CHAPTER II.

DRAMATIC LITERATURE IN THE AUGUSTAN AGE—REVIVAL UNDER NERO—DEFECTS OF THE TRAGEDIES ATTRIBUTED TO SENECA—INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THEIR AUTHORSHIP—SENECA THE PHILOSOPHER A STOIC—INCONSISTENT AND UNSTABLE—THE SENTIMENTS OF HIS PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS FOUND IN HIS TRAGEDIES—PARALLEL PASSAGES COMPARED—FRENCH SCHOOL OF TRAGIC POETS.

Of Roman tragedy in its earliest period, so far as the fragments of it which remain allow a judgment to be formed, an account has already been given; and if circumstances forbade it to flourish then, still less can it be expected that the boldness and independence of Greek tragedy would be found under the empire.

Nevertheless, there were not wanting some imitators of Greece in this noblest branch of Greek poetry, however unsuitable it was to the genius of the Roman people, and unlikely to be appreciated by them.

But their productions were rather literary than dramatic; they were intended to be read, not acted. They were poems composed in a dramatic form, because Athens had set the example of that form to her devoted imitators. Although, therefore, they contain noble philosophical sentiments, lively descriptions, vigorous conceptions and delineations of character, and passages full of tenderness and pathos, they are deficient in dramatic effect, and positively offend against those laws of good taste, which, not arbitrarily assumed, but founded on the principles of the human mind, regulated the Athenian stage.

We have seen that, in the Augustan age, a few writers attained some excellence in tragedy, at least in the opinion of ancient critics. Besides Ovid and Varius, whose tragedies have been already mentioned, Asinius Pollio acquired a high reputation as a tragic poet, and Virgil[1033] declares that he is the only one worthy of being compared with Sophocles:—

Sola Sophocleo tua carmina digna cothurno.

On the revival of letters under that professor of a love of poetry,[1034] the tyrant Nero, dramatic literature reappeared, and perfect specimens are extant in the ten tragedies attributed to Seneca. Various and opposite opinions have been entertained respecting their merits; but there can be no doubt that the genius of the author never can grasp in their wholeness the characters which he attempts to copy; they are distorted images of the Greek originals; the awful and shadowy grandeur of the god-like heroes of Æschylus stand forth in corporeal vastness, and appear childish and unnatural, like the giants of a story-book. The marvels of Greek tragedy and Greek mythology, though merely the unreal conceptions of the imagination, do not appear exaggerated, because the connexion between the theory and the result, the causes and the effects, is so skilfully maintained; but in these Roman tragedies the legends of Greece appear extravagant and absurd: they are as unreal, and therefore seem as affected, as the classical garb in which English poetry was arrayed in the age of Anne. The Greeks believed in the gods and heroes whose agency and exploits constituted the machinery of tragedy—the Romans did not; and thus we cannot sympathize with them, because we see that they are insincere. The style, moreover, of the tragedies, which bear the name of Seneca, is spoiled by that inflated language and redundancy of ornament, the constant effect of which is, as Aristotle observes, frigidity. They bear the visible marks of an age in which genius had given place to an artificial and scholastic rhetoric; and the author seems to have been striving not for tragic pathos so much as brilliant declamation. In the female characters, especially, the Roman tragic poet fails; for, although he can understand heroism, he is unable to accomplish that most difficult of all tasks, the combining it with feminine delicacy. Perhaps the best and noblest of his country-women did not furnish him with such ideals. The Roman matron was the counterpart of her warlike lord. The Lucretias, Porcias, Cornelias, Arrias, though devoted and affectionate, were of sterner mould than Antigone and Deianira.

The tragedies which bear the name of Seneca have been attributed to L. Annæus Seneca, the philosopher, as early as the time of Quintilian,[1035] who quotes as Seneca’s a verse from the Medea. The improbability of this being the case is also diminished by the fact that both Tacitus[1036] and Pliny the younger[1037] speak of him as a poet. Nevertheless, their authorship has been considered a very doubtful question. A passage in an epigram of Martial, in which he speaks of Cordova as the birthplace of two Senecas and one Lucan—

Duosque Senecas unicumque Lucanum Facunda loquitur Corduba[1038]—

has been interpreted as implying that Seneca the philosopher was a different person from Seneca the tragedian. There can, however, be scarcely any doubt that he was speaking of M. Annæus Seneca the rhetorician, and his son Lucius the philosopher. Sidonius Apollinaris,[1039] the son-in-law of the Emperor Flavius Avitus, and Bishop of Clermont,[1040] in the last years of the Roman empire, unhesitatingly draws a distinction between them. He enumerates three members of the Cordovan family:—

Quorum unus colit hispidum Platonem, Incassumque suum monet Neronem, Orchestram quatit alter Euripidis Pictum fæcibus Æschylum sequutus, Aut plaustris solitum sonare Thespim Pugnam tertius ille Gallicanam Dixit Cæsaris. _Carm._ ix. 231.

But, notwithstanding the celebrity which Sidonius enjoyed as a poet at the imperial court, his opinion is of no authority when weighed against the internal evidence derived from the tragedies themselves. This renders it almost morally certain, that they are the work of no other writer than Seneca the philosopher.

Although the Romans, as being imitators of the Greeks, and not original thinkers, were eclectics in philosophy, their favourite doctrines were those of the Stoics. They suited the rigid sternness of their character: they imbodied that spirit of self-devotion and self-denial with which the Roman patriot, in the old times of simple republican virtue, threw himself into his public duties; and Seneca, with all his faults, was a real Roman: with all his finesse and artful policy, he retained, in the midst of a debased age and a profligate court, a large portion of the old Roman character. In life and in death his was a true specimen of the Stoic creed.

Still he was by no means a consistent man: his theory was perfect, but his practice often fell short of it. The lessons of morality contained in his philosophical works are excellent, and persuasively enforced, and wear an appearance of honesty and sincerity; but, nevertheless, in his philosophy, as well as in his life, we can discover that his moral principles were unstable and wavering. These two features can be traced in his tragedies: they abound in philosophical dogmas and moral sentiments, and they display the same Stoicism mingled with occasional habits of inconsistency. Suicide is painted in the most attractive colours: death is met not only with courage, but with the same indifference with which Seneca himself, together with other victims of imperial tyranny, met it in his own day. It is not welcomed, as in the Greek tragedians, as a relief from the burden of earthly sorrows; but there is a manifest departure from the Greek model: the natural beauty of that model is violated, and the features of the original character sacrificed to Stoical coldness and want of feeling.

But not only are these tragedies filled with philosophical reflections; even the sentiments enunciated in the acknowledged works of Seneca, in his Essays and Epistles, are transferred to them, and the peculiar turns of expression used by the philosopher are repeated by the poet. A brilliant French author[1041] has ingeniously brought together and compared parallel passages, which illustrate this similarity of sentiment and style. A few of these are sufficient as examples. Two in the “Phœnissæ,” in which Œdipus insists on “the liberty of dying,” imbody the same doctrine as two others, one in the epistles to Lucilius, the other in the treatise on Providence.

He (says Œdipus) who compels one who is unwilling to die does the same as he who hinders one who is eager for death; nay, I consider the latter treats me the worse of the two. I had rather that death were forced upon me than that the privilege of dying should be torn from me.

Qui cogit mori Nolentem, in æquo est, quique properantem impedit. Nec tamen in æquo est; alterum gravius reor, Malo imperari quam eripi mortem mihi. _Phœnis._ 98.

And again the same favourite sentiment appears:—

I cannot be prevented from dying; of what availeth all that care of thine? Death is everywhere. Most wisely has God provided for this. There is no one who cannot rob a man of life, but no one can rob him of death; to this a thousand roads are open.

Morte prohiberi haud queo. Quid ista tandem cura proficit tua? Ubique mors est. Optime hoc _cavit_ Deus. Eripere vitam nemo non homini potest; _At nemo mortem_; mille ad hanc aditus _patent_. _Phœnis._ 146.

With these are compared the following sentences of the philosopher, in which not only the doctrines, but also the language in which they are expressed, are so strikingly parallel as scarcely to admit of a doubt that the authors are identical:—

To live under compulsion is an evil; but there is no compulsion to live under compulsion. Many roads to liberty lie open on all sides, short and easy. Let us thank God that no one can be retained in life.

And, again, Divine Providence is represented as declaring to mankind:—

Before all things I have provided that no one should detain you against your will—an exit is open to you.

Malum est in necessitate vivere, sed in necessitate vivere necessitas nulla est. _Patent_ undique ad libertatem _viæ multæ_, breves, faciles. Agamus Deo gratias, quod nemo in vitâ teneri potest.—Ep. xii.

Ante omnia _cavi_, ne quis vos teneret invitos, patet exitus. _De Provident._ vi.

How exactly in accordance with these sentiments, whether expressed in poetry or prose, is the closing scene of Seneca’s life; the almost business-like way in which he entered upon the road which was appointed to lead him from the dominion of necessity to the enjoyment of liberty—the imperturbable coolness with which he could contemplate the death of his wife, whom he loved with the greatest affection![1042] How calculated, moreover, were they to engage the sympathies of his contemporaries! It was an age in which, amidst its various corruptions, the only virtue which survived was the knowing how to meet death with a courageous spirit, in which many of the best and the noblest willingly died by their own hands at the imperial mandate, in order to save their name from infamy, and the inheritance of their children from confiscation.

Again, an awful belief in destiny, and the hopeless, yet patient, struggle of a great and good man against this all-ruling power, is the mainspring of Greek tragedy. This is not transferred into the imitations of the Romans. Its place is supplied by the stern fatalism of the Stoics. The principle of destiny entertained by the Greek poets is a mythological, even a religious one: it is the irresistible will of God. God is at the commencement of the chain of causes and effects by which the event is brought about which God has ordained; his inspired prophets have power to foretell, and mortals cannot resist or avoid. It is rather predestination than destiny. The doctrine implies an intelligent agent, not a mere abstract principle.

The fatalism of the Stoics, on the other hand, is the doctrine of practical necessity. It ignores the almighty power of the Supreme Being, although it does not deny his existence. It strips him of his attributes as the moral Governor of the universe. These doctrines are found both in the philosopher and tragic poet. Translate the subjoined prose passage into the conventional language of poetry, adopt as a mere matter of embellishment the fables of Greek mythology, personify the Stoical principle of necessity by the Greek Fates, and it becomes the Chorus in the Latin tragedy Œdipus. Both these passages are quoted by Nisard:—

_Nihil cogor nihil patior invitus_; nec servio Deo, sed assentior; eo quidem magis, quod scio _omnia certa_ et in æternum dicta lege decurrere. _Fata nos ducunt_, et quantum cuique restat, _prima nascentium hora disposuit. Causa pendet ex causa_; privata ac publica _longus ordo_ rerum trahit. Ideo fortiter omne ferendum est; quia non, ut putamus, incidunt cuncta, sed veniunt. Olim constitutum est quid gaudeas, quid fleas; et quamvis magna videatur varietate singulorum vita distingui, summa in unum venit; accepimus peritura perituri.

_De Provid._ v.

I am neither compelled to do or to suffer anything against my will. I am not a slave to God, but I bow to his will. The more so because I know that all things are fixed and proceed according to an everlasting law. Destiny is our guide, and the hour of our birth has disposed all the remainder of our lives. Each cause depends upon a preceding one; a long chain of circumstances links together all things, both public and private. Therefore we must bear all things with fortitude, since all things _come to pass_, and do not, as we suppose, _happen_. Our joys or sorrows have been determined long ago; and although a great variety of items distinguishes the lives of individuals, the sum total is the same. Perishable creatures ourselves, that which we have received is perishable likewise.

A comparison of the above with the following passage exhibits a similarity which could only have proceeded from the same mind and the same pen; for it is to be remembered, that though the Romans were imitators of the Greeks, they did not copy one another; and throughout the whole field of Roman literature no example could be found of a poet transferring to his works the exact sentiments, tone of thought, and turn of expression of another Latin author:—

_Fatis agimur, cedite fatis_: Non sollicitæ possunt curæ Mutare rati stamina fusi. _Quicquid patimur_, mortale genus, _Quicquid facimus_, venit ex alto; Servatque suæ decreta colus Lachesis, dura revoluta manu. _Omnia certo tramite_ vadunt _Primusque dies dedit extremum_. Non illa Deo vertisse licet _Quæ nexa suis currunt causis_. It cuique ratus, prece non ulla Mobilis, _ordo_. _Œdip._ 980.

We are led by destiny—yield then to its power. Anxious care cannot change the thread spun by the distaff of the Fates. Whatever we mortals do or suffer comes from on high; and Lachesis observes the decrees of the wheel which revolves beneath her pitiless hand. All things proceed in a fixed path, and the first day of life has determined the last. God has not power to change the chain of causes and effects. Each has its fixed order, which no prayers can alter.

Even the philosophical inconsistencies[1043] traceable in the prose treatises are repeated in the tragedies. In one letter[1044] he affirms his belief that the soul of Scipio Africanus has ascended into heaven as a reward of his virtue and piety; in another[1045] he asserts the gloomy doctrine that death is annihilation: “Mors est non esse.” In like manner in the “Troades” the Chorus declares that the happy Priam wanders amongst pious souls in the “safe Elysian shades;”[1046] and yet, with an inconsistency which the Letters of the philosopher alone account for, another passage in the same tragedy declares that the spirit vanishes like smoke, that after death is nothingness, and death itself is nothing.[1047]

On such internal evidence as this rests the probability, almost amounting to certainty, that Seneca the philosopher, and the author of the ten tragedies, are one and the same.[1048]

Notwithstanding their false rhetorical taste, and the absence of all ideal and creative genius, the tragedies of Seneca found many admirers and imitators in modern times. The French school of tragic poets took them for their model: Corneille evidently considered them the ideal of tragedy, and Racine servilely imitated them. Their philosophy captivated an age which thought that nothing was so sublime as heathen philosophy; and yet that same age derived its notions of ancient philosophy from the Romans instead of from the original Greek sources; and its poetical taste, as far as it was classical, was formed on a study of Roman dramatic literature, before the excellence of the Attic drama was sufficiently known to be appreciated.