited in the fate of Ajax, Orestes, and Phaedra-the same struggle against that predominant destiny, which was exalted even above the G.o.ds of Olympus, and by which the ill-fated race of Atreus was agitated and pursued. The Latin, like the Greek tragedies, must have excited something of the same feeling as the Laoc.o.o.n or Niobe in sculpture; and, indeed, the moral of a large proportion of them seems to be comprised in the chorus of Seneca's _dipus_-

"Fatis agimur-cedite fatis: Non solicitae possunt curae Mutare rati stamina fusi."