CHAPTER VII.

BIOGRAPHY OF MÆCENAS—HIS INTIMACY AND INFLUENCE WITH AUGUSTUS—HIS CHARACTER—VALGIUS RUFUS—VARIUS—CORNELIUS GALLUS—BIOGRAPHY OF TIBULLUS—HIS STYLE—CRITICISM OF MURETUS—PROPERTIUS—IMITATED THE ALEXANDRIAN POETS—ÆMILIUS MACER.

C. CILNIUS MÆCENAS.

In a literary history it is impossible to omit some account of one, who, although his attempts at poetry were very contemptible, exercised, by his good taste and munificence, a great influence upon literature, and to whom the literary men of Rome were much indebted for the use which he made of his confidential friendship with Augustus.

C. Cilnius Mæcenas was a member of an equestrian family, which, though it derived its descent from the old Etruscan kings,[675] does not appear to have produced any distinguished individuals. His birth-year is unknown, but his birth-day was the ides (13th) of April.[676] We have no information respecting the origin of his intimacy with Augustus. Probably his cultivated taste, his extensive acquaintance with Greek and Roman literature, his imperturbable temper, and love of pleasure, first recommended him as an agreeable companion to Octavius.

His good sense, activity, and energy in business, and decisive character, qualities in which his irresolute and desultory patron was signally deficient, enabled him rapidly to improve the acquaintance into intimacy. It is said by Dion Cassius[677] that Augustus obtained from Mæcenas a complete plan for the internal administration of his newly-acquired empire, and that in it were displayed sound judgment and political wisdom. It is probable that there is some exaggeration in this statement; but that, without being a great man, he was in these respects a greater man than Augustus, who, therefore, when he required his support, could lean upon him with safety. And yet his weaknesses were such as to prevent any feeling of jealousy, or appearance of superiority, from endangering his friendship with the emperor. His love of pleasure, and of the quiet and careless enjoyments of a private station, proved, as it turned out, a blessing to his country. His heart was so full of the delights of refined and intellectual society—of palaces and gardens, and wit and poetry, and collections of art and virtû—that there was no room in it for ambition. His careless and sauntering indolence was openly displayed in his lounging gait, and his toga trailing on the ground. No one could possibly suspect such a loiterer of sufficient energy or application to be a politician and an intriguer. Such being his character, tastes, and habits, he felt no temptation to abuse his influence with Augustus. He did not covet honours and office, because he knew they must bring trouble and distraction, perhaps peril with them. He exercised his power, which was undoubtedly great, to promote that luxurious, yet refined elegance, in which he himself delighted, and to secure the welfare of his literary friends. He had wealth enough to gratify his utmost wishes. Augustus, therefore, had nothing more to confer on him which he valued, except personal esteem and regard.

The confidence which the Emperor reposed in him is shown by his employing him in some affairs of great delicacy: first, in arranging a marriage with Scribonia; and, subsequently, on two occasions, in negotiating with Antony.[678] In B. C. 36, he accompanied Octavius into Sicily; but was sent back in order to undertake the administration of Rome and Italy;[679] and during the campaign at Actium,[680] Mæcenas was again vicegerent, in which capacity he crushed the conspiracy of the younger Lepidus. So unlimited was his power, that he was even intrusted with the signet of Octavius, and with authority to open, and even to alter, if necessary, all letters which he wrote to the senate during his campaign; and when the victorious general, on his return to Rome, consulted with him and Agrippa as to the expediency of re-establishing the republic, Mæcenas, in opposition to the recommendation of Agrippa, dissuaded him from taking that step. The moral influence also of Mæcenas over Augustus is very striking. So long as it continued, we see nothing of that heartless cruelty, that disregard of the happiness of others, which deformed the early life of the Emperor: if he was heartless, he at least did that as a matter of taste which a better man would have done on principle; and if he was still selfish, he sought fame and glory by the wise counsels of peace rather than by the brilliant triumphs of war: he conciliated friends instead of crushing enemies.

The intimacy between Mæcenas and the Emperor continued for at least ten years after the battle of Actium: then an estrangement commenced; and in B. C. 16, he was deprived of his official position, and Taurus was intrusted with the administration of Rome and Italy. Scandalous stories have been told about his wife Terentia and the Emperor, in order to account for the interruption of their intimacy; but no special causes are necessary to account for an event so common. The words of Tacitus[681] are a sufficient solution of the problem:—“Idque et Mæcenati acciderat; fato potentiæ, raro sempiternæ, an satias capit, aut illos, cum omnia tribuerunt, aut hos, cum jam nihil reliquum est, quod cupiant.” He retained the outward appearance of the imperial friendship, although he had lost the reality. He went to court on the birth-day, but ceased to be of the Emperor’s council. His life was passed in the voluptuous retirement of his palace on the Esquiline, which he had built for himself. This hill was not generally considered wholesome: probably the fact that it had been a burial-ground[682] created a prejudice against it; but the loftiness of the site chosen, as well as of the building itself (_molem vicinam nubibus_,) and the breeze which played freely through the lovely garden with which it was surrounded, rendered it salubrious. All the most brilliant society of Rome was found at his table; and many of the best of them received still more substantial marks of his favour.[683] Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and Varius, were amongst his friends and constant associates.

Mæcenas was a low-spirited invalid;[684] latterly he could not sleep, and endeavoured in vain to procure repose by listening to soft music.[685] In his last distressing illness he generally resided at his Tiburtine villa, where the murmuring falls of the Anio invited that sleep which was denied him elsewhere. He died B. C. 8, and was buried on the Esquiline. Though married, he left no children, and bequeathed his property to the Emperor, whom he besought in his will not to forget his beloved Horace. His taste as a critic was evidently far superior to his talents as a writer. Few fragments of his writings remain; and all ancient critics are unanimous in the condemnation of his style. Augustus[686] laughed at his affected jargon of mingled Etruscan and Latin. Quintilian[687] quotes instances of his absurd inversions and transpositions; and Seneca[688] shows, by an example, its unintelligible obscurity.[689] He was a sensualist and a voluptuary,[690] and an unfaithful husband; and yet he was devotedly fond of his wife, the beautiful but ill-tempered Terentia, who had a great influence over him. He would divorce her one day only to restore her to conjugal rights on the next; and Seneca said that, though he had only one wife, he was married a thousand times. He abhorred cruelty and severity, and would not let it pass unrebuked even in the Emperor; and although he made a boast of effeminacy, he was ready to devote himself heartily to business in cases of emergency. In fact, he was a fair specimen of the man of pleasure and society: liberal, kind-hearted, clever, refined, but luxurious, self-indulgent, indolent, and volatile, with good instincts and impulses, but without principle.

C. VALGIUS RUFUS.

Amongst the poets of the Augustan age, whose writings were much admired by their contemporaries, but have not stood the searching test of time, was Valgius Rufus. Of his life no records remain; but he probably belonged to that class of authors of whom Pliny says, “Quibus nos in vehiculo, in balneo, inter cœnam, oblectamus otium temporis.”[691] They were light and pleasing, calculated to amuse an idle half-hour, or to relieve the tedium of a journey. They answered the purpose of the railroad literature of our own days. These writers had a correct taste, and a critical discernment of poetical beauty, rather than a genius for poetical composition. Probably their personal characters had something to do with their reputation: they were members of a literary _coterie_; they lived, thought, and felt together; they defended each other against malicious criticism; and the bonds of friendship by which they were united tempted the greater poets to regard their effusions with kind but undue partiality. Valgius Rufus was a great favourite of Horace,[692] but only a few short, isolated passages are extant of his poems.[693] Quintilian[694] attributes to him a translation of the rhetorical precepts of Apollodorus. Seneca[695] mentions him by name: Pliny[696] praises his erudition. The testimony borne to his transcendent merits as an epic poet, in the Panegyric of Messala, need scarcely be trusted, because it is almost certain that this piece is spurious.[697]

VARIUS.

Of L. Varius Rufus also, who was one of the constant guests at Mæcenas’ table, scarcely any thing is known. Horace[698] tells us that he was unequalled in epic song, when Virgil had as yet only turned his attention to rustic poetry. The high praise bestowed upon his Thyestes by Quintilian has already been mentioned. To him, together with Virgil, we have seen that Horace owed his introduction to Augustus, and all three were of the party which accompanied Mæcenas to Brundisium. The titles of two of his poems are extant,—I. _De Morte_; II. _Panegyric on Augustus_. Of the former, four fragments are preserved by Macrobius, all of which Virgil has deemed worthy of imitation. Of the latter, two lines, containing a delicate compliment to Augustus, are extant, which Horace has introduced entire into one of his Epistles.[699] The passage by no means satisfies modern taste, which has been formed by the hexametrical rhythm of Virgil; but Seneca praises his style as free from the usual faults of Latin declamatory poetry—mere bombast on the one hand, and excessive minuteness on the other. Niebuhr conjectures that his Thyestes was too declamatory; and that, like the later Roman tragedies of Seneca and others, it was not an imitation of the Attic drama, but of the degenerate tragedies belonging to the Alexandrian period.

C. CORNELIUS GALLUS (BORN B. C. 66 or 69.)

Gallus was more distinguished as a general than as a poet. Except a single line from one of his elegies, not a vestige of his poetry remains; for the short pieces attributed to him[700] are undoubtedly not genuine. He owes his fame, probably, to the kind verdict of his contemporaries, whose friendship and amiable affection for each other appear never to have been endangered by the slightest spark of jealousy.

Born at Frejus, of low parentage, he was a fellow-student in philosophy with Virgil[701] and Arius—a friendship thus commenced which continued through life. The patronage of Asinius Pollio[702] brought him into notice as a poet at the early age of twenty. He was one of the first to attach himself to the cause of Octavius; and, being appointed commissioner for allotting the lands to the military colonies, he had the opportunity of befriending Virgil and the plundered Mantuans. At Actium he commanded a brigade, burnt Antony’s ships in the harbour of Parætonium, was one of the capturers of Cleopatra, and was rewarded by Octavius with being made first prefect of Egypt. How so valuable a servant lost the Emperor’s favour is uncertain. Ovid hints that his crime was one of words, not of deeds:—

Linguam nimio non tenuisse mero.

He was recalled, his property confiscated, and himself exiled. He had not strength of mind to bear his fall, and he committed suicide in the forty-first or forty-third year of his age.[703]

No judgment respecting his merits can be formed from the contradictory criticism of the ancients. Ovid awards to him the palm among the elegiac poets,[704] and Virgil is said to have sung his praises in his fourth Georgic, but afterwards to have omitted the passage and substituted for it the story of Aristæus; whilst Quintilian[705] applies the epithet _durior_ to his versification. Perhaps the latter attached too much importance to the grace and sweetness of diction, but neglected the beauty of the sentiments; whilst the former might have been too partial in his sympathy with a fellow exile. He was the author of four books of elegies, in which, under the feigned name of Lycoris, he sings his love for his mistress Cytheris. He also translated the Greek poems of Euphorion.

ALBIUS TIBULLUS.

Tibullus was born of an equestrian family, probably in B. C. 54. He was a contemporary of Virgil and Horace;[706] and like them, during the troubles of the civil wars, suffered the confiscation of his paternal estate, which was situated at Pedum, near Tibur. After the conclusion of the struggle a portion was restored to him—small, indeed, but sufficient to satisfy his moderate wants and contented disposition.

Disinclined, as well by his love of quiet, to the labours and perils of a military life, as he was by the tenderness and softness of his character to the horrors of war, circumstances, nevertheless, forced him involuntarily to undertake a campaign. Messala was his patron, to whom he was evidently under great obligations.[707] When, therefore, he was sent by Octavia to quell an insurrection in Aquitania, Tibullus accompanied him. This campaign and the successes of Messala furnished the poet with subjects for his muse.[708] Tibullus also fully intended to continue his services to Messala in the east, during the following year; but illness compelled him to stop at Corcyra, whence he returned to Rome.[709]

The mistresses whose beauty, inconstancy, and cruelty Tibullus celebrates in his elegies were, unlike those of Horace, real persons. Delia’s real name is said to have been Plautia or Plania;[710] who Nemesis was is not known. These are the only two mentioned by himself or alluded to by Ovid;[711] but Horace addresses an ode to him on his passion for a mistress whom he names Glycera. Probably he is speaking of one of Tibullus’ mistresses under a feigned name, in accordance with his habitual practice, for the names introduced by him in his poems, generally speaking, bear no appearance of reality. They are, with very few exceptions, suggested by his study of Greek lyric poets. Chloris, Lycoris, Neobule, Lydia, Thaliarchus, Xanthias, Pholoe, are all Greek characters, translated to Roman scenes, and made to play an artificial part in Roman life. Cinara[712] was, perhaps, a real person, as Bassus, the Novii Mævius, and Numida, undoubtedly are. Sometimes, when his object is satire, he speaks of the subject of his irony under a name somewhat resembling the real one; as, for example, when he ridicules Mæcenas under the name of Malthinus,[713] Salvidianus Rufus under that of Nasidianus,[714] and lampoons Gratidia the sorceress as Canidia. But in the poetry of Tibullus, as in that of Catullus and Propertius, the same names are found in each of a series of poems. Apuleius[715] asserts that the real name of the Lesbia of Catullus was Clodia; that of the Cynthia of Propertius, Hostia, and that she was a native of Tivoli.

The style and tone of thought of Tibullus are, like his character, deficient in vigour and manliness, but sweet, smooth, polished, tender, and never disfigured by bad taste. He does not deserve the censure of Niebuhr, who stigmatizes him as a “disagreeable poet, because of his doleful and weeping melancholy and sentimentality, resulting from misunderstanding the ancient elegies of Mimnermus.”[716]

After his return from Corcyra, Tibullus passed the remainder of his short life in the peaceful retirement of his paternal estate. He died young, shortly after Virgil, if we may trust to an epigram, ascribed to Domitius Marsus, contained in the Latin Anthologia:[717]—

Te quoque Virgilio comitem non æqua, Tibulle, Mors juvenem campos misit in Elysios, Ne foret, aut elegis molles qui fleret amores, Aut caneret forti regia bella pede.

The poems commonly ascribed to Tibullus consist of four books, but only two are genuine, and of these, the second was published posthumously. Two lines in the third book, which fix the date of the poet’s birth in the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa,[718] have generally been considered as spurious, because such a date is inconsistent with the rest of the chronology; but Voss rejected the whole of that book; and there is no question but that the spirit and character of the elegies, as well as the harmony of the metre, are very inferior to those of the preceding poems. The same inferiority marks the fourth also, with the exception of the smaller poems, which bear the names of Sulpicia and Corinthus. These, as Niebuhr correctly observes, display greater energy and boldness than Tibullus possessed, and are the productions of some poet much superior to him.

That elegant scholar and judicious critic, Muretus,[719] has well attributed to him, as his chief characteristics, simplicity, and natural and unaffected genius:—“Illum (_i. e._ Tibullum) judices _simplicius_ scripsisse quæ cogitaret; hunc (_i. e._ Propertium) diligentius cogitasse quæ scriberet. In illo _plus naturæ_, in hoc plus curæ atque industriæ perspicias.”

SEXTUS AURELIUS PROPERTIUS.

Very little is known respecting the life and personal history of Propertius beyond the few facts which may be gleaned from his poems. He was a native of the border country of Umbria, and was probably born not earlier than A. U. C. 703,[720] or later than 700.[721] This period will sufficiently agree with the statement of Ovid respecting their relative ages.[722] His family had not produced any distinguished member, but possessed a competent estate. Like Virgil and Tibullus, he was a sufferer by the consequences of war; for the establishment of a military colony reduced him from comfort to straitened circumstances.[723]

Like most young Romans of genius and education, he was intended for the bar;[724] but poetry had greater charms for him than severe studies, and he became nothing more than a literary man. He inhabited a house in the now fashionable quarter of the Esquiline, and was on intimate terms with Gallus, Ovid, Bassus, and Virgil. Cynthia, his amour with whom inspired so large a portion of his elegies, was not only a beautiful but an accomplished woman. She was his first love; and it appears to have been some time before she yielded to his solicitations,[725] nor was she even then always faithful to him.[726] She could write verses and play upon the lyre,[727] and was a graceful dancer.[728] She owed to him, says Martial, her immortality; whilst he owed to his love for her the inspiration which immortalized himself:—

Cynthia, facundi carmen juvenile Properti, Accepit famam nec minus illa dedit.

The date of the poet’s death is unknown, but the probability is that he died young.

Although Propertius was a contemporary and friend of the Augustan poets, he may be considered as belonging to a somewhat different school of poetry. His taste, like theirs, was educated by a study of Greek literature; but the Greek poets whose works he took for his model belonged to a later age. Horace, Virgil and Tibullus imitated and tried to rival the Greek classical poets of the noblest ages: they transferred into their native tongue the ideas of Homer, Pindar, and the old lyric poets. Their taste was formed after the purest and most perfect models. Propertius, on the other hand, was content with a lower flight. He attempted nothing more than to imitate the graceful but feeble strains of the Alexandrian poets, and to become a second Callimachus or Philetas.[729] Roman perseverance in the pursuit of learning, and the spirit of investigation in the wide field of Greek literature, had raised up this new standard of taste, which was by no means an improvement upon that which had been hitherto established.

The imitations of Propertius are too studied and apparent to permit him to lay claim to great natural genius. Nature alone could give the touching tenderness of Tibullus or the facility of Ovid—in both of which, notwithstanding his grace and elegance, he is deficient. The absence of original fancy is concealed by minute attention to the outward form of the poetry which he admired. His pentameters are often inharmonious, because they adopt so continually the Greek rules of construction; awkward Greek idioms, and a studious display of his learning, which was undoubtedly great, destroy that greatest charm of style, perspicuity.

According to Quintilian,[730] the critics of his day somewhat overrated his merits, for they could scarcely decide the question of superiority between him and Tibullus. This, however, is to be expected in an age of affected rhetoric and grammatical pedantry, when nothing was considered beautiful in poetry except that which was in accordance with the arbitrary rules of cold criticism. They appreciated his correctness, and did not miss the warm heart of his rival. His poetry is not so polluted with indelicacy as that of Ovid, but still it is often sensual and licentious.

It is worthy of remark that the fourth elegy of the third book, entitled “Arethusa to Lycotas,” deprives Ovid of the credit of being the inventor of the elegiac epistle.

ÆMILIUS MACER.

The poem of Æmilius Macer is only known through two verses in the Tristia of Ovid,[731] which state that it treated of birds, serpents, and medicinal herbs:

Sæpe suas volucres legit mihi grandior ævo Quæque necet serpens; quæ juvet herba Macer.

He was born at Verona, and died in Asia, A. D. 16; and the passage already quoted proves that he was older than Ovid.

His poem was a paraphrase or imitation of the Theriaca of Nicander—a physician-poet, who flourished in Ætolia during the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes. Quintilian couples his name with that of Lucretius; and awards him the praise of elegance, but adds that his style is deficient in dignity.